D&D General Kobold Press Going Down a Dark Road

[Reef]

Funny. You can give people more than one thing, and you don't have cater exclusively to the most popular options.

I'm sorry, but it's just starting to sound like you are unhappy that they're not catering to your wants specifically.

You can deliver more than one thing, but there's only so much time any company (even the one the size of WoTC) can devote. So, given the choices, of course they are going to spend the work hours on the options which will make the largest portion of their base happy. If their numbers showed that Psionics (or whatever else you are looking for) were popular with enough of their customers, they would be doing that. To do otherwise would be crazy. They aren't doing this just to spite the Psionics fans.

And yeah, publicly traded companies come with extra complications. But even a small one or two person rpg house are going to maximize their work on what will give them the biggest boost.

 

[Oofta]

Funny. You can give people more than one thing, and you don't have cater exclusively to the most popular options.

Try to do too much and you just end up cannibalizing your own sales at the cost of extra overhead and watering down your brand. Fortunately there are plenty of 3PP that offer niches that WOTC doesn't pursue.

For 5E WOTC chose a business model of producing relatively small amount of product while leaving other companies to go after the relatively small potatoes. Trying to be everything didn't work out very well for TSR, WOTC's current strategy is likely one of the reasons 5E is the best selling version ever.

 

[BrokenTwin]

I mean, we relatively recently had that while conversation about the OGL and how it was created partially so WotC could focus on the large audience stuff and leave the niche audience stuff to 3PP.

I'd be absolutely shocked if there wasn't multiple entirely different 3PP psionic books for 5E at this point.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm sorry, but it's just starting to sound like you are unhappy that they're not catering to your wants specifically.

You can deliver more than one thing, but there's only so much time any company (even the one the size of WoTC) can devote. So, given the choices, of course they are going to spend the work hours on the options which will make the largest portion of their base happy. If their numbers showed that Psionics (or whatever else you are looking for) were popular with enough of their customers, they would be doing that. To do otherwise would be crazy. They aren't doing this just to spite the Psionics fans.

And yeah, publicly traded companies come with extra complications. But even a small one or two person rpg house are going to maximize their work on what will give them the biggest boost.

I use 3pp for psionics, and a ton of other stuff. This doesn't affect me personally at all (except for the settings, which I'm still very sore about). I just think WotC is making bad choices for bad reasons. I like talking about gaming, but almost everybody devotes their attention to WotC so if I want to get into a conversation it's probably going to be about WotC.

Its a shame. I'd love to talk about companies and games I like, but WotC sucks so much air out of the room that most of the activity is about them and their (IMO) substandard game. A lot of people won't even consider looking at, playing, or talking about anything else.

 

[mamba]

Its a shame. I'd love to talk about companies and games I like, but WotC sucks so much air out of the room that most of the activity is about them and their (IMO) substandard game. A lot of people won't even consider looking at, playing, or talking about anything else.

maybe try it in a forum other than the D&D one. When I look at your recent posts, the last 100 were all on D&D, not one in Level Up...

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sorry, but how do you know that? Have they said they'd love to put out psionics rules, but don't because no one wants them? And even if that were true, why on Earth would they put out rules that no one wants? Like they are trying to make us eat our vegetables?*

*Bad metaphor...I love my vegetables

While it is not something we know for absolute certain, they have said that they want to do psionics, and indeed have tried like three times now. Each time, they couldn't find something that earned enough positive response for them to think it was worth further development. You don't attempt to do something three separate times if it isn't something people are interested in getting. You don't abandon three distinct efforts to do something unless those efforts are repeatedly not working.

If their numbers showed that Psionics (or whatever else you are looking for) were popular with enough of their customers, they would be doing that. To do otherwise would be crazy. They aren't doing this just to spite the Psionics fans.

Again: they've tried three times. Is that not evidence that they think it's worth doing? Most other things never get more than one attempt. (Consider PrCs.) Yet nothing has come of it, all three times.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

This thread about Kobold Press’s hyperbole has (predictably?) veered into a familiar long dark road.

 

[Micah Sweet]

maybe try it in a forum other than the D&D one. When I look at your recent pots, the last 100 were all on D&D, not one in Level Up...

I'm pretty happy with Level Up's mechanics. General D&D talk still happens here.

 

[mamba]

Again: they've tried three times. Is that not evidence that they think it's worth doing? Most other things never get more than one attempt.

Given the kind of flak they get here for the stuff that did meet the threshold, I am not sure including something that does not is a good idea...

 

[mamba]

I'm pretty happy with Level Up's mechanics. General D&D talk still happens here.

I understand why you also post here, but almost exclusively posting here and simultaneously complaining that everyone talks about D&D felt a bit odd, or is that a chicken and egg kind of problem?