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Layoffs at WotC
Abies writes "During last year or so, quite a lot of people were fired from WotC - current owners of the D&D line. A few days ago, _most_ of big names out there had to quit - including Skip Williams and Jeff Grubb. Official WotC press info, Enworld news about that and a Monte Cook thread contain some more detailed info.
Do you think it will spell an end to D&D ? After something which seemed to be a ressurection of old-time RPG, Hasbro seems to kill the biggest RPG company out there. Will OGL and the D20 license be enough to preserve the genre ?"
Remember folks - roleplaying is about together creating characters and a world. The roleplaying system you use can help you to get there, but it is not the important part. In fact, it is very possible to use a very simple system, or even no system at all. As long as your Game Master is fair, and you players play for the fun of it instead of trying to 'win' somehow, the sky is the limit!
going to go up in a puff of smoke or something?
An RPG is nothing but a set of rules, a framework, around which a campaign is built. The rules have already been published. If people wish to play D&D they will continue to play D&D no matter what the hell happens at or to WotC.
Hey, remember the days when a single human being could carry all the rules to D&D without the aid of a forklift? In his *pocket?* Go get a copy of those rules somewhere, Xerox them if you have to, it'll just make them look more authentic anyway, and then find come creative type with a good *imagination* to run the show. All the players need are some pencils and graph paper.
Does the genre need to be preserved? Only if we've sunk so low in our society that college kids these days can't have fun sitting around the commons and * making cool shit up!*
KFG
... or immediately lose your job. On the other hand, if the rumors I've heard in the industry about WotC's downhill slide are true, it's good that a bunch of talented designers are now free to look for positions elsewhere. These are all good folks, and I'm sure they'll land on their feet elsewhere.
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
If WoTC's plans are to get all these people to come back as freelancers, they're screwed. Microsoft caused a law in Washington to be enacted where dismissed employees cannot freelance for the same department for 1 year. Art department: gutted. RPG R&D: gutted.
I also read last night that WoTC's entire RPG operation may be for sale, with one interested party being Jordan Weisman. See this thread on the RPG.net message boards.
WotC announced its big contest for a new gaming world months ago. This isn't surprising. They fired the original game world owners to make room for new staff and a new setting that they can make pure profit on without coughing up cash to the original setting creators.
MUDs are great, but they are different from Pen & Paper roleplaying games. Of course there are some MUDs (or MOOs, or M**s) that do focus on role-playing, many of them only focus on roll-playing (still lot's of fun, but different).
Personally I've found that sometimes playing a classic Pen & Paper Roleplaying game on IRC is a great, especially if the genre fits (Shadowrun comes to my mind). It allows the GM (or DM or whatever you call it) levels of seperations of the players that are much harder to achieve on the table. For example you can always pass little notes with information only one player knows around, but the note-passing alone will give the other players hints. On IRC, you just open a private channel and write whatever you want, there's more ways for the GM to manipulate the players in the interest of the story. One funny trick is to open private channels to each player and tell each of them that they see something special, and tell each player the same, then look how long it takes them to share this knowledge with each other, this allone can give you great insights into your group.
The only thing d20 still needs is a good set of software tools for GM's who like to run the game from their laptops, and due to the open nature of d20, I'm sure a lot of amitious hackers are going to fill that void anyway.
As long as WotC offered these guys a nice, fat severence package as a way of saying "thanks" for their efforts, I have no problem with seeing them cut loose.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Is that failing as well? It seems to be me they went about it completely the wrong way.
Magic is a fun challenging game... if you can afford to spend at least $300-$600 a year on it or can bargain like a madman. People stop playing because they got tired of the upgrade treadmill and seeing their old cards more or less become useless.
So, for the on-line version, what do they do? They make an even worse version of that flaw! You have to pay full retail for virtual cards. I never paid that much even with the real ones. I would buy by the box at a substantial discount. That's how I stayed in it for so long. This just ensures people burn out sooner.
I think if they had merely charged $10/month for access to all the cards, they would've done insanely well. Over a year, it probably adds up to about the same as the booster approach for many people, but that whole year I would've been able to build any deck I wanted.
As it is, I'm staying the fuck away from it. It's a pity. I really liked the first computer version of Magic the Gathering.
it is literally prehistoric.
You want prior art, centuries old?
*King me!*
KFG
It is easy to blaim Hasbro. But it is probably neither fair nor correct to do so.
/. or Kuro5hin. He wrote of how WotC and its founder changed. My understanding was that this was due to a sudden understanding of reality and markets demands. Hasbro was just one piece of the puzzle. The article also discussed the aquisition of TSR and how that was not a happy merger. IIRC this article was written by one of the first employees who stuck around for a year or two. Even after he left he still had an inside scoop as he was friends with many of the employees.
There was an article floating around written by a former WotC employee. It may have been posted to
Hasbro's record is not that bad. Look at some of the other titles they aquired. They picked up the excellent Shogun/Samurai Swords, and Axis&Allies. They also picked up Avalon Hill which was basically dead. Initially Hasbro did not understand these markets which are much older then the kids Hasbro knew. Hasbro made some initial mistakes. But look now. The Avalon Hill line is doing well. There are a number of quality games produced under Avalon Hill. (You can buy Diplomacy again!)
Likewise with TSR and D&D. TSR was dead. It was running at a loss with zero plan for recovery. TSR owed people money and was selling it books at a loss. WotC stepped in and instantly regreted it. Hasbro came onboard. We now have the best D&D rules ever. It is quite possible that without Hasbro D&D 3rd would not have seen the light of day. It is fact that someone had to step in and rescue both WotC and the D&D line.
There is no evidence to support a claim that Hasbro has harmed D&D. D&D 3 was published and is an excellent product. Hasbro has also treated the Avalon Hill line well. As other posters have written Hasbro probably saved WotC and D&D.
Reports of the great mage Elminster applying at a Local Seattle McDonalds are coming in. Many witnesses say they saw him standing in line for a job application practicing his lines, 'Would you like fries with that?'
More as the story breaks.
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you'll get my DMs guide when you pry it from my cold dead Gauntlets of Ogre Power.
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