Suggestion:
For those that have extra issues remaining in your subscriptions, request that the remaining issues be send as extra copies of the final issue of Dragon and Dungeon magazines.
For those that do not have current subscriptions order as many copies as you can of the final issue of Dragon and Dungeon magazines.
This is bad in all ways, at least for those of us who'd rather buy D&D products than spend waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much money on constantly updating computers. Plus, the lack of portability for those of us without trustfunds.
I have subscribed for years, I had to stop while they only accepted creditcard payments, but re-started when they finally decided to accept checks(electronic or otherwise) again.
Yet another thing that makes this year, a very bad one.
This new "thing" will, knowing my luck, not be compatable with my clunker PC. It can't even handle the standard WotC webpage. Way too "flash" intense.
I just hope "Pathfinder" will at least be similar in relativity to the mags we love. Will there be stuff on the 3 campaign settings, or will it be it's own new one?
Hi everyone, I have just read the email announcement and I have to confess words fail my english vocabulary and I don't think many will understand if I rant in german.
So I will write instead, why I returned to Dungeons an Dragons after five years and did not select one of the many other good systems available in Europe. It was mainly two things, first the wish to return to Greyhawk where I took my first steps in roleplaying more than 10 years ago and second the huge amount of resources available for DnD.
Greyhawk turned out to be a little difficult, for WotC discontinued it and Living Greyhawk may work great in the USA, but where I life it just lacks the community. But I told myselve no problem, there are other worlds, let's just play.
As for the resources, I always was a fan of Dungeons and Dragons magazine and was finally able to afford a subscription. The quality of the online stuff is (as described above) in no way adequate to our magazines.
At the moment I am more than a little annoyed with WotC, there politics concerning licensing and products has in my eyes no aim beyond making money. So yes, let's stop giving them money, DnD won't die with WotC, perhaps Paizo can buy the rights for all of DnD in the end. ;-)
This is a reply to Shamino.
Paizo is happy as can be that they can finally get out of publishing magazines. Magazines are a terrible thing to make and sell.
However much they love Dragon, they hate that Dragon had to be a magazine.
The value is in the trademark and legacy. It is very hard to bring a new magazine out. thousands fail every year.
If the magazine is not official, it loses its utility regardless of the quality of content.
I have nothing to do with paizo except as a customer, but thought this might help.
There's another facet to WotC focusing exclusively on new/younger gamers that I haven't seen anyone else mention.
I've been gaming since the late '70s. Along with my age, I also have a 6-year old daughter who I've introduced to gaming. By making efforts to disenfranchise me as a customer, by extension, they are also losing my daughter as a customer, potentially damaging themselves both in the short- and long-term.
The lesson my daughter will learn from me is that quality of product and the reputation of the company are the most important aspects of making a purchase - not simply brand recognition. So, if WotC continues to conduct business in a cavalier manner and publish products of spotty quality, they will be bypassed by a young lady who is making her purchases based on the merits of the product/company, and not being guided by speculative hope in quality or the nebulous obligation to "support" a particular product line...
Foxish, your point is important and one that was brought home to me when I had to tell my 13 and 16 year old boys (both avid gamers) that their favorite magazines would no longer be coming in the mail.
Yes, Wotc has alientated all us old timers, maybe they don't feel thats important, but they seem to forget that it is US old timers who are raising the next generation of gamers.
Yes, Wotc has alientated all us old timers, maybe they don't feel thats important, but they seem to forget that it is US old timers who are raising the next generation of gamers.
It is also much more broad than that. In an aboriginal sense, older gamers are the teachers and oral historians of the hobby. Whether we are passing on to our literal children or figurative/surrogate ones, we are still the most powerful instrument the hobby has for recruiting and cultivating new members. So, their disdain of us shows just how cynically they regard, not just their customers, but the hobby in general. Behavior that highlights the very real danger of achieving the penacle of being a professional gamer - the danger of becoming elitist and divorced from the tenets that provide enjoyment and community...
Foxish, I am extrememly impressed with your eloquence and terminology, what impressed me the most, however, is that I actually understood what you were saying.
For there is strength in numbers. Unite against WotC! I say that we boycott WotC! If anyone else agrees with me email WotC, post on other sites frequented by D&D players and let them know, encourage them to rebel!
