WotC WotC blacklist. Discussion

[vecna00]

I don't even remember those booklets, so no, not just them. They sound like yet another facet of one hell of a spectacular crash-crash. A lot of it was presentation. You might not have been there, but 3E also did a whole thing where it slayed a ton of sacred cows and crowed about it, but it did it with much better judgment and presentation.

It was a whole top-to-bottom thing, including but not limited to:

1) Releasing two D&D 4E trailers, neither of which really explained what was good about 4E. I can't find one of them anymore, which I think was edited version of the other one (shorter and with more footage of 4E). Anyway, the longer one managed to feature:

• A 4 minute "D&D through the ages" video in which 3 minutes were spent ragging on 1/2/3.5E D&D, on the basis of "crap minis" for 1E (which presupposed we even used them), "THAC0 sucked" for 2E (sure but that was a solved problem), and for 3.5E, "overcomplicated rules" (which was more reasonable, but ironically what they mocked was almost as bad in 4E).
• No coverage of what was good about 4E at all (the shorter video might have had a bit). So they only attacked other products.
• They're shown using programs to run 4E that were not available at release, or indeed ever.
• All four players are shown as bro-nerd-type 20-ish white men. In all eras. And yeah by 2008 that was absolutely bizarre. The '90s was the last time something like that would have made sense.
• The presentation was buy a guy with a snooty faux-continental (French-ish) accent, who was looking down on proceedings. It really seemed like a bad Simpsons bit, but it wasn't intended as a full on joke/ironic, it was intended that you agreed with him.

I've seen a lot of marketing go wrong over the years, especially in video games, but if we're looking at a single, ill-judged piece of marketing, this is maybe the worst I've ever seen. Normally bad marketing aligns with the product, but the broader audience doesn't like it - like a swimwear advert in the UK which was seen as just nasty towards anyone not super-slim/athletic, but frankly, the swimwear wasn't marketed to them, so it probably didn't damage sales (though it did damage the brand longer-term, when they tried to expand beyond that). This was just bizarrely and incomprehensibly self-destructive. It's like if, say, Bethesda put out an advert for Elder Scrolls 6 (I.e. Skyrim 2), and went out of its way to say how Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim all sucked nuts, and suggested that people only liked them because they were "of the period", then said the new TES game would be better, but didn't show how, except for maybe a screenshot of content which ultimately wasn't in the game. If you were actively looking to sabotage 4E, this video would be a good thing to release.

2) A general barrage of marketing across various channels which was to the tone of "4E is better than your dumb previous editions". Now, if D&D was coming off an then-unpopular edition most people had already mostly abandoned, like say, 2E, that might have flown. But 3.XE had been vastly popular and people had invested literally thousands in it, across both WotC and 3PP projects. So just calling it dumb and actually emphasizing incompatibility, that was a bad, bad move. You've got to make people think it's their own idea to change, not insult them. There was a generally "get in the car, loser, we're going to 4E!" sort of vibe, which was not smart.

The booklets were probably part of this.

3) Various tone-deaf comments from D&D and WotC management and designers. There were too many to record here, but the most spectacular one was a senior WotC guy comparing 4E to World of Warcraft, and talking about WotC's digital ambitions. Now, the actual statement was not unreasonable, and I think matches WotC's long-term goals still, but the specific language, and the vagueness created the "4E is WoW" meme (even though he was referring solely to digital/retention ambitions, not gameplay), and that really opened up a giant can of worms.

4) A series of other animated videos which were quite well-animated and charming, but didn't really sell 4E, and obviously were not aimed very well, and served to add to alienation more than subtract from it, especially in the context of the other bad messaging. If the rest of the marketing had been good, they might have been okay, but they added insult to injury, really.

5) The change from GSL to OGL and how it was presented. 3.XE was extremely 3PP-friendly. It was actually revolutionary in how 3PP-friendly it was, via the how OGL and d20 business. It had a massive impact on the market, and made a lot of D&D players really 3PP companies and desire products from them. WotC worked with 3PPs like Paizo, letting them handle Dragon and so on.

