Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb on January 17, 2023, 05:06:35 PM
So Hasbro is trying to ruthlessly nuke the entire TTRPG hobby and industry, so that our only option is to pay money to play some internet video game with an AI DM Chatbot?

That seems horribly depressing.

But they made at least 3 mistakes:

Missread the willingness of 3pp to sign their poison pill
Thought they would be able to pick them out one at the time
Thought the Sparkle Trolls would be on their side because of their morality clause

I think now that the chances of both publishers and players uniting to pitch in money to fight Wankers on the Beach off is about 80%

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb on January 17, 2023, 05:06:35 PM
So Hasbro is trying to ruthlessly nuke the entire TTRPG hobby and industry, so that our only option is to pay money to play some internet video game with an AI DM Chatbot?

That seems horribly depressing.

It sure looks like that is what they are trying to do. But they failed to realize that there is an entire world full of other games that we can all just go and play.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb on January 17, 2023, 05:06:35 PM
So Hasbro is trying to ruthlessly nuke the entire TTRPG hobby and industry, so that our only option is to pay money to play some internet video game with an AI DM Chatbot?

That seems horribly depressing.

I'm sure they were framing it in a more positive light, at the company board meetings.  We may think they can't legally do it, but they are effectively already doing it.  This is a little bit like Star Wars.  The plans to the Death Star have been stolen, but has Emperor Palpatine foreseen this?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 17, 2023, 11:26:30 AM
Worse? Only for WotC's paypigs, for the hobby in general this is a good thing, (IF TRUE) they are removing themselves from it! ...

Exactly.

I don't understand any of the pleas to put pressure on WotC to change.

WotC is inadvertently in the process of saving the hobby from itself.

Why would anyone want to stop WotC?

Quote from: tenbones on January 17, 2023, 02:35:31 PM
This is what Ive been saying - WotC is banking on the Mobile game psyop tactics to go after the Brand loyalists. It will succeed from a monetary standpoint. But it will not be D&D. ...

^This^

WotC is trying to leverage their current dominant network effect to flip the D&D brand loyalists to their NuRPG model, giving them a critical mass for the OneVTT.

Quote from: tenbones on January 17, 2023, 02:35:31 PM
Blizzards Diablo Immortal got unmitigated hate by the "gaming community"... it's already made more than 300-million dollars despite having non-stop hate poured on it by gaming channels. I literally know no one in my orbit that plays it. But the game is fantastically successful despite being one of the most predatory games out there. D&D is going this route.
...

The endgame they are working towards.

If One VTT hits, they can care less about the haters.

They will happily alienate a large segment of their traditional RPG base if they are able to make more money with the lemmings that they bring into the OneVTT ecosystem...

WOTC is pissing on the Past and the Present, somehow believing that their Future will be even brighter.

Quote from: Jam The MF on January 17, 2023, 05:55:56 PM

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb on January 17, 2023, 05:06:35 PM
So Hasbro is trying to ruthlessly nuke the entire TTRPG hobby and industry, so that our only option is to pay money to play some internet video game with an AI DM Chatbot?

That seems horribly depressing.

I'm sure they were framing it in a more positive light, at the company board meetings.  We may think they can't legally do it, but they are effectively already doing it.  This is a little bit like Star Wars.  The plans to the Death Star have been stolen, but has Emperor Palpatine foreseen this?

They had two goals - one was kill OGL 1.0a, which they may well have succeeded at anyway, and the other was to get 3PP to sign on with their new deal. That may have failed spectacularly, leaving them with just people writing for DM's Guild. The OGL was originally pitched and accepted on the grounds that it would help D&D by having 3rd party publishers release adventures, modules and supplements. It appears to have succeeded as well. If WotC is forced to do everything in house, they may have screwed themselves with this stunt.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 17, 2023, 10:08:41 AM
I think this is probably clickbait. I don't believe WOTC top brass even know what "homebrew" means in a game context. For internal use it would have been called "custom content generation" or something.

Not to say they aren't planning basically this, but I find this specific leak suspect.

My thought too and that video and the so called leaked info have been called out by a few.

Could be real, could be fake, could be some ploy by wotc even.

But right now it is just another "leak" with nothing yet to support it and it feels a but too clickbaity.

There's really no reason to believe this is untrue. None of this is at all surprising in any way to me. It's simply reality that a company like Hasbro wants to monetize D&D and it's easily possible to milk a handful of superwhales for more cash than the whole hobby will make if you're pricing things normally.

It's also inevitable given their huge investment of resources into digital D&D that they will either (a) squash homebrew content or (b) build it into their monetization.