I don't want 'online content'! I want a real magazine! I want to have a magazine that I can take with me when I go somewhere! Hit Wotc in the wallet! GIVE PAIZO THEIR LISCENSE BACK!!!!! Whos with me!?!!?!
While I am with you in spirit, I don't think angry letters to Wizards will do anything.
What might help is well reasoned plea,
I submitted an e-mail to wizards just a few moments ago with many of your same arguments.
I stated the following,
"...I can not speak for the comunity at large, but it seems to me, if the magazines are selling well and not losing money, that they should not be discontinued. There have been many on-line resources available to fans and players during the past year, and yet the magazines have still sold well.
"I know in the modern age it is easy to think that an on-line format is better for all, but for some people it would not. I personally enjoy reading the magazine before bed, or when relaxing in my den. Neither of which would be condusive to an on-line format. The magazine is portable and easily brought along to gaming sessions, again something that a web-based version would not allow. Even assuming one would be allowed to print the articles for portability, that would demand the need for a printer.
"I ask you to reconsider this, as I know I would be losing access to what I consider a valuable asset. I can only assume that many other people would as well."
I think if more people were to make resoned 'requests' rather than angry demands and rash threats, Wizards would be more likely to listen.
If anyone out there also wishes to do so, it would be best to use your own words. Although I don't mind people using the above statements, I think it would have more impact if each person used their own thoughts, rather than a thousand people sending in the exact same text.
I certainly don't think that Paizo was screwed over by WotC, as this seems a mutually reached decision. What we need to do is let WotC know that we, as readers, prefer the magazine over the on-line format.
I certainly will miss the magazine if this does come to an end. But I will be looking forward to the new Paizo publication.
- Just my simple thoughts on this complex matter
Well, there are other magazines I get, but they have to do with work and money and good writing.
I don't read GQ (I sell suits for a living) for pleasure.
I read Newsweek for editorials, and I read The Economist for real sociopolitical and economic analysis.
But Dungeon and Dragon I read for FUN. That's right. FUN. You can't quantify fun. You can't even say how much fun each issue is going to be. I thought Age of Worms sucked, but that Savage Tide was incredible. Everyone has different opinions. That's what makes reading things great.
WOTC has apparently decided that people shouldn't be allowed to have books anymore. Soon there will be oral contracts about how the game is going to work, and only Wizards will really know the rules, the way they do with MTG.
I'd also like to add that my objections are not due to a resistance to change. It's more so due to the financial feasability, utility, and eye strain. Even if I win a lottery to afford a laptop, the eyestrain from a 'puter screen is hell on one's eyes.
I say "fi" to WotC.
P.S. Someone really pooped their pants at WotC
Long post, my apologies...
I've taken a few days to stop reading the boards and cool off. I thought about pros and cons, and I have a few ruminations to share...
The first is that I see a few good points being made by posters in favor of online content. Part of my resistance to change drove my anger, but I'm forced to admit that while running STAP, I've been ecstatic to find that Paizo put out an online supplement with maps and artwork. I've loved the statblocks and customer generated content that many have put together, and of course the boards for sharing ideas.
So I have to admit that I might very well survive a leap to pdf despite absolutely loathing reading things off the screen instead of the page (anyone else having vision problems that stem from looking at a puter screen all day out there?)
So let's assume that I'm one of the lucky that has the computer, printer, internet connection to subscribe, and I print it out so I can read it on the bus to work, or while waiting, etc... Great, everything's hunky-dorry and I eat some humble pie.
Then I started thinking about the financial side. WOTC saves money by not having to do all that horrid printing, right? That's at least half of the motivation (correct me if I'm wrong, but this is my assumption and experience with corporations' financial decision making)? So I do some math, estimated $40 per year for a sub, divided by 12 issues = $3.33 per issue. Paizo does all my printing for me, so without guestimating, I can assume that it costs less than that for them to produce it and still stay afloat... so I can expect that(even with the cost of IT personnel and computers) the price should stay the same.
