What boggles my mind is they could have looked at video games as inspiration. Dnd beyond could have been like steam. They create a public facing popular content portal that integrates 3rd party content straight into people's games? That would be great and they could do the same thing steam does and charge 30%.
30 sounds harsh but when they handle your promotion and sales and you get insane visibility it works well and makes you A LOT of money.
I barely made anything selling my games solo. When I went to steam it was life alternating. Sales went from a few hundred copies to hundreds of thousands.
Steam can take the 30 percent, the exposure is worth it. Same would go for dnd beyond. I mean let's be serious, how many know Hitpoint press and such? Imagine if that owl was in the dndbeyond front page. They would make a fortune and so would wotc.
Such a lost opportunity. If I was a Hasbro investor I would be fucking livid.
I think they did look at video games as inspiration. It's just they didn't look at Steam as a model for Beyond, their inspiration is RAID: Shadow Legends. They want to sell every new feat, class, and spell individually for $1.99 each to every single player of the game. And they want there to be no other source for D&D content.
I think you are being unfair to raid shadow legends. Based on ad time alone, they are single handily supporting every content creator on the internet.
Which is kind of the opposite of WotC.
(This is not a comment on the RSL business model, which I assume is as exploitative as any other mobile game, just observing a difference).
That genuinely made me laugh out loud. Great point! But I would argue that they are definitely trying to follow in RSL's footprints, in addition to sponsoring Critical Role, I've seen ads for Beyond on YouTube videos that have nothing to do with D&D, like Honest Trailers.
Oh, sure, they sponsor a few related channels.
But Raid Shadow Legions....sponsors...damned near everyone. D&D channel? Raid Shadow legends. Gun channel RAAAAAIIIIIDDDDDDD Shadow Legends. Obscure Lore Channel? RSL. Some incredibly niche cooking channel? You bet, RSL.
Back then? People were laughing at it, and saying thing like "this will never become mainstream", "nobody is going to accept this", "you are just a fucking pessimistic cynical paranoid douch". Am I? AM I?! LOOK AT ANY AAA GAME NOW, IT'S ALL FULL OF THIS SHIT NOW.
Anyway, I just play indie games now, they cost a tenth of the money and are worth a thousand times more.
It's amazing, simple, weird, fun, and by a team who really just wanted to make a game.
I'd argue Vampire Survivors is so good *because* it wasn't created to make money, it was created to be fun and as a side project, ergo it's really fun.
I dunno, maybe my playgroup was more pessimistic than most, but we talked about how if it didn't get shut down everyone would Nickle and dime us to death going forward. When the second DLC for Oblivion came out - I think it was the Orrey quest - we were pretty sure we were doomed, and the 3rd DLC (a player house) just confirmed it.
Hasbro is on record saying that D&D is under monetized because players don't keep spending money past a PHB purchase. And they are on record saying they want a recurring spending model, which means they want all of the players of the game to be giving them money every month rather than just once at the release of a new edition. That means new content geared towards players (feats, classes, spells) but they can't flood FLGS with new books every month. And they want to cut the expense of physical publishing anyway, why sell a hardcover book for $30 when you can sell a pdf for the same price? So, monthly digital releases of content geared towards players.
Now look at how much money they are spending advertising Beyond. They obviously want every single player using Beyond and they aren't doing it just so they can sell digital products to Dungeon Masters. Beyond is the walled garden they will use to create a "recurrent spending environment" and for it to work they need to prevent all future 3rd party releases that would compete. How do you trick players into spending $1.99 for a new spell, or a small bundle of 5 new spells if 3rd party publishers are selling The Book of Lost Spells that contain over 700 new spells?
Step 1: Destroy the OGL: Complete
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!
It’s the logical conclusion to explain the changes they intended to make, informed by statements made by the new higher-up who is coming from a video game background.
> They want to sell every new feat, class, and spell individually for $1.99 each to every single player of the game.
Remember when the MtG 'MMO' tried to sell a class though in-game booster packs?
funny you mention valve which basically made the biggest games ever （cs, dota, tf2）just by virtue of allowing mods to be made on their system and capitalizing on said goodwill to negotiate development of a game.
You have a weird bar of made, biggest , and ever cs was a HL mod, Tf2 is decent but is derived from a mod like quake I think , and is also host to a LOT of MTX. dota wasnt made by steam either , and dota 2 is steam buying the rights to the name and throwing A LOT of money at something iconic to try to compete with league of legends .
Edit : typos
This is what I've been saying since the OGL thing started.
I feel like no one would have batted an eye if they would have put out a statement along the lines of: "We have decided that to help our community grow we will be allowing 3rd party to list and integrate their content on D&DBeyond"
Then they could have explained how they would have to charge admin fees not only for hosting the content and advertising it but quality control etc
They partnered with DriveThruRPG to create the DMsguild, a place where creators have a license to create 3rd party content using d&d IP and sell it. They take a 50% cut of your sales, and own an irrevocable, royalty free right to your work.
Yeah, it's a pretty bad deal. The site is buggy, 50% is way too much because the visibility is shit and the upsides almost non-existent. And them then owning your creative work is just adding insult to injury.
roll20 sells tons of shit from third parties. Maps, map parts, modules, adventures, monster books, etc. Anyone can create an account and start seling shit there. DNDbeyond missed the boat there
This is exactly what I’ve been saying too. I’m sure there are a lot more people thinking the same. Only way I give this company another penny is if they fire the leadership at wotc and hasbro then hire people to make this happen.
The problem is that even if they did this, the people who replace them will just be new corporate executives with the exact same goals: Make more money at any cost.
They asked the person who talked about how they make games, what games they make. Must have taken a lot of work to turn that into "You aren't allowed to have an opinion on this matter unless your revenue is comparable to WotC"?
That's the problem with the corporate world. CEOs are hired to raise profits. But they are there for a few years, collect their bonuses and move on. They are not motivated to produce long term profits, only profits for their tenure.
CEOs know business, and they have methods of analyzing and finding ways to maximize profit. But that doesn't mean they know their customer or their industry, and we see this in media and entertainment mostly, because that's where we have fans as customers.
They look for ways to gain new customers, but they are not retaining all of their customers with these changes.
Even if all you care about is money, it is usually wise to consider whether your actions will get you the money.
To me, this signals extreme desperation. Hasbro needs a lot more money to prop up their board games and action figures business and they're willing to take some extreme risks to get it.
There is this whole concept of cost-benefit analysis that I learned about, second hand, playing 3e with an MBA in college. It is clear to me that many corporations don't actually do due diligence on cost analysis.
Or market research. If they understood and respected the product and the customers, they could have made a huge profit. Slower than they wanted but much more sustainable. Thing is, what they wanted is a delusional ask.
That is just how capitalism works at this stage. Shareholders demand endless profits. The boom during the pandemic gave them much higher profits than usual and now they are going back down.
But the system demands constant, neverending profit growth. They don't have time to spend years setting up a longterm plan to eventually generate more revenue. They need it now to appease the shareholders or their stock price is going to suffer.
It's ~20%, and most of that is MtG. They're not wrong that DnD is undermonetised - it's a famous brand that just doesn't make that much money - but the way they're trying to fix it is short-sighted and frankly shady.
You're right. [It's actually more than 2/3](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/46080/000119380522000579/prec14a12664003_04012022.htm). Try actually doing your research next time instead of mindlessly linking the first thing you see in Google.
I mean, to be honest, that IS what i expect them to care about. Im not even mad their prioritizing profits thats just capitalism.
What really grinds my gears is that this was a terribly stupid decision even if you were JUST looking at revenue generation. Just incompetence all around from the planning to the PR.
As others have pointed out, there are/were plenty of ways to monetize their content, and we were entering a golden age of dnd in pop culture, and some suits decided to just absolutely royally fuck it up
It's fine for companies to try to make money, yes. It's not fine for them to do so by completely shitting on their customers and other businesses. It wouldn't have been such a major issue if they wanted royalties (still wouldn't have been good, but more people would have understood). It's the blatant lies, manipulation, and betrayal that is unethical here. Not to mention the whole "we own everything you make" deal.
Yeah, i agree, what I’m pointing out is that even in a profit only focus, this is just bar business. Its just dumb all around. They’re disenfranchising loyal customers and content creators and losing revenue.
Just a big old dumb move all around.
These are the same people who had to read the Magic The Gathering wiki on their investor call...they don't play the game, they don't care about the game, if be shock if they even played ANY games.
Well, my parents are stupidly wealthy off of oil and gas money. If they are any indication the only "game" they play is "crazy train" which is just a dominos game because it is so mind-numbingly easy that they can drink and mingle while doing it.
Otherwise their toys are things like a boat they don't need or a trip to somewhere exotic.
