Well, the eminent Yale political scientist James Scott tells us that foot-dragging and rumor-mongering are "weapons of the weak," strategies that powerless people engage in to undermine those whose power is otherwise unassailable. Since Wizards/Hasbro is the proverbial ancient red wyrm, the Smaug of the gaming world, individually no one stands a chance to stop its nefarious plans, not even our heroes at Paizo. So, we have no choice but to use weapons of the weak. I plan to drag my feet on making new purchases of WotC material, which is too bad for them, because I had almost made up my mind to by four or five of their supplements as soon as my budget would allow. I'm also going to engage in shameless rumor-mongering. It's the only way we have of taking back our game.
I encourage all of you to post your favorite speculations, rumors with no basis in fact, scuttlebutt, vicious gossip, urban legends, etc.--in short anything that occurs to you that might explain the evidently short-sighted and destructive decision to terminate Dragon and Dungeon magazines!
I understand that our heroes at Paizo will need to remain tight-lipped about the goings on behind the scene--they need no longer pay tribute to Hasbro/WotC the Great Wyrm, but they must still fear its wrath. So, I won't expect any actual confirmations from our heroes for any of these rumors, but I'll bet a few of them strike close to the truth.
Rumor #1:
Wizards wants to torpedo Paizo, which has become a competitor, both by successfully marketing the Adventure Paths and by keeping the Greyhawk campaign setting alive when they're trying to limit competition to Eberron and FR.
Rumor #2:
Paizo offered to buy the rights to the Dragon and Dungeon brands when Wizards communicated their intention to pull the plug, but Wizards refused to make a serious workable offer that would give Paizo enough editorial freedom to make the magazines work as independent brands. Probably this means that Paizo would have had no rights to publish non-OGL material from Wizards, and they were going to have to pay so much for the brands that they would make no profit for years.
Rumor #3
Wizards is planning a major marketing coup involving issuing a Fourth Edition. Fourth edition will no longer be a pen and paper game at all--it will be an online game--and this means that there is no place for a printed magazine in the D&D product line. Incidentally, this means that Wizards itself will stop printing those high-quality hardbounds with the nice artwork and force us all to buy pdfs if we want to keep up with the game. By killing Dungeon and Dragon, Wizards is assuring that the old edition can't compete with the new one by supplying material for the 3.5e gaming community. Their plan is to force everyone to switch over to 4e over a period of 4-5 years just as they did with 3e.
Rumor #4
Hasbro sees D&D as unprofitable in the long term and believes that pen and paper RPGs won't make the transition to the electronic age. They are planning to let pen and paper D&D die by strangulation, and the long-rumored 4e will actually by DDO ver. 2. Hope you like first-person shooters!
Rumor #5 (Perhaps best labeled conspiracy theory #1)
An investment fund backed by the so-called Christian Right has made a secret hostile takeover of Hasbro (or perhaps just threatened to). Their goal is to destroy Dungeons and Dragons to prevent us all from converting America to satanism. Further rumors hint that the Vice President is involved in the scheme . . . .
Disclaimer--these rumors are pure idle speculation, but I'll bet one of them is close to the truth. In any event, Wizards hasn't given us a plausible story to dispel these speculations. Please share your additions to the rumor-mill too!
Rumors I've heard:
-Hasbro/WotC eats the souls of children. D&D does not appeal to children. By killing D&D slowly and painfully they will be able to spend more time producing crappy toys through which they siphon the souls of the youth.
Good rumor Mr. Tewkesbury, but not quite so very plausible, since April 1st was almost three weeks ago.
Rumor #6: The license for the mags expires June 30. Lisa Stevens had to offer Smaug her firstborn and half of her treasure just to get the license extended through September so they could finish Savage Tide.
Rumor #7: WotC saw the plans for the next AP and realized they would never sell enough of the adventure modules they belatedly returned to publishing, so they pulled the plug. Erik and company had to jump through hoops to modify the AP so that it would be OGL, non-Greyhawk, etc.--all in time to have something to announce on April 19th ("a day that will live in infamy alongside December 7th"), so that Paizo wouldn't just go belly up. (Rumor-monger's comment: They've done a mighty fine job, given the circumstances. I predict that Wizards is going to screw up so badly that they'll be forced to sell the D&D brand to Paizo in five years.)
Rumor #8: the leaders at Wizards worship a certain demon lord who is best not named, and the plan to slay said demon lord on the pages of Dungeon in September has them so angry that they did this in revenge.
Peruhain is in fact a chupa cabra! I can't prove it. The pictures didn't come out very clear. But it was definitely him.
Rumor #4
Hasbro sees D&D as unprofitable in the long term and believes that pen and paper RPGs won't make the transition to the electronic age. They are planning to let pen and paper D&D die by strangulation, and the long-rumored 4e will actually by DDO ver. 2. Hope you like first-person shooters!
