The Cycle is Complete

So Going Rogue right there.

Quite happy.

nWoD for me too, but also every ******* game that went away from its home system and adopted D20 when the OGL first came around.

"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill

meh, can't blame the folks for wanting to jump on the d20 gravy train and trying to get folks to buy their product. now the ones who put out crap, them i could poke with a stick.

nWoD brought Genius: The Transgression, which makes it AWESOME.

@Eisregen:

Yeah, I know what you mean. At least 7th Sea kept its old Roll-and-Keep rules (all of its later books gave rules for both systems, the only books that were solely d20 were the d20 versions of the previous rules).

I know you're kidding, but good lord TSR under Lorraine Williams was a complete nightmare. I'll take WotC over her management any day of the week.

Heh. I admittedly only looked at the Requiem. I just plain don't like how they made everything even more narrow in definition, just with added backdoors. Yes, you can make your own Bloodline to define your vampiric background as you want to, but you're still defined by your macro-clan and socio-political allegiance. Plus, no Sabbat that I'm aware of.


Mhmmm. I didn't mind 3rd Ed. per se, though I've never been a huge D&D fan, and I could totally identify with some of the 'D&D addons' produced under the OGL (mostly the stuff that came from White Wolf; Scarred Lands and the Monte Cook Malhavoc stuff). In fact, Scarred Lands is IMO the best 'general' D&D setting to date (Birthright and Dark Sun were more fun, but not necessarily a good baseline to compare stuff to).

But there was so much **** thrown at you, old properties revived with a shoehorned-in D20 system, and all that. It was insane. I realize it's not easy to make a workable RPG system. Most games go through one or two massive revisions before smooth sailing is in sight. But come the **** on.

"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill

No, I'm not kidding. *shrugs*

I'll be perfectly willing to admit that from a "running a business" point of view WotC is lightyears beyond what TSR managed to do. To deny that aspect of it given how huge WotC currently is would be silly.

But from a "product quality and satisfaction" point of view I still can't stand the "D20/OGL/buy a hundred hardback book" model that D&D 3.0, 3.14159, 3.5, 4.0, etc. has become. If you don't have a problem giving WotC thousands of dollars for a version of a game that's going to become obsolete next year then more power to you.

Like I said I "experienced" the Cycle of that comic strip years ago at this point.

Did your memory drop out the flood of hardcovers and splatbooks put out by TSR for 2nd Edition?

Hell, I was waiting for The Complete Commoners Handbook, since it was bound to show up at some time. I've got a shelf of 2nd edition books, and I was nowhere near complete by any stretch of the imagination.

Not to mention the "Oh, we're playing in world X, so all your stuff doesn't wash. Go but the World X Monster Manual, and the players guide to World X. "

TSR was by no means pure. They didn't have the financial backing to do quite the throughput of books as WotC (Hasbro), but they certainly did their damnest, and it drove them into the ground as they tried to peddle so much crap that warehouses were full of garbage splatbooks and junk novels that nobody wanted to buy.

I do find it odd that people get worked up over more choices. You don't want to buy the new books? Then don't. Nobody has a gun to your head. Hell, most people at my gaming table never bought books past 3.0 for a long time. My current group is a bit more into gaming so most have the Pathfinder book (which isn't needed since it's all online anyway).

As for the 'obsolete next year' stuff, well you complain about the OGL and yet complain about obsolescence? Those are mutually exclusive claims. With the OGL people can put out 3rd edition stuff until people stop buying it.

But I would like to know how you expect a business to survive without pushing product. If WotC doesn't make new product to sell, there won't be a company soon enough.

Well, yes and no. If your company wants to publish OGL stuff, and can sell it, all fine and dandy. However, if you want a license for making products for the newest 4e stuff, you have to cease all production and development of any OGL stuff. The new SGL license is much, much more restrictive than the OGL license. Hasbro's lawyers made sure of that. It's gone through a few iterations since being released, but at one time the SGL license actually required a publisher to buy back his stuff from warehouses so that it could not be sold.

Like it or not (I personally don't at this time) D&D has a huge draw in the pen and paper gaming scene and wherefore goes Dungeons & Dragons so goes the majority of the players. If a developer wants to take advantage of those playerr's dollars, said developer has no choice but to go all or nothing with the newest edition.

Yes, this is true, and it was a move I didn't much care for from WotC. Then again I play Pathfinder (pure OGL) so I don't really care. I have a choice and I exercise it.

Sure TSR tried its best to "push product" and wasn't strictly pure either. But let's just say WotC has become the undisputed masters of "if you want to keep up with the latest stuff you'll rebuy all the core books as often as we see fit". I don't begrudge WotC figuring out a way to maximize THEIR profits, but it doesn't mean I have to buy into their schemes.

Ironically their model has become very similar to the way a MMO operates. The difference is that when a MMO tinkers with its system all you usually have to do is download a patch. When WotC 'tinkers' enough with D&D you have buy another $500 worth of books. That kind of thing, when it's made so completely up-front and obvious by people like WoTC, just leaves a bad taste in many people's mouths.

Maybe I'm just past the whole concept of "brick-n-mortar" hardback book based RPGs and see WotC as the key champion of a restrictive and out-of-date corporate paradigm. *shrugs*

I was nervous but happy when WotC took over. There was a bright time that lasted, oh I don't know, a few months or a year or something, between the buy out and the launch of 3rd edition. During that time they refined the scope of publishing, started actually getting product out on time, and focused on putting out adventures and source material rather than more rules tack-ons. It was a nice time for 2nd Edition.

And despite the mess that was 3.0 which necessitated 3.5, I really liked 3.5 as a system. I was not wild about the flavor of the artwork or the settings they started publishing, but that's all easy enough to adapt.

But that's the problem I've had with WotC in general since then. I don't like the flavor, meaning I don't like any of the source material they're putting out, and I don't like the rules expansions because they lean heavily away from the old medieval European flavor and are far more pure fantasy based. Which is fine if you like that, but for me, it's enough to have the core rules and use all the old 1st and 2nd edition source material I have.

I haven't been interested in 4e because I just don't think it was necessary, 3.5 is great, and because I unfortunately don't have time or a local group for tabletop gaming these days.

No you don't, and I don't even vaguely understand why you'd think it necessary for someone who plays their game.

No, it's not like an MMO. You can always use the old version. Nobody is coming into your house and making your old books not work. Unless you are really into the living campaigns (LFR), you don't need the latest gee gaw to play the game(and even in those you can probably get by with the original core even if you might be a bit underpowered). I can't even imagine new modules really require it all. Your personal need for the new shiny may drive this, but they were merely trying to milk that which is what they should do to make money. Your self control is your own issue.

If you don't like how they do business, don't do business with them. You don't need to complain about it if other people happen to like it.

(which is not to say I buy WotC product anymore either, but I don't begrudge them their business model, and I have plenty of friends who like 4th Ed).

Collectively known as "The incident".

Oh you mean like RIFTS. I don't think I know a soul that plays that game who doesn't think the rules are a horrible kludge that needs to be updated, but they refuse to do it (to avoid facing fans who don't want to deal with an update). Instead they do minor revisions, and ram new rules into obscure places in new books. Honestly it's a horrible waste of a good setting.

More like "The only thing that kept them alive long enough to publish the Cathay and Midnight Archipelago books, along with the collected/expanded Explorer's Society book" (all of which contain a very large number of cool things). The Sidhe Book of Nightmares and Knights and Musketeers also had some great new items in them (like a new set of Glamour knacks).

This sounds pretty similar to Exalted 2e's current state, yeah. New additions and errata of things in the corebook are strewn throughout half a dozen other books, and some things have had multiple revisions made of them. Yo dawg, we heard yo like errata, so we errata'd yo errata so you can try to figure out how the rules work now while you try to figure out how the rules work now.

Ohgod yes.

For those not aware, Lorraine Williams, owner and CEO of TSR, was not a gamer. She HATED gamers, considered them inferior to her in every way. She didn't want to be even in the same room as gamers. The only reason she ended up as owner of TSR was through a series of unwise stock transfer incidents on the part of TSR's actual founders.

She did, however, like money, and was willing to take gamer's cash. So she set out to make TSR a successful business.

If only she was any good at it.

I'll just go ahead and link Ryan Dancey's blog about the state of affairs at TSR at the time WotC took over.

In short, Williams nearly ran TSR into the ground. The ONLY REASON D&D even SURVIVES to this day is because WotC bailed it out.


-np