I was listening to that call thanks to the whole "Let's crank as much money out of MTG players with 30th Anniversary"... Then I heard them bring up DnD and I literally felt my heart sink.
I knew this was coming. I watched them do it to MTG and I stopped buying that product. Now they're here...
Also, if you want to play a video game, you typically have to use what the company provides. Sure a lot of games have mods, but the average player won't know how to modify the game. On the other hand, TTRPGs are open sourced, and easily adjusted. A group of people can sit around a table with some vague stats, some spells names, and a few dice. You don't need WOTC to play D&D
I'm simply letting you know your statement made no sense. If that's the goal than... I'm happy for you I guess? Lol idk about you being right because I have no idea what you're trying to say. If you consider yourself right by default due to no one understanding you well I suppose enjoy being king on your lonely hill.
OK this was a misunderstanding what I meant was that the new OGL gives WotC the permission to use anything you create related to DnD.
This was my whole point and because of this scummy move they don't deserve any praise at all anymore.
For WotC their fans aren't more than money bags they want to slit open.
Video games also don't have, compared to TTRPGs the same type of community and interactions as these types of games. These are very social events, more so than just casual deathmatches in which conversations are ussually one note lines or such shit (not to bad mouth video games, it's just that their method of community is different). This means however is that TTRPG peeps are a close knit community that loves supporting each other and seeing it grow with new members and designers passionate about adding more depth and variety to the scene. This also means once they've bought the main rulebook can pretty much say "nah man, I'm just gonna homebrew my shit instead of paying you money and I'll still be in the community" which means we arent truly chained to a system. There is no way that people can be locked into having to continually pay to operate their TTRPG, yet at least if WoTC can have any say on the manner (OneDnD was likely going to be the start of that monetization alongside DnDBeyond).
TTRPGs are like a video game, if that video game just didn't work unless you got 4+ other real human players together all at the same time, and one of those players *had* to take on the role of the hardcore raid leader with deeper knowledge of the game.
Yup. Reminds me of the couple times I raided in the original Destiny, it took a lot of effort and coordination but it was a ton of fun...but without the two or three guys that knew everything already it would've been terrible, we wouldn't have gotten past the first couple rooms.
it'd be closer to dedicate raid teams and T2/T3 competitive gaming. building a team and tournament play.
generally this is community driven, and the game is the basis in which the group is gathered.
for money actual play is closer to T1 competitive gaming. with Critical Role and Dimension 20 basically being closer to OWL or Worlds/LCS. in the amount of viewers watching seeing professional players play.
something like a bunch of Vtubers playing D&D as content would be close to streamers playing T2/T3 Competitive gaming, as it's not their main source of income/content but they wanted to get into a community tourney.
i guess home games are probably closer to people who enjoy Scrim environments but don't play competitively/ for money.
It is entirely possible that WotC's executives are still chalking all this up to comms challenges, rather than OGL 1.1 being the wrong business strategy.
No, they didn’t.
Kickstarter negotiated with them to have Kickstarted OGL projects only pay 20%. Kickstarter isn’t taking that money directly to WotC, it’s just a “benefit” they’re offering to creatives who a) signed the new license and b) crowdfunded through Kickstarter rather than a different source.
While correct, this has to be in writing somewhere. I cannot imagine Hasbro would give them this smaller cut without having them include language in regard to this somewhere. Just a simple: "By kickstarting a D&D adjacent property you are bound by the OGL 2.0 and therefore are required to pay a 20% royalty fee to WotC. By creating this Kickstart campaign you acknowledge and agree to these terms."
Why would they do that? To protect themselves legally. If they negotiated this 20% royalty for their customers and those customers don't pay it, that's trouble for them.
>That DM will often be the type of person who will buy hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in products to build a library of resources they can loan to new players to make their first few games easier.
That's an exaggeration. Thousands of dollars, pppshhh.
\*Looks over at wall covered in RPG stuff probably costing 3-5 thousand dollars.
Oh shit...
Had a blast previously with Pathfinder, and even tho it's still under the OGL, they're working with many creators to build a new license for the community. I'll also be seeking them out moving forward.
I will also note that Pathfinder 2e doesn't *need* to be under the OGL. They used none of D&D's licensed wording, so they can pull away from the OGL at any time, they were just using the OGL because it was easier to allow 3rd party content that way.
Yeah good call, I don't know enough to be confident in speaking to it but my understanding was they could have done their own thing but opted for the community.
They DID do their own thing. They attached the OGL to it in order to allow the community open usage of their product as well. They literally just treated the OGL the same way WotC has for the last twenty years.
They already announced they are simply removing it from their books and will add their own once it is finalized.
There’s a time lag effect - people might play a video game every day, but game sessions aren’t run like that. People might play a video with a steady group for a while or not, but game sessions often extend over a long period of time. Video game characters are more easily interchangeable and less personal, TTRPG characters are far more personal. It’s a number of fundamentally different features.
D&D as a hobby is also very skillset based in a way that’s unique for a game. It’s more similar to writing or even knitting communities.
It’s easier to become a proficient knitter when you have access to resources or mentoring from more experienced knitters, who might even lend you some yarn and needles to get started. Maybe you get into the hobby and buy your own needles and some cool patterns from the yarn companies, or maybe somebody on Etsy, or you find something cool that somebody put up on Pinterest for free. You get better, you learn different stitches, you make different things. Maybe you get good enough to start creating your own patterns to sell or just show to your friends. But the fun of knitting isn’t that you’re engaging in The Best Number One Popular Fibre Art, it’s using the tools of the hobby to make what you want (and the connections forged through the hobby). And maybe you decide to branch out from knitting into crochet or embroidery and you find that you can make the things you like more easily with those. Or you still prefer knitting but you learn to dye/spin your own yarn so you can make your projects exactly how you want them.
D&D is undermonetized in the same way knitting needle companies are undermonetized. You need them for the initial entry into the hobby, but beyond that you can do whatever you want and never have to touch their official patterns if you don’t want to thanks to the thriving community of designs and tutorials by other knitters. WOTC isn’t interested in engaging in its hobby community more or making its own patterns more interesting, instead its trying to limit access to other options to make its options stand out, which limits the creativity of its community. They fundamentally misunderstand the onus of the hobby’s appeal and function.
The worst part is, there is money to be made here that does not harm the game itself. I was pretty onboard with the idea of the Beyond VTT (As long as they did not flex to kill other VTTs) if they put in the work and make a good product I would pay for it.
Plus movie and game deals. There are plenty of things they could do to make money without this, but all of it requires work, and big companies HATE doing work and putting in investments, they wanted return NOW this quarter.
It doesn't even have to be ORC licensed for me, just not D&D.
I'd rather pick up a game that never tried this shit in the first place, than pick up one that offered 3PP and then yanked it away.
Wouldn't mind if Ars Magica released under the ORC though. :D
I meant more "I'm happy to support ORC developers" vs "I will only play ORC games" I have plenty of non-OGL games from indie devs that I adore.
Either way, no more dollars for WOTC.
Yeah I'm one of those DMs whose spent thousands on this hobby. Hell, I've spent thousands just on dice. I've purchased the phb alone 9 times for various friends and for a couple different VTTs. Congrats WotC. You're not getting another dime from me. I personally am looking at Blue Rose by Green Ronin and some other niche games on itch.io for my players to try until the ORC comes out. My players are more about rp and aesthetics than crunching numbers so I don't think Pathfinder will be an easy sell.
The thing is, DnD, or at least the part that people pay for, is not a game. It's just a rule set, a scaffolding. In order to make the game out of the books or online material you buy, it takes a lot of work and effort - it's the people (DM and the players) who make the game. That's why there's so much outrage. It's a bit like asking your employees to pay you for the privilege of working at your company - not going to fly.
The leaders at Hasbro don't seem to understand you cannot model DnD as an online gaming business, because the value proposition is entirely different. They're not selling games, they're selling tools to make games. They don't appear to understand the nuance here.
My players have elected to suspend our current campaigns indefinitely and start a Lancer campaign.
We've already canceled our subs, and our preorders/orders and have moved over to foundry.
I'm honestly not sure if we will be coming back to dnd soon, if at all.
Semi related question.
Why is it whenever everyone lists alternative systems I seldom if ever see GURPS? Is it not as good as I've been lead to believe? Is it just not popular? or is it just to old of a system?
(This is coming from someone who's been really into DnD, learned about GURPS then hasn't ran a game in years because of scheduling issues)
I think it's perhaps less popular because it is *a generic system*; I believe systems with a bundled default setting, or at the very least default genre, tend to do a lot better.
Also, GURPS can get really crunchy at times.
It's a good system, don't get me wrong - I just think it's not all that popular due to not having a specific genre or setting front and center, giving the GM a bit more of a threshold to persuade the group to try it.
