WotC Anyone Else Tired of the Wizards Bashing?

[jgsugden]

I guess I just don't see any ongoing focus on short term profits....

Short term, as I was saying it, was over a course of a few years. They're comfortable driving the game into the floor by 2028 and getting twice the profts in that time rather than having lower profits and a thriving business at the end of that period. This is what the major toy companies do over and over and over. There is a reason why the top toys of 2013 are not the top toys of today.

....I don't see any cause to believe that baseline rules set needs to or even should only come in one flavor, from one central issuer; the various shenanigans out of Wizards strike me as reason to believe that arrangement itself is trouble.

Transferability is the main one. Specialization is another. Then brand recognition is another.

In terms of transferability, new players that srat with one group and then look to join another feelt the pain of learning a new system. They may not be so willing to go through that pain again. Some will - some will not. I've had difficulty getting Pathfinder players to play D&D, or GURPS, or Champions... We will lose opportunities to spread the hobby.

With specialization, the more people devote to one system, the better they are at ryunning it, and the more it can do for them. Some of that is stylizing it through home rules. Some is getting to know the nuance. Some is just enduring enough repetition that you don't need to look it up. But, the more you specialize, the better you are. If I play one campaign in D&D for four months, then join a Black Flag game for 6 months, then Pathfinder for a bit, then Daggerheart ... it is not only lacking in a chance to really get to know one set of rules, it is also introducing more opportunities to confuse rules.

Finally, brand recognition is important. People know the experience by the brnd name D&D. The more we diminish that and move towrds diffuse brand names and generalize RPG speak, the less there is for a new player to grab onto as the identity of what they are doing ... in other words, they don't associate to what they're doing. There are volumes written on the importance of brand recognition in marketing.

The reasons to hate WotC are real. The impact of turning our back on D&D is also real.

 

[Scribe]

I have no idea what you're talking about. You claimed that people were in denial about the OGL fiasco.

What posters have stated is that some people in WOTC wanted to do something stupid. They changed their minds based on the feedback and never implemented the policy. Nobody is denying some people in the company wanted to do it.

I'm 100% sure that it could be understood if you went back to the 3 or 4 other threads where you pushed this view of events and reviewed the response you got to it.

I wont be doing so again.

 

[TheSword]

I mean, they only did that because they realized that the previous plan was not going to work and make them all the money so they took appropriate action to get back to making just really alot of money as quickly as possible. An evil empire's plans do or don't work out and then require a change in strategy. That doesn't change the intent. Evil empires can lose.

That’s what companies are supposed to do? Failing at a business approach and learning from it is not a bad thing. That isn’t losing - it’s developing. If current executives understand the community better now they aren’t losers. That’s a win.

It’s this kind of language parsing winners and losers that I refer to in my first thread saying a lot of people don’t understand business. Losing is assuming the status quo and not taking reasonable risks. It isn’t trying and failing.

 

[LeviKornelsen]

In terms of transferability, new players that srat with one group and then look to join another feelt the pain of learning a new system. They may not be so willing to go through that pain again. Some will - some will not. I've had difficulty getting Pathfinder players to play D&D, or GURPS, or Champions... We will lose opportunities to spread the hobby.

This reads to me like a reason why we would want to have lots of different d20-based adventure games - switching around small bits of rules to move from one to another is great practice for switching further, out to the wider hobby.

It's only "Good for the hobby" on these grounds for it to be singular this way if you see "the hobby" as "playing D&D".

 

[eyeheartawk]

That’s what companies are supposed to do? Failing at a business approach and learning from it is not a bad thing. That isn’t losing - it’s developing. If current executives understand the community better now they aren’t losers. That’s a win.

It’s this kind of language parsing winners and losers that I refer to in my first thread saying a lot of people don’t understand business.

I'm not saying there was really any other rational choice to make once they were in that situation. All I'm saying is, just because they made that choice and took the easiest most expedient out doesn't make them not an evil empire.

