While I understand why you might feel like some products are cash grabs, you don't have to buy them. So far, they haven't updated any of the core three books, and the only ones that you need to play with.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
For me, this is exactly what is destroying a lot of things, including D&D, but I would hardly say it's WotC's fault. Although I don't personally approve of the upcoming changes in Tasha and will not be implementing them at our table, I believe that WotC is just trying to survive in an environment of such toxicity that there is simply no way out when you are producing a game such as D&D. Remember that D&D has been almost destroyed right a short time after it started by this ?
It is a small group of gamers that are upset on this, mostly in Twitter and Instagram. You never give creative control to a small vocal mob. When you do that, especially for a fantasy game that relies heavily on its lore, you can kiss your profit margins down the drain. You always and I mean always ignore the mob and never engage. Remember watching the horrible racist "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" ? What you don't consider it racist, why? There was a concerted effort by twitter trolls to get Tina Fey's scalp for using one of their actors as native American for the joke. Tina Fey didn't acknowledge them and continued on with the show to critical acclaim. Its how you handle an outrage mob.
In a way I'm sorry that Weis and Hickman got negative fallback about their production, but can you honestly be sure that what they were producing would not have put WotC in deeper problems considering the global environment ?
The writers complied with the changes requested by WotC editors. WotC replaced the two women editors who were reviewing the new DL series, with a two men, one of which Nic Kelman, has a novel that "was a controversial choice" due to questions of "misogyny and pedophilia" raised about his 2019 Girls: A Paean. It's like hiring Goebell's to review a book to be critical on Nazi's as the editor.
Finally, although I remember Dragonlance with a lot of nostalgia (and in particular the art, which was unbelievable at the time), in all honesty the books were not that well written (as were all of the books by the pair, I would never ever pick them up again today for re-reading which is not the case of most of the other fantasy that I've been reading through the years), the modules were a massive railroad-fest and I have very mixed souvenirs of playing with a DM insisting that we recreate exactly what was in the books and roleplay the characters exactly as written while not being allowed to read them.
If part of your bad memories of DL is because you allowed yourself to play bad D&D, remember that was your decision. You can always leave. The modules for DL are set to be rail roads. That being written, when you act as the DM you can always change them to suit your purpose or create new characters to take the place of supposed plot armor characters. It just requires a bit more work. Those DL modules can be made to be very good, with time. Hell with anything from 5E, I spend a lot of time trying to put something in that would get the characters involved.
I use unrelated modules and string them together with a cohesive plot over a long period of time and its half the fun to figure out how to tie Lost Mines of Phandelver, Red Hand of Doom and Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth together while moving the story on.
While I understand why you might feel like some products are cash grabs, you don't have to buy them. So far, they haven't updated any of the core three books, and the only ones that you need to play with.
I've read every post in this thread up to this point and I have to say, I'm really confused about what is being discussed.
People are mad because WoTC is working to be non-discriminatory? People are mad because a book isn't getting published? People are mad because optional rules are being added to a game that is designed to be adjusted by the players to fit their own player experience? People are mad because a company is trying to make money? because that is what the thread seems like its been about to me.
What I've heard people say is that they think the optional species rules will remove individuality from characters and is caused by "SJW's" (I hate that term) or people on Twitter. I'm not one of those people, but this is what I have perceived form their arguments.
How in the F can someone be upset about something that is OPTIONAL.
I've read every post in this thread up to this point and I have to say, I'm really confused about what is being discussed.
People are mad because WoTC is working to be non-discriminatory? People are mad because a book isn't getting published? People are mad because optional rules are being added to a game that is designed to be adjusted by the players to fit their own player experience? People are mad because a company is trying to make money? because that is what the thread seems like its been about to me.
What I've heard people say is that they think the optional species rules will remove individuality from characters and is caused by "SJW's" (I hate that term) or people on Twitter. I'm not one of those people, but this is what I have perceived form their arguments.
How in the F can someone be upset about something that is OPTIONAL.
I'm not really sure. Maybe people think that it will eventually become the only option?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
1) Despite many people asking for specifics, OP has yet to actually state what specific changes and events are bothering him, and hasn't articulated exactly what about those changes are bothersome. This leads me to believe that OP generally spends much of their time inside an echo chamber, with a group of people without diverse opinions who aren't used to dealing with people who may have different opinions.
2) OP also seems to never consider that maybe the people making many of these decisions, like Perkins and Crawford, actually have motivation beyond 'corporate greed'. Like 'Hey, I see how some of these things are problematic and I want to fix them'.
3) The Dragonlance case seems complicated. It may be related to problematic depictions of races like tinker gnomes, gully dwarves and kender. It may be related to something else. Weis and Hickman having a contract canceled is not a slight inconvenience for them. All of this will be litigated. Dragonlance just wasn't really a good setting anyways. I read all the books when I was younger. But reading them now, they were poorly written, with lame characters, generic plots. There was nothing about the setting that made it particularly more compelling than other generic fantasy settings.
4) The problems being addressed are actually somewhat subtle and complex, and contrary to popular belief, are not as simple as 'People think orcs represent black people.' In fact, that is not the problem at all.
5) OP seems to draw a comparison between people wanting WOTC to be more aware of complex racial issues and implications, and WOTC agreeing, to the satanic accusations of the 80s, which is frankly ridiculous
I've read every post in this thread up to this point and I have to say, I'm really confused about what is being discussed.
