It is time to forgive WOTC and get back onboard.

[Umbran]

I have some doubts about this generalization. Torture is over-effective to the point of extracting false confessions, and the "reward" is simply that the torture will stop.

I think torture is a totally inappropriate analogy and topic here. Let's not make it, or engage with it.

 

[Parmandur]

So... they twice try to put forth a plan that would cause a great deal of harm to a lot of third party creators out there and had to be forced to change their mind or lose tons of money... and that's OK with you?

So, here's the thing...I'm not a shareholder for any company involved, so it's not personal, so I will analyze the deeds on their own terms.. The maneuver, while dumb, was not illegal or immoral in itself. They were not aiming to murder baby seals for fun, or oppress workers, they were looking to renegotiate license terms of their property, which isn't evil. Now, while it may have harmed third parties because it was dumb, it seems to me that whoever put the scheme together thought that third parties would jump at the profit sharing terms offered...dumb, not evil.

 

[Parmandur]

I went ahead and grated my Ion stone, but it just made everything... glow-y.

5 or 6 avocados, one teaspoon salt, three teaspoons lemon juice, smooth to a pulp.

Perfection.

 

[Parmandur]

I really hope that for the 50th Anniversary, they re-release some of the true classics from the past in actual BOOK FORM.

Moldvay/Cook (B/X)
The Core Three of the AD&D (PHB, MM, DMG)

Anything else would be gravy. But I would love to grab extra copies. Something about the feel of books ....

That's my hope too. When is that last time Basic in some form was printed? Rules Cyclopedia? 1e and 2e have both seen reprints of the core books during WotC's ownership of the brand.

That would be awesome. The bulk of my 1e/2e stuff that I have left are settings. I have Greyhawk 1e, Ravenloft 2e, Spelljammer 2e, Planescape 2e, Kara-Tur 2e, The Netherese 2e setting and maybe Al-Qadim. I still go back to those for lore and adventure ideas and will continue to do so for as long as I DM.

It would be great if they released the books(and monstrous compendiums for 2e) again to buy.

I realize that it certainly isn't quite the same, but...the xore rules for 1E, 2E, Rules Cyclopedia, 3.5, and 4E are all available in New print copies, softcover or hardcover (only softcover for 2E, who knows why) on the DMsGuild. The Hardcover for the Rules Cyclopedia is $30, $35 with PDF backup. Reports are that the POD copies are good quality, too.

 

[Cergorach]

WotC/Hasbro pulled back from the OGL shenanigans and even released the 5.1SRD under CC. That is what we were angry about. If you want similar actions to have similar effects you need to show to companies that making bad decisions and reversing those bad decisions (and more) leads to some form of 'reward'. The 'reward' in this case people actually coming back as customers, otherwise in the future companies see no reason to repair the damage as there is no benefit for them.

For me that doesn't mean I'm suddenly buying everything OneD&D because WotC/Hasbro fixed their blunder. But it does mean that everything I scratched from my wishlist is back on the table. Not immediately, as there's still a bad taste in my mouth, but I expect in a month or so, some of the stuff on that wishlist might be bought. Except for a DMG/MM 5E, it will mostly be licensed stuff like minis and computer/board games.

@Maxperson You might consider buying the pdfs and printing them. You could do the 2E PHB/DMG as a binded hardcover at a (good) printshop and depending on what you prefer, the MM had a binder edition with loose pages for all the settings, only later did it become books. Getting a 2E PHB in a good state 2nd hand would be quite difficult imho...

 

[Maxperson]

I realize that it certainly isn't quite the same, but...the xore rules for 1E, 2E, Rules Cyclopedia, 3.5, and 4E are all available in New print copies, softcover or hardcover (only softcover for 2E, who knows why) on the DMsGuild. The Hardcover for the Rules Cyclopedia is $30, $35 with PDF backup. Reports are that the POD copies are good quality, too.

Do you know if the 2e monstrous manuals are available?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Man, I wish every time I fixed a problem of my own making people started telling everyone I caused problems for to give me money.

 

[Parmandur]

Do you know if the 2e monstrous manuals are available?

Only the big Mosntrous Manual proper is available in print, although all the Compendiuks are available in PDF and printing those at home may be no worse than the original formatting:

Monstrous Manual (2e) - Wizards of the Coast | AD&D 2nd Ed. | Rules | AD&D 2nd Ed. | Dungeon Masters Guild

Monstrous Manual (2e) - Need a monster? Look inside, where more than 300 new peices of full color art show what the monsters really look like!

www.dmsguild.com

Of the 168 2E books (!) available in print, this seems at first blush to be the only other really Monster oriented one:

Elminster's Ecologies (2e) - Wizards of the Coast | Forgotten Realms | Dungeon Masters Guild

Elminster's Ecologies (2e) - "The world is vast and varied, comprising towering mountains, dense jungles, and sprawling seas. There are regions so co

www.dmsguild.com

 

[Faolyn]

Snarf's snarkiness aside, there's some issue with attaching ethical fault to things that never actually happen.

Things did happen. They had, in fact, started to destroy the OGL, bully companies into bad deals, and destroy VTTs.

You can't say that they didn't do those things. They may have said "whoops, OK, the masses have spoken, guess we won't go through with it," but they had, in fact, started to do it, and it's completely ridiculous to assume that they would have stopped on their own out of what, the goodness of their collective hearts or something?

People are literally trying to say that because WotC tried but failed to do something that would hurt people financially, had to be convinced by a very large number of people that what they were trying to do was bad, then we should just ignore the fact that they tried in the first place.

Even though they have a history of having done similar things in the past.

And that not only should we ignore that fact, but that we should reward them by giving them our money.

I just don't get this mentality.

 

[Faolyn]

So, here's the thing...I'm not a shareholder for any company involved, so it's not personal, so I will analyze the deeds on their own terms.. The maneuver, while dumb, was not illegal or immoral in itself. They were not aiming to murder baby seals for fun, or oppress workers, they were looking to renegotiate license terms of their property, which isn't evil. Now, while it may have harmed third parties because it was dumb, it seems to me that whoever put the scheme together thought that third parties would jump at the profit sharing terms offered...dumb, not evil.

I said it was greedy. No, I don't think they were rubbing their hands together and cackling with glee while petting a white cat. But just because it was dumb doesn't make it OK. If anything, it makes it rather worse because how else will this stupidity and short-sightedness manifest?