We won! (OGL)

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Endless Flight said:
Williams was probably like “what’s this OGL thing you guys keep talking about deauthorizing?” when they were going over the planning of 6E. Cocks was probably like “it’s something that has to go to get where we wanna go with the VTT” and then she signed off on it. Then we get the fallout and she probably told him “whatever this OGL thing is, work around it. Just stop the backlash.” Then he sends out Brinks, someone we’ve never heard of before to answer to the fallout.
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According to Codega (who I think has been pretty much 100% accurate) it was the D&D Beyond Cancellations that caused panic in the higher ups.
 
A Fiery Flying Roll said:
And the outrage farmers have collectively showed that they wouldn't have been qualified to handle this. Lots of getting distracted by irrelevant issues and an odd obsession with what colour young people die their hair. (As an aside, are they all from rural Utah? Because I can't think of another reason they'd be quite so shocked by the idea of dying your hair. Sorry to anyone with dayglo hair, but that failed to be an effective means of rebellion in about 1982).
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The outrage farmers are detriment to the cause as they'll bite on every bit of culture war bait that Hasbro throws at them.

As for the dayglo hair thing, I spent time in both the UK and the US in '82. Dayglo hair was a lot more common in the UK back then. The US has only caught in the last ten years to where London was in 1979.
 
Baulderstone said:
She also asked Brink to his face if he could point to any problematic content that had been made under the OG. Brink wobbled a bit and couldn't, saying he couldn't think of any, but there was for more OGL than anyone could ever keep any eye, so there probably was. In her post-interview commentary, she pointed out that if WotC wasn't capable of keeping an eye on what was being released under the OGL, there was no point in giving them the power to police it.

Given the skeptical commentary we've seen from the intereviews so far, I suspect their lack of follow-up comes partly from not being professional interviewers rather than trying to softball him. I used to be in journalism, and it can be hard to think on your feet during interviews. You often think of the best question 20 minutes after the interview is over.

The interview could have gone a little further, but I was genuinely impressed with the job Ginny did.
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Yeah, I was taught that politicians are coached by PR to keep on their message track and your job as a reporter is to knock them off it.

This leads to the classic tactic where a politician or corporate rep is asked a direct question they don't want to answer and they respond with an 'answer' to a completely different subject, or talk in circles with an empty canned response and so don't really answer the question.

In which case your job is to press them and simply repeat the question. You do that until they either answer the question or it is clear to others that they are avoiding the question, they you move on.

I doubt many of these streamers have the journalist background to know how to handle someone when they're on their message track. It drives me crazy how often American reporters fail to do this in tv and radio interviews, I believe it is a concious decision to not press them so they can retain access.

I ended up working in music journalism where that style of interrogative interviewing was rare, not that you didn't end up in some hostile interviews but I was never in a situation where the focus of the interview was anything besides the music itself, so I know what you're supposed to do but never had to put it into practice myself.
 
A Fiery Flying Roll said:
We need Paxo on the job.

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Yeah UK tv and radio reporters are known to actually press like this much more than they do in the states. As usual, Canada falls somewhere in the middle, lol.
 
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As a bit of a denouement, the smug host at Opening Arguments has just been embroiled in a series of ethical controversies. (Not related to his OGL analysis.)
 
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Baulderstone said:
Now that I am a real estate agents, I have to take an ethics class every couple of years, and that's fine. It is just laying out the rules you need to follow as an agent in a straight, factual way. It was practical things like what you are allowed to put in advertising, and what you are information you are allowed to share about an ongoing transaction.
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Unpopular opinion but I think a workplace class on ethics or best practices can be used for its intended purpose and doesn't have to be a tool for corporate propaganda. I've been in my industry for 8-9 years and regularly have to make impactful decisions with only my conscience as a guide. I don't think ethics are always "self evident" and it can be difficult to grasp the full implications of decisions when multiple parties are involved (in my case it's employer, contract worker, client, signer, and state/local law). Needless to say, not all of my colleagues give their decisions careful consideration and I think it's detrimental to my employer in the long run.

A Fiery Flying Roll said:
nd the outrage farmers have collectively showed that they wouldn't have been qualified to handle this. Lots of getting distracted by irrelevant issues and an odd obsession with what colour young people die their hair. (As an aside, are they all from rural Utah? Because I can't think of another reason they'd be quite so shocked by the idea of dying your hair. Sorry to anyone with dayglo hair, but that failed to be an effective means of rebellion in about 1982).
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Not sure if you are being silly or serious but America is a massive country where cultural attitudes can vary wildly from state to state or even within a state. Pastel-colored hair rarely draws a negative comment in a cosmopolitan and wealthy coastal region but to a struggling Boomer in the Rust Belt, pink hair might be a symbol of cultural degeneracy and decline.
 
Brock Savage said:
Not sure if you are being silly or serious but America is a massive country where cultural attitudes can vary wildly from state to state or even within a state. Pastel-colored hair rarely draws a negative comment in a cosmopolitan and wealthy coastal region but to a struggling Boomer in the Rust Belt pink hair might be a symbol of cultural degeneracy and decline.
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Nah, I was being serious there. I doubt funny coloured hair would get a second glance in most places here.
 
Baulderstone said:
As for the dayglo hair thing, I spent time in both the UK and the US in '82. Dayglo hair was a lot more common in the UK back then. The US has only caught in the last ten years to where London was in 1979.
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This totally germaine to the discussion, honestly.

One of the hardcore ravers I used to go hardcore raving with in the early 90s left us to go work in the US for a year or two. When he returned we were all eager to hear about how cool America was, cos you know, it's the land of Starsky&Hutch, the A-Team, and Streethawk.

"Man, place has no scene. They're a century behind us when it comes to drugs and the weekend" was pretty much what he said.
 
Baulderstone said:
The outrage farmers are detriment to the cause as they'll bite on every bit of culture war bait that Hasbro throws at them.

As for the dayglo hair thing, I spent time in both the UK and the US in '82. Dayglo hair was a lot more common in the UK back then. The US has only caught in the last ten years to where London was in 1979.
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Mrs. Slocombe was the last of the true punks!
 
Do you think they made Garak (from DS9) a tailor as an in-joke, or was it some kind of other reference?
 
Voros said:
Yeah, I was taught that politicians are coached by PR to keep on their message track and your job as a reporter is to knock them off it.

This leads to the classic tactic where a politician or corporate rep is asked a direct question they don't want to answer and they respond with an 'answer' to a completely different subject, or talk in circles with an empty canned response and so don't really answer the question.

In which case your job is to press them and simply repeat the question. You do that until they either answer the question or it is clear to others that they are avoiding the question, they you move on.

I doubt many of these streamers have the journalist background to know how to handle someone when they're on their message track. It drives me crazy how often American reporters fail to do this in tv and radio interviews, I believe it is a concious decision to not press them so they can retain access.

I ended up working in music journalism where that style of interrogative interviewing was rare, not that you didn't end up in some hostile interviews but I was never in a situation where the focus of the interview was anything besides the music itself, so I know what you're supposed to do but never had to put it into practice myself.
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We need to have journalists with Joe Peshi's interviewing skills.

 
Baulderstone said:
As for the dayglo hair thing, I spent time in both the UK and the US in '82. Dayglo hair was a lot more common in the UK back then. The US has only caught in the last ten years to where London was in 1979.
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Here in Denmark dayglo hair wasn't common in the 80's and 90's when I was young. But I do remember one thing; Blue hair on old ladies. For some reason it was all the rage among grandmothers. So everytime I see someone with blue hair today I think; Ohh you want to be a granny ehh.
 
For Ginny Di I'm assuming that she knew the hard questions to ask, but she doesn't have the training or experience on how to run a hostile interview. Mistakes on the follow-up questions are easy to make and someone prepped by a PR expert is going to be ready to pounce on any mistakes. It makes much more sense to ask the hard question, let the person answer, and then point out to the viewer that the answer was bullshit. Has the journalist that broke the original story had a chance to run an interview yet?
 
deflagratio said:
For Ginny Di I'm assuming that she knew the hard questions to ask, but she doesn't have the training or experience on how to run a hostile interview. Mistakes on the follow-up questions are easy to make and someone prepped by a PR expert is going to be ready to pounce on any mistakes. It makes much more sense to ask the hard question, let the person answer, and then point out to the viewer that the answer was bullshit. Has the journalist that broke the original story had a chance to run an interview yet?
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No, they seem to be carefully avoiding interviews with non influencers at the moment.
 
deflagratio said:
For Ginny Di I'm assuming that she knew the hard questions to ask, but she doesn't have the training or experience on how to run a hostile interview. Mistakes on the follow-up questions are easy to make and someone prepped by a PR expert is going to be ready to pounce on any mistakes. It makes much more sense to ask the hard question, let the person answer, and then point out to the viewer that the answer was bullshit. Has the journalist that broke the original story had a chance to run an interview yet?
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That'a partly it. Based on her comments after the interview, I think she also didn't see a point. While it's a nice dream to imagine that if you followed up with the right stinging question, Brink would have broken down and admitted that he was the killer, it probably isn't going to happen. For one thing, Brink probably wasn't involved much in the OGL decision, which is why they sent him out. He can just always fall back on ignorance, whether it was true or not.

In this case, it probably was best just to let him keep talking and take his comments apart in analysis.
 
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Brock Savage said:
Unpopular opinion but I think a workplace class on ethics or best practices can be used for its intended purpose and doesn't have to be a tool for corporate propaganda. I've been in my industry for 8-9 years and regularly have to make impactful decisions with only my conscience as a guide. I don't think ethics are always "self evident" and it can be difficult to grasp the full implications of decisions when multiple parties are involved (in my case it's employer, contract worker, client, signer, and state/local law). Needless to say, not all of my colleagues give their decisions careful consideration and I think it's detrimental to my employer in the long run.
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As someone with a lot of professional experience with training on workplace ethics, they are not generally intended as propaganda tools. The most common purpose is legal. When one of your employees gets caught bribing an official or something, you want written records of how well you've taught your staff not to do that sort of thing. Limits the legal exposure of the company.
 
The Mad Hatter said:
Here in Denmark dayglo hair wasn't common in the 80's and 90's when I was young. But I do remember one thing; Blue hair on old ladies. For some reason it was all the rage among grandmothers. So everytime I see someone with blue hair today I think; Ohh you want to be a granny ehh.
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That was common not only in Denmark. In the UK, 'blue rinse brigade' used to be common slang for old ladies who sit around gossiping about other people's business.
 
I saw blue-rinsed grannies here as well, but an occasional purple haired one as well. I wonder where that trend has originated...
 
I saw it a lot here in the U.S., too, particularly in the 1980s and earlier.

"Hairdressers used hydrogen and ammonia to turn tresses pale yellow, but the secret to achieving that silvery shimmer was a blue chemical solution called a “blue rinse.” It wasn’t an outrageous idea, since people were already accustomed to brightening their white linens with bluing agents. Almost immediately, beauticians and advice columnists started recommending blue rinses to older women as a way to restore luster to their gray or yellowish-white hair. Though it worked well when properly done, a botched rinse could leave hair looking anywhere from slightly bluish to decisively purple. This happened frequently—and not always by accident."

www.mentalfloss.com

Blue Staid ’Dos: How Blue Became Old Ladies’ Hair Color of Choice

Platinum blonde locks were first popularized by Jean Harlow, but older women quickly co-opted the trend.
www.mentalfloss.com www.mentalfloss.com
 
carpocratian said:
I saw it a lot here in the U.S., too, particularly in the 1980s and earlier.

"Hairdressers used hydrogen and ammonia to turn tresses pale yellow, but the secret to achieving that silvery shimmer was a blue chemical solution called a “blue rinse.” It wasn’t an outrageous idea, since people were already accustomed to brightening their white linens with bluing agents. Almost immediately, beauticians and advice columnists started recommending blue rinses to older women as a way to restore luster to their gray or yellowish-white hair. Though it worked well when properly done, a botched rinse could leave hair looking anywhere from slightly bluish to decisively purple. This happened frequently—and not always by accident."

www.mentalfloss.com

Blue Staid ’Dos: How Blue Became Old Ladies’ Hair Color of Choice

Platinum blonde locks were first popularized by Jean Harlow, but older women quickly co-opted the trend.
www.mentalfloss.com www.mentalfloss.com
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In the 70s my Grandmother would bleach her hair blond (she was 50 ish, so probably a combination of combating grey as well as blondes have more fun). They had a swimming pool and she had a problem with the pool chemicals giving her hair a slight greenish tinge.
 
Toadmaster said:
In the 70s my Grandmother would bleach her hair blond (she was 50 ish, so probably a combination of combating grey as well as blondes have more fun). They had a swimming pool and she had a problem with the pool chemicals giving her hair a slight greenish tinge.
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There was this blonde guy I went to school with who had perpetually greenish hair. His family had a swimming pool, and he used it daily. I remember someone at the time telling me that the green tint came from the chlorine. This would have been in the late 70s/early 80s.

Edit: Evidently, the culprit is algae-controlling copper sulphate added to pool water.

Green Hair Caused by Copper, Not Chlorine — Myth Busted

waterandhealth.org waterandhealth.org
 
When it comes to the Tenkar video, I'm not sure why that comes as any real surprise. I don't know how it is in other countries, but in the U.S., at least, game stores haven't been the most affordable places to buy D&D products for a long time now. I'm sure WOTC will get even more aggressive with bundling and trying to drive more commerce through their own website from here on out, anyway, since they want to tie everything into whatever their digital product ends up becoming.
 
Rich H said:
Looking through the new releases on Drivethru'... Had a giggle at this:

View attachment 56439

:gunslinger:
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You know I’m tempted to buy it just because of that snark but $5 for a 41 page pdf for a game I’ll never play seems like it would be better spent on two weeks worth of coffee ( fifty cent refills at the gas station near work).
 
So Kobold Press have released their first "playtest" and it's basically just 5e and following the 6e model of releasing dribs and drabs of rules without the context of anything else in the system that would be needed to judge it.

Disappointing.

(Playtest is in quotation marks because the playtest period is two weeks and the rules aren't playable anyway - they haven't even released character classes yet. If you're going to sell yourself as an alternative to the big corporation maybe don't repeat the bullshit of playtesting things that are obviously not being playtested.)
 
TJS said:
So Kobold Press have released their first "playtest" and it's basically just 5e and following the 6e model of releasing dribs and drabs of rules without the context of anything else in the system that would be needed to judge it.

Disappointing.

(Playtest is in quotation marks because the playtest period is two weeks and the rules aren't playable anyway - they haven't even released character classes yet. If you're going to sell yourself as an alternative to the big corporation maybe don't repeat the bullshit of playtesting things that are obviously not being playtested.)
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Did they mean 2 weeks from the time all of the rules are available, or 2 weeks total? As someone who manages to miscommunicate fairly often in spite of taking time to carefully word things, I can easily imagine they meant the former and just said it wrong. And should probably maybe be asked about it and given a chance to respond.
 
FreeGamer said:
Did they mean 2 weeks from the time all of the rules are available, or 2 weeks total? As someone who manages to miscommunicate fairly often in spite of taking time to carefully word things, I can easily imagine they meant the former and just said it wrong. And should probably maybe be asked about it and given a chance to respond.
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2 weeks for this packet.

I guess you could in theory playtest them with the existing classes from 5e, but that's kind of pointless because it's not the final context. For example, people on Enworld were complaining that the concentration rules are now too generous because it's hard for a Fighter to do enough damage in a single attack to make a wizard lose concentration. But that assumes that they are going to keep the existing model of Fighters doing multiple small attacks which increase in number as they go up. If they don't do that (and there are existing problems with this model) then maybe the rule is not too generous.
 
I surmise that Kobold Press wanted to keep gamers engaged, while there's still some pushback against WotC, and some desire of an alternative system - hence their desire to release snippets of "Alternative Fantasy System" (AFS) earlier rather than a big chunk of it later.

That's just a guess on my part. I freely admit I'm not a rules guy (even though I created an entire system in my younger years :ooh:... :hehe:) and I don't know how much time does one (team) need for assembling an AFS - six months ? A year ?

"What's the best way to do a playtest for an AFS" is an interesting line of inquiry.
 
Lychee of the Exchequer said:
What's the best way to do a playtest for an AFS" is an interesting line of inquiry.
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Do what Goodman Games did for the DCC RPG. Write up your complete initial draft, goto conventions, run the hell of it with your staff. Fine tune, then hand out the draft and an adventure for others to run. Gather their feedback. Fine tune. Then release. Nothing exposes what stinks like actual play.
 
robertsconley said:
Do what Goodman Games did for the DCC RPG. Write up your complete initial draft, goto conventions, run the hell of it with your staff. Fine tune, then hand out the draft and an adventure for others to run. Gather their feedback. Fine tune. Then release. Nothing exposes what stinks like actual play.
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It's like you know how the game design process actually works. :grin:
 
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