With 4E, that all changed, and they handled the presentation of why/how it was changing really badly. First they were extremely mysterious, and all we and the 3PPs knew was "things were going to change", then they announced their plans, and they attempted to extremely low-key with them, and to make it so only the 3PPs knew, but obviously that would never work. So fans found out, and were frankly appalled, because WotC was charging 3PPs to be onboard for 4E's release, getting rid of the OGL, and basically setting up the GSL so 4E wouldn't be attractive to 3PPs at all. And WotC very poor and limited marketing/PR around this, and never explained any benefits to customers that would come from it.

I could go on, because there was more, and that's just the marketing. A lot of other issues might have been far less significant if the marketing hadn't been so spectacularly badly handled though. I'd go as far as to say that if the marketing had been actively good, instead of actively terrible, Pathfinder might never have been more than a niche thing, and whilst I think parts of 4E would always have been controversial, I think they'd have been different ones, and smaller ones.

I wasn't as active on boards at the time, or even reading them, and I missed all of this. I'm kinda glad that I did...but that one part of me is sad that I didn't get to see the flaming dumpster floating in the flood waters in real time.

 

[haakon1]

If others forget the controversies in this thread, as I thankfully had, here’s some explanations.

Zak Smith - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Satine Phoenix - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Mercurius]

"A respected Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, might have been the first to raise the alarm about the effects of information overload. In a landmark book, he described how the modern world overwhelmed people with data and that this overabundance was both “confusing and harmful” to the mind. The media now echo his concerns with reports on the unprecedented risks of living in an “always on” digital environment. It’s worth noting that Gessner, for his part, never once used e-mail and was completely ignorant about computers. That’s not because he was a technophobe but because he died in 1565. His warnings referred to the seemingly unmanageable flood of information unleashed by the printing press."

A history of media technology scares, from the printing press to Facebook.

A respected Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, might have been the first to raise the alarm about the effects of information overload. In a landmark...

slate.com

Mental Illness is "becoming more common" because the stigma around being mentally ill is breaking down. Instead of having the "Weird Uncle no one talks about" people actually move toward and get the accommodations they need, these days. In part because people are more connected to identities and experiences beyond their own neighborhood. It's not more common, it's just more accepted that people have -always- been neurodivergent in various ways.

Here's the rate of Left Handedness by Birth in the 20th Century.

What happened in the 1920s and 30s to result in three times as many Lefties as in the previous decades that it stayed flat 'til the 2000s?

People stopped tying kids' left arm to their desk and forcing them to write right handed is what happened. Once we stopped caring about someone writing in a sinister fashion, people stopped pretending to not be left-handed to avoid the stigma.

Same reason there's more trans people around, these days. Gay people, too. As the stigma falls away, we're free to be ourselves and exist in our own lives.

Also of note: This "Everyone's got a mental illness these days!" screed is pretty much a rehash of the late 80s through the 90s "Everyone's got a therapist" and "Everyone's got a neurosis" screed that was so common it became a media trope to harp on in movies, TV shows, and magazine articles.

As far as breakdowns: You're just seeing more of them. They're not more common than they've ever been, they're just more -visible-. In the past people would have their breakdown in private and no one would notice, often to their -extreme- detriment. These days? When someone has a breakdown their friends know about it and rally. Either because they're at least digitally connected when the breakdown hits, or when their friend is gone for the better part of a day they reach out instead of shrugging their shoulders.

But that's been a more and more common thing to happen since the Telephone became massively popular across the world. Probably best shown in Media with the craze of showing Teenage Girls -constantly- on the phone (only one line in the house) back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s before Cell Phones became popular...

And then girls were on their cell phones in media in the 2000s and 2010s.

Why? 'Cause in reality, teenage girls (and all other teens, but less visibly because of misogynistic stigma of the time) were staying in contact with their friends more than previous generations did to a point their parents found uncomfortable.

Anyway. Here's another paragraph from that first article that's really relevant to your post:

"There is, in fact, a host of research that directly tackles these issues. To date, studies suggest there is no consistent evidence that the Internet causes mental problems. If anything, the data show that people who use social networking sites actually tend to have better offline social lives, while those who play computer games are better than nongamers at absorbing and reacting to information with no loss of accuracy or increased impulsiveness. In contrast, the accumulation of many years of evidence suggests that heavy television viewing does appear to have a negative effect on our health and our ability to concentrate. We almost never hear about these sorts of studies anymore because television is old hat, technology scares need to be novel, and evidence that something is safe just doesn’t make the grade in the shock-horror media agenda."

