Interesting Gaming News & Information

Just a gaming joke for the hell of it. I don't think it's great but what the hell.

A foolproof way to identify a Mimic! (Little known fact, they have very good taste in music).

D&D Makers Escalate Lawsuit Against Gary Gygax Son Over Trademark Violations and a Racist RPG

Wizards of the Coast, makers of Dungeons & Dragons, have asked the court to stop D&D co-creator Gary Gygax's son, Ernie, from using trademarks for TSR, Gygax's company, and Star Frontiers, his science-fiction roleplaying game. Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR and its games in 1997, but Ernie Gygax's company, which uses the TSR name, claims that Wizards of the Coast let those trademarks lapse and plans to publish a new edition of Star Frontiers.

Last year, TSR LLC and Ernie Gygax were accused of making racist and transphobic remarks(opens in new tab), and recently, a leaked document alleged to be a copy of TSR LLC's Star Frontiers: New Genesis included racist rules, describing a "Negro" race with below-average intelligence and a "Nordic" race with above-average statistics. (In July, TSR shared a Facebook post(opens in new tab) alleging that the documents are fake.)

As reported by GeekWire(opens in new tab), this seems to have been the last straw for Wizards of the Coast. The company has filed an injunction(opens in new tab) asking courts to block the release of Star Frontiers: New Genesis while the trademark dispute is resolved.

Wizards' injunction is predicated on the argument that while they did not renew the trademarks for TSR in the national system, they have retained their rights to the trademarks by licensing out the old game material for digital distribution since 2012. Further, Wizards argues that the publication of Star Frontiers: New Genesis would cause irreparable harm to the trademark they own, as would continued use of the TSR brand and trademarks, specifically saying that it is a "degrading, offensive product containing Wizards' Marks" and comes as Wizards of the Coast has in recent years "redoubled its commitment to diversity and inclusion."

Ernie Gygax is one of the late E. Gary Gygax's six children. Ernie Gygax's company, TSR LLC, was founded by himself, Justin LaNasa, and Stephen Dinehart in 2020. Gygax and LaNasa were at the center of a controversy last year when Gygax criticized(opens in new tab) Wizards of the Coast's condemnation of racism and sexism in older D&D products. (Wizards of the Coast also recently apologized for and removed racist undertones in a new book.) Dinehart appears to have departed TSR LLC, taking his game GiantLands with him.

LaNasa, meanwhile, is the registered owner of the TSR Games trademark, and TSR LLC is registered to him. LaNasa is the owner of a tattoo parlor in North Carolina, as well as the Hobby Shop Dungeon Museum in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He once campaigned for political office in North Carolina as a Republican, an effort that was widely considered sunk when his opponent surfaced a video(opens in new tab) LaNasa had posted of two female employees at his tattoo parlor wrestling in a tub of grits to become "head shop girl."

Star Frontiers: New Genesis drew widespread outcry in July not only for content in the supposed leaked playtest version, some of which is allegedly written by LaNasa, but due to the actions of the other cited author, Dave Johnson. Johnson has been identified with social media accounts that post extensive neo-Nazi and white supremacist material and memes. A website called No Hate In Gaming has compiled an extensive list of racist, pro-Nazi, and other hateful posts(opens in new tab) made by Johnson.

Reached for comment, Wizards of the Coast said that it does not comment on pending litigation. TSR LLC referred PC Gamer to its legal council, with a statement forthcoming.

Moving in Medieval Armor

You might find this video corny, but I thought it was interesting, nonetheless.

Can You Move in Armour? - YouTube

A bit more detail below:

Previously revealed in the lead up to Spelljammer’s release, the Hazodee are a race of flying monkey aliens. According to the lore, the Hadozee were kidnapped and experimented on by a wizard with the express intent to sell them as magically enhanced soldiers, and the Hadozee later rose up and killed the wizard. The backstory for the Hadozee draws parallels to real world events of people being forcibly experimented on against their will, such as the Tuskegee experiment. And if you are black, you likely have heard of “monkey” being used as a slur, if you weren’t called it yourself.

