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 ?"

Re:Online Muds: Free and Non-commercial

[Anonymous Coward]

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Re:WotC killed itself

[Burning*Cent]

Yeah, that's why I stopped playing most card games and RPGs. I wasted so much money on Decipher's Star Wars CCGs trying to get rare cards even though the game was terrible (no where near as good as magic). I stopped buying RPG books when I realized I wasted hundreds of dollars on White Wolf's World of Darkness books just to stay up-to-date on the stories. It might be an effective business model to keep shoveling cards and books down gamers' throats, but it's not an effective consumer model.

Thankfully, there are alternatives. I recommend anything from Looney Labs [looneylabs.com]. I've played Fluxx [wunderland.com], Chrononauts [wunderland.com], and Aquarius [wunderland.com], and each was a fun, elegant, and affordable (no 20 different expansions to milk out more cash) game.

More News...

[Dracos]

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 [wizkidsgames.com]. See this thread [rpg.net] on the RPG.net [rpg.net] message boards.

We Saw This Coming...

[GearheadX]

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.

Re:Online Muds: Free and Non-commercial

[Rentar]

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.

I don't need no stinkin' Wizards!!!!

[fm6]

Do you think it will spell an end to D&D ?

You mean, will somebody go out and burn all the DM guides and monster manuals? Doesn't seem likely.

Oh, you mean will D&D software survive. That has nothing to do WotC. They only control things that are called D&D. Example:

A long time ago a undergrad name Michael Toy used the D&D fighting system and monster stats to create a Curses game called Rogue [www.hut.fi], the predecessor to NetHack [nethack.org]. (Ignore Glenn Wichmann -- he's a legend in his own mind.) TSR [wizards.com] didn't care for this, of course, and sicced their lawyers on him. The only result was that all the names got changed to non-D&D things. Which was actually an improvement -- there's no place in the D&D universe for my own favorite player character, the Tourist [flash.net]

Bottom line -- you don't need the media monopolies to play games, any more than you need them to make music. Pity about Farscape though.

Re:SHAD0W's Law

[Karma Sink]

Almost everyone I see who has this opinion was never a very good magic player.

True Story: A friend of mine had a dream deck. He saved up so that he could spend almost $500 in order to get all of the rares for this deck, including some cards that weren't even legal anymore, such as some Arabian nights.

He came to my house, and I didn't have any decks built. In about 20 minutes, and using a grand total of one rare card worth about five bucks, I built a tournament legal deck that beat him ten games in a row, six with his new deck, and four with an older deck he'd built.

This friend had a deck published in the Duelist, so it's not like he didn't know what he was doing... but it proves that it's quite possible to be a dominating Magic player with less than $20.

Re:Hasbro? How about WotC.

[Bishop]

It is easy to blaim Hasbro. But it is probably neither fair nor correct to do so.

There was an article floating around written by a former WotC employee. It may have been posted to /. 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.

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.

Re:Good

[Shadow99_1]

I have to say something in reply to this as I've recently been talking with some other long term roleplayers about different products & different Publishers...

We decided that most games (even GURPS the generic roleplaying system) have their niches which they do well... Outside of those niches some systems break & some just aren't fun...

<a href="www.wizards.com">D&D</a> is good at fantasy settings & as their Star wars RPG shows it starts to lack when asked to do something else...

<a href="www.sjgames.com">GURPS</a> does alot of settings well, but is more complex & so looses it's fun when you try not to be complex... For instance it's vehicle rules are better than most, but it's a drawn out process to flesh out a GURPS vehicle, so unless you find that complexity fun it's not for you...

<a href="www.guardiansorder.on.ca">BESM & SAS</a> are designed for Anime/Manga style games (BESM or Big Eyes Small Mouth) & Silver age comics based games (SAS or Silver Age Sentinels). BESM is horrible at modeling real world situations & SAS isn't much better...

<a href="www.palladiumbooks.com">Rifts</a> & the other related Palladium games/licenses did a good job of modeling the settings desired, but due to the lack of depth in equipment things have gone to the power gamers & munchkins who abuse the rules...

<a href="http://www.white-wolf.com/">White Wolf's WoD</a> games are good at forcing roleplay, but combat isn't very defined & equipment/skills are simplistic...

I could go on, but if you look at the examples you may see the pattern... Certain systems model certain things & situations better than others. The idea shouldn't be that one RPG publishing company is better or hungrier, or newer, or anything... It should be that you look at each systems unique advantages & disadvantages & pick the best to meet the needs of the group...

Re:Hasbro? How about WotC.

[angramainyu]

From Monte Cook: "Hasbro did not save WotC. If you're thinking this, you might be confusing the time WotC bought TSR. TSR was rapidly going out of business, and WotC, from a certain point of view, "saved" the company. Hasbro bought WotC when WotC had more money than it knew what to do with. Most (although not all) of the downsizing and layoffs that have affected WotC since then have come because of Hasbro, not WotC. WotC, since Habro bought it, has been one of the largest contributors of that company's bottom line. If anything, WotC saved Hasbro--at least for the last couple of years."