|
gourdcaptain posted:I just love that SKR probably doesn't like Monks, but feels compelled to put them into his game and put arbitrary restrictions on them because D&D has monks and therefore he must have Monks. Or so no third party can put out non-punished monks for the system. Kai Tave posted:For years I saw people suggesting quite earnestly that the whole RPGPundit thing must all be some persona that the guy behind the keyboard was adopting, that it was all just some schtick to drum up pageviews. I think by this point it's pretty clear that whatever the actual details of his existence may be, the RPGPundit is a genuine rear end in a top hat.
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 16:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 06:59 |
|
|
Guilty Spork posted:I have a hard time imagining many people thinking to put martial arts monks into a fantasy RPG if not for D&D's influence. Of course, the same goes for clerics.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 16:22
|
|
|
Evil Mastermind posted:Same for psionics. At least for me, anyway. FMguru fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Apr 16, 2016 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 16:40
|
|
|
Has it ever been revealed who is behind the anti-PDF policy of WOTC? Is is a higher up/Hasbro decision or is the D&D team behind it? In other news: The Over the Edge system has been made OGL: http://www.atlas-games.com/warp/ clockworkjoe fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Apr 16, 2016 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 20:28
|
|
|
clockworkjoe posted:
That happened in 2012.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 23:39
|
|
|
Oops. In more recent news, WOTC is being sued over its volunteer judge program. http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/wizards-responds-lawsuits-2016-04-20 actual lawsuit filing here: https://www.scribd.com/doc/309867466/Shaw-Et-Al-v-Wizards-of-the-Coast-LLC I can't find any articles written about it yet.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2016 05:38
|
|
|
clockworkjoe posted:
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2016 05:58
|
|
|
I have no idea whether or not they have a legal leg to stand on, but if it goes through that's going to be a huge blow to Wizards (particularly if DCI judges get awarded back pay). They'll have to completely rethink the way they do official tournaments.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2016 07:37
|
|
|
It is interesting. At what point does something you volunteer for become a job that you should be compensated for? They allude to scheduling, certification, and increasing levels of time spent and responsibility, but is that enough to make something a "job" that somebody suddenly owes you money for?
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2016 21:47
|
|
|
i would posit that something that you volunteer for with the advance knowledge you are volunteering and will not be compensated in an arrangement that you can terminate at any time with no recourse will never meaningfully amount or equate to employment and it's strange to me people would think otherwise
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2016 22:00
|
|
|
homullus posted:It is interesting. At what point does something you volunteer for become a job that you should be compensated for? They allude to scheduling, certification, and increasing levels of time spent and responsibility, but is that enough to make something a "job" that somebody suddenly owes you money for? No. Volunteers for pretty much any big event or organization have the same kind of demands on them. Same as if you are a weekend volunteer for a comic convention, church carnival, or if you regularly volunteer at a zoo or animal shelter. It does get a little weird when you are talking a for profit enterprise, but poor saps do the same thing volunteering at McDojo martial arts schools just for the fun of it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2016 22:07
|
|
|
A 50S RAYGUN posted:i would posit that something that you volunteer for with the advance knowledge you are volunteering and will not be compensated in an arrangement that you can terminate at any time with no recourse will never meaningfully amount or equate to employment and it's strange to me people would think otherwise This is basically my stance. I'm all for MtG judges getting paid, but, y'know, either make that an upfront condition of your judging or refuse to continue judging until a pay schedule is worked out. "Give me back pay for my volunteer position" just doesn't sit well with me. Edit: And yes, I realize how silly it is to think Wizards would ever pay judges when they have a conga line of replacements just waiting in the wings to get that hot steamy authority cred over CCG players.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2016 22:35
|
|
|
SilverMike posted:Edit: And yes, I realize how silly it is to think Wizards would ever pay judges when they have a conga line of replacements just waiting in the wings to get that hot steamy authority cred over CCG players. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2016 22:43
|
|
|
If nothing else, it'll be entertaining for whoever doesn't have a stake in the games!
