Quote from: Tyberious Funk;1139271Hasbro's gaze is well and truly set upon D&D already...

https://www.geeknative.com/71159/hasbro-on-plan-to-double-the-money-they-make-from-wizards-of-the-coast/

That's actually just a pretty standard top-level corporate management strategy up-talk about one of their divisions.  It doesn't mean much beyond 'we are trying to make more profit' in the coming few years.  I had to wade through a number of those from BMW when I did a managerial assessment paper on them for class last quarter.

Quote from: Tyberious Funk;1139231I find it funny that people think that WotC is "woke".  It's a subsidiary of a major corporation... corps don't have emotions or morals.  Their goal is to make money.  In fact, as a publicly traded company, Hasbro has an obligation to create value for their shareholders.  They may have a few employees who genuinely think they are "making a difference"... and maybe they are.  But that's only because right now, it's not hurting their bottom line.  The whole OA thing is perfect example... People here think it is an example of WotC being forced to "bend the knee".  But the reality is that they are still selling product and still making money.  I guarantee some of their bean counters worked out they were making enough money off some of their "problematic" products that they didn't want to shut them down.  I can't imagine they make a lot of sales from legacy products, but the sales they do make are almost pure profit because the cost of the R&D has been amortized a looong time ago.

Maybe WotC will drive D&D into the ground, but I doubt it.  Isn't 5e the biggest selling edition ever?

Corporations are made up of people. Those people collectively form what's called a "corporate culture". This happens in every company. Some, like Chic-fil-A, have famously conservative cultures. Others, like Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast, have famously left-wing extremist (I can't use the word liberal because it objectively doesn't apply) cultures. And while corporations are ostensibly formed to make money, there are times when the corporate culture is at direct odds with that purpose. One such example is when Kathleen Kennedy publicly declared that if you're a cis white male, then Star Wars isn'tfor you, resulting in a widespread boycott of the launch of "Solo", costing the company billions.

So it's really not that hard. When people say WotC is "woke", they're talking about the people and the culture that make up that corporate entity.

Edit: And in the case of Star Wars, the corporate PR machine was very, very quick to label the movie's failure as "franchise fatigue", so as to draw attention away from all the anger that the president of the company caused to the fandom.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1139078WoTC keeps submitting to the D&D SJW demands, and they keep saying they're not good enough. If someone in the company doesn't wise up, they'll run the game into the ground.




[video=youtube_share;3oUfiVn2tjM]https://youtu.be/3oUfiVn2tjM[/youtube]

This is exactly right.  Appeasement of whackos usually gets more whackos involved.  

I too have said: the paying customer who buys all the books (not just pirates and shares) and who buys all the related accessories is NOT the SJW.  It's the traditionalist who plays the game and works for a living and uses some of their entertainment dollar on games.

I (we) don't want Marxist pablum force fed to us via the Trojan horse of our games.  So right now, the twitter hordes are ALREADY turning against WOTC.  As I have said elsewhere, no good deed goes unpunished.  

Meanwhile people like me who have shelves groaning with product but room for more are done.  I am not buying squat until I see how much gets destroyed and retconned...how many rules are changed.  My final straw was the whole orc/drow nonsense.  And as I have seen on this site: don't these lackwits understand myth?  Like primordial serpent stuff?  Orcs are not about us humans!  They're about ancient corruption and rebellion---the fear of invaders and boogeymen.

Whatever.  Run it to the ground and let the designers return to reality with 7th edition.  We have books in hand and small companies.  I can outlast this stupidity myself.  I am sure others can as well.  We will just need to let their inventory and new offerings collect dust for a while.  Some years down the road maybe they will wake up.

While I think the community (people who play and run ttrpg's) can produce content fine and of quality, at a pace to keep the hobby forever relevant, on their own, I don't think anyone is really in a position to make a company that can compete with a corporate giant in a meaningful way. A company needs a constant stream of revenue to offset the cost of existing; typically you need to be able to operate out of pocket for a year or two with no profit, before you ever actually make a profit, IF you CAN make a profit. Myself for example, I could not even put out content often enough to keep such a project afloat even if I was sitting on an endless supply of revenue, as my interest is a small niche (D6 system and system agnostic stuff) and really I'm more focused on playing than making money. Once it becomes work it's no fun anymore. If every single one of us banded to gather and combined efforts we could produce a slew of material that would no doubt be quality stuff, but it likely would not be of profit in the monetary sense and it certainly wouldn't put a dent in hasbro's grip or loosen the sjw influence that is effecting them.

Beyond that, even if the whole community did come together into a sort of content-mill coop that was able to compete and profit, a simple burst of whining from the usual suspects, (whether or not their reasons are valid or even applicable) and you could find drive thru and paypal and so on closed to you, forcing further costs upon you as now you need alternative delivery and payment processing options which might be limited to only those that you create yourself. In a certain sense the cultural marxist has turned capitalism against their percieved enemies through domination of the social sphere that non-commies have largely ignored, and this late in the game, with their stranglehold over social media, that is not likely reversible w/o years of work on reform of such.

