Arthaus reverts rights to Ravenloft and Gamma World back to Wotc

[broghammerj]

one can never have too many aquatic undead...

I'm sure this is some sort of conspiracy to push Ravenloft players to buy Stormwrack. I knew Hasbro was up to something.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

one can never have too many aquatic undead...

When they're essentially the same aquatic undead creature, just with a new name and different hit dice, I'd argue that we're not getting more aquatic undead, though, just a new packaging on the same one over and over and over again.

 

[Banshee16]

Ah, nothing like unfounded assumptions and bile to get the internet going. You did happen to notice that one of the writers of this "piss-poor generic book" is posting in this very thread, and has written for such excellent products as Egyptian Adventures for Green Ronin, didn't you?

Oh, wait. You didn't. That shoe must taste awfully good.

Do you enjoy putting words in people's mouths?

I'm very aware that Ari is one of the writers of the *excellent* Hamunaptra boxed set, which I own, and have enjoyed to a great degree. I have some Hamunaptran NPCs in my Planescape campaign.

However, though the statement about Heroes of Horror being piss poor *may* be incorrect as a statement of fact, given the book isn't out yet, I cannot honestly say that I have high hopes for it. WotC seems to have an excellent talent for taking interesting topics and making them generic enough that they are ultimately bland, and inferior to other products on the D20 market that are released by smaller companies. Every WotC product I've purchased that's dealt with a specialized topic of some sort seems to have been superceded by another company who's handling that niche better by being more specific, and more willing to take risks.

I'll definitely be taking a look at it.....but I expect the same as most of what they've been putting out recently.....horror themed prestige classes, spells, feats, and new monsters. Ravenloft was a complete system. It offered all of the above, but more importantly, guidelines on story techniques, how to build and instill horror, and a complete campaign setting. Most of the things they put into the hardcover could be easily imported into other campaigns. I don't expect the same utility from WotC with the new book, but I'm willing to be surprised if my guess is incorrect.

High quality, well-developed products like Midnight, Black Company Campaign Setting, Hamunaptra, and others are not being produced in high volume by WotC. And I think a big reason for that is *because* they are into making things so generic, to maximize the market they can target with their products.

So, maybe you should tell me what that shoe tastes like.

I may ultimately have faith in Ari's talents, but less faith in WotC's product planning and editorial decisions.

Banshee

 

[Krug]

Sketchpad:

One of my favorite (Ronin Arts, RPGObjects, or SkeletonKey Games – pick one) PDFs is RPO's Blood & Brans: The Zombie Hunter's Guide.

Shouldn't that be The Zombie Hunter's Cereal Guide?

 

[Banshee16]

They are? I can go into a randomly selected FLGS and find I6? I can go in and find the 2E Ravenloft material? Eighteen months from now, I can find the 3.*E Ravenloft material?

New D&D players are unlikely to find PDFs (which is all I can assume you're referring to) in any great numbers, and fewer are going to be willing to convert them.


No, people who already have Ravenloft material have a goldmine. But new people pick up the game every day, and they count too. Ravenloft is worth having around for them, whatever quibbles one might have with different versions of it along the way.

This is part of the problem with the idea that even though a setting or line has been discontinued, it's still available. It's valid....to a point. Though the books may be available if you want to search for them, sometimes it's not practical.

Try searching for some of those older books....the longer they're out of print, the harder they are to find. And that's assuming that you know to look for them in the first place. If you're a new player who may have been interested in them, and you're looking for them in the FLGS, they may no longer be on the shelves....so you never realize that there used to be a product that met the niche you're interested in.

Although if feels like most of us are online enabled, I'd suspect that 80% of gamers are probably not surfing the net, finding out about products, checking out the message boards etc. Out of all the players I know, maybe 1 or 2 in 15 is actually going online for gaming related activities.

As to other sources like Ebay, it's a great option.....if you live in the U.S. If you're in Canada or Britain or Australia or somewhere else, have fun paying the shipping costs, as well as the brokerage fees to get these books over the border.

Banshee

 

[Staffan]

I'd like to see Jim Ward acquire the rights to Gamma World.

Given the not-so-excellent work he's done on his own as part of Fast Forward Games, I doubt that would be particularly successful.

There aren't all that many designers whose names I associate with quality stuff - there are plenty of names I recognize, but only a few who make me think "That's probably going to be a good treatment of whatever the book is about." Monte Cook has done good stuff, as has Bruce Cordell and a few others. Jim Ward is on the other end of the spectrum - one of the few authors that make me go "Oh, I'd better stay away from that book."

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

I am looking at you, "pig crap"

Maybe you should have spent more time looking at the original Gamma World series then, instead of looking at me.

I bought it with high hopes, remembering the days of fast and loose fun, a character stumbling across radiation, cross refrencing the radiation table on my GM's screen with the character's Physical Constitution, and then rolling on the mutations table when I hit an "M".

"As you stumble away, tentacles suddenly thrust from your skin."

From Metamorphis Alpha (Nice job on that FFE, the only thing that the FFE book and the orginal game had in common was that both were on a 50 mile long spaceship) to the first boxed set, to the Gamma Knight boxed set, bought and played them all, loved them. SO when d20 Gamma World came out...

Yeah, I bought it.

And yeah, in my opinion, it wasn't Gamma World at all. I found myself asking myself several times if the person who wrote it had even read any of the old Gamma World stuff.

I was looking forward to cool robots, the return of the all might Death Machine, andriods, maybe even updating the Legion of Gold module I have sitting on the shelf and running it for d20. Instead I bought it, read it once, and gave it to my nephew, and deleted the PDF. It wasn't Gamma World. When it became available as a free download, I didn't even bother, but stuck with Darwin's World 2 ruleset and the setting described in the old blue-books.

I stand by what I said, my opinion of it.

If it's any consolation, I'd say it to your face too. It's nothing personal, nothing to do with you, but I didn't like it. Actually, I hated it. Mainly because, I'd paid for Gamma World, and that's not what I got. It said Gamma World, but it sure didn't feel like it. Didn't read like it. And didn't even really remind me of it. I felt cheated, like I'd bought a chevette with a Lamborgini sticker on it.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

But, I'll tell you what, since obviously I should not have considered it a Gamma World product, and not have "cried myself to sleep" because it wasn't the Gamma World that had been presented before, I'll get my old copy back, reread it, and post right here, in this thread, bit by bit, what I thought of it.

I can do that too, if you'd like.

 

[glass]

The details of the deal with Kenzer are not public knowledge, but we can get some idea by the stuff that they're publishing. In fact, the reason for the deal with Kenzer isn't officially public knowledge, though it seems to be an open secret. It's safe to say, though, that you shouldn't draw any conclusions about WotC's future plans for their IP based on the Kenzer deal.

Except insofar as their future plans are restrained by deals they have already made.


glass.

 

[glass]

In the Desert, a Rose is blooming...

Coming soon from Ronin Arts

Sorry to threadjack, but is this .sig implying there is a Rose of the Prophet RPG on the way? If so, cool!


glass.