New WotC Spelljammer Race (Hadozee) Comes Under Racist Criticism

Wizards of the Coast responded to criticism of the Spelljammer: Adventures in Space sourcebook this week. The book came under fire for inclusion of background lore material and artwork for the Hadozee playable race that was condemned as racist. The background material involved the Hadozee being uplifted from their primitive lifestyle by a wizard and enjoying their servile position in the setting compared to other races, while the artwork was compared to that from minstrel art of the 19th and early 20th century. The statement:

We wanted to acknowledge and own the inclusion of offensive material within our recent Spelljammer: Adventures in Space content. We failed you, our players and our fans, and we are truly sorry. The campaign includes a people called Hadozee which first appeared in 1982. Regrettably, not all portions of the content relating to the Hadozee were properly vetted before appearing in our most recent release. As we continue to learn and grow through every situation, we recognize that to live our values, we have to do better. Throughout the 50-year history of Dungeons & Dragons, some of the characters in the game have been monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world groups have been and continue to be denigrated. We understand the urgency of changing how we work to better ensure a more inclusive game. Effective immediately, we will remove the offensive content about Hadozee in our digital versions – and these will no longer be included in future reprints of the book. Our priority is to make things right when we make mistakes. In addition, we’ve initiated a thorough internal review of the situation and will take the necessary actions as a result of that review. We are eternally grateful for the ongoing dialog with the D&D community, and we look forward to introducing new, engaging and inclusive content to D&D for generations to come. D&D teaches that diversity is strength, for only a diverse group of adventurers can overcome the many challenges a D&D story presents. In that spirit, we are committed to making D&D as welcome and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

This marks the most recent entry in a recent history of Wizards of the Coast apologizing for perceived racism and race-based discrimination including omitting the credit of cultural consultant Tanya DePass from Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos in 2021 and a 2020 blog post addressing concerns about the Vistani, Drow, Orcs, and other previous “evil races”.

Over the weekend, accusations were levied at TSR LLC (aka “TSR3” aka “NuTSR”) owner Justin LaNasa for improper storage and transmission of private customer financial details. Former NuTSR publisher Wizard Tower Games CEO Don Semora released a YouTube video featuring screenshots of a spreadsheet that appeared to contain in plain text with no encoding or encryption detailed customer information including full names, email addresses, physical addresses, and credit card numbers for all customers of both TSR LLC and related company Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum. The video was part of a back-and-forth between Semora and LaNasa sparked by Semora stating that received two subpoenas related to discovery in the lawsuit between LaNasa and Wizards of the Coast over the trademark for TSR. The video was made private early Tuesday morning according to Semora “to number one preserve them, and number two as I have been asked to do so by those far above my pay grade”. Semora also stated in a post on EN World that he has filed an official report with the FBI over the leak of customer information.

So, a Tiamat Statue is now being released by WotC! Guess this is for those people who found the Gargantuan Wizkids Tiamat too small and too cheap! OMG! No word on the price but GEEZ it will be HIGH! I'll admit it does look gorgeous! Someone hit mega millions and all I'll ask of you as long as you play is that you buy me all minis released!

Product Description Premium Collectibles Studio presents the Tiamat Deluxe Statue, an incredible Dungeons & Dragons collectible for only the bravest of adventurers. Every epic campaign needs an unforgettable final boss battle! Complete the ritual and summon the Tiamat Deluxe Statue by Premium Collectibles Studio for your D&D collection today.

Product Features

• 37.5 x 31 x 28 inches (95.25cm x 78.74cm x 71.12m)

• Made of PVC

• From Dungeons & Dragons

• Each dragon head has a light-up feature

• Deluxe edition

The NEW D&D Game Being Released

This article from Sly Flourish got a positive response from Ray Winninger (D&D executive producer - basically the final say on the new D &D edition coming out):

https://slyflourish.com/what_I_want_in_5_5.html?rss=1

It was then further discussed in this Nerd Immersion video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2y55fQwlwQ

Interesting? So, it looks like there will be a gelatinous cube in the movie. I'm curious to see how it looks. Could be awesome or terrible. They are actually releasing this in miniature form for $35. Pic below. Thoughts on mini?

Dungeons & Dragons: Quasit Life-Sized Familiar

Just in case anybody is interested. Price has not been announced yet. It looks rather nice but larger than what I think a quasit should be. After all they are intended to sit on a wizard's shoulder and this boy would weigh any wizard down.

Yes, seems Vecna is the villain this season on Stranger Things!? I think it is great for the game and hobby. Big Bang Theory was also great exposure for years...

Charts like this are always interesting to me. I feel no one will ever topple WoTC. The D&D name is just to iconic. And I know D&D is being used in the strange things show, which is popular and will definitely promote the D&D name.

TOP 5 ROLEPLAYING GAMES - FALL 2021

This chart of the Top 5 Roleplaying Games (hobby channel) reflects sales in Fall 2021 (September-December). The charts are based on interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers.

