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neonchameleon posted:Even success for Disney makes no sense given the legal fees likely to be involved. They got the money. It ain't a problem.
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Nov 25, 2020 05:27
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Also companies the size of Disney have so many lawyers on retainer that they're functionally their own law firm. They pay nothing extra because they are already involved in continuous litigation as a matter of course.
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Nov 25, 2020 05:39
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Wasn't Disney the pioneer of using legal fees as operating expense? I can't think of a company that leaned harder on lawyers before them.
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Nov 25, 2020 11:00
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Leperflesh posted:Also companies the size of Disney have so many lawyers on retainer that they're functionally their own law firm. They pay nothing extra because they are already involved in continuous litigation as a matter of course. Functionally? I’m pretty sure they just own law firms, same as most insurance companies.
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Nov 25, 2020 13:05
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neonchameleon posted:Even success for Disney makes no sense given the legal fees likely to be involved. It's more about the brand than anything. Disney has this cult-like obsession with their branding, language, and culture that permeates every level of their company. Disney will also use every available tax and regulatory loophole to write off expenses as well so I'm sure it's not as bad for them as it could seem. This is the same company that secretly bought enough land to build a city on, so they could make a fake one, and not have to be bothered by local regulations below the county level. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Buena_Vista%2C_Florida
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Nov 25, 2020 16:58
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Leperflesh posted:Also companies the size of Disney have so many lawyers on retainer that they're functionally their own law firm. They pay nothing extra because they are already involved in continuous litigation as a matter of course. A retainer isn't a salary, it's just a deposit against expected legal work, there to ensure the lawyer gets paid at least that amount if the work is done. You don't need a retainer to get a lawyer to work for you.
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Nov 25, 2020 18:02
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OK well maybe it's not "retainer" and just a salary then? https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/disneys_top_lawyer_is_best_paid_general_counsel They were paying their top lawyer $7M in 2016, the best-paid corporate council in the country, and if I'm reading this right they have like 70 more lawyers too. Employees or on retainer or whatever, the point is they have a big legal budget already spent and dealing with this little bitty lawsuit by some random book authors is an insignificant cost for them.
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Nov 25, 2020 20:45
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Leperflesh posted:OK well maybe it's not "retainer" and just a salary then? Counsel positions within a company are employees of the company. This differs from outside counsel, which a company might keep on retainer and to whom they pay hourly legal fees.
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Nov 26, 2020 03:36
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Leperflesh posted:OK well maybe it's not "retainer" and just a salary then? Those employees aren’t the people they turn to to handle actual litigation, though - they’re the ones who set legal strategy for their outside counsel, handle deal negotiation, do internal risk and compliance work, etc. Large companies absolutely have to budget an insane amount of legal spend for outside counsel as a matter of course, but they don’t want to spend that money, so if they can avoid tapping (or minimize cost of tapping) that part of their budget they will. (Never worked for Disney, but worked for a number of megacorps as outside counsel.)
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Nov 26, 2020 04:38
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So today Random House won a bid to purchase Simon & Schuster, allowing for regulatory approval in 2021. So now I'm wondering if a small part of my yearly income doesn't hinge on the outcome of any case this Disney thing generates.
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Nov 26, 2020 04:52
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There, are, like, four people who read this thread but not TG Chat, I assume, so this is for them.DigitalRaven posted:Well, I don't think anyone was expecting this: PEG Inc posted:Following the incredible reception we had with Kevin Siembieda’s phenomenal world of Rifts®, we’re bringing Pathfinder’s fantastic Adventure Paths to the Savage Worlds™ system, starting with the best-selling Rise of the Runelords™!
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Nov 26, 2020 21:55
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Huh. Kinda seems like Paizo might be struggling. That's cool though. Pathfinder Adventure Paths are well-regarded and Savage Worlds is a better system than Pathfinder.
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Nov 26, 2020 23:19
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admanb posted:Huh. Kinda seems like Paizo might be struggling. Yeah, I have played a ton of their pre-made adventures over the years and they are mostly pretty good. Is there anyone else in the industry that even does anything close to complete campaigns anymore?
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Nov 26, 2020 23:49
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Yeah, I have played a ton of their pre-made adventures over the years and they are mostly pretty good. Is there anyone else in the industry that even does anything close to complete campaigns anymore? Chaosium does that or close to it for Call of Cthulhu. I can't think of any others.
