Is WoTC even relevant to you anymore?

[Bayushi Seikuro]

For me, I would say Wizards is still relevant.

It's strange that as the cycle of publishing for 3.x SEEMS to be wrapping up (Rules Compendium, Spell Compendium, etc) that the books are becoming more interesting. To me at least it seems they're both moving towards interesting topics (I heart Heroes of Battle ), useful books (I love Magic Item Compendium), and possibly a way to head-ff rules arguments when you're gaming in a place without internet connection (this Rules Compendium)

Rant:

Now, as far as the issue about Wizards 'not doing enough' to grow the hobby... Again, remember: it's not only their job to promote it. If no new blood comes in, then the third-parties will not grow either; there's only so many times you can sell a pdf to a person, let's say.

If National Game Day is failing, I'm not sure it can be put on the back of Wizards as 'well, they just send some posters, and cruddy fireball templates' or what not. I've seen quite a few gamestores run by grognards who simply want to find discounts to support their gaming, or for whatever. They seem to have no interest in putting forth effort to expand - even down to the stories that flare up of a gamer in a new city stopping to browse and being rushed out because they were 'inconvienent'.

The point was made too about groups, and people by nature will want to game with people they already know. It's tough to get into an established group. I suspect that the gaming community is tending to hit the "late-20s/early-mid-30s" grownup demographic. We tend to have families, work, responsibilities.... we tend then to keep the same friends and gaming pals we've had.

If it requires we 'grow' new gamers by putting out over-the-top wuxia/MMO-type/uber products to draw them in... as long as it draws em in, that's Good. Eventually, the investment will come back by a certain amount either dropping out of the hobby, continuing on, or maturing into the 'types of gamers' we prefer.

Just putting out more ads isn't going to help that.

Maybe we need a 'Bring an MMO-player to Game Day Day'

Okay, nuff ranting

 

[Raven Crowking]

But do not confuse relevance with hate. I certainly do not "hate" WotC because I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of their products over the years, and continue to enjoy those products even now.

Exactly.

I just want three things from WotC. In order of importance, they are:

1. Publish more things that I am interested in/can use/make prepping the game easier.

2. Publish or lisence to publish a print version of Dungeon & Dragon. This is actually a heck of a lot lower down the scale of importance than #1, above, but I would like a hardcopy monthly that provides ideas for adventure and location creation.

3. Fix the Gleemax ToS so that posting there isn't tantamount to giving up rights to one's work. This is actually a heck of a lot lower down the scale of imporance than #2, above, because I cannot imagine Gleemax supplanting EN World for me.

RC


EDIT: Re: WotC growing the hobby. When I am talking about WotC's relevance, I am talking only in reference to purchasing new product. Certainly, WotC has done more to grow the hobby than anyone, especially with the OGL and the SRD. And, while there are a lot of things I've changed in the rules to make them better fit the type of game I want to run, I certainly do appreciate the base mechanics of the system, as well as the inclusion of a skill system that actually works.

My house rules and my Game of Rassilon Dr Who RPG are both built off the basic D20 engine, which is a fantastic, versatile system that is capable of so much more than folks give it credit for. For example, in GoR Dr Who, I decoupled skill points from level, thus allowing me to create creatures quickly without having to do the math required by D&D 3.X. This means that its harder to guage CRs effectively, but as that game doesn't use the CR mechanic, the whole thing is much faster/smoother re: prep time.

 

[The_Gneech]

Well, yeah, I'd say WotC is, but I expect shortly that D&D itself will cease to be. The pulling of the licenses for E-Tools, Dragon, and Dungeon pulled out almost every leg that my choice of D&D as a game system was standing on.

In short, I feel like WotC has, over the past year, been doing its best to prevent me from running D&D any more, for reasons that make sense only to them.

WotC is still relevant to me, however, in that I am making a Saga-based sword-and-sorcery game, which I expect to be running for the forseeable future. This means that I'm going back to the old days of pretty much making everything up myself and having less and less reason to buy splatbooks, worldbooks, etc. unless one happens to come out that touches on exactly what I happen to need.

WotC used to be able to depend on me to send them money every month. Now, I'm likely to spend little or nothing on their products for the forseeable future. Go fig.

-The Gneech

 

[Aus_Snow]

Thanks for the link, btw.

Credit where it's due - thanks should go to "hong". His work on that page is pretty cool, overall.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Credit where it's due - thanks should go to "hong". His work on that page is pretty cool, overall.

I did notice that it was hong's work...I just thanked you for linking to it.

Hong actually does some pretty neat stuff, I have noticed.

RC

 

[Fenris_x]

WotC is as relevant to my gaming group as oxygen is to my breathing.

The only non-WotC items we use in our gaming group are Steel Squire spell templates and Chessex dice. Everything else is WotC-produced.

I don't expect this will change for the foreseeable future.

 

[Wil]

WoTC wasn't relevant to me before they bought TSR, and I don't think TSR was relevant to me past 1987 or so...

 

[olshanski]

(b) Monster Manuals that contain monsters from myth/legend/folklore. I don't need a bunch of weird-looking creatures that I couldn't describe without resorting to a picture. Really, I don't. I need monsters that the players can easily grasp, and that "feel" as though they could belong in a fantasy environment. That's pretty hit-and-miss for me right now, even in the core books. It was never a problem in any previous edition. Keep in mind, too, that not all of us use monsters as "fire and forget" accessories. Some of us want monsters that can do more than last 5 rounds in a fight with an interesting twist. We like the ogre magi as it first appeared.
RC

Trouble with that is that there is no IP associated with it, and anyone who wants to can make images of it or publish it. You'll notice that the new monsters WOTC is putting out are not OGL... any any reference to them in a 3rd party product has to be done with permission. Now if you went and used gods and legends from greek or norse mythology, then its open season. I just don't see WOTC doing that.

 

[Xyxox]

WoTC wasn't relevant to me before they bought TSR, and I don't think TSR was relevant to me past 1987 or so...

TSR was still relevent to me just days before they were bought out by WotC. They just weren't AS relevent to me as they wer in about 1987.

The same is somewhat true to me today with WotC. They're still relevent, just not nearly as relevent as they were when they released 3.0. Oddly enough, they weren't as relevent to me when they released 3.5 as they were when they released 3.0, too. As I said before, their relevence will increase dramatically when they release 4.0.

 

[WayneLigon]

They matter a great deal to me. I don't mind a crunch-heavy book, especially if it saves me from creating new classes and such. Also, if WOTC were to go under I'd feel safe in predicting that every d20 publisher, print or PDF, would be out of business within a year OGL or not.