wearesorcerer

[wearesorcerer]

🌟Dollmaker Moonwyn for @/alectothefruity.bsky.social, always a pleasure working with them!

[wearesorcerer]

Would you like to provide a good faith argument with a position on what SJG can or should do or do you just want to troll with ad hominem assumptions about my understanding? Because you've failed at reading my mind on the problems at hand like three times now.

“At Steve Jackson Games, we are actively assessing what this means for our products, our pricing, and our future plans. We do know that we can’t absorb this kind of cost increase without raising prices. We’ve done our best over the past few years to shield players and retailers from the full brunt of rising freight costs and other increases, but this new tax changes the equation entirely. Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That’s not a luxury upcharge; it’s survival math. Some people ask, “Why not manufacture in the U.S.?” I wish we could. But the infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production – specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components – doesn’t meaningfully exist here yet. I’ve gotten quotes. I’ve talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren’t. […] We want to be transparent with our community. This is real: Prices are going up. We’re still determining how much and where. If you’re frustrated, you’re not alone. We are too. And if you want to help, write to your elected officials. Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses. Because right now, it feels like they don’t. We’ll keep making games. But we’ll be honest when the road gets harder, because we know you care about where your games come from – and about the people who make them.”

— Daily Illuminator: Tariffs Are Driving Up Game Prices Now

[wearesorcerer]

That is at least a position worthy of commentary!

I had worked in a game shop relatively recently (I'm losing track of time). We carried SJG material, but the only things that would sell would be core Munchkin sets every few months (it was not a big selling game by any means) and some Munchkin merchandise like the board game, though not much of the latter and mostly to fan collectors of anything Munchkin. GURPS stopped being brought up as one of the big D&D competitors a while beforehand, but I was never certain if that was just 5e's market share or if it was that GURPS hadn't seen a recent printing. (We had to have sold a copy, but it didn't restock before the end of the shop's life -- and was used.) And In Nomine (finally, someone else has played that!) was published in 1997. However, my perspective could have been regionally limited: what sold there isn't indicative of the market.

So you are probably right that they don't have a margin (or if they do it is fairly thin). And I never thought their stuff was (at the time) overpriced.

But your "me" comment brings me to a point: when did you buy your games? This isn't "do you like these games?" (they all have advantages and disadvantages), but "are you currently and actively supporting SJG financially?"

Because if you (hypothetical "you," not "you" person immediately above) are going to argue that

it is somehow indefensible within a capitalist framework (n.b.: this is not my personal position on the morality of the issue; this is simply for practical reasons) that companies have to chase prices the market will allow (i.e., prices customers are willing to pay), and

that SJG's income and pricing structure are already at a difficult point,

then you have to then address why it is that they haven't been able to maintain an adequate revenue flow as it is.

Like, D&D has had more than the lion's share of the TTRPG market for the better part of a decade, but it still had to compete with Pathfinder 1e while that was in print -- and Paizo operated mainly in the way other RPGs had always worked, rather than having not-technically-ads in the form of media franchises drive interest. There were new editions of L5R, Shadowrun, and VtM in that time. GURPS hasn't seen a new edition (not that it needs one) since 2004 and hasn't seen much of a print run (this would be the issue at hand with tariffs and pricing) since then.

“At Steve Jackson Games, we are actively assessing what this means for our products, our pricing, and our future plans. We do know that we can’t absorb this kind of cost increase without raising prices. We’ve done our best over the past few years to shield players and retailers from the full brunt of rising freight costs and other increases, but this new tax changes the equation entirely. Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That’s not a luxury upcharge; it’s survival math. Some people ask, “Why not manufacture in the U.S.?” I wish we could. But the infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production – specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components – doesn’t meaningfully exist here yet. I’ve gotten quotes. I’ve talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren’t. […] We want to be transparent with our community. This is real: Prices are going up. We’re still determining how much and where. If you’re frustrated, you’re not alone. We are too. And if you want to help, write to your elected officials. Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses. Because right now, it feels like they don’t. We’ll keep making games. But we’ll be honest when the road gets harder, because we know you care about where your games come from – and about the people who make them.”

— Daily Illuminator: Tariffs Are Driving Up Game Prices Now

[wearesorcerer]

I'm not even going there. I don't know what anyone at that company deserves in wages (workers or CEO), didn't bring it up (you did), and only agreed with (the admitted misinterpretation of) your words because it's about the only way I can see that they could keep their already limited market share without going belly-up from failing to reduce prices to consumers to something that will continue to drive sales. (Do people still play Munchkin? How many people have bought a GURPS book in the last, say, five years? Hell, do they even print Fluxx anymore?)

