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Judging from what Mearls has written he better hide whatever it is he takes before the DEA takes notice.


Kevin Mack wrote:
Fuchs wrote:

I run a heavily modified FR setting.....

Sorry for the thread jack but a quick question are you the same Fuchs who did the campaign Chronicle Titled Unther Buck I and if you are could you tell me if there is any way to get a copy?

Yes, that's me. The book is just a private work for my gaming group though - printed on demand - so there are no public copies, sorry.


Pax Veritas wrote:
As a player, I agree. I don't want to keep running like a scene from the fugitive, week after week. I want things mixed up. And a lot of the challenges that I like best are the ones that I choose to go after/,.

My PCs often fear for their lives. But I do not need to fear for my PCs to roleplay their fear of death. I don't have them pull suicidal stuff, or act as if they knew they'd not die just because I know they won't.


I generally use Shadowrun 4E for SciFi games. I have to wing the spaceships and space travel rules, but for most of the other technology (like guns) the rules work well, and the magic system allows the integration of psionic or even magic (like in Outlaw Star) really well.


I run a heavily modified FR setting:

First I cut way down on magic items. I go for a world with few (but also often powerful) magic items, where all magic items have a history. No magic shops in every town. No wizards advertising for custom items. No temples selling potions to everyone, or even giving bulk discounts. Most people use either mundane gear, masterwork items, or buff themselves and allies with spells. The red wizards make a fortune (and have a lot of influence) because they sell scrolls and potions to everyone, unlike just about everyone else.

Second, less treasure. There are no orc tribes possessing tons of gold, not bandits amassing a fortune just ripe for the picking. Not many tombs filled with gold. People pay less for "adventuring services" as well. Having 1000 gold from pure loot at level 10 is pretty good for an adventurer, but noble titles, monopolies, lands, logging rights, and secure trade routes are where the real money - and power - is gotten from, and any high-level adventurer knows it, and strives for that if they want to get ahead.

Less spellcasters as a whole. There are no dozens of high-level wizards tending bars. No legions of high-level clerics polishing idols and statues in every temple. I don't always use the stats from the FRCS for the existing high level spellcasters, and usually do not define their levels. Elminster is a sage, pretty sure a capable wizard, but nothing past that is known for sure. The tales always get exagerated anyway. As long as no one needs him to cast Elminster can be a level 5 wizard for all I care.

Certain spells are banned, others are almost nonexistent. Teleport and Teleport without error and all the instant relocation spells with a greater range than Dimension Door are only available to NPC-mages that take a prestige class like the wayfarer from T&B, but without spell progression. People in need of a fast transport can either look for such a mage - and hope they have enough money or services to compensate his time should they arrive at convincing him to aid them - or they can look for ancient, semi-reliable portals scattered among ruins and the like.
Resurrection and similar spells are very, very rare - the stuff of legends. Dead usually is dead. Harm is banned. Haste is banned. Divine Power just gives you 18 strength, nothing more. Persistent spell does not exist. Improved Invisibility and Fly are very rare. People do not usually cast Polymorph Other on allies as there are side effects.

The societies of the realms are a lot more grim than the FRCS suggests. Peasants don't live a good life, nobility means a lot or all in most countries. The dales are modelled after the medieval swiss, a bunch of rather backward peasants good at fighting, sought after as mercenaries. Cormyr is a centralized monarchy modelled after France. South of Baldur's Gate and Cormyr slavery is the norm. Death or enslavement is a common punishment for many crimes in almost all civilized countries, and the laws are not equal - nobles and the wealthy are favored, openly in most locations. True good states are very rare - most leaders are neutral, having to compromise their morals for politics. The true power, money, lies with the (noble) landholders, or with merchant companies or houses, not with some eccentric mage living in an out of the way tower.

Racism and to a lesser degree sexism run rampant.

Elves have no second wind, they are a people rooted in traditions, often unable to cope with the rapidly advancing humans. Elven magic is on the verge of becoming outdated compared to human-driven magic research. In some countries, namely Halrua, the magic knowledge available to humans has mainly surpassed elven traditions due to 3000 years of research driven by humans' zeal for progress. Elves generally look down on humans, but with far less reason than 1000 or even 200 years before. Stuck between the chaotic, carefree attitude of eternal children, and the stiffling traditions of long-lived beings that stiffles progress they have not much to look forward to. The elven items - most very old - are more graceful and more beautiful than comparable items from human or dwarves, but dwarven items, especially metal, are clearly better, of higher quality.