The suits correctly identified that the future is the VTT + Microtransactions + Automation driven gaming (Heck there's already a D&D branded "Idle" game you can play.) D&D the TTRPG is dead.

Quote from: Jam The MF on January 17, 2023, 06:18:22 PM
WOTC is pissing on the Past and the Present, somehow believing that their Future will be even brighter.

In terms of raw dollars... They may not be wrong.

Quote from: 3catcircus on January 17, 2023, 02:39:31 PM
Or are you concerned that being allowed to play the bad guys would draw ire?  Newsflash - D&D can't claim the moral high road - they already published the Book of Vile Darkness that depicted a BBEG with child slaves in shackles attached to his carriage, if I recall

I'd swear they were shackled to his armor.

And Paizo did the Book of the Damned with an entity that was concerned with "abduction" and "strangers" and "sweets" with subdomains of Lust and Deception. He has since been excised from that work. I thought that was a good fucking book, though - they're not supposed to be laudable entities, ffs.

Quote from: Thornhammer on January 17, 2023, 11:04:09 PM

Quote from: 3catcircus on January 17, 2023, 02:39:31 PM
Or are you concerned that being allowed to play the bad guys would draw ire?  Newsflash - D&D can't claim the moral high road - they already published the Book of Vile Darkness that depicted a BBEG with child slaves in shackles attached to his carriage, if I recall

I'd swear they were shackled to his armor.

And Paizo did the Book of the Damned with an entity that was concerned with "abduction" and "strangers" and "sweets" with subdomains of Lust and Deception. He has since been excised from that work. I thought that was a good fucking book, though - they're not supposed to be laudable entities, ffs.

These are very controversial depictions and absolutely should be excised. Bring on the barista campaign book instead!

Quote from: Jaeger on January 17, 2023, 05:59:56 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 17, 2023, 11:26:30 AM
Worse? Only for WotC's paypigs, for the hobby in general this is a good thing, (IF TRUE) they are removing themselves from it! ...

Exactly.

I don't understand any of the pleas to put pressure on WotC to change.

WotC is inadvertently in the process of saving the hobby from itself.

Why would anyone want to stop WotC?

I don't want to stop WOTC specifically, but what's to stop other gaming companies from going down this road when/if they see how much money they can get  versus scraping by on traditional TTRPG sales? Even well intentioned game creators gots bills to pay, and if a game gets popular, the offers to buy the IP so they can monetize it like D&D may start coming in.

Or WOTC or Paizo may offer to buy them out to either scuttle the game, or integrate it into their system, removing a source of competition.

I think a few holdouts will stick to their guns, but any kind of popular IP, or franchise is likely going to go down this road. We'll be stuck with our existing hardcopies and fan material with the serial numbers filed off, and the hobby will dwindle down to a few peculiar neckbeards who prefer their RPGs without that new fangled online loot box thingamajiggers.

Quote from: FingerRod on January 17, 2023, 03:05:27 PM

Quote from: 3catcircus on January 17, 2023, 02:39:31 PM

Quote from: Effete on January 17, 2023, 02:14:54 PM
I'll be honest, I don't give a toss of shit how WotC wants to ruin the DnD brand. All I want to know is if the OGL 1.0(a) will remain intact so I can use the 5e SRD to release my Nazis From The Moon setting, where you play as the Nazis.

Why do you need the OGL to do that? Nothing in the SRD is modern (e.g. no machine guns or tanks or rocket ships), so you'd have to do a lot of original content anyway. They can't restrict you from publishing if you use just the mechanics.

Could you, frex, rename attributes to be "safe?" Sure. D&D has Strength and Dexterity. Other games might refer to them the same way or could call them Muscles and Agility. Doesn't matter.  You can't protect the idea of physical attributes.  Just write your own descriptive text to avoid the expression of the idea. 

Or are you concerned that being allowed to play the bad guys would draw ire?  Newsflash - D&D can't claim the moral high road - they already published the Book of Vile Darkness that depicted a BBEG with child slaves in shackles attached to his carriage, if I recall

Uh...he's not really making a game where you can play as a Nazi

Yeah, probably not.
But the thought has crossed my mind ever since WotC doubled-down on their morality gaslighting. The point about specifically using the 5e SRD is to provoke a retarded reaction from them. I don't actually care if the game is playable. In fact, I think it would be funnier if it wasn't. At least then the joke would be more obvious... but of course, the point is bait morons who have no sense of humor. Might even call the game Schadenfreude for that extra layer of irony.

While part of me wants to do this just as an epic level trolling, the first part of my statement is absolutely true: I really don't care about WotC or DnD. I haven't for years, but this whole debacle sealed the coffin lid for good. There's plenty of good rpgs out there, all of them better than 5e. Nothing of importance would be lost if DnD disappeared from the tabletop.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on January 17, 2023, 11:52:26 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on January 17, 2023, 05:59:56 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 17, 2023, 11:26:30 AM
Worse? Only for WotC's paypigs, for the hobby in general this is a good thing, (IF TRUE) they are removing themselves from it! ...

Exactly.

I don't understand any of the pleas to put pressure on WotC to change.

WotC is inadvertently in the process of saving the hobby from itself.

Why would anyone want to stop WotC?

I don't want to stop WOTC specifically, but what's to stop other gaming companies from going down this road when/if they see how much money they can get  versus scraping by on traditional TTRPG sales? Even well intentioned game creators gots bills to pay, and if a game gets popular, the offers to buy the IP so they can monetize it like D&D may start coming in.

Or WOTC or Paizo may offer to buy them out to either scuttle the game, or integrate it into their system, removing a source of competition.

I think a few holdouts will stick to their guns, but any kind of popular IP, or franchise is likely going to go down this road. We'll be stuck with our existing hardcopies and fan material with the serial numbers filed off, and the hobby will dwindle down to a few peculiar neckbeards who prefer their RPGs without that new fangled online loot box thingamajiggers.

Ehhh, I think the black-pilled folks worrying about WotC's success are overlooking some obvious challenges to their plans.  First and foremost is that, like and publicly traded company, Hasbro is more interested in "growth" than in income.  It's the paradox of most modern industry leaders.  You could be making a steady stream of profit that would sustain your business and shareholders for eternity, but see your share price drop and become an industry pariah, because your profits aren't growing year-over-year.

So the whale-based micro-transaction business model might show a short term jump in profitability, but it's not going to grow the brand.  Look at the makeup of the successful mobile game companies.  They are either foreign owned, not publicly traded, or too small to compare to Hasbro, and all of them have a glut of products to farm whales.  D&D gains players by word of mouth and social cache. Not as likely now...

Quote from: S'mon on January 17, 2023, 03:40:49 AM
I think the suggestion that WoTC are actively trying to burn down their existing player (and especially GM) base, to rebuild with a clean slate from the ashes, has a lot of merit.

Their delusion is that they think that a large percentage of the current tabletop roleplaying D&D audience is convertible to a computer gaming audience. A good friend of mine who keeps up with both tabletop roleplaying and computer gaming, walked me through the Gloomhaven computer game. That coupled with my experience Solasta solidified my thinking that what Wizards is trying to do here is looking at D&D as a game first. Then throwing in story elements and other game elements to make it something that is considered in the same class as Gloomhaven, Shadowrun Crossfire, and other games that sit across the RPG, Board game boundary. (like Dungeon! Talisman, etc. ). But with the D&D IP.

Where he and I disagreed is whether Wizards will do this all at once or slow walk the different components in. I think based on what currently known that Wizards will do it all at once. Based on his experience with computer gaming, my friend found that unbelievable that Wizards would be that stupid. He feel that starting with the VTT and D&D Beyond integration that Wizards is going build this piece by piece until it's gets to it final form. He feels based on his kid's and his friend's kids experience that there is a big shortage of referees and that the setup will be acceptable to much of the younger audience as a way to play D&D when they don't have a referee.

My counterpoint, is that the current D&D 5e boon grew despite all the other options being available. The current D&D audience choose to play tabletop roleplaying as one of their hobbies rather than spend all of their hobby time computer gaming or playing board games.  That this new setup by Wizards will not feel the same and thus not be appealing to the vast majority of the current audience.

Furthermore given Hasbro's track record with software, they will find that after a year or two that other game companies do what they are trying to do way better and will fail as a computer game company.

It also came up is that the my friends feels that most players play D&D and tabletop roleplaying as a series of story beats intermixed up with playing out combat encounters. Basically a campaign consists of narrating part of the story, giving the group a few basic choices, and the when combat ensues play it out with minis and a board (or Dwarven Forge style terrain). Something that Gloomhaven does but in a more straight forward way.

Finally my friend plays in my campaign and enjoys it a lot. Is well aware of other styles of play. He just thinks that what I do, what others do, (storygaming, classic dungeon crawling, etc.), are smaller niches the roleplaying hobby. Personally, I feel that things are much more fragmented and that there are no styles that THE style. However there some that are more well-known.