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Nov 27, 2020 00:04
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admanb posted:Chaosium does that or close to it for Call of Cthulhu. I can't think of any others.
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Nov 27, 2020 00:11
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Legendary Games also puts out Paizo-style adventure paths for Pathfinder & 5e, and Modiphius released Odyssey of the Dragonlords last year, which was a full 1st-15th level campaign for 5e.
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Nov 27, 2020 00:38
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Am I reading that correctly that there was a Pathfinder/Rifts crossover?
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Nov 27, 2020 00:49
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whydirt posted:Am I reading that correctly that there was a Pathfinder/Rifts crossover? Savage Worlds/Rifts.
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Nov 27, 2020 00:54
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Yeah, I have played a ton of their pre-made adventures over the years and they are mostly pretty good. Is there anyone else in the industry that even does anything close to complete campaigns anymore?
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Nov 27, 2020 01:05
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Halloween Jack posted:There are games that are entirely modeled after a specific model for a campaign, like how The Gaean Reach assumes that the PCs are all questing for vengeance against an interstellar supervillain (who defaults to "Quandos Vorn" but can be anybody). There's also games like Band of Blades that run exactly one predefined campaign with a little wiggle room for different characters taking part. Anything but the one campaign is homebrew rules territory.
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Nov 27, 2020 01:10
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FMguru posted:Pendragon (which is back at Chaosium) possesses the greatest giant epic campaign among all RPGs. Oh absolutely, but ultimately just the one. Pendragon is the gold standard for an RPG designed to perfectly do the thing it sets out to do.
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Nov 27, 2020 01:37
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https://twitter.com/gapingmaws/status/1332162043592359936
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Nov 27, 2020 15:48
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This seems like an honest way to express what the article is saying.
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Nov 27, 2020 15:54
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It's really hard to take this seriously given what we know about WotC itself. E: Plus, it looks like they're not going to offer the Less Racist 5e for free*, which is a loving joke by itself. *Except through D&D beyond, and I don't know what kind of payment you have to make to create a character there King of Solomon fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Nov 27, 2020 |
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Nov 27, 2020 16:05
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Beyond is not in any way run or tied to Wizards or Hasbro outside of them paying to license the name from them, and selling the books themselves. It's run by Fandom Games. You can create characters with options that are in the SRD for free there. But have to pay for books or other options that come from books. Also I dunno what Unearthed Arcana has to do with any of this as it's just playtest stuff. Did they mean Errata? But yeah it's largely bullshit, they could fix this poo poo insidr of 6 months if they had the corporate will to do so. Hire people and actually listening to them is not hard.
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Nov 27, 2020 16:37
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how does the Less Racist 5e interact with the PHB+1 rule
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Nov 27, 2020 16:39
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gradenko_2000 posted:how does the Less Racist 5e interact with the PHB+1 rule You can be less racist as your character option, sure.
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Nov 27, 2020 16:43
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gradenko_2000 posted:how does the Less Racist 5e interact with the PHB+1 rule It doesn't, As far as Adventurer's League play goes, which is the only place where PHB + 1 is a thing, the customization rules from Tasha's are printed in the AL rules and as such doesn't count against the PHB + 1 rule.
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Nov 27, 2020 16:54
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Considering their solution thus far has been "uhh...I don't know, just place your ability score bonuses wherever, I guess?", I can see why this is going to take a while... It's especially frustrating because, in the timespan of WotC announcing they were going to try to tackle the racial essentialism that permeates the game and Tasha's coming out at least three different third party supplements for race mechanics in 5e were released that all had better solutions than what Wizards came up with...
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Nov 27, 2020 18:18
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KingKalamari posted:It's especially frustrating because, in the timespan of WotC announcing they were going to try to tackle the racial essentialism that permeates the game and Tasha's coming out at least three different third party supplements for race mechanics in 5e were released that all had better solutions than what Wizards came up with... What were the supplements and what was their solutions?