People are mad because WoTC is working to be non-discriminatory? People are mad because a book isn't getting published? People are mad because optional rules are being added to a game that is designed to be adjusted by the players to fit their own player experience? People are mad because a company is trying to make money? because that is what the thread seems like its been about to me.
What I've heard people say is that they think the optional species rules will remove individuality from characters and is caused by "SJW's" (I hate that term) or people on Twitter. I'm not one of those people, but this is what I have perceived form their arguments.
How in the F can someone be upset about something that is OPTIONAL.
I'm not really sure. Maybe people think that it will eventually become the only option?
To be fair, that has been the argument from some people who are against this. To test the waters and then when the next edition comes out, this is the standard rule instead of optional.
Not that I agree with the argument but I've seen this brought up even here on these forums when the new linage system was first announced.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
I've read every post in this thread up to this point and I have to say, I'm really confused about what is being discussed.
People are mad because WoTC is working to be non-discriminatory? People are mad because a book isn't getting published? People are mad because optional rules are being added to a game that is designed to be adjusted by the players to fit their own player experience? People are mad because a company is trying to make money? because that is what the thread seems like its been about to me.
What I've heard people say is that they think the optional species rules will remove individuality from characters and is caused by "SJW's" (I hate that term) or people on Twitter. I'm not one of those people, but this is what I have perceived form their arguments.
How in the F can someone be upset about something that is OPTIONAL.
I'm not really sure. Maybe people think that it will eventually become the only option?
To be fair, that has been the argument from some people who are against this. To test the waters and then when the next edition comes out, this is the standard rule instead of optional.
Not that I agree with the argument but I've seen this brought up even here on these forums when the new linage system was first announced.
Understood but..
Hasn't just about every recent edition of D&D - especially 5th edition, included OPTIONAL rules. Grim rest variant. Superhero/Arcade variant. Each different than what the rules say in the PHB. A variant for this. A variant for that.
1st, WotC would actually have to turn the currently optional rule into the default in an official book, in an edition that isn't out yet. Hardly something to get up in arms about, but I get it.
2nd, WotC would actually have to remove and stand against ALL options/variants that would allow someone to play as they always have been.
I've read every post in this thread up to this point and I have to say, I'm really confused about what is being discussed.
People are mad because WoTC is working to be non-discriminatory? People are mad because a book isn't getting published? People are mad because optional rules are being added to a game that is designed to be adjusted by the players to fit their own player experience? People are mad because a company is trying to make money? because that is what the thread seems like its been about to me.
What I've heard people say is that they think the optional species rules will remove individuality from characters and is caused by "SJW's" (I hate that term) or people on Twitter. I'm not one of those people, but this is what I have perceived form their arguments.
How in the F can someone be upset about something that is OPTIONAL.
I'm not really sure. Maybe people think that it will eventually become the only option?
To be fair, that has been the argument from some people who are against this. To test the waters and then when the next edition comes out, this is the standard rule instead of optional.
Not that I agree with the argument but I've seen this brought up even here on these forums when the new linage system was first announced.
Understood but..
Hasn't just about every recent edition of D&D - especially 5th edition, included OPTIONAL rules. Grim rest variant. Superhero/Arcade variant. Each different than what the rules say in the PHB. A variant for this. A variant for that.
1st, WotC would actually have to turn the currently optional rule into the default in an official book, in an edition that isn't out yet. Hardly something to get up in arms about, but I get it.
2nd, WotC would actually have to remove and stand against ALL options/variants that would allow someone to play as they always have been.
Again, I see no issue.
Try playing adventurers league, DM and state that those rules aren't implemented. They will most likely will be or if you got one hell of a rules lawyer he'll complain to the owner to get them put in whether you want them put in or not for game play. And if you guy by adventurer leagues rules, you aren't going to have a leg to stand on. Go to tournament play you'll see them again. I run two nights of adventurer league in my area and it tends to attract power gamers. I look forward to the mountain dwarf and half elf overlords for competitive play.
I've read every post in this thread up to this point and I have to say, I'm really confused about what is being discussed.
People are mad because WoTC is working to be non-discriminatory? People are mad because a book isn't getting published? People are mad because optional rules are being added to a game that is designed to be adjusted by the players to fit their own player experience? People are mad because a company is trying to make money? because that is what the thread seems like its been about to me.
What I've heard people say is that they think the optional species rules will remove individuality from characters and is caused by "SJW's" (I hate that term) or people on Twitter. I'm not one of those people, but this is what I have perceived form their arguments.
How in the F can someone be upset about something that is OPTIONAL.
I'm not really sure. Maybe people think that it will eventually become the only option?
To be fair, that has been the argument from some people who are against this. To test the waters and then when the next edition comes out, this is the standard rule instead of optional.
Not that I agree with the argument but I've seen this brought up even here on these forums when the new linage system was first announced.
Understood but..
Hasn't just about every recent edition of D&D - especially 5th edition, included OPTIONAL rules. Grim rest variant. Superhero/Arcade variant. Each different than what the rules say in the PHB. A variant for this. A variant for that.
1st, WotC would actually have to turn the currently optional rule into the default in an official book, in an edition that isn't out yet. Hardly something to get up in arms about, but I get it.
2nd, WotC would actually have to remove and stand against ALL options/variants that would allow someone to play as they always have been.
Again, I see no issue.
I don't either. I do think that the pushback is a bit of an overreaction and I'm happy to see more options for character creation.