Dwarves are also a people whose time is past. The Thunder Twin event never happened, dwarven numbers keep declining. They have kept up, however, with progress in metalworking and mining, and are still the best at their craft.

Halflings are basically as they are presented, but not too common.

Gnomes are rare. There is no odd tinker gnome in every city.

One campaign is set in Mulhorand/Unther, which I modified even further. Both countries are structured after egypt, and are almost twin cultures.
Religion-wise, I remodeled the Mulhorandi pantheon and culture, and dropped the effects from the time of troubles - there are still gods walking the palaces in Skuld. No good gods though, only neutral gods. Mulhorand is a theocratic society modeled after communist russia, with the clerics of the different temples instead of the party running things. Unther was a manchester-capitalistic society controlled by their godking, and fell apart after the godking died, ripe for the picking by Mulhorand. Arcane casters in Mulhorand are, due to the belief that magic is god-granted and use of it without clerical backing is heresy, and due to the long-standing conflict with the Red Wizards of Thay, persecuted and very rare. The church of Toth, however, is mainly composed of mages with a few levels of cleric, for appearance's sake. The goddess Isis was struck by Set through a plot and her personality fragmented. Her different fragments - each a diferent aspect of her portofolio, and a shard of her mind - compete with each other. The result is a Goddess with split personalities. Good thing she can have multiple avatars.
The priest-caste and the churches dominate Mulhorand and the occupied territories of Unther, running the governement under the pharao and the army. Priests of other faiths than those of the Mulhorandi pantheon may not attempt to convert the people or risk the death penalty (and diplomatic incidences among the gods).

Historically, many events have not happened yet, or will not happen at all. King Azoun still lives, and might go on to live depending on the players. Shade has not (yet) appeared. The retreat is still going on.

I am sure I forgot something, but the gist of it should be clear.


I personally am not motivated at all if I have to fear the loss of my character. I play for fun, and I have no fun if I need to make a new character - a few hours work with the sketches, background history and build - when I really want to keep playing the character I had.


Arcmagik wrote:
You keep saying that. But since I used the DMG and your math links to do the inaccuracy of the "hard math" argument and didn't include a SINGLE house rule then it appears that yes, I did cover it and it was real. You are wrong, but don't worry I have no illusions that you will ever admit it in your state of divorced reality.

Sure sure, keep thinking that. What's the color of the sky on the planet you're living on?


Arcmagik wrote:
Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:
Stuff about Skill Challenges...
You are retreading old ground. I covered this a few pages ago... basically using the "Sound Math" that was presented and showing how it wasn't accurate if you used suggestions from the DMG. Actually I didn't even go into suggestions from other sources (Dragon), just the DMG. But alas, it was ignored.

You think you covered this. Doesn't make it real. Fact is that the rules for SCs do not work as intended. If you can add house rules to them and generally ignore the numbers that's not the same as using them.

And it's also a fact that the SC rules obviously were never playtested. Which kind of shows the importance anything but combat had in the developping process.


Benchak the Nightstalker wrote:
Fuchs wrote:


I am 100% sure that pulling the old (and already pirated) PDFs did not have any effect on the time pirates have to spend to pirate new PDFs. Stopping the release of new PDFs might affect that, but thatr's, as others are so fond of pointing out, just speculation.

I'm sorry, did I make that claim? Because I'm pretty sure that's nowhere near what I said in my post. I thought I was merely pointing out that Scott was factually correct, pulling the PDFs has delayed the release of new material.

Don't believe me? Check the date of EPG's release with the date it finally hit the pirate sites. Compare with that with PHB2.

Do you really think that pulling 3E material did anything to delay piracy of 4E material?


Even if a few people like that travesty the people with no clues at WotC now call the Forgotten Realms it doesn't mean we have to accept it. Remember New Coke.


I don't use figures at all, never did.


