WotC How much does Hasbro / WotC impact your feelings towards D&D?

[KYRON45]

I think in this case, someone who has a strongly felt ethical position looking at people not caring would call that "being uncool with [unethical thing]" as upsetting. But not everyone is going to have the same moral calculus on complex topics like the ethical acitivies of a toy manufacturer. Heck, we have a hard time getting moral consensus on much more weighty matters. Doesn't mean thst everyone who has a different position is unreasonable or unethical.

How much I don't care about a thing is just as valid as how much someone does care about a thing.
Is it possible that I feel the disdain people have for WOTC is just as uncool as anything else?

The people who make this thing we enjoy (or apparently don't care that much for at all) are just as much the company if not more so than the folks with the corner offices. Everytime we suffer our righteous indignation on the company how do you think the people who do the actual work feel? The person who drew the picture on page 36 or the staffer who spell checked the index are WOTC and every time we express our hatred for what's going on, those people feel that.

Joe in cubicle 6 didn't send out the memo to change the OGL. Jen in accounting didn't lay off people last quarter. Some other third person didn't do that third thing that irritates so many people either!!!!

I think we've been looking at unreasonable in our rearview mirror for quite some time now with the negative energy that gets sent Wotcs way.

My closing statement is this. I honestly can't remember what it was i was thinking when i started this rant.

Thank you and good afternoon.

 

[Parmandur]

Indeed. I care about the issues involving WOTC. However, those issues don't rank in my personal top 100 issues in society, and I am not Doug Forcett where I am attempting to be a perfect moral being in all things. This thing just doesn't rank high enough for me to make the sacrifices involved with treating it like a higher ranking issue. Particularly since enjoying D&D is something that keeps me going to focus on the issues which do rank very high for me.

Yeah, exactly.

 

[Parmandur]

How much I don't care about a thing is just as valid as how much someone does care about a thing.
Is it possible that I feel the disdain people have for WOTC is just as uncool as anything else?

The people who make this thing we enjoy (or apparently don't care that much for at all) are just as much the company if not more so than the folks with the corner offices. Everytime we suffer our righteous indignation on the company how do you think the people who do the actual work feel? The person who drew the picture on page 36 or the staffer who spell checked the index are WOTC and every time we express our hatred for what's going on, those people feel that.

Joe in cubicle 6 didn't send out the memo to change the OGL. Jen in accounting didn't lay off people last quarter. Some other third person didn't do that third thing that irritates so many people either!!!!

I think we've been looking at unreasonable in our rearview mirror for quite some time now with the negative energy that gets sent Wotcs way.

My closing statement is this. I honestly can't remember what it was i was thinking when i started this rant.

Thank you and good afternoon.

I mean, yes? I voted 1, because Hasbro's mediocre corporate shenanigans don't even ding my moral radar.

 

[Retreater]

The people who make this thing we enjoy (or apparently don't care that much for at all) are just as much the company if not more so than the folks with the corner offices. Everytime we suffer our righteous indignation on the company how do you think the people who do the actual work feel? The person who drew the picture on page 36 or the staffer who spell checked the index are WOTC and every time we express our hatred for what's going on, those people feel that.

I have a former coworker who actually used to do layout for WotC in the 3rd edition era. How she ended up in a small town in Kentucky, I'm not sure.
I'm not upset with her or the custodian who still cleans the offices.
But, you know, I'd rather support companies that pay their employees better (MCDM) allow them to unionize so creatives have some say in the company direction (Paizo). Maybe that creates better opportunities down the road for others?

 

[KYRON45]

I have a former coworker who actually used to do layout for WotC in the 3rd edition era. How she ended up in a small town in Kentucky, I'm not sure.
I'm not upset with her or the custodian who still cleans the offices.
But, you know, I'd rather support companies that pay their employees better (MCDM) allow them to unionize so creatives have some say in the company direction (Paizo). Maybe that creates better opportunities down the road for others?

I don't know how to run a profitable creative enterprise.

 

[Voadam]

The people who make this thing we enjoy (or apparently don't care that much for at all) are just as much the company if not more so than the folks with the corner offices. Everytime we suffer our righteous indignation on the company how do you think the people who do the actual work feel? The person who drew the picture on page 36 or the staffer who spell checked the index are WOTC and every time we express our hatred for what's going on, those people feel that.

