A lot of my friends have recently gotten back into MTG in a big way, and I wish they'd get it through their heads that the reasons you outline here are exactly why I can't abide. Other than I just don't plain want to, of course. But even if I did, I can't justify giving money to WotC at this point.
I'd also say that you're correct in the aspersion that the crowned heads of the company hate the fans, but the fans are equally responsible for keeping this whole sordid affair afloat. Podcasts like Critical Role opened the door to an entire crowd on new fans that (I believe) don't really care about TTRPGs so much as they like the personalities in the podcasts playing them. If they do care enough to try playing it themselves, they'll never play a TTRPG that isn't DnD, or branch out, because DnD is all they know and they don't care enough to do research on alternatives. Unfortunately, I think that's why we'll be stuck with WotC for a long time; there's a lot of people who just don't care enough to walk away from them. At this point someone on their board of execs could go outside and shoot someone in broad daylight and people would be performing mental gymnastics to write apologetics as to why they can't stop buying Magic cards.
Issues with which I'm well aware. FOMO, brand loyalty, ignorance of other options, and fair-weather fandom all play a part in why the sickman that is WotC continues to hobble along. The reasons you list are why I don't make it a point to call to the casual fans who only know the one way to actively change. Chances are they probably won't, and the chances are that they wouldn't be interested if you showed them most alternatives, though I will say I have snagged a fair handful over the years by selling them on older systems as being "like 5e but more challenging." You need to have the right kind of player for that, though, and it's not always easy to find them.
By and large, I'm hoping to catch the people who've been on the fence. The ones who do complain, but they look at the situation and say something like, "I mean yeah, I don't like that they're doing X, I think it's dumb, but this is what my group plays so..." And insert excuse here. In my experience a lot of cases like these come down to the fact that a lot of these people just don't know that there's other options out there, or they don't know the proper way to pitch it to their group. They'll say something like, "Let's try this new game!" Then the hemming and hawing comes in from people who don't want to feel like they have to learn a new system again. Thinking on this, I think I'll do a short follow-up piece on some methods I've found that work well when trying to sell people on the idea of an older edition or an OSR clone.
If you remember back some years ago, when we played my total conversion Starshatter dnd mod, I told you why I would not use any of their settings and books.
Wizards makes it so damn hard to want to support them in any way. I'm glad that I haven't bought magic cards since highschool and I'm further glad that when I play 5th edition it's predominantly homebrew or using content from creators utilizing the OGL... of course it's not perfect but it's better than full on paying WoTC I suppose. Or maybe I'm just hedging.
I stopped playing and purchasing MTG cards around 2012, which I think is when the original set that had ninjas came out. (Kamigawa or something? I don't remember.) I remember playing it off and on for quite a while, and I had a nice little collection of older creature cards that was given to me by a friend of mine, but as I went through my college and work lives I very quickly started to lose interest.
5e I stopped purchasing for around 2018, about three years after I bought the three core books. To date, those are the only fifth edition books I ever purchased, save an extra copy of the Player's Handbook that I bought as a birthday gift for the childhood friend of mine that I learned to play D&D alongside. I reviewed a few Unearthed Arcana releases and snatched preview copies of PDFs for other books for the sake of looking at them on my old YT channel years ago, but doing so rapidly showed me how little the new content had to offer. Heavy homebrewing became my way of things with 5e, but before long I abandoned it all together in favor of a variety of other games. I still played 5e when my friends ran campaigns, but I gave up on running them myself.
Funny how time goes. If you'd asked me around 2005 if I'd stop playing D&D, I'd have told you, "Hell no, it's too fun." If you asked that of Pathfinder in 2011, same thing. Fast forward to now and it's been years since I actively played either one.
I was just thinking of how similar the situation is to Marvel and their MCU when you made the comparison. Agree 100% - both Marvel and WotC rely more on nostalgia-baiting than on actual innovative work. They acquire any old IP they can get their hands on and churn out some low effort product, I guess in the belief that a well known IP can generate interest on the strength of it's name alone. It doesn't shock me at all that they would rely on AI for their art. Low cost, low effort, and fake shine are their staples.
Regarding pathfinder, it feel's like history is echoing with Pathfinder 2e: WotC released bad product (4e, or in this case, low-effort modules) > Paizo creates an enjoyable alternative > players migrate to Paizo.
Or the fact that the half-breeds were in talks to be removed because they're racist somehow. Really makes one wonder what the people who suggested that think of mixed race folk in real life.
Been at that point for a long while myself. I still get angry at the corpos, don't get me wrong, but I also have no patience left in listening to people complain endlessly about how much they hate the course a product has been taking, only for them to turn around and throw money at that exact same product they now hate as if they were Oliver Twist begging for more scraps.
A lot of my friends have recently gotten back into MTG in a big way, and I wish they'd get it through their heads that the reasons you outline here are exactly why I can't abide. Other than I just don't plain want to, of course. But even if I did, I can't justify giving money to WotC at this point.
