Sorry for being late on it, but I had midterms and essays and things galore! But my workload has been considerably lightened now that most of the work is, well, done. Also, this is the first instance in which I can ask you to behold the new layout! I was at first wary of two-column themes – I had so many widgets! But this theme is great. It includes a search at the top, customizable header picture (which I have already customized, and will change periodically), the RSS links at the top, and a nice sidebar for the rest.
It’s clean and not distracting. My colorful former theme felt a bit over-the-top, hence the change. I think this is better.
So, the week’s interesting 4e posts!
•Critical Hits did a nice news-y post in which they contacted Wizard’s of the Coast for some explanation of the web site policy, which right now they don’t seem to have beyond using that little dinky fansite kit of theirs. Well, I never really expected much validation from it. I just hope Wizard’s will do right by all their fans who’ve been tweaking and creating monsters and powers and items all over the ‘net in an effort of love (because few if any of these people are making any money from it) for the game.
•RPG Blog 2 was not where I got the news that Scott Rouse Had Left WOTC, but this is a collection of blog posts, not ENWorld posts, and Zachary’s a nice guy so he gets my link, so there. It’s not a D&D 4e blog, but that doesn’t mean anything.
But on to the subject, it really saddens me that the Rouse is gone from WOTC. I know the following will sound very sappy, but I’m a really sappy guy, and you can see this from all over my blog and Twitter.
But when you grow attached to a company’s products, you try to put a face on that company and a voice. Whenever I tried that, I always found Scott Rouse, over at the Wizard’s GSL forums answering questions, or on ENWorld. Scott Rouse was that face and voice of WOTC for me, at least as far as D&D is concerned.
Scott Rouse did a lot of things for us fans of D&D 4th Edition that, to people who hate 4e and WOTC, seem minor and almost pointless. But to me, he was doing great work, and I think with his calm, friendly and humorous demeanor he always managed to reassure me that WOTC had a human heart that was looking out for the fans.
I can only hope the next guy is half as much as Scott Rouse was, because D&D 4th Edition and its fans will need him. In fact, they may need him to be twice or three times as much as Scott Rouse was, and sadly, I don’t foresee that happening.
•Over at Dungeon Mastering, we have the Battle For The Remote. Setting the feminist movement back a couple years, learn how to wield your D&D 4e skills to appease the female in your life and let you watch the much beloved sport of Football.
(Or Hockey or something, I guess.)
It is a pretty humorous post that I can agree with – I do think of my life in terms of gaming sometimes, except mine’s probably really much sadder than that. How about “Skill Challenge – Figure Out What To Say Over Email/Instant Messaging That Makes You Look The Smartest.” Athletics required for multi-tasking between Wikipedia pages on the subject you’re discussing you have no real idea about but really want to look like an expert of, while keeping track of the chat window.
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