“At Steve Jackson Games, we are actively assessing what this means for our products, our pricing, and our future plans. We do know that we can’t absorb this kind of cost increase without raising prices. We’ve done our best over the past few years to shield players and retailers from the full brunt of rising freight costs and other increases, but this new tax changes the equation entirely. Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That’s not a luxury upcharge; it’s survival math. Some people ask, “Why not manufacture in the U.S.?” I wish we could. But the infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production – specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components – doesn’t meaningfully exist here yet. I’ve gotten quotes. I’ve talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren’t. […] We want to be transparent with our community. This is real: Prices are going up. We’re still determining how much and where. If you’re frustrated, you’re not alone. We are too. And if you want to help, write to your elected officials. Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses. Because right now, it feels like they don’t. We’ll keep making games. But we’ll be honest when the road gets harder, because we know you care about where your games come from – and about the people who make them.”

— Daily Illuminator: Tariffs Are Driving Up Game Prices Now

[wearesorcerer]

Fine, I misread your sarcasm tag as irrelevant to the point. I'll not put the words in your mouth and instead put them in mine:

I do not care if Steve Jackson Games (or any other company, for that matter) has to take a profit loss: they will have to anyway and they could offset a loss in demand form such by soaking some of the cost with profits and keeping their prices to consumers lower.

“At Steve Jackson Games, we are actively assessing what this means for our products, our pricing, and our future plans. We do know that we can’t absorb this kind of cost increase without raising prices. We’ve done our best over the past few years to shield players and retailers from the full brunt of rising freight costs and other increases, but this new tax changes the equation entirely. Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That’s not a luxury upcharge; it’s survival math. Some people ask, “Why not manufacture in the U.S.?” I wish we could. But the infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production – specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components – doesn’t meaningfully exist here yet. I’ve gotten quotes. I’ve talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren’t. […] We want to be transparent with our community. This is real: Prices are going up. We’re still determining how much and where. If you’re frustrated, you’re not alone. We are too. And if you want to help, write to your elected officials. Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses. Because right now, it feels like they don’t. We’ll keep making games. But we’ll be honest when the road gets harder, because we know you care about where your games come from – and about the people who make them.”

— Daily Illuminator: Tariffs Are Driving Up Game Prices Now

[wearesorcerer]

I believe convulsive-madness was using hyperbole on the numbers and simply asserting they (SKG, game companies, companies in general) could downsize profits and eat the tariff costs instead of passing them on to the rest of us because a CEO can afford to take a pay cut. (From what I found, SJG does not release its CEO pay, though it would be considerably less than a million if they're making the reported gross income of $3.6 million, though that's from only a cursory search.)

“At Steve Jackson Games, we are actively assessing what this means for our products, our pricing, and our future plans. We do know that we can’t absorb this kind of cost increase without raising prices. We’ve done our best over the past few years to shield players and retailers from the full brunt of rising freight costs and other increases, but this new tax changes the equation entirely. Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That’s not a luxury upcharge; it’s survival math. Some people ask, “Why not manufacture in the U.S.?” I wish we could. But the infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production – specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components – doesn’t meaningfully exist here yet. I’ve gotten quotes. I’ve talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren’t. […] We want to be transparent with our community. This is real: Prices are going up. We’re still determining how much and where. If you’re frustrated, you’re not alone. We are too. And if you want to help, write to your elected officials. Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses. Because right now, it feels like they don’t. We’ll keep making games. But we’ll be honest when the road gets harder, because we know you care about where your games come from – and about the people who make them.”

— Daily Illuminator: Tariffs Are Driving Up Game Prices Now

[wearesorcerer]

“At Steve Jackson Games, we are actively assessing what this means for our products, our pricing, and our future plans. We do know that we can’t absorb this kind of cost increase without raising prices. We’ve done our best over the past few years to shield players and retailers from the full brunt of rising freight costs and other increases, but this new tax changes the equation entirely. Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That’s not a luxury upcharge; it’s survival math. Some people ask, “Why not manufacture in the U.S.?” I wish we could. But the infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production – specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components – doesn’t meaningfully exist here yet. I’ve gotten quotes. I’ve talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren’t. […] We want to be transparent with our community. This is real: Prices are going up. We’re still determining how much and where. If you’re frustrated, you’re not alone. We are too. And if you want to help, write to your elected officials. Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses. Because right now, it feels like they don’t. We’ll keep making games. But we’ll be honest when the road gets harder, because we know you care about where your games come from – and about the people who make them.”