I'd also say that you're correct in the aspersion that the crowned heads of the company hate the fans, but the fans are equally responsible for keeping this whole sordid affair afloat. Podcasts like Critical Role opened the door to an entire crowd on new fans that (I believe) don't really care about TTRPGs so much as they like the personalities in the podcasts playing them. If they do care enough to try playing it themselves, they'll never play a TTRPG that isn't DnD, or branch out, because DnD is all they know and they don't care enough to do research on alternatives. Unfortunately, I think that's why we'll be stuck with WotC for a long time; there's a lot of people who just don't care enough to walk away from them. At this point someone on their board of execs could go outside and shoot someone in broad daylight and people would be performing mental gymnastics to write apologetics as to why they can't stop buying Magic cards.
Issues with which I'm well aware. FOMO, brand loyalty, ignorance of other options, and fair-weather fandom all play a part in why the sickman that is WotC continues to hobble along. The reasons you list are why I don't make it a point to call to the casual fans who only know the one way to actively change. Chances are they probably won't, and the chances are that they wouldn't be interested if you showed them most alternatives, though I will say I have snagged a fair handful over the years by selling them on older systems as being "like 5e but more challenging." You need to have the right kind of player for that, though, and it's not always easy to find them.
By and large, I'm hoping to catch the people who've been on the fence. The ones who do complain, but they look at the situation and say something like, "I mean yeah, I don't like that they're doing X, I think it's dumb, but this is what my group plays so..." And insert excuse here. In my experience a lot of cases like these come down to the fact that a lot of these people just don't know that there's other options out there, or they don't know the proper way to pitch it to their group. They'll say something like, "Let's try this new game!" Then the hemming and hawing comes in from people who don't want to feel like they have to learn a new system again. Thinking on this, I think I'll do a short follow-up piece on some methods I've found that work well when trying to sell people on the idea of an older edition or an OSR clone.
If you remember back some years ago, when we played my total conversion Starshatter dnd mod, I told you why I would not use any of their settings and books.
Wizards makes it so damn hard to want to support them in any way. I'm glad that I haven't bought magic cards since highschool and I'm further glad that when I play 5th edition it's predominantly homebrew or using content from creators utilizing the OGL... of course it's not perfect but it's better than full on paying WoTC I suppose. Or maybe I'm just hedging.
Either way, another major L from Wizards.
I stopped playing and purchasing MTG cards around 2012, which I think is when the original set that had ninjas came out. (Kamigawa or something? I don't remember.) I remember playing it off and on for quite a while, and I had a nice little collection of older creature cards that was given to me by a friend of mine, but as I went through my college and work lives I very quickly started to lose interest.
5e I stopped purchasing for around 2018, about three years after I bought the three core books. To date, those are the only fifth edition books I ever purchased, save an extra copy of the Player's Handbook that I bought as a birthday gift for the childhood friend of mine that I learned to play D&D alongside. I reviewed a few Unearthed Arcana releases and snatched preview copies of PDFs for other books for the sake of looking at them on my old YT channel years ago, but doing so rapidly showed me how little the new content had to offer. Heavy homebrewing became my way of things with 5e, but before long I abandoned it all together in favor of a variety of other games. I still played 5e when my friends ran campaigns, but I gave up on running them myself.
Funny how time goes. If you'd asked me around 2005 if I'd stop playing D&D, I'd have told you, "Hell no, it's too fun." If you asked that of Pathfinder in 2011, same thing. Fast forward to now and it's been years since I actively played either one.
Excellent use of Mel Brooks here.
I wrote about certain coastal wizards in my newest fantasy story, I hope you liked it.
I'll read it soon!
Never let a collectable card company design or manage a TTRPG.
Gyaaaah dayum this was an excellent read.
Thank you, ser
I was just thinking of how similar the situation is to Marvel and their MCU when you made the comparison. Agree 100% - both Marvel and WotC rely more on nostalgia-baiting than on actual innovative work. They acquire any old IP they can get their hands on and churn out some low effort product, I guess in the belief that a well known IP can generate interest on the strength of it's name alone. It doesn't shock me at all that they would rely on AI for their art. Low cost, low effort, and fake shine are their staples.
Regarding pathfinder, it feel's like history is echoing with Pathfinder 2e: WotC released bad product (4e, or in this case, low-effort modules) > Paizo creates an enjoyable alternative > players migrate to Paizo.
I enjoyed reading through the DnD forum on why the word “race” shouldn’t be used any more 😂
Or the fact that the half-breeds were in talks to be removed because they're racist somehow. Really makes one wonder what the people who suggested that think of mixed race folk in real life.
My sisters are mixed race and I don’t think they would like to be removed lol.
My youngest sister is, too. Pretty sure she feels the same way lol
By the way, even if you’re not a fan of her, did you ever see the tim pool Skit where Majorie Taylor Greene (MTG) played MTG? It was hilarious.
Yes I did lol. That was pretty amusing.
Been at that point for a long while myself. I still get angry at the corpos, don't get me wrong, but I also have no patience left in listening to people complain endlessly about how much they hate the course a product has been taking, only for them to turn around and throw money at that exact same product they now hate as if they were Oliver Twist begging for more scraps.