But hang on, now I'm printing my issues. And not just a little bit of printing, and not in black and white. Ok, let's say I print one module and it is in black and white. Printers and especially toner costs money for me, too, you know? Gee, it'd sure be nice to see that conciliation thrown into the mix when they decide on how much an 'issue' will cost. But because WOTC doesn't communicate their future plans, I am going to adopt a wait-and-see approach to these ezines.
Here it comes, though- my nagging skepticism. Dang-it... Must fight... it...
Who wants to start a pool for how much WOTC charges for each issue, or a subscription? $3 per issue? $4? 5$? I tried checking WOTC's boards, but ee-gods, what a behemoth. I don't even know where to search.
There was a recent news-story here in Chicago about a possible name-change for Marshall Fields, which I thought relavent to the current customer attitudes here: Macy's of New York bought Marshall Fields in Chicago. There was a hullaballoo over whether Marshalls would "be the same", would "lose the tradition", or even get to keep the name(that being part of the tradition). Macy's says the name will change despite peoples anger. Things die down, life goes on. A few reporters say that there aren't as many people shopping there, but still, I shrug and move on. Now, because of poor sales, Macy's is seriously contemplating changing the name back.
To close, if anyone read my points on boycotts from the missing B O Y C O T T thread, they'd remember that my pro-boycott stance was tempered by the knowledge that we wouldn't get everything we wanted. Peeps in chitown want the old MArshall's back, but that's not likely to happen. And while the name being changed back seems superficial, it's a step in the direction of those irate customers. Corps listen when you hit them in the pocketbook, people. Saying that not buying WOTC products is killing DnD or hurting the cause to induce WOTC listen to us is a little, I don't know, extreme.
Just came across this interview with Liz Schuh, WotC Brand Manager for D&D on the end of the print versions of Dungeon and Dragon on an industry website:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/10496.html
Thoughts, anyone?
Contributor
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Just came across this interview with Liz Schuh, WotC Brand Manager for D&D on the end of the print versions of Dungeon and Dragon on an industry website:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/10496.htmlThoughts, anyone?
Well, it reaffirms that WotC don't actually have a plan.
I'm glad Paizo does.
Craig Shackleton,
The Rambling Scribe
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Just came across this interview with Liz Schuh, WotC Brand Manager for D&D on the end of the print versions of Dungeon and Dragon on an industry website:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/10496.htmlThoughts, anyone?
Oh yes...all of us who spend how many hours a day scoping out this message-board are luddites cause we prefer to have a printed version of the mags. To be fair though, the interviewer used that term, not the WotC Manager : \
I think the interviewer was a little ironic with that 5 to 10 remark.
Theses 14 million unique visitors made me laugh. There is no technologie on earth that can give you this number. I think they mean vists, what is a totally different matter. It is like counting how often someone is reading any magazine.
14 million vists is quite good though, even if you propably have to split it for all the products of WotC.
It does not make me confident in their plans, how they think the internet works.
A good number is the active members in their forums and that is about the number of sold Dragons alone. Again this is active members for all their products. (Numbers are both about 40.000, go and research them yourselve ;-))
So they plan to get sme of their 14 million visitors (that they do not have) to use their DI. Even 1% would be 140.000 people and be great. Hey give me some of the stuff they are smoking, should dull the sense of loss.
Btw. go and checkout the great and wonderful generator of treasure they have, it is a great preview for their quality content.
We will need patience indeed until they have a DI worth noting.
Sorry I am a little frustrated with business decision makers...
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Maybe I'm just crazy (and I probably am), but I can see certain parallels between what WotC is doing now (ie reeling in all their licensing for various brands) and what TSR did a ways back (controlling all of their intellectual property so tightly that if you said Hit Points in public, you were likely to get a cease and desist letter).
TSR stagnated and died a slow death. I'm not suggesting that WotC is going to do the same (MtG and DDM are doing pretty well) and Hasbro will be around forever (yay Autobots!), but perhaps the official D&D brand is about to go into another period of decline.
The OGL and D20 ideas were brilliant from a marketing and goodwill POV, but the consumer ill will that this latest step has generated is going to hurt them -in the short term at least. It's up to WotC now to proove us wrong and regain our trust.
