I actually think that Wizards is doing an excellent job of making D&D. Tasha's looks like it might be one of their best books yet, and setting books have drastically increased in quality since SCAG. (M:tG on the other hand...)
I tried to read Dragonlance a few years ago, and found it to be really disappointing. Unoriginal genre fiction. Not to say that other people don't like it, and I like some of Weis and Hickman's other work, but I did not enjoy that series.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
They worked on the Mansions of Madness board game, and a couple other board games that I enjoyed. I only ever read one book by them, which I did not like.
(If anyone wanted to know why I think Wizards is not doing well managing M:tG, here is a short explanation. Basically, every new set of cards they print is designed to invalidate the previous ones, creating massive amounts of bans and general unfunness. They are also making exclusive crossover cards, with stuff form Godzilla and the Walking Dead which I do not like. )
I presume Gathron is talking about the changes to species ability score increases, because that is the largest change to D&D in a while. But I may be wrong.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I agree, I'd like to see some more specifics, though I can picture what this post is probably about.
However, I'll point out that WOTC does not care whether they destroy D&D or not. They have one goal and one goal only: to sell units. They will do whatever they think will sell more units. If whatever direction they're going in, that you don't like, is going to sell more units, they don't really care if it destroys D&D. Even if they know it'll kill D&D in the long run, if it makes their profit margin go up this year and next, that's really all they care about.
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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.
An assumption, however reasonable, is still an assumption. We read what the writers think is happening. WotC/Hasbro being silent about their reasons doesn't look all that great, but PR in the current social climate is like a game of Go - sacrificing territory here to gain territory there while it doesn't look like it makes any sense until the endgame. It's sad that it can't be 100% transparent like it seems it used to be, but that's what the world forced upon businesses.
We have no idea if social climate pressure is the reason as the writers assume, no matter how convincing in WotC's silence. Correlation doesn't immediately equal causation. There are other possibilities that could be directly related to the DL final and nonfinal drafts, but we just don't know, and it's frustrating... and there might still be a good reason regardless.
As for other goings on with WotC and upcoming sources, those topics have been beat to death. I'll just stop with the DL lawsuit stuff.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I am sad that WotC put the novel line on hiatus in general. Lot of untold stories about characters that are NDA'd and no one can say shit about them because no novels. I really wanted to learn what happened to the Queen of Evermeet for instance and I hoped for some more from Ed Greenwood.
I mean, I'm one of the rare people that really enjoyed 4e despite all its flaws. I guess you can't be too disappointed if you don't have standards. Jokes aside, I have my gripes with some things in 5e but it's still been a blast playing this edition.
As far as what's going on with the company itself....I'm a wait for more information before making an opinion kind of person.
If you yearn for the days of early editions, you are free to play the early editions. They are still there and just as fun as they always were. Honestly I feel like it was a mistake for WotC to try to attract the grognards back with 5e because they are going to protest almost any change from how things worked in early editions, and changes are inevitable.
WotC can't destroy D&D. It lives on our shelves and in our hearts. All they can destroy is themselves and honestly I think they're making the right call for their own survival going forward.
As you get older, the world changes around you. You can reject that, wall yourself off from younger generations and grow bitter or you can embrace it and see where it takes you. Guess which kind of person lives a happier life.
What do you think that they are doing that is corporate greed? The optional change to species? I presume that is what you are talking about, but could you clarify?
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
4E wasn't a nightmare, and I hardly think "everything" is getting destroyed. A lot of the political correctness issues seem to stem from Hasbro, and - with all respect to diversity and inclusiveness - are in my opinion blown far out of proportion. Changing settings and game mechanics to remove racism from game themes and fluff is just weird. Nobody's racist for playing in a setting where racism exists. It exists, like nationalism, fascism, corruption, crime in general, and whatnot, pretending otherwise doesn't serve anything. But I doubt this is something WotC has a hand in. More likely Hasbro's legal department is cracking down on every subsidiary to abide by their corporate policies. That doesn't make the reality of the situation any better for us players, but let's not be too quick to assign blame. And if you're looking back towards the situation in the '80s, please, remember TSR did much, much worse and it was Wizards who saved D&D when they acquired the IP and released 3rd edition.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I have to admit when the argument someone uses is "pesky people ask for respect is making my life inconvenient" as their argument (Weis and Hickman) not OP I find myself inclined to doubt their argument as being the aggrieved party. I like DragonLance I really do I've created with considerable tweaking some of my best games and adventures. However, I wouldn't be shocked if there are problematic elements in the books.
