Hasbro laying off Wizards of the Coast staff is baffling • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 1:02 PM UTC

jghn wrote: post #309

indigochill wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 on…

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

#372

Post by tao_at_garden » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 1:10 PM UTC

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…

I've gotten a lot of value out of Dragons of Stormwreck Isle that came in the new D&D Starter Set. That said, I'm now using it as a base for jumping off into OSR (Old School Renaissance) modules after the OGL debacle and now this.

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

#373

Post by tao_at_garden » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 1:14 PM UTC

rankovic wrote: post #357

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?

Been playing Kult: Divinity Lost since the pandemic and have never looked back. It's personal horror, similar to Call of Cthulhu and some World of Darkness titles, while being quite different from D&D, which always felt like roleplaying Excel spreadsheets to me. There's focus on flawed characters, improv and failing-forward. Requires really mature players and GM, and trust between them. Safety tools are front and cen…

I just ordered the tarot deck! Excited to see how it plays with Kult's published tarot adventure.

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

#374

Post by soundnote » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

They burned me out of Magic. It used to be that the game had distinct spoiler seasons, and the Standard format and game as a whole used to stand still for a while and be explored at length. Even the rotating Standard format had a period where you could grow really familiar with the format as it was even if you weren't a really plugged in grinder. Eternal formats changed slowly because power creep, while present, wasn't completely nuts.

Now, the environment is a neverending spoiler season that it's impossible to keep up with unless you're one of those NYC squirrels on crack. See a graphical representation here:

https://onlyontuesdays27.com/2022/10/18/30-years-of-magic-th...

Meanwhile, power creep is out of hand, which means more releases are more relevant to more formats, the quality of the flavour has progressively gotten worse. There's more and more of "millenial writing" that substitutes being good with being sassy. When the game costs an arm and a leg, why bother.

D&D, similar deal. You have a fantasy setting, which should mean different creatures. What does Wizards do? Progressively remove more and more differentiation between different races and creatures. A 3m/10ft tall minotaur and a half-orc are both defined by strength, both get a +2STR which just feels wrong. But wait, there's more! A halfling can now decide to have the same bonus. It cheapens the setting when things don't mean something anymore.

Similarily, RPGs are generally about overcoming challenges. And we get, what. Wheelchair-accessible dungeons?? Coffee shop modules for D&D, of all things, instead of doing the concept in a more suitable system like a FATE derivative? College student representation obsession's run completely off the rails, and it means the product starts failing at its core purpose.

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

#375

Post by soundnote » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 3:07 PM UTC

klodolph wrote: post #320

zztop44 wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, 100%. I DMed during the 3 and 3.5 era, and the “bullshit player option supplements” were a major problem. Players want to ask for the most out of pocket stuff they pick up from the splatbooks. It was beyond difficult to build a coherent party of players when everyone was using radically different concepts to build their characters. Game balance went out the window. 3 and 3.5 had terrible game balance to begin wi…

Game balance in 3rd Edition was gone from the PHB onwards, out of like top 5-7 most broken classes in the game, 3 were in the PHB (Wizard, Cleric, Druid). A lot of stuff people consider broken (eg. Tome of Battle) isn't even really a power level boost for melee classes, just lets them in on the same move action + interesting option playstyle casters were doing since release (just at a much lower power level) vs. charge-> full attack full attack.

Not to say there wasn't broken shit in splats, but like half of broken nonsense was Core to begin with.

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

#376

Post by melkor73 » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 5:04 PM UTC

webmaven wrote: post #343

harimau777 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest thing that I've seen D&D offer is support for campaign play. Systems like Blades in the Dark, Heart, and Mork Borg are great, but they are built around the assumption that characters are replaced (or in the case of Mork Borg, the world ends) regularly. A lot of other systems also tend to abstract away treasure in a way that I think is less satisfying for some players. Personally, I'd love to see more syst…

> Personally, I'd love to see more systems that are less "wargaming" oriented than D&D but with a focus on long term play and, where possible, player growth. Did you actually mean player growth? I'm familiar with Player Character growth, but fostering the growth of the player (at least beyond simply a growing familiarity with the rules) is a new idea for me, although I'm not sure why the notion of helping players bec…

It was part and parcel of early D&D. In the OD&D and 1E days, the tournaments and tournament modules were all about finding and testing the best players, not the best player characters/builds. The tournament modules purported to do that in a systematic way, usually judging skill by how far you got in the scenario before dying. Gygax would often pontificate about player skill being the key to success in his tougher scenarios.

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

#377

Post by gymbeaux » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 8:53 PM UTC

Eridrus wrote: post #212

gymbeaux wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that all cards will eventually be under $10, because cards like Mana Crypt are opportunities for WoTC to make money via reprints. I’ve only been playing/buying since March, but I’ve seen so many cards dropping dramatically in price, much more often than seeing a card shoot up in price. Reprints help drive sales and justify the higher prices for booster packs. Cutting staff implies that, perhaps, they ant…

The monopoly profit maximizing price for a card is going to depend on the precise shape of the demand curve for each individual card; It may be $10 it may be $50; the fact that they could crash the price whenever they want does not mean it is in their interests to do so.

So my thinking is that if they control supply (they do of course), they control demand, and that there is no “per-card” demand curve. If a card is reprinted and drops from $100 to $50, they can reprint until it’s $10

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

#378

Post by gymbeaux » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 8:56 PM UTC

gigaflop wrote: post #329

gymbeaux wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that all cards will eventually be under $10, because cards like Mana Crypt are opportunities for WoTC to make money via reprints. I’ve only been playing/buying since March, but I’ve seen so many cards dropping dramatically in price, much more often than seeing a card shoot up in price. Reprints help drive sales and justify the higher prices for booster packs. Cutting staff implies that, perhaps, they ant…

I dropped $200 on Dr Malcolm and some others for the Locust God promo. I'm very happy with it all, and now get to build an Egglord deck with Jeff Goldblum's face on it. And, if you've only experienced a few set releases, price swings will seem weird. Keep in mind that more boxes will be opened for a while, thus making more copies of coveted things available. It's a different story when a set goes out of print.

I haven’t been around long, but based on what I see at local game stores, it seems like they’re still printing sets going back to 2021… so they print a set for 2-3 years typically?

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

#379

Post by gymbeaux » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 8:57 PM UTC

gigaflop wrote: post #329

gymbeaux wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that all cards will eventually be under $10, because cards like Mana Crypt are opportunities for WoTC to make money via reprints. I’ve only been playing/buying since March, but I’ve seen so many cards dropping dramatically in price, much more often than seeing a card shoot up in price. Reprints help drive sales and justify the higher prices for booster packs. Cutting staff implies that, perhaps, they ant…

I dropped $200 on Dr Malcolm and some others for the Locust God promo. I'm very happy with it all, and now get to build an Egglord deck with Jeff Goldblum's face on it. And, if you've only experienced a few set releases, price swings will seem weird. Keep in mind that more boxes will be opened for a while, thus making more copies of coveted things available. It's a different story when a set goes out of print.

I’m building a Dr. Malcolm deck as well! He’d be a great Dino commander if he were more colors.

Tasha’s Hideous Laughter as him laughing in the helicopter is chef’s kiss

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

#380

Post by gymbeaux » Thu, Dec 21, 2023, 8:58 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #70

gymbeaux wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that all cards will eventually be under $10, because cards like Mana Crypt are opportunities for WoTC to make money via reprints. I’ve only been playing/buying since March, but I’ve seen so many cards dropping dramatically in price, much more often than seeing a card shoot up in price. Reprints help drive sales and justify the higher prices for booster packs. Cutting staff implies that, perhaps, they ant…

> This month people are losing their minds over the Princess Bride and Dr. Malcolm Secret Lair sets. Wonderful art on the Princess Bride set. I can't help but notice that if Inigo Montoya gets into combat with the Man in Black... he'll win.

Purely a consequence of using existing creatures as templates I’m sure