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Oh yes...all of us who spend how many hours a day scoping out this message-board are luddites cause we prefer to have a printed version of the mags. To be fair though, the interviewer used that term, not the WotC Manager : \
Yeah, even though the interview itself showed how pathetic WotC's plans are, I was more pissed off by the arrogant little prick who referred to us as Luddites. Who the hell does this person think they are?
Chief Technical Officer
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Liz Schuh - YOU SUCK!
Making personal attacks like that is, at best, thoroughly misdirected. Liz is one of the few people at Wizards that we actually deal with fairly regularly, and she's been nothing but a help to us.
Let's try and hold these boards to a higher level of discourse than that.
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Chief Technical Officer
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I was more pissed off by the arrogant little prick who referred to us as Luddites. Who the hell does this person think they are?
...and further personal attacks will cause this thread to be locked. Please don't make us pull out the moderator tools—you're responsible, intelligent folks who should be able to moderate yourselves.
Personally, I am not pissed in any way, nor am I depressed. It's more like, hurt or dissapointment. I have seen the material that wizards has online and I am not impressed entirely with it. Occasionally, a shocker does come around and I am pleased with it. I am not a fan of eye strain from reading a computer screen though. I do agree that the online idea is a poor decision.
There is nothing more enjoyable to me than sitting down after I finish a huge paper or a final exam than reading an issue of Dragon or Dungeon. The hard copy is something I can hold in my hand. Something that I don't have to worry about my "hard drive eating". The writers at Paizo are accomplished and I am very pleased with the direction of the magazine over the last few years.
To sum my feelings up , Dungeons and Dragons has survived through many trying issues over the last three decades;if my faith is in the right place another company may pick up where the last one left off. For example TSR to Wizards. If I could create a graph, it would involve A "high" of where wizards recieved the franchize and a "low" of where WOTC decided to end Dragon.
I haven't decided if I am getting back issues or pathfinder as of yet, but I am excited for the final issues of both dragon and dungeons and I know that we will not be displeased. I am anticipating the new direction as a dissapoinment more often than not can lead to great amounts of excitement.
Ian Shears,
The lord of Imps
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I was more pissed off by the arrogant little prick who referred to us as Luddites. Who the hell does this person think they are?...and further personal attacks will cause this thread to be locked. Please don't make us pull out the moderator tools—you're responsible, intelligent folks who should be able to moderate yourselves.
You're right Vic, and I apologize. I shouldn't stoop to their level. Thanks for the swift kick in the rear, although I still am angry about being called a Luddite.
For there is strength in numbers. Unite against WotC!
What a bad idea.
--Ray.
For there is strength in numbers. Unite against WotC!
Simple...want to unite against WotC? Just concentrate your future gaming investments on Paizo. Want to continue to buy WotC stuff? Buy them through Paizo.
Consumer response in a financial matter is the best medicine. And yes, stooping to name calling only makes us the community and consumer look like a bunch idiots. When someone screams at you in anger, you don't try to outscream them. You talk softer, so that they have to focus on listening to you. Suddenly...the screaming stops and thoughtful logic resumes.
Initially, I was quite angry too, and when I'm angry that's when I stay away from making posts, cause the anger causes you to tilt with an expression that isn't a true representation of yourself. Now that I cooled down, I actually started feeling really good about the future of Paizo and all the possibilities imaginable to help our hobby grow.
As I mentioned in another thread, I really believe this to be a liberating move for our hobby and Paizo has the resources to attempt an honest effort going forward to save the game as it is meant to be played. Let WotC go off to join other medians and pastures; I'm staying with Paizo!
The Wandering Smith is right. Boycotts of things people want and like rarely work. What works far better is focusing your desires on a product line or a company that is doing what you want.
Don't boycott WotC just spend more money with companies that are doing what you want (that likely includes Paizo). In the end you will end up spending less money with companies with which you are unhappy.
If there is a steep drop off in sales for WotC products they *might* get the message. But be prepared for the idea that they do not. Businesses make bad decisions all the time - some are fatal (TSR - anyone?). The good thing is that with the OGL the d20 system can never truly die.
Anthony "Zulkir" Valterra
I'm gonna miss it. I've been an on and off newstand buyer of Dragon since #200. Just this past year, I finally had enough money to subscribe, and they are cancelling the magazine while I have one issue left on my subsription. Oh, well at least it isn't an even later subscription with even more issues that will never arrive.