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Nov 27, 2020 18:51
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Comstar posted:What were the supplements and what was their solutions? The three major ones I've seen are: Grazilaxx's Guide to Ancestry which uses a system where every race has an assortment of features (Called "Inheritances") that you buy using a set number of points. Inheritances are broken down into Major Inheritances (Which cost 2 points) and Minor Inheritances (Which cost 1 point) Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e takes a more simplified approach, breaking races down into two aspects: "Ancestry" which covers racial traits that would be related to a character's physical biology (Stuff like a Minotaur's unarmed strikes from having horns or a Lizardfolk's unarmored defense from having scales) and "Culture" which covers all of the racial traits that would be tied to a character's upbringing (Weapon and skill proficiencies, languages, etc.), with players able to mix and match the two as they see fit. In this system your ability score bonuses are specifically tied to your Culture. Finally there's An Elf and an Orc Had a Little Baby: Parentage and Upbringing in D&D, which is primarily intended to support making characters whose parents were different species (A half-Elf/half-Orc for example). This one takes a similar approach to the problem as Ancestry and Culture, but also breaks the Ancestry traits up into two or more packages, representing the species of one of the character's parents.
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Nov 27, 2020 19:27
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it owns that they're literally going to profit off eventually being less racist in a few years and they're presenting that as some genuine blow for justice.
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Nov 27, 2020 20:38
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Just like they did with their 'we rewrote strahd to be less gross about the romani analogues and now we're selling it for 100 bucks' initiative
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Nov 27, 2020 20:41
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Leraika posted:Just like they did with their 'we rewrote strahd to be less gross about the romani analogues and now we're selling it for 100 bucks' initiative We love the hobby, don't we folks? We love it, we love that the biggest force by a country mile in it is absolutely riddled with ghouls. We love seeing them dump buckets of money into media products to ensure anyone with half an interest in the topic just assumes they're the default without ever having to see what complete scumbags they are.
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Nov 27, 2020 20:44
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Just learned the game store I grew up with closed forever. My guess is Magic was the only profitable thing they sold, and without the ability to do in-person tournaments and game nights and whatnot, they couldn't afford the absorb the losses from the RPG side of the house. I said earlier in this very thread that I'd happily nuke Wizards out of existence in a heartbeat. Maybe I still would, but I'm wondering if the brick and mortar ecosystem could even survive without its drunken, abusive stepfather. The only other thing I can think of that might keep game stores afloat is Warhammer. Maybe physical stores are doomed anyway, regardless of whose withered teat they attach themselves to. But the alternative is probably Amazon controlling everything (minus the scraps people toss to itch.io), which I'm not sure I like better. As much as I don't care for 5E or Pathfinder, the ability of a new player to show up to AL or PFS and learn to play their first RPG from an experienced DM eager to teach the game was a good thing.
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Nov 27, 2020 22:24
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Leraika posted:Just like they did with their 'we rewrote strahd to be less gross about the romani analogues and now we're selling it for 100 bucks' initiative Tbf they also published the rewrites and changes changes for the normal book reprints that came out this year. But yeah they did do a big 100 dollar special edition that comes with physical maps and a bunch of other nonsense. They also released an Errata document for Strahd with the changes.
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Nov 27, 2020 22:24
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mellonbread posted:Just learned the game store I grew up with closed forever. My guess is Magic was the only profitable thing they sold, and without the ability to do in-person tournaments and game nights and whatnot, they couldn't afford the absorb the losses from the RPG side of the house. 95% of game stores would be dead without Magic: the Gathering.
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Nov 27, 2020 22:45
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Dexo posted:They also released an Errata document for Strahd with the changes. Errata? What would that look like? On page 39, line 18, insert the word, "Some" before, "Borovians are cowardly and superstitious, and tend to use crimes to feed themselves." On page 72, full color image insert, substitute "Dour Prince Inn" on the sign instead of, "Gypsies and other criminals welcome." On page 86, replace paragraphs 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 with, "Ravenloft is a land of contrasts."
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Nov 27, 2020 22:54
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admanb posted:95% of game stores would be dead without Magic: the Gathering. I've probably said before but our store owner's been clear the things that keep them in business are card games and food.
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Nov 27, 2020 23:05
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Did they repeat the thing of having half-Vistani separate player race like 2nd edition did? Cause that was some major yikes right there.Mystic Mongol posted:On page 39, line 18, insert the word, "Some" before, "Borovians are cowardly and superstitious, and tend to use crimes to feed themselves."
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Nov 27, 2020 23:05
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