Quote from: trechriron on November 13, 2024, 02:53:32 PM

Quote from: blackstone on November 13, 2024, 10:12:29 AMPersonally, I haven't bought a WoTC/D&D product for at least 20 years. They lost me at 3e.

You are not the target audience. WOTC D&D will find its audience and sell plenty of books to people who want this approach.

Except that's not true; when WotC ramped up the Wokeness starting around their Candlekeep product, they suffered an ever accelerating collapse of sales. As each book became MORE woke, it lost more audience.

The "target audience" DOES NOT EXIST. They claim the target audience is 'black women','LGBTQ+_Gaymers', "Asian & Pacific Islanders", "Latinx" gamers, etc. and sell these Woke agendas to the corporations that there are millions and millions of black people, so if we just fill the PHB art with black people you'll get MILLIONS of sales, because they'll suddenly care about RPGs.
Except they NEVER do. The black people who are already gamers DO NOT CARE (or do not care enough) about the representation to make a difference, they will either buy the product anyways or they never would. And no one who is not already a gamer will decide to become one because the 2024 PHB is full of illustrations of Obese Black Women Being Strong or something like that.
Same goes for every other group listed.

So the ONLY audience they're really targeting are the few thousand or so anti-liberal identity politics leftist activists, who all DESPISE D&D. They want to force D&D to be remolded into a propaganda tool for their totalitarian agenda, or to cease to exist altogether, but they won't ever actually buy the product (save a tiny group who make it their job to try to write or produce Woke D&D stuff).

Wokeness only kills profitability. It has no vast natural audience, as the 2024 elections proved.

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 22, 2024, 04:00:09 PM

Quote from: trechriron on November 13, 2024, 02:53:32 PM

Quote from: blackstone on November 13, 2024, 10:12:29 AMPersonally, I haven't bought a WoTC/D&D product for at least 20 years. They lost me at 3e.

You are not the target audience. WOTC D&D will find its audience and sell plenty of books to people who want this approach.

Except that's not true; when WotC ramped up the Wokeness starting around their Candlekeep product, they suffered an ever accelerating collapse of sales. As each book became MORE woke, it lost more audience.

The "target audience" DOES NOT EXIST. They claim the target audience is 'black women','LGBTQ+_Gaymers', "Asian & Pacific Islanders", "Latinx" gamers, etc. and sell these Woke agendas to the corporations that there are millions and millions of black people, so if we just fill the PHB art with black people you'll get MILLIONS of sales, because they'll suddenly care about RPGs.
Except they NEVER do. The black people who are already gamers DO NOT CARE (or do not care enough) about the representation to make a difference, they will either buy the product anyways or they never would. And no one who is not already a gamer will decide to become one because the 2024 PHB is full of illustrations of Obese Black Women Being Strong or something like that.
Same goes for every other group listed.

So the ONLY audience they're really targeting are the few thousand or so anti-liberal identity politics leftist activists, who all DESPISE D&D. They want to force D&D to be remolded into a propaganda tool for their totalitarian agenda, or to cease to exist altogether, but they won't ever actually buy the product (save a tiny group who make it their job to try to write or produce Woke D&D stuff).

Wokeness only kills profitability. It has no vast natural audience, as the 2024 elections proved.

I don't think that's how companies like WOTC perceive the question internally. I think the operative question is not "how many customers which we wouldn't otherwise get will this wokeness attract?". At this point, they have to know that number is insignificant. I think question one is "how many of our potential customers are demoralized or brainwashed enough to not balk at this", and the second question corollary is "of the number that will balk, is that loss worth taking in exchange for the positive press and/or DEI investment money we can get from being performatively woke?"

Quote from: ForgottenF on November 22, 2024, 05:19:31 PMI don't think that's how companies like WOTC perceive the question internally. I think the operative question is not "how many customers which we wouldn't otherwise get will this wokeness attract?". At this point, they have to know that number is insignificant. I think question one is "how many of our potential customers are demoralized or brainwashed enough to not balk at this", and the second question corollary is "of the number that will balk, is that loss worth taking in exchange for the positive press and/or DEI investment money we can get from being performatively woke?"