 

[LeviKornelsen]

Finally, brand recognition is important. People know the experience by the brnd name D&D. The more we diminish that and move towrds diffuse brand names and generalize RPG speak, the less there is for a new player to grab onto as the identity of what they are doing ... in other words, they don't associate to what they're doing. There are volumes written on the importance of brand recognition in marketing.

Brand recognition is important in terms of making sure the market leader stays there and can sell related merchandise.

I don't see how that that translates to "Good for the hobby" unless, again, your conception of what the hobby is and mine are very different.

(On your last point, specialization, I agree with that somewhat. Deep understanding is valuable.)

 

[Hatmatter]

I mean, I'm certainly no fan of 5e or any of the UA I've read for the upcoming revision, but overwhelmingly is WotC being just a terrible company overall that people are attacking.

This may be an unpopular opinion. But I have regarded Wizards as a company that has made what most companies (and, indeed TSR did this) would make as its intellectual property openly available to others for decades. It is difficult to find analogies among other copyright holders. Maybe Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead's freewheeling attitude toward people trading bootleg recordings of their concerts and studio outtakes is slightly comparable.

Wizards experimented with tightening this OGL up (granted, they very well may have gone through with it if the outrage had not happened) and the Internet had a meltdown and Wizards turned around and did the CC license which further committed to the open license. That is great for everyone...it is especially great for companies that make money from this OGL.

Wizards has done a lot to help local hobby shops. It made 5th edition rules available for free on its website in 2014 through today. It published adventures for free during the pandemic. I do not recall TSR making abbreviated versions of its D&D rules available for free or distributing modules for free.

Wizards' designers have a sense of responsibility of maintaining fidelity to the tradition of the game while also trying to keep the game relevant.

I like D&D and I like other RPGs. The constant attacks against Wizards as if it is some kind of evil entity are exceedingly tedious to me. Sometimes it is amusing, as in when people post that Wizard's is doing something to make money, as if that has not been the history of RPGs and D&D since 1974...except for when Wizards in fact produces free content that is not about making money and is in fact about community building.

Mostly I regard this as a generational thing. This very well may not be true as some people who indicate that they are older here seem to attack Wizards. But, for the most part, I see it as young people who are energized by having a villain and who do not have much life experience. I may be wrong with this, but it is presently one way I try to understand the attitude. That and role-players and people into popular culture in general tend to easily have fits (e.g. Star Wars fans).

 

[Vaalingrade]

You may not like the idea of private security, but they are just people doing a job.

So are assassins... which...

the whole conversation is loaded with this baggage that people are carrying over from 1850 and not a modern company.

Or baggage from living in a society ruled by corps.

Who do you think checks bags for weapons and bombs at rock concerts, and protects schools in inner city neighborhoods.

Doing a bang-up job there too.

They’re not storm troopers.

Storm troopers had oversight.

 

[Greggy C]

I don't see how anyone can bash wizards for the Pinkertons,
the image of a Jeremy Crawford type sending the Pinkertons is just too hilarious, I laughed so hard.

 

[Shardstone]

Whether they earned it is up for discussion. Sure they got deserved backlash to the OGL, but releasing the SRD under the CC took care of that as far as I am concerned.

Sending the Pinkertons, I am not sure I even care. The guy refused several contact attempts, WotC then sent someone who was harder to ignore and talked to him and maybe gave him a bit of a scare (he does not sound to me like it did scare him, he does say it scared his wife however) and ultimately they got their product back and he got the product he should have gotten in the first place. It's not like they beat the guy up.

What all this unnecessary outrage does is make me tired of hearing it, which does not bode well for future justified outrage, and it makes me not listen to those that do basically nothing but rage. It instead does make me feel sympathetic towards WotC (the designers really), something I did not expect to happen after the OGL debacle.

As to Paizo, I do not blame them for moving away from the OGL. While some stuff is under CC now, I am not sure how much they rely on older SRDs which are not.

I want to call out this post specifically.

Do you understand how undeniably screwed up it is to send the Pinkertons? This dude has stolen cards, send the police or something (not much better tbh). But sending hired muscle to scare his wife? You think its alright to just to terrorize someone in their home and their loved ones over this kind of stuff?! Are you serious????