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Author Topic: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards  (Read 19595 times)

TJS

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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #30 on: October 23, 2020, 06:18:38 AM »
The execs were also rather appalled at just how bad the 4e fans were. With RPGnet as the prime example after WOTCs own forum. Their antics during the 5e playtest apparently cemented that view.

I only visited WotC's forum once during the 4e era. Essentials had just been released and I was curious as to whether it might appeal to me more than 4e did. Yikes! Even by the low standards of internet forums that was a seriously disfunctional bunch. I can see why any Hasbro exec would have been appalled after taking one look.
I always thought the WOTC boards at the time were a lot better than Rpgnet.  Certainly they at least seemed to play 4E enough to know how it actually worked, something that often seemed lacking in Rpgnet posters who often seemed to be fighting an edition war over a game that was somewhat different to the one that was actually in the books.

The execs were also rather appalled at just how bad the 4e fans were. With RPGnet as the prime example after WOTCs own forum. Their antics during the 5e playtest apparently cemented that view.

  There was definitely misbehavior among 4E fans during the playtest and after release, but as for RPGNet %u2026 given that they've swung full steam ahead to backing 5E (as they see it) and banned many of the 4E fans, and seeing their behavior and the attitude of the overall fanbase since the 5E launch, I'm thinking of Matthew 12:43-45.
As recently as last year there was a pretty toxic bunch of 4E fans over at ENWorld.

« Last Edit: October 23, 2020, 06:21:43 AM by TJS »

Omega

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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #31 on: October 23, 2020, 10:49:27 AM »
Eventually Hasbro stopped handing WOTC board game projects not their own as WOTC kept mishandling them. They seem to be so-so with their own in-house games. But botched pretty much every acquisition and are notorious for letting copyrights and trademarks lapse. This on top of marketing screwups left and right.

Their D&D board games are still chugging along slowly.

Shasarak

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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #32 on: October 23, 2020, 04:47:20 PM »
I always thought the WOTC boards at the time were a lot better than Rpgnet.  Certainly they at least seemed to play 4E enough to know how it actually worked, something that often seemed lacking in Rpgnet posters who often seemed to be fighting an edition war over a game that was somewhat different to the one that was actually in the books.

The WotC boards were great back in the day before the rise of social media.
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Jaeger

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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #33 on: October 23, 2020, 05:36:59 PM »
...At the 2006(?) CES I happened to chat with a Hasbro VP on a shuttle bus, and he said they were pretty hands-off on WOTC because Hasbro management didn't have much domain knowledge in that area.  ...

This is a core assumption that will continue to bite hasbro in the ass:

The tighter budget of 5e was a band aid to the core issues at WOTC.

In addition to the 4e debacle we can see other signs of WOTC's core issues:


Eventually Hasbro stopped handing WOTC board game projects not their own as WOTC kept mishandling them. They seem to be so-so with their own in-house games. But botched pretty much every acquisition and are notorious for letting copyrights and trademarks lapse. This on top of marketing screwups left and right.
...


The truth is that they really don't have "much domain knowledge" themselves.

Pre TSR acquisition, WOTC could not independently create an RPG that could even get the notice and following of a second tier brand at the time like Shadowrun.

They have only been successful as an RPG company since they bought the market leader. They literally imported all the talent that made 3.x a success.

 And they handily displayed that when they let their in-house "homegrown" talent loose  *cough, 4e, cough* that they really have no idea what their fanbase actually wants.

And that is before we start to account for the fact that they are Woke as fuck and starting to push their ideology through the D&D brand.

5e's success is not due to any great RPG design chops or direction. It is the most mechanically conservative D&D design of all the previous editions. It was a success because it was 1: Good enough for the actual D&D fan base. And 2: It hit just at the right time when playing D&D became a cultural fad again.

The WOkeTC insider "talent" pool talent has no special talent at all. The are not more skilled or insightful about designing rpg's than any number of independent OSR creators. In fact they have demonstrated that in many cases they possess less skill and talent than many an independent OSR creator has who actually has to sell product without the luxury of being the market leader to earn his pay.

I am willing to state that Hasbro could fire everyone involved with D&D at WOTC tomorrow.

Then consult a poll at TheRPGSite ranking the top 10 independent RPG/OSR creators.