— Daily Illuminator: Tariffs Are Driving Up Game Prices Now

[wearesorcerer]

“At Steve Jackson Games, we are actively assessing what this means for our products, our pricing, and our future plans. We do know that we can’t absorb this kind of cost increase without raising prices. We’ve done our best over the past few years to shield players and retailers from the full brunt of rising freight costs and other increases, but this new tax changes the equation entirely. Here are the numbers: A product we might have manufactured in China for $3.00 last year could now cost $4.62 before we even ship it across the ocean. Add freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and distribution margins, and that once-$25 game quickly becomes a $40 product. That’s not a luxury upcharge; it’s survival math. Some people ask, “Why not manufacture in the U.S.?” I wish we could. But the infrastructure to support full-scale boardgame production – specialty dice making, die-cutting, custom plastic and wood components – doesn’t meaningfully exist here yet. I’ve gotten quotes. I’ve talked to factories. Even when the willingness is there, the equipment, labor, and timelines simply aren’t. […] We want to be transparent with our community. This is real: Prices are going up. We’re still determining how much and where. If you’re frustrated, you’re not alone. We are too. And if you want to help, write to your elected officials. Ask them how these new policies help American creators and small businesses. Because right now, it feels like they don’t. We’ll keep making games. But we’ll be honest when the road gets harder, because we know you care about where your games come from – and about the people who make them.”

— Daily Illuminator: Tariffs Are Driving Up Game Prices Now

[wearesorcerer]

Found that over at mastodon

[wearesorcerer]

they’re demoting me to demilich <|:^(

[wearesorcerer]

Would you guys like to help me design a character?

The Paladin I’m playing in upcoming Curse of Strahd game named Jarek (pronounced Yahr-ek) Zelazny who is a native Barovian with the Haunted One Background, who will eventually swear the homebrew Oath of Blood, who was raised by the Druids of Yester Hill before being adopted in all but name by the Martikovs. I know what I want for his character, history, and motivations, but beyond premature grey hair and a naturally haunted expression, I’m having trouble imaging what he looks like, and thought it would be fun to listen to some suggestions.

[wearesorcerer]

[wearesorcerer]

Ball lightning on railway

[wearesorcerer]

Hokigh, so, the long version.

Just as every game system has assumptions about the sorts of things it's about (the sorts of stories you can tell, the milieu, the things you can and cannot do, etc.), every campaign setting in D&D has its own assumptions.

They are not the same.

The campaign settings that hew the closest to what D&D has been about in most editions are Blackmoor, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and Mystara. These are by no means the same setting.

Blackmoor is so OG that it is not only its own setting, it's been ported into Greyhawk and Mystara (and maybe another). However, WotC has been very hands-off since they acquired D&D, which I suspect is for legal reasons, but don't quote me on that. Blackmoor hasn't been supported since well before 3.0 due to a rift between Dave Arneson (it's his setting; he co-created D&D) and Gary Gygax, which led to Arneson leaving TSR (IIRC back in the '80s).

Dragonlance is your High Medieval Romance mixed with some humor and grew out of D&D modules, so is your derived setting that incorporates most of the core ideas in D&D. The whole "crazy inventor" gnome stereotype is Dragonlance, though it also does the various factions of elves (though those distinctions are largely derived from Tolkien and greatly expanded upon; not entirely, but largely). The authors of the novels own the IP, so it hasn't really had much support since the 3rd edition dedicated sourcebooks (which were fairly obscure anyway and weren't widely used because their mechanical material was redundant and subpar).