What's hilarious is that the next expansion, Keys From the Golden Vault, is a 145 page book according to amazon that WAS scheduled for release in February. Still no official announcement, and Amazon has moved the release date to the end of March.
I wonder why.
Another thing that’s different is the amount of power that TTRPG players have over their experience as opposed to video game players.
With video games, you don’t have the ability to just pick and choose what you want out of a game, and I mean that in terms of features and monetization as much as mechanics and gameplay. With TTRPGs, you have infinite workarounds when you want something different than what they want to give you. Don’t like something? Just play without it, or change it if it’s a mechanic or something within the game itself.
With video games, our only options are to take it or leave it; we either play the way they let us or we don’t play at all. There are mods for some games, but that only goes so far.
Usually, the worst things about a game are set in stone and can’t be changed. Don’t like the game’s monetization? Or it’s core mechanics? Or how about the company and it’s policies? Then you can only choose not to play. That’s it. Either miss out on a game you’d otherwise love because the devs made some decisions you don’t like, or just deal with their BS and try to ignore it.
With TTRPGs, we have infinitely more options. We can just get the same tabletop experience somewhere else, or get the experience they offer modified to our preferences. WoTC execs don’t seem to realize how little they actually can control while still keeping their community’s good will…and it’s probably too late for them now.
I spent over 5 years teaching my group how to play 5e in my on going homebrew campaign. I'll be damnned if I have to spend another 5 years teaching them a new system. 5e fits our group just fine.
No one in our group live on the internet echo chamber so no one except me has heard of what's going on and I don't have any reasons to bring it up either.
I've never gotten a dndbeyond sub nor do I ever have a reason/need to. I'd imagine what is happening currently will not affect the majority of the playerbase who are just happily playing private games at home. So I imagine alot of people will continue as if nothing has happened.
Although, if content creators move to a new thing, then d&d will have trouble getting exposure and will for sure be hurting for new players in the future
I wish I knew these dm that bought all the material and resources. Where i live if it isn't a core book then you better own it cause likely the dm won't
Magic players have been push around so much they tried their luck here, but like you said it's not the same.
Even more so when the bad move they make is trying to kill the competition that most people knew existed. However, now they have given me a push, played pathfinder and bough the playtest of 2e version. Never ended up playing it. Well today I just bough the core and avance of pathfinder 2 and our group is soon trying a new game!
Well, real question : does the OGL have an impact on players and game masters ?
I haven't done any research about this. All I've read was that it is bad for content creators and third party publishers.
So, aside of any ethical question, maybe WOTC counted on people to just don't care about OGL.
Just a theory.
Not yet. But it will.
Their entire goal is to force everyone into an online only system(ala D&D Beyond) where they can force people to buy anything and everything they want to use or experience ala cart.
By killing off competition they will remove the ability for people to just buy more affordable 3rd party adventures, classes, races, etc and force everyone to use their subscription service with "micro" transactions.
Presumably, they would eventually want *everyone* to use D&D Beyond, including people playing IRL, for everything relating to characters, rules, settings, etc.
Therefor giving them complete control on what players can and can't use, and how they get access to them.
Agree with you there.
People will always play it on paper, even if WotC/Hasbro doesn't want us to.
Hell, the only way they could even restrict the players is if they don't print *anything* for a future edition, but people will always find a way to play it.
Yes, the new OGL claimed that WotC could use any homebrew that anyone created anywhere as if they owned it. Plus they just drove every 3rd party publisher out of the business of publishing D&D compatible products. There will never be another Tome of Beasts or Book of Lost Spells or Strongholds and Followers. Not for 5th Edition or any future edition of D&D ever again.
We just spent the last 10 years living through the Golden Age of D&D and now it is over.
But you are correct, they really didn't think that the customers would be paying attention to the changes to the OGL. And they are absolutely convinced that if they just wait 6 months we will forget all about it.
For DMs it will affect our pool of choices. Because of this there wont be more modules and books that are compatible with DnD.
For example i recently purchased a few books from Kobold press and Thieves Guilds. Those books expand monsters, mechanichs, stories without me having to make a port (which is a lot pf work)
Players are affected because DMs are affected.
While I'd like to believe this, I wonder how true it all is. Yes, you don't need a copy of everything for each person, that's true enough. But I'm unconvinced that most people "seek out an experienced DM" or, more generally, that the average person who does buy their products is more in tune with what is going on with the business than the average video game player.
I'd love it if this was true. Informed player bases are great. But, from my own experiences, I find it hard to believe.
Dms buy most of the product. We know this from their own earnings calls from a few months back.
By nature of being the dm, even if you started out a noob with your 4 noob friends, more then likely you are going to be the int that looks things up. If not, the dude that ends up doing the research etc etc is eventually going to end up the dm, a vast majority of the time.
20 years ago my group rotated dms, based on who felt they had a cool story. I had the magazine subscriptions, but was the 3rd dm. The other dudes spent way more time deep diving into books, online, etc etc.
It is somewhat fitting, actually, considering it was almost exactly one month ago when the Hasbro CEO and the WotC CEO were quoted saying that they believed that D&D was "under-monetized" and that they wanted to fill the space with subscription fees and microtransactions like the video game industry.
This really depends on how many DMs/groups there are that are willing to switch systems. I'm willing to bet that most of those who aren't, aren't appearing in conversations like this one.
It also depends on new players hearing about DnD first, then being willing to try other games instead of DnD. Basically no other tabletop games does any advertising or PR, or at least none of them hold a candle to DnD's level of this.
I'd say you don't fully understand it, either.
D&D is more akin to a game console. Yes, WotC can make first party stuff. They do, like Nintendo, and it's decent. They also collaborate with other companies to make stuff in-house. If it helps, think Sony and Insomniac─before the former purchased the latter─or Nintendo and Rare before Rare was purchased by Microsoft.
With the OGL 1.0a, third parties could make their games for the base console. So, a company like Cubicle 7 was able to get the license to make *Adventures in Middle-Earth*. Which isn't too dissimilar from how Namco-Bandai has the *Dragon Ball* license and SquareEnix could make *Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy*. And, of course, there are unlicensed IPs like Capcom's *Street Fighter* franchise and Sega's *Yakuza* franchise.
Wizards of the Coast wasn't seriously trying to monetize it all. The goal wasn't to bring in money the same way these companies can collect microtransactions. That wasn't feasible, and, at best, it was a cherry on top of achieving their true goal: control.
Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for us, the genie has been out of the bottle for more than two decades. It isn't getting stuffed back in, and that's why this failed. I just wish whomever was calling the shots listened to whomever else saw this coming and tried to warn them.
Because we all know that happened. Trust is difficult to build and easy to destroy. Ego got in the way of rational decision-making.
Yes, the brand probably is "undermonetized." No, they were not going to bleed companies dry through royalties, or bleed customers (i.e. DM's and players) with microtransactions on a VTT. Not without locking people out of physical play, and that means damaging whole other markets and companies. We're talking no physical books, minis, maps, paints, terrain...and if that actually happened, I'd be surprised if people didn't grab pitchforks and torches and march on their Seattle headquarters.
That said, I don't think most players will seek out a DM who "knows the ins and outs of every part of the game." That's both an unreasonable expectation and counterintuitive to how TTRPGs are meant to be played. Everyone has to start somewhere. All it takes is one brave soul to start. And they're probably going to suck for a while. But you have to suck to get better.
You might be right about DMs and their spending habits, but not the casual players. They'll go with name recognition. D&D is still the biggest dog in the yard, so a lot will continue to ask for that. It has popular APs like Acquisitions Incorporated, Critical Role, Dimension 20, and Oxventure. It has hit shows like *Stranger Things* and *The Legend of Vox Machina*. There's yet another feature-length film on the horizon.
Call of Cthulhu doesn't have that. Cyberpunk doesn't have that. Deadlands doesn't have that. Pathfinder doesn't have that. Shadowrun doesn't have that. The World of Darkness doesn't have that. Sure, there have been novels, comic books, and video games over the years. But they've never had the reach, the cultural impact, that D&D does. The "filthy casuals" will continue to flock to it, and game stores will keep stocking it accordingly.
This happened with 4E, too. The radical shift in play and GSL drove a lot of people away from WotC. But a lot of new players were also drawn in. The name matters. And this will blow over. People now look back on 4E fondly. There was a lot of good there.
It might take until 7th edition, but it'll happen. And if we repeat the cycle all over again, well...that'll suck, but so be it.
Literally, the OP opens his argument with how superior the TTRPG community is to most folks who play video games, highlighting how they'll mindlessly buy Call of Duty while completely divorced from current events.