Stefan Hill wrote:
Matthew Morris wrote:
If they Kindle the old PDFs

Sorry for a dumb question, but what is Kindle?

S.

A reader for electronic books from Amazon.


Stefan Hill wrote:
VagrantWhisper wrote:
Actually, there's way too many other conditional modifers and variables that could account for something like the Eberron Player's Guide not being available more rapidly.

Good points, you missed "the book may be so awful that it would waste a pirates time..." ;)

S.

PS: Just poking now... (sorry can't stay serious for too long, causes wrinkles I hear - although I have no data to support this and neither can I remember who told me - it may have been my cat?).

Not putting out new PDFs of new books might have had an impact, or might not have. But pulling old PDFs of 3E like Complete Arcane did not, in any way, prevent piracy of new 4E books. Anyone who claims that is wrong.


What I am saying is that you claim that many SCs will be faced by a character without a trained skill and I say yes, almost all will be faced by a character with a trained skill and good stat since it doesn't really take much to cover all circumstances.


Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:
Fuchs wrote:


If players find a plausible way to use a skill, they can do it in a SC. Even if the DM is strict in how to judge this, Diplomacy can cover just about every social challenge. That doesn't really leave much out that a few more skills can't cover.

Not to mention that the 4E rules are made for parties of 5 characters.

The DMG leans toward letting players use any skill if it seems viable but suggests running this at the hard difficulty (statistically the same as mod -5). The Errata tones this down a bit suggesting either medium or hard can be used at the DMs discretion.

And what's the name for a skill that doesn't get a -5 mod? "more than viable"? And how many social skill challenges do you think should turn harder for using diplomacy?


Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:
Fuchs wrote:
Yeah, "not using skill challenges" is pretty innovative. It's called "3E style".

...and your point is?

The reality on the ground is that there are skill challenges being used in the adventures coming out in Dungeon and in WotCs adventure modules.

The reality is that if you house rule SCs enough you'll end up at 3E skill use style. Calling that "using the SCs as intended" is more than a bit stretching the truth.


Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:

The problem is the core assumptions being used in the analysis are flawed.

The core assumption is that every skill is being handled by a character using a skill in which he has maxed out the stat and has training. Furthermore every challenge is set at medium difficulty.

In reality most challenges are more a mix of medium and hard difficulty and characters my not have training and a maxed out stat for every skill. You can only really be maxed out in one stat and if you are the rest of your stats have suffered somewhat because it costs a lot of your initial points to put a stat at 18.

I'm not sure how to statistically analyze the skill challenge system in light of this because, at a very fundamental level its the DM or the adventure module that decides how hard the challenges are and how many successes one needs before failure and its the players that decide how to distribute their training and their point buy. Furthermore the real difficulty here is that number of characters is a big factor in determining how difficult a Skill Challenge is. A party of three characters simply can't have training in and have a maxed out stat in every skill. One with 7 players that have coordinated their characters for the express purpose of overcoming skill challenges probably could, however, pull it off....

If players find a plausible way to use a skill, they can do it in a SC. Even if the DM is strict in how to judge this, Diplomacy can cover just about every social challenge. That doesn't really leave much out that a few more skills can't cover.

Not to mention that the 4E rules are made for parties of 5 characters.


Benchak the Nightstalker wrote:

Er, this may not be the case so much. Word on the street is, there still isn't a full copy of the Eberron Player's Guide up anywhere. Granted, only a matter of time, I would imagine, but I do think that's rather telling, considering Scott is dead on about previous release speeds.

Hypothetically, the delay between when the book comes out, and the time it hits the file sharing sites might pry some money out of the more impatient pirates.

I am 100% sure that pulling the old (and already pirated) PDFs did not have any effect on the time pirates have to spend to pirate new PDFs. Stopping the release of new PDFs might affect that, but thatr's, as others are so fond of pointing out, just speculation.


Aubrey the Malformed wrote:
KaeYoss wrote:
Aubrey the Malformed wrote:


A proportion of diehard fans, certainly, but how many are there really?
Almost none, now that they have died out.
The question was more how many were there before the 4e Realms, rather than after. The point was that WotC could have pitched the setting at people wth a deep understanding of it - which quite possibly would have led to no sales outside a diminishing core fan base that might well have not even bothered with 4e anyway (Greenwood didn't even get to 3e) - or try to broaden its appeal by de-emphasising the back history. While I can agree the means they went about it was cack-handed, I can't really argue with the commercial logic.