Print it out, and begin to throw darts until 6 random people are selected from that list.

Put them in charge of D&D. Let them hire whomever else they need.

Then sit back and watch the quality of product improve. You would have a team of people with more actual creativity, real business acumen, and more actual "domain knowledge", than anyone else currently employed at WOTC.

But I seriously doubt that the "Great Un-Wokening"  of D&D will happen anytime soon.

« Last Edit: October 24, 2020, 02:55:39 AM by Jaeger »
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Charon's Little Helper

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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #34 on: October 23, 2020, 08:02:26 PM »
I always thought the WOTC boards at the time were a lot better than Rpgnet.  Certainly they at least seemed to play 4E enough to know how it actually worked, something that often seemed lacking in Rpgnet posters who often seemed to be fighting an edition war over a game that was somewhat different to the one that was actually in the books.

The WotC boards were great back in the day before the rise of social media.

Oh yeah, I was on the 3.5 boards all the time back in college. (man... I feel old) It helped me figure out how to play, especially as it was my first TTRPG - and it was fun bouncing houserule stuff off of each-other.

Amusingly, I am 99% convinced that Pathfinder stole/borrowed a lot of the changes they made to 3.5 from those boards with mild tweaks. There were two popular (and long-running - I'm talking years - I think they may have even been stickied) threads about how to tweak the sorcerer to bring it more in line with the wizard. One of them was bloodlines, with where the magic came from giving extra powers. The other was basically what Pathfinder's Arcane bloodline is - which is sort of the default bloodline.

Cloyer Bulse
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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #35 on: October 24, 2020, 07:25:40 AM »
Quote from: ”Melan”
One ironic thing about the whole shitstorm: Dragonlance was probably the only D&D novel series that consistently appealed to women, and had a sizeable female readership.

Which probably played a role in why it was dropped.

A predictable theme is emerging. JK Rowling ran afoul of the SJWs, there is that lesbian youtuber that rebelled against the radical left, Thirsty Sword Lesbians turned out to be a game made by a dude in a dress, not a lesbian, and so on.

In rebelling against alpha males and tradition, feminists have become the flunkies of omega males (those males who have no stake in the future due to lack of genetic offspring – homosexual men, “trans women”, incels, sexually dysfunctional males; it is natural for those who have no stake in the future to envy those who do, hence their desire to burn everything down; cf. Cain and Abel). Rather than becoming the morality that alpha males preach, women nurture the bitterness and envy of omega males. Women must nurture something. If not babies, then rancor. This is mirrored in Scripture when Eve rebelled against God when she was deceived by Satan and became his flunky. Obviously our ancestors were trying to tell us something in the stories they told.

And that is the fatal flaw of feminism and the myth of the strong independent woman.

Women are agreeable and conciliatory by nature; this increases the likelihood of being impregnated and passing on their genetic material, so these traits are selected for by evolution. This means that women's movements are readily infiltrated by predatory omega males.

When people talk about “LGBTQ”, they are talking about homosexual men and “trans women”. Biological women therein have become second class citizens. I suspect this is the reason why liberalism has become rancid and turned malevolent.

SJWs will attack anything that actually glorifies women, that celebrates both virginity and motherhood, and instead they will promulgate those things which destroy women and turn them into promiscuous and infertile whores. Dragonlance is anathema to all things SJW.

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)

This deadness to moral distinctions is the sign of deep moral corruption.

Abraxus

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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #36 on: October 24, 2020, 10:43:29 AM »
Well looks like the the thread at Enworld was closed spectacularly derailed imo by another Go GO SJW Woke Ranger.

One of those I am not calling you racist yet if you disagree with what I think is racist because of "reasons and feels" you are categorically racist. The poster claimed our own Bedrockbredan was racist because BB dared to want to have a discussion and not assume the poster was objectively right.

Thorn Drumheller

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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #37 on: October 24, 2020, 10:50:36 AM »
Another good vid pundit. I'm a Dragonlance fan from way back in the day. And my unpopular opinion is I wish Dragonlance would just be buried and forgotten by WotC. TSR/WotC have "Cataclysmed" the setting at least three times in a relatively short amount of time. I'd think the residents of Krynn and Taladas (and other lands/continents) would all suffer from PTSD. The SJW/woke crowd would hate my DL campaign as I don't allow any races other than human, elf, dwarf, kender, half-elf and gnome. No sentient machines, no dragonmen, no demon half breeds. And yes, half-elfs can have an origin of less than savory means. WotC has driven me into the OSR and .... I love it.
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Mercurius

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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #38 on: October 24, 2020, 12:40:22 PM »
Quote from: ”Melan”
One ironic thing about the whole shitstorm: Dragonlance was probably the only D&D novel series that consistently appealed to women, and had a sizeable female readership.

