It is time to forgive WOTC and get back onboard.

[Imaro]

Yeah, that means you lost trust. Because if you have to sit back and think about it for a bit, that means you aren't just going to automatically trust the product to be worth the price.

Corporations are not my friends they don't owe me anything, why on earth would I buy something I've never bought before from any corporation sight unseen if I have the chance to better educate myself on what they are offering. It's not about trust, it's about making an informed choice.

 

[SteveC]

One thing that this is bringing to mind, and I hope it's not thought of as a derail, but a number of people have said "company X isn't my friend either!" My reaction to that is ... that's kind of sad.

I am not in the industry, but I have friends who are, and the thing they universally talk about is how small it is. How everyone knows everyone else. It is easy to get to know people who make the games you play. I still have the signed note from Mike Mearls saying that a particular change to a power in 4E should be considered official errata. I got that sharing a beverage with him a long time ago, and it let me use a particular ability (Duelist's Prowess for you 4E people) in the way that makes it useful.

I go to a gaming convention each year (Gamehole Con) where I have been able to meet and game with a ton of game designers and have really enjoyed myself. They aren't my friends exactly, but when I see a project they're working on, you bet I'm going to look at it. When 13th Age launches the Kickstarter I will be a first day backer because of my history with gaming with the creators.

From the perspective of game designers versus "corporate" types, it's my estimation that WotC is pretty much the only company that has people involved with their brand that aren't gamers. When you see something from other companies or decisions they make, you can be assured that the people who are making those decisions are gamers. They also have skin in the game because the company is so small. That's fundamentally different from WotC senior management because of Hasbro.

Here's my point: third party companies are fundamentally different from corporate WotC. The gaming part of WotC is fundamentally different from the corporate part. Should I "forgive" WotC? I don't know that I have anything to forgive the gaming part of the company for. As for the corporate? I never thought of them as my friends. That's a different world from smaller companies where if you want to engage with them, you really can, if you care and want to.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

They're both trust.

If I can't trust the company to not screw me over, then I have no reason to buy from them.
If I can't trust the company to make good products, then I have no reason to buy from them.
If I can't trust them to not screw me over or produce good products, then I have no reason to buy from them.

No denying here. But still totally different reasons. If they happen to screw you over OR do (in your opinion) bad products, by all means, don't buy from them. I would do the same. But in that case, WotC has not screwed ME over and I think they made a business decision. A dumb and unethical one, but they just pulled around at the last moment.

 

[Faolyn]

Corporations are not my friends they don't owe me anything, why on earth would I buy something I've never bought before from any corporation sight unseen if I have the chance to better educate myself on what they are offering. It's not about trust, it's about making an informed choice.

See, corporations actually do owe you something--they owe you a product that is worth the money they are charging for it. No friendship is required for this.

Up until recently, WotC has been pretty good about producing books that are worth the money. They may not have been perfect, and not everything they produced was to my personal taste or was something that I needed, but they've been good enough that I could trust that they'd produce a book that's worth the money. But that trust is gone.

Maybe you have never pre-ordered a book in your life, but you have to realize that many, many people do.

 

[Faolyn]

No denying here. But still totally different reasons. If they happen to screw you over OR do (in your opinion) bad products, by all means, don't buy from them. I would do the same. But in that case, WotC has not screwed ME over and I think they made a business decision. A dumb and unethical one, but they just pulled around at the last moment.

But can you trust that they won't make another dumb and unethical decision? Because right now, people are saying that we should just "get back onboard" with them and continue to support them when we haven't yet seen that they won't make another dumb and unethical decision--or another calculated and unethical decision? After all, this decision of theirs was dumb, yes, but it was also calculated and deliberate. They didn't just trip and fall on the "destroy other gaming and VTT companies" lever, after all.

Basically, why are people willing to trust them so blindly? Is the desire for new books so strong that people are willing to accept it when they go "whoops, our bad" without seeing if they're going to backslide?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Basically, why are people willing to trust them so blindly?

See, I don't know who you mean with people. I don't see people who blindly trust them.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Here's my point: third party companies are fundamentally different from corporate WotC. The gaming part of WotC is fundamentally different from the corporate part. Should I "forgive" WotC? I don't know that I have anything to forgive the gaming part of the company for. As for the corporate? I never thought of them as my friends. That's a different world from smaller companies where if you want to engage with them, you really can, if you care and want to.

But this raises a different concern.

Assume for a second that I'm an ethical consumer. There are many different axes to make decisions on. Inclusivity. Whether the work environment is toxic. Behavior of employees and senior members at conventions (!!!).

Or even simple metrics such as - do the pay a decent salary to employees, and a decent rate (per word, per work) to independent contractors? Do they commission and pay artists in the community what they are worth?

