Is WoTC even relevant to you anymore?

[Doug McCrae]

I've tried quite a few well regarded 3rd party books - Banewarrens, Rappan Athuk, Beyond Countless Doorways, Tome of Horrors II + III and Denizens of Avadnu. Mostly I preferred the WotC stuff. MM3-5 for example are significantly better than the 3rd party monster books, imo.

 

[Terraism]

I still keep an eye out on what they're doing. I picked up Saga Edition, and I tend to stay on top of Eberron supplements. Other than that, it's sorta a touch and go thing. Picked up the Magic Item Compendium, but I've ignored a bunch of other products (the newer Complete books, for instance.) Probably next non-Eberron book I grab'll be the new Rules compendium-type.

 

[GreatLemur]

Personally, I'm only really interested in crunch-heavy books, as fluff is something I prefer to come up with on my own. So, yeah, I'm still really interested in any non-setting-specific stuff WotC puts out.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Thankfully, my DMs let me use anything I publish under my own label

That would really suck if you ran your own publishing company and your DM didn't even allow you to use that in his game.

 

[Treebore]

The WotC stuff I have bought recently has been impressive. In the past couple of years I bought Libris Mortis, Lords of Madness, and Drow of the Underdark and have been really impressed. Further, I hear Monster Manual V is really good.

I'm not sure what is with all the WotC hate.

Its not "hate". Why does it have to be labelled hate. Its relevance. WOTC is not relevant to me anymore. Other than adventures (maybe) and their tiles, plus the Magic spell and item compendiums I could care less about anything else they are publishing. I don't even buy FR 3E anymore.

Its not because I "hate" 3E. If I hated 3E I sure wouldn't own over 200 books and modules that are part of 3E. I wouldn't have played and DMed it for 5 years.

Its simply not relevant to my gaming anymore, as a company. I still use 3E material for my other games. If I hated it I wouldn't use it.

If I hated it I wouldn't be upset about the cancellation of Dungeon and Dragon. If I hated it I wouldn't subscribe to Paizo's PAthfinder, etc...

So I in no way hate 3E. Its WOTC I could care less about. 90% of their products no longer interest me.

Its as simple as that. No interest. Apathy. Irrelevance. Not hate.

 

[Arkhandus]

Still relevant to me, though not nearly as much as it was 4-8 years ago. Despite my deep loathing for the shoddy 3.5 Revision, WotC still manages to occasionally put out a book that's halfway-decent in crunch and interesting in its ideas/flavor (IMO), that I'd be willing to buy.

Once I get a new job anyway....so Tome of Battle, Draconomicon, and Lords of Madness are the few I'll snatch up copies of once I have some spending money again. Player's Handbook II is also a possibility, but I dunno.

And at least the D20 Future books are kind of cool, so I have actually bought a few WotC books in the past year or two (D20 Future, D20 Cyberscape, and D20 Future Tech). Though I still think D20 Modern kinda sucks, at least it's not hard to learn and it's easily modified. So at least I can tinker with it for different kinds of games without much trouble.

 

[Shawn_Kehoe]

I absolutely look to Wizards of the Coast as the authority on new rules system and expansions - there's a good reason that the remaining 3rd parties are focusing on adventures over class books.

Stuff that has REALLY impressed me from Wizards:

- The Warlock
- Dragon Shaman
- Lords of Madness
- PHB II and DMG II

Yes, they focus on minis. But hey, the revenue stream that the minis represent is one more thing that delays the financial need to make 4th Edition. And it's not hard to run the game without minis, Monte Cook wrote a great article about that : http://www.montecook.com/arch_dmonly21.html

If Wizards went out of business, the other third parties would follow within a few years. D&D is THE entry product for the RPG market, and it's continued health is vital to the industry and the hobby.

 

[Ryltar]

I don't think they'll ever stop being relevant, as long as they put out books with high production values and nice content. There have been disappointments along the way, but hasn't it always been like that? I passed on a lot of their "recent" books (Magic Item Compendium, all Eberron stuff, Complete Champion/Psion/whatever), but picked up "Shadowdale:Scouring of the Land" and MM5 without a doubt.

Long story short: There will, hopefully, always be books among those published by WotC that will make them stay relevant.

While third party books have improved vastly over the last few years (regarding layout, content, art et al.), they still would not be able to offer a complete replacement for a company with the history of WotC.

Sorry if that sounded rambling and/or confused, but English isn't my native language .

 

[Jedi_Solo]

Still very relevant to my group.

 

[hexgrid]

WOTC is not relevant to me anymore. Other than adventures (maybe) and their tiles, plus the Magic spell and item compendiums I could care less about anything else they are publishing.

I think it's interesting that most of the people on this thread who profess to find WotC irrelevant still have lists of products they bought recently or might buy in the future. They must be doing something right.

For me, WoTC is relevant, though I don't see myself buying many more D&D 3.5 source books. I'm always in the market for miniatures and adventures, and I'm interested in the upcoming SWSE releases.

I'll likely jump on 4e when that comes out, too.