Quote from: blackstone on April 17, 2025, 08:23:45 AM

Quote from: D-ko on April 17, 2025, 03:49:08 AM>paizo buys wotc

Or, or...here me out on this...Troll Lord Games.

TLG buys out the game rights to D&D, completely puts the Woke edition into the garbage, and rebrands C&C as D&D.

Wouldn't that be karma?

I mean, it will never happen, but a guy can dream...

The promised land glimpsed from the mountain top...

Quote from: Ruprecht on April 16, 2025, 04:37:28 PM

Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on April 16, 2025, 10:40:57 AMI still think Hasbro is getting ready to sell off WOTC, or at least some of the IP

Any thoughts on who might be in a position to buy WOTC?

One dark horse candidate would be Osprey Publishing

They are already deeply involved in the TTRPG space, have an excellent team of authors and content creators, are diversified into other areas of publishing, and can produce at-scale. Osprey isn't amateur hour like Paizo or these other knock-off TTRPG companies.

They wouldn't purchase electronic assets (the VTT stuff), only the basic IP. They would need to team up with some venture capital to buy D&D

MTG would probably stay with Hasbro, or be sold to someone else.

Another candidate would be Free League, but I am not sure they have the money or resources

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on April 15, 2025, 06:45:31 PMCrawford and Perkin's quit, oh really?  It has all the signs of a corporate lay off of executives who greatly failed to deliver.

When the fuck is Hasbro going to realize there is no new customer, those red fucks don't have jobs they only want to beat the fuck out of conservative brown people and kill CEO's of companies like Hasbro.

Damn. Direct but true.

Quote from: Ruprecht on April 16, 2025, 04:37:28 PM

Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on April 16, 2025, 10:40:57 AMI still think Hasbro is getting ready to sell off WOTC, or at least some of the IP

Any thoughts on who might be in a position to buy WOTC?

To quote Elon Musk from last year:

QuoteHow much is Hasbro?

He's certainly got the money. But on the other hand, he's so shy and retiring, and likes to avoid the culture war.

Maybe he can just buy Dark Sun only instead... 

Quote from: RNGm on April 17, 2025, 03:41:08 PMMaybe he can just buy Dark Sun only instead... 

Crawford's Dark Sun would have as much grit and story telling as a very special episode of Muppet Babies on diaper rash.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on April 17, 2025, 04:01:40 PM

Quote from: RNGm on April 17, 2025, 03:41:08 PMMaybe he can just buy Dark Sun only instead... 

Crawford's Dark Sun would have as much grit and story telling as a very special episode of Muppet Babies on diaper rash.

I was referring to Elon Musk who could then just make it public domain.

Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on April 17, 2025, 10:29:56 AMMTG would probably stay with Hasbro, or be sold to someone else.

There is no point in buying WotC without both. MtG money funds the rest of it, and allows you to build the D&D audience.

To be blunt, there is absolutely no point in Hasbro selling WotC unless they are way far into bankruptcy and literally will cease to be soon. Hasbro has been in a deep septic tank since their Star Wars Sequel Trilogy toys started rotting on shelves, but MTG has continued to be a major earner.

At the moment, Hasbro seems bent on strip-mining the MTG and D&D IPs for whatever they can get to keep the rest of the machinery afloat. That would be a good decision if they had plans for how to keep the rest of the business afloat, but I have seen zero evidence to that effect. I think Hasbro will continue down this path until it breaks, and that means that their only remaining IPs will be completely strip-mined of all value and customer good will before bankruptcy. Zero dollars may literally be a good price because it would have to go on hiatus the instant you bought it to let customer ire cool down.

I will be honest: I have plenty of ideas for how you could handle Magic: The Gathering after being sold off. It would not be as profitable as it is for Hasbro right now, but Hasbro is also giving WotC marching orders to be 1000% predatory.

But D&D?

I am starting to think that once D&D lapses into proper unprofitability, D&D will probably need to be curtain-called for good. The indie RPG and OSR spaces are already starting to running circles around it, and this will take off in earnest if D&D stumbles. What are you actually going to do with D&D which is both faithful to being D&D and which an OSR game can't already do as well or better? Not much. 

Once the D&D playerbase figures that out, the IP is dead. This isn't even something you can go on hiatus to fix, because relaunching D&D 7E in 2054 will have many of the exact same big picture problems 5.5 did in 2024. The D&D IP could pass from owner to owner a dozen times and never escape this cycle to reclaim market dominance.

Quote from: Jaeger on April 17, 2025, 05:22:43 PM

Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on April 17, 2025, 10:29:56 AMMTG would probably stay with Hasbro, or be sold to someone else.

There is no point in buying WotC without both. MtG money funds the rest of it, and allows you to build the D&D audience.

true, but Hasbro never even wanted the D&D TTRG --they wanted MTG.

they might be willing to sell off D&D and retain the CCG --and the TTRPG still has value

Quote from: Captain_Pazuzu on April 17, 2025, 09:49:46 AM

Quote from: blackstone on April 17, 2025, 08:23:45 AM

Quote from: D-ko on April 17, 2025, 03:49:08 AM>paizo buys wotc

Or, or...here me out on this...Troll Lord Games.

TLG buys out the game rights to D&D, completely puts the Woke edition into the garbage, and rebrands C&C as D&D.

Wouldn't that be karma?

I mean, it will never happen, but a guy can dream...

The promised land glimpsed from the mountain top...

Or Goodman Games, and Dungeon Crawl Classics!!!  Tell all the sissies in the TTRPG universe, to hold on to their jewels!!!

If the wrong person buys D&D maybe somebody can sue for antitrust laws huh

Today, in celebration of Crawford getting the boot I announced my return to 5e for first time in a year, and first new 5e campaign in a good while - 2014 rules ofc. Running Under Ilefarn from 1987, converted to 5e. 😎

Quote from: D-ko on April 16, 2025, 01:07:44 PMHeh. WOTC will never learn

Oh they learn allright. Just the exact opposite of what any sane company or human being would learn.

Though to be fair. wotc actually did learn that oversaturation with supplements was a bad thing and kept 5e on a relatively slow burn through most of its run. About 1-2 supplements per year. Only three real rules supplements over the whole run and a bunch of mini additions squirreled away in modules and the monster books and even a few setting books.

Greg Bilsland just returned to WOTC as Executive Producer of Dungeons & Dragons.

James Wyatt just got a promotion too in the D&D team (I think he's Senior Designer now?)

Looks like Bilsland and Wyatt are the new Perkins and Crawford. Both have a lot of D&D experience too.