A very interesting and well-written post.

While I agree with the gist of many of your points, there are a few points I'd like to raise - not as disagreements, but hopefully complementary variations on the theme.

1) I think part of the problem is that we're still relatively early into the "information age." Or rather, there are various unfoldings, in terms of when certain technologies became available (becoming ubiquitous sometime after):

c. 1500 Print
c. 1900 Recordings
c. 1900 Cinema
c. 1910 Radio
c. 1950 TV
c. 1990 Internet
c. 2000 mobile phones
c. 2010 smartphones

With Boomers, we had our first generation for whom TV was always part of their lives. With most Millenials, the internet; and now with Zennials, it is smartphones and a huge increase in social media forms. Not only are we still early in the latest cycle, but understanding the type and degree of influence is very, very difficult, and not only probably won't be understandable for years to come, but may also depend upon the worldview that is approaching such a question - that is, what we value.

2) Scientific studies, in my opinion, should be taken with a grain of salt. Not thrown out, but not used as some kind of final arbiter of what is or is not true. In fact, there was one scientific study that theorized that about 50% of all scientific studies are flawed, even complete bunk. And we should know by now that two sides of just about any discussion can cite scientific studies to bolster their point.

Again, this doesn't mean they're entirely useless, just that they shouldn't be used as some kind of absolute proof - which they frequently are.

In that regard, I don't think scientific studies should negate our personal experience. For me, too much "screen time" just feels unhealthy in a variety of ways. I don't need a scientific study to tell me whether that is true or not (although, unfortunately, I still engage in too much screen time!).

On a personal note, I have two daughters, 13 and 17. I got them their first tablets about 5 years ago, and their first iPhones about 3 years ago, decisions that I somewhat regret. My younger daughter, in particular, has a very difficult time with it, and exhibits real signs of addictive behavior.

Now we can say, "No scientific study says that X number of hours on devices leads to this or that problem," but I can tell you that my experience, as a parent, is that the overall effect is negative - at least to the degree that she uses it (my older daughter is more moderate). She does less art, doesn't like to read, and constantly feels like she needs to be in contact with her social circle, which in turn makes it harder for her to entertain herself, or simply be alone.

That said, as with every past form of technology, I think the key is a healthy balance - and for us to master it, rather than it master us. The problem, though, is that the makers of such devices actually design their products to be addictive, so it is a hard battle to win when there is a profit motive involved. But we live in a world where 99.9% of us "have to" engage in these technologies to varying degrees--not to mention the enormous benefits, like being able to have this conversation--and in the case of my daughters, I do feel that it would do more harm than good if I took them away from them. My 13-year old's main focus is her social life - that is entirely appropriate and healthy for her age. I just wish she could balance it more with other activities that didn't require devices, screens, etc. A work in progress!

3) With regards to mental illnesses, and other "non-normative" expressions, being more prevalent because they are less stigmatized, I mostly agree. Yet there is a problem I want to highlight with such terms as "neurodivergence," because it feels like a bandaid fix that somewhat re-enforces what it is seeking to solve, rather than a more transformative shift in our perception of human diversity. Meaning, it still implies that one is "divergent from the norm" - which also implies that there is a norm. I'd much rather see us embrace a worldview that softens up the definition of "normal" so that it includes "divergence" and even, eventually, does away with both terms, so that we're simply left with human diversity. Baby steps, I guess.

Meaning, my hope is that we move more and more towards a culture in which any and all such labels can be dissolved, or at least malleable, and we can simply embrace human diversity without needing to label or codify it. To some degree, this is true of a lot of what we call "mental illness" - much of it is just based upon what a particular society views as mentally ill or not - that is, to what degree an individual fits into norms, and/or can succeed in the society as it is (without questioning the root assumptions of the society).

