One of the biggest problems of hanging in mostly old-school areas is people still seem to want to bitch and complain about Wizards of the Coast.
I don't get that.
It's ok not to like them. It's ok not to care for 3rd, 4th or 5th edition D&D. But they are not the freaking devil.
We have the OGL from WotC which honestly has made the entire OSR possible.
We even are getting new content we can use in our games from them all them thanks to DnDClassics.com.
The 3.5 Edition of the Player's Handbook is now out for example.
Why is this a big deal? Because the 3.5 books all got the "deluxe" reprints. There general wisdom has been that reprints have not been getting PDFs. Well if this is a change we can soon see 1st and 2nd edition core book pdfs. We already see that with the Basic lines and much of the supplemental materials.
You might not play D&D 5 or have any interest in the current "Elemental Evil" arc, you have to agree that The Elemental Evil Player's Companion is a very important product. Why? Well it is free, so there is that, but more importantly this is the first product WotC is doing "Print on Demand". This is a HUGE deal. Could you imagine it they started offering old school products not just as PDF but as POD? Copies of old modules for a fraction of what the aftermarket charges? The ability to have people new to the game buy the classics in book form?
Dragon is coming back AND it looks like it will be free. The new incarnation is Dragon+.
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/dragonplus
There is a new member of their "D&D Adventure System Cooperative Play board games", Temple of Elemental Evil. Which looks like it could be fun.
http://wizkidsgames.com/blog/2015/04/29/wizkids-temple-of-elemental-evil-board-game-arrives-in-north-american-retail/
So regardless of what system you are playing, there should be something in all this new AND old content you can use.
3 comments:
WotC has done a lot to win/earn back the goodwill it lost from many gamers since 4e was released.
But for some gamers it will never be enough.
In the meantime, WotC will go on its merry way and continue making product.
Never even got to check out the 4th edition And the people (whom we DM'ed for were wanting to use the 5th....
So I incorporated the parts that they were interested into the "Rules" that we were using....
Worked out well enough....
D&D 4e gets shit on a lot, but it actually contained fairly solid mechanics (and some parts were recycled for 5th edition).
Combat is pretty slow and analysis paralysis can kill player decisions, but those can be worked around.
People basically just didn't like A/E/D powers... But instead of saying "it's not to my taste", it became some sort of bizarre jihad against WotC. I honestly don't understand the raw vitriol that gets cast in its direction.
Sure, it's different than other versions, but it's still D&D at the core.
Anyway, bit of a tangent, but I agree with the points in the article. WotC is not the devil.
Though I do also tend to critique them harshly on my blog, it is because I want them to improve their products, not because I believe they are evil capitalists aimed at the destruction and board-gamification of the hobby.
However, it is a shame that the first issue of Dragon+ sucked so bad.
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