WotC Unpopular Opinion: WotC is the Bethesda of RPG Companies

[Gadget]

Well, I agree that even the PHB material could have been designed better, as in it is not perfect. Some of the sub-classes are generally considered sub-par, and many of the spells are not really designed well. However, I feel this has always been the case for D&D since its very beginnings, and indeed all TTRPGs. That's kind of the point of them: take them and adapt them to make your own. This is not to say that one should excuse shoddy work, but TTRPGs tend to be more broad in design and scope; or at least D&D is trying to be so.

 

[Gradine]

Disagree.

D&D is World of Warcraft. The world's most popular games of their genre, both of which are playable as-is, and beloved by the people playing.

That being said... both games welcome their mod communities to take on duties they themselves do not have time to fiddle with. And almost all the people who play the game "seriously" will load up and use all manner of mods to get the game to run and play exactly how they prefer it. But if you ask them to ever just go back and play the game as the company designed it without any of the mods... it always feels weird and oftentimes not that pleasant. And those players will never not complain about it.

And then on occasion, both WotC and Blizzard will take some of the most popular and widely-used mods and actually incorporate them in some fashion into the base game. Not usually to the detailed extent the original mod person made... they are meant for the general gaming populace and not the hardcore who have gone all-in on it after all... but at least to a baseline entry. But that is enough to get the hardcore to then complain about the company not going all-in, and they take it as a personal affront that they are still required to use the community mod. And they'll make sure to let the rest of us know about how the company has screwed the pooch.

But in both cases... the company actually has all the details of what most people actually think, and it does not in any way match the ill-conceived ideas of certain "hardcores" who can't believe people could stand to play the game without the stuff they consider practically a requirement. Which is why both companies are able to ignore the caterwauling and still maintain the level of interest and community they have garnered over the years.

Does that make WoW Classic OSR?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No.

Absolutely not.

Here's the thing. Computer games are very different than TTRPGs. Once we get away from, say, Eamon and the like (or, perhaps, text-based MUDs written in C), you quickly get to the point where individuals cannot make, add, subtract, or otherwise truly alter a computer game. Even Eamon and the like required some additional coding ability. Other than systems that explicitly allow you to "build" and "create" within them (world-building apps with a game, or minecraft and the like), you are left with what they have. So, sure, there are iterations (versions) as they patch bugs, fix things, release additional content (DLCs) and so on. But that isn't user-created.

TTRPGs, otoh, have always been part of the DIY hobby scene. The official commercial product has always co-existed with 3PP and homebrew. In fact, I would be really, really unhappy if D&D (TTRPG) was "locked down" in some way so as to prevent homebrew and alterations.

TLDR- NO. Totally different things.

I’d simply point to the customization availability in games like Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2, as well as the Elder Scrolls games, which have been used by modders to construct whole new games. Someone made the first arc of Baldur’s Gate 2 by modding Dragon Age: Origins, for instance.

However, you are right in the sense that you cannot make a game about dragon riding knights, bird people, and FF style “dragoons” (warriors who jump impossibly high into the air and then use gravity to land on enemies with lethal result that somehow doesn’t hurt the jumper), using a Dragon Age engine. There just isn’t any room for flight or high jumps.

So, there are limitations in video games that don’t exist in TTPPGs. Still, a comparison doesn’t have to be perfect in order to be valid.

 

[Tony Vargas]

But also, DnD started this way. It’s part of the point of the game.

This.

5e hearkens back to the original fad, and this was the shape/style/strength of the game back in the day. It was complicated, baroque, and inconsistent, you prettymuch had to pair away what you didn't want, build up what you did, and make it your own. But, once you did, you could deliver a great, often unique, experience to you players.

With decades of varied product and varied style/preferences to satisfy (or at least not offend), the DIY approach was also really the only practical alternative.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This.

5e hearkens back to the original fad, and this was the shape/style/strength of the game back in the day. It was complicated, baroque, and inconsistent, you prettymuch had to pair away what you didn't want, build up what you did, and make it your own. But, once you did, you could deliver a great, often unique, experience to you players.

With decades of varied product and varied style/preferences to satisfy (or at least not offend), the DIY approach was also really the only practical alternative.

True, although I will say that for very, very, many of us, 5e isn’t baroque or inconsistent, and we don’t have to pair much of anything. As long as everyone st the table can operate with a loosely defined idea of what is possible, and a basic resolution system that is designed to allow for that looseness of definition, 5e just runs out of the box, using nothing but the phb as written.

But! Some folks have a hard time with what’s possible being loosely defined and largely up to the group during play, and just enjoy the game more by modding it. And it is easy to mod, which is great!

 

[Tony Vargas]

True, although I will say that for very, very, many of us, 5e isn’t baroque or inconsistent,

Oh, no, of course, not. It hearkens back to the feel of a time when the game was, and needed to be modded, creating a culture of acceptance that each DM's table would be different. 5e aims* for that same culture of acceptance, but it's not baroque. It's often ambiguous, because it's written a natural-language style rather than precisely-defined jargon, and it calls explicitly for DM judgment often. Which accomplishes something of the same thing: encouraging the players to accept DM rulings and variants as just part of playing the game.

OTOH, AL has, in essence, predefined rulings and a consistent ruleset for organized play.
Best of both worlds, in a way.









* purposefully. I get the impression that, back in the day, it was more or less an accident, or maybe a reflection of the precursor Midwest-wargamer community.

 

[ninjayeti]

My roommate put a spoiler and ground effects on his Civic. Does that make Honda the Bethesda of car makers?

My Grandma likes to make cookies using almond flower so my gluten-free cousin can eat them. Does that make Betty Crocker the Bethesda of cookbooks?

I upgraded the video card on my desktop when it stopped running the latest games. Does that make Dell the Bethesda of hardware manufacturers?

My co-worker constantly has a new tattoo or piercing. Does that make God the Bethesda of deities?

The fact that people customize X and people also customize Y isn't a a particularly deep parallel and doesn't imply that the original product is unfinished or incomplete.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Even though Gary Gygax went through phases where he declared that if you weren't playing it as written, you weren't playing D&D, yes, we all tweaked it. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone playing 1e exactly as written (Personally, looking at you weapons vs. armor table!). Heck, even 2e started to encourage it with some of the optional rules.

If Wizards has to be a videogame company, I'm fine with it being Bethesda. Better that than the toxic bro-culture of Riot.

I feel that we have ALWAYS patched, expanded, and tweaked, as intended.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think the OP has it backwards. WoTC the anti-Bethesda. Bethesda peaked in 2011 and 2015 with Skyrim and Fallout 4. And has dropped like a rock with quality games since. Fallout 76 was an absolute disaster. WoTC o the other hand, has gone from a controversial divisive game people either loved or hated in that time period, to a super popular game lauded as excellent by most critics, and is getting better and better (compare Tyranny of Dragons with more recent campaigns).

 

[Leatherhead]

This is NOT a dig. I love Fallout and The Elder Scrolls.

Then why did you use the name "Bethesda"? You could have picked any other mod-friendly company, and not one known for screwing up one of their latest games so badly that it spawned multiple lawsuits.