Has jumping the shark jumped the shark?

[stevelabny]

i posted a jumping the shark has jumped the shark thread in the tv/movies/books forum about a year ago.

so hexgrid is right, talking about jumping the shark, jumping the shark, has already jumped the shark.

 

[Vigilance]

The books that WotC are producing now are chock full of options. Let's face it, we have enough core stuff already. Take the options you like, leave the rest. No one should feel compelled to buy every book they publish.

Not to mention, at this point, 3E will literally be around forever. Anyone could do supplements for it 20 years from now.

Sure, the old TSR books for 1E are still around as PDFs and that's way cool and keeps the game vibrant, but in the case of 3E, there will still be new stuff for the game (imo).

Chuck

 

[Glyfair]

There is one thing to remember about the archetypical "jumping the shark," Happy Days actually lasted about 7 years after that episode. The phrase is used to describe something that has lived longer than it should, and is only mediocre.

Is D&D really mediocre now? I think if you ask most D&D players, they'd disagree. They might quibble with specific things, but as a whole, I think D&D is stronger than it has been since the early 80's, at least.

 

[wingsandsword]

I hear this sort of gloom and doom all the time, I don't believe a word of it.

For a long time, whenever anything even vaguely bad was announced on gamingreport.com, somebody (probably the same person) posted that this was obviously the end for WotC and "in six months we'll all have a new hobby" since D&D will be cancelled and without WotC the RPG industry will collapse almost instantly.

When 3e was coming out, one of my friends couldn't believe they were dumping the venerable AD&D for this unproven new "d20 System", he believed it would fail miserably (no Demihuman Level Limits? Clerics who can use swords?! 8th and 9th level Cleric Spells?!?), he called it "The Edsel of Gaming".

Of course, back in the 80's people feared that the religious right would spell the end of TSR. I remember growing up hearing preachers say they were going to sue that "satanic company" to put them out of business for selling satanic books to kids.

In the early 2000's, I heard people say that pen & paper RPG's were obsolete, and "in the future" RPG"s will only be played on computer: ala Neverwinter Nights or Everquest, and that people who still used dice & paper were just trying to evade their eventual extinction.

Bull.

If it all collapsed today, if the doomsayers in that other thread were right and Mattel bought Hasbro and shut down WotC outright, if everybody at White Wolf had a collective angst attack and had permanent writer's block, if Palladium lost it's last fan by suing them, if Steve Jackson went out of business because of another botched raid by the Feds, if Gen Con announced that there wouldn't be a con next year because of administrative/legal/scheduling problems. . .

We'd still be gaming. Fans would still be making games and selling them to each other, eBay would be rife with game trading, campaigns would go on. The kids of current gamers would be taught to game, and we'd still recruit new people to the hobby just like we all have. The OGL gave the D&D engine immortality, and the concept is immortal.

I like WotC publishing books, but to be honest they aren't making what I want. I want more Star Wars RPG books, I'd like more d20 Modern support. I've got over three dozen 3.x WotC D&D books, not counting previous editions and 3rd party stuff, I could run D&D with just that for decades without a problem.

Many people just like to whine Gloom & Doom. It is just basic human nature, and you have to learn to recognize that.

 

[The Shaman]

All you guys have jumped the shark...of Legacy.

Hey, that's supposed to be my line...of Legacy...

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Mazes and Monsters? I love that propaganda...err I mean movie

Was Mazes and Monsters actually propaganda? I mean, was what'shername -- Rona Jaffey? -- actually pushing a particular point of view, or was she just capitalizing on the fears and misconceptions that already existed? (I'm not saying the latter is much better, just that it's not propaganda.) Just curious.

John Coyne (whose most famous book, The Legacy, was made into a horror movie) wrote a similar gamer-gone-gaga novel called Hobgoblin, which I read back in the '80s and remember actually sorta enjoying.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Surprisingly, this isn't a movie about EN Worlders who start predicting the doom of D&D/WotC/gaming in general whenever any piece of bad news is released from the gaming industry.

Chicken Littling is a common occurance on RPG message boards. I remember about 2 years ago when 3.5e was on the verge of release, many gamers were saying that if you bought your books online from amazon.com instead of your local FLGS ("Friendly Local Gaming Store", in case you aren't familiar with the acronym), it would somehow lead to the death of the gaming industry. Whatever.