@garyh:
Who says the current stuff form WotC is getting proper playtesting?
Who says the current stuff form WotC is getting proper playtesting?
When did We Stop Trusting Game Designers?
- Thread starter Hussar
- Start date
garyh
First Post
Um, yeah. Great job at ignoring the main point of my post to make an unsubstantiated dig at 4e and the current WotC designers.
The rest of your post such as "typesetting", a term that should be deprecated in this day and age of printing processes, has little to do with designers and the ability to support older editions.
Feel free to fork it to a new thread, and I will respond to it there and give others the chance to do so without derailing this one.
Freelancers are the current model WotC set up and mentioned with the latest round of layoff in that they plan to outsource "things". Who says design or writing cannot be outsourced to freelancers just as could things like editing, etc?
garyh
First Post
Production costs versus expected revenue has EVERYTHING to do with supporting older editions. And pardon me if I use an out-of-date publishing term, it's not my field, but I can take a fair stab at guessing the sorts of costs that go into a professional gaming product, and it's more than the "freelancer submits manuscript = ??? = PROFIT!!!" approach you seem to be suggesting.
And yes, this has little to do with designers other than that you seem to think designers should "stick it to the Man" and not produce new products you don't like instead of continuing to support older editions you prefer despite all the economic factors at the individual (wanting to earn a living) and industry (generating profits to sustain the company) levels.
I suppose if you had it your way all designers would be providing free 2e (or whatever your out-of-print edition of choice is) material out of a simple love for the game. Heck of a plan there. I'm sure that'll grow the hobby and put food on the tables of the designers.
And yes, this has little to do with designers other than that you seem to think designers should "stick it to the Man" and not produce new products you don't like instead of continuing to support older editions you prefer despite all the economic factors at the individual (wanting to earn a living) and industry (generating profits to sustain the company) levels.
I suppose if you had it your way all designers would be providing free 2e (or whatever your out-of-print edition of choice is) material out of a simple love for the game. Heck of a plan there. I'm sure that'll grow the hobby and put food on the tables of the designers.
Seems to work for OSRIC....
I’d be willing to entertain this thought, but only for a minority of RPGs.
First of all, let’s be clear that there is a long distance between D&D disappearing and there being nothing but fan-produced PDFs. All I have to do is count the number of in-print RPGs on my Amazon wish list (none of which are produced by Wizards) and then remember the number of in-print RPGs out there that I didn’t add to it.
You know, I never thought the free/open software movement would create a decent GUI. There are at least two now. I never thought fans of AD&D would manage to finish a clone as close as the law allows. Now we have OSRIC. Now we have Labyrinth Lord. Now we have OSRIC 2. Et al. So even if it did come down to only fan-produced PDFs, I’m no longer convinced that would be so bad.
Truthfully, I’m already living in a world without official D&D. Sure, the 4e PHB is over there on my shelf. We’ve talked about someday giving it another try, but I can’t say I’ve seen any enthusiasm for it from anyone in the group.
WizarDru
Adventurer
I'm curious what two GUIs get your vote in this regard.
^_^ The key word, of course, is “decent”. Meaning simply much better than I ever expected, even if they largely blindly ape commercial systems rather than truly aiming for best-of-breed. I was thinking of Gnome and KDE specifically. Which last I looked had reached that “decent” mark.
If I took some time to consider individual applications instead of environments I might be able to come up with some better examples.
That's fair. Sadly those few are the bigger named ones at times and dwarf the existence of other RPGs.