I wonder how intellectual property was dealt in case of licensing of Dragon and Dungeon...who owns what?
It has been mentioned elsewhere that intellectual property is major reason in keeping FWotFC running D&D, big profit comes from tie-ins like fiction line.Maybe FWotFC just wanted all those freelancers to send their contributions to them so they can have it all (in case they already owned all IP published in Dragon and Dungeon, this rumor has no basis).
Oh, and let's throw some support for edition 4.0 theory.
More rumors: Paizo was planning to make a lucrative offer to Hasbro to buy FWotFC...to prevent this FWotFC pulled the plug on important source of income for Paizo.
Peruhain is in fact a chupa cabra! I can't prove it. The pictures didn't come out very clear. But it was definitely him.
Vicious lies! I've never, ever sucked the blood from a poor goat in my life. (Well, unless you count eating Birria de Chivo as often as I can get it!) ;)
WOTC timed this announcement to coincide with their week-long celebration of Hitler's birthday.
(Rumor-monger's comment: They've done a mighty fine job, given the circumstances. I predict that Wizards is going to screw up so badly that they'll be forced to sell the D&D brand to Paizo in five years.)
And in 5.01 years we shall see a glorious conflaguration mark the triumphant rebirth of Dungeon and Dragon!
Oh yeah, I can dream. But it's a nice dream, and I don't intend to let go of it.
And two more rumors, all true! of course.
People deal with online content differently than they would with physical things, be they magazines, relationships or whatever. Everything is so easy, just a click away, that if something doesn't hook the browser the first second they just move to the next thing...Even in paper, I admit I am sometimes guilty of this. For example it took me a while to bother reading that article series about floating ship going around frigging Mystara, but eventually I started checking it out...and came to realize that Voyage of the Princess Ark/Known World Grimoire is the best article series ever in Dragon...I wouldn't have read it online though.
So, the insidious plan is to sell basically the same content and same ideas multiple times in different packages, once labelled as "Eberron", once "Forgotten Realms", once maybe "Greyhawk" or "generic"...thus with little effort FWotFC can make claims that they provide lots of new content in their brandnew online Dragon and Dungeon magazines!
Scott Rouse is actually addicted to Internet porn and to justify this habit (and the fact that he can't get laid) he claims that "all the good things are in the Internet anyway".
Rumor #8: the leaders at Wizards worship a certain demon lord who is best not named, and the plan to slay said demon lord on the pages of Dungeon in September has them so angry that they did this in revenge.
The truth comes out!
Prediction: Paizonian Apotheosis
WotC angers so many D&D players with this move that their D&D division crashes and burns in a fantastic corporate fireball. Pathfinder takes off so successfully that Paizo is able to buy ALL of D&D from the gasping WotC in 8 or less years from the present date. Afterwards, Paizo transcends to become D&D in its entirety! A glorious revolution sweeps away the dark ages of gaming and tabletop RPGs re-emerge like never before.
Some would carry on that this would usher in such positive feelings that the whole world united, ending war and strife forever, and the freed up time and effort would allow us to solve all problems of poverty, hunger, and disease, producing paradise on Earth for the rest of time, but I think that's a bit inflated.
Just for laughs.
An impending trio of Wizards releases have been determined to be more in line with the greater picture over at Hasbro. The Dungeons and Dragons line needs to be downgraded to remove the competition for the upcoming online enriched games in the marketing manifesto.
Barbie Life RPG
Pokemon: Adventure!
Magic the Gathering: aka D&D 4.0
If any of these outragious libels proves true, you owe me a d20.
Sure, why not:
Shortly before Paizo was founded, Hasbro began to replace top executives at WotC with pod people. Lisa discovered their evil plan in time to make the switch and get some of the people out alive, but Hasbro holds a terrible secret over her head, the likes of which prevented her from violating the NDAs to get the word out.
Now Hasbro's transformation of WotC employees is complete, and so they have sent their alien warlords in to make a hostile takeover of the venerable magazines, leaving Lisa & Co. no choice but to abandon ship and begin anew.
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I LOVE the idea of Paizo buying out WizCo. WizCo bought TSR when it floundered with its 2nd edition. Now unless 4th edition is so amazingly fantastic that it blows us all away, I would expect WizCo to go the same way.
And in all honesty, the very best thing for D&D would be for Paizo to own it. I was convinced when WizCo bought TSR out that it was the end of D&D. I mean the only thing they had done before was Magic, that card game. But Monte Cook, et al, pulled it off with 3rd edition.
But WizCo was bought out by Hasbro and Monte, et al, are gone. The talent left has not amazed me yet...
But imagine D&D under Erik Mona's leadership! A whole new renaissance of gaming could be unleashed upon the world!
Yep, best thing for D&D would be for Paizo to buy WizCo out... (so should I send my $2,000 to contribute now or later?)