But I can also understand the pushback too. I am not someone who personally likes change in my life and it can be hard for me to accept when change happens sometimes. I was even hesitant when Tasha's and these new variant rules were announced. Said so on these forums. But after seeing some more information and seeing others opinions on the matter I've come to accept and even be excited for Tasha's now. So there is no issue from me.
People were always going to be against changes to the current system, even if they were optional. I'm hoping time and more experience with using these optional rules will help simmer down some of the heat people have over them.
I've read every post in this thread up to this point and I have to say, I'm really confused about what is being discussed.
People are mad because WoTC is working to be non-discriminatory? People are mad because a book isn't getting published? People are mad because optional rules are being added to a game that is designed to be adjusted by the players to fit their own player experience? People are mad because a company is trying to make money? because that is what the thread seems like its been about to me.
What I've heard people say is that they think the optional species rules will remove individuality from characters and is caused by "SJW's" (I hate that term) or people on Twitter. I'm not one of those people, but this is what I have perceived form their arguments.
How in the F can someone be upset about something that is OPTIONAL.
I'm not really sure. Maybe people think that it will eventually become the only option?
To be fair, that has been the argument from some people who are against this. To test the waters and then when the next edition comes out, this is the standard rule instead of optional.
Not that I agree with the argument but I've seen this brought up even here on these forums when the new linage system was first announced.
Understood but..
Hasn't just about every recent edition of D&D - especially 5th edition, included OPTIONAL rules. Grim rest variant. Superhero/Arcade variant. Each different than what the rules say in the PHB. A variant for this. A variant for that.
1st, WotC would actually have to turn the currently optional rule into the default in an official book, in an edition that isn't out yet. Hardly something to get up in arms about, but I get it.
2nd, WotC would actually have to remove and stand against ALL options/variants that would allow someone to play as they always have been.
Again, I see no issue.
Try playing adventurers league, DM and state that those rules aren't implemented. They will most likely will be or if you got one hell of a rules lawyer he'll complain to the owner to get them put in whether you want them put in or not for game play. And if you guy by adventurer leagues rules, you aren't going to have a leg to stand on. Go to tournament play you'll see them again. I run two nights of adventurer league in my area and it tends to attract power gamers. I look forward to the mountain dwarf and half elf overlords for competitive play.
I guess I get it, but still.
1) I don't play adventurers league and
2) While I may be very wrong and will own up to it if so, I'm thinking Adventurer's League represents about 2% of the D&D playerbase - therefore, hardly an issue to have to work around.
For me, this is exactly what is destroying a lot of things, including D&D, but I would hardly say it's WotC's fault. Although I don't personally approve of the upcoming changes in Tasha and will not be implementing them at our table, I believe that WotC is just trying to survive in an environment of such toxicity that there is simply no way out when you are producing a game such as D&D. Remember that D&D has been almost destroyed right a short time after it started by this ?
It is a small group of gamers that are upset on this, mostly in Twitter and Instagram. You never give creative control to a small vocal mob. When you do that, especially for a fantasy game that relies heavily on its lore, you can kiss your profit margins down the drain. You always and I mean always ignore the mob and never engage. Remember watching the horrible racist "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" ? What you don't consider it racist, why? There was a concerted effort by twitter trolls to get Tina Fey's scalp for using one of their actors as native American for the joke. Tina Fey didn't acknowledge them and continued on with the show to critical acclaim. Its how you handle an outrage mob.
Well I expect that if it's that easy for you, you will become extremely wealthy very quickly by advising companies how to deal with the very vocal minorities that are given much too much importance these days. It seems that unfortunately WotC were advised by people not as savvy as you are and that they have caved in.
In a way I'm sorry that Weis and Hickman got negative fallback about their production, but can you honestly be sure that what they were producing would not have put WotC in deeper problems considering the global environment ?
The writers complied with the changes requested by WotC editors. WotC replaced the two women editors who were reviewing the new DL series, with a two men, one of which Nic Kelman, has a novel that "was a controversial choice" due to questions of "misogyny and pedophilia" raised about his 2019 Girls: A Paean. It's like hiring Goebell's to review a book to be critical on Nazi's as the editor.
Again, see a few posts above, we don't know enough about the situation (but maybe you do, who knows) to understand what has happened, all this will be litigated and I will not assume that anyone is acting in good faith here especially with what I know of that country, its justice systems and the way litigation works. If anything, the size of the lawsuit for a few years of work for a few people does make it look like we are talking homeless people with no resources, so I'm not going to weep over the situation.
Finally, although I remember Dragonlance with a lot of nostalgia (and in particular the art, which was unbelievable at the time), in all honesty the books were not that well written (as were all of the books by the pair, I would never ever pick them up again today for re-reading which is not the case of most of the other fantasy that I've been reading through the years), the modules were a massive railroad-fest and I have very mixed souvenirs of playing with a DM insisting that we recreate exactly what was in the books and roleplay the characters exactly as written while not being allowed to read them.
If part of your bad memories of DL is because you allowed yourself to play bad D&D, remember that was your decision. You can always leave.
Well, for me, D&D is like pizza and sex, you know ?
Also, I had an opportunity to play what was supposed to be a great campaign, with great people and a DM who was usually great, and I wanted to know how it ended. It was the only opportunity to do it within my club at the time, not that many people commit to run such a long campaign. Nobody would have expected that this great DM would derail into the way it derailed, but all the players stayed because we wanted to know how the story ended. It was not my best experience for sure, but it was not my worst, I could play Goldmoon at start (really not my favourite since the DM expected me to play her insignificant like in the books), but then Laurana and that was much, much better.
