I'm thinking even if WotC tones down their new OGL it probably too late now.
Their reputation has taken a hit. Even if they do nothing at all, it's changed. Nobody trusts them now.
The only upside is a group of games in the works to get away from WotC. Who doesn't like new games?
The DnD name is a big draw, but this is a BIG loss of trust and I've found no trouble getting players for OSE (Old school essentials), so perhaps you're right.
Yes, they have. There is a large portion of the supposed fan base that do not really play TTRPGs with any regularity. But they spend HOURS posting on social media and on Reddit. This situation has given these clowns something legitimate to bitch about, and you better believe they will be heard for a long time.
Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 11, 2023, 07:45:08 PM
I'm thinking even if WotC tones down their new OGL it probably too late now.
Their reputation has taken a hit. Even if they do nothing at all, it's changed. Nobody trusts them now.
It does seem that way. A lot of former 3rd party creators for 5e have been declaring exactly that over the last few days. I do note though, that the biggest players in the 5e space on social media, Ginny Di, Matt Colville, Critical Role, etc. all seem to be keeping silent on it. I suspect they're hoping to cut their own deals where necessary and keep riding the WOTC-train.
Edit: Slight correction. I just got recommended this article, which says that Ginny Di was criticizing WOTC on Twitter. I don't use Twitter, so I can't confirm.
https://www.cbr.com/dnd-beyond-ogl-response-fan-criticism-opendnd/
Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 11, 2023, 07:45:08 PM
The only upside is a group of games in the works to get away from WotC. Who doesn't like new games?
WOTC burning bridges with their third party creators is almost all upside to me. I feel for the people who will lose money off of it, but D&D as an entity is so corrupt at this point that its death can't come soon enough. The boom in 3rd party campaign settings, adventures, character options etc. was a huge part of the success of 5e, and I suspect contributed to a lot of people thinking it was a better game than it was. I can't hold it against developers that made 5e content - people gotta eat, after all - but I also can't help but think that they were doing the RPG hobby a disservice by propping it up as the prestige game in the space.
It is fixable if they confirm that 1.0a is irrevocable, apologize and throw some corporate lawyers (hated by everyone) under the bus.
They don't need this 1.1 agreement to monetize D&D. Any and every company would like to have total, unfettered control over every aspect of their IP, and corporate lawyers are going to be all for that and strongly support it.
I am skeptical that consumers care about a company's reputation. (I mean, I work for Walmart and am constantly astounded by how much loyalty customers have for what is a really crappy company that sells crappy products)
I am also skeptical that the current WoTC cares that much about the tabletop aspect of D&D. When the head of WOTC says D&D is undermonetized, they don't mean they want to sell more RPG material - even if all the 3PP were added to D&D's sales, it wouldn't be that much of an increase. I don't know how they plan on monetizing D&D.
People are upset now, but I have a feeling once OneDnD drops, they'll quietly crawl back. At least we'll get some new games and possibly some fresh, new creativity out of this.
Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 11, 2023, 07:45:08 PM
I'm thinking even if WotC tones down their new OGL it probably too late now.
Their reputation has taken a hit. Even if they do nothing at all, it's changed. Nobody trusts them now.
The only upside is a group of games in the works to get away from WotC. Who doesn't like new games?
You'd have to be stupid not to scrub your stuff from the SRD/OGL, even if they do a 180 how can you know they won't try again? Remember the cat is out the bag regarding the use of the mechanics and plenty of the monsters.
Plus not using the OGL allows you to claim compatibility (If it's that important to you)
Yes, ruined. By now, they already showed their true intentions. Even if they backtrack and respect the OGL 1.0, it is not worth the publishers taking any risk; in the future WotC/Hasbro could try to change it again. In my limited understanding, the OGL is only helpful in copying their text verbatim. The publishers should reword all their new works to be able to publish anything without using the OGL.