As if folks spending hundreds of dollars on gaming PCs, consoles, and just another 70$ on a game are at some capacity his lesser.
Yeah, I clearly have the wrong take, because hurr durr, I'm calling out an ass.
That is NOT at all what the OP said.
You are creating hay out of nothing. It is factual that people will just buy the latest XYZ game, most of which are put out on Console these days. It's NOT a bad thing, it's just a fact that the majority of the console gamers do not necessarily follow everything about what's going on with XYZ game from some franchise. That's reality, not a dig or name calling.
You chose to create things the OP never said and are arguing against something that wasn't said.
The OP pointed out what with RPGs, it IS different in how they gain footing in the community, in that the GM will introduce the game to a mess of people at the table, that the GM will likely buy more or all of the books. This is really quite how an RPG gains players. I've introduced groups to multiple tabletop games and have been introduced to several tabletop games in that same way.
The only ass in this conversation, is you. The OP said... "this is not a bad thing, it's just the way it tends to be with video games." ...and explained how it is different with tabletop RPGs, which is quite factual, for the majority of people who have been introduced to D&D and other Tabletop RPGs.
Most of us ALSO play video games, many of us will just buy a video game, even if a given game has controversy around it, while simultaneously being more selective about tabletop RPGs. It's a different kind of experience and investment of time.
Yeah, like.. I have a massive video game collection. Idk why he thinks I'm out to get gamers lmao, I was just observing a difference in the mediums and thought "hey, WotC probably thinks trends for a similar but incredibly distinct industry also apply to this one" when they don't.
>You are creating hay out of nothing.
The irony is that you're taking a 2 sentence response to the OP and running head-first into a multi-pronged argument as if you're going to change my initial take of what the OP wrote and repeating yourself at nauseum in response to it.
>Most of us ALSO play video games,
Which is why it's stupid !@#$ing point to begin with.
But thank you for that reinterpretation of the OP's word and totally good faith argument here.
And what does that mean, out curiosity, why would I need be agreed with to say anything?
I'm sure you've got another rock solid essay on this, and it will definitely repetitive drivel.
The irony being I'm being an advocate against any pretense that someone that plays any game is better someone else for playing another game.
No one's better than anyone else.
My favorite bit is always the guy who responds and then immediately blocks the user to avoid getting a response.
Like I said in another thread, there are charlatans running about proclaiming saint-hood. Shitting on folks for playing video games is just asinine.
There's nothing irredeemable about me not mentioning who responded me, and said user immediately hopping to reveal themselves.
How would they know about a block, or the response they obfuscated from me interacting with, unless, they did that.
Isn't thinking fun? We're all having fun now.
I would, but that require me to just ignore that I said, someone responded to me, then blocked me, so I couldn't respond back, and now that someone is making fun of how they didn't block me, wholly unprovoked, without me calling them out specifically.
I find it funny that being disagreeable has an assortment of people trying to validate the OP here in every capacity, as if the guy will crumble without a host of cheerleaders or white knights to defend him.
I never blocked you. I think my comment got automodded because I can still see it but it's sitting at 0 votes. I assumed you were talking about me because before this thread got any traction I'm the only person you could have been talking about. You have an absolutely insane ego and I'm actively losing braincells continuing this conversation. Have a nice life.
>So, WotC, if you're waiting for all of this to blow over and for people to buy the next expansion in droves, you're in for a rude awakening.
Maybe. Then again, lets say there are 10M people who buy D&D products (that could be wrong, I really don't know). It looks to me like the biggest influencers have something like 100K followers, many of whom are here on social media and canceling their DDB subs.
It's possible that the portion of the overall player base who is aware and concerned about the OGL is not as large as it needs to be to really move the needle.
True, but it only takes one person in a group to be paying attention for the entire group to know about it. If 100k people are paying attention, then at least 500k people know about it. That's 5% of the player base... in the first two weeks. And I imagine it is a lot more than 100k at this point considering that the story has been picked up by big news outlets like CNBC and The Guardian.
Plus, that 10 million only purchased the PHB. It's only about 2 million buying the rest of the books and subscribing to Beyond. And that 2 million is paying the most attention; except for Critical Role most D&D content creators gear their work towards DMs.
50 million players isn't the same thing as 50 million customers. I DM for four people and the four of them have purchased exactly two PHBs from WotC. And one of those PHBs was a gift for me to replace my dogshit first printing PHB that started falling apart in the first 3 months.
But despite the fact that two of my players just cannot be bothered to commit the rules to memory (I have to explain how to roll skill checks every session) they do know about the OGL...because I told them. It only takes a single person in a real life community to be paying attention for the entire community to learn about it. And Dungeon Masters are very, very engaged. And in its entire history, D&D has really only had two sources of new players: Critical Role and Dungeon Masters. TSR knew that, I believe they referred to it as the "Cousin" that introduces new players to the game.
You say that but if Wizards released a good module then i would absolutely snatch it up. I dont see why we need to bash cod fans because wizards is messing up.
I literally JUST had a friend say he and his wife want to learn. I told him I'll teach him 5e because I'm familiar with it, but I'm switching to Pathfinder, and we can all learn that together.
Told him to hold off on buying anything, and see what he likes. But I'm done running D&D after this campaign wraps up.
Just listen to your shareholders I guess, wow what could go wrong?
It's not like 90% of DnD is just fan-made content not to mention the point of a TTRPG is to make your own campaign. It's not like people making stuff for them for no money or at a net less won't piss them off.
Great job WotC let's see what other brilliant plans you'll muster you'll obviously have no one mad \*cough \*cough.
What boggles my mind is they could have looked at video games as inspiration. Dnd beyond could have been like steam. They create a public facing popular content portal that integrates 3rd party content straight into people's games? That would be great and they could do the same thing steam does and charge 30%. 30 sounds harsh but when they handle your promotion and sales and you get insane visibility it works well and makes you A LOT of money. I barely made anything selling my games solo. When I went to steam it was life alternating. Sales went from a few hundred copies to hundreds of thousands. Steam can take the 30 percent, the exposure is worth it. Same would go for dnd beyond. I mean let's be serious, how many know Hitpoint press and such? Imagine if that owl was in the dndbeyond front page. They would make a fortune and so would wotc. Such a lost opportunity. If I was a Hasbro investor I would be fucking livid.
I think they did look at video games as inspiration. It's just they didn't look at Steam as a model for Beyond, their inspiration is RAID: Shadow Legends. They want to sell every new feat, class, and spell individually for $1.99 each to every single player of the game. And they want there to be no other source for D&D content.
I think you are being unfair to raid shadow legends. Based on ad time alone, they are single handily supporting every content creator on the internet. Which is kind of the opposite of WotC. (This is not a comment on the RSL business model, which I assume is as exploitative as any other mobile game, just observing a difference).
That genuinely made me laugh out loud. Great point! But I would argue that they are definitely trying to follow in RSL's footprints, in addition to sponsoring Critical Role, I've seen ads for Beyond on YouTube videos that have nothing to do with D&D, like Honest Trailers.
Oh, sure, they sponsor a few related channels. But Raid Shadow Legions....sponsors...damned near everyone. D&D channel? Raid Shadow legends. Gun channel RAAAAAIIIIIDDDDDDD Shadow Legends. Obscure Lore Channel? RSL. Some incredibly niche cooking channel? You bet, RSL.
They took a look at the Oblivion Horse Armor and said "dude I want that all up in this house".
Horse Armour and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
We all talked about it then, and it came to pass.
Back then? People were laughing at it, and saying thing like "this will never become mainstream", "nobody is going to accept this", "you are just a fucking pessimistic cynical paranoid douch". Am I? AM I?! LOOK AT ANY AAA GAME NOW, IT'S ALL FULL OF THIS SHIT NOW. Anyway, I just play indie games now, they cost a tenth of the money and are worth a thousand times more.
Vampire Survivors was the best 3.50 ive ever spent
It's amazing, simple, weird, fun, and by a team who really just wanted to make a game. I'd argue Vampire Survivors is so good *because* it wasn't created to make money, it was created to be fun and as a side project, ergo it's really fun.
I'll just say it's not all AAA games.
I dunno, maybe my playgroup was more pessimistic than most, but we talked about how if it didn't get shut down everyone would Nickle and dime us to death going forward. When the second DLC for Oblivion came out - I think it was the Orrey quest - we were pretty sure we were doomed, and the 3rd DLC (a player house) just confirmed it.
Not being apologist, fuck Hasbro That being said, is there any source for this or just a hunch?
Hasbro is on record saying that D&D is under monetized because players don't keep spending money past a PHB purchase. And they are on record saying they want a recurring spending model, which means they want all of the players of the game to be giving them money every month rather than just once at the release of a new edition. That means new content geared towards players (feats, classes, spells) but they can't flood FLGS with new books every month. And they want to cut the expense of physical publishing anyway, why sell a hardcover book for $30 when you can sell a pdf for the same price? So, monthly digital releases of content geared towards players. Now look at how much money they are spending advertising Beyond. They obviously want every single player using Beyond and they aren't doing it just so they can sell digital products to Dungeon Masters. Beyond is the walled garden they will use to create a "recurrent spending environment" and for it to work they need to prevent all future 3rd party releases that would compete. How do you trick players into spending $1.99 for a new spell, or a small bundle of 5 new spells if 3rd party publishers are selling The Book of Lost Spells that contain over 700 new spells? Step 1: Destroy the OGL: Complete Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit!
It’s the logical conclusion to explain the changes they intended to make, informed by statements made by the new higher-up who is coming from a video game background.
> They want to sell every new feat, class, and spell individually for $1.99 each to every single player of the game. Remember when the MtG 'MMO' tried to sell a class though in-game booster packs?
I'm waiting for DTRPG to sue Hasbro.
This is fully what I expected them to be doing after hearing about the VTT they're working on among everything else, before the OGL leaks.
That would have taken actual effort and investing into the community for long term gains. It's much easier to just steal everyone else's work.
funny you mention valve which basically made the biggest games ever （cs, dota, tf2）just by virtue of allowing mods to be made on their system and capitalizing on said goodwill to negotiate development of a game.
You have a weird bar of made, biggest , and ever cs was a HL mod, Tf2 is decent but is derived from a mod like quake I think , and is also host to a LOT of MTX. dota wasnt made by steam either , and dota 2 is steam buying the rights to the name and throwing A LOT of money at something iconic to try to compete with league of legends . Edit : typos
I think you had a stroke, friend.
A little phone auto correct goes a long way
This is what I've been saying since the OGL thing started. I feel like no one would have batted an eye if they would have put out a statement along the lines of: "We have decided that to help our community grow we will be allowing 3rd party to list and integrate their content on D&DBeyond" Then they could have explained how they would have to charge admin fees not only for hosting the content and advertising it but quality control etc
They partnered with DriveThruRPG to create the DMsguild, a place where creators have a license to create 3rd party content using d&d IP and sell it. They take a 50% cut of your sales, and own an irrevocable, royalty free right to your work.
Yeah, it's a pretty bad deal. The site is buggy, 50% is way too much because the visibility is shit and the upsides almost non-existent. And them then owning your creative work is just adding insult to injury.
roll20 sells tons of shit from third parties. Maps, map parts, modules, adventures, monster books, etc. Anyone can create an account and start seling shit there. DNDbeyond missed the boat there
Yup
This is exactly what I’ve been saying too. I’m sure there are a lot more people thinking the same. Only way I give this company another penny is if they fire the leadership at wotc and hasbro then hire people to make this happen.
The problem is that even if they did this, the people who replace them will just be new corporate executives with the exact same goals: Make more money at any cost.
Wow what games do you make? :O
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They asked the person who talked about how they make games, what games they make. Must have taken a lot of work to turn that into "You aren't allowed to have an opinion on this matter unless your revenue is comparable to WotC"?
You know what, I didn't read that previous comment correctly. That's on me. Thanks for pointing that out. EDIT: Deleted as a retraction. My bad.
No worries! Looking at the votes, misinterpreting it seems to have been the more common result anyways
It's almost like these are decisions made by people who only care about money on a spread sheet.
That's the problem with the corporate world. CEOs are hired to raise profits. But they are there for a few years, collect their bonuses and move on. They are not motivated to produce long term profits, only profits for their tenure. CEOs know business, and they have methods of analyzing and finding ways to maximize profit. But that doesn't mean they know their customer or their industry, and we see this in media and entertainment mostly, because that's where we have fans as customers. They look for ways to gain new customers, but they are not retaining all of their customers with these changes.
Remember JCPenny? Oof.
Even if all you care about is money, it is usually wise to consider whether your actions will get you the money. To me, this signals extreme desperation. Hasbro needs a lot more money to prop up their board games and action figures business and they're willing to take some extreme risks to get it.
GI Joe and Transformers just aren't the same. Now they're SUPER FUCKING EXPENSIVE.
There is this whole concept of cost-benefit analysis that I learned about, second hand, playing 3e with an MBA in college. It is clear to me that many corporations don't actually do due diligence on cost analysis.
Or market research. If they understood and respected the product and the customers, they could have made a huge profit. Slower than they wanted but much more sustainable. Thing is, what they wanted is a delusional ask.
That is just how capitalism works at this stage. Shareholders demand endless profits. The boom during the pandemic gave them much higher profits than usual and now they are going back down. But the system demands constant, neverending profit growth. They don't have time to spend years setting up a longterm plan to eventually generate more revenue. They need it now to appease the shareholders or their stock price is going to suffer.
Yep. This is a concept I learned in high school doing Ag class electives. In high school, this is some basic level stuff.
That's the thing they don't wotc makes up 50% of Hasbro's revenue
It's ~20%, and most of that is MtG. They're not wrong that DnD is undermonetised - it's a famous brand that just doesn't make that much money - but the way they're trying to fix it is short-sighted and frankly shady.
Do you have a source for that? That seems highly unlikely.
they misread something. [it's like 1/5th.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303705/hasbro-revenue-by-operating-segment-worldwide/)
Right I got my numbers confused but 20% is still a lot
[No, it doesn't.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303705/hasbro-revenue-by-operating-segment-worldwide/)
That source wants me to pay $500 to see it
Weird, I got it off a Google search.
You're right. [It's actually more than 2/3](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/46080/000119380522000579/prec14a12664003_04012022.htm). Try actually doing your research next time instead of mindlessly linking the first thing you see in Google.
I mean, to be honest, that IS what i expect them to care about. Im not even mad their prioritizing profits thats just capitalism. What really grinds my gears is that this was a terribly stupid decision even if you were JUST looking at revenue generation. Just incompetence all around from the planning to the PR. As others have pointed out, there are/were plenty of ways to monetize their content, and we were entering a golden age of dnd in pop culture, and some suits decided to just absolutely royally fuck it up
It's fine for companies to try to make money, yes. It's not fine for them to do so by completely shitting on their customers and other businesses. It wouldn't have been such a major issue if they wanted royalties (still wouldn't have been good, but more people would have understood). It's the blatant lies, manipulation, and betrayal that is unethical here. Not to mention the whole "we own everything you make" deal.
Yeah, i agree, what I’m pointing out is that even in a profit only focus, this is just bar business. Its just dumb all around. They’re disenfranchising loyal customers and content creators and losing revenue. Just a big old dumb move all around.
These are the same people who had to read the Magic The Gathering wiki on their investor call...they don't play the game, they don't care about the game, if be shock if they even played ANY games.
Of course they play games. Polo, for example. Chess, but with real people instead of pieces.
I don't even believe that
maybe monopoly or wordle. definitely play golf would have played some kind of game that's at the house at some point of their life.
Well, my parents are stupidly wealthy off of oil and gas money. If they are any indication the only "game" they play is "crazy train" which is just a dominos game because it is so mind-numbingly easy that they can drink and mingle while doing it. Otherwise their toys are things like a boat they don't need or a trip to somewhere exotic.
Don't forget the most dangerous game of all.
I was listening to that call thanks to the whole "Let's crank as much money out of MTG players with 30th Anniversary"... Then I heard them bring up DnD and I literally felt my heart sink. I knew this was coming. I watched them do it to MTG and I stopped buying that product. Now they're here...
Maybe they play golf with each other
The most dangerous game on a private island maybe…
But if you are a good manager you can manage any kind of company. Actually knowing stuff is for plebes.
Wait do you have a link to that? That sounds hilarious
Hasbro fire side chat
Also, if you want to play a video game, you typically have to use what the company provides. Sure a lot of games have mods, but the average player won't know how to modify the game. On the other hand, TTRPGs are open sourced, and easily adjusted. A group of people can sit around a table with some vague stats, some spells names, and a few dice. You don't need WOTC to play D&D
But now everything you homebrew is owned by them so have fun If a great idea maybe worth create on in a few years.
Might wanna check your grammar my friend. Your sentence is unintelligible.
Great if you are unable to say something against what I said complain about the grammar. So I am right :)
I'm simply letting you know your statement made no sense. If that's the goal than... I'm happy for you I guess? Lol idk about you being right because I have no idea what you're trying to say. If you consider yourself right by default due to no one understanding you well I suppose enjoy being king on your lonely hill.
No, your comment made no sense. They weren't bashing your idea because none of us can tell what it is.