Y'know most of those assumptions 5e players make about D&D as a whole that aren't products of culture beyond D&D? They're likely from the Realms. Like the idea that Gods Need Prayer Badly; that's specifically A Realms Thing and does not apply to most other settings. Most drow lore (which is shared with Greyhawk) is expanded upon here. Though Ed Greenwood came up with the Realms long before it became a D&D setting (and decades before anyone imagined MMOs), it is the MMO setting: there's a lot of important personalities and lore that are basically inescapable, plenty of high-level NPCs, a magic aplenty. FR is a high magic and especially a high magic item setting: magic item crafting and trade is a major part of the Faerunian economy (there's even a mail-order catalog, no shitting you) and finding magic items is so easy that there's a joke: "Pick up a rock. +1 AC! Pick up a second rock. +2 attack!" It even has expansion packs. (Al-Qadim, the Arabian Nights setting besides Calimshan, which has a magic system that differs in fluff only; Arcane Age, the timey-wimey setting; The Horde, which is barbarians in Mongolia; Kara-Tur, the worst East Asian setting ever; Malatra: The Living Jungle, which tries to subvert everything about The Realms by being Chult 2.0; and Maztica, which is Mayaincatec with very silly naming conventions.) While the Realms' canon has cleaved to edition changes, its fundamental assumptions are enough that 4e had to institute a major cataclysm to make it work and 5e has basically not supported a Realms experience outside of BG3.

Greyhawk was basically the default setting since inception: D&D became a game in its own right (as opposed to an expansion for Chainmail) with the Greyhawk supplement and Greyhawk was the setting for most early modules and lore material, which persisted into 3rd edition (where the default setting was "Greyhawk with the serial numbers filed off and the canon treated as less important"). 4e discarded Greyhawk and 5e has tried to avoid it for reasons I cannot fathom. Greyhawk and D&D are practically synonymous. Greyhawk's assumptions seem to be Stock Medieval European Fantasy, but in actuality it's a fantasy kitchen sink with a wide variety of things present. It has on occasion adopted an idea about Gods Need Prayer Badly similar to but not as big as that of the Realms, but it's been so loosey goosey with aspects of the game that have come and gone that it's not strictly canon. (After all, Boccob the Uncaring, a greater deity who is skeptical of alignment and whose only concerns are a hyperfixation on magic and preventing its end, and Beory, the Gaia of the setting, barely respond to worshipers and don't seem to derive power from them.)

Mystara (originally "The Known World") was the default setting for the Basic D&D line. You want to know how different this is from the Realms? There are no gods. The planet has some planar links, but it's largely set off from the rest of the multiverse; those mortals who have achieved immortality (the goal of all adventurers) maintain this and the balance of various concepts, though they're only deific in that they're epic level adventurers who won't die of natural causes. The creators of the planet were not divine, left a long time ago, do not respond to prayer, and are not worshiped. There are still, somehow, Clerics -- because D&D. The planet Mystara is hollow, with the inner layers containing both an Underdark-like setting and living remnants of past civilizations. Outside of the side-scrolling arcade beat-'em-ups of the early '90s (Tower of Doom and Shadow over Mystara, which Capcom rereleased a few years back), Mystara has seen almost no attention since WotC stopped the Basic line.

Those are the settings that don't try that hard to subvert expectations of D&D. Then you have things like Birthright (you don't just make a keep, you are a divine right monarch; you must focus on macro-level issues like the economy and geopolitics), Council of Wyrms (now you can BE a dragon!), Eberron (what if alignment didn't matter, the gods might not exist at all, and we were living in an industrial magitech society largely controlled by hereditary trade guilds?), Ghostwalk (you're dead!), Planescape (you can travel the planes that exist in other settings, but you're in street gangs of philosophers who get into fist-fights with other philosophers; the gods probably need prayer badly), Ravenloft (gothic/hammer horror prison demiplane), and Spelljammer (IN SPACE!), which all subvert certain expectations but are still largely attached to the main assumptions of D&D in one regard or another. Some are stand-alone campaign settings and others are meant to attach to existing ones (kinda like Savage Coast and similar).

And then there's Dark Sun, which tries to subvert basically everything about D&D. You are on a dying, desert world -- kinda like Dune. Arcanists called "defilers" sucked most of the life from the planet; the most powerful of these (some of which are dragons) now rule city-states as tyrannical monarchs. As a consequence, what life remains has mutated and adapted to the harsh living conditions, becoming psionic, far more powerful than equivalents in other settings, and out to kill you; that's as true of the playable races as it is of the monsters.

Arcane magic is illegal in the city-states (apart from coteries of mages the sorcerer-monarchs keep in their retinues) and education is basically non-existent. There are two types of arcane magic: defiling (drawing on life) and preserving (harder, restores life). Most people don't care and will try to kill any arcanist they come across. Thus, you have a difficult time being a Wizard, Warlock (apart from maybe a Great Old One cultist), or a Sorcerer (barring Aberrant Mind, of course).