Quote from: JeremyR on January 11, 2023, 08:47:59 PM
I am skeptical that consumers care about a company's reputation. (I mean, I work for Walmart and am constantly astounded by how much loyalty customers have for what is a really crappy company that sells crappy products)
I agree with you as far as end users go. Despite the shit storm on the internet, I would bet that a high percentage of 5e players don't know the OGL 1.1 thing happened or don't understand it. Plenty of the ones that do are approaching it with a "well that's disappointing that the brand I'm committed to buying did that". However, I do think that if the 3rd party content dries up for OneD&D, especially if (as a lot of people are speculating) it turns out that they also lied about OneD&D being backwards compatible, that will hurt the eventual number of people who play the game long term. It may not make much difference to WOTC's bottom line (see below), but it'd still be good for the hobby.
Quote from: JeremyR on January 11, 2023, 08:47:59 PM
I am also skeptical that the current WoTC cares that much about the tabletop aspect of D&D. When the head of WOTC says D&D is undermonetized, they don't mean they want to sell more RPG material - even if all the 3PP were added to D&D's sales, it wouldn't be that much of an increase. I don't know how they plan on monetizing D&D.
The monetization model for these micro-transaction-based online games is built around "whales", small percentages of the user-base who spend hugely disproportionate sums of money. Companies in that market don't have to care about the happiness of their wider user-base, as long as they've got the few big spenders on the hook, and they design everything around that.
Come to think of it, that might explain the OGL 1.1 move. Maybe they don't care about having a monopoly on tabletop gaming, so much as they do on having a monopoly on D&D "extras". They want to ensure that the "whales" they're planning on having in the OneD&D ecosystem won't have somewhere else to dump all the discretionary spending they would otherwise spend on skins for their virtual minis.
It's hard to tell what lasts and for how long, but it's pretty darn damaged at the moment.
Of course there are a lot of people who already hated them well before this who are coming out of the woodwork doing happy dances and it's sometimes hard to separate people who did like WOTC before but do not now because of this incident, and the ones who never did like WOTC before this.
If massive amounts of 3rd party support vanish, and stay gone; then yes, WOTC has really screwed up. The 3rd party market, has been strong and diverse.
I have yet to even play D&D. Its a record I've held for 47 years.
The closest I've come is buying Basic Fantasy and RPG Pundit's Star Adventurer, both OSR games. However, I have not yet played either of those games, so I still haven't broken my no D&D rule, even by proxy
For me this is all just weird. WotC coming out with 6E/1D&D, I was a solid, "Meh, who cares?" That is because I don't give a rip about them. I don't play their game. I don't even really play OSR related games, some of which I like.
Right now the two games I play are both relatively different set of rules, though Mini-Six Bare Bones does have the OGL license in the back, even though its not a D&D game.
All of this noise just makes me glad I was an indie RPG guy from day one, though we concentrated on Palladium Books almost exclusively. Some Star Wars D6, and some Shadow Run, but neither of them played well for us, so back to Palladium we went. It was what we knew, and it was a series that covered lots of genres so we could stick to it and do fantasy, or Sci-Fi, or super heroes, or Vietnam (that one is its own rules set though). We just didn't need to switch.
And we didn't have THAC-0. Can't forget that. Major plus.
Hell, if I want to stay away from OGL and WotC, I could go back to playing Palladium stuff again. I still own them. I just like rules lite stuff now.
But, the silver lining is that we will get a bunch of new games soon, and lots of them impress me with unique game mechanics. Someday I may write my own game, cobbled together from all the good bits of radically different games you may not have even heard of, plus some of my own ideas from playing so much.
WotC, have mercy on your soul. Because the internet does not.
Who knew Hasbro/WotC would bring unity to the hobby?
Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 11, 2023, 11:08:41 PM
Who knew Hasbro/WotC would bring unity to the hobby?
Seriously.
To be a weeb: it's like Lelouch in Code Geas uniting the world by purposely being a giant dick and making everyone hate him.
Quote from: ForgottenF on January 11, 2023, 08:30:46 PM
It does seem that way. A lot of former 3rd party creators for 5e have been declaring exactly that over the last few days. I do note though, that the biggest players in the 5e space on social media, Ginny Di, Matt Colville, Critical Role, etc. all seem to be keeping silent on it. I suspect they're hoping to cut their own deals where necessary and keep riding the WOTC-train.
