D&D: If I were President...

So there was an entertaining thread on Facebook asking "If you were appointed CEO [sic] of Wizards of the Coast, what are some of the things you'd do?"

* Wizards of the Coast actually has a President, not a CEO, as it is a subsidiary of Hasbro.

Of course, among the responses were scads of terrible ideas, many jokesters, some edition sniping, and a small number of ideas that could be up for debate... So I thought I'd chime in just to stir the pot of nerd ragey know-it-alls.

Inexpensive Cardboard Miniatures

Paizo offers about 300 miniatures for about $40...
This is a great deal for new Dungon Masters.

So, this is no-brainer. Paizo’s Pathfinder Pawns are immensely popular because 1) They are cardboard (much cheaper than plastic), but even more importantly, 2) They are non-random!

There is nothing more irritating than having to hunt on Ebay because you need a pack of orcs, goblins, or undead and you have to pay something like $3 to $5 per mini because they are uncommon or out of print. Random miniatures suck. Cardboard stand ups would be so simple for Wizards to produce and the value they give are such that any set WotC might create would almost certainly be profitable out of the gate. They could also create smaller sets for each new adventure, like Paizo has been doing for their adventure paths. They also look much better on the table than flat-lying tokens produced during the 4e era. I wrote an article about procuring cheap miniatures just the other month, and it rapidly became the most popular article on the site. The demand is out there, and accessories could be sold to any consumer playing D&D, Pathfinder, OSR games, or others in the fantasy genre. They could eat Paizo’s lunch on this one. Chris Cocks - are you listening?

Gamma World: Quest for Peace - 6th Grade FanFic

Preface

I'm a bit of a pack rat... So when I moved last year, I tried to reduce (not entirely successfully) some of the detritus I've gathered over the many years. But there was one thing (among many) I could not throw out. I came across a story I had written around 5th or 6th grade (circa 1981 or 1982) based on the many games of Gamma World my pre-teen friends and I played. Gamma World was our go-to game after D&D... and sometimes before it. My memories of the games are a little vague after 35 years but clearly the game made a distinct impression on the nascent writer in me.

This story was originally written for an English Composition class at a Catholic school in Maryland. Written today, it would likely generate a call to a student counselor, a local clergy, and possibly "the authorities." Keep in mind that (to my knowledge), I have not turned out to the a psychopath and my teacher must have seen some promise in my writing as I received a 4.5 out of 5 with a "Nice Job!" note instead of a "Please have your parents call me..." (and I have the pics to prove it -- http://imgur.com/gallery/hmj5P). 

With all that in mind, I present to you, in its reproduced original text, the grammatically uncorrected 6th grade work entitled "Quest for Peace" (you will see the irony in that title shortly). (c) 1982 - 2016.

PS -- I hope Jim Ward gets a kick out of this. He was an inspiration for the 12 year old gamers everywhere.