The modules for DL are set to be rail roads.
And then, I'm sorry but that is exactly my complaint about the whole thing. Like I said, I really liked the art, it brought characters to life. Unfortunately, the characters are simple and rather boring, the stories not that engaging, the books poorly written and therefore the modules which do their best to strap on encounters to follow poor books as much as possible are really bad. Not to mention ridiculously balanced, the encounter at the end of the first module is just totally deadly and there's no way it can be managed without a TPK if you are playing honestly. And it's even worse when the DM ties your hands behind your back because he expects you to play as stupidly as the characters in the book.
Moreover, the whole world and story are not that original, and although there are a few inventive things in there, they are spread really thin. And let us not forget about the ultra-annoying kenders and the horrible gully dwarves, who are "funny" for a whole 5 minutes and then annoy you for the remaining 3 years. So no, I don't have any specific fondness for Dragonlance, and I believe that I'm entitled to my opinion since I actually played the whole series from beginning to end, read all the books, etc.
That being written, when you act as the DM you can always change them to suit your purpose or create new characters to take the place of supposed plot armor characters. It just requires a bit more work. Those DL modules can be made to be very good, with time.
Maybe they can, but with a lot of work, and for that you also need to be willing to depart from the overall story. As they are, they are really among the worst produced by TSR in my opinion, and although I ran multiple times the slavers or the giant/drow series in multiple editions, I would never run Dragonlance again.
Hell with anything from 5E, I spend a lot of time trying to put something in that would get the characters involved.
Good for you, so do I, but I usually start with things much more playable than DL, for sure.
I use unrelated modules and string them together with a cohesive plot over a long period of time and its half the fun to figure out how to tie Lost Mines of Phandelver, Red Hand of Doom and Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth together while moving the story on.
Again, good for you, and I've been doing that for years, but most of these modules (including the Lost Caverns that I have always really liked) are of much higher quality than the Dragonlance modules. Just opened DL 1 to check my memories. The final location has 35 locations, all of them extremely interesting like (see the end of the post)
Not to mention the aforementioned huge ancient black dragon which comes out of the well, breathes two 64 points damage acid on PCs which have 35. 19, 15, 34, 36, 29, 8 (!) and 42 hit points. Now, even if they make their saves, half the group is immediately dead after the first break, and poor Raistlin is just dead 8 times over. And this is after softening the group with sleep and magic missile, mind:
The dragon uses its first combat round to gain speed in the air and circle around for a better attack position. PCs are susceptible to the fear a dragon generates (see Monster Manual, p. 30). The dragon then attacks the heroes from the air, hovering to avoid swords and hand weapons. It bombards the heroes with magic missile and sleep spells. The dragon then makes 2 passes, using its 64 hit point breath weapon each time: acid breath sears flesh with deadly accuracy. Finally, on the third pass, feeling the need for the safety of its lair, <= this just made me laugh so hard now, considering that the PCs it flies over the well, folds itself in its wings, have almost no way to harm the dragon anyway and they and drops like a stone down the well. Deep are probably all turned to acidic slime by that time. below, it will break out of its dive and move toward its lair.
Come on, this is just not defensible. And now, for a very interesting list of encounters:
Such variety, my god, such pleasure to have all these varied encounters... I'm sorry, but this is really s****y design, and very much in line with the rest of the story and modules, too little butter scraped over way, way too much bread.
Play against the giants and tell me about diversity of monsters. If you don't like a modules monsters, change them.
My suggestion is to go to Goodman Games, Frog God Games and Kobold Press for significantly more interesting module designs than what WotC is able to put out. For WotC I see mostly small chunks of content, sometimes related by the most strenuous of logic.
Look at Rime of the Frost Maiden, which you can effectively beat the BBEG at level 7, for a module set to go to level 12? And no one had the writing chops to change that? To no understand you can show the bad guy and have them escape to fight later being a good ploy in modules to get the players to hate the BBEG and really relish killing them? The 5E rule set is good enough, but WotC writing is going the way of Bioware after the doctors have left. Of the over $2K I've spent on games this year by order:
-1st Wizkids got the bulk for minis + Vallejo for paints (mostly Paizo mini's but some D&D)
-2nd eBay for Spelljammer (I've got a full set, all the goodies, even bought two for collection - so happy on this)
-3rd party was second (Goodman Games - seriously man look at their redo of classic modules their Expedition to Barrier Peaks is worth every dollar, Elemental Evil on the way), Kobold Press, Frog God Games and bundling in MCDM productions
-4th WotC content (I would love to increase it, but they aren't putting out that much and what they do, short of core rule books or their starter/expansion sets, I'm not interested in running).
Most of money isn't going to WotC, its going to third parties or using their old materials. I don't need the corny settings or ridiculous tie ins. I'd be interested in Eberon or Spelljammer but they have to put out modules to support them, not a source book , a few monsters, a few magic items and a class or two. An actual campaign to run would get me interested in their content again. At this point, if they put out a Spelljammer rule set I'll buy it to save me from converting and if they put out mini's I'd buy them (there are no 3D prints), but they won't. After reading the brief, it is starting to look like WotC is more concerned about a small vocal group from Twitter (Satanic Panic parents) rather than the fans. I wish them the best, but if they want me to dump a wheel barrow of cash with a lot of other fans will be going elsewhere and just using the core rulebooks. At this point, I wish WotC would license out all of its monsters for other publishers and let them publish and then WotC would get a cut of my spending. Its looking like WotC is going down the bland path for writing, so I'll be passing on their modules and world lore books.
