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It's kind of annoying reading Dragonsfoot, especially the thread about the 1e reprint announcement. For years, these guys have been saying 1e is the best and everyone else is wrong. Now, with WotC going to republish the main three rulebooks, a number of the same damn people are complaining about it.
They say the books are too expensive (when they are actually cheaper thanks to inflation). Seriously, the PHB and MM will be just a little cheaper than they were in 1980, after inflation. The DMG will be an even bigger deal.
They also say this is dumb because people can buy used copies on eBay really cheap. Yes, you can. Good luck getting kids into the game that way. Also, good luck waiting weeks or months for a good copy to fall into your hands. I know I bought a "Very Good to Near Mint" copy of the 1e DMG last year. When it showed up, it had orange fuzz growing on the back cover and all the pages are yellowed by age.
Their next big complaint is that WotC is just using this to "destroy the OSR". Really? What kind of conspiracy website do you run when you're not gaming?
They also say WotC is just doing this to appease older gamers and get them to check out 5e. NO SHIT! I mean, seriously. WotC is a corporation. They want their older customers back so they can sell them new 5e books. Why is this bad?
By the way, Gary Gygax was something of a bastard in the way he ran TSR. He also really wanted your money, and happily sued several companies who dared to print AD&D compatible products, because they were taking sales away from TSR. It's called business, dummy.
Lastly, they say WotC should make zero profit from these books and all the money should go to the Gygax Memorial Fund. Also fucking lame. Even if they only give $1 for each book sold to the fund, it will likely be enough to pay for the statue (assuming WotC prints and sells as many books as I think they can). They are NOT a charity or a non-profit organization. They are doing this as a thank you to Gary, and as an olive branch to bitchy old gamers who only want to complain and don't actually care about the future of the hobby.
11 comments:
Hear, hear! Fortunately it's a small number of complaints. I also think way too much attention is being paid to the "outreach to older players" angle. I'd much rather see this release bring lots of new blood to AD&D. If anything, I think Tim Brannan got it right: OSR publishers, start your engines!
I concur with this entirely. People complain about how shite WoTC are for 'destroying' their game and then chastise them when they reprint the very books that certain gamers believe are the 'be all and end all' to D&D.
Can you have your cake and eat it all?
Granted, if you look hard enough, and in the right places, you can find someone willing to complain about anything. Not having actively searched out negativity myself, on the release of the 1e books, I haven't run into any yet. Well, except for here that is.
I'm all for the 1e books getting republished. If you go on to a number of old school forums, there are a fair amount of the old guys complaining about it, and this post addresses their complaints.
Also, I put rant in the title. That should be fair warning.
Amen, Dan. And as far as having to look hard enough and in the right places for the vitriol, I managed to find plenty without any hard looking (or even looking for it at all) or going to the "right places" - it's right there, in my own blog roll. And it's just petty nonsense.
Yup, I agree. There's enormous buzz regarding this release; it feels if AD&D is "alive" - back in-print. People are going to be looking around for more stuff to go with their new AD&D manuals. Get some AD&D compatible out for release in April.
Shame they're not reprinting them in the UK :(
I agree with the rant as it applies to the complainers, although I think the number of the complainers was smaller than it appeared on the thread. When lots of people disagreed with them, and then they responded, the result was a lot of posts on the topic of complaint. Which inflated the appearance of the complaining when it actually wasn't all *that* many people. So I totally agree with you, Dan, except that I think the number of complainers wasn't really enough to blame the DF community or really to take too much notice of. It was an artifact of the message board structure which made the teapot-tempest look larger than it actually was.
1st rule of the Internet.
Don't get worked up over what people say on the Internet.
2nd rule of the Internet.
Apply a 2x multiplier to 1st rule for forums/blogs/etc.
People like to complain and are irrational. You should know this by now. It's not news. It's not worth blogging about.
Then don't read it.
While at one level I get the "you can get the books for less on eBay" or "OSRIC covers it" they forget one thing:
There are a fine number of DMGs and you can have my pair (soon to be quartet) when you pry they from my cold dead hands (and the will still says I get buried with one and some dice just in case).
Seriously, while I'm not sure about the getting kids to play books or not I can't think of many people who don't think anyone running a fantasy game won't benefit from a 1st ed DMG. This is the best chance to get a lot of people to see why those of us who believe that believe it.
As for UE, I'd rather have a new MM2 and FF to be honest. I'd probably rank the survival guides above UE.
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