Quote from: RandyB;1139370TSR was a flyover country business. WOTC is a West Coast business. That snobbery on the part of the latter goes all the way back to the LA SF fandom scene of the 1970s, and their reaction to OD&D. Jon Peterson chronicles those events well in Playing at the World.

Greetings!

Interesting, RandyB! What was their reaction to OD&D?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

It is also clear that, from this point forward:

- nobody should be playing 5e anywhere (as doing so communicates to others that you still support WotC)
- nobody should be giving a dime to WotC (either print or PDF)

Quote from: SHARK;1139372Greetings!

Interesting, RandyB! What was their reaction to OD&D?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Hey, SHARK!

As Peterson documents it, they were disdainful of the production values, typographical errors ("% liar"), cost, and overall tone of the original release. None of which prevented them from 1. pirating the game by distributing photocopies and 2. starting their own productions, including the now legendary Alarums and Excursions, to capitalize on the exploding popularity of D&D.

I highly recommend Playing at the World to anyone interested in the origins of our hobby. It is a good exercise of the historian's craft as applied to the topic.

It should be clear that, from this point forward:

- nobody should be seen playing 5e with their existing books (as doing so communicates to others continued support for WotC's game)
- nobody should give a dime to WotC

It should be clear that, from this point forward:

- nobody should be playing 5e with their existing books (as doing so communicates to others acceptance and support of WotC)
- nobody should give a dime to WotC (either print or PDF)

Adding Trigger Warnings to products could be a genius move if you are an up and coming game producer by making your things seem more forbidden and therefore more attractive to buy.

For a milk toast multinational however you want everything to be as unoffensive as possible.

Quote from: Trond;1139304I thought this one deserved its own thread.

https://boundingintocomics.com/2020/07/09/dungeons-dragons-adds-triggers-warnings-for-old-products/

Glad I've got my hard-copies.

Quote from: Shasarak;1139384Adding Trigger Warnings to products could be a genius move if you are an up and coming game producer by making your things seem more forbidden and therefore more attractive to buy.

For a milk toast multinational however you want everything to be as unoffensive as possible.

This is also very different from the 90s "Parent Advisory Explicit Content" (PAEC) label in that this is a long brow beating apology tacitly admitting that their old products were apparently Klan propaganda while implicating the entirety of that era (and by extension people who lived through it) as an era of rampant bigotry that everyone now agrees was wrong. While PAEC was just this catchy logo they would stick into everything, almost to signal that there was some cool forbidden stuff hidden inside.

The PAEC label worked basically like a marketing scheme. The WotW* disclaimer is basically telling people "We were racist, DON'T buy our products. These are relics from a bigoted past, you racist."


*Wizards of the WOKE

Quote from: tenbones;1139348Well why support a company that clearly doesn't want many of you in "their community"?

Too many gamers yearn to be mainstream, and WotC/5e is the "pop music" of the hobby and social media is high school never ending. The cool kids in school all listen to the cool new music and those who aren't into the same music won't be accepted into the cool kids' club.

It's easy for me as I was a headbanger in high school and never gave a shit about mainstream anything, but conformity to the mainstream opinion / product / ideology seems to have become even more popular / required in recent decades.
 
But you're very right. Anyone expecting WotC to change for the better are walking into the same dead end as people hoping their abusive ex will change and love them again.

WotC is done with us and we're done with them. Fortunately, the RPG "dating scene" is absolutely overflowing with terrific options for fun.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1139371Between the old TSR stuff, the OSR, the third-party OGL material, and the vast array of other games, who needs WotC or Paizo?

Nobody.

Well, I guess we all feel safer now. Anyone up for some OSR/TSR D&D? I am thinking of an acid metal sword & planet world, with a disco soundtrack (just for you, Doc Sammy-kins!).

I feel like I'm disengaging from WoTC now the way I did with Paizo ca 7 years ago. There's a line, I'm pretty flexible, but I feel they've crossed it now. I'm not going to vow never to buy from them again, but I don't have any desire to do so. I certainly have a ton of stuff from them already (including 2 unused 5e APs and a ton of non-5e stuff easy to convert), and they're not producing anything new that grabs me.

I've been loving running 1e/OSRIC and Mini Six campaigns recently. Maybe now 5e is getting long in the tooth it's time to play those more. 1e especially has so much more depth than I used to realise - still finding odd bits in the DMG!

Quote from: tenbones;1139368It's obvious they don't want to be compared to TSR. TSR is a stain on their ideology. But that's kinda obvious. They've drawn a line in the sand and you are on the wrong side of it. Just like me.

This is just like the good old days.  D&D and TSR was originally not good enough for most Americans, it was something the geeks played at, but no one else, because it was new, untested, and incomplete. Hollyweird put it down. The Bible thumpers put it down. No one really knew about it, and most people were too square, straight-laced, and sheeplike back then to engage in any kind of free thought. Looks like we are getting back to that, ...only this time, it's WOTC sponsoring the thought control.

There is a petition circulating asking WotC to remove the disclaimer.

https://www.change.org/p/company-wizards-com-wizards-of-the-coast-should-remove-the-disclaimer-statement-on-all-of-its-legacy-products

"This disclaimer makes a statement of fact argument, and therefore paints all of the writers, editors, artists and consumers of those products as supporting those prejudices, stereotypes and bigotry.  This statement by Wizards of the Coast opens the possibility for the players of these "Legacy Products" to face ridicule, and face the labeling as "bigot", "racists", "misogynist", and worse."

And sure enough, I've seen some of the disclaimer-thumpers proving the petitioners right by calling them racist.

There is hardly any point in signing that petition because, even if they retract it, they are still the sample woke SJW company. They do not like you! You are a bigot (for objecting to Crawford and Mearls making D&D "more gay") and a racist (for continuing to allow yourself to be mired in the pre-5e cesspool of deplorableness)!

Any retraction would be insincere.

Forget WotC and spend your dollars elsewhere.

There is hardly any point in signing that petition because, even if they retract it, they are still the same woke SJW company. They do not like you! You are a bigot (for objecting to Crawford and Mearls making D&D "more gay") and a racist (for continuing to allow yourself to be mired in the pre-5e cesspool of deplorableness)!

Any retraction would be insincere.

Forget WotC and spend your dollars elsewhere.