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2016 22:48
|
|
|
SilverMike posted:This is basically my stance. I'm all for MtG judges getting paid, but, y'know, either make that an upfront condition of your judging or refuse to continue judging until a pay schedule is worked out. "Give me back pay for my volunteer position" just doesn't sit well with me. Yeah, it's a volunteer position and any kind of compensation (usually not pay) comes from the tournament organizers. WOTC isn't directly involved in any way and this backdoor "Actually I want money now" thing is ludicrous.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2016 22:54
|
|
|
It's a bit silly to expect back pay, though the whole volunteer situation in gaming has always been a bit problematic. There's a respectable company I've volunteered for but even then the time to benefits ratio is galling if you look at it from that perspective, it's not like you even get minimum wage in product. And that's with a good company. The fact that there are people lined up to work for nothing, of course, leads to this troubling standard. Not sure if I should engage in it this year, I like the folks I've volunteered for, but at the same time it's not my responsibility. I feel the Benjamin Franklin Effect is probably unduly influencing me to do something I probably shouldn't be worrying about.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2016 23:23
|
|
|
perhaps you're not really familiar with what volunteering is or why people do it
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2016 23:28
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:The fact that there are people lined up to work for nothing, of course, leads to this troubling standard. Uh, yup. Consider NFL cheerleaders, where they have people lined up to work for almost-nothing. It's absolutely a prestige thing. http://www.ibtimes.com/super-bowl-2015-nfl-cheerleader-pay-surprisingly-low-fuels-ongoing-wage-debate-1800684 I am way more sympathetic to grad students or college athletes getting paid like employees than volunteer MtG judges (lol)
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2016 23:42
|
|
|
A 50S RAYGUN posted:perhaps you're not really familiar with what volunteering is or why people do it Let me list the times anyone should volunteer for a for-profit ever:
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 00:03
|
|
|
A 50S RAYGUN posted:perhaps you're not really familiar with what volunteering is or why people do it 
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 00:12
|
|
|
Well the question is sorta "would this thing I'm supporting happen at all if I or others didn't volunteer?" Like, if you want a tcg community in your area and you know [company] isn't going to sink money into it then your options are to either accept that it isn't going to happen or contribute free labor. Or like, I did a lot of free playtesting and design work for Strike (though I was reimbursed for some other stuff I did later) because I had a lot of fun doing it and though the game was Important so I wanted it to be popular and successful so I could play it with people, even though Jimbozig was the one making a small amount of money off of it. Like, ultimately I agree that it sets an unfortunate precedent, but it really isn't comparable to unpaid internships - Those companies would just have to pay their interns with the money they 100% have if you somehow orchestrated a total boycott with other interns and most of the time you don't personally care about the success of a company or their product beyond making sure they can pay you. Contributing to a game you love that'll have your name inside the cover for free or helping to better a local scene for a game (even if it's ultimately fattening the pockets for its respective TCG company) are a bit different because those things may not exist at all if not for your volunteering.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 00:15
|
|
|
Fenarisk posted:Let me list the times anyone should volunteer for a for-profit ever: sorry, your list didn't look complete, so i filled it in for you.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 00:47
|
|
|
Fenarisk posted:Let me list the times anyone should volunteer for a for-profit ever: I shouldn't empty quote, so I'll add words: there's no excuse for wizards not paying people for work and if they don't want to do that then they shouldn't be organizing tournaments. edit: loving stop devaluing labor and pay people for doing poo poo, even if it's knowing the rules for a cardboard game
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 00:53
|
|
|
Ominous Jazz posted:I shouldn't empty quote, so I'll add words: If you look at Wizards' response, they say they pay people for actual tournaments like Pro Tours and so on. This lawsuit is about getting the judge at your FNM paid, which is completely not Wizards' concern. That's your FLGS' deal, and they probably don't pay any of their event coordinators or judges normally (since a lot of FLGS stuff is normally volunteer.)
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 00:56
|
|
|
Arivia posted:If you look at Wizards' response, they say they pay people for actual tournaments like Pro Tours and so on. This lawsuit is about getting the judge at your FNM paid, which is completely not Wizards' concern. That's your FLGS' deal, and they probably don't pay any of their event coordinators or judges normally (since a lot of FLGS stuff is normally volunteer.) Oh, well good luck because most places confuse "mom and pop" with not paying their employees or paying them with loving cards. A comic store (kept afloat by those weird dads who actually care about hockey cards and the magic players) put up a sign for helping move out inventory and then looked at me like I poo poo on their floor when I asked if that meant getting paid.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 01:00
|
|
|
just lol that you're acting like there's some sort of malfeasance or exploitation going on. no one is being duped; literally every dci judge i know does it because they enjoy doing so. would they enjoy being compensated? i'm sure. that doesn't mean they're not okay with not receiving that hypothetical compensation. no one is 'devaluing' labor because by and large 99.9999 percent of DCI judges are perfectly willing and okay with 'working' for free. Ominous Jazz posted:Oh, well good luck because most places confuse "mom and pop" with not paying their employees or paying them with loving cards. A comic store (kept afloat by those weird dads who actually care about hockey cards and the magic players) put up a sign for helping move out inventory and then looked at me like I poo poo on their floor when I asked if that meant getting paid. the entire point is that wizard has nothing to do with the organization of 99 percent of magic the gathering events and therefore wouldn't have much reasonable expectation to compensate the judges of those events. this was literally talked about before you posted. did you read anything that was talked about before you jumped to the defense of the oh-so-exploited 'dudes with a free saturday every few months'? A 50S RAYGUN fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Apr 22, 2016 |
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 01:00
|
|
|
A 50S RAYGUN posted:sorry, your list didn't look complete, so i filled it in for you. You forgot "scamming companies for free swag".