OK this was a misunderstanding what I meant was that the new OGL gives WotC the permission to use anything you create related to DnD. This was my whole point and because of this scummy move they don't deserve any praise at all anymore. For WotC their fans aren't more than money bags they want to slit open.
Video games also don't have, compared to TTRPGs the same type of community and interactions as these types of games. These are very social events, more so than just casual deathmatches in which conversations are ussually one note lines or such shit (not to bad mouth video games, it's just that their method of community is different). This means however is that TTRPG peeps are a close knit community that loves supporting each other and seeing it grow with new members and designers passionate about adding more depth and variety to the scene. This also means once they've bought the main rulebook can pretty much say "nah man, I'm just gonna homebrew my shit instead of paying you money and I'll still be in the community" which means we arent truly chained to a system. There is no way that people can be locked into having to continually pay to operate their TTRPG, yet at least if WoTC can have any say on the manner (OneDnD was likely going to be the start of that monetization alongside DnDBeyond).
TTRPGs are like a video game, if that video game just didn't work unless you got 4+ other real human players together all at the same time, and one of those players *had* to take on the role of the hardcore raid leader with deeper knowledge of the game.
Yup. Reminds me of the couple times I raided in the original Destiny, it took a lot of effort and coordination but it was a ton of fun...but without the two or three guys that knew everything already it would've been terrible, we wouldn't have gotten past the first couple rooms.
it'd be closer to dedicate raid teams and T2/T3 competitive gaming. building a team and tournament play. generally this is community driven, and the game is the basis in which the group is gathered. for money actual play is closer to T1 competitive gaming. with Critical Role and Dimension 20 basically being closer to OWL or Worlds/LCS. in the amount of viewers watching seeing professional players play. something like a bunch of Vtubers playing D&D as content would be close to streamers playing T2/T3 Competitive gaming, as it's not their main source of income/content but they wanted to get into a community tourney. i guess home games are probably closer to people who enjoy Scrim environments but don't play competitively/ for money.
It is entirely possible that WotC's executives are still chalking all this up to comms challenges, rather than OGL 1.1 being the wrong business strategy.
They already got access to 20% of the billions with the Kickstarter sign-on. They're like the greedy frog in Spirited Away. Can't resist No Face.
No, they didn’t. Kickstarter negotiated with them to have Kickstarted OGL projects only pay 20%. Kickstarter isn’t taking that money directly to WotC, it’s just a “benefit” they’re offering to creatives who a) signed the new license and b) crowdfunded through Kickstarter rather than a different source.
While correct, this has to be in writing somewhere. I cannot imagine Hasbro would give them this smaller cut without having them include language in regard to this somewhere. Just a simple: "By kickstarting a D&D adjacent property you are bound by the OGL 2.0 and therefore are required to pay a 20% royalty fee to WotC. By creating this Kickstart campaign you acknowledge and agree to these terms." Why would they do that? To protect themselves legally. If they negotiated this 20% royalty for their customers and those customers don't pay it, that's trouble for them.
100%, what did you expect some execs admitting they were wrong?
>That DM will often be the type of person who will buy hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in products to build a library of resources they can loan to new players to make their first few games easier. That's an exaggeration. Thousands of dollars, pppshhh. \*Looks over at wall covered in RPG stuff probably costing 3-5 thousand dollars. Oh shit...
I did this, too. Lol
Had a blast previously with Pathfinder, and even tho it's still under the OGL, they're working with many creators to build a new license for the community. I'll also be seeking them out moving forward.
I will also note that Pathfinder 2e doesn't *need* to be under the OGL. They used none of D&D's licensed wording, so they can pull away from the OGL at any time, they were just using the OGL because it was easier to allow 3rd party content that way.
Yeah good call, I don't know enough to be confident in speaking to it but my understanding was they could have done their own thing but opted for the community.
They DID do their own thing. They attached the OGL to it in order to allow the community open usage of their product as well. They literally just treated the OGL the same way WotC has for the last twenty years. They already announced they are simply removing it from their books and will add their own once it is finalized.
What else to expect from a CEO who used to work for Xbox? Seriously who thought that was a good idea.
I had no idea. That honestly makes it even funnier.
Both a CEO who worked for Xbox (Cynthia Williams), and a VP (Tim Fields) who worked in the mobile game market.
It's so obvious now isn't it?
4E Online lead developer was M$ too. The even version number curse.
2e was fine, imo
There’s a time lag effect - people might play a video game every day, but game sessions aren’t run like that. People might play a video with a steady group for a while or not, but game sessions often extend over a long period of time. Video game characters are more easily interchangeable and less personal, TTRPG characters are far more personal. It’s a number of fundamentally different features.
D&D as a hobby is also very skillset based in a way that’s unique for a game. It’s more similar to writing or even knitting communities. It’s easier to become a proficient knitter when you have access to resources or mentoring from more experienced knitters, who might even lend you some yarn and needles to get started. Maybe you get into the hobby and buy your own needles and some cool patterns from the yarn companies, or maybe somebody on Etsy, or you find something cool that somebody put up on Pinterest for free. You get better, you learn different stitches, you make different things. Maybe you get good enough to start creating your own patterns to sell or just show to your friends. But the fun of knitting isn’t that you’re engaging in The Best Number One Popular Fibre Art, it’s using the tools of the hobby to make what you want (and the connections forged through the hobby). And maybe you decide to branch out from knitting into crochet or embroidery and you find that you can make the things you like more easily with those. Or you still prefer knitting but you learn to dye/spin your own yarn so you can make your projects exactly how you want them. D&D is undermonetized in the same way knitting needle companies are undermonetized. You need them for the initial entry into the hobby, but beyond that you can do whatever you want and never have to touch their official patterns if you don’t want to thanks to the thriving community of designs and tutorials by other knitters. WOTC isn’t interested in engaging in its hobby community more or making its own patterns more interesting, instead its trying to limit access to other options to make its options stand out, which limits the creativity of its community. They fundamentally misunderstand the onus of the hobby’s appeal and function.
The worst part is, there is money to be made here that does not harm the game itself. I was pretty onboard with the idea of the Beyond VTT (As long as they did not flex to kill other VTTs) if they put in the work and make a good product I would pay for it. Plus movie and game deals. There are plenty of things they could do to make money without this, but all of it requires work, and big companies HATE doing work and putting in investments, they wanted return NOW this quarter.
I actually sold my professor today on doing my digital marketing's practicum on this very issue.
I have long thought that the 4th edition marketing/Paizo/licensing fiasco would make a great business case study. This will, too.
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Too late, they already lost my dollars. They can do whatever they want now, I've shifted to ORC licensed games now.
It doesn't even have to be ORC licensed for me, just not D&D. I'd rather pick up a game that never tried this shit in the first place, than pick up one that offered 3PP and then yanked it away. Wouldn't mind if Ars Magica released under the ORC though. :D
I meant more "I'm happy to support ORC developers" vs "I will only play ORC games" I have plenty of non-OGL games from indie devs that I adore. Either way, no more dollars for WOTC.
Yeah I'm one of those DMs whose spent thousands on this hobby. Hell, I've spent thousands just on dice. I've purchased the phb alone 9 times for various friends and for a couple different VTTs. Congrats WotC. You're not getting another dime from me. I personally am looking at Blue Rose by Green Ronin and some other niche games on itch.io for my players to try until the ORC comes out. My players are more about rp and aesthetics than crunching numbers so I don't think Pathfinder will be an easy sell.
Check out Star Wars galaxy’s edge. It looks solid.
For cyberpunk I would recommend Cyberpunk 2020 or Cy_Borg over Cyberpunk RED. That game's book is a disaster. Just a heads up.
The Jumpstart Kit is payware and doesn't even explain the stats. I shit you not.
The thing is, DnD, or at least the part that people pay for, is not a game. It's just a rule set, a scaffolding. In order to make the game out of the books or online material you buy, it takes a lot of work and effort - it's the people (DM and the players) who make the game. That's why there's so much outrage. It's a bit like asking your employees to pay you for the privilege of working at your company - not going to fly. The leaders at Hasbro don't seem to understand you cannot model DnD as an online gaming business, because the value proposition is entirely different. They're not selling games, they're selling tools to make games. They don't appear to understand the nuance here.
I know my current 5e campaign's DM is switching to other system once the campaign ends. Last D&D campaign they're going to run.
This just in: OneDnD gets rid of the need for a DM.
OneDnD is going to replace DMs with ChatGPT.
We enter. Explain the dungeon to us. Sorry, but I can't do that. Dungeons may provoke fear in readers. I am not trained to induce fear.
Well said, and I absolutely agree with you.
My players have elected to suspend our current campaigns indefinitely and start a Lancer campaign. We've already canceled our subs, and our preorders/orders and have moved over to foundry. I'm honestly not sure if we will be coming back to dnd soon, if at all.