It is a small community- but that smallness can both magnify scandals (whether it's the recent OGL thing, or the whole Paizo toxic work environment from a year ago) as well as obfuscate how some companies treat their employees .... because it's just a hobby.

(As an aside, one thing I have always appreciated about EnWorld Publishing and Morrus is that they consistently discuss both the struggles within the industry and commit to paying people market rates for work.)

 

[Parmandur]

So in a strange journey, we ended up mostly in agreement I guess.

The power of dialogue.

 

[Parmandur]

Basically, why are people willing to trust them so blindly?

So, you don't like the recent 5E design moves. Different strokes for different folks, groovy.

It isnthsg I trust WotC, because I don't: I enjoy the books that they put out. I suppose you could argue that I trust Jeremy Crawford or Chris Perkins: if the 5E design team resigned en masses and denounced OneD&D, that would concern me way more than any business dealings: because the OGL controversy has nothing to do with the products.

 

[Faolyn]

See, I don't know who you mean with people. I don't see people who blindly trust them.

Um, all the people who seem to be shocked and even dismayed that I don't think it's time to forgive WotC and get back onboard with them. You know, half the people in this thread who are willing to buy the books that are coming out this year. The people who are saying that we should be rewarding them for not actually destroying the OGL and VTTs because gosh, wasn't it nice for them to give us extra with the CC license when we still have no way of knowing how useful that will be when One comes out next year.

Those people.

 

[gban007]

See, corporations actually do owe you something--they owe you a product that is worth the money they are charging for it. No friendship is required for this.

Up until recently, WotC has been pretty good about producing books that are worth the money. They may not have been perfect, and not everything they produced was to my personal taste or was something that I needed, but they've been good enough that I could trust that they'd produce a book that's worth the money. But that trust is gone.

Maybe you have never pre-ordered a book in your life, but you have to realize that many, many people do.

While I agree with main point, that corporations if want us to buy from them, need to provide a product we want / think is worth the price they are charging for, I am a little confused and possibly just haven't followed the converstaion well enough.

Where I'm confused, is what has removed the trust that they will produce a book that is worth the money.

If that is due to recent book releases not being up to scratch, so no longer have that trust, then I can follow - but if it is due to this OGL situation, then I don't quite follow - as while I can see it can have an impact on overall trust, I don't see why it would dent any trust in the quality of books they produce - as this is separate to the OGL to my mind.

If I was a 3rd party publisher, I would have lost trust that I could continue to publish material for D&D outside of 5.1, but that is separate to just buying WOTC books to my mind.

 

[gban007]

Um, all the people who seem to be shocked and even dismayed that I don't think it's time to forgive WotC and get back onboard with them. You know, half the people in this thread who are willing to buy the books that are coming out this year. The people who are saying that we should be rewarding them for not actually destroying the OGL and VTTs because gosh, wasn't it nice for them to give us extra with the CC license when we still have no way of knowing how useful that will be when One comes out next year.

Those people.

I don't see how it is blindly trusting to say hey, they've backed out on what they were going to do, so I'm happy to buy products from them again because they are of value to me, and if they do stuff in future I don't like, I may stop buying again.
And again, the CC license / OGL seems irrelevant to me as to whether the books they are buying now are valuable enough to use either now or post One DND - if they have concerns about how One DnD it self will play out, then certainly shouldn't buy books if wanting to use them with One DnD, but otherwise where does the OGL come into the trust equation?

 

[Lichbeard]

Well, a lot of us are saying we are not angry with them anymore. That's isn't really saying we will be buying future books. I stopped auto buying the books once it became clear to me the quality of the product wasn't really measuring up at least not on a consistent level. It just seemed like to me they started phoning it in and relying on "it's D&D you got to buy it" more and more.

I'm not angry with them so I will once again look at anything they make and see if I might want to buy it.

Secretly I think we are all mostly at the same point. If something comes out that is very good I'm sure most of us will buy it. The likelihood of that happening is just not as high as it once was.

I think the entire reason for this happening in the first place was the growing awareness of the lack of quality lead to lower sales. Bad management instead of handling this with increased attention to putting out a better-quality product, decided to try to eliminate competition.

Things do not look good for the next edition of D&D. I think they have most of their eggs in the D&D movies basket. Hoping that brings in massive amounts of sales.

If the movie isn't a huge hit, they are in trouble.

 

[billd91]

Um, all the people who seem to be shocked and even dismayed that I don't think it's time to forgive WotC and get back onboard with them. You know, half the people in this thread who are willing to buy the books that are coming out this year. The people who are saying that we should be rewarding them for not actually destroying the OGL and VTTs because gosh, wasn't it nice for them to give us extra with the CC license when we still have no way of knowing how useful that will be when One comes out next year.

