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Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

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Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#301

Post by harimau777 »

freilanzer wrote: post #260
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people are still going to pay money for D&D then they truly do not care about the hobby. I must admit before the OGL fiasco I didn't see much of the allure of other systems, but that really pushed me away and the world of TTRPGs is so much brighter and better than crappy D&D. I still play in one D&D campaign, but it was started before the fiasco, but I have already decided that at least I won't be running another…

As someone thinking about getting into Pen and Paper games, I'm surprised to read all this. What are the alternatives?

Some interesting ones:

- Blades in the Dark: Players are members of a thieves guild. Focus on pulling off heists, creative ways of solving problems, and providing a spectrum of outcomes (e.g. "success but with consequences" or "failure but without consequences" instead of a binary pass and fail).

- Heart: Sort of a psychedelic cosmic horror take on underground adventuring. Has an interesting level up system where at the end of each session you tell the DM something you want to have the chance to accomplish in the next session in order to gain a level. Character classes are crazy (e.g. one revolves around sharing a connection with a hive mind of transcendent bees). Each class's tenth level ability is incredibly overpowered but renders the character unplayable (often dead but sometimes it's something like ascending to a higher plane of consciousness by becoming one with the previously mentioned bee hive mind). For example, there's a class that revolves around communing with a demonic subway system. Their tenth level ability summons a subway car to bust through a wall and destroy everything in the area including the player.

- Electric Bastionland: Set in nearly infinite city of Bastion "the one city that matters" in a society that's similar to a late Victorian era take on sci-fi. This one's difficult to describe because it's more about the vibe than the rules. The players are attempting to pay off their debt to a kafkaesque bureaucracy. The layout of the city changes daily. The Underground can be used to travel anywhere quickly, but it is controlled by sentient Machines that require the players to complete "tests" in order to pass. Sentient muppets are a canonical player race. The best comparison that I can give is if you've played Fallen London or Sunless Seas/Skies.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#303

Post by brightball »

coffeebeqn wrote: post #225
brightball wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would have been me. My old collection would have been worth $30k+ today…if I hadn’t gotten rid of them 25 years ago.

On the other hand- I played in 1999 and looks like my collection would be worth probably less than what I sold it for at the time

The cards that I remember having, specifically 4 of every dual land (about $800 / each as of a couple of years ago) and my most valuable card at the time...a Time Twister ($1,500 now) make up the bulk of it. I don't remember what all else I had.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#304

Post by mcv »

david2ndaccount wrote: post #300
mcv wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile they haven't put out a decent adventure in a decade. Lost Mines of Phandelver, the adventure from the intro box, is pretty good (except when it switches to "every room has a monster" later on). It's very big for an intro adventure and there's tons of stuff in it. But it's quite possible that it's the only good one they made.

I regret to inform you that was released in 2014, almost a decade ago.

That's longer ago than I thought, but still just within the decade, so it counts.

I admit it's a depressing performance by WotC.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#305

Post by thesuitonym »

Sander_Marechal wrote: post #253
solardev wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Forgotten Realms has a special place in many people's hearts (especially the millennials and around them), being a formative part of our childhoods: Minsc and Boo, Drizzt, beholders, mimics, etc. It's like Star Wars or LOTR, people get attached and emotionally invested and it's not so easy to let go overnight. I enjoyed the Original Sin series and played them for many hours,but never finished either one. The…

> The characters and stories weren't their strong suit IMO (they were kinda cheesy, honestly) Yes, but so are D&D characters like Drizzt and Minsc. But they come with added feel-good nostalgia. > I agree new IPs would be great, but those are rare! I am really enjoying "The Timescape" at the moment. It's the setting from Matt Colville / MCDM. It's used in a range of D&D supplements, streams, literature books, videos a…

"Soon" in this case means 2025 or later.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#306

Post by zztop44 »

drxzcl wrote: post #280
baud147258 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WOTC: support your DMs or die. good thing WotC isn't the only company writing adventures for D&D 5, then?

Yes. But more importantly, there are lots of creators making excellent stuff for systems that are not compatible with their bullshit player option supplements. No Steve, you cannot be extra-planar half-staplerkin half-mongoose demi-lich paladin/sorcerer with a lemming patron. I don't care what Tasha's Bulging Cupboard of Crap or Volo's Yard-sale of Absolutely Everything has to say about it.

This was a problem in 3 and 3.5 era too and was only exacerbated by the rise of forums and wikis. I don’t think it’s possible to release one-size-fits-all-the-crap-that’s-out-there campaigns that are going to be actually interesting. At some point the DMs job is to make decisions about what fits and what doesn’t, and to help cultivate a culture of collaborative storytelling.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#307

Post by SSLy »

drxzcl wrote: post #249
csydas wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in them (just a few pieces of paper, not enough dice, sub par instructions ). Or really expensive character toys. For me this is the most telling part that Hasbro doesn't quite get what you're actually selling if you have a tabletop company; it's not the ruleset, that will be leaked as soon as you sell a single copy and people actually play the game. It'…

For me the naive part is focussing on player options. I understand that groups generally have one DM and 4 players, do if you include player options you might sell 5 books instead of one. But that's the shallow, cash-in-now-fuck-next-decade mentality. Meanwhile they haven't put out a decent adventure in a decade. The internet is awash with people trying to glue their ramblings back into coherent campaigns and running…

> The internet is awash with people trying to glue their ramblings back into coherent campaigns

Cases in point, for the unaware: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/44214/roleplaying-games... https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/41217/roleplaying-games...

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#308

Post by marricks »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #157
bart_spoon wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s only two camps, investors and gamers. I think that anyone who wants to “have cards that have relative value” are investors, whether they realize it or not. Its one thing to collect because you like something inherent about the cards themselves (I recall a recent Reddit post where the user was trying to collect every single Magic card that depicted an owl in any way). But if your concern is about the monetary…

> There’s only two camps, investors and gamers. It's not that black and white. I used to play the game in the mid nineties. The most expensive card I bought back then I paid the equivalent of 5 EUR (the Euro didn't even exist yet) because I needed it for a deck but that card came out before I started playing. I'm not an investor in MtG cards. But my collection went up in value. Nothing crazy (I don't have any of the…

An emotional investor is still an investor, and I think people like you are specifically a lot of the reason MTG/Hasboro wants it to be collectible.

It's the "oh this card is valuable because it's powerful, and has good art, AND everyone else thinks it's monetarily valuable which justifies my nostalgia of it"

It's a weird example of how money messes things up. The "it's good in and my deck and has emotional value" should be enough because scarcity makes it hard for the 13 year old with only spare lunch money to get into EDH.

Re: Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling

#309

Post by jghn »

indigochill wrote: post #291
jghn wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We just need to move on from DnD to other IPs at this point Or go back to AD&D 1e like the good lord ... err gygax intended :)

Relatedly, Old School Essentials is, IIRC, B/X just more streamlined in presentation? They also have a cool-looking setting with Dolmenwood (as I gather, basically "a mix of darkness and whimsy in the style of old-school fairy tales") that just had a kickstarter for a big campaign setting guide earlier this year.

While I haven't played D&D in any form for nearly 30 years, I lurk in places like r/adnd. There's something I often wonder in the light of the OSR trend & renewed interest in B/X, early AD&D, etc. And that is - to what extent the style of play captures the older style of play vs. hybridizing the more modern style of play w/ the older rules.

When I talk to friends who play contemporary versions of the game, even if one normalized the rules, what they play isn't what I played way back when. There's much more focus on the actual role playing & narrative/story. It tends more towards high fantasy, almost more like a superhero game. That sort of thing.

I assume it must wind up as a hybrid, and find myself curious to see what that looks like. Granted, it's easy enough for me to try it first hand and find out :)

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