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 01:03
|
|
|
Ominous Jazz posted:Oh, well good luck because most places confuse "mom and pop" with not paying their employees or paying them with loving cards. A comic store (kept afloat by those weird dads who actually care about hockey cards and the magic players) put up a sign for helping move out inventory and then looked at me like I poo poo on their floor when I asked if that meant getting paid. That's not on unheard of or unusual. A lot of small places with community focus have a small amount of paid employees and then volunteers. Community theaters, activist spaces, hell your church might work like this. Lots and lots of organizers for Magic night/Warhammer night/D&D/whatever don't get paid, they do it to create a community for the game. Magic just has a better system for making sure those people are on the level than a lot of other games. Totally makes sense for someone not to get paid for that night except in cards or whatever. Now, there are some tournaments in the structure that someone should be paid for, as they're a noticeable difference from the usual FLGS FNM structure (like pre-releases or Grand Prixes or whatever), but as Wizards' article points out, they don't organize those themselves either. Those judges should probably get paid! But they need to take it up with say Star City, not Wizards.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 01:07
|
|
|
i'm the hypothetical guy demanding the nfl pay me for reffing a childrens flag football game
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 01:09
|
|
|
A 50S RAYGUN posted:the entire point is that wizard has nothing to do with the organization of 99 percent of magic the gathering events and therefore wouldn't have much reasonable expectation to compensate the judges of those events. this was literally talked about before you posted. did you read anything that was talked about before you jumped to the defense of the oh-so-exploited 'dudes with a free saturday every few months'? As one of those oh-so-exploited dudes, yeah I feel like they should be entitled to some kind of compensation. Fake edit: not like a magic judge, but when I was a dumb teen I did all kinds of poo poo for hobby stores, including organizing poo poo real edit: A 50S RAYGUN posted:i'm the hypothetical guy demanding the nfl pay me for reffing a childrens flag football game Ominous Jazz fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Apr 22, 2016 |
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 01:11
|
|
|
I went throught the class action complaint. It all seems to hinge on the idea that, as a for-profit company, Wizards can't legally use volunteers to perform labor functions that are part of its actual business operation. E.g., tournaments are actually part of Wizard's business, because they sell cards. One of the few non-financial remedy demands is that Wizards create an actual not-for-profit organization, not controlled or owned by itself, to conduct volunteer tournament operations. I do not know if that is a valid legal position or not but it's certainly interesting. e. Also the suit explicitly includes only "competitive" and "professional" tournaments, and only the official Judges (levels 1 through 5) which Wizards classifies, regulates, and administrates. I don't know for Magic but I assume this does not cover judges working at your local friday night magic tournaments. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Apr 22, 2016 |
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 01:12
|
|
|
Ominous Jazz posted:As one of those oh-so-exploited dudes, yeah I feel like they should be entitled to some kind of compensation. Again, this is how a ton of community social spaces work. Unless you want Vanessa to be paid for running Sunday School or whatever, you're being completely idiotic.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 01:13
|
|
|
I edited it into my post so in case anyone misses it, this suit does not cover FNM stuff. It's for Judges working at "professional" and competitive" tournaments only.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 01:16
|
|
|
Arivia posted:Again, this is how a ton of community social spaces work. Unless you want Vanessa to be paid for running Sunday School or whatever, I dunno, I have a hard time seeing how it's the same thing when it's the store organizing it posted:you're being completely idiotic. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 01:16
|
|
|
Ominous Jazz posted:I dunno, I have a hard time seeing how it's the same thing when it's the store organizing it if it's the store organizing it, why should the store not be the one to pay the judges? i think your stance is going to be 'they should', and to that i have some bad news: they won't. in things like grand prixs and large tournaments, where judges meaningfully contribute in a large way to the smooth operation of events, they are paid, by the tournament organizers. in something small, like a fnm, where judges contribute relatively little 'value', places would sooner just have no judges available than they would to pay them because it doesn't really make sense to pay them for what they're offering. you're arguing 'judges should be paid', which is possibly true, and also already happens. the lawsuit is 'judges should be treated like wizards emplyees', which is not really the same, and you've not once explained clearly why that should be.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 01:35
|
|
|
A 50S RAYGUN posted:if it's the store organizing it, why should the store not be the one to pay the judges? Yeah, I thought it was officially organized tournaments not just local stores. I misread. The stores should be paying them, if anyone.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 01:40
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:I went throught the class action complaint. It all seems to hinge on the idea that, as a for-profit company, Wizards can't legally use volunteers to perform labor functions that are part of its actual business operation. E.g., tournaments are actually part of Wizard's business, because they sell cards. The Level 1 Judges are the FNM guys. quote:A Level 1 judge has demonstrated sufficient knowledge of the Comprehensive Rules and Regular REL policies to run a small store-level event such as an FNM.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 01:46
|
|
|
This reminds me of the time the Camarilla, now Mind's Eye Society, sued White Wolf for the World of Darkness. I'm imagining this is going to turn out the same way. http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=2593 I can't find the specifics but White Wolf cleaned house because it was even more ridiculous than this lawsuit.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 02:09
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:You forgot "scamming companies for free swag". "Free" swag that you get in exchange for performing work. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 08:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 06:59 |
|
|
Arivia posted:Again, this is how a ton of community social spaces work. Unless you want Vanessa to be paid for running Sunday School or whatever, you're being completely idiotic. churches aren't a business. If i do work for a business or for profit organization i expect to be compensated fairly for my time
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2016 10:30
|
|
