Welcome to folks from the Wizards of the Coast forums

[ddavison]

Wizards of the Coast is shutting down their forums. This impacts the forums for Magic the Gathering and D&D along with other game discussions that were running there. I posted a reply there welcoming the folks to join in over here and explained that while the discussions here are mostly centered around running D&D and other games digitally online or using FG as a digital aid for in person games, that general RPG discussion was also welcomed and encouraged.

Please be super welcoming to any folks that choose to check us out. There could be an influx of people looking to try out the system if they never have before, so if anyone with an Ultimate license is looking to recruit new players, now might be a good time. First impressions are super important, so let's do our best to be as welcoming as possible -- like we normally do.

Also, from now until the end of September 20th, all Full licenses can host free/demo players just like an Ultimate license. This is in support of the Gamer Geekend online convention but is equally suitable for allowing you to include someone in your games that may not have a license already. If people want to join in or just lurk in a live game, you should be able to accommodate them.


P.S. I don't want to spin this thread into a discussion about why the other forum might be closing and if it is good or bad.

[Redemption77]

Its sad to see the WOTC forums closing as I know so many of us here got great ideas and even homebrew stuff from them and their many great collaborators over the years. Plus it was the only navigable part of that decrepit website they have. That being said welcome to all who come and I truly hope we can turn this place into a home for the refugees looking for a place to drop a tent. Hopefully we can get them on board with the product we love and hopefully we can keep sharing ideas on this forum and never lose a step, but perhaps gain 2!

[Diceman]

What I find disappointing is that there will no longer be a forum to get "official" clarifications from between errata updates. I find it concerning that WOTC has decided to cut off direct contact with their customers. They just spent the last couple of years interfacing with the D&D community to get input on their 5E system design, with the overall goal of bringing older customers back into the fold and their answer to the "changing landscape of social media" is to shut down their forums instead of attempting to redesign them to more modern standards.

The only good that may come out of this is that hopefully many players will come to these forums, find the nice community that exists here and become regular users of FG.

[Morgentaler]

What I find disappointing is that there will no longer be a forum to get "official" clarifications from between errata updates. I find it concerning that WOTC has decided to cut off direct contact with their customers. They just spent the last couple of years interfacing with the D&D community to get input on their 5E system design, with the overall goal of bringing older customers back into the fold and their answer to the "changing landscape of social media" is to shut down their forums instead of attempting to redesign them to more modern standards.

The only good that may come out of this is that hopefully many players will come to these forums, find the nice community that exists here and become regular users of FG.

For 5e most of the clarification has been coming through twitter...

[Zacchaeus]

For 5e most of the clarification has been coming through twitter...

Indeed, SageAdvice on Twitter is very active and also very good with almost instant responses.

[ddavison]

I am a fairly big proponent of forums myself, but I'm wondering if they find it easier to broadcast a consistent message across social channels and then solicit feedback that easier to aggregate by running the surveys. While forums do facilitate easier back and forth, along with group discussion on a topic, it still requires someone to collect all that info into a meaningful set of data that can be shared with management and the rest of the team.

[kylania]

Indeed, SageAdvice on Twitter is very active and also very good with almost instant responses.

While they are active, the silly character limit and the whole format of Twitter make it an embarrassing replacement for a forum for company information dumps. I shouldn't have to filter through fields of hashtags and catchphrase length Hey-Did-You-See blurbs to find content from a company.

The existence of https://www.sageadvice.eu/ doesn't excuse WotC's But-Mom-*footstomp*-Everyone-Is-On-Twitter stance.

[Zacchaeus]

While they are active, the silly character limit and the whole format of Twitter make it an embarrassing replacement for a forum for company information dumps. I shouldn't have to filter through fields of hashtags and catchphrase length Hey-Did-You-See blurbs to find content from a company.

The existence of https://www.sageadvice.eu/ doesn't excuse WotC's But-Mom-*footstomp*-Everyone-Is-On-Twitter stance.

To be fair that isn't the only source of rules errata and answers to questions. I actually like Twitter for the fact that questions need to be pruned down to their essence and the search function seems to do a pretty good job. However I get that sometimes more words are needed.

[Redemption77]

Navigating their forums is like navigating white water rapids with no oar. Its a true crapshoot on if you're going to have an easy time getting where you want

[LordEntrails]

Notice this part?

P.S. I don't want to spin this thread into a discussion about why the other forum might be closing and if it is good or bad.