I can. Most of the "small core" bought 10 or 20 books each of FR. Even if they get 10 times as many new fans - which I do not believe - selling 1 or 2 books each to everyone would barely make up for the loss.


seekerofshadowlight wrote:
They said they hated the realms and knew nothing about the setting..so yeah not a good group to let write the book

"4E Realms - Made by people who hate the Realms for people who hate the Realms!"


Driving away your core of fans, the ones who buy everything you put out, to try to reach people who were not interested before by completely changing your product is never a good idea when you could have just put out a new line of products for those new customers.


There's a link to the SC math, and then there's a link to a more "pointed" analysis of the Skill Challenge system.

The point is that I'd expect a paid Dev to get his math right at the very least in the errata so players don't need to make house rules just to make the system work as intended. A system is not turned into a good system just because with enough house rules, gentleman's agreements and plain "Not using this as a DM" tweaking you can make it work.

If you house rule the Skill Challenge enough you can't tell the difference from a house ruled 3E skill system.


WormysQueue wrote:
I've seen the same discussion coming up already regarding Golarion. People fearing that Paizo's product plan will eventually lead to a "realmification" of Golarion because the world keeps getting detailed in the modules, the adventure paths, the Chronicles and the Companions. Instead of simply ignoring the offered options (what they easily could do) they try to convince the designers to stop detailing the World.

And those people won't amount to anything, ever. If you cannot ignore parts of a setting you don't want to use, if you cannot tell players that, if you cannot stand up for yourself then you'll never be a good DM. (There are other qualities also needed, of course.)

The 4E FRCS was made for the wrong reasons, to appeal to the wrong people. A simple page or two with DM advice about the Realms would have worked much better.

Rules are the same, of course. If a DM can't handle the realms he'll not be able to handle the splatbook glut either.


Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:
Allen Stewart wrote:
I'm no fan of the Forgetable Realms, but it strikes me as interesting that the main defenders of 4th ed. (who post on these message boards), are quite absent on this thread. Wonder why?...
Your sure spoiling for a fight. By your own admission you've no horse in this race but your still lobbing things on the tack hoping for a crash.

Just be mature and ignore it. If you don't start it we can go on discuss the end of the FR as we knew them.

I am still running my campaign in the FR, 15 years or so by now. Not gonna give it all up for a setting made for people unwilling to either invest some time reading up, or unable to tell canon "scholars" that they would be running their own FR.

That's what it boils down to: A setting made for DMs who need the big "official" stick to ward off (mostly hypothetical) "FR fanatic players" who know more about the setting than the DM.

Not that people who needed a fresh wipe to start running in a setting will amount to anything anyway, they'll get dragged down by the rules lawyers instead since I don't see them reading up on rules either.


Yeah, "not using skill challenges" is pretty innovative. It's called "3E style".


Joshua J. Frost wrote:

Wow. See, this thread is why we can't have nice things.

Can we try, just try, for just once, to have a civil conversation on these boards about 3e or 4e or the so-called "edition wars" without resorting to trashing other companies, their fans, and their game of choice? Who cares if you're not playing 4e? Who cares if you're not playing 3e? Drop it, play the game or games that you like, and stop turning every single thread on these messageboards into an opportunity to hate stomp the game you're not playing.

We've been asking for this nicely. Don't make us ask for this other than nicely.

An ignore function would really, really be helpful in keeping the boards more civil. Please implement it as soon as possible.


bugleyman wrote:


Wasn't there something about "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" upthread? :)

I've met too many criminals to believe that every act can be adequately explained by stupidity.

In this case WotC had ample time and opportunity to correct a mistake, but didn't so, so I can't give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it was a mistake.


bugleyman wrote:

The world simply isn't that black and white. They probably had multiple reasons for doing what they did, including something like "focusing on a single vision of what the D&D brand is going forward in order to better leverage our core competencies and produce a synergistic blah blah blah," but I do think they made the final decision to pull the 4E pdfs as a reaction to piracy. It's a guess, but I think that they then decided they may as well pull all PDFs, since they didn't want only older editions available in PDF, and sales of older editions products may not have justified the trouble.