Edit: Slight correction. I just got recommended this article, which says that Ginny Di was criticizing WOTC on Twitter. I don't use Twitter, so I can't confirm.
https://www.cbr.com/dnd-beyond-ogl-response-fan-criticism-opendnd/
Matt Colville there is no way anyone could support OGL 1.1. He is creating his own RPG. https://www.geeknative.com/150112/mcdm-announces-new-rpg/ (https://www.geeknative.com/150112/mcdm-announces-new-rpg/)
Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 11, 2023, 07:45:08 PM
I'm thinking even if WotC tones down their new OGL it probably too late now.
Their reputation has taken a hit. Even if they do nothing at all, it's changed. Nobody trusts them now.
I think their reputation is ruined now. Much worse than Games Workshop even.
Quote from: S'mon on January 12, 2023, 07:25:57 AM
Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 11, 2023, 07:45:08 PM
I'm thinking even if WotC tones down their new OGL it probably too late now.
Their reputation has taken a hit. Even if they do nothing at all, it's changed. Nobody trusts them now.
I think their reputation is ruined now. Much worse than Games Workshop even.
That is saying something. But GW bad rep has been a known quantity for a long time.
Side note. Go look at One Page Rules. It's free and plays faster, if you want to do miniature war gaming.
Still, even I know that D&D is still going to be half of RPG gaming by itself for the foreseeable future.
Frog God/Necromancer has now made a statement. Plus they have a 50% off sale on physical on their site and pdf on drivethru. What are some of their good products? I'm thinking about picking up City of Brass just because the sjdubs hate it LOL.
I have no idea what the percentages are of the D&D 5E player base, when you break it down between:
A. Those that do play roleplaying games.
B. Those that pretend to be roleplaying while going through canned adventures led by a trained monkey GM.
C. Those that talk about it a lot, write fan fiction, or do other stuff on the side that isn't actually playing (and never really have any intention of playing, not meaning someone out of a game for the moment).
But if OneD&D captures all of group C, and most of group B (barring those that might develop into something better eventually), leaving only the relatively small percentage of group A in the real hobby. Then I'm not really seeing the downside for anyone, WotC included.
Quote from: Mistwell on January 11, 2023, 09:48:36 PMOf course there are a lot of people who already hated them well before this who are coming out of the woodwork doing happy dances and it's sometimes hard to separate people who did like WOTC before but do not now because of this incident, and the ones who never did like WOTC before this.
I noticed this as well. I was watching a video of a guy talking about what a mistake this was when he admitted that he had only ever bought a single WotC product (the Player's Handbook) and his group ran entirely on 3rd party products. This is exactly why WotC is trying to shut down the OGL.
When you subtract the people who are WotC's competitors (3rd party product creators) and those that are not even customers of WotC (Pathfinder players and the OSR), it is hard to find people whose anger would actually cost Wizard's sales.
Of course, I'm assuming that Hasbro has significantly better sales and marketing data than anyone claiming that this will hurt them.
Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 12, 2023, 08:34:50 AMGo look at One Page Rules. It's free and plays faster, if you want to do miniature war gaming.
Still, even I know that D&D is still going to be half of RPG gaming by itself for the foreseeable future.
Games Workshop is in a different situation because they rely on miniature sales and 3d printing is getting very close to matching their quality (and is superior in terms of sculpting). But the rules for One Page Rules are pretty much crap.
GW, in some ways, is showing Hasbro the future. Way back in the late 90s, GW decided to separate themselves from the regular miniature hobby, only referring to is as "The Games Workshop Hobby" and trying to be a one-stop shop selling rules, miniatures, paints, brushes, etc. So a player can spend 100% of his hobby money solely on GW products.
And it has been very successful for them.
So if WotC can replicate this process, by sealing off the "Dungeons and Dragons Hobby" from RPGs, they could potentially make more money even if they lose a significant portion of their players. Consider digital miniatures; selling these will completely cut out companies like Reaper and allow Wizards to keep all that money for themselves. Something that will happen even if their attempts to cancel the OGL fail.
