NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 4924409" data-attributes="member: 15538">When WotC mocked the gnome, I felt they were mocking those who liked the gnome. I felt mocked.When WotC claimed NPC design took too much time, I felt they were listening to people who mostly lacked a good blueprint for statting NPCs. When they presented their solution (giving NPCs the stat blocks of minis) I knew they had solved a different problem than I was seeing. I perceived that WotC thought character development was a waste of time.When I was told all the cool kids were playing tieflings, I knew I was not one of the cool kids. WotC seemed to be telling me that the new game was not intended for people who did not think tieflings and dragonborn and six foot long swords were cool. When they announced the end of WotC support for the OGL, I knew the suits had taken over. WotC was just another company trying to do business in the 20th century way. DDI? If they felt I *needed* a subscription to be a supported customer, I knew they were selling incompleteness.When I was told I would have to buy another MM to get the frost giant, I knew that WotC wanted me to buy more books. I would not be allowed to pick and choose any more.Did it make a difference? Maybe. I don't like or play 4e. I probably would not have been as propelled to check out Pathfinder, but then, I wasn't keen on the Beta but I jumped in on the final version anyway. I can see how it would have made a difference in other ways. I would not be as angry with WotC. I would not be on message boards, occasionally remembering that I was angry with WotC.I would not remember being on ENWorld, and not only being surrounded by those who mock gnome-lovers, but being assured I should enjoy being mocked. Perhaps I would have been granted a title like "grognard" rather than being assigned to the partisan resistance, whethered I wanted to be or not. I would not have heard WotC telling me how much the game they sold to me, that I enjoyed, that birthed a D&D renaissance, sucked. I could have been left to view DDI as an online magazine, rather than as a vision of a future without rulebooks, only subscriptions. I could have been left to view the tiefling and dragonborn as an affectation of the new edition, as Drow had been in AD&D and sorcerers in 3e. I might have the impression that WotC was still warm-hearted about the OGL, but was trying something else for a while. I might not have suspected that the cancellation of Dragon, the new edition, and everything was all an attempt to butcher open design, and it might not have been true. Instead of "edition wars" we could have had "edition profileration." When 3e rolled out, Wizards treated its fans with respect, and treating with respect the idea that people already had ideas about what D&D was. It's okay to add to D&D, but to attempt to define D&D once and for all, to obsolesce all the D&D that has come before, is not something I would do. Certainly, I would not have bought a Jetta 2000 if Volkswagen went around telling everyone how stupid and boxy the Jetta 1999 looked. If I can turn around today and say what I made yesterday was stinky and bad, that speaks to a lack of integrity. Either I knowingly produced something bad last time around, or else producing quality means nothing to me and I simply quackspeak that the new version is better, because the new version is always better.  I could talk for hours about problems with AD&D, but I'm not going to tell someone, "Your game sucks. Despite the evidence that it has pleased thousands of fans who have gone on to define the RPG hobby, I hereby declare it was unfun and sucked." Every game has its good points and its bad points. 3e was a hugely successful design. To say it sucked speaks of a lack of perspective. When someone compares 3e to accounting or complains about 3e sourcebooks or whatever, I think, "Gosh, this person must not have enjoyed playing very much." Do I want to buy a new edition of D&D from people who think playing D&D is a chore?And that's why, even though my eagerness to do business with WotC vanished as soon as they pulled their PDFs, that eagerness would be hard to replenish even were those PDFs restored today.I've been playing D&D since I was eight years old. I have stronger feelings about D&D and roleplaying in general than I do about any city in which I have ever lived.</blockquote>

Verification