I think it was an amazingly bad decision, but I don't think it was driven by malice.

The alternative would be stupidity on WotC's part of a magnitude that's simply implausible for a corporation made up (at least partially) of reasonably intelligent people with some internet experience.

No, I do not believe WotC are that stupid. If I believed they were that stupid I certainly wouldn't touch anything they publish with a ten-foot pole. That would be like trying to drive a car built by someone unable to figure out how to open a door.


pres man wrote:
So you are not challenging their claim with respect to new material, just with respect to older material? So they may actually be at least partially honest when saying that piracy did effect the decision (pull ALL the pdfs)?

No. Pulling the PDFs already available had nothing to do with piracy since those were pirated and in circulation already. Refusing to publish PDFs of future 4E books might have been motivated by piracy concerns, as well as being a way to push the DDI.


pres man wrote:
Fuchs wrote:

"After it was pirated we'll stop piracy by removing legal access to it"

strikes you as a plausible reason? Can I interest you in a joint-venture in Nigeria?

So your contention is that even without legal ways of purchasing a high quality pdf, that within 1 day of the release of a book, there will be high quality (printer quality) pdfs out there to be pirated?

I have some ocean-front property in Kansas you might be interested in.

No, my point is that after something was already pirated, removing it makes no sense anymore. Especially not if by removing you stop getting any revenue from it since you're not selling it in any form anymore.

I don't really care about the new PDFs they did not publish, I care about the older PDFs that were already published.

Removing the older PDFs did nothing to battle piracy, they were already in circulation. Quite the opposite in fact, sicne by not offering legal versions of them anymore it probably drove up piracy of them.

Get it now?


Celestial Healer wrote:

I'm not sure how anyone can frame the pulling of PDF's in ethical terms. The PDF's are WotC's to sell or not as they choose. We can disagree with their decision, or at most criticize them for possible dishonesty about their motivations, but ultimately they were under no obligation to explain their actions at all.

Suggesting that people who purchase 4e products are supporting an unethical or illegal enterprise is absurd.

The lies about the reasons for the move are the unethical part. Dishonesty itself is unethical.

I guess "We don't want to sell old PDFs anymore to force everyone to buy 4E" doesn't sound as good.

And the "We were getting pirated, so we had to pull all PDFs to avoid more losses" is a lie as well - the PDF sales were the only form WotC sent older editions in, they went from selling a certain number of PDFs and hypothetical losses to piracy to no sales at all.

Pulling the 4E PDFs is one thing - they sell that IP in hardcover and DDI form - but pulling the 3E and older material is another thing.


pres man wrote:


I am not sure if you realize something, and based on posts like this it appears as if you might not. That is, WotC pulled ALL pdfs. Not just old ones for editions they are no longer actively supporting but also pdfs for the actual system being supported currently (that being 4e). This occurred after actual proof was found that of a pirated pdf coming from a purchase from a legal seller (the seller didn't pirate it, the buyer did) within a day of release. Was this the ONLY reason to choose to stop selling pdfs? Perhaps not, but it might have the final reason, the last straw that broke the camel's back, as they say. So it might not be a lie or naive to say that it is because of pirated pdfs that they stopped selling them, because if it had not happened within a day they might not have pulled them, but it may not be the whole story either.

"After it was pirated we'll stop piracy by removing legal access to it"

strikes you as a plausible reason? Can I interest you in a joint-venture in Nigeria?

Arcmagik wrote:
It is pointless. Don't try. I ripped his argument about broken SC up and he refused to believe and even tried to paint me in a bad light. Don't know what the light was again since I can't be bothered to look it up.

You didn't rip up anything. If you really believe you can defend the Skill Challenges head over here.


Freehold DM wrote:


Like I have said before, I hate the realms and I hate 4e. That said, this is an excellent point. D&D has "lost" new people interested in roleplaying to other game companies due to the astonishing amount of reading one had to do in order to be "up to date" on events in the realms. A tabula rasa is not necessarily a bad thing in this regard.