Quote from: hedgehobbit on January 12, 2023, 09:28:00 AM
Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 12, 2023, 08:34:50 AMGo look at One Page Rules. It's free and plays faster, if you want to do miniature war gaming.
Still, even I know that D&D is still going to be half of RPG gaming by itself for the foreseeable future.
Games Workshop is in a different situation because they rely on miniature sales and 3d printing is getting very close to matching their quality (and is superior in terms of sculpting). But the rules for One Page Rules are pretty much crap.
The rules are a way for the business that pumps out OPR minatures to say "Hey we are doing this for our own rule set and has NOTHING to do with GW!"
In this way they get around any legality issue as they have a reason to make the models even though they are similar but not the same as the GW ones.
Quote from: ForgottenF on January 11, 2023, 09:28:00 PM
I agree with you as far as end users go. Despite the shit storm on the internet, I would bet that a high percentage of 5e players don't know the OGL 1.1 thing happened or don't understand it.
I know this is just antidoctial but when I went to my Saturday D&D game at the local game shop both one of the game store employees and two people in my group were talking about it. So its escaped the confines of the internet.
Quote from: hedgehobbit on January 12, 2023, 09:21:02 AM
Quote from: Mistwell on January 11, 2023, 09:48:36 PMOf course there are a lot of people who already hated them well before this who are coming out of the woodwork doing happy dances and it's sometimes hard to separate people who did like WOTC before but do not now because of this incident, and the ones who never did like WOTC before this.
I noticed this as well. I was watching a video of a guy talking about what a mistake this was when he admitted that he had only ever bought a single WotC product (the Player's Handbook) and his group ran entirely on 3rd party products. This is exactly why WotC is trying to shut down the OGL.
When you subtract the people who are WotC's competitors (3rd party product creators) and those that are not even customers of WotC (Pathfinder players and the OSR), it is hard to find people whose anger would actually cost Wizard's sales.
Of course, I'm assuming that Hasbro has significantly better sales and marketing data than anyone claiming that this will hurt them.
I have noticed this as well. Hell, the poster who started this thread has told us a million times that he has never played D&D.
5e has given me hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours of fun with my friends and my family. My son ran his D&D club for two years, and watching him DM was thrilling. I have made purchases including the core three, Xanathar's, and three of their major adventures, including their recent Dragonlance release (and the board game). I also carried a D&DBeyond subscription for years before they started donating to BLM.
So I am a customer. And no matter what happens tomorrow or whenever they release whatever version they are reworking, I am done with them. My price to come back is a complete change in senior leadership, a public apology, no Jeremy Crawford, and at least some significant length of time demonstrating they are apolitical. Obviously, I will not hold my breath.
But the other thing I am done with is carrying sympathy for any game creator who ties themselves to Hasbro in any way. Today, I feel for them. Having the rug pulled out in this way is very unfortunate, and it is not lost on me how many people have connected their livelihoods to Hasbro and the OGL. But starting tomorrow, I cannot find any sympathy for anyone who chooses to do business with them. It would take willful ignorance to do so.
Quote from: hedgehobbit on January 12, 2023, 09:21:02 AM
Quote from: Mistwell on January 11, 2023, 09:48:36 PMOf course there are a lot of people who already hated them well before this who are coming out of the woodwork doing happy dances and it's sometimes hard to separate people who did like WOTC before but do not now because of this incident, and the ones who never did like WOTC before this.
I noticed this as well. I was watching a video of a guy talking about what a mistake this was when he admitted that he had only ever bought a single WotC product (the Player's Handbook) and his group ran entirely on 3rd party products. This is exactly why WotC is trying to shut down the OGL.
When you subtract the people who are WotC's competitors (3rd party product creators) and those that are not even customers of WotC (Pathfinder players and the OSR), it is hard to find people whose anger would actually cost Wizard's sales.
Of course, I'm assuming that Hasbro has significantly better sales and marketing data than anyone claiming that this will hurt them.