Indeed, most classes don't fit the setting. There are no gods (they are either dead, fled, or non-existent) and the setting is mostly sealed off from the planes, so you can't be a Cleric (there have been exceptions for elementalist ones) or a Paladin (even though there are templars; they're Psychic Warriors). Metal is extremely scarce (weapons are made of bone, ceramic, flint, obsidian, and wood; armor basically doesn't exist), so you shouldn't be a Fighter (unless you're going for a light armored build, which kinda defeats the purpose given armor proficiencies) or Paladin. Druids exist, but are uncommon.

Everyone is psionic. This from a setting that came out at the height of anti-psionic backlash (because psionics were broken before 3rd edition).

Gnomes are extinct. Halflings are cannibals from a jungle rift outside of civilization. Elves are desert-dwellers who can run really fast (compare Xeph), but they're mostly marauding thieves. Dwarves are hairless; they interbreed with Humans to produce muls (same as mule [because they're sterile], but no E [because fantasy]), who frequently wind up becoming gladiators. The same is true of the other common half-breeds, the Half-Giants (except they aren't sterile, IIRC). No idea on half-elves or half-orcs. There are four main types of ~furry: Aarakockra, who are claustrophobic (so no dungeons!); Dray, who are the results of arcane experimentation (maybe: 2e and 4e info differs); Pterrans, who despite being pteradactyl scalies only have vestigial wing flaps (they can't fly) and are essentially the lizardfolk of the setting (but they hate fighting; they're extremely polite and diplomatic, subverting the setting further); and Thri-Kreen, who are praying mantis versions of the Green Martians from John Carter of Mars and like eating mammalian humanoids (especially elves) and seem weirdly obsessed with getting food, but will pack-bond with others.

There are also third party campaign settings (Conan/Red Sonja, Diablo II, Exandria, Kingdoms of Calimshan Kalamar, Lankhmar, Rokugan, WarCraft, and others) and a few settings that were only briefly or regionally supported (Age of Worms, Dragon Fist, Jakandor, Pelinore), but we're not going there.

My point here is that there's a lot of settings you could choose from, but each has its own assumptions; they're not just the same setting reprinted with different names, gods, and geography.

Which gets to FR vs. Greyhawk -- the two most popular settings. There was some rebellion against Greyhawk for quite some time (probably because it's Gary Gygax's setting and is full of Gygaxisms), while FR was always extremely popular (and as such had plenty of detractors). However, if you're going to use a setting to showcase what D&D is, Greyhawk is the one you want to do, as you don't have to worry about whether or not you're appealing to players who don't like high power/high magic/high magic item settings (perhaps like a former roommate of mine, who is amongst the credits for playtesting 2014!5e; given his penchant for making extremely overpowered characters in World of Darkness games, you'd think he would be opposed to "no prices for magic items; only get them as gifts from the DM during dungeon crawls," which is the extreme 2014!5e went to). You can play Greyhawk with lots of magic items or not; it accommodates both. You can't do that with the Realms, at least not if you're trying to do the Realms justice, no matter how popular the setting may be.

This is not the first time WotC has made a bizarre decision with regard to setting, though. DDO, the D&D MMO from 2006, did not make the obvious choice of being another MMO set in the Forgotten Realms (like, y'know, Neverwinter Nights, which pioneered the genre), but instead chose to focus on the then-new/current Eberron setting. This was a mistake: Eberron has ubiquitous magic and magic items, but they're low-powered, and there are almost no NPCs above 5th level. Not only does it subvert expectations of MMOs, it subverts plenty of D&D conventions (like with the Aereni; Baelnorn exist in the Realms, but aren't the backbone of all of elvish civilization, culture, and especially religion), so isn't immediately recognizable to fans of fantasy who aren't familiar with the ins and outs of D&D -- unlike the Realms, which is far more typical. Not only did this result in adding FR content to DDO to appeal to a broader audience, but the release of Neverwinter in 2013 (which isn't connected to the Neverwinter Nights series despite the title and being an MMO).

This is to say nothing about FR's drow, which are probably the most controversial element in all of D&D (and have been since Drizzt Do'Urden's first appearance back in The Crystal Shared [1988] for related but opposite reasons as they are currently) besides alignment itself. Drow are a little too prominent in FR to be excised or wholly changed. At least with Greyhawk you can underplay that.

I will never understand what possessed WotC to make the Forgotten Realms effectively their default setting in 5e. Like, if you want a mismatch of setting and rules, there you go. Not even popularity makes that make sense.

[wearesorcerer]

[wearesorcerer]

Meow tents their paws: