Slashdot Mirror
Gaming Portal Announced By Wizards of the Coast
1up has coverage of a strange development: a gaming portal focused on tabletop and strategy games. The site is slated to be a editorial/community site focusing on Avalon Hill and Wizards products, as well as potentially offering a venue for independent PC games. "Wizards of the Coast is eager to stress that Gleemax is not about pimping their own products, so much as it is about strengthening the overall culture of gaming as a whole. It's a husbandry approach; by creating a fertile ground where the various tribes of gaming can meet and greet, they hope to build interest (and presumably sales) through the basic principle of cultivating a strong player community." The whole thing is something of an odd move for the company, and for some insight into the launch Greg Kostikiyan at the Games*Design*Art*Culture blog clarifies the reality of Gleemax as an indie game publisher. You'd think he would look at the site as competition for his own Manifesto Games, but he seems fairly philosophical about it.
No redundant, just not under their control.
I never thought Wizards of the Coast would fall this far, but they actually killed the two most widely read and respected D&D publications for... THIS? Ugh.
Amen to this. For a while, our group let us use pretty much any splatbook you wanted. Now, we restrict mostly to the core books, and one or two chosen splatbooks.
Most of the splatbooks are poorly written, unbalanced pieces of drivel. If you allow them in your game, the new rules/feats/etc. in the books are either way better, or way worse, than that in the core books, and you can get some seriously unbalanced characters.
Our group is going to end its current campaign sometime over the next year, after which we'll reset and start another one. We're already talking about limiting the source material and splatbooks allowed. That way, you don't carry a library around with you, the ruleset is simpler and easier, and we believe it will lead to more fun.
Remember, PnP is what you make of it - that is what makes it so great. Unlike an MMORPG, where you are completely restrained by rules and mechanics - in a PnP game, if you don't like something, or if some mechanic is not fun, then simply change it! *That's* the true allure of tabletop PnP, along with the actual social interaction.
Yes, a social networking and gaming portal is such a unique and non-obvious idea that you clearly are the only human being to ever have thought of and implemented one.