Anniversary...CONFIRMED.

lordavon reminds us that today is the thirtieth anniversary (my god, I'm old) of the transmission of the first episode of Terry Nation's other great SFish creation, Blake's Seven. I first saw the series sometime in the early '80s; I'm pretty sure my first episode must have been "The City on the Edge of the World," where Michael Keating traded quips with a (pre-Doctor Who) maniacal Colin Baker, who played one "Bayban the Berserker." It was fun, it was witty, it was melodramatic and I loved it. Actually, "fun, witty and melodramatic" (in a good way!) sums up a lot of the appeal of the series. The characters had tremendous range--they could be broad, but they could also be subtle. Their interactions, even more than the plots, were what drove the series. And yes, at times the acting could be....hyperbolic, but it all held together tremendously well, especially for the first three series. The fourth was....not as good, but still very fun.

The show itself is also highly influential, spawning a lot of...if not imitators precisely, then a lot of other shows whose writers/creators stolewere highly influenced by the tropes B7 pioneered. (And generally did better than its spiritual descendants.) B7 might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I'd still strike a defense for it being some of the best Space Opera ever shown on either British or American TV. (Not gonna even touch Japan because I know some of you would throw a bazillion examples of space opera shows at me.)

So yeah, celebrate 30 years of watching the same 52 episodes over and over again! And hope with me that the proposed new series (which has sounded exponentially worse every time a new group tries to take it on) doesn't actually happen....

Somewhat disgusted, though (sadly) not surprised.

I needed to go to the bank after work today, so I decided, as long as I was out, I'd do a little bit of window shopping, checking out various sales. My last stop was my local game store, for which I have a nice little gift certificate. I was elated to discover that the preview book for D&D 4.0 is out. (I thought it wasn't going to be out for a couple more weeks.) I remember before 3.0 was released when WotC put out the "Greyhawk Gazetteer" preview book and how cool it was....so I picked the 4.0 preview off the shelf. I noticed it felt a bit lightweight. It is a paperback, with a cover just above glossy magazine cover stock. The interior paper is lightweight as well. It (apparently) has 90 pages of content with fairly large print and lots of illustrations, taking up quite a bit of space. More than that, it turns out this is simply the first of two volumes, the other coming out later, both being apparently necessary for a fully playable preview of D&D 4.0. Although this is considerably crappier than the 3.0 preview, all of the above is not what disgusted me.

What disgusted me is this product (I hesitate to call it a "book"), this thing that's got fewer pages and less content than most magazines is priced at $19.99. Presumably, the second book will be as well. WotC/Hasbro (let's put the blame where it probably lies by mentioning the latter) are, quite simply, ripping off the consumer here, especially since they undoubtedly expect people to shell out another $30-35 when the new PHB comes out.

I'm going to write a letter to WotC, informing them--as a consumer of their products, one of their customer base--how ticked off I am about this, and also let them know that these kinds of practices in no way motivate me to make any kind of move towards 4.0, especially when I'm satisfied with the current system. They have to sell the idea of 4.0 to me (and others), and this ain't the way to do it. Of course, putting all the emphasis they've publicly done on the "virtual tabletop" crap isn't the way to do it either. But yeah, this just ticked me off.

EDIT: I've decided to append my letter to Wizards of the Coast below. I encourage others of you who see how much of a rip-off this is to contact them as well, even if you don't plan on buying into the new system. Let our realization of the rip-off be registered!

( the letter )