Those people.

I have no idea what's going on behind the scenes. All I reliably have to act upon, other than rumors and conspiracies spun by outsiders, is what they actually do. And they walked back from the abyss for now. So, for now, I'm going to walk back from the brink of boycott and go back to evaluating products on an individual basis and how well they fit my preferences. Like I always have done.

As far as buying stuff for One D&D when it comes out - I'll make that determination when it's relevant. I'm buying and using 5e stuff now, and future issues of licenses with One D&D are irrelevant to that.

If you want to continue to boycott them because you feel they burned their bridges, then it wouldn't matter whether or not they changed their behavior. That's fine... for you. But it may not be for some of the rest of us who expressed our ire to get them to change their behavior. Since that behavior changed, people who had the same goal as I did should change our approach to acknowledge and reinforce it.

 

[Imaro]

See, corporations actually do owe you something--they owe you a product that is worth the money they are charging for it. No friendship is required for this.

No they don't... they make a product and price it... it's up to you to determine whether it has that value for you.

 

[Faolyn]

While I agree with main point, that corporations if want us to buy from them, need to provide a product we want / think is worth the price they are charging for, I am a little confused and possibly just haven't followed the converstaion well enough.

Where I'm confused, is what has removed the trust that they will produce a book that is worth the money.

I already said: Spelljammer. They didn't include any of the 2e lore (such as the space-factions and space-religions) and they also didn't create new lore to replace it. I didn't read the adventure (someone else at my table had originally planned on running it) but I've heard it's terribly rail-roady--the potential DM certainly said it was pretty bad. The monsters were incredibly lackluster and included a cosmic horror that was reduced to nothing more than a boring combat monster; several of the monsters updated from 2e had most of their personality stripped away and also became little more than combat monsters--and many of those monsters were actually from Dark Sun, which suggests that that setting is going to be cut short as well, should it ever get published. The books lacked mechanics for space combat. They failed to go into details about solar systems, thus moving away from some of what made Spelljammer interesting--the idea that you could legitimately have discworlds or cube-shaped suns or planets resting on clockwork machinery. And they used thick paper and divided into three books to hide the fact that it had a very low page count.

It had 64 fewer pages than VGR and cost $20 more. I would have taken thinner pages or a single book for a lower price, because that slipcase and extra binding wasn't worth $20 in and of itself.

And that's ignoring their screw-up with the hadozee. I'm more than willing to accept it was just a dumb mistake that happened because they didn't have a sensitivity reader look over it, and that they'll use one in the future as they've promised to do.

Please note that I am not talking about just things I don't like. I'm not fond of the loss of crystal spheres and putting Wild Space (and thus the Material Plane) in the Astral, but that's purely a matter of personal taste and I can easily ignore it, adapt it, or learn to accept it. I'm talking about actual lack of included material. To go back to cosmic horrors for a moment--they had two small paragraphs of flavor text. I can't help but think that in earlier editions, even earlier in 5e, there would have been two paragraphs on the cults that spring up around them. The section on dead gods is also a mere two paragraphs long, and I'm positive that there would have been a chapter about them in an earlier edition--in fact, there was a 5-page-long chapter on dead gods in the 2e Planescape book Guide To The Astral Plane.

If that is due to recent book releases not being up to scratch, so no longer have that trust, then I can follow - but if it is due to this OGL situation, then I don't quite follow - as while I can see it can have an impact on overall trust, I don't see why it would dent any trust in the quality of books they produce - as this is separate to the OGL to my mind.

It's about both. They've shown they're untrustworthy on two different fronts. Maybe even a third, if those recent tweets about WotC having a hostile work environment are true.

If I was a 3rd party publisher, I would have lost trust that I could continue to publish material for D&D outside of 5.1, but that is separate to just buying WOTC books to my mind.

See, I am. I mean, I've only published a single book, and it was for Level Up, so I'm also waiting for LU to finalize whatever their dealings are with ORC, or whatever license they choose (I don't know what's involved on their end), before I complete my second book. And even though I was never going to be even a blip on WotC's radar (my first book has given me enough money to not feel guilty about spending money on new gaming books, if they're on sale), their willingness to screw with other 3pps means that I can't trust them to not try to do it again. Even if they can't do it with 5e-based books now, because of the CC, they can do it with One-based books in the near future.