Which probably played a role in why it was dropped.

A predictable theme is emerging. JK Rowling ran afoul of the SJWs, there is that lesbian youtuber that rebelled against the radical left, Thirsty Sword Lesbians turned out to be a game made by a dude in a dress, not a lesbian, and so on.

In rebelling against alpha males and tradition, feminists have become the flunkies of omega males (those males who have no stake in the future due to lack of genetic offspring – homosexual men, “trans women”, incels, sexually dysfunctional males; it is natural for those who have no stake in the future to envy those who do, hence their desire to burn everything down; cf. Cain and Abel). Rather than becoming the morality that alpha males preach, women nurture the bitterness and envy of omega males. Women must nurture something. If not babies, then rancor. This is mirrored in Scripture when Eve rebelled against God when she was deceived by Satan and became his flunky. Obviously our ancestors were trying to tell us something in the stories they told.

And that is the fatal flaw of feminism and the myth of the strong independent woman.

Women are agreeable and conciliatory by nature; this increases the likelihood of being impregnated and passing on their genetic material, so these traits are selected for by evolution. This means that women's movements are readily infiltrated by predatory omega males.

When people talk about “LGBTQ”, they are talking about homosexual men and “trans women”. Biological women therein have become second class citizens. I suspect this is the reason why liberalism has become rancid and turned malevolent.

SJWs will attack anything that actually glorifies women, that celebrates both virginity and motherhood, and instead they will promulgate those things which destroy women and turn them into promiscuous and infertile whores. Dragonlance is anathema to all things SJW.

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)

This deadness to moral distinctions is the sign of deep moral corruption.

Aside from the fact that "feminism" is catch-all term for a diversity of perspectives, it would seem that you're missing one of the primary themes of feminism, that women are not only--or need not be--defined by biology, as virgins-to-mothers. Modern women have the right and capacity to choose otherwise, to define themselves as human beings. Just like men. I'd say that's a pretty nifty idea.

Lynn

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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #39 on: October 24, 2020, 12:42:24 PM »
Another good vid pundit. I'm a Dragonlance fan from way back in the day. And my unpopular opinion is I wish Dragonlance would just be buried and forgotten by WotC. TSR/WotC have "Cataclysmed" the setting at least three times in a relatively short amount of time.

I agree. The effectiveness of Earth shattering events is  that they are really rare and we either get destroyed or at least some characters get a 'they lived happily ever after.' If they wanted to do another Earth shattering event, then let a few thousand years go by at least.
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Omega

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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #40 on: October 24, 2020, 01:05:09 PM »
And that is the fatal flaw of feminism and the myth of the strong independent woman.

Women are agreeable and conciliatory by nature; this increases the likelihood of being impregnated and passing on their genetic material, so these traits are selected for by evolution. This means that women's movements are readily infiltrated by predatory omega males.

When people talk about “LGBTQ”, they are talking about homosexual men and “trans women”. Biological women therein have become second class citizens. I suspect this is the reason why liberalism has become rancid and turned malevolent.

1: I think its more a flaw or 3rd wave fake feminism that was pushed hard by extremist lesbians. You have the ongoing problem of woman preaching how strong they are. Then endlessly bitching about everything and everything else and how defenseless they are and ooooh wont someone saaaaaaave them! And this undermines an allready self undermined ideal.

2: are you kidding me? Women are vicious and have pulled the strings of many so called "patriarchal" civilizations since probably the dawn of time. And this has been repeatedly pointed out by women. Sometimes in rather surprising ways.

3: Not really. Non-lesbian women have fallen way by the wayside along with non trans/gay/bi/attack helicopter men. Lesbians spearheaded this current movement and are pissed other "oppresseds" were allowed to join the club.

x: As for Dragonlance and its current state. Some might say its karma for how Weiss and Hickman have acted in the past. Still. I hope they win this little contest as WOTC has racked up a huge bill of bad karma that I hope buries them for good some day.