Understand if you look at Goodman Games redo, they give you multiple reprints in a book its literally complete (its a waste to me) and they give you the 5E update as well. So you'll get this massive and I mean massive tome. And a 3rd of it will be updated for 5E with new content and in my opinion some better writing (there are two versions of the 1st edition module included). Seeing as how Goodman does its rewrites, they will most likely be fixing the logic problems with Temple of Elemental Evil to make it playable. It might not be 100% Gygax but it will have his spirit and be playable.
In a way I'm sorry that Weis and Hickman got negative fallback about their production, but can you honestly be sure that what they were producing would not have put WotC in deeper problems considering the global environment ?
The writers complied with the changes requested by WotC editors. WotC replaced the two women editors who were reviewing the new DL series, with a two men, one of which Nic Kelman, has a novel that "was a controversial choice" due to questions of "misogyny and pedophilia" raised about his 2019 Girls: A Paean. It's like hiring Goebell's to review a book to be critical on Nazi's as the editor.
You're asserting legal representations as undisputed fact, even the articles you cite are careful to use the words "allege" of the defendant and "claims" of the plaintiff. The only publicly accessible record with any present legal standing is the complaint Weis and Hickman filed in federal court. I'm not sure what the rules of procedure are specifically in the District of Western Washington for civil cases during COVID; but the ballpark rule suggest WotC should be filing their response sometime around mid November, like right around when Tasha's is being released. Lawsuits are an adversarial process, literally a "those folks say this" "these folks say that" and the law rules on what if any way there is to remedy this dispute. All anyone outside of lawyers and parties have at this point is Weiss and Hickman's literal claim. WotC may well have a very different account of W+H's efforts to accommodate WotC editorial direction regarding sensitivity reader feedback etc. Same goes for parroting the complaint's assessment of Nic Kelman, itself largely based on a burnt MtG artist's takedown of the Kelman in _Medium_ (read actual press and interviews of Kelman at the time of the publication of Girls, you'll see it's more nuanced, Kelman wasn't trying to celebrate abhorrent behavior but address it. Nabokov and Lolita were used as reference in those discussions, I think that punches way about Kelman's weight, but Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho or that 90s movie Kids are apt analogies of "should art do that?"). Given all that, the poor backgrounding you start with just makes your Nazi analogy absurd in its overblownness to the point that I evidently just made up a word or at least a formulation my spellchecker to address it ("overblownness?" to paraphrase Beckett, does such a word exist? It does. Now).
From a legal perspective (disclaimer: not a lawyer!) I find the contract law demands interesting if not compelling, and I do have some sympathy for Weiss and Hickman feeling both creatively and financially strung along if their story is accurate (which I have no means to determine either way). This gesture toward Dragonlance being some sort casualty of bungled culture war appeasement I think actually harms their case (it opens the door to WotC to exposing conduct on the plaintiffs part that can show good cause to walk away from the deal without WotC having to move to introduce such possible records into the case). It does fire a salvo into the court of public opinion, exciting a certain demographic of fans etc. And in that regard it certainly has worked since at least a few fans on this very forum have spent significant word count venting outrage in support of the complaint. Maybe there will be some sort of GoFundMe or Kickstarter to support some other creative endeavor to make up for lost work.
I'm sorry Dragonlance seems to be getting the shaft, so to speak, for those who were truly invested in the setting. But I ask those who are fans, what does it matter? There are tons of support for that product available through community and reprints. Converting anything, as already mentioned, isn't that hard, especially for players who've been playing since that world's heyday. A lot of my favorite musicians used to play sold out arenas. Most of these days they play small clubs. I'm fine with that, it's probably better for my ears too.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
This is more about the exit clause of the contract and WotC abridging said exit clause by stating they won't do anymore reviews in an attempt to not to have to pay for breach. Maybe they thought that Weis/Hickman would balk at the content change requests, but they went ahead with no problems as a ploy to get the writers to go into breach. It makes little to no sense that their legal representation would go that route unless they think they can settle for less than the agreed upon exit clause. Maybe WotC think they can let them release a trilogy and get out of the payment process. Whatever is going on WotC is insane for the moment.
I'm sorry Dragonlance seems to be getting the shaft, so to speak, for those who were truly invested in the setting. But I ask those who are fans, what does it matter? There are tons of support for that product available through community and reprints.
I would assume that fans of the DL material (which I am absolutely not -- I read the first book, thought the writing was dreadful, and never touched anything else W&H have ever done) -- for fans of the DL material, I say, I would think that the impression that WTOC hosed their favorite writers might bother them regardless of all the other "support" and "reprints" available. People don't like it when a big faceless heartless corporation works over their favorite actor/writer/movie star/athlete/whatever.
Again, I am on fan of W&H, and I honestly have no real horse in this race. But I can easily see how those who are fans of their work, would become understandably irate at WOTC acting the way they are alleged to have acted toward the authors.
This is more about the exit clause of the contract and WotC abridging said exit clause by stating they won't do anymore reviews in an attempt to not to have to pay for breach. Maybe they thought that Weis/Hickman would balk at the content change requests, but they went ahead with no problems as a ploy to get the writers to go into breach. It makes little to no sense that their legal representation would go that route unless they think they can settle for less than the agreed upon exit clause. Maybe WotC think they can let them release a trilogy and get out of the payment process. Whatever is going on WotC is insane for the moment.