 

[gban007]

I already said: Spelljammer. They didn't include any of the 2e lore (such as the space-factions and space-religions) and they also didn't create new lore to replace it. I didn't read the adventure (someone else at my table had originally planned on running it) but I've heard it's terribly rail-roady--the potential DM certainly said it was pretty bad. The monsters were incredibly lackluster and included a cosmic horror that was reduced to nothing more than a boring combat monster; several of the monsters updated from 2e had most of their personality stripped away and also became little more than combat monsters--and many of those monsters were actually from Dark Sun, which suggests that that setting is going to be cut short as well, should it ever get published. The books lacked mechanics for space combat. They failed to go into details about solar systems, thus moving away from some of what made Spelljammer interesting--the idea that you could legitimately have discworlds or cube-shaped suns or planets resting on clockwork machinery. And they used thick paper and divided into three books to hide the fact that it had a very low page count.

It had 64 fewer pages than VGR and cost $20 more. I would have taken thinner pages or a single book for a lower price, because that slipcase and extra binding wasn't worth $20 in and of itself.

And that's ignoring their screw-up with the hadozee. I'm more than willing to accept it was just a dumb mistake that happened because they didn't have a sensitivity reader look over it, and that they'll use one in the future as they've promised to do.

Please note that I am not talking about just things I don't like. I'm not fond of the loss of crystal spheres and putting Wild Space (and thus the Material Plane) in the Astral, but that's purely a matter of personal taste and I can easily ignore it, adapt it, or learn to accept it. I'm talking about actual lack of included material. To go back to cosmic horrors for a moment--they had two small paragraphs of flavor text. I can't help but think that in earlier editions, even earlier in 5e, there would have been two paragraphs on the cults that spring up around them. The section on dead gods is also a mere two paragraphs long, and I'm positive that there would have been a chapter about them in an earlier edition--in fact, there was a 5-page-long chapter on dead gods in the 2e Planescape book Guide To The Astral Plane.


It's about both. They've shown they're untrustworthy on two different fronts. Maybe even a third, if those recent tweets about WotC having a hostile work environment are true.


See, I am. I mean, I've only published a single book, and it was for Level Up, so I'm also waiting for LU to finalize whatever their dealings are with ORC, or whatever license they choose (I don't know what's involved on their end), before I complete my second book. And even though I was never going to be even a blip on WotC's radar (my first book has given me enough money to not feel guilty about spending money on new gaming books, if they're on sale), their willingness to screw with other 3pps means that I can't trust them to not try to do it again. Even if they can't do it with 5e-based books now, because of the CC, they can do it with One-based books in the near future.

Thanks for all that - makes it clearer to me, and I certainly have no issues with your stance, just previously the different factors were getting conflated for me at least when trying to understand your posts, and hence my confusion.

For some people, they may have been happy with Spelljammer, or happy to say that was a one off, and so happy to still consider future products, and so happy to continue buying products in future, and I don't think the OGL trust issues will necessarily play a big part in that, or that people are wrong to consider buying future products, and don't consider it blind trust as such.

You have my sympathy as a 3rd party publisher, as I think while for WOTC consumers it is pretty much back to what it was, I do think for publishers it hasn't gone back to what it was and feels like some bridges burnt by WOTC, and so a lot more uncertainty there, and I hope there does end up being a pathway forward for you, whether through ORC or some other means.

 

[Parmandur]

For some people, they may have been happy with Spelljammer, or happy to say that was a one off, and so happy to still consider future products, and so happy to continue buying products in future, and I don't think the OGL trust issues will necessarily play a big part in that, or that people are wrong to consider buying future products, and don't consider it blind trust as such.

Nailed it: I liked the Spelljammer set, though a higher page count would have been nice. OGL stuff is irrelevant to me and my purchases.

 

[Pedantic]

I feel like the point we're missing here is that WotC did plenty of damage just by considering and preparing this course of action, regardless of the fact they ultimately stopped before the point of no return.

We're not back to status quo. The status quo is dead and cannot be resurrected. As soon as WotC put the word "Deauthorized" on a document, they killed it.

Restoring the previous state literally can't happen, but it is probably possible to restore the previous trust, with time, effort, and sincere amends. I don't know why that process should look different for an institution and an individual. WotC has currently stopped doing the bad thing, taken a reasonable step toward making amends, and is, as most corporations do, struggling with admitting fault.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I feel like the point we're missing here is that WotC did plenty of damage just by considering and preparing this course of action, regardless of the fact they ultimately stopped before the point of no return.

No. It is not missed. That is exactly the discussion going on.
The question is how much damage did they really do.

And I want to add something to the thediscussion:
Also, sometimes thing have to be broken to create better things.
Lets hope, every 3pp is now well back on their feet, not that one safe haven is restored and in place forever, out of WotC control.

The rest of your post is rather uncontroversial. I like your last sentence...
it is just the way corporations work...