It reminds me of DC's decision to drop letter columns from their comics because they've been "replaced" by messageboards, only bigger and stupider.
I love Dragon. I've even gone to the trouble of tracking down used back issues from the 1e era at local comic shops. Oh well, at least that can still be done.
I like some web-based content, like the web-enhancements relating to books, I've bought, but there is no possibility of a pure digital magazine replacing the printed version in my loyalties and affections. I know it's dead trees, but somehow actually holding either a new issue that I just pulled out of my mailbox and tore the shrink wrap off of or even a new old issue, I found hidden in a comic shop, is a great thrill.
Just came across this interview with Liz Schuh, WotC Brand Manager for D&D on the end of the print versions of Dungeon and Dragon on an industry website:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/10496.htmlThoughts, anyone?
from the above site:
I'm sure there are probably five or 10 people out there who are Luddites who prefer the portability or the experience of reading a print rather than on the Web, what do you say to them?
I think it's important to note that we're not moving away from printed product at Wizards. That is going to remain the bedrock of our business, it always has been, and it always will be. We're going to put out lots and lots of printed products. For people who prefer ink on paper, they'll always have a wide variety of choices.
Yes, I am a luddite to the extent that I prefer books in the real world over PDFs on my computer, CDs in the real world over MP3 on my computer and Heroclix, D&D, and Magic: the Gathering with real human players in the real world over electronic entertainments (not to say I don't own plenty). I think they underestimate numbers.
While there may be printed options, they will largely be in the realm of $30 skinny hardcover books and not a magazine. One of the wonderful things about Dungeon and Dragon as printed magazines is that:
1) Even $8 is not Earth-shatteringly expensive.
2) That relatively-speaking inexpensiveness allows me the freedom to just throw a few into my backpack for a long road trip or whatever and not worry about it.
3) They roll up well for swatting stuff (flies, younger siblings, naughty pets, etc.).
4) Just so you don't think I'm a sadist, I was kidding on the pets.
5) If you didn't get the current issue yet, you can buy one during a road trip, if said trip includes a mall with a Borders.
6) How are they going to do a a letter column in a pure digital format? As a published Dragon letter-writer, this is a concern for me.
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to show my feelings about this latest WOTC debacle i made a simple little animated gif that i put on the D&D myspace page... it stayed up for a day before they noticed what it really was saying... so if you missed it here is the url for the gif that was too hot for d&d :)
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k31/god_emperor/dragonfinal.gif
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1) Even $8 is not Earth-shatteringly expensive.
2) That relatively-speaking inexpensiveness allows me the freedom to just throw a few into my backpack for a long road trip or whatever and not worry about it.
3) They roll up well for swatting stuff (flies, younger siblings, naughty pets, etc.).
4) Just so you don't think I'm a sadist, I was kidding on the pets.
5) If you didn't get the current issue yet, you can buy one during a road trip, if said trip includes a mall with a Borders.
6) How are they going to do a a letter column in a pure digital format? As a published Dragon letter-writer, this is a concern for me.
You Forgot
7) Easier to read a Magazine while on a toilet then a Laptop.
:-p
Hey, everyone? Where can I get on to this 'online mag' thing? just wanna know.
1) Even $8 is not Earth-shatteringly expensive.
2) That relatively-speaking inexpensiveness allows me the freedom to just throw a few into my backpack for a long road trip or whatever and not worry about it.
3) They roll up well for swatting stuff (flies, younger siblings, naughty pets, etc.).
4) Just so you don't think I'm a sadist, I was kidding on the pets.
5) If you didn't get the current issue yet, you can buy one during a road trip, if said trip includes a mall with a Borders.
6) How are they going to do a a letter column in a pure digital format? As a published Dragon letter-writer, this is a concern for me.
You Forgot
7) Easier to read a Magazine while on a toilet then a Laptop.
:-p
True.
8) Easier to read on bus during commute than a laptop.
9) Generates more interesting conversations when read in public (or at school) than a laptop would.
10) More likely to get you accused of being a Satanist when read in public (especially at school) than a laptop (true storry, but it involved the Mage: the Ascension 2nd edition rulebook rather than an issue of Dragon, but it happened).
10) More likely to get you accused of being a Satanist when read in public (especially at school) than a laptop (true storry, but it involved the Mage: the Ascension 2nd edition rulebook rather than an issue of Dragon, but it happened).
Holy crap, this happened to you too? I got my M:TA at my birthday party from a friend of mine and my mom nearly fainted!
Holy crap, this happened to you too? I got my M:TA at my birthday party from a friend of mine and my mom nearly fainted!
10) More likely to get you accused of being a Satanist when read in public (especially at school) than a laptop (true storry, but it involved the Mage: the Ascension 2nd edition rulebook rather than an issue of Dragon, but it happened).
Yeah. Two stories, I think they're kind of funny now, but I was at least a little dismayed at the time.
1) I went to a charter school, West Michigan Academy of Environmental Science, during my tenth-grade year. A charter school is a public school, but out of the city's regular public school system or something. It's a hard concept to explain, especially because I don't fully understand it. They're a kind of a new idea in my state.
One important thing about it is that often, class sizes, as in over-all number of students are often a bit smaller. That was true in this case. I was one of about thirty tenth-graders. I knew everybody in this class by face and name at least and was decent friends with at least two or three.
I am a real bookworm. I always have a book with me when I leave my house. I am a gamer. Much of my reading is game rulebooks.
I left my house with the Mage: the Ascension 2nd edition rulebook and headed off to the West Michigan Academy of Environmental Science one fine morning. At some point during the day, one of my classmates, a girl named Austin, asked me what I was reading and I showed her the book. She looks at it and flips to a random page, one with an example on it about coincidental vs. vulgar magick involving using a lightning bolt coming out of the tv set to strike down an enemy. After looking at it for a few minutes, Austin says, so are you a Satanist?
2) I went to a family reunion picnic pig roast at a great aunt's farm. I brought along my recently acquired Mosnter Manual II (1e). A very distant relative, I don't know from anybody, sees what I'm reading and tells me that D&D is Satanic, leads to suicide, etc. and so on.
Now that I've done that, let's mention a positive experience and one that involves Dragon magazine:
That charter school hit financial troubles at the end of my tenth-grade year, so I was back in the big city's public school for my neighborhood, Union, the next year. I was one of hundreds of students again. That year my American History teacher had a student teacher.
I was reading a recently acqired 1e era back issue of Dragon that had an article on the Suel Pantheon of Greyhawk one day, while waiting for class to start, and the student teacher asks what I'm reading. I show him the Dragon and he looks at it, and says: "I think I have one from around then, I remember that pantheon."
So after that, he and I would occasionally talk game stuff.
I'm going to be honest and say that the news hit me hard. I've been involved in roleplaying games for a good twenty years or more and "Dungeon" and "Dragon" have been constants throughout that time. I only committed to D&D wholesale and bought the 3.5 edition rules 4 years ago (I think), but in that time, I must say that the magazines have been fantastic. One of the first things that occurred to me when I actually started buying D&D products was "Hey, I can buy Dragon now and actually understand all the stats." I have every copy of each magazine since that time and neither has ever disappointed me. I have never been a subscriber, because I live in England and the vagaries of exchange rates have never made it a consistently better option then buying from my local gamestore - which needs the support anyway - but I have been a loyal reader of both magazines for long enough to recognise the quality that Paizo put in. If any action is required from loyal fans, then the very first thing should be a hearty round of applause for Erik Mona and his team - they really made my experience of "Dungeon" and "Dragon" something to relish, and I'm sure that they did exactly the same for countless other readers. I will always have fond memories of both magazines and I am well aware that I am, rather without intending it, involved in the end of an era. I shall look forward to every single issue of each magazine that I receive hereafter and I am absolutely sure that the final issues will be mindblowingly superb in terms of content and artwork - sometimes the end of an era, however regrettable, is as much to be cherished as the era itself.
I shall not be boycotting Wizards of the Coast products, largely because WotC saved D&D when TSR accidentally over-reached itself and there are people working there who have been involved in the game for donkey's years. WotC also have the ability to resurrect the magazines in the future, if they so wish - it wouldn't be the first time that a publication had been hauled back from obscurity, after all, if market conditions desired it.