The issue with that strategy now is that a lot of the DEI investment funding is drying up. A good number of companies are dropping wokeness like a hot potato when the realization that they actually have to be profitable to survive sinks in. It is the same problem that forever plagues rabid progressives-eventually you run out of other people's money.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on November 23, 2024, 08:23:11 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on November 22, 2024, 05:19:31 PMI don't think that's how companies like WOTC perceive the question internally. I think the operative question is not "how many customers which we wouldn't otherwise get will this wokeness attract?". At this point, they have to know that number is insignificant. I think question one is "how many of our potential customers are demoralized or brainwashed enough to not balk at this", and the second question corollary is "of the number that will balk, is that loss worth taking in exchange for the positive press and/or DEI investment money we can get from being performatively woke?"

The issue with that strategy now is that a lot of the DEI investment funding is drying up. A good number of companies are dropping wokeness like a hot potato when the realization that they actually have to be profitable to survive sinks in. It is the same problem that forever plagues rabid progressives-eventually you run out of other people's money.

That's been the rumor for a while now, yeah. If only it was that simple. For one thing, the years of DEI money have had these companies hiring lots of progressive idealogues into creative control positions, and those people are less easily fired than one might think. For another, corporations are very good at deflecting the reasons for their failures. If NuD&D were to flop, Hasbro could just as easily blame it on the VTT project or go all the way to saying that post-COVID there just isn't a market for D&D anymore.  There's the signal-noise issue as well; with progressive control of the entertainment media, the corporations will continue to see over-represented positive feedback, even if profits are declining. That just makes it easier to misplace blame for why the product isn't selling well.

I do think a pendulum shift in the entertainment industry is coming, but I agree with the people who say it's going to be slow; 5-10 years or more. Even then, I'd guess D&D is one of the last places we're going to see the change. Compared to TV, film, videogames etc., the money involved in making D&D is chump change, so the stakes on making sales are smaller. Plus, D&D's audience contains a higher than average percentage of the aformentioned "non-noticers", who may not be fully woke themselves, but are not going to question wokeness when it appears.

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 22, 2024, 04:00:09 PMExcept that's not true; when WotC ramped up the Wokeness starting around their Candlekeep product, they suffered an ever accelerating collapse of sales. As each book became MORE woke, it lost more audience.

...

Wokeness only kills profitability. It has no vast natural audience, as the 2024 elections proved.

I'm not seeing any evidence of a sales slump. Wouldn't Hasbro have come in and cut the whole RPG business? They only care about profits, after all. I would like to see where people are getting your sales numbers from. Maybe post them here for consideration? What proof do you have that these identity politics are the primary factor affecting sales? Could it just be that the last couple of years' products suck?

I find the idea of D&D being used as a mechanism of leftist fascists to be a reach. Is it inundated with loud, woke hang-wringers? Sure. But an "Agenda (capital A)"? Maybe by accident. I don't see some plot to use D&D for an Agenda, only a strong desire to blow every culture-war thing way out of proportion with needless outrage—which these types do with EVERYTHING (on both sides). I have difficulty attributing that kind of emotional behavior to any thought-out plan. This is pure hubris and delusion.

I believe they have a target audience and are selling enough to that target audience to stay profitable in the eyes of the Hasbro Overlords. I also believe that TheRPGSite comprises less than 5% of that target audience. :-P

Is the woke stuff for everyone? Gods no. There are a remarkable number of threads I see on Reddit of people dumping 5e for OSR games. My evidence is anecdotal, but it seems to me to be losing ground. I don't believe WOTC has the hold on the RPG market everyone gives them credit for having. There are visible cracks in the armor. I also don't see enough stumping for NuSR stuff to say that the "woke" crowd is making any more headway there than WOTC.

But let's not mistake desperation for an "Agenda." Identity politics have become a vitriolic team sport. Most of this outrage is just desperate people screaming into the sky at any perceived "loss." (Again, on both extremes.) Maybe it's an agenda (small a) at a basic level, but I don't believe any more thought went into it than outrage and emotional angst towards "enemies" on the other team.