To illustrate this, I am reminded of something a student said to me some years ago. She remarked that a lot of the basic assumptions of the school, especially in terms of grading, were based upon extroversion, that introverts had a disadvantage and it implied that being extroverted was "better" than being introverted. I completely agree(d) with her - and think a lot of this is hardwired into our value system, which in turn perpetuates the society that we live in, the emphasis on economic growth, myth of progress, conformity, etc etc, rather than strange ideas like human well-being, equality, uniqueness, diversity, etc.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

i am all over the map on this one... I don't trust blacklists...

yes "I am not doing business with bad people" sounds great, as long as you agree with who bad people are.

lets say I root for team orange, and you root for team purple. but some people in public say that anyone rooting form team orange must be bad people... and other on team orange say the same about rooting for team purple... it leads to issues.

110% right, although I don't think enworld is blacklisted, like Paul said enworld wouldn't be in the survey if they were, no I think its as simple as compared to major outlets like Forbes, enworld is a small fish, and WotC wants to set its bait fof big fish, not a small fish that catches itself and is already in the boat drinking WotCs beer before WotC even puts the bait on the hook.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't even remember those booklets, so no, not just them. They sound like yet another facet of one hell of a spectacular crash-crash. A lot of it was presentation. You might not have been there, but 3E also did a whole thing where it slayed a ton of sacred cows and crowed about it, but it did it with much better judgment and presentation.

It was a whole top-to-bottom thing, including but not limited to:

1) Releasing two D&D 4E trailers, neither of which really explained what was good about 4E. I can't find one of them anymore, which I think was edited version of the other one (shorter and with more footage of 4E). Anyway, the longer one managed to feature:

• A 4 minute "D&D through the ages" video in which 3 minutes were spent ragging on 1/2/3.5E D&D, on the basis of "crap minis" for 1E (which presupposed we even used them), "THAC0 sucked" for 2E (sure but that was a solved problem), and for 3.5E, "overcomplicated rules" (which was more reasonable, but ironically what they mocked was almost as bad in 4E).
• No coverage of what was good about 4E at all (the shorter video might have had a bit). So they only attacked other products.
• They're shown using programs to run 4E that were not available at release, or indeed ever.
• All four players are shown as bro-nerd-type 20-ish white men. In all eras. And yeah by 2008 that was absolutely bizarre. The '90s was the last time something like that would have made sense.
• The presentation was by a guy with a snooty faux-continental (French-ish) accent, who was looking down on proceedings. It really seemed like a bad Simpsons bit, but it wasn't intended as a full on joke/ironic, it was intended that you agreed with him.

I've seen a lot of marketing go wrong over the years, especially in video games, but if we're looking at a single, ill-judged piece of marketing, this is maybe the worst I've ever seen. Normally bad marketing aligns with the product, but the broader audience doesn't like it - like a swimwear advert in the UK which was seen as just nasty towards anyone not super-slim/athletic, but frankly, the swimwear wasn't marketed to them, so it probably didn't damage sales (though it did damage the brand longer-term, when they tried to expand beyond that). This was just bizarrely and incomprehensibly self-destructive. It's like if, say, Bethesda put out an advert for Elder Scrolls 6 (I.e. Skyrim 2), and went out of its way to say how Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim all sucked nuts, and suggested that people only liked them because they were "of the period", then said the new TES game would be better, but didn't show how, except for maybe a screenshot of content which ultimately wasn't in the game. If you were actively looking to sabotage 4E, this video would be a good thing to release.

2) A general barrage of marketing across various channels which was to the tone of "4E is better than your dumb previous editions". Now, if D&D was coming off an then-unpopular edition most people had already mostly abandoned, like say, 2E, that might have flown. But 3.XE had been vastly popular and people had invested literally thousands in it, across both WotC and 3PP projects. So just calling it dumb and actually emphasizing incompatibility, that was a bad, bad move. You've got to make people think it's their own idea to change, not insult them. There was a generally "get in the car, loser, we're going to 4E!" sort of vibe, which was not smart.

The booklets were probably part of this.