You're still doing it. You're reacting to allegations, not established fact. There were a number of people in that meeting when the project was ended, a few of whom now need to file a response with the court in about a month. It may well have been a risk analysis where WotC did figure settlement costs would be less than the agreed upon exit and opted to end the Dragonlance novels with H&W for any number of reasons. This actually happens to contract creatives frequently enough that professional creative associations train their memberships to be cautious of work for hire and contract creative production. So WotC made a business decision thinking in terms of their bottom line. The question is are they "insane" or "evil" as you put it; or is this particular business more complicated? It's entirely possible that the work product just couldn't be brought to WotC's expectations and rather than continue through what in some circles is called Development Hell, WotC opted to end it knowing bridge burning was going to happen. We'll see.
I'm sorry Dragonlance seems to be getting the shaft, so to speak, for those who were truly invested in the setting. But I ask those who are fans, what does it matter? There are tons of support for that product available through community and reprints.
I would assume that fans of the DL material (which I am absolutely not -- I read the first book, thought the writing was dreadful, and never touched anything else W&H have ever done) -- for fans of the DL material, I say, I would think that the impression that WTOC hosed their favorite writers might bother them regardless of all the other "support" and "reprints" available. People don't like it when a big faceless heartless corporation works over their favorite actor/writer/movie star/athlete/whatever.
Again, I am on fan of W&H, and I honestly have no real horse in this race. But I can easily see how those who are fans of their work, would become understandably irate at WOTC acting the way they are alleged to have acted toward the authors.
You're right, I largely wrote that last bit to work in "got the shaft" because Dragonlance. I can appreciate fans flocking to their defense of their favorite authors ... it's just that so much of the "fan outrage" I've followed on this case the past few days isn't phrased from a position of respect for Hickman and Weiss's contribution to Dungeons and Dragons. It's more in the cultural warrior formulation that some fans are losing a battle over dungeons and dragons. This thread was started by someone who never posted until this thread. How many people join a community with a gripe? I think the press coverage is largely at fault, not well informed by an understanding of contract dispute, but easy to latch onto the "sizzle" language in the suit about WotC diversity fumbles because there are people who will click that and wage internet war as result with more investment of time than they spend actually playing the game. Reddit was one of the few places that sorted out the reality of the Kelman "controversy," that controversy itself seemingly ginned up by a disgruntled former MtG contract artist.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
It took me years to come back after the 4th edition disaster.
Funny that... I stopped playing D&D in 1982 (ish) 'cause 1st edition was a complete disaster, great idea, crap execution compared to other games around at the time. What brought me back after about 27 years was 4th edition. 5th edition nearly put me off again.
So every change they make they'll piss someone off but probably find someone new instead.
I don't care much for mixing politics with tabletop gaming, but I don't see why Wizards making racial modifiers optional is controversial when homebrewers have functionally been doing the same thing since forever.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Agreed.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
While I understand why you might feel like some products are cash grabs, you don't have to buy them. So far, they haven't updated any of the core three books, and the only ones that you need to play with.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
It is a small group of gamers that are upset on this, mostly in Twitter and Instagram. You never give creative control to a small vocal mob. When you do that, especially for a fantasy game that relies heavily on its lore, you can kiss your profit margins down the drain. You always and I mean always ignore the mob and never engage. Remember watching the horrible racist "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" ? What you don't consider it racist, why? There was a concerted effort by twitter trolls to get Tina Fey's scalp for using one of their actors as native American for the joke. Tina Fey didn't acknowledge them and continued on with the show to critical acclaim. Its how you handle an outrage mob.
The writers complied with the changes requested by WotC editors. WotC replaced the two women editors who were reviewing the new DL series, with a two men, one of which Nic Kelman, has a novel that "was a controversial choice" due to questions of "misogyny and pedophilia" raised about his 2019 Girls: A Paean. It's like hiring Goebell's to review a book to be critical on Nazi's as the editor.
If part of your bad memories of DL is because you allowed yourself to play bad D&D, remember that was your decision. You can always leave. The modules for DL are set to be rail roads. That being written, when you act as the DM you can always change them to suit your purpose or create new characters to take the place of supposed plot armor characters. It just requires a bit more work. Those DL modules can be made to be very good, with time. Hell with anything from 5E, I spend a lot of time trying to put something in that would get the characters involved.
I use unrelated modules and string them together with a cohesive plot over a long period of time and its half the fun to figure out how to tie Lost Mines of Phandelver, Red Hand of Doom and Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth together while moving the story on.
I agree.
Brendan
How in the F can someone be upset about something that is OPTIONAL.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
I'm not really sure. Maybe people think that it will eventually become the only option?
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
So a few things here stick out to me:
1) Despite many people asking for specifics, OP has yet to actually state what specific changes and events are bothering him, and hasn't articulated exactly what about those changes are bothersome. This leads me to believe that OP generally spends much of their time inside an echo chamber, with a group of people without diverse opinions who aren't used to dealing with people who may have different opinions.
2) OP also seems to never consider that maybe the people making many of these decisions, like Perkins and Crawford, actually have motivation beyond 'corporate greed'. Like 'Hey, I see how some of these things are problematic and I want to fix them'.
3) The Dragonlance case seems complicated. It may be related to problematic depictions of races like tinker gnomes, gully dwarves and kender. It may be related to something else. Weis and Hickman having a contract canceled is not a slight inconvenience for them. All of this will be litigated. Dragonlance just wasn't really a good setting anyways. I read all the books when I was younger. But reading them now, they were poorly written, with lame characters, generic plots. There was nothing about the setting that made it particularly more compelling than other generic fantasy settings.