WOTC being silent is a reasonable response while they are investigating. They don't know what they've been told they haven't had a chance to talk to their legal department or their PR department while Weis and Hickman are respectfully two people and they had already carefully crafted their argument beforehand.
With that said I'm keeping an open mind on the lawsuit.
I'm not bothered by options to remove racial attribute adjustments, I'm not bothered by the new character flexibility. I'm not bothered by a reframing of Drow (admittedly my mental picture has always been of blue skinned white haired people because of the first Dritz books covers) and that look was so cool that was always what I used in my games. I like anything that brings more diverse people into our hobby. I find that people who are should take a moment step back and look at it from the point of view of people who might be bothered by those stereotypes that often had problematic origins even if from ignorance of the time.
I find current DnD to be better than any addition for many many reasons so I'm willing to give WOTC the benefit of the doubt.
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.
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.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I have to admit when the argument someone uses is "pesky people ask for respect is making my life inconvenient" as their argument (Weis and Hickman)... I find myself inclined to doubt their argument
Is that the argument W&H are making?
It was my understanding that they were making a legal argument that WOTC violated their contract regarding the 3 books they had hired W&H to write. Furthermore, again to my understanding, the editorial team changed mid-stream, and suddenly told W&H to make a whole bunch of changes which, according to the complaint, the authors made. If this were a case of the new editors or "sensitivity readers" saying "you have to change this" and W&H saying "bleep you!" you might be right. But as I understand the circumstances (and feel free to correct me if I am wrong), the editors said, "change these things for sensitivity", W&H said Ok and changed them, and then WOTC said "Oh well we're dropping you anyway," without giving the sort of reason required in the contract.
This doesn't sound like it fits your characterization of "pesky people ask for respect is making my life inconvenient".... but again, I wasn't a fly on the wall so I could be wrong.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
I actually think that Wizards is doing an excellent job of making D&D. Tasha's looks like it might be one of their best books yet, and setting books have drastically increased in quality since SCAG. (M:tG on the other hand...)
I tried to read Dragonlance a few years ago, and found it to be really disappointing. Unoriginal genre fiction. Not to say that other people don't like it, and I like some of Weis and Hickman's other work, but I did not enjoy that series.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
They worked on the Mansions of Madness board game, and a couple other board games that I enjoyed. I only ever read one book by them, which I did not like.
(If anyone wanted to know why I think Wizards is not doing well managing M:tG, here is a short explanation. Basically, every new set of cards they print is designed to invalidate the previous ones, creating massive amounts of bans and general unfunness. They are also making exclusive crossover cards, with stuff form Godzilla and the Walking Dead which I do not like. )
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Gathron, yer gotta give some specifics. What is it, exactly, that is destroying D&D? And why?
I presume Gathron is talking about the changes to species ability score increases, because that is the largest change to D&D in a while. But I may be wrong.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
I agree, I'd like to see some more specifics, though I can picture what this post is probably about.
However, I'll point out that WOTC does not care whether they destroy D&D or not. They have one goal and one goal only: to sell units. They will do whatever they think will sell more units. If whatever direction they're going in, that you don't like, is going to sell more units, they don't really care if it destroys D&D. Even if they know it'll kill D&D in the long run, if it makes their profit margin go up this year and next, that's really all they care about.
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.
An assumption, however reasonable, is still an assumption. We read what the writers think is happening. WotC/Hasbro being silent about their reasons doesn't look all that great, but PR in the current social climate is like a game of Go - sacrificing territory here to gain territory there while it doesn't look like it makes any sense until the endgame. It's sad that it can't be 100% transparent like it seems it used to be, but that's what the world forced upon businesses.
We have no idea if social climate pressure is the reason as the writers assume, no matter how convincing in WotC's silence. Correlation doesn't immediately equal causation. There are other possibilities that could be directly related to the DL final and nonfinal drafts, but we just don't know, and it's frustrating... and there might still be a good reason regardless.
As for other goings on with WotC and upcoming sources, those topics have been beat to death. I'll just stop with the DL lawsuit stuff.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I am sad that WotC put the novel line on hiatus in general. Lot of untold stories about characters that are NDA'd and no one can say shit about them because no novels. I really wanted to learn what happened to the Queen of Evermeet for instance and I hoped for some more from Ed Greenwood.