Reckall

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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #41 on: October 24, 2020, 01:19:42 PM »
The "explanation" i heard for that was that Margaret Weis didn't "really" count since she was a TSR employee at the time, and that she didn't really create Dragonlance, TSR did, she was just the TSR employee assigned to write the novel, so since she didn't create the entire setting from scratch, and market it herself, and get the publishing contract herself, none of her achievements "really" counted.

Margaret Weis was called in to develop the novels while Dragonlance was still being created. She, however, became part of the developers team, fleshed out Raistlin and, it is worth mentioning, finished the novels before the developers could finish the modules. "Dragons of Autumn Twilight" was a narration of the first DL modules, but from "Dragons of the Winter Night" she and Tracy Hickman led the narrative wave, with the module writers following.

However, Laura Hickman was part of the team from the very conception of the setting (I think that the first seeds came from her and Tracy), so...

I was "hit" by Dragonlance while I was in my mid-teens, so at the right age. To me it was the fantasy version of Star Wars or something. I ran, as the DM, the full campaign twice, and I even wrote my own tabletop version of the "Legends". However even back then, when I had both more enthusiasm and naiveté, it was clear that Krynn was a world born to support a single saga. I was never interested in what followed.

I met Tracy and Laura Hickman when they were invited in Italy at Lucca Comics and Games, a few years ago. We chatted a bit and spent a pleasant evening together. They were two truly nice and genuine people.
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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #42 on: October 24, 2020, 01:27:33 PM »
I agree. The effectiveness of Earth shattering events is  that they are really rare and we either get destroyed or at least some characters get a 'they lived happily ever after.' If they wanted to do another Earth shattering event, then let a few thousand years go by at least.
Never going to happen. Look at comic book universes, for instance. You're lucky to go a year or two without a world-shattering event.

That's because they serve a couple purposes for writers. One, they're a way to up the stakes, without having to bother building up why we should be invested in some character or event. Because if you put the whole planet at risk, then you automatically encompass things everyone already cares about. Second, it's a reset button. Which is crack for authors who want to put their own stamp on a setting by taking it in a new direction or reimagining things, instead of just making mild tweaks to someone else's work.

The reason fans don't like them are obvious corollaries to the above: It's a way to shortcut the real work of storytelling, and a way for hacks to rewrite something the fans are already invested in. Shattering the world is inherently a cheap trick.

But while world shattering events can repel readers, they also attract them, for reasons similar to those that appeal to writers: The fans get to see something new, while still retaining at least shards of the familiar; and the story can just cut to the drama without all the build up.

So with the strong incentives for writers and a love/hate response from fans, as long as you have an expansive, ever-growing world with multiple writers, crises on infinite franchises are going to keep happening.

Omega

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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #43 on: October 24, 2020, 09:22:47 PM »
You can only do so many "crisis" events before customers start to get increasingly sick of it and eventually come to despise it if done too much or too frequently or too world changing, or all of the above and more.

DC still hasnt learned this despite the ever increasing hatred fans have for each succeeding crisis event.

Marvel hit on the perfect approach till fairly recently. The stealth crisis or the limited crisis. The stealth ones tend to be either characters brought back from the dead. Rebooting some element. Or characters going through an individual crisis and reinventing themselves in some way. Often costume changes and sometimes more. Limited ones tend to be some big event that seems big but usually does not change the world once over. Things go back to normal. Infinity gem events for example. The stakes tend to be huge. But by conclusion nothing has changed much. Same with Civil War and Secret War.

Its when Marvel tries a world changing event that near invariably they fail.

Dragonlance is interesting in that you dont learn the event is a world threatening one till near the end. Least that was till later sets which became one world altering event after another and several were met with dislike from fans. Especially as theres been what 3? 4 now?
« Last Edit: October 24, 2020, 09:25:22 PM by Omega »

HappyDaze

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Re: D&D SJWs Cancel Dragonlance, Authors Sue Wizards
« Reply #44 on: October 24, 2020, 09:45:32 PM »
L5R had a problem with the world-changing events happening way too often (I heard it was because they were tied to the outcomes card game tournaments IRL). The Empire had centuries of relative stability then an action-packed decade or two of every crazy-ass thing happening.