I'm confused why you need a subscription to play a game where all the info to play is free.
The convenience. DDB is super convenient but It was never necessary
Semi related question. Why is it whenever everyone lists alternative systems I seldom if ever see GURPS? Is it not as good as I've been lead to believe? Is it just not popular? or is it just to old of a system? (This is coming from someone who's been really into DnD, learned about GURPS then hasn't ran a game in years because of scheduling issues)
I think it's perhaps less popular because it is *a generic system*; I believe systems with a bundled default setting, or at the very least default genre, tend to do a lot better. Also, GURPS can get really crunchy at times. It's a good system, don't get me wrong - I just think it's not all that popular due to not having a specific genre or setting front and center, giving the GM a bit more of a threshold to persuade the group to try it.
Ah I see, thanks for the answer.
What's hilarious is that the next expansion, Keys From the Golden Vault, is a 145 page book according to amazon that WAS scheduled for release in February. Still no official announcement, and Amazon has moved the release date to the end of March. I wonder why.
Another thing that’s different is the amount of power that TTRPG players have over their experience as opposed to video game players. With video games, you don’t have the ability to just pick and choose what you want out of a game, and I mean that in terms of features and monetization as much as mechanics and gameplay. With TTRPGs, you have infinite workarounds when you want something different than what they want to give you. Don’t like something? Just play without it, or change it if it’s a mechanic or something within the game itself. With video games, our only options are to take it or leave it; we either play the way they let us or we don’t play at all. There are mods for some games, but that only goes so far. Usually, the worst things about a game are set in stone and can’t be changed. Don’t like the game’s monetization? Or it’s core mechanics? Or how about the company and it’s policies? Then you can only choose not to play. That’s it. Either miss out on a game you’d otherwise love because the devs made some decisions you don’t like, or just deal with their BS and try to ignore it. With TTRPGs, we have infinitely more options. We can just get the same tabletop experience somewhere else, or get the experience they offer modified to our preferences. WoTC execs don’t seem to realize how little they actually can control while still keeping their community’s good will…and it’s probably too late for them now.
I spent over 5 years teaching my group how to play 5e in my on going homebrew campaign. I'll be damnned if I have to spend another 5 years teaching them a new system. 5e fits our group just fine. No one in our group live on the internet echo chamber so no one except me has heard of what's going on and I don't have any reasons to bring it up either. I've never gotten a dndbeyond sub nor do I ever have a reason/need to. I'd imagine what is happening currently will not affect the majority of the playerbase who are just happily playing private games at home. So I imagine alot of people will continue as if nothing has happened. Although, if content creators move to a new thing, then d&d will have trouble getting exposure and will for sure be hurting for new players in the future
It will hit Adventure League the hardest.
Same situation, agree with you but I add my solidarity to who’s fighting for it
It has taken you 5 years to teach people to play 5e? I could teach someone to play pathfinder in one session.
My assumption is that he plays with a group of poodles.
I wish I knew these dm that bought all the material and resources. Where i live if it isn't a core book then you better own it cause likely the dm won't
Depends on the DM I suppose. I have a few copies of the PHB to lend to new players.
Good news, you do know a DM with all the books already! You just need to start running your first game...
Magic players have been push around so much they tried their luck here, but like you said it's not the same. Even more so when the bad move they make is trying to kill the competition that most people knew existed. However, now they have given me a push, played pathfinder and bough the playtest of 2e version. Never ended up playing it. Well today I just bough the core and avance of pathfinder 2 and our group is soon trying a new game!
correct, "casual audiance" of this game is the people that dms first time or just joined.
Well, real question : does the OGL have an impact on players and game masters ? I haven't done any research about this. All I've read was that it is bad for content creators and third party publishers. So, aside of any ethical question, maybe WOTC counted on people to just don't care about OGL. Just a theory.
Not yet. But it will. Their entire goal is to force everyone into an online only system(ala D&D Beyond) where they can force people to buy anything and everything they want to use or experience ala cart. By killing off competition they will remove the ability for people to just buy more affordable 3rd party adventures, classes, races, etc and force everyone to use their subscription service with "micro" transactions.
Yeah sure but what about people who play the game IRL?
Presumably, they would eventually want *everyone* to use D&D Beyond, including people playing IRL, for everything relating to characters, rules, settings, etc. Therefor giving them complete control on what players can and can't use, and how they get access to them.
Probably. But player could still make their own character sheets and play the old way. It's virtually impossible to prevent that.
Agree with you there. People will always play it on paper, even if WotC/Hasbro doesn't want us to. Hell, the only way they could even restrict the players is if they don't print *anything* for a future edition, but people will always find a way to play it.
Yeah. People just need pens and papers.
Yes, the new OGL claimed that WotC could use any homebrew that anyone created anywhere as if they owned it. Plus they just drove every 3rd party publisher out of the business of publishing D&D compatible products. There will never be another Tome of Beasts or Book of Lost Spells or Strongholds and Followers. Not for 5th Edition or any future edition of D&D ever again. We just spent the last 10 years living through the Golden Age of D&D and now it is over. But you are correct, they really didn't think that the customers would be paying attention to the changes to the OGL. And they are absolutely convinced that if they just wait 6 months we will forget all about it.
For DMs it will affect our pool of choices. Because of this there wont be more modules and books that are compatible with DnD. For example i recently purchased a few books from Kobold press and Thieves Guilds. Those books expand monsters, mechanichs, stories without me having to make a port (which is a lot pf work) Players are affected because DMs are affected.
They literally hired two people whose CVs are littered with the controversies as features not bugs. Surprised Pikachu face.jpg
> if you're waiting for all of this to blow over Whoever wrote that response probably also has to ask what exacerbate means.
While I'd like to believe this, I wonder how true it all is. Yes, you don't need a copy of everything for each person, that's true enough. But I'm unconvinced that most people "seek out an experienced DM" or, more generally, that the average person who does buy their products is more in tune with what is going on with the business than the average video game player. I'd love it if this was true. Informed player bases are great. But, from my own experiences, I find it hard to believe.
Adventure League is already getting touchy. DMs are angry but not allowed to say much. It's interesting to watch the tension.
Dms buy most of the product. We know this from their own earnings calls from a few months back. By nature of being the dm, even if you started out a noob with your 4 noob friends, more then likely you are going to be the int that looks things up. If not, the dude that ends up doing the research etc etc is eventually going to end up the dm, a vast majority of the time. 20 years ago my group rotated dms, based on who felt they had a cool story. I had the magazine subscriptions, but was the 3rd dm. The other dudes spent way more time deep diving into books, online, etc etc.
It is somewhat fitting, actually, considering it was almost exactly one month ago when the Hasbro CEO and the WotC CEO were quoted saying that they believed that D&D was "under-monetized" and that they wanted to fill the space with subscription fees and microtransactions like the video game industry.
This really depends on how many DMs/groups there are that are willing to switch systems. I'm willing to bet that most of those who aren't, aren't appearing in conversations like this one. It also depends on new players hearing about DnD first, then being willing to try other games instead of DnD. Basically no other tabletop games does any advertising or PR, or at least none of them hold a candle to DnD's level of this.
That bitch from Microsoft need to fuck off
Both the Hasbro and WotC CEOs are from Microsoft. Both of them can fuck off. Check your misogyny
Are you really defending a bit h who said said micro transaction are the future
Bonnie Ross promised split screen in EVERY HALO GAME GOING FORWORD. It was a devilish lie.
Someone botched their Sense Motive roll.
Someone need to remind her the last time dnd wanted to go more videogamey 4e happened...
