JohnSnow said:
But getting angry over losing a magazine? Come on. Haven't you ever had anything really BAD happen? Save your emotional energy for something that actually matters.
(...) But to each their own.
I'll quote myself again if you don't mind (That's just that I don't want to retype the same thing, basically):
Dragon/Dungeon, DragonLance, 4E looming around the corner, the "Digital Initiative" (whatever it may be)... all this stuff really got me upset for the past few days, and it made me think about "why" I would say such things as "my feeling right now is indeed reminiscent of the passing of my mother a year ago". Strong words indeed, which, like the words of dozens of other fans out there, are now being discarded as being a sign of "gross overreacting" (while [...] these are in fact signs of love and care for the game many people didn't even think they had in them, which is far more noble than a lot of rational thoughts I've read around).
To be frank, I did not understand "why" I reacted this emotionally, this strongly to all these events, and I needed to understand.
I don't think WotC designers are evil. I don't think R&D or Marketing guys are evil (even though I do think the situation is handled extremely poorly). I don't think WotC or Hasbro's CEOs are evil. I don't think the stock holders are evil. I don't think people are the ones who upset me on this one.
No. What upsets me, that's the system that spawns such a situation. My father was CEO of a small company. I've been working under contract with the Canadian government. I'm in love with our hobby. All these things sort of combined in my head during these past few days.
My father used to talk about what he calls "the critical mass of companies", his own pet theory that there is a point at which a given company starts to lose its humanity and sense of personal responsabilities. Decisions are not taken by any individual in particular but as a collective and shady "we" that erases all responsabilities and all moral thought to concentrate the efforts of the company towards what many call the "bottom line": the dividends stock holders get from one year to the next, which forces CEO and employees to concentrate on this as well, or they're simply out of the equation.
I do believe my dad's pet theory is true. True to a point that sort of hit home several times in my life already, but this time, with the events we are discussing here, it really went right through my heart.
What do I love so much about D&D that makes me purchase so much stuff, want to participate in the life of the game, admire the works of designers [who] make me want to do the same? That's because I love the craft. D&D is a craft by which one (a designer) crafts a tool to be used by yet another craftsman (DMs and players). There is thus an incredible connexion between the maker and the user, a line that is blurred between the guy who creates the game and the one who uses it, which are in my mind interchangeable roles (that's the concept I had behind Bifrost, the image I was using of the bridge between the gamer and the designer, that we're all the same somehow).
I think that tabletop RPGs are meant to be labors of love, of one craftsman to the other. The quality of such products as Ptolus convince me of that point I'm trying to make. So, the more a RPG company grows, the more it disconnects from the core concept of what a tabletop RPG ought to be. That could be said for any type of company vis à vis its customers, but that's particularly visible with tabletop RPGs because of their nature as a craft.
I think tabletop RPGs shouldn't be in the hands of big business and interest, to make myself clear. I think that if that means less minis, less glossy paper, PDF only... whatever, so be it. What I want is the craft. I want to see guys who love the game as much as I do share their passion with all the gamers around. What I don't want is for tabletop RPGs to be the next Mars bar you buy at the grocery store.
That makes me think "hell, if that means tabletop RPGs aren't ever going to be more popular with the grand public as they are now (regardless of the actual feasibility of the thing), so be it -I don't want them to be popular!"
That's what I'm at in my reflexions of the past few days. That's why, far from "hating" anyone at WotC, I'm really not eager to purchase anything by WotC right now. That's why I admire the way the Paizo guys are using the opportunity to create good products that genuinely pick my interest.
It all comes together in my mind.
This is not the usual "rant" for me. This is not the kind of stuff I get mad about for a couple of days and then forget about it to just buy 4E the next year. See what I mean?
