WotC Anyone Else Tired of the Wizards Bashing?

[gorice]

I'm tired of my own negativity, let alone other people's.

I think it's complicated with D&D, because it's really a subculture as much as it is a game, so people feel personally threatened when they see their preferred vision of the game under attack. People really seem to want that official stamp of approval. Put another way: WotC bring this on themselves by promising all things to all people.

Of course, plenty of people are smelling blood in the water, and using this as an opportunity to get attention for themselves. I can't really blame them.

Then you have people like me, who would love it if RPG culture was decoupled from WotC, but despair of that ever happening. I'd like it if WotC put out a game that didn't suck; I think it would be healthy for the hobby, and make it desirable for me to actually run the game for all the people who keep asking for the D&D experience. It's clearly not going to happen, though.

 

[mamba]

Man, I'm really tired of your exiting threads like this. Do you know how much money a jet canopy and ejector seat costs?! Just like, use the lever and walk out.

on the upside I now know how to get them to leave a thread whenever I want to

 

[mamba]

I'm tired of my own negativity, let alone other people's.

you are in control of your own negativity, certainly a lot more so than anybody else’s

I think it's complicated with D&D, because it's really a subculture as much as it is a game, so people feel personally threatened when they see their preferred vision of the game under attack. People really seem to want that official stamp of approval. Put another way: WotC bring this on themselves by promising all things to all people.

they aim for the big tent, but I am not aware of WotC ever promising me anything

Of course, plenty of people are smelling blood in the water, and using this as an opportunity to get attention for themselves. I can't really blame them.

I believe there is a lot less blood in the water than those people think

Then you have people like me, who would love it if RPG culture was decoupled from WotC, but despair of that ever happening. I'd like it if WotC put out a game that didn't suck; I think it would be healthy for the hobby, and make it desirable for me to actually run the game for all the people who keep asking for the D&D experience. It's clearly not going to happen, though.

not sure what you are looking for, but if it hasn’t happened between 3e, 4e, 5e and 1DD, then I agree that it won’t

 

[payn]

Man, I'm really tired of your exiting threads like this. Do you know how much money a jet canopy and ejector seat costs?! Just like, use the lever and walk out.

 

[gorice]

they aim for the big tent, but I am not aware of WotC ever promising me anything

Well, a big tent, for starters. There is no tent, just personal identification with a commodity that can't possibly provide everything that people want from it.

 

[Oofta]

There's always someone worse, someone bigger, someone better, someone faster. If we're limited to only talking about the worst, the biggest, the best, and the fastest, we won't have much to talk about.

WOTC is hardly paragon of virtue, nor are they the evil empire. Like most corporations they're driven by self interest, not by what works best for me as an individual or any other individual. I'm not telling anyone what they can say or post, but I do feel like some people are beating a dead horse.

Unless of course you're saying I can't express my lukewarm watered-down kind-of support of WOTC.

 

[TheSword]

Or a complete understanding of how they work and how it's terrible and scummy.

Nah. The Pinkertons thread is a good example. It’s part of Securitas the biggest private security firm in the world (the same folks that deliver our takings to the bank) and people are referencing 1930’s strike breaking and talking like they’re a private mercenary militia, as if its at all relevant to the current discussion.

Even the choice of the word scummy is really weird to apply to any company. I just don’t get it… other than it makes it clear there is a lot of bias in these discussions.

I don’t agree with a lot of what WotC do but I don’t think think they’re scummy. Or an Evil Empire.

Whenever I read these posts arguing for condemnation of WotC I’m always reminded how in arguments we weaken what we exaggerate.

 

[Oofta]

One of the things to remember about online content is that negativity tends to generate more traffic than positivity. This means content creators are rewarded for negativity. That said, criticism does have its place. Even though they walked back on their OGL changes, this demonstrated to many companies that relying on the continued goodwill of WotC might not be the best decision in the long run. If anything, as someone who likes RPGs, this was a prime example to me that having a single company dominate the industry (insomuch as it's an industry) is bad for everyone except WotC.

It does seem at times like D&D has stifled creativity. Maybe now that playing RPGs is getting accepted more widely we could have some real competition. Even if I stick with D&D since it currently works for me and my players I don't see other companies innovating in new directions as a bad thing.

 

[Oofta]

This is wrong. We know people from the D&D team were on the team for this. We also know, via Kyle, they voiced concern and were overruled or ignored.

I've also heard that others were not informed. I know one individual was, I don't know how widespread the knowledge was. Still doesn't change that they ultimately changed direction. It was a stupid, unforced error and they should have listened to the internal pushback from the beginning.

 

[Scribe]

Still with the denial that the OGL fiasco happened? Weird.

As to the OP: No, if people want to continue to point out what kind of company WotC, thats fine. There are better products out there anyway, people can go support them instead.

D&D is pretty much 'in the wild' as it is. If one wants to continue to self identify with this company's "Life Style Brand" and it causes them real trauma to see criticism of a corporate entity which would gladly take advantage of them if they could do so without any undue public response, they should probably hit the 'log out' button on their favorite echo chamber simulator, and get some fresh air.