1 - Dungeons & Dragons Wizards of the Coast

2 - Pathfinder Paizo

3 - D&D 5E Goodman Games

4 - Fallout RPG Modiphius Entertainment

5 - Call of Cthulhu Chaosium Inc.

TOP 5 COLLECTIBLE GAMES - FALL 2021

1 - Pokemon

2 - Magic: The Gathering

3 - Yu-Gi-Oh!

4 - D&D Icons of the Realms

5 - Flesh and Blood Legend

If anyone wants a Beholder Figure with a Glowing Eye WotC has it for sale. Very cheap as well! I'm shocked so it makes me question the quality.

Dungeons & Dragons: Beholder Figurine: With glowing eye! (RP Minis): Moher, Aidan: 9780762478866: Amazon.com: Books

I love it....looks very imposing

Released in conjunction with Stranger Things Season 4. I watched (2) episodes last night and Vecna is this seasons’ monster.

It does look cyborg, to me aswell. It also looks like he has rhe infinity gauntlet, from Marvel. And that price is very steep.

Vecna Premium Statue Being Released

The all-new Vecna resin statue by WizKids stands at 12” tall and includes intricate details, including the Book of Vile Darkness perched within Vecna’s ribcage.

Seldom is the name of Vecna spoken except in a hushed voice. Vecna was, in his time, one of the mightiest of all wizards. Through dark magic and conquest, he forged a terrible empire.

IMPORTANT: Release date for the Dungeons & Dragons Vecna Premium Statue is currently TBD. Link below. They are really making some premium items! Looks good but costs $262! If you look closely, you will see the Book of Vile Darkness in his ribcage. Looks more like some cyborg to me. Don't love the design as Vecna.

PRE-ORDER - Dungeons & Dragons: Vecna Premium Statue – WizKids

I believe that I would fall under the fifth type of player the "basic roleplayer" with strong tendencies towards the " thinking" and "storyteller"

That was an interesting read. I feel that I myself would fall under the "basic roleplayer" category.

Breakdown of RPG Players

Sean says: In 1999, WotC had a market research group do an extensive survey of RPG gamers in an attempt to better understand the RPG market. The questions were of the "rate this topic from 1, not at all, to 5, very strongly." The results of some of the questions were used to classify the respondents into categories in order to better understand what sort of experiences (and thus, products) these gamers were looking for. WotC released this information publically, although it was not widely circulated outside of RPG game publishers. Ryan has given me permission to repost his summary of these results, which he orginally posted on one of the forums of Steve Jackson Games' Pyramid Magazine.

The original results were shared with WotC R&D; before being released to the public. It's interesting information, and the graph did really work out as described below, with most of the dots clustered into the middle of each quadrant and a smaller cluster in the middle of the graph. Just be aware that these results are tendencies; someone whose answers landed them in the "Thinkers" quadrant can still enjoy aspects of the other four quadrants. It's a market research study, not a psionic blueprint of the gaming populations.

Much thanks to Ryan for having his team get the ball rolling on this research, and for giving me permission to post it on my site.

The version of the graph presented here is by me.

Imagine two axes.

The horizontal axis is Strategic Focused to Tactical Focused.

"Strategic" means "a perspective larger than the immediate future and surroundings". "Tactical" means "a perspective limited to the immediate future and the immediate surroundings."

"Invade the Normandy beaches on D-Day" is Strategic. "Take out that bunker before the machine gun kills us all!" is Tactical.

The vertical axis is Combat Focused to Story Focused.

"Combat Focused" means "Conflict resolution is interesting to me." "Story Focused" means "The world and the interaction of the characters is intersting to me."

"Kick this door down and kill anything that moves" is Combat focused. "This door has the Mark of Malvena; the space within should be safe for us to rest in" is Story focused.

This creates four quadrents. Starting in the upper left and moving clockwise, label these quadrents Thinkers, Power Gamers, Character Actors, and Storytellers

• A Thinker is a player who most enjoys the game when it delivers Strategic/Combat Focus. This kind of person is likely to enjoy min-maxing a character, spending hours out of game to find every conceivable advantage available in the system to deliver maximum damage from behind maximum protection, even if the min-maxing produces results that are seemingly illogical/impossible. This kind of person wants to solve puzzles and can keep track of long chains of facts and clues.

• A Power Gamer is a player who most enjoys the game when it delivers a Tactical/Combat Focus. This kind of person is likely to enjoy playing a character that has a minimum of personality (often, this kind of person plays a character that is simply an extension of the player). This kind of player enjoys short, intense gaming experiences. The consequences of a failed action are minimized for this player, who will roll up a new character and return to the fray without much thought for the storyline implications of that action.