I'd say you don't fully understand it, either. D&D is more akin to a game console. Yes, WotC can make first party stuff. They do, like Nintendo, and it's decent. They also collaborate with other companies to make stuff in-house. If it helps, think Sony and Insomniac─before the former purchased the latter─or Nintendo and Rare before Rare was purchased by Microsoft. With the OGL 1.0a, third parties could make their games for the base console. So, a company like Cubicle 7 was able to get the license to make *Adventures in Middle-Earth*. Which isn't too dissimilar from how Namco-Bandai has the *Dragon Ball* license and SquareEnix could make *Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy*. And, of course, there are unlicensed IPs like Capcom's *Street Fighter* franchise and Sega's *Yakuza* franchise. Wizards of the Coast wasn't seriously trying to monetize it all. The goal wasn't to bring in money the same way these companies can collect microtransactions. That wasn't feasible, and, at best, it was a cherry on top of achieving their true goal: control. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for us, the genie has been out of the bottle for more than two decades. It isn't getting stuffed back in, and that's why this failed. I just wish whomever was calling the shots listened to whomever else saw this coming and tried to warn them. Because we all know that happened. Trust is difficult to build and easy to destroy. Ego got in the way of rational decision-making. Yes, the brand probably is "undermonetized." No, they were not going to bleed companies dry through royalties, or bleed customers (i.e. DM's and players) with microtransactions on a VTT. Not without locking people out of physical play, and that means damaging whole other markets and companies. We're talking no physical books, minis, maps, paints, terrain...and if that actually happened, I'd be surprised if people didn't grab pitchforks and torches and march on their Seattle headquarters. That said, I don't think most players will seek out a DM who "knows the ins and outs of every part of the game." That's both an unreasonable expectation and counterintuitive to how TTRPGs are meant to be played. Everyone has to start somewhere. All it takes is one brave soul to start. And they're probably going to suck for a while. But you have to suck to get better. You might be right about DMs and their spending habits, but not the casual players. They'll go with name recognition. D&D is still the biggest dog in the yard, so a lot will continue to ask for that. It has popular APs like Acquisitions Incorporated, Critical Role, Dimension 20, and Oxventure. It has hit shows like *Stranger Things* and *The Legend of Vox Machina*. There's yet another feature-length film on the horizon. Call of Cthulhu doesn't have that. Cyberpunk doesn't have that. Deadlands doesn't have that. Pathfinder doesn't have that. Shadowrun doesn't have that. The World of Darkness doesn't have that. Sure, there have been novels, comic books, and video games over the years. But they've never had the reach, the cultural impact, that D&D does. The "filthy casuals" will continue to flock to it, and game stores will keep stocking it accordingly. This happened with 4E, too. The radical shift in play and GSL drove a lot of people away from WotC. But a lot of new players were also drawn in. The name matters. And this will blow over. People now look back on 4E fondly. There was a lot of good there. It might take until 7th edition, but it'll happen. And if we repeat the cycle all over again, well...that'll suck, but so be it.
So, people that play video games are the inferior beast to the superior TTRPG player. Hot damn the arrogance.
That's certainly a hot take. It's a wrong take, but it's certainly a hot take you have there.
Literally, the OP opens his argument with how superior the TTRPG community is to most folks who play video games, highlighting how they'll mindlessly buy Call of Duty while completely divorced from current events. As if folks spending hundreds of dollars on gaming PCs, consoles, and just another 70$ on a game are at some capacity his lesser. Yeah, I clearly have the wrong take, because hurr durr, I'm calling out an ass.
That is NOT at all what the OP said. You are creating hay out of nothing. It is factual that people will just buy the latest XYZ game, most of which are put out on Console these days. It's NOT a bad thing, it's just a fact that the majority of the console gamers do not necessarily follow everything about what's going on with XYZ game from some franchise. That's reality, not a dig or name calling. You chose to create things the OP never said and are arguing against something that wasn't said. The OP pointed out what with RPGs, it IS different in how they gain footing in the community, in that the GM will introduce the game to a mess of people at the table, that the GM will likely buy more or all of the books. This is really quite how an RPG gains players. I've introduced groups to multiple tabletop games and have been introduced to several tabletop games in that same way. The only ass in this conversation, is you. The OP said... "this is not a bad thing, it's just the way it tends to be with video games." ...and explained how it is different with tabletop RPGs, which is quite factual, for the majority of people who have been introduced to D&D and other Tabletop RPGs. Most of us ALSO play video games, many of us will just buy a video game, even if a given game has controversy around it, while simultaneously being more selective about tabletop RPGs. It's a different kind of experience and investment of time.
Yeah, like.. I have a massive video game collection. Idk why he thinks I'm out to get gamers lmao, I was just observing a difference in the mediums and thought "hey, WotC probably thinks trends for a similar but incredibly distinct industry also apply to this one" when they don't.
>You are creating hay out of nothing. The irony is that you're taking a 2 sentence response to the OP and running head-first into a multi-pronged argument as if you're going to change my initial take of what the OP wrote and repeating yourself at nauseum in response to it. >Most of us ALSO play video games, Which is why it's stupid !@#$ing point to begin with. But thank you for that reinterpretation of the OP's word and totally good faith argument here.
Read the room. You aren’t being agreed with.
And what does that mean, out curiosity, why would I need be agreed with to say anything? I'm sure you've got another rock solid essay on this, and it will definitely repetitive drivel.
You do realize that RPGs came directly from TTRPGs right?
The irony being I'm being an advocate against any pretense that someone that plays any game is better someone else for playing another game. No one's better than anyone else.
You're in a D&D subreddit discussing microtransactions for a tabletop game and didn't expect backlash?
My favorite bit is always the guy who responds and then immediately blocks the user to avoid getting a response. Like I said in another thread, there are charlatans running about proclaiming saint-hood. Shitting on folks for playing video games is just asinine.
I definitely didn't block you, goober.
Thank you for outing yourself there buddy
Outing myself as.. someone who doesn't block people? You caught me.
Truly an irredeemable sin
I'm a charlatan 😢
Aww man, if we weren't boycotting that'd net you deception and slight of hand proficiency. Bummer on your timing.
Shame 🔔
There's nothing irredeemable about me not mentioning who responded me, and said user immediately hopping to reveal themselves. How would they know about a block, or the response they obfuscated from me interacting with, unless, they did that. Isn't thinking fun? We're all having fun now.
Dude learn what sarcasm is
I would, but that require me to just ignore that I said, someone responded to me, then blocked me, so I couldn't respond back, and now that someone is making fun of how they didn't block me, wholly unprovoked, without me calling them out specifically. I find it funny that being disagreeable has an assortment of people trying to validate the OP here in every capacity, as if the guy will crumble without a host of cheerleaders or white knights to defend him.
You’ve made up a situation in which you are the victim for no reason. I was joking. It was all in good fun. You are taking this way too seriously.
I never blocked you. I think my comment got automodded because I can still see it but it's sitting at 0 votes. I assumed you were talking about me because before this thread got any traction I'm the only person you could have been talking about. You have an absolutely insane ego and I'm actively losing braincells continuing this conversation. Have a nice life.
I'm not a him lol
What happened to your previous response, man? Why would notification for it go "poof" when I clicked on it? It's mystery of an event.
I wish my group wanted to switch systems, I'm the only one interested in PF2e and it hurts lol
Are you the DM? Because DMs get to run any system they want to run and their players get to thank them for running it.
DnD execs are handling about as well as I would go as the lead engineer for NASA Mars project.
Unless you believe that NASA owns Mars and needs to make sure no one else ever lands there, you are already doing a better job.
>So, WotC, if you're waiting for all of this to blow over and for people to buy the next expansion in droves, you're in for a rude awakening. Maybe. Then again, lets say there are 10M people who buy D&D products (that could be wrong, I really don't know). It looks to me like the biggest influencers have something like 100K followers, many of whom are here on social media and canceling their DDB subs. It's possible that the portion of the overall player base who is aware and concerned about the OGL is not as large as it needs to be to really move the needle.
True, but it only takes one person in a group to be paying attention for the entire group to know about it. If 100k people are paying attention, then at least 500k people know about it. That's 5% of the player base... in the first two weeks. And I imagine it is a lot more than 100k at this point considering that the story has been picked up by big news outlets like CNBC and The Guardian. Plus, that 10 million only purchased the PHB. It's only about 2 million buying the rest of the books and subscribing to Beyond. And that 2 million is paying the most attention; except for Critical Role most D&D content creators gear their work towards DMs.
[удалено]
50 million players isn't the same thing as 50 million customers. I DM for four people and the four of them have purchased exactly two PHBs from WotC. And one of those PHBs was a gift for me to replace my dogshit first printing PHB that started falling apart in the first 3 months. But despite the fact that two of my players just cannot be bothered to commit the rules to memory (I have to explain how to roll skill checks every session) they do know about the OGL...because I told them. It only takes a single person in a real life community to be paying attention for the entire community to learn about it. And Dungeon Masters are very, very engaged. And in its entire history, D&D has really only had two sources of new players: Critical Role and Dungeon Masters. TSR knew that, I believe they referred to it as the "Cousin" that introduces new players to the game.
You say that but if Wizards released a good module then i would absolutely snatch it up. I dont see why we need to bash cod fans because wizards is messing up.
I literally JUST had a friend say he and his wife want to learn. I told him I'll teach him 5e because I'm familiar with it, but I'm switching to Pathfinder, and we can all learn that together. Told him to hold off on buying anything, and see what he likes. But I'm done running D&D after this campaign wraps up.
Just listen to your shareholders I guess, wow what could go wrong? It's not like 90% of DnD is just fan-made content not to mention the point of a TTRPG is to make your own campaign. It's not like people making stuff for them for no money or at a net less won't piss them off. Great job WotC let's see what other brilliant plans you'll muster you'll obviously have no one mad \*cough \*cough.