Is WoTC even relevant to you anymore?

[KenSeg]

I believe that WOTC is relivant to the gaming industry due to their market share. However, the company is not that relavent to our gaming group. Aside from the core books, the only product from them we have purchased was PHB II in the last few years.

As a matter of fact, our group is now looking to replace 3.5E with another system as our fantasy game of choice. Aside from either a fantastic 4th edition or some really excellent book for ideas, I doubt if I will be buying another WOTC product for a long time.

 

[Halivar]

So long as you continue to reference a PHB, they're relevant.

WotC won't be irrelevant until the entirety of gamer-dom switches en masse to Palladium (*shudder*).

 

[Ourph]

The last WotC book I bought was Complete Arcane at the end of 2004. I think the last time I played the current edition of D&D was within a few months of that date. So, as of right now and into the foreseeable future, WotC is completely irrelevant to my gaming.

 

[Adso]

Aside from a few miniatures, I can't even recall the last WoTC book I purchased. Really, I stopped caring about their crunch-heavy books a LONG time ago.

These days, I mostly track new releases from Necromancer games, and that's about all I care about anymore.

WoTC could just about go out of business and I think I'd hardly miss them at all.


Anyone else in the same boat?

Well, I can't speak for all of us but...

I sure am glad you are still having fun playing D&D/d20 and still look forward to the new releases for Necromancer games. I do too!

I think if your game went under, or that you were not excited about any of the products on the market, I'd be sad.

Keep on gaming...you'll still be relevant to me. I like my fellow D&D/d20 gamers. I want there to be more of them, not less. I also understand that there will always be a number of us who will not agree on the particulars of D&D/d20, but we will always be passionate about D&D/d20…and that’s a good thing, because I like people to play with and for the hobby to grow.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Keep on gaming...you'll still be relevant to me.

Ohhh, nice PR.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Is WotC relevant? Of course they are.

Is Microsoft relevant if you run a Mac or Linux? Sure, because when MS makes a move, it causes ripples throughout the industry.

I say it is the same thing for WotC, just on the smaller scale of the gaming industry.

 

[Morrus]

My last two purchases were DMGII and Fiendish Codex II. Licensed product-wise, I bought all the AoW Dungeon mags, and NWNII. I have the Colossal Red Dragon, the black and the blue. One of my gaming group buys pretty much all the miniatures, which we use. I excited about the idea of a 4E. I never buy setting stuff though (no FR, Eberron or anything else).

So, yeah, WotC still matters to me.

 

[der_kluge]

Well, I can't speak for all of us but...

I sure am glad you are still having fun playing D&D/d20 and still look forward to the new releases for Necromancer games. I do too!

I think if your game went under, or that you were not excited about any of the products on the market, I'd be sad.

Keep on gaming...you'll still be relevant to me. I like my fellow D&D/d20 gamers. I want there to be more of them, not less. I also understand that there will always be a number of us who will not agree on the particulars of D&D/d20, but we will always be passionate about D&D/d20…and that’s a good thing, because I like people to play with and for the hobby to grow.

Well, I certainly enjoy gaming and GM'ing, but I think over the last few years, WoTC's "flavor" (which I'll describe as crunch-heavy anime) does not suit my tastes.

But you'll always be welcome at my table. You just can't play a Warlock.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Keep on gaming...you'll still be relevant to me. I like my fellow D&D/d20 gamers. I want there to be more of them, not less.

Well then, from where I'm sitting you'd want to focus on a few things:

(1) Products for those of us who are not playing minis games. Barrow of the Forgotten King was so minis-centric that I couldn't salvage it for my home game. I realize that there is a market for that sort of thing, but I would prefer non-mini-centric adventures. If you are going to do both, please label them so that I know which are worth my money.

(2) Although it was sort of crunch-heavy, I actually enjoyed Dungeonscape. I don't need new stat block material. I don't need to know the "proper" way to write out a trap or an encounter. What I need, as a DM, are ideas that I can get excited about, that make the game seem fresh and new. Making everything into a math exercise just doesn't do that for me, and that is what devising stat blocks has become. So I would suggest:

(a) Creature Builder. A pdf product that includes nothing more than stat blocks, including stat blocks with templates and levels added. Cut & paste when writing your adventures, and you're good to go. Keep the extra work for the extra cool guys. And, no, I do not think that this belongs in the Monster Manuals.....speaking of which:

(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.

(c) Villian Classes. Things to make the creation of mid- or high-level NPCs easier.​

Those things would be relevant to me. They would force me to rethink how I viewed WotC.

RC

 

[Ry]

Sure, The shape of their upcoming rules crunch really aligns with my gaming direction at the moment.

The network effect of playing in the mainstream I find is better than the muttering in the dark I find when outside the main sequence.

That's me too, even though I hope to be on the OGL fork if 4E isn't OGL.