Let's be honest - we could all still be playing from the red box/black box/first edition AD&D/Second edition, or whatever without expecting any more support. The game is so grounded in the imagination of the players that you can wing it with no rules at all, yet we hang in there, following all the latest developments because they inspire our imagination and enhance the game that we play. WotC are currently our best source for this (although I will recommend Mongoose Publishing to anyone who hasn't tried it yet - the Slayer's Guides are brilliant) and we know that official, quality D&D (rather than D20)sourcebooks aren't going to come from anywhere else. You can take that pretty much anyway you want - and it's entirely up to you - but I would advocate an approach where we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The core game has to be supported, because the brand has to remain strong. It was the strength of the D&D brand that persuaded WotC to take it on, when it could quite easily have died with TSR. As superb as the many D20 Open Licence products that exist are, we still need to be aware of the importance of the core D&D brand and uphold it whenever we can.
I have talked at some length now and please feel free to call me a windbag or fool if you wish, but let's not forget that whilst circumstances may change, and times may move on, we have one of the world's most iconic and influential brands in OUR keeping, and if we stick to it, we may see many more developments yet.
Damn it, once you start, you can't stop.
I was reading back through other people's postings on this stream and the thing that struck me most was that (even on a thread largely dedicated to the demise of "Dungeon" and "Dragon" magazines), many innocent players of D&D have been accused of being Satanists.
If there is anything in the world of roleplaying that upsets and angers me, it is this particular piece of mindless (and witless) prejudice.
I am consistently dismayed by the number of complaints that arise every time that a 'demon' or 'devil' appears on the cover of a D&D sourcebook or magazine. The fact that demons and devils regularly appear in devotional artwork by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and suchlike does not seem to have any bearing. If anyone actually wishes to see devils and demons in the 'proper' Christian tradition, then they should look at the later works of Hieronymous Bosch - these are much more violent and nauseating than anything that you will ever see on the cover of a D&D magazine.
The fact that most D&D PCs combat demons is equally left unexplored - but what do the so-called Christian Soldiers purport to do?
I realise that I might undermine my argument, in the USA, at least, by confessing to being an atheist, although I do not think that it is anything to be ashamed of, but I wish to deal with my fellow gamers from a position of honesty - I do not believe in God, but I do not believe in the Devil either - and I most certainly do not believe that any one of you is doing anything wrong by playing D&D or reading D&D books. If you are labouring under such oppression then you have my sympathy, and my support. There should never be any harm in make-believe.
I am an rabid fan of the magazines, and I am so pissed at WOTC, Why would you end a 30 year magazine? Money, WOTC wants more of it! I am getting tired of the corprate games they play. I bet the suit that made the decison isn't a gamer but a bean counter trying to up the profit margin. Dungeon and Dragon mags were works of a type of art, money was a part of it but also love. Very few games had magines for them for fresh ideas! I am a really disapionted in WOTC. I sent them a upset message and I recieved a real piontless reply. WOTC is better than TSR but this idea stinks! I am glad WOTC was polite when ended a gaming era, a piece of the gaming world ended so a company can make an extra buck! Good job WOTC hope your web base version fails!!!
This is MY opinion, Staff at Paizo good luck! Your the best!
I am an rabid fan of the magazines, and I am so pissed at WOTC, Why would you end a 30 year magazine? Money, WOTC wants more of it! I am getting tired of the corprate games they play. I bet the suit that made the decison isn't a gamer but a bean counter trying to up the profit margin. Dungeon and Dragon mags were works of a type of art, money was a part of it but also love. Very few games had magines for them for fresh ideas! I am a really disapionted in WOTC. I sent them a upset message and I recieved a real piontless reply. WOTC is better than TSR but this idea stinks! I am glad WOTC was polite when ended a gaming era, a piece of the gaming world ended so a company can make an extra buck! Good job WOTC hope your web base version fails!!!
This is MY opinion, Staff at Paizo good luck! Your the best!
PS about that Satananic stuff it is some over zealous and ignorant misinfomed types, I am a 37 year old gamer who has learned if you try to make everybody happy you will fail and you'll be very unhappy yourself.