Joe in cubicle 6 didn't send out the memo to change the OGL. Jen in accounting didn't lay off people last quarter. Some other third person didn't do that third thing that irritates so many people either!!!!

Some will identify with the company or disassociate from it to different degrees. For some it is just a job. For some they take pride in the good the company does and feel bad about being associated with the bad. Some will identify more with the good and disassociate from the bad and some vice versa.

When people condemn WotC's poor treatment of its employees though I think some of the employees might not primarily identify as the company but as the subject of sympathy.

 

[TheSword]

I wrote "just naked profit". Of course I want game producers that manage that precious balance between profit, engagement and quality to be successful.

And I don't agree about your value for money argument. With 50 years evolution of layout, printing, game theory and experience I darn well hope I get a better game for my buck now. Today rpg's are a broad hobby and industry, back then it was a fringe cellar hobby at best, so of course printed game books were more expensive and primitive. On the other hand, back then we had the whole DYI zine scene, thankfully that came back with OSR.

And since many of us here were young in the early eighties, poor in money but rich in time, I can say without a doubt that the amount and quality of fun I got per buck from my Runequest 2e and AD&D books back then was way more value than I get from a 5e glossy tome today, even if the 5e book is prettier and - from some kind of current standard - a more evolved game. But it's also a way more shallow game with the exciting angles filed off, developed to fit a broad commercial mass market to optimize profit. Imho.

And FYI, I don't search for what's wrong with WotC products - you make a pretty rude argument for others speaking out about product criticism. I compare WotC stuff with other RPG's that's available - with-the-assistance-of-the whole-Internet - and I personally prefer some of the other products.

So that sounds like it’s more about you than it is about the product, neh?
You had no money so you appreciated things more?

I’d say I agree and that’s exactly what I said. We gave more passes and paid more in relative terms to what we got them to what we get now.

Other people are doing it better. Who? Which are these amazing adventure books and supplements that compete so much better than WotC. Tell me. I’ll buy them.

I’ve tried Odyssey of the Dragonlords, Dungeons of Drakkenheim, Tales Of the Old Margreve. Scarlet Citadel, Rappan Athuk, Most Paizo APs. They were all good but on par or slightly worse than what WotC produce.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Other people are doing it better. Who? Which are these amazing adventure books and supplements that compete so much better than WotC. Tell me. I’ll buy them.

I’ve tried Odyssey of the Dragonlords, Dungeons of Drakkenheim, Tales Of the Old Margreve. Scarlet Citadel, Rappan Athuk, Most Paizo APs. They were all good but on par or slightly worse than what WotC produce.

Ptolus has an extremely high buy-in ($150 for the 5E version of the book), but it's, IMO, the best city sourcebook ever, for people who want a detailed D&D fantasy city. (It's not a city creation toolkit, in other words.) It has enough content for at least three 1-20 campaigns and probably many more, realistically.

I've been using the 3E and later 5E versions of the book for an ongoing campaign since 2006 and there's tons of stuff we've never even scratched the surface of.

For other supplements, I would look at Sly Flourish's Forge of Foes, which is arguably the last monster book you'll ever need, as it teaches you how to create well-balanced and interesting monsters on the fly.

If you want someone else to make the monsters for you, I enjoy the somewhat whimsical monster books by Cawood Publishing, but many more people swear by Kobold Press' monster books, including the various Tomes of Beasts, each of which is like punching your player characters in the mouth. And there's also Monster Manual Expanded, which fleshes out the 5E Monster Manual with monster variants in the first volume, unpublished-in-5E monsters from earlier editions in the later volumes, along with monsters from world mythology, including many from Asia.

 

[TheSword]

So every value over 1, means their view is influenced, the sum of which is the majority, and you want to claim the majority are not influenced...

Sure that number could be influenced in a trivial or insignificant way.

Read the posts.

There’s nothing wrong with holding a minority opinion. I’ve spent a lifetime holding them. I’m just saying this thread puts it in perspective.

 

[Scribe]

I’m just saying this thread puts it in perspective.

A perspective that a majority of the votes indicates Hasbro/Wizards influences the voters view of D&D, sure, the opposite of what you said.

Everyone interprets results through their own bias.