To be fair, I am an actual customer of WOTC that buys a lot of their D&D products, and I am super high level pissed about this and looking at other games to play if this ends up going through as leaked. Both of my current D&D groups are the same.
But I just don't know how representative we are. I wonder if a lot of 5e fans are taking a wait and see approach.
A lot of the loudest voices right now are ones I know were not supporters of 5e D&D before all of this and they're just taking advantage of weakness. Tons of OSR guys coming out of the woodwork acting like this is all some big betrayal of them when anyone who knew anything about them knew they had zero invested in WOTC and had been bashing them for years.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 12, 2023, 09:15:41 AM
I have no idea what the percentages are of the D&D 5E player base, when you break it down between:
A. Those that do play roleplaying games.
B. Those that pretend to be roleplaying while going through canned adventures led by a trained monkey GM.
C. Those that talk about it a lot, write fan fiction, or do other stuff on the side that isn't actually playing (and never really have any intention of playing, not meaning someone out of a game for the moment).
But if OneD&D captures all of group C, and most of group B (barring those that might develop into something better eventually), leaving only the relatively small percentage of group A in the real hobby. Then I'm not really seeing the downside for anyone, WotC included.
This is how I see it too. The D&D brand is leaving earth and taking their colony with them. Sayonara, says I.
Those left behind - we have the whole world to ourselves. Necessity being the mother of invention, people are already getting organized.
The next question is who becomes the next D&D replacement game?
Or can WotC pull off a Hail Mary and get the heat off?
My, things are getting interesting.
Quote from: GhostNinja on January 12, 2023, 09:46:43 AM
Quote from: ForgottenF on January 11, 2023, 09:28:00 PM
I agree with you as far as end users go. Despite the shit storm on the internet, I would bet that a high percentage of 5e players don't know the OGL 1.1 thing happened or don't understand it.
I know this is just antidoctial but when I went to my Saturday D&D game at the local game shop both one of the game store employees and two people in my group were talking about it. So its escaped the confines of the internet.
I'm only basing on anecdotes as well. My one friend that still runs 5e games seemed to have that attitude I mentioned of "That's disappointing. Oh well, moving on". I should ask him what he's hearing around the local game store, though. It'd be worth finding out.
Don't bother. The average D&D consumer knows nothing of OGL and OSR.
Mega Corps routinely piss off a small segment of their customers and get away with it. Hoping the WotC gets their comeuppance for OGL 1.1 reminds me of people here who used to think Big Daddy Hasbro was going bash some heads when they learned how woke Wizards is. Wrong. If I learned anything from Fury Road it's that hope is a waste of time.
People will forget, much quicker than you expect. The only benefit for people who care will be the new systems that rise from the ashes of the OGL.
WotC knows exactly what they're doing:
1. They made their books kid "safe" by removing "race" and all the other changes over the last few years. Parents and grandparents are now more comfortable than ever buying a random D&D book for Jr. 3PP are not welcome because they cannot be controlled. This secures the baseline revenue.
2. The noticed how mental people get about digital bobbles like skins, loot boxes, NFTs, etc. They are steering the ship in that direction and have no intention of sharing with 3PPs unless they submit to total control. Because they fear that 3PPs could do it better. This is the big risk with big reward. If it fails, so what? They locked in the main revenue at 1 above.
I don't know what the next months and years will bring for WotC, this might turn out to be the best thing they ever did from their perspective, but...!
I do find it amusing how there are some people who are saying "WotC knows what they are doing/WotC has the sales figures/WotC are the experts/etc".
As if just by virtue of being a megacorp (to the extent the RPG world has such things) makes them immune from shooting themselves in the foot. Megacorps do fuck up. Sometimes they fuck up in bad an expensive ways. Just because they're WotC-stroke-Hasbro doesn't automatically mean they are only able to make good choices.
Quote from: Bruwulf on January 12, 2023, 11:48:42 AM
I don't know what the next months and years will bring for WotC, this might turn out to be the best thing they ever did from their perspective, but...!
