Another Cease and Desist Letter: 4E Powercards

[Scribble]

I'll put these answers in my memoirs but for now I am not gonna talk about it

right on. I was just curious.

Dude, your memoirs should totally have a picture of you in that crazy emroidered shirt on the back of the dust jacket.

Also a refference to part 2 comming soon...

 

[El Mahdi]

I wonder if Scott's compensation includes hazard pay!!! I can picture The Rouse suiting up in his protection suit +5 vs flame and hyperbole before visting ENWorld!!

I know there's a tradition for the White House Press Secretaries of passing on a "Flak Jacket" to eachother.

Maybe Scott should start the same thing for D&D Senior Brand Managers?

 

[Primal]

I wonder if Scott's compensation includes hazard pay!!! I can picture The Rouse suiting up in his protection suit +5 vs flame and hyperbole before visting ENWorld!!

No, no, he has his dreaded army of clones that are effectively well-disguised Shield Guardians... And staying in his underground lab and creating even *more* of them is the primary reason why GSL is delayed (I *think* I saw someone say that Mordain Fleshwarper is actually modeled after Scott).

 

[CharlesRyan]

It was a corporate business decision, probably made in a room by, you know, real people trying to find a happy medium between the OGL and no open license. There might have been gamers and "suits" (who are people, too, you know) all trying to find out what would be good for the company and still allow 3PP to make products.

Bingo!

 

[CharlesRyan]

I asked because Charles Ryan wanted us to stop talking about nameless suits.

Well, to be honest, my agenda is a lot broader.

I abhor cynicism. Especially groundless cynicism. Especially especially groundless cynicism that is presented as authoritative fact by people who have no actual insight into the matter at hand. Especially especially especially "authoritative fact" that becomes "accepted truth" on the internet, even by people who aren't particularly cynical by nature.

Whenever the old "WotC would have done [the thing I like], but the lawyers/Hasbroids/coporate suits wouldn't let them" routine is trotted out, it pushes all of my buttons. It tells me you're basing some or all of your opinion on a cynical, Dilbertian preconception of how things work in business.

See my earlier comments on the WotC legal department, and catsclaw227's cynicism-free supposition about how the GSL might have come about. As someone who's been there, I can tell you that whenever you invoke the mythical "suits" in your post, you might as well type "I DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT" in 24-point type at the top of your post.

So rather than wanting you to stop talking about "nameless suits," per se, what I'd really like is for everyone to step away from the preconception based on Dilbert cartoons, and instead approach the conversation from the perspective that decisions are made by reasoning people attempting to balance a number of legitimate factors.

 

[Sammael]

You must really hate Scott Adams, then...

 

[CharlesRyan]

I love Dilbert. I also love Get Fuzzy, but it doesn't inform my views on the behaviour of my cat and dog.

 

[wedgeski]

I'll put these answers in my memoirs but for now I am not gonna talk about it

They should be called simply, "Being Rouse".

Can I pre-order the first signed copy please.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I abhor cynicism.

I think you're misreading people's underlying mindset on this pretty spectacularly, Charles.

People aren't blaming "the suits" and "Hasbro" because they're cynical. People are doing it because they don't want to blame the WotC employees they know and like from EN World. I guess that's not the opposite of cynical, but it's sure not "somewhat" the same.

(They're also blaming "the suits" and "Hasbro" because nobody else will admit who's to blame. It's all well and good for Scott Rouse to say, "The responsibility is mine," but when everybody who's been following the GSL saga has also heard him say he's passed it up the ladder and it's "waiting on Legal" and so on, "The responsibility is mine" doesn't ring quite authentic. And regardless, "responsibility" and "blame" aren't synonymous.)

 

[xechnao]

People aren't blaming "the suits" and "Hasbro" because they're cynical. People are doing it because they don't want to blame the WotC employees they know and like from EN World. I guess that's not the opposite of cynical, but it's sure not "somewhat" the same.

They are all Wotc employees in a certain sense. All of them are supposed to work for the good and benefit of Wotc. Unless you mean that "the suits" may possibly want to "tank" Wotc for some reason I cant see where your point is.