I have felt that way about WotC since the late ‘90s.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I mean, I'm one of the rare people that really enjoyed 4e despite all its flaws. I guess you can't be too disappointed if you don't have standards. Jokes aside, I have my gripes with some things in 5e but it's still been a blast playing this edition.
As far as what's going on with the company itself....I'm a wait for more information before making an opinion kind of person.
"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
Here we go again.
It's an option. It's not destroying anything.
If you yearn for the days of early editions, you are free to play the early editions. They are still there and just as fun as they always were. Honestly I feel like it was a mistake for WotC to try to attract the grognards back with 5e because they are going to protest almost any change from how things worked in early editions, and changes are inevitable.
WotC can't destroy D&D. It lives on our shelves and in our hearts. All they can destroy is themselves and honestly I think they're making the right call for their own survival going forward.
As you get older, the world changes around you. You can reject that, wall yourself off from younger generations and grow bitter or you can embrace it and see where it takes you. Guess which kind of person lives a happier life.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
What do you think that they are doing that is corporate greed? The optional change to species? I presume that is what you are talking about, but could you clarify?
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
4E wasn't a nightmare, and I hardly think "everything" is getting destroyed. A lot of the political correctness issues seem to stem from Hasbro, and - with all respect to diversity and inclusiveness - are in my opinion blown far out of proportion. Changing settings and game mechanics to remove racism from game themes and fluff is just weird. Nobody's racist for playing in a setting where racism exists. It exists, like nationalism, fascism, corruption, crime in general, and whatnot, pretending otherwise doesn't serve anything. But I doubt this is something WotC has a hand in. More likely Hasbro's legal department is cracking down on every subsidiary to abide by their corporate policies. That doesn't make the reality of the situation any better for us players, but let's not be too quick to assign blame. And if you're looking back towards the situation in the '80s, please, remember TSR did much, much worse and it was Wizards who saved D&D when they acquired the IP and released 3rd edition.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I have to admit when the argument someone uses is "pesky people ask for respect is making my life inconvenient" as their argument (Weis and Hickman) not OP I find myself inclined to doubt their argument as being the aggrieved party. I like DragonLance I really do I've created with considerable tweaking some of my best games and adventures. However, I wouldn't be shocked if there are problematic elements in the books.
WOTC being silent is a reasonable response while they are investigating. They don't know what they've been told they haven't had a chance to talk to their legal department or their PR department while Weis and Hickman are respectfully two people and they had already carefully crafted their argument beforehand.
With that said I'm keeping an open mind on the lawsuit.
I'm not bothered by options to remove racial attribute adjustments, I'm not bothered by the new character flexibility. I'm not bothered by a reframing of Drow (admittedly my mental picture has always been of blue skinned white haired people because of the first Dritz books covers) and that look was so cool that was always what I used in my games. I like anything that brings more diverse people into our hobby. I find that people who are should take a moment step back and look at it from the point of view of people who might be bothered by those stereotypes that often had problematic origins even if from ignorance of the time.
I find current DnD to be better than any addition for many many reasons so I'm willing to give WOTC the benefit of the doubt.
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.
Buyers Guide for D&D Beyond - Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You - How/What is Toggled Content?
Everything you need to know about Homebrew - Homebrew FAQ - Digital Book on D&D Beyond Vs Physical Books
Can't find the content you are supposed to have access to? Read this FAQ.
"Play the game however you want to play the game. After all, your fun doesn't threaten my fun."
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.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Is that the argument W&H are making?
It was my understanding that they were making a legal argument that WOTC violated their contract regarding the 3 books they had hired W&H to write. Furthermore, again to my understanding, the editorial team changed mid-stream, and suddenly told W&H to make a whole bunch of changes which, according to the complaint, the authors made. If this were a case of the new editors or "sensitivity readers" saying "you have to change this" and W&H saying "bleep you!" you might be right. But as I understand the circumstances (and feel free to correct me if I am wrong), the editors said, "change these things for sensitivity", W&H said Ok and changed them, and then WOTC said "Oh well we're dropping you anyway," without giving the sort of reason required in the contract.
This doesn't sound like it fits your characterization of "pesky people ask for respect is making my life inconvenient".... but again, I wasn't a fly on the wall so I could be wrong.
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.
I don't think people should make judgements about the Dragonlance Case until we have more information.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System