I do find it amusing how there are some people who are saying "WotC knows what they are doing/WotC has the sales figures/WotC are the experts/etc".
As if just by virtue of being a megacorp (to the extent the RPG world has such things) makes them immune from shooting themselves in the foot. Megacorps do fuck up. Sometimes they fuck up in bad an expensive ways. Just because they're WotC-stroke-Hasbro doesn't automatically mean they are only able to make good choices.
WOTC does know what it's doing full well, there's business analysts that have weighed pros and cons, spreadsheets and reports were reviewed and generated, and a project of this magnitude doesn't go out the door by some schlep in marketing Just Because.
They are intangibles that WOTC was either unaware of or was counting it would go in another way. The Uknown Unknowns that the market and populace are fickle creatures with individual tastes. That's the uncontrollable outcomes that WOTC was either taken of unaware or was hoping would go another way.
The VTT/Digital market is what WOTC wants here more than ever, are they willing to shrink their brand recognitiion enough and have enough Social and Fiscial capital to weather the storm of the majority of the market does not pay for their product? That's the curious part.
Yeah this could be a fuck up. I'm just stating my opinion. "Time will tell" is not really an opinion that can be discussed. But maybe it's not worth discussing. In any case, you got some amusement out of it, so all's good.
Quote from: THE_Leopold on January 12, 2023, 12:01:25 PM
Quote from: Bruwulf on January 12, 2023, 11:48:42 AM
I don't know what the next months and years will bring for WotC, this might turn out to be the best thing they ever did from their perspective, but...!
I do find it amusing how there are some people who are saying "WotC knows what they are doing/WotC has the sales figures/WotC are the experts/etc".
As if just by virtue of being a megacorp (to the extent the RPG world has such things) makes them immune from shooting themselves in the foot. Megacorps do fuck up. Sometimes they fuck up in bad an expensive ways. Just because they're WotC-stroke-Hasbro doesn't automatically mean they are only able to make good choices.
WOTC does know what it's doing full well, there's business analysts that have weighed pros and cons, spreadsheets and reports were reviewed and generated, and a project of this magnitude doesn't go out the door by some schlep in marketing Just Because.
They are intangibles that WOTC was either unaware of or was counting it would go in another way. The Uknown Unknowns that the market and populace are fickle creatures with individual tastes. That's the uncontrollable outcomes that WOTC was either taken of unaware or was hoping would go another way.
The VTT/Digital market is what WOTC wants here more than ever, are they willing to shrink their brand recognitiion enough and have enough Social and Fiscial capital to weather the storm of the majority of the market does not pay for their product? That's the curious part.
I think it's more accurate to say WotC
thinks they know what they are doing. I'm sure all their internal data and spreadsheets said this was a great business decision, but they failed to understand the customer. All their data likely showed a positive cash flow, but they didn't anticipate people saying "we don't want that."
Will this hurt WotC/DnD? Of course.
Will it cripple them? Fuck no!
Even if they loss 5% of the market share, that still leaves them with, what?, 50-55% of the entire tabletop gaming industry? Maybe more. Yeah, they'll lose money and their shareholders will demand answers, but they aren't going to lose their dominance in the field. At least not in the long term.
There's an alleged email from a WotC employee that supposedly claims that the subs and cancellations of DDB is the primary data that they are looking at and that WotC management views customers as an obstacle between them and their profit.
Even if untrue, en masse cancellation of DDB subs will send a message.
Quote from: 3catcircus on January 12, 2023, 12:37:51 PM
There's an alleged email from a WotC employee that supposedly claims that the subs and cancellations of DDB is the primary data that they are looking at and that WotC management views customers as an obstacle between them and their profit.
Even if untrue, en masse cancellation of DDB subs will send a message.
Makes sense that's the only metric they care about. DDB subscriptions is their entire business model moving foward. Without subs, who will play their VTT?
The ACKS guy wrote a great article about this debacle and he has skin in the game. A theme from that piece is: Don't assume your enemy is a dolt and will fumble it. Assume they know what they're doing and plan accordingly. If they fuck up, you got lucky. If not, you're prepared. Seems like good sense to me.