You didn't have to do all that reading. Most DMs likely never used all that material, nor felt they had to. It was an option, which was removed. And the inexpereinced GMs won't have material to fall back on, to felsh out stuff they cannot do themselves.

Economically, driving away people who bought all material coming out for the FR in order to have a chance at attracting people who don't like to read doesn't strike me as a sensible move if one plans to keep selling lots of books. Given my spending habits I bought more FR books than ten "new DMs" who only buy 1 or two books each put together - and I doubt I am an exception.


Sebastian wrote:
Fuchs wrote:


But then I don't assume stupidity where malice is more plausible.
As long as you've got that dictionary handy, you might want to look up "plausible." It should be shortly after "paranoid."

You certainly are not as naive as you pretend to be.


Miphon wrote:


We're getting slightly off-track here. My point was that it doesn't matter what reason you or I might believe is behind the removal of the old PDFs, because without proof we are both in the realm of speculation and opinion rather than the realm of fact. As such, I believe that calling someone stupid, gullible or dishonest for having an opinion different from your own isn't proper conduct for these boards.

Engage in debate and discussion all you want, but please respect the fact that other people may not share your opinion.

Of course I repsect the fact that other people have other opinions - but I do not have to respect their opinion, especially not if it amounts to "oh, well, as long as we do not have proof there really could be a nigerian heiress in need of $ 25'000 to free up her fortune she wants to share with me, so anyone who calls me a fool for sending her money is being mean to me and doesn't respect my opinion".

In other words: It does matter what you believe.


Sebastian wrote:
My dog obviously thinks you're both stupid. I'm not saying you're stupid, I'm just saying that's what my dog thinks. Hopefully, you're not one of those idiots who needs to put people in drawers and twist my statement to make it seem like I'm saying that I think you're stupid (and, reading my statement in that way, would probably make you stupid, so I really don't think you should do that). It's just my guess as to what my dog thinks about you.

Well, if you truly believe WotC was really that dumb and had not other reasons for pulling the PDFs than piracy, and still buy their stuff then that would make you either a fool, or someone who follows a fool. And who would be the bigger fool of those two is another question.

But then I don't assume stupidity where malice is more plausible.


18DELTA wrote:
WormysQueue wrote:
So in short: There are at least some people who like the 4E realms not for getting rid of all the content. They like it for getting rid of us.
I never thought of it like that.

The argument "Less is more" is stupid anyway. Between the trash novels and DDI's FR crumbs, and possible more Computer Games, the setting they are calling the Forgotten Realms sooner or later will again provide a bareer of entry for new DMs unwilling to read up and unable to ignore those details.


Miphon wrote:


Okay, so if I believe that WotC made a stupid decision and pulled all PDFs in a massive over-reaction to piracy (comparable to the RIAA suing grandmothers and six year olds, or Sony installing root kits on my PC via their music CDs), then I'm either a fool or dishonest?

Yes. If they really were that dumb they'd have corrected their mistake by now, after all the negative PR this generated. The fact that they did not means they have other reasons.

Miphon wrote:


For the record, I believe the "official" explanation is only part of the reason behind WotC pulling the PDFs, but without proof, any theories I or anyone else might have as to why this decision was made are only speculation or opinion.

What reason would and could there be for the removal of the old PDFs, other than "Let's force people to buy 4E by removing alternatives"?


KaeYoss wrote:
Fuchs wrote:

It is in mine:

gul·li·ble ['] adj. leichtgläubig, na'iv

Thanks for playing along!

It is not in the dictionary of EN World mods, since they equate it to "dumb".


It is in mine:

gul·li·ble ['] adj. leichtgläubig, na'iv


Of course anyone who supports pulling 3E material from the market in order to push 4E material clearly shows how much they want 3E fans to continue having fun and how much faith in 4E's ability to stand on its own merits they actually have.


Stefan Hill wrote:
Fuchs wrote:
they'd not have tried to feed them their stupid "reasons" for pulling 3.X PDFs. That's a fine difference

What were the "official" reasons by the way? I had just assumed a sound business plan of not competing with yourself. I feel I have missed some other anouncements from WotC which wold indicate our reasons. Could someone please either post a link or paraphrase.