4) The problems being addressed are actually somewhat subtle and complex, and contrary to popular belief, are not as simple as 'People think orcs represent black people.' In fact, that is not the problem at all.
5) OP seems to draw a comparison between people wanting WOTC to be more aware of complex racial issues and implications, and WOTC agreeing, to the satanic accusations of the 80s, which is frankly ridiculous
To be fair, that has been the argument from some people who are against this. To test the waters and then when the next edition comes out, this is the standard rule instead of optional.
Not that I agree with the argument but I've seen this brought up even here on these forums when the new linage system was first announced.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
Understood but..
Hasn't just about every recent edition of D&D - especially 5th edition, included OPTIONAL rules. Grim rest variant. Superhero/Arcade variant. Each different than what the rules say in the PHB. A variant for this. A variant for that.
1st, WotC would actually have to turn the currently optional rule into the default in an official book, in an edition that isn't out yet. Hardly something to get up in arms about, but I get it.
2nd, WotC would actually have to remove and stand against ALL options/variants that would allow someone to play as they always have been.
Again, I see no issue.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
Try playing adventurers league, DM and state that those rules aren't implemented. They will most likely will be or if you got one hell of a rules lawyer he'll complain to the owner to get them put in whether you want them put in or not for game play. And if you guy by adventurer leagues rules, you aren't going to have a leg to stand on. Go to tournament play you'll see them again. I run two nights of adventurer league in my area and it tends to attract power gamers. I look forward to the mountain dwarf and half elf overlords for competitive play.
I don't either. I do think that the pushback is a bit of an overreaction and I'm happy to see more options for character creation.
But I can also understand the pushback too. I am not someone who personally likes change in my life and it can be hard for me to accept when change happens sometimes. I was even hesitant when Tasha's and these new variant rules were announced. Said so on these forums. But after seeing some more information and seeing others opinions on the matter I've come to accept and even be excited for Tasha's now. So there is no issue from me.
People were always going to be against changes to the current system, even if they were optional. I'm hoping time and more experience with using these optional rules will help simmer down some of the heat people have over them.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
I guess I get it, but still.
1) I don't play adventurers league and
2) While I may be very wrong and will own up to it if so, I'm thinking Adventurer's League represents about 2% of the D&D playerbase - therefore, hardly an issue to have to work around.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
Play against the giants and tell me about diversity of monsters. If you don't like a modules monsters, change them.
My suggestion is to go to Goodman Games, Frog God Games and Kobold Press for significantly more interesting module designs than what WotC is able to put out. For WotC I see mostly small chunks of content, sometimes related by the most strenuous of logic.
Look at Rime of the Frost Maiden, which you can effectively beat the BBEG at level 7, for a module set to go to level 12? And no one had the writing chops to change that? To no understand you can show the bad guy and have them escape to fight later being a good ploy in modules to get the players to hate the BBEG and really relish killing them? The 5E rule set is good enough, but WotC writing is going the way of Bioware after the doctors have left. Of the over $2K I've spent on games this year by order:
-1st Wizkids got the bulk for minis + Vallejo for paints (mostly Paizo mini's but some D&D)
-2nd eBay for Spelljammer (I've got a full set, all the goodies, even bought two for collection - so happy on this)
-3rd party was second (Goodman Games - seriously man look at their redo of classic modules their Expedition to Barrier Peaks is worth every dollar, Elemental Evil on the way), Kobold Press, Frog God Games and bundling in MCDM productions
-4th WotC content (I would love to increase it, but they aren't putting out that much and what they do, short of core rule books or their starter/expansion sets, I'm not interested in running).
Most of money isn't going to WotC, its going to third parties or using their old materials. I don't need the corny settings or ridiculous tie ins. I'd be interested in Eberon or Spelljammer but they have to put out modules to support them, not a source book , a few monsters, a few magic items and a class or two. An actual campaign to run would get me interested in their content again. At this point, if they put out a Spelljammer rule set I'll buy it to save me from converting and if they put out mini's I'd buy them (there are no 3D prints), but they won't. After reading the brief, it is starting to look like WotC is more concerned about a small vocal group from Twitter (Satanic Panic parents) rather than the fans. I wish them the best, but if they want me to dump a wheel barrow of cash with a lot of other fans will be going elsewhere and just using the core rulebooks. At this point, I wish WotC would license out all of its monsters for other publishers and let them publish and then WotC would get a cut of my spending. Its looking like WotC is going down the bland path for writing, so I'll be passing on their modules and world lore books.
Understand if you look at Goodman Games redo, they give you multiple reprints in a book its literally complete (its a waste to me) and they give you the 5E update as well. So you'll get this massive and I mean massive tome. And a 3rd of it will be updated for 5E with new content and in my opinion some better writing (there are two versions of the 1st edition module included). Seeing as how Goodman does its rewrites, they will most likely be fixing the logic problems with Temple of Elemental Evil to make it playable. It might not be 100% Gygax but it will have his spirit and be playable.
