D&D Take 5 uncut
I posted something similar to my notes on Facebook, but I was rather tame there. Tame isn't my piece, really. I was born and bred in an area of Germany where swearing is part of communication, and if people are offended, well, I don't give a fuck.
Now, after having gone tits-up against their own product, revised and improved by Paizo, Wankers of the Coast have come to the amazing insight that it is actually wise to listen to their fanbase. Really? I mean... REALLY? After alienating people who have stood by first TSR and then pre-Hasbro Wizards, folks, like me, who stopped buying their products after they basically told me my way of gaming was primitive, not to mention the farce they did with the Forgotten Realms, that company wants me to come back and purchase anything? Yea, I signed up for the playtest, but as my gaming time is somewhat limited, and my players are barely English literate, I doubt I will really playtest it. And besides, if they really cared about what I and many others, including such creative heavyweights like Margaret Weis, thought about their move to remove brandnames amongst other things from their products, that info has been available on the net for a hell of a lot of years. Various blogs, forums etc, all these sources could and should have been available to the mighty managers of Wizards who probably still have no idea what D&D is all about.
Publicly held companies have only one interest in mind, satisfying their shareholders, not the folks purchasing their stuff.
And now they even want to re-release the 1st edition core books... in the US. Yep none of us foreign bastards are going to get them. Then again, I have some printing of them in my library anyway, and though I do like to read parts of them every once in a while, I feel that this is merely a ploy to get some decent sales numbers again. The grognards (with 25 years of playing RPGs I believe I am only a demi-grognard) own them books anyway, and you can get decent enough copies on ebay all the time.
So why release a product that, except for nostalgic reasons, is somewhat dated... hell, I have trouble seeing the big picture with the damned things because it is all so haphazardly shuffled together that reading and playing the game according to these rules gives the term adventure gaming a whole new meaning. Cash, and possibly lulling those of us willing to believe Saul turned into Paul. Wizards still has to meet those marks set by the big brother Hasbro, and apparently this release is part of the scheme.
Why then did they discontinue the D&D minis line...now that I think of it, that line went pretty strong back in 3rd edition days, and quickly vanished after the updated rules were released in the wake of 4e. And to be perfectly honest, the molds to many of those later gen minis could have taugh many pornstars something about sucking...
Yea, let's make producing shit cheaper while we maintain the price. Such glorious schemes are bound to succeed on every level, always. btw this is me being sarcastic.
Removing the logos of the various separate novel lines, like Dragonlance or the Realms, letters and words that made it easy for fans to find those books in the store, was another such stroke of genius. You. Do. Not. Eliminate. The. Fucking. Logo. Of. A. Successful. Brand. And that is common sense. One does not need great business savy to get such things. If a logo, like the Realms one, has existed for the better part of 2 decades, it is ingrained in the readers'/consumers' conscience. Removing it is like killing a well loved baby just because you are the parent. It doesn't matter if the novels still exist, the brandname is NOT D&D for those books, it is Dragonlance... and it takes a special kind of fuckwit to wipe that slate clean.
more on this later
Now, after having gone tits-up against their own product, revised and improved by Paizo, Wankers of the Coast have come to the amazing insight that it is actually wise to listen to their fanbase. Really? I mean... REALLY? After alienating people who have stood by first TSR and then pre-Hasbro Wizards, folks, like me, who stopped buying their products after they basically told me my way of gaming was primitive, not to mention the farce they did with the Forgotten Realms, that company wants me to come back and purchase anything? Yea, I signed up for the playtest, but as my gaming time is somewhat limited, and my players are barely English literate, I doubt I will really playtest it. And besides, if they really cared about what I and many others, including such creative heavyweights like Margaret Weis, thought about their move to remove brandnames amongst other things from their products, that info has been available on the net for a hell of a lot of years. Various blogs, forums etc, all these sources could and should have been available to the mighty managers of Wizards who probably still have no idea what D&D is all about.
Publicly held companies have only one interest in mind, satisfying their shareholders, not the folks purchasing their stuff.
And now they even want to re-release the 1st edition core books... in the US. Yep none of us foreign bastards are going to get them. Then again, I have some printing of them in my library anyway, and though I do like to read parts of them every once in a while, I feel that this is merely a ploy to get some decent sales numbers again. The grognards (with 25 years of playing RPGs I believe I am only a demi-grognard) own them books anyway, and you can get decent enough copies on ebay all the time.
So why release a product that, except for nostalgic reasons, is somewhat dated... hell, I have trouble seeing the big picture with the damned things because it is all so haphazardly shuffled together that reading and playing the game according to these rules gives the term adventure gaming a whole new meaning. Cash, and possibly lulling those of us willing to believe Saul turned into Paul. Wizards still has to meet those marks set by the big brother Hasbro, and apparently this release is part of the scheme.
Why then did they discontinue the D&D minis line...now that I think of it, that line went pretty strong back in 3rd edition days, and quickly vanished after the updated rules were released in the wake of 4e. And to be perfectly honest, the molds to many of those later gen minis could have taugh many pornstars something about sucking...
Yea, let's make producing shit cheaper while we maintain the price. Such glorious schemes are bound to succeed on every level, always. btw this is me being sarcastic.
Removing the logos of the various separate novel lines, like Dragonlance or the Realms, letters and words that made it easy for fans to find those books in the store, was another such stroke of genius. You. Do. Not. Eliminate. The. Fucking. Logo. Of. A. Successful. Brand. And that is common sense. One does not need great business savy to get such things. If a logo, like the Realms one, has existed for the better part of 2 decades, it is ingrained in the readers'/consumers' conscience. Removing it is like killing a well loved baby just because you are the parent. It doesn't matter if the novels still exist, the brandname is NOT D&D for those books, it is Dragonlance... and it takes a special kind of fuckwit to wipe that slate clean.