3) Various tone-deaf comments from D&D and WotC management and designers. There were too many to record here, but the most spectacular one was a senior WotC guy comparing 4E to World of Warcraft, and talking about WotC's digital ambitions. Now, the actual statement was not unreasonable, and I think matches WotC's long-term goals still, but the specific language, and the vagueness created the "4E is WoW" meme (even though he was referring solely to digital/retention ambitions, not gameplay), and that really opened up a giant can of worms.

4) A series of other animated videos which were quite well-animated and charming, but didn't really sell 4E, and obviously were not aimed very well, and served to add to alienation more than subtract from it, especially in the context of the other bad messaging. If the rest of the marketing had been good, they might have been okay, but they added insult to injury, really.

5) The change from GSL to OGL and how it was presented. 3.XE was extremely 3PP-friendly. It was actually revolutionary in how 3PP-friendly it was, via the how OGL and d20 business. It had a massive impact on the market, and made a lot of D&D players really 3PP companies and desire products from them. WotC worked with 3PPs like Paizo, letting them handle Dragon and so on.

With 4E, that all changed, and they handled the presentation of why/how it was changing really badly. First they were extremely mysterious, and all we and the 3PPs knew was "things were going to change", then they announced their plans, and they attempted to extremely low-key with them, and to make it so only the 3PPs knew, but obviously that would never work. So fans found out, and were frankly appalled, because WotC was charging 3PPs to be onboard for 4E's release, getting rid of the OGL, and basically setting up the GSL so 4E wouldn't be attractive to 3PPs at all. And WotC very poor and limited marketing/PR around this, and never explained any benefits to customers that would come from it.

I could go on, because there was more, and that's just the marketing. A lot of other issues might have been far less significant if the marketing hadn't been so spectacularly badly handled though. I'd go as far as to say that if the marketing had been actively good, instead of actively terrible, Pathfinder might never have been more than a niche thing, and whilst I think parts of 4E would always have been controversial, I think they'd have been different ones, and smaller ones.

The booklets weren't too bad, they were previews if the new Points of Light assumed Setting with explanations of the new metaphysical assumptuons and cosmology, and introducing new Tieflings and Dragonborn. It did manage to have a tone of "we fixed the cosmology!" and dumped on Greyhawk a bit, which contributed to the alienation.

 

[Parmandur]

Also can someone remind me whether it was in 4E or 5E when a designer was working on it and talking a lot of smack about their design goals, and then ultimately that designer wasn't even part of the team credited in the book? I'm not thinking of Rob Heinsoo. I feel like it was Jonathan Tweet or someone, but maybe not him hmmmm.

Monte Cook was on the 5E design team for a few months early on, amd made some big picture goal statements thst didn't make it all the easy to the final game.

 

[Steampunkette]

I do take a lot of your points to heart, @Mercurius, but there's one I really need to push back on:

Neurodivergence. It's a -great- word and it was chosen largely by the neurodivergent community to replace stigmatized labels. And we -need- labels. We -need- these words. We just need them to lose their stigma.

In a world without labels you can't easily express who you are. I'm a trans woman. I'm -incredibly- happy that people treat me like a cis woman in my interactions with day to day life. Particularly -here-. And particularly the staff at EN Publishing who don't treat me any different from anyone else...

But I have unique perspectives and experiences that no cis man or cis woman ever will. No trans man or nonbinary person, either. And that is an important aspect of who I am, inside. And sometimes it's important to be able to express that information and that understanding.

Same thing with my Neurodivergence which includes a disability. Same thing with my sexuality and where I've lived and what I've accomplished. My career, my job, my joys.

Each of these things, writer, ADHD, trans, bisexual, American, Georgian, wife, and Nerd above all else tell a story to anyone who hears them and combine to help tell the story of Me.

Labels, like any word, can help us to express who we are to the world around us. An act for which the English language is -woefully- inadequate. Every word, every label, we take on helps to express who we are.

The pushback against labels is nice in theory. It prioritizes a world where stigma is erased which is great! But what is lost along the way in that world is a lot of language that can help people understand who they are, why they feel that way, and how to approach their life with information and self-awareness.

 

[MGibster]

The pushback against labels is nice in theory. It prioritizes a world where stigma is erased which is great! But what is lost along the way in that world is a lot of language that can help people understand who they are, why they feel that way, and how to approach their life with information and self-awareness.

I've always been a bit amused by science fiction/fantasy stories where humans run into some intelligent creatures who are bemused that we insist upon labeling so many things. How useful has it been to so many people to finally be able to put a name to something they didn't understand at first? To know that other people have experienced the same thing?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The booklets weren't too bad, they were previews if the new Points of Light assumed Setting with explanations of the new metaphysical assumptuons and cosmology, and introducing new Tieflings and Dragonborn. It did manage to have a tone of "we fixed the cosmology!" and dumped on Greyhawk a bit, which contributed to the alienation.

I mean, I won't hear much against 4E's cosmology, and it's been one of the parts of 4E that has survived more than others (The Feywild and the Shadowfell were the best bits of it and remain intact in 5E), but yeah, more insulting of earlier editions/settings would not have been smart in that context.

 

[Mercurius]

I do take a lot of your points to heart, @Mercurius, but there's one I really need to push back on:

Neurodivergence. It's a -great- word and it was chosen largely by the neurodivergent community to replace stigmatized labels. And we -need- labels. We -need- these words. We just need them to lose their stigma.

In a world without labels you can't easily express who you are. I'm a trans woman. I'm -incredibly- happy that people treat me like a cis woman in my interactions with day to day life. Particularly -here-. And particularly the staff at EN Publishing who don't treat me any different from anyone else...

But I have unique perspectives and experiences that no cis man or cis woman ever will. No trans man or nonbinary person, either. And that is an important aspect of who I am, inside. And sometimes it's important to be able to express that information and that understanding.

Same thing with my Neurodivergence which includes a disability. Same thing with my sexuality and where I've lived and what I've accomplished. My career, my job, my joys.

Each of these things, writer, ADHD, trans, bisexual, American, Georgian, wife, and Nerd above all else tell a story to anyone who hears them and combine to help tell the story of Me.

Labels, like any word, can help us to express who we are to the world around us. An act for which the English language is -woefully- inadequate. Every word, every label, we take on helps to express who we are.

The pushback against labels is nice in theory. It prioritizes a world where stigma is erased which is great! But what is lost along the way in that world is a lot of language that can help people understand who they are, why they feel that way, and how to approach their life with information and self-awareness.

Yes, I totally hear you on this, and understand the usefulness--even solace--of such labels. But they also can be restrictive, and produce negative results (e.g. people seeing you as the label/identity before the human being). That's why I see the labelling as a necessary transitional stage towards the more idealistic future that I envision where such things will be unnecessary or, at the least, more malleable and less defining. Or maybe this is my Buddhist upbringing, in which who we are is ultimately undefinable - beyond any labels or identities (that is, pure awareness).

I mean, in such a world, such a concept as "neurodivergence" is unnecessary because the nature of human beings is diverse. Or, at least, it can be reframed as the very natural array of colors that the human species expresses itself as - whether neurodivergence, sexuality, gender identity, ideology, personality, etc etc.

I have found this with my eldest daughter, who is on the autistic spectrum (mild) and her neurodivergence offers as many gifts to the world as it does challenges for her. While she struggles with social cues and making friends, she also lacks guile and is also extremely honest -- which the world could use a lot more of! She also has a child-like enthusiasm that many find refreshing and joyous, and I think it would be a shame if people saw this as "because of" her neurodivergence. So while I understand that, according to the DSM and that general paradigm of thinking, she can be labeled as this or that, such a label shouldn't define her. The label can provide benefits - of skills she can learn, communities she can be part of - but it also shouldn't define her as a human being. Meaning, I dislike the idea that "She's honest because she's neurodivergent" rather than "She's honest - that's part of who she is." A subtle but crucial difference.

I also come at this from my studies in mental health counseling. I liked my Abnormal Psychology professor's approach: He continually said, "You don't have to believe the labels, but you have to understand it for practical purposes." He was a Jungian psychologist and disliked the conventional paradigm of diagnosis, but still recognized the importance of understanding it for, if nothing else, insurance purposes. I mean, we do have to live in the world we find ourselves in - yet at the same time, push for the most beautiful world we can imagine.