Once again, why attribute malice to something easily explained by incompetence?

Quote from: trechriron on November 25, 2024, 08:46:53 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 22, 2024, 04:00:09 PMExcept that's not true; when WotC ramped up the Wokeness starting around their Candlekeep product, they suffered an ever accelerating collapse of sales. As each book became MORE woke, it lost more audience.

...

Wokeness only kills profitability. It has no vast natural audience, as the 2024 elections proved.

I'm not seeing any evidence of a sales slump. Wouldn't Hasbro have come in and cut the whole RPG business? They only care about profits, after all. I would like to see where people are getting your sales numbers from. Maybe post them here for consideration? What proof do you have that these identity politics are the primary factor affecting sales? Could it just be that the last couple of years' products suck?

Where are you seeing evidence that the sales aren't slumping?  If you are going to disagree (you're not just asking for evidence, you are actively saying he's wrong based on what you are "seeing.") with Pundit's numbers, shouldn't you have some evidence yourself?  As for the second part, you're making a distinction without a difference.  Calling a product "woke" and saying it "sucks" is totally redundant.  Woke cannot produce good products.  Ever.  The mindset of the woke prevents them from producing good products.  A woke person can produce something good at first, if they don't put any (or not very much) woke in it.  But the moment woke ideology infiltrates the product, quality is impossible.  Woke is the antithesis of merit, which means it is the antithesis of excellence.

I know it sucks to be a modern leftist.  You've gotten the reins of power, only to have reality come crashing down on you, that your ideas objectively suck (not necessarily "you" personally, though I generally find the folks who complain the most about politics as "team sport" tend to be the folks whose "team" is losing).  They can't work.  Understand that what you are feeling right now is the first step towards healing: the recognition of what is true.  You can reject it, and never manage to pull yourself out of the leftist delusion (which means you will always hook your future to unworkable ideas), or you can listen to reality and maybe start to change.

Remember, you can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality...

Quote from: Tristan on November 06, 2024, 12:59:49 PMThey also diversified the leadership of the various nations as well as some populations, changing them from the old boxed set.

Greyhawk fans have put together an 84 page authentic introduction to the setting that logs changes from classic Greyhawk vs. DMG 5.5 Greyhawk, while also talking to the value of Greyhawk's original setting design.  If you're interested, it's almost free (50 cents in PDF) and at https://www.dmsguild.com/product/503532/World-of-Greyhawk-Gazetteer-Revised

This is similar in intention to Vecna: Genesis of a Legend:  the free, 42-page fan-driven effort at http://www.canonfire.com/vecna/VecnaGenesisofaLegend.pdf that seeks to correct the many issues with Vecna: Eve of Ruin and inform new fans about Vecna's storied history in the setting. 

Greyhawk's fan community continues to provide the best support for the setting, across its publishing eras and game editions. 

Allan.

Quote from: grodog on January 10, 2025, 12:35:40 AMGreyhawk fans have put together an 84 page authentic introduction to the setting that logs changes from classic Greyhawk vs. DMG 5.5 Greyhawk, while also talking to the value of Greyhawk's original setting design.  If you're interested, it's almost free (50 cents in PDF) and at https://www.dmsguild.com/product/503532/World-of-Greyhawk-Gazetteer-Revised

Thank you for the link. The price is certainly nice, so I'll check this out.

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 22, 2024, 04:00:09 PM

Quote from: trechriron on November 13, 2024, 02:53:32 PM

Quote from: blackstone on November 13, 2024, 10:12:29 AMPersonally, I haven't bought a WoTC/D&D product for at least 20 years. They lost me at 3e.

You are not the target audience. WOTC D&D will find its audience and sell plenty of books to people who want this approach.

Except that's not true; when WotC ramped up the Wokeness starting around their Candlekeep product, they suffered an ever accelerating collapse of sales. As each book became MORE woke, it lost more audience.

The "target audience" DOES NOT EXIST. They claim the target audience is 'black women','LGBTQ+_Gaymers', "Asian & Pacific Islanders", "Latinx" gamers, etc. and sell these Woke agendas to the corporations that there are millions and millions of black people, so if we just fill the PHB art with black people you'll get MILLIONS of sales, because they'll suddenly care about RPGs.
Except they NEVER do. The black people who are already gamers DO NOT CARE (or do not care enough) about the representation to make a difference, they will either buy the product anyways or they never would. And no one who is not already a gamer will decide to become one because the 2024 PHB is full of illustrations of Obese Black Women Being Strong or something like that.
Same goes for every other group listed.

So the ONLY audience they're really targeting are the few thousand or so anti-liberal identity politics leftist activists, who all DESPISE D&D. They want to force D&D to be remolded into a propaganda tool for their totalitarian agenda, or to cease to exist altogether, but they won't ever actually buy the product (save a tiny group who make it their job to try to write or produce Woke D&D stuff).

Wokeness only kills profitability. It has no vast natural audience, as the 2024 elections proved.

Lots of truth, right there.

Quote from: Man at Arms on January 10, 2025, 04:58:54 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 22, 2024, 04:00:09 PM

Quote from: trechriron on November 13, 2024, 02:53:32 PM

Quote from: blackstone on November 13, 2024, 10:12:29 AMPersonally, I haven't bought a WoTC/D&D product for at least 20 years. They lost me at 3e.

You are not the target audience. WOTC D&D will find its audience and sell plenty of books to people who want this approach.

Except that's not true; when WotC ramped up the Wokeness starting around their Candlekeep product, they suffered an ever accelerating collapse of sales. As each book became MORE woke, it lost more audience.

The "target audience" DOES NOT EXIST. They claim the target audience is 'black women','LGBTQ+_Gaymers', "Asian & Pacific Islanders", "Latinx" gamers, etc. and sell these Woke agendas to the corporations that there are millions and millions of black people, so if we just fill the PHB art with black people you'll get MILLIONS of sales, because they'll suddenly care about RPGs.
Except they NEVER do. The black people who are already gamers DO NOT CARE (or do not care enough) about the representation to make a difference, they will either buy the product anyways or they never would. And no one who is not already a gamer will decide to become one because the 2024 PHB is full of illustrations of Obese Black Women Being Strong or something like that.
Same goes for every other group listed.

So the ONLY audience they're really targeting are the few thousand or so anti-liberal identity politics leftist activists, who all DESPISE D&D. They want to force D&D to be remolded into a propaganda tool for their totalitarian agenda, or to cease to exist altogether, but they won't ever actually buy the product (save a tiny group who make it their job to try to write or produce Woke D&D stuff).

Wokeness only kills profitability. It has no vast natural audience, as the 2024 elections proved.

Lots of truth, right there.

Greetings!

Yeah, the non-existant Woke Liberal market audience.

25% to 30, 40% of people under the age of 30 are unemployed and fucking broke. If they are lucky, they are working as a Barista at Starbucks and living 6 to an apartment. Still, with the high cost of living, crushing prices everywhere for so many things, it isn't a stretch to think that 50% of people under 30 are thus broke or stretched close to it. Them having disposable income to lavish on D&D is unlikely.

But WOTC says fuck to all the Gen Xers and Boomers, and people over 40 that actually have the *MONEY* to spend on the D&D hobby.

Absolute morons. As usual, Liberals are fucking idiots when it comes to understanding economics and business, and really, anything in the REAL WORLD. They are too busy staying high on drugs, or circle-jerking each other on some fantasy dream of Marxist Utopianism.

WOTC needs to entirely ignore Greyhawk. Greyhawk has devoted fans, and doesn't need WOTC to do anything with Greyhawk.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Tristan on November 06, 2024, 12:59:49 PMThey also diversified the leadership of the various nations as well as some populations, changing them from the old boxed set.

to meet DEI standards as dictated by WoTC.

How completely fucking retarded.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament on November 07, 2024, 01:02:44 PMMy opinion: stick to the 1980 folio or the 1983 boxed set. That's Greyhawk.

I have both, love both, and been sticking with them ever since.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on November 07, 2024, 01:57:19 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on November 07, 2024, 10:36:56 AMNo female gamer has ever refused to play a game because there weren't enough female NPCs in the source material.

  Are we sure about this? I remember one industry writer over on TBP reporting that "I know more than one person who never really got into The Hobbit because the sole female character presented for them to relate to was Lobelia Sackville-Baggins."

If that's her hang up, obviously this person has other issues going on.

I willing to be she has Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Quote from: trechriron on November 14, 2024, 03:06:02 PMGaming should be for fun, not for political discourse.

With that being said, why did WoTC take D&D down that road by shoving DEI into their products?

Quote from: Eirikrautha on November 14, 2024, 06:57:49 PM

Quote from: trechriron on November 14, 2024, 03:06:02 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on November 13, 2024, 10:11:08 PMSo, unless you have some evidence not readily available to the rest of us, you'll need to find something that can prove the "woke" customer is more numerous and spends more money than the traditional RPG consumer.  Otherwise, there is no justification (as in economic, not political) for the behavior of WotC.  And there is no justification at all for consumers to remain queit, regardless of their numbers.

I said no such thing. I don't need evidence for my argument; please pay attention to what I'm saying. I don't care about their numbers, and neither should you. Why do you fucking care about a company that doesn't care about you? Put your money where your mouth is!

If we were talking about the availability of air on a Mars colony, access to clean water or life-saving medicine, I agree 100%. I would stand right by you and protest. But RPGs?!?!

Who fucking cares. There are WAY too many awesome games out there that don't cater to a loud, woke minority to care how WOTC is churning out shit sauce.

Gaming should be for fun, not for political discourse. Allowing the culture war to dominate the conversation ultimately is a self-sabotaging, self-loathing road to ruin. It seems all too common now for a thread here to devolve into "Poor me, the libtard woke creators lit my face on fire." or worse, "A call to arms! Kill all the woke libtards!" Hah! I have no time to start a war, and I'm pretty sure you don't either.

This forum represented a generally level-headed group of enthusiasts who looked at the "woke" diaspora and laughed. It was like hanging out with a group of adult friends, giggling under their breath while the toddlers sitting in front of us argued about who gets to play with the legos. Sure, it was all nonsense while imagined slights were committed in the minds of the hand-wringers. What can you do? Have any of the arguments, coordinated trolling, or angry protests did anything to change it? Nope. TheRPGsite is floating in a pool of our piss with literally nothing to show for it except a bunch of angry old dudes drinking piss together. Hence the ask--stop taking a piss.

All this culture war stuff is exhausting. It's ruining our hobby. I want to read threads about the fucking cool shit you love. What are you playing? What are you creating? Link me! I buy a lot of stuff. I'll buy your stuff. Please show me what I could be playing besides WOTC D&D.

First of all, if you care about the hobby, then you care about the fate of D&D, because, sadly, to most people it is the hobby.  We can stop this in two ways: speaking out about what is wrong and encouraging others to play what is good.  They both go hand-in-hand.  If we don't push back, new players to the hobby don't ever know there is something different, other ways to play.  You may be satisfied in playing in a ever-shrinking hobby for your remaining years, but that isn't enough for many of us.  I want my kids and grandkids (both of which I have) to experience the same kind of imagination, joy, and interaction that I had playing the game when it was young.  I don't want them to grow up where RPGs means BDSM safe-words and Mexican orcs.  So, I point out what is wrong and I promote and play what is good.  I'm running a high school-based RPG club with over 50 students in almost a dozen different student-lead campaigns (plus the one that I run there for new players and aspiring DMs).  What exactly are you doing to preserve and grow the hobby?  Or are your concerns just selfish and personal?

In fact, why haven't you posted any of the threads that you want to read?  Why is it someone else's job to post them here?  Be the change you want.  But it's easier to complain (about other people complaining, ironically) than it is to do something positive and productive, I guess...