• A Character Actor is a player who most enjoys the game when it delivers a Tactical/Story Focus. This kind of person is likely to enjoy the act of theater; using voice, posture, props, etc. to express a character's actions and dialog. This player will have a character that makes sub-optimal choices (from an external perspective) to ensure that the character's actions are "correct" from the perspective of the character's motivations, ethics, and knowledge.

• A Storyteller is a player who most enjoys the game when it delivers a Strategic/Story Focus. This kind of person finds enjoyment from the logical progression of the narrative of the scenario. There should be a beginning, a middle and an end. Characters should develop over time in reaction to their experiences. This player will look for a non-rules answer to inconsistencies or anachronisms in the game experience.

• There is a fifth type of player, who does not express a preference along any of the four axis. This person is a "basic roleplayer", who finds enjoyment from strategy, tactics, combat and story in rough equilibrium.

• 
  

Roughly, each of the four quadrents accounts for approximately 22% of the player community. About 12% fall into the fifth, centric position.

We generated this data by asking a series of questions during the Market Research study in 1999 to create what is called a "segmentation" of the players. The questions were not designed to find these four quadrents; they correleate to all kinds of player interest and behavior. The original survey had several hundred questions, but only about two dozen have a bearing on the segmentation results. Once the study was complete, the data was plotted in several dimensions to look for clusters of responses; those clusters became the five player types. Once we know the segmentation was there, we reverse-engineered the axes, by comparing the responses of the people in each segment to find similarities.

What we don't know (and won't for several years) is if people's play preferences change over time. What we do know is that the age distribution across the five segements was undifferentiated (meaning there were people of all ages in each group), and the number of years a person had been playing RPGs had no effect either (meaning that people don't seem to migrate to a segment based on their depth of experience). We also found no additional segmentation based on what games people identified as their "favorite"; in other words, there are just as many Power Gamers as there are Storytellers who like Vampire, and just as many Thinkers as Character Acters who like D&D.;

All of the people who indicated a strong interest in RPGs identified eight "core values" that they look for in the RPG experience. These 8 core values are more important than the segments; that is, if these 8 things aren't present in the play experience it won't matter if the game generally supports a given segment's interests - the players will find the experience dissatisfying. These 8 core values are:

• Strong Characters and Exciting Story

• Role Playing

• Complexity Increases over Time

• Requires Strategic Thinking

• Competitive

• Add on sets/New versions available

• Uses imagination

• Mentally challenging

In other words, even the players who enjoy a "Tactical Focus" still want to be challenged to use Strategic Thinking; likewise, even the Combat Focus player wants a Strong Character and Exciting Story. A person who segments into a "Tactical Focus" segment, when compared to the population as a whole is likely to be perceived as someone who enjoys Strategy; only when compared to the population of people who enjoy RPGs is the difference visible between the hard-core strategic players and the slightly less hard-core tactical players.

Similarly, people who play RPGs don't want to just play DOOM. The most hard-core fan of melee combat still wants to fight opponents that are meaningful and wants his or her character to act in a way proscribed by the archetypes of the genre or property being simulated.

I have used the analogy of fans of "the color blue" to discuss this effect. To the general population, blue is just blue. But to a true fan, there are many shades of blue, each with its own unique properties. RPG gamers have more in common with each other than they do with non-RPG gamers, but within their own community, there are noticable differences that can be categorized.

We think that there is data to support the idea that people who enjoy being GM/DMs tend to cluster into the Storyteller segment. Interestingly, based on our own internal profiling of the staff, there's some data to support the idea that good game designers tend to cluster into the "Thinker" segment. In other words, good DMs don't make the best game designers, and vice versa. As with all things though, there will be exceptions and special cases.

We also have data that suggests that most groups are made up of people who segment differently (that is, monolithic segmentation within a gaming group is rare), and in fact, having different kinds of players tends to make the RPG experience work better over the long haul.

Eventually, we would like to bring some of this technology to the gaming table, to allow GM/DMs to profile their players and then customize a scenario to ensure that each player is getting support for the style of play they most enjoy, and that if a segment is missing from the table, content can be removed or changed to avoid having the adventure "bog down" when nobody has the interest/intellectual tools to cope with a problem targeting an unrepresented segment.

Unlike some of the discussions which rage from time to time about the nature of game design paradigms, the above information was extracted from general market research data that had as much bias as possible removed. It reflects deep seated psychological aspects of the gamer mind and tells us some very interesting things about how we can make our products more interesting to our target consumers.