Thanks,
S.

WotC_Trevor posted this:

"Hey all. I wanted to step in and shine a mote of light on the subject. First off, this cesation of PDF sales has absolutely nothing to do with the Internet Sales Policy. I know it's the 6th of April and I can definitely see how the two would appear linked, but the truth is, this is a completely seperate matter.

Unfortunately, due to recent findings of illegal copying and online distribution (piracy) of our products, Wizards of the Coast has decided to cease the sales of online PDFs. We are exploring other options for digitial distribution of our content and as soon as we have any more information I'll get it to you."


Miphon wrote:
Whether or not I believe WotC pulled their old PDFs for piracy reasons isn't the issue, but insulting part of the community here (even if done subtly) just isn't cool.

I am not saying everyone who likes 4E is a fool - I am saying WotC probably thinks their customers are fools or they'd not have tried to feed them their stupid "reasons" for pulling 3.X PDFs. That's a fine difference.

I do say that anyone who believes WotC's reasons for pulling the PDFs is gullible, so if you believe them you're gullible. If you defend them using the stated reasons you're either gullible or dishonest.


Miphon wrote:
Fuchs wrote:
If a company treats me like an idiot - feeding me hare-brained lies about the reasons they pull PDFs from the market, and expecting me to believe them - that's enough for me to stop buying from them since at the very least hints strongly at what kind of mental capacity they expect in their target audience.
Thanks for spreading the love around. Backhanded compliments are the best sort...

If anyone believes that WotC pulled the old PDFs for piracy reasons, then they are so gullible that I assume they'll fall for any attempt to con them, and will lose their last shirt to the next e-mail scam.


pres man wrote:
Personally I believe in mutual self-interest. A company makes products I want, even if they kick puppies down the streets, I will purchase their products. A company doesn't make products I want, then I won't purchase their products, no matter how many puppies they adopt.

Kicking puppies is a crime. Contrary to some, I would not support criminals, or make deals with them.

If a company treats me like an idiot - feeding me hare-brained lies about the reasons they pull PDFs from the market, and expecting me to believe them - that's enough for me to stop buying from them since at the very least hints strongly at what kind of mental capacity they expect in their target audience.


Gorbacz wrote:

Still, if 4e crowd wants a nice sandbox where moderators will run after everybody who disapproves of their game / company you have gleemax, enworld, rpg.net. And more.

And you want a place where 4e and pf are both treated with equal respect and dignity, there's the Den. Paizil fael and 4e fael are both fael and get smacked equally, right down to "who is a bigger fael: Buhlman or Mearls ?" threads. That's equality ! ;)

Right on both counts. And 3.5 gets ripped to shreds as well.


pres man wrote:
I hate that company so much, because they won't let me give more money to them! Damn them!

By your logic discrimination (refusing to sell something to a specific ethnicity or gender) is no biggie - you just do not let them give money to you.

It's, of course, not the same, but yes, knowing WotC could sell me the pdfs I want, but refuses to do so for no logical reason other than to promote a game system I don't like, is reason enough to dislike them.


Matthew Morris wrote:

Do I understand the anger at not being able to get a PDF of 'Volo's guide to all things Magical?' Yes.

Does this mean WotC lost a sale from me? Yes.

Does this require a 'hatred of all things Hasbro?' not so much.

Who is the bigger fool, the fool, or the one who follows him?

I'd not call it hatred of all things hasbro, but I am not about to trust that company anymore, and given how stupid they acted with marketing (pdf pulled, anti-3E propaganda) and with rules (not playtested SC rules, failed fix in errata) I don't put much faith in anything else they produce.


People who did not know FR and hated it's history made a setting for people who did not know FR and hated it's history.

All so they could keep the name of the setting.

Pathetic, and maybe not even commercially sucessful if a lot of the former fans who bought all books of the FR stopped buying new material.


KaeYoss wrote:
Except that they also lost novel readers over this.

Killing off all present non-elven/immortal characters by jumping 100 years ahead does tend to do that.

Hm... "4-gotten Realms - the edition and novel line for (dark) elf fanboys, everyone else is dead"?

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