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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

#331

Post by r00fus »

saiya-jin wrote: post #119
DonHopkins wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like Oracle buying Sun. We just need to move on from Java to other languages at this point.

You sir go wherever you want but please leave Java to professionals that make companies just work (TM). Yes its not ultra fashionate with all new features in some other languages (but improving constantly), but TBH I don't care, at all, I can work till retirement with Java 8 and be very happy, at the end its just a tool to solve problems and darn good one. Proper quality engineering is delivering good robust solution…

Also many people use "Java" in the enterprise without paying Oracle a red cent.

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

#332

Post by ishanmahapatra »

Filligree wrote: post #261
freilanzer wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There’s hundreds, possibly thousands. Don’t Close Your Eyes and Glitch/Nobilis are three of my favourites.

Man, I _really_ want to play a Nobilis/Chuubo’s/Glitch game. But I can’t seem to wrap my head around the system(s), and it’s incredibly hard to find an AP that will help me understand how they work.

How would you teach a newbie the game(s)?

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

#333

Post by ishanmahapatra »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #214
rtkwe wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spelljammer combat? You have any links to that my wife is running a Spelljammer campaign right now and those might be useful to her. Over all yes the whole thing came across as very weak and half hearted but of course it's freaking Spelljamming so it still sold very well despite being a weak product.

Here you go: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/407191/Spelljammer-5E-Theat... (It's pay what you want, so you can pay zero if you want to try it out.) This was written by a DM friend of mine who also runs an excellent podcast, if y'all are into that :)

Which podcast?

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

#334

Post by matt_heimer »

solardev wrote: post #109
DonHopkins wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like Oracle buying Sun. We just need to move on from Java to other languages at this point.

If you ever want another huge, ancient labyrinth of a language that also kinda sorta runs everywhere, the Javascript world welcomes you with open tentaces! Here we're controlled by an evil older than Oracle itself (Microsoft and Typescript), with upgrades and crossgrades and cross compilers that deliver astounding 15% improvements in performance in exchange for a mere few animal sacrifices and a lifetime of misery. I…

"JavaScript" is a trademark of Oracle Corporation in the United States.

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

#335

Post by red-iron-pine »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #276
freilanzer wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It definitely ain't everyone's cup of tea, but my current favourite system is Mörk Borg and other "old school" rules-light systems like it. My next game will be run in either Mothership or Death In Space. All in all I feel like D&D has too many rules (but crucially not enough to not leave details up to interpretation) and too many artificial limits on the characters one can play. The good thing about D&D is that many…

> All in all I feel like D&D has too many rules (but crucially not enough to not leave details up to interpretation) and too many artificial limits on the characters one can play.

Aye, that was my feel, and why I gravitated to other systems. GURPS for example lets you do basically anything (albeit by making it complex as hell), and things like FATE, or Powered By the Apocalypse games, just abstract or simplify it.

Cy_Borg is also a Mork Borg cyberpunk spinoff which was kinda cool. Didn't get around to playing it but enjoyed the book. Like MB it went hard on the style.

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

#336

Post by Filligree »

ishanmahapatra wrote: post #332
Filligree wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s hundreds, possibly thousands. Don’t Close Your Eyes and Glitch/Nobilis are three of my favourites.

Man, I _really_ want to play a Nobilis/Chuubo’s/Glitch game. But I can’t seem to wrap my head around the system(s), and it’s incredibly hard to find an AP that will help me understand how they work. How would you teach a newbie the game(s)?

Asking the wrong person, unfortunately; I’ve never played it. I write fanfiction of it. :D

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

#337

Post by red-iron-pine »

Sander_Marechal wrote: post #250
musicale wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a bit thin, but I still had fun playing! I will be sad if they don't develop it further. Then again, I'd kind of like to see more of their legendary forgotten settings like Dark Sun...

They will never release another Dark Sun. It is waaay to vile and racist. Personally I love the setting, but there is zero change they could publish it without some serious backlash from a lot of people ... for who that content is not intended. Let's put it that way. If they ever release something with the name Dark Sun, it will be that in name only. Disconnected from the original. Even worse than Spelljammer.

racist? really? more than Tolken... or literally anything else D&D related?

sounds like another tumblr "anything I don't like is 'problematic'" take.

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

#338

Post by red-iron-pine »

seabird wrote: post #177
dragontamer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative systems flourished with DnD 4.0 back in 2008, since that system just wasn't as good as 3.5 or the new 5th edition. Wizards of the Coast did a great job with the balance of customization vs simplicity of 5e and that's why DnD did so well recently. But the alternatives always were there. Its a big community of literal house-rule makers (everyone plays DnD with their own houserules). Its a community used…

Was 4 really worse than 5? Everyone I've heard speak on it is pretty hesitant to say 5 is better, and that a lot of of great design choices (martial classes not being completely outclassed, less frustrating saving throws, rule clarity, better handling of numbers on enemies, better rest mechanics, etc.) were thrown out in 5 because 4 caught so much shit for being "not 3.5".

Yeah was pretty crap. There were some positive items here or there, like trying to balance the "linear figher/quadratic wizard" issues, and things like healing surges helped keep play smooth, but the whole thing basically felt like they saw that 'the yout' were all about those MMOs and they tried to make that on the tabletop.

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

#339

Post by isk517 »

busterarm wrote: post #61
speeder wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw someone pointing out they are doing exact same things comic companies did leading to their crash. The comic companies started to sell a ton of variants, foils, collector editions. They also started to do attention grabbing but bad quality storylines. And also they started to try to cut middlemen and sell more directly to the consumer. The end result was that readers eventually noticed quality was crap, with com…

It may not have worked in the comic book industry but the same tactic has proved an enormous boon to the sports card industry in the last decade and that's absolutely booming.

It works in the sports card industry because owning the rare card is the entire point of the hobby. The vast majority of people buying comic books plan to read them and the majority of the people buying WotC products want to be able to use them to play some sort of game.

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

#340

Post by bitcharmer »

Dave3of5 wrote: post #290

Most of these layoffs have been very odd. These are companies making bank and then laying off people left right and center that are key to them making that bank. Corporate companies are totally baffling Hasbro is no different.

What did you expect from a bunch of MBAs? They are not known for being particularly sharp, are they.
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