D&D 5E What a small industry 5e publishing really is, and WOTC are thieves.

[Scribe]

Wow. That's really mild. I no longer work in a library, but when I was in grad school and worked in a major university library's main administrative offices, I learned a few things that were eyebrow raising. For example, they added a security entrance years before because someone was once attacked in the library with an axe. There was also an individual known as "the Mad <expletive>er". Whoever this was would occasionally poop in a book and put it back on the shelves. Then there was the morning one of the cataloguers, who frequently came in early and was a chain-smoking Vietnam War vet, was found unresponsive near his desk. He survived but was no longer allowed to come in when nobody else was around... so that someone could respond to similar emergencies.
University libraries sure do collect the stories...

The library being a free to enter public space, certainly brings in people with issues. The police are around my local library all the time, due to the folks taking advantage of a free to enter warm space. Unfortunate reality these days.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

a good chunk of Ed Greenwoods market was wrecked by the Spellplague, others got fed up with the poor support in 5e for Realms outside the Swordcoast and moved on, others don't know about dmsguild, and huge part of the rest only read the novels. He's had best selling novels, but WotC just absolutely screw him over market wise and in violation if the original deal with TSR, stopped him from writing novels. It's absolutely disgusting how he's been treated. They are about to release a $100,000,000 movie that could be the first in a series that that could earn them $500,000,000 to billions, and Ed won't see 1 cent of that money.


But Hasbros a corporation, which at this point are just criminal organizations with enough fake legitimacy to get away with pretending they aren't crooks. We're leaving in the Shadowrun universe without the cool parts.

 

[Irlo]

a good chunk of Ed Greenwoods market was wrecked by the Spellplague, others got fed up with the poor support in 5e for Realms outside the Swordcoast and moved on, others don't know about dmsguild, and huge part of the rest only read the novels. He's had best selling novels, but WotC just absolutely screw him over market wise and in violation if the original deal with TSR, stopped him from writing novels. It's absolutely disgusting how he's been treated. They are about to release a $100,000,000 movie that could be the first in a series that that could earn them $500,000,000 to billions, and Ed won't see 1 cent of that money.


But Hasbros a corporation, which at this point are just criminal organizations with enough fake legitimacy to get away with pretending they aren't crooks. We're leaving in the Shadowrun universe without the cool parts.

How could WotC stop him from writing novels? Is there some sort of “if your not using our IP you can’t publish anything” clause in some secret contract?

Is the movie based on Greenwood’s work?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Poor support? FR was effectively the defacto core setting for way too long with the PHB telling you to read basically every FR book.

 

[Sacrosanct]

At GaryCon, one of the players (playing Chromatic Dungeons) said they worked at a library and wanted to know if he could order some books for it. It told him he's a hero for working at a library, and to send me his address so I can send them to him for free.

Based on this discussion, that offer is open to others as well. IM me your library address, and I'll get some books sent your direction in about a month or two.

 

[Hussar]

Wow. That's really mild. I no longer work in a library, but when I was in grad school and worked in a major university library's main administrative offices, I learned a few things that were eyebrow raising. For example, they added a security entrance years before because someone was once attacked in the library with an axe. There was also an individual known as "the Mad <expletive>er". Whoever this was would occasionally poop in a book and put it back on the shelves. Then there was the morning one of the cataloguers, who frequently came in early and was a chain-smoking Vietnam War vet, was found unresponsive near his desk. He survived but was no longer allowed to come in when nobody else was around... so that someone could respond to similar emergencies.
University libraries sure do collect the stories...

I imagine that university libraries would be a VERY different animal than public libraries. Between the age of the typical patron, the stress level of the typical patron, and, again, the age of the typical patron, I imagine that university libraries have issues that you probably don't generally see in public libraries.

My mother was librarian in our small town for decades. She loved her job. I think the worst complaint I ever heard her say was about stinky people who were a bit... lax in personal hygiene.

Then again, I lived in a very small farming community. Some guy coming in to pick up a book after eight hours of farming probably wasn't smelling of roses.

 

[MoonSong]

a good chunk of Ed Greenwoods market was wrecked by the Spellplague, others got fed up with the poor support in 5e for Realms outside the Swordcoast and moved on, others don't know about dmsguild, and huge part of the rest only read the novels.

Or it could be my case, I buy 3p, I know of DMsGuild, but I'm just not into the Realms...

 

[Retreater]

Having worked as long as I have in a public library, I've definitely seen a shift. When I started, one of the biggest problems was the old man who read his snail mail and tore up his junk mail. That was "loud" and worried the librarians that maybe he was destroying library materials (he wasn't). Over the years we started seeing fewer elderly patrons and students working on research. Today we serve a diverse population: folks from the shelters who want to spend time on computers and in climate control, families meeting for supervised visits with case workers, residents who are unemployed trying to file for unemployment benefits or to apply for jobs, people of all ages who want a place that's not a bar to hang out, refugees looking to become a part of our community.
I've developed pretty good relationships with most of the regulars and try to be helpful and welcoming to everyone who comes in. I'm a civil servant, not an academic. The resources I give most frequently are those that fulfil basic needs - not homework assistance or pleasure reading suggestions (though I am happy to help with those requests too).

 

[MGibster]

Having worked as long as I have in a public library, I've definitely seen a shift. When I started, one of the biggest problems was the old man who read his snail mail and tore up his junk mail. That was "loud" and worried the librarians that maybe he was destroying library materials (he wasn't). Over the years we started seeing fewer elderly patrons and students working on research. Today we serve a diverse population: folks from the shelters who want to spend time on computers and in climate control, families meeting for supervised visits with case workers, residents who are unemployed trying to file for unemployment benefits or to apply for jobs, people of all ages who want a place that's not a bar to hang out, refugees looking to become a part of our community.
I've developed pretty good relationships with most of the regulars and try to be helpful and welcoming to everyone who comes in. I'm a civil servant, not an academic. The resources I give most frequently are those that fulfil basic needs - not homework assistance or pleasure reading suggestions (though I am happy to help with those requests too).

When I worked at the library, we had a sizable group of regular homeless people who would visit us on a daily basis. They could check their bags in with security and they were free to make use of the library so long as they didn't just go sleep in a corner somewhere. They'd spend the day reading books, periodicals, or in some other area of the library and they never caused any trouble. A lot of people do think of the library as just as place you check out books, but you're right. It's a place where all sorts of people get together for all sorts of things.

 

[Rabulias]

In college I worked in the campus library as a shelver and circ desk worker. After school, working as a library assistant in my local public library was the best job I could find. I thought it would be temporary, but I stayed on doing lots of interesting projects. Eventually I moved over to the IT support side of things in the 1990s as PCs, the Internet, and technology in general transformed libraries. In my time we went through 4 system migrations, starting on a mainframe, going to standard client/server, and ending with a cloud-hosted browser-based system. I retired last year, and for me, working in libraries was a great experience with great people.