WotC's Annual Xmas Layoffs

[IronWolf]

No need to panic folks, it seems WotC has everything under control.... Oh, wait, they are looking for a new VP of Finance?

 

[BryonD]

I wanted to say that I assume roleplayers to be mature or maybe educated enough (being a non-native speaker I might have picked the wrong word) to see beyond the printed words, to not transfer the expression "... isn't fun ..." to "you aren't allowed to have fun", and to transgress any perceived limitation. Thus, I can't imagine Wyatt's words to abhor the average roleplayer so much.

If any single roleplayer decides to let him be influenced in such a way or react by turning away from 4e for good, I won't understand it, but I never would call him immature for it. My intention was to underline my doubts that those words would have such an effect on a large scale.

But you are missing the point.

I can absolutely understand that and I think that I've stated multiple times now that 4E shouldn't be judged on those words.

But a "mature" and "educated" person can also take that such a stupid thing was said as a valid point of consideration. To take your comments one is lead to conclude that WotC or anyone else can make any comment they want and the good ones should be praised and the dumb ones treated as if they don't exist.

And, the second key point is that the tone of those words DOES reflect in the mechanics of the game. I firmly believe that if it didn't, then that quote would have faded into history. But instead it is kept alive as a easy icon for the very real issues in the game (to many "mature" "educated" people.)

 

[BryonD]

No. It had advice talking about what "skilled players" do: for example, they plan their mission in advance of the session, organise the equipment they will need in advance of the session, choose suitable PCs out of a stable of PCs in advance of the session, and then actually undertake the session in "operational" fashion, with a caller, a main mapper with a couple of backup mappers, etc.

I've GMed and played a lot of AD&D, but never a session in which these things were done. The implication being, I guess, that I and those I played with are not skilled.

AD&D may have been a broad church in play. It is not a very broad church in its text.

Yes. It is a game built around encounters. It doesn't hide that fact, it advertises it.

AD&D has equally narrow advice, for a game built around operational play focused on the "skillful" exploration and looting of dungeons. If you want to run a situation-based, player-driven, story-generating game (say of the sort that Burning Wheel might be expected to generate if played in its default style), you won't find helpful advice in the AD&D books.

This isn't a criticism of AD&D. It's just a fairly basic point - that 4e is not unique in D&D editions in presenting a certain way of playing the game. It's just different from much of what came before.

I left AD&D for better games. I didn't go to 4E because there are better games.
Equating flaws in 4E with related but different flaws in AD&D doesn't change either of those points.

Perhaps. Although the relevant sample wouldn't be 1,000 random people, would it, but 1,000 actual or potential players of D&D.

At the time those words were printed, 4E was be praised because it was going to vastly increase the fan base and create new gamers. So if you are correct then that poor choice of words is doubly problematic.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I left AD&D for better games. I didn't go to 4E because there are better games.

For you. Opinions are not universal. One man's treasure is another man's trash.

 

[Desdichado]

You misunderstand me; I am saying that all business accounting is false accounting because it takes notice only of $ and only in a very narrow time slot.

This is obviously wrong but things are set up this way to allow bad practices to continue in the name of 'commerce'.

To be a true accounting, all activity should be audited based on its effect on society and on the environment. This can and has been quantified in monetary terms but business doesn't want to know because then they would be forced to act responsibly.

I was just setting WoTC's practices in context.

You're just posting a harshly political anti-capitalist screed. I'm surprised it hasn't been deleted by the moderators yet, if their "no politics" rule is applied fairly.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

You're just posting a harshly political anti-capitalist screed. I'm surprised it hasn't been deleted by the moderators yet, if their "no politics" rule is applied fairly.

The "no politics" rule was specifically relaxed for this thread. As an experiment.

 

[RangerWickett]

Hobes, economics and philosophy aren't the same as politics.

 

[Remus Lupin]

If saying that business requires some moral basis is overly political, than I should change my department to Political Science, since I teach business ethics regularly.

 

[Desdichado]

Hobes, economics and philosophy aren't the same as politics.

You're right. But they also don't exist in a vaccuum and they frequently overlap--as they very clearly did in this case. So, although right, your point is also irrelevent.

If saying that business requires some moral basis is overly political, than I should change my department to Political Science, since I teach business ethics regularly.

That has nothing to do with what Ydars said, though.

Of course, what do I know. I'm just another one of those evil MBAs that this thread has spent page after page villifying in general terms.

 

[Remus Lupin]

I think you're seeing something that isn't there. It's not necessarily anti-capitalist to critique a business for not taking the needs of its workers into account. There can be be legitimate differences about how to do that or what it entails, but nothing in what was said amounted even remotely to an "anti-capitalist screed"