The year isn't even a month old yet and already chaos seems to haven taken root. Screw the Mayans, we'll burn this puppy ourselves.
Something that a lot of people don't know about me is that my background is sales and marketing. My first business was a game store that not only went belly up but belly flopped so as to create a massive wave of debt that I paid off by way of a crappy job afterwards.
Now, I was young and inexperienced but not without council and guidance. This was the mid-'80s, just when the gaming industry took over. This was when my problem began.
Satanic panic had set in and the economy was crap. Instead of pulling for the retailers who were the backbone of the business at that time and standing up for the company TSR basically fed us to the lions.
So my problem began long before Wizards was even dreamed of.
But I know BS when I smell it.
I do not like the company. I do not trust the company. I can tell you the next 10 moves to make to break Paizo's back and destroy the OSR in one fell swoop. And it seems the OSR is already falling for it.
Somehow people have confused the OSR with D&D. Whatever those initials stand for D&D is not part of the OSR. For all practical purposes the OSR began with OSRIC. OSR is about NOW. Otherwise you are talking about 'classic' or 'retro' gaming. Big difference.
The division that WotC keeps causing with each new announcement will continue. Then everyone will go out and buy their crap again infusing enough money into the dept. to keep it running.
Anyone in their right mind can read what is being said about 5e and know that it is impossible. Come on, just look at one example-skills and feats - just this alone divides more fans than just about anything.
Without them you lose the new school player and with them you lose the old school player.
Old schoolers want to role-play. New schoolers want to build a tank and drive it through a dungeon.
This list could go on but I just wish people could see what is going on just as it has in the past and just say no this time. It might be different if we didn't have the vibrant scene that is gaming in some cases 24 hours a day, but we have what we need. And if we don't by tomorrow morning someone will have wrote it.
My own project sits at a crossroads. I am very frugal with resources but finding myself short of labor and behind schedule has placed me in the position of having to decide whether I proceed further. I know there must be others who are in the same corner and the folks who have made this a going concern have to have a case of nerves as well.
Top that with a rapidly changing tech situation (that I think has taken out Eternal Keep, but I'm still hoping) that is causing nightmares for everyone involved and I don't see there being an OSR at the end of the year.
Which is what they want. The re-print will give them the cash boost to get through (do you really think they aren't going to be holding back cases of DMGs to auction on eBay after the LTD ED runs out? $150 a pop most likely) and then the initial sales and reviews will drive the final nail in the coffin.
I notice how no one has mentioned how this game has already been in secret play tests and everyone I have read about in those play tests are 4e people. And they like it. Which means old schoolers will not.
The news on the Eternal Keep isn't good. Being unable to save the changes to the blog list means it slowly falls into decay as blogs fade away and no new ones get entered. Not to mention the amount of work involved in trying to save it just to possibly have the same tech problem again.
Yes, my position on this is extreme. I have a background in the business end of it and it didn't go well. Now, once again, I have put 3 years into development just to wake up to a lukewarm market that spent all of it's party money on that pretty dress in the window and then never got to go to the ball.
The future is unclear and I don't plan on spending this year working 20 hour days on something that there, in all likelihood, won't be a market for when it's ready.
But the real dilemma is in supporting the community. The Eternal Keep is not the only other blog I maintain. And I don't ask for money and I don't even run ads. I have done it to repay a community that has helped me as I found my way back into something I thought I would never see again. I was having a great time, tech problems and all, until I watched everyone start running after WotC like a dog after a fresh bone. That was disturbing.
If you want to get pissed at me I suppose you can. You have a right to your opinion.
But then so do I and I choose not to be a party to it.
When Alexis at Tao of D&D starts making more sense about this than anyone else I get a little freaked out.
I'm not saying everyone has went down that road. But over 75% of what I have read support WotC in these endeavors to one degree or another.
I just hope everyone thinks this through. If you really think this supports the OSR then I would ask that you spend $2 with OSR publishers for every $1 you spend on the reprints. THAT would be good for the OSR.
