O negócio é saber como os minotauros existiam sem escravas sexuais, nos tempos pré-Goratikis. Ou se eles tinham, nunca foi citado direito. Ou vai ver é mais uma incoerência típica de coisas jogadas ao caos no cenário.

Ninguém sabe de onde veio, nem se são nativos. Sabe-se que foram criados por Tauron e só. Viviam em tribos e eram escravizados, até se unirem e revidarem, escravizando os outros.

Lumine, os outros deuses basicamente deram tudo de mão beijada pro Sszzass.

o cara tentou destrui-los, mesmo assim eles deram a ele uma chance de voltar (e tentar mata-los de novo).

depois disso eles pegaram os rubis da virtude, objetos que continham um poder divino absurdo, e ao inves de destrui-los decidiram jogar no plano material

não é que Sszzas seja inteligente. os outros deuses é que são idiotas

Por isso que eu disse: dentro do contexto, foi a coisa mais inteligente - talvez o segundo ato de ação sensata / óbvia - lembro de outra, onde pra ver até onde seu poder ia contra os 20 deuses, o Paladino quebra a corrente da Beluhga forjada pelo Khalmyr e finalmente percebe que "ei, eu tou com medo a toa, sou intocável!"

O fato é que tem muita coisa criativa, mas também muita merda no meio, e isto gera a controvérsia. Pessoalmente, não jogaria mais no cenário, mas isto não me impede de apreciar os romances ou as HQs.

Eu não sei se eu aprecio porque são tão diferentes em tom (os romances) ou se são próximos demais (Holy Avenger).

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Pra começar respondendo o querido Publicano via Shout♥. Essa é a postura oficial atual.


Já antigamente, tinhamos resquícios desse tumor de plot.

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"É importante lembrar que os minotauros não são malignos. O império de Tauron não é um covil de tiranos ensandecidos." Essa é a ilustração dessa mesma página.

O motivo principal da falência da TSR não foi a produção das duas linhas simultâneas, mas sim a produção excessiva de cenários que no final não deu o lucro desejado e fudeu literalmente com a empresa.

Não esqueça da péssima administração, apesar de que isso é endemoniado ao infinito.

Tirando daqui: http://www.gamegrene.com/node/387
daqui: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSR,_Inc.#Williams_ownership
E daqui: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorraine_Williams#The_downfall_of_TSR

Here's some of the highlights, I sure I'm missing bits.

Much of the trouble started early on when one of Gygax's partners died. His stock fell to his wife who had no interest and sold it. After several people coming and going, Gygax and the original creators were gone and the owner was (blanking on name "Williams"). She had no respect for games and just wanted to milk it for money.

Under her, you had some decent designers but who generally suffered from the hubris that they would tell the fans what they wanted to buy. They cranked out tons of products without much feedback of what was wanted and didn't adjust things by sales much. At the rate of several items a month that amounted to the same old adventures, the products were competing with each other more that anything; unless you expand the pool of players; there is a semisolid limit to the amount of gaming money that can be spent.

Many of the designers at the time were wannabe writers hoping to work for TSR for the chance to work on the fiction lines. Because of this, many of the products felt like they were designed to be read more than played - they didn't have lots of options off of the main plot and had way too much background material the players would never hear.

Another big design issue is something common in rpgs - power drift. 2e was fairly sound mechanically (though thematically generally lame). Then TSR put out the various handbooks with kits. Characters with kits were generally a step above ones without kits (at least with the overpowered kits which were the most popular). So people had to either keep buying every handbook or just disallow them altogether. There was also lack of uniformity across handbooks - some were a much bigger boost compared to others. Then came the poorly edited Skills & Powers books. A few good ideas but they allowed a total min/maxing of character design. Characters made with this could take one normal character twice their level. Many people I knew got fed up at this point. It also meant that adventures balanced for standard characters were a joke with skills and powers characters.

TSR also generally did not reach out to their market. They didn't attempt to expand the player base much. They also seemed to fear the internet. They tried ineffectually to get rid of fan-based material that was online.

By the time WOTC bought TSR, it was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Williams was a financial planner who saw potential for rebuilding the debt-plagued company into a highly profitable one. However, she was disdainful of the gaming field, viewing herself as superior to gamers. She implemented an internal policy forbidding game playing at the company. This resulted in many products being released without being playtested (some were tested "on the sly"), and a large number of products that were incompatible with the existing game system.

Despite total sales of $40 million, TSR ended 1996 with few cash reserves. When Random House returned an unexpectedly high percentage the year's inventory of unsold novels and Dragon Dice for a fee of several million dollars, TSR found itself in a cash crunch. With no cash, TSR was unable to pay their printing and shipping bills, and the logistics company that handled TSR's pre-press, printing, warehousing and shipping refused to do any more work. Since the logistics company had the production plates for key products such as core D&D books, there was no means of printing or shipping core products to generate income or secure short-term financing. With no viable financial plan for TSR's survival, Lorraine Williams sold the company to Wizards of the Coast in 1997.

Temos o outro lado, também:

As someone who was employed at TSR in the final years leading up to the sale of Wizards of the Coast, I feel compelled to offer a few clarifications:

Lorraine never banned playing games. In fact, all of us played games daily at TSR and conducted playtesting of upcoming products. That includes all the members of R&D (from the VP down to the newest editor or designer), sales, marketing, warehouse staff, and more.

When a company fails, you have two choices: Sell it to the highest bidder on terms you influence, or watch your assets be broken up and sold in bankruptcy proceedings to the highest bidder.

Bankruptcy ensures that all of your institutional knowledge goes away–the employees that know how to get the work done go find other jobs. It also would have ensured that every brand under TSR would have been spliced and diced among a large number of different companies (some to Hollywood, some to other game publishers, some to book publishers).

Wizards of the Coast came in and paid (in most people’s estimation) more than TSR was worth to both preserve the employee knowledge and to ensure that D&D would continue. Personally, I can’t think of a better steward for TSR than Peter Adkison (CEO of Wizards at that time). He was (and still is) a gamer at heart.

-Jim Butler

E um bom review: http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/539/539628p1.html (vale a pena ler todas páginas!)

"O lendário bárbaro Grumsh, que derrotou um dragão vermelho sozinho com um golpe fulminante de seu machado de prata, vê uma dúzia de orcs marchando no fundo do desfiladeiro e não teve dúvida - saltou no meio dos inimigos para surpreendê-los antes que atacassem a vila próxima, onde passaram a noite

Grumsh morreu instantaneamente com a queda tendo todos seus ossos quebrados. Seis segundos depois, Jawglar, o colega mago de Grumsh pousa suavemente ao lado do corpo inerte do ex-aliado."

Morte heroica. Hércules segurou o mundo nas costas enquanto Atlas pegava o pomo de ouro, caras; ele morreria com uma queda? (inb4 "ele era divino")

Pelos deuses, Lumine. Tu resolveu transformar isso no assunto central da tua vida?

Acho melhor a gente ter um tópico centralizado pra direcionar as mensagens, non-sequiturs E desvios de assunto de outros tópicos. E convenhamos, isso dá pano pra manga! =D

De qualquer forma deixemos redução de dano de lado, agora:
CA = Reflexos + Armadura, como Lumine disso. E aí, como distingo armadura leve de pesada?
Vc concorda com a sugestão do Khalim, afinal e contas?
Estou ANCIOZO pela resposta.

Não çianciozicize! A 4e já faz isso. xD