Quote from: 3catcircus on January 12, 2023, 12:37:51 PM
There's an alleged email from a WotC employee that supposedly claims that the subs and cancellations of DDB is the primary data that they are looking at and that WotC management views customers as an obstacle between them and their profit.
Even if untrue, en masse cancellation of DDB subs will send a message.
I've attached the alleged email here, it does say as much.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 12, 2023, 09:15:41 AM
I have no idea what the percentages are of the D&D 5E player base, when you break it down between:
A. Those that do play roleplaying games.
B. Those that pretend to be roleplaying while going through canned adventures led by a trained monkey GM.
C. Those that talk about it a lot, write fan fiction, or do other stuff on the side that isn't actually playing (and never really have any intention of playing, not meaning someone out of a game for the moment).
But if OneD&D captures all of group C, and most of group B (barring those that might develop into something better eventually), leaving only the relatively small percentage of group A in the real hobby. Then I'm not really seeing the downside for anyone, WotC included.
They've lost the Cs. The Cs are the most cued in to Twitter & the D&D-adjacent social network of all of them. And no Ginny Di type Influencer is going to destroy their rep with the in-crowd by siding with WoTC.
If WoTC have any hope left, it lies with the Bs.
But it sounds a lot like Cynthia Williams is utterly delusional, sitting in her Fuhrerbunker pronouncing that this will all blow over soon, once Steiner releases the D&D movie, or somesuch. And Keitel, Jodl and Kripps are still too scared to tell her the truth.
It's like some powerful arcane entity, has compelled WOTC to self destruct?
Quote from: S'mon on January 12, 2023, 04:13:42 PM
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 12, 2023, 09:15:41 AM
I have no idea what the percentages are of the D&D 5E player base, when you break it down between:
A. Those that do play roleplaying games.
B. Those that pretend to be roleplaying while going through canned adventures led by a trained monkey GM.
C. Those that talk about it a lot, write fan fiction, or do other stuff on the side that isn't actually playing (and never really have any intention of playing, not meaning someone out of a game for the moment).
But if OneD&D captures all of group C, and most of group B (barring those that might develop into something better eventually), leaving only the relatively small percentage of group A in the real hobby. Then I'm not really seeing the downside for anyone, WotC included.
They've lost the Cs. The Cs are the most cued in to Twitter & the D&D-adjacent social network of all of them. And no Ginny Di type Influencer is going to destroy their rep with the in-crowd by siding with WoTC.
If WoTC have any hope left, it lies with the Bs.
But it sounds a lot like Cynthia Williams is utterly delusional, sitting in her Fuhrerbunker pronouncing that this will all blow over soon, once Steiner releases the D&D movie, or somesuch. And Keitel, Jodl and Kripps are still too scared to tell her the truth.
Greetings!
*Laughing* "The Fuhrerbunker!"--and Jodl, Keitel, and Kripps! All smarmy yes-men to the Fuhrer. Great references, my friend! WOTC's delusional state of mind and attitude--geesus. The mind-disease has absolutely consumed them. The most uber Woke-BS combined with the most smug corporatist mania--topped off by a constant supply of giggling Kool-Aid. So self-destructive. So pathetic and sad.
For a decent time frame here, we had D&D at the height of its popularity, and a huge boom in creativity and truly diverse markets--a gaming renaissance that I would think overturned what was accomplished during 3E, and anytime previously. 5E accomplished that.
These morons didn't learn a damned thing from the 4E fiasco. No, they doubled down and brought in corporate execs from Microsoft and elsewhere that aren't even gamers, don't even play D&D, and have zero comprehension for the D&D fan-base. Snippets of info indicate there is even an attitude of contempt and total disregard.
Let's drive D&D off a cliff! Yay!
Fucking morons. They really need to bathe in *napalm*.
I'm so disgusted with all of these scum at WOTC. Fuck them all.
(I hope you are also doing well, my friend!)
So sad, and absolutely mind-boggling.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK