WotC: Goodbye, Loren Greenwood, hello Greg Leeds

[Aus_Snow]

I fear for your metal health if you do.

I hear 4e is like, totally metal.

 

[Monkey Boy]

Eh, somehow D&D and everyone else got along without such a thing for 25 years before. Nothing would be substancially different if it didn't exist now.

WOW just WOW.

The OGL gave us:

Great 3rd party products - Arcana Unearthed, Ptolus, Pathfinder etc
New rules that were incorporated into later editions - action points anyone?
Game designers who influence the direction of future editions - Mike Mearls
Inspiring campaign worlds - I personally am a fan of Midnight

Thanks, in no small part to the OGL, DnD looks vibrant to me. Why should we give up on the DnD renaissance and go back to the way things were?

I would argue DnD would be substantially different with no OGL. Variety and choice is the spice of life.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Thanks, in no small part to the OGL, DnD looks vibrant to me. Why should we give up on the DnD renaissance and go back to the way things were?

A lot of the innovations started with other game systems before they were ported over to D&D.

I would argue DnD would be substantially different with no OGL. Variety and choice is the spice of life.

I would totally agree with you on that. In fact, I'd say that if 4th edition is not open as they've promised, there's a very good chance that enough of a segment of the market will revert back to 3rd edition that it will be a viable system to continue publishing for.

 

[WayneLigon]

See, I am trying to understand your position. And if D&D wasn't a success when Gary or Peter was in charge, then either you are saying D&D was a success under Lorraine and Hasbro, or you are saying that D&D was never a bona fide success. Since Lorraine Williams drove the company into bankruptcy, and we have 3 editions in 9 years with Hasbro, I just can't see the first.

So the alternative is that D&D was never a genuine success.

I am saying that D&D's sucess was the result of things beyond the control of any company; luck, for lack of a better word. No-one can say what will and will not 'catch on'. Who knew that Titanic of all things would go on to become a billion-dollar film? Who would have thought that Dan Brown, a previous mid-list author at best, would produce a book that had the reach and sucess of The Da Vinci Code? It was simple luck that D&D was a sucess with gamers at the helm; that fact of them being gamers rather than businessmen has nothing to do with it.

One also doesn't need to look at Williams or the Blumes as a case of what happens when business people get control of a company. The Blumes were an aberration; one might even not call them 'businessmen' since a real businessman doesn't treat a company like his own personal ATM, which from all descriptions is just what the Blumes did. They constructed things so they were not answerable to anyone but themselves, which is a recipe for disaster. It's an example of a poorly-run, sick company.

2 (I guess you count 3.5 as a seperate edition, which I don't think should be done) editions in 9 years with Hasbro is more like par for the course and in fact is rather conservative; the whole 'ten years between editions' that occured previously is what happens when a company doesn't listen to it's customers. It was an aberration, something that doesn't normally occur. I think if things had gone as they should, we'd have seen a cleaned-up AD&D in about 1984, 1985, then a much richer edition in 1990, something closer to what 3E is like. By now, we should be well into 5E and probably speculating on what 6E will be like.

 

[WayneLigon]

I would argue DnD would be substantially different with no OGL. Variety and choice is the spice of life.

I can't see how D&D would be any different at all. They've made virtually no use of the third-party innovations and variants to their system.

If you wanted real variety, then the OGL was poison to that; before 3E there were a lot of second-tier RPGs. 2e and TSR's troubles cost D&D tons of market share and other games blossomed as a result. 3E pretty much stopped all RPG development as everyone and their brother chased d20 dollars and switched to D&D development. There wasn't a reason to develop anything else.

About the only innovative thing you could point to would be M&M/True20.

 

[Aris Dragonborn]

I know its long shot but is it possible that the gsl delay is tied to the new president? (be it that he is ether the fix or a cause.)

I don't doubt it. Hell at this point I won't be surprised if decided to kill GSL because he felt that it would be giving DnD's competitors an "edge in the game" so to speak.

Maybe there's another possibility?

What are the chances that this new guy is arguing for the scrapping of the GSL and the release of 4E under the current OGL?

 

[Holy Bovine]

My personal experience has been different. I've never met a person with an MBA that I would let manage a lemonade stand, let alone a company. They have shown me a complete lack of understanding of those that work for them AND a total failure to grasp reality. If it doesn't fit their preconceived notion of how the world works, it gets ignored. I believe that at some point in the process of acquiring an MBA the brain is killed off. It is then replaced by an overwhelming sense of importance and entitlement.

Again, I want a gamer to head WoTC.

Frankly I'd rather see the company fold than turn D&D into a tabletop MMO/wargame.

3.5: The Last Edition of D&D.

Does all that hate and bitterness keep you warm at night? :\

 

[Joshua Randall]

My opinion is based on watching and dealing with management types for twenty-four years.

If your experience is different I would love to hear it. Mine has shown that a company succeeds in spite of its management, not because of it. That the people who do things actually handle the running of the place. Management a pretty much just figureheads. Highly paid figureheads mind you. But figureheads.

Ah, I see. The typical cheaply cynical management-are-idiots, up-with-the-little-people, response.

I'm truly sorry that The Man is Keeping You Down (tm), but as always, your personal experience does not translate universally.

I have worked with plenty of MBAs in the course of my career. A few of them were idiots who couldn't find their behinds with two hands. Most of them were average. A few of them were exceptionally bright, motivated, and leaders of men.

Just like non-MBAs, they run the gamut.

 

[jdrakeh]

I would argue DnD would be substantially different with no OGL. Variety and choice is the spice of life.

I think that D&D would no longer be a viable brand name without the advent of the OGL. In fact, I think that it would no longer be in print. At the time WotC acquired D&D from TSR, it had been accumulating debt, not profit, which is why TSR was in the hole and WotC inherited that huge warehouse full of unsold product dating back to 1977. People who think that D&D was doing "just fine" without the intervention of WotC and their brave, new, marketing model are living in a fantasy world all their own. Before WotC acquired D&D, both its former publisher and the brand name were on life support.

 

[Desdichado]

I've seen too many marketers and MBA holders convinced that they could "manage anything". I want the head guy at WoTC to be a gamer. Not some marketing suit. This is another example that WoTC is headed in the wrong direction. Nothing good will come of this.

Most gamers probably couldn't manage any business more complex than a taco stand. As evidence, I offer this thread.