I Owe Wizards an Apology

When Wizards of the Coast announced they were (basickly) rebooting the Forgotten Realms, I was not happy. I remember them citing reasons for the reboot as: there is so much canon that it was difficult for new authors to join in, if a throwaway line clashed with something written 15 years ago the internet would jump all over it, etc. I also remember thinking that those were bunk. And I am sure I said as much. Repeatedly and publickly.

Now I am a publisher. Working on the Traveller License from Mongoose, I'm getting to know the ins and outs of its long time fans. Lately I have seen changes made (regardless of why the change was made, ranging from conscious decision to standardize conflicting canon to not possessing an encyclopedic knowledge of 30 years of canon) get jumped all over. After 30 years of a setting there is a substantial amount of setting to know.

So I would like to own up to my comments made to and about Wizards of the Coast. I am sure their decision was not easy to make. I am sorry for my comments, and I wish you well in the future.

Hey there! Good for you, manning up in this way. Have some XP.

RC

Holy cow. Good for you.

and I want to hear more about your Traveler products...

Worst edition ever!

Dude...you publicly admitted you were wrong about something on the Internet?

I just had a heart attack and am typing this on my notebook as I'm being wheeled it out to the Ambulance....

----

Paramedic dude breaking in here, to say OMG man! Don't do that sort of thing! We're going to be working all day to deal with the shock! In fact I think my chest is starting....

No seriously kudos to you. Extreme kudos. Like instant power-leveling to 1,000,000!

dmccoy1693 said:

When Wizards of the Coast announced they were (basickly) rebooting the Forgotten Realms, I was not happy. I remember them citing reasons for the reboot as: there is so much canon that it was difficult for new authors to join in, if a throwaway line clashed with something written 15 years ago the internet would jump all over it, etc. I also remember thinking that those were bunk. And I am sure I said as much. Repeatedly and publickly.

Now I am a publisher. Working on the Traveller License from Mongoose, I'm getting to know the ins and outs of its long time fans. Lately I have seen changes made (regardless of why the change was made, ranging from conscious decision to standardize conflicting canon to not possessing an encyclopedic knowledge of 30 years of canon) get jumped all over. After 30 years of a setting there is a substantial amount of setting to know.

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The flipside, though, is that settings are popular for a reason. And one of those reasons may indeed be the large amount of information available. Significantly changing or rebooting that setting may instantly remove things that people loved about it. To me, if you're starting from scratch on name-recognition alone, you're doing a dis-service to fans. (Which, to me, means you are using the brand name - rather than the content - to lure people in.) If the new stuff you're writing is that good, put a new name on it and sell it as such. Or sell it as "with the wealth of knowledge we've learned over the years from [brand name], we've created this new setting [x] to succeed it." That way, fans of the old setting aren't pissed off that you're screwing up the things they love, and you can still use the brand as a draw.

Also, if you're going to write for a brand with a rich history, you'd better either educate yourself thoroughly on the areas you're writing about or have a good editor(s)/developer(s) who has(have) the knowledge. (For example, if I was ever going to write about Greyhawk, I sure as hell would want someone like Erik Mona checking my work.) If not, enjoy the (IMO) deserved criticism.

DaveMage said:

Also, if you're going to write for a brand with a rich history, you'd better either educate yourself thoroughly on the areas you're writing about or have a good editor(s)/developer(s) who has(have) the knowledge. (For example, if I was ever going to write about Greyhawk, I sure as hell would want someone like Erik Mona checking my work.) If not, enjoy the (IMO) deserved criticism.

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Oh no doubt you need to know what you're writing about. Lets use a Star Trek Analogy for a moment. If I watched the nStar Trek Movie but never the TOS, TNG or any of the other major live action series (let alone the cartoon series or read any of the books), I'd do my research and watch/read some of them. But there is no way I can watch/read it all enough to possess a flawless encyclopediac knowledge of it all.

If I were writing about the nStar Trek crew running into Khan and his group (remember they can do that now since it hasn't happened yet), I would definitely watch the TOS episode that dealt with him as well as oStar Trek II. But I wouldn't know to watch the oTNG episode that mentioned Khan as being remembered as one of the great genociders of all time. If I was writing about nKirk in the Mirror Mirror universe, would I know to watch the DS9 episodes that dealt with what the impact Kirk had? I mean I am not writing about something that happens almost 100 years later so why would I watch it? Granted, I'd have the ST encyclopdia to tell me to watch that. But still it might not mention one small reference here or there.

An argument would next be to hire someone that has 30+ years of oStar Trek history under their belt. They may want to retire, have moved onto bigger and better things and don't really want to do that anymore, or they may miss stuff too. Either way, fans will jump all over any little mistake. No matter what the authors, editors, etc are not perfect.

EDIT: nStar Trek was true to the original character while being locking in by the actors that portrayed those same parts. In the same way, you can be true to the setting without being locked in by every detail of the setting. I don't know if Wizards accomplished that with nForgotten Realms. I hope that is what Wizards accomplished.

dmccoy1693 said:

Now I am a publisher.

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I've found that both having a game published and working on my master's degree in a publishing related field gave me a lot of empathy towards publishers, and I've mostly given up complaining about how much books cost. (...Mostly.)

I gave up GMing settings with a lot of novels that I haven't read. I always ended up with at least a couple of players that have read everything ever written about the world and make it impossible to run a game.

It always ended up going like this.
Me:"The minotaur pirate swings his axe at you."
Player:"Wait, is that a Piggledyguk tribe minotaur or a Kryptar one?"
Me:"Uh, it's a Kryptar."
Player:"Kryptar minotaurs fear water worse than death, and can never be found onboard a ship."
Me:"It's a Piggeldyguk then."
Player:"They're universally lawful and would never be a pirate."
Me:"OK. The orc pirate swings his axe at you."
Player:"Is it a Humptar or a Grellion clan orc?"
Me:"Arrgh!"

I can only imagine the nightmare of trying to write in such a setting.

DaveMage said:

The flipside, though, is that settings are popular for a reason. And one of those reasons may indeed be the large amount of information available.

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It seems a little more likely that settings with a lot of stuff have been around a long time and are popular for their longevity (more time for people to stick with them) than -because- they have a lot of stuff!

But back on topic - tell us about your traveller stuff! Yay traveller!