This, because otherwise it leads to this:
You're asserting legal representations as undisputed fact, even the articles you cite are careful to use the words "allege" of the defendant and "claims" of the plaintiff. The only publicly accessible record with any present legal standing is the complaint Weis and Hickman filed in federal court. I'm not sure what the rules of procedure are specifically in the District of Western Washington for civil cases during COVID; but the ballpark rule suggest WotC should be filing their response sometime around mid November, like right around when Tasha's is being released. Lawsuits are an adversarial process, literally a "those folks say this" "these folks say that" and the law rules on what if any way there is to remedy this dispute. All anyone outside of lawyers and parties have at this point is Weiss and Hickman's literal claim. WotC may well have a very different account of W+H's efforts to accommodate WotC editorial direction regarding sensitivity reader feedback etc. Same goes for parroting the complaint's assessment of Nic Kelman, itself largely based on a burnt MtG artist's takedown of the Kelman in _Medium_ (read actual press and interviews of Kelman at the time of the publication of Girls, you'll see it's more nuanced, Kelman wasn't trying to celebrate abhorrent behavior but address it. Nabokov and Lolita were used as reference in those discussions, I think that punches way about Kelman's weight, but Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho or that 90s movie Kids are apt analogies of "should art do that?"). Given all that, the poor backgrounding you start with just makes your Nazi analogy absurd in its overblownness to the point that I evidently just made up a word or at least a formulation my spellchecker to address it ("overblownness?" to paraphrase Beckett, does such a word exist? It does. Now).
From a legal perspective (disclaimer: not a lawyer!) I find the contract law demands interesting if not compelling, and I do have some sympathy for Weiss and Hickman feeling both creatively and financially strung along if their story is accurate (which I have no means to determine either way). This gesture toward Dragonlance being some sort casualty of bungled culture war appeasement I think actually harms their case (it opens the door to WotC to exposing conduct on the plaintiffs part that can show good cause to walk away from the deal without WotC having to move to introduce such possible records into the case). It does fire a salvo into the court of public opinion, exciting a certain demographic of fans etc. And in that regard it certainly has worked since at least a few fans on this very forum have spent significant word count venting outrage in support of the complaint. Maybe there will be some sort of GoFundMe or Kickstarter to support some other creative endeavor to make up for lost work.
I'm sorry Dragonlance seems to be getting the shaft, so to speak, for those who were truly invested in the setting. But I ask those who are fans, what does it matter? There are tons of support for that product available through community and reprints. Converting anything, as already mentioned, isn't that hard, especially for players who've been playing since that world's heyday. A lot of my favorite musicians used to play sold out arenas. Most of these days they play small clubs. I'm fine with that, it's probably better for my ears too.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
This is more about the exit clause of the contract and WotC abridging said exit clause by stating they won't do anymore reviews in an attempt to not to have to pay for breach. Maybe they thought that Weis/Hickman would balk at the content change requests, but they went ahead with no problems as a ploy to get the writers to go into breach. It makes little to no sense that their legal representation would go that route unless they think they can settle for less than the agreed upon exit clause. Maybe WotC think they can let them release a trilogy and get out of the payment process. Whatever is going on WotC is insane for the moment.
I would assume that fans of the DL material (which I am absolutely not -- I read the first book, thought the writing was dreadful, and never touched anything else W&H have ever done) -- for fans of the DL material, I say, I would think that the impression that WTOC hosed their favorite writers might bother them regardless of all the other "support" and "reprints" available. People don't like it when a big faceless heartless corporation works over their favorite actor/writer/movie star/athlete/whatever.
Again, I am on fan of W&H, and I honestly have no real horse in this race. But I can easily see how those who are fans of their work, would become understandably irate at WOTC acting the way they are alleged to have acted toward the authors.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
You're still doing it. You're reacting to allegations, not established fact. There were a number of people in that meeting when the project was ended, a few of whom now need to file a response with the court in about a month. It may well have been a risk analysis where WotC did figure settlement costs would be less than the agreed upon exit and opted to end the Dragonlance novels with H&W for any number of reasons. This actually happens to contract creatives frequently enough that professional creative associations train their memberships to be cautious of work for hire and contract creative production. So WotC made a business decision thinking in terms of their bottom line. The question is are they "insane" or "evil" as you put it; or is this particular business more complicated? It's entirely possible that the work product just couldn't be brought to WotC's expectations and rather than continue through what in some circles is called Development Hell, WotC opted to end it knowing bridge burning was going to happen. We'll see.
You're right, I largely wrote that last bit to work in "got the shaft" because Dragonlance. I can appreciate fans flocking to their defense of their favorite authors ... it's just that so much of the "fan outrage" I've followed on this case the past few days isn't phrased from a position of respect for Hickman and Weiss's contribution to Dungeons and Dragons. It's more in the cultural warrior formulation that some fans are losing a battle over dungeons and dragons. This thread was started by someone who never posted until this thread. How many people join a community with a gripe? I think the press coverage is largely at fault, not well informed by an understanding of contract dispute, but easy to latch onto the "sizzle" language in the suit about WotC diversity fumbles because there are people who will click that and wage internet war as result with more investment of time than they spend actually playing the game. Reddit was one of the few places that sorted out the reality of the Kelman "controversy," that controversy itself seemingly ginned up by a disgruntled former MtG contract artist.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Funny that... I stopped playing D&D in 1982 (ish) 'cause 1st edition was a complete disaster, great idea, crap execution compared to other games around at the time. What brought me back after about 27 years was 4th edition. 5th edition nearly put me off again.
So every change they make they'll piss someone off but probably find someone new instead.
I don't care much for mixing politics with tabletop gaming, but I don't see why Wizards making racial modifiers optional is controversial when homebrewers have functionally been doing the same thing since forever.