Alternative means in whole would be required, your own version of drive-thru or paypal and twatter and such. Thats a much taller order than just competing with hasbro/wotc. Waiting for hasbro to crash it and then exploiting the refugee run-off into osr seems to be the most energy efficient solution even if it isn't the most time efficient.

If you love something (d&d, ttrpg's in this case) let it go...wait on the battered and abused and used and wounded user base to come crawling back; tell them "we told you so", patch their wounds, pour them some whiskey, and sit them down to play a game where tiefling gender politics do not exist. I wish it were not so lads and ladies, but I fear that this is simply the breaks.

And now you know why you should've stood up loudly angrily and shoved the overton window as far the other way as you possibly could have at the first sign of subversion. Keep that window buried rightward while you navigate and govern from the middle I suppose. They got us to this point with baby steps, one little normalization at a time, and w/o something drastic occuring thats how you have to get it back. So unless anyone has their own versions of paypal and such ready to go, you have to wait for the crash and be ready to sell a remedy. I simply do not think it likely much can be done to save D&D from hasbro.

Quote from: TJS;1139272Yes what we're seeing here is an example of Nassim Taleb calls the "Tyranny of the Minority".

WOTC (and other companies) are going to cave to demands as long as it isn't noticeably causing them sales anywhere else.  This is similar to food companies making their food kosher even though only a small percentage of thier customer base observes orthodox judaism.  Most people don't care if food is kosher so they will eat it anyway.  But the people who do care won't eat it unless it is.  For similar reasons Schools ban all nut products even though the number of children with allergies is relatively small.  (When Taleb uses the term "intolerant" he is not necessarily making a value judgement - obviously it depends on circumstance - just outlining how a small subset of a population that is inflexible can drive change in a larger population that is largely indifferent).

The disclaimer is a classic example.  They're trying to appease critics with something that shouldn't really offend anyone else (because it's anodyne and obvious).  I mean your average gamer who is not plugged into internet controversies is just going to glaze over that and not even read it.

There were actually a lot of less traditional takes on D&D elements that WOTC walked back on in 5E.  (4E Forgotten Realms had a non-evil Orc kingdom).  So WOTC actually have form on reverting to more conservative takes on D&D elements if they actually think it is responsible for them losing sales.

Or in other words there's no reason to think what they do is particularly value driven one way or the other on their part.

Your last point is actually proof that Hasbro WILL force a change, if what's happening is causing them to lose money. They are absolutely value-driven. The problem is that SJWs latch on to products at their peak (Star Wars, the Marvel Movies, D&D) and that momentum of pre-SJW popularity keeps profits up while they institute massive changes, so it takes a long time and a lot of developed bad-faith before the parent companies actually realize what's causing their sales to collapse and change course.

If someone in Hasbro was actually paying attention, they would cut this pattern off at the start, which is to say right now. The SJWs haven't cost D&D serious amounts of money yet; but they're going to, more and more, from here on in. And its much harder to get that back after a product has been run into the ground and 92% of the customer base has been insulted and alienated.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1139282Corporations are made up of people. Those people collectively form what's called a "corporate culture". This happens in every company. Some, like Chic-fil-A, have famously conservative cultures. Others, like Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast, have famously left-wing extremist (I can't use the word liberal because it objectively doesn't apply) cultures. And while corporations are ostensibly formed to make money, there are times when the corporate culture is at direct odds with that purpose. One such example is when Kathleen Kennedy publicly declared that if you're a cis white male, then Star Wars isn'tfor you, resulting in a widespread boycott of the launch of "Solo", costing the company billions.

So it's really not that hard. When people say WotC is "woke", they're talking about the people and the culture that make up that corporate entity.

Edit: And in the case of Star Wars, the corporate PR machine was very, very quick to label the movie's failure as "franchise fatigue", so as to draw attention away from all the anger that the president of the company caused to the fandom.

To my knowledge, Hasbro doesn't have a famous left-wing culture. Wizards DOES, but it's a subsidiary company with its own people. Hasbro just isn't paying attention to the risks they're running.

Like I said, making a petition to Wizards is totally pointless. It'll be read by an SJW and ignored by an SJW. It's HASBRO people have to alert (and even there, it probably needs to get to someone high up, who has a direct profit stake in the company, not just an employee).

Quote from: Slipshot762;1139289Beyond that, even if the whole community did come together into a sort of content-mill coop that was able to compete and profit, a simple burst of whining from the usual suspects, (whether or not their reasons are valid or even applicable) and you could find drive thru and paypal and so on closed to you, forcing further costs upon you as now you need alternative delivery and payment processing options which might be limited to only those that you create yourself. In a certain sense the cultural marxist has turned capitalism against their percieved enemies through domination of the social sphere that non-commies have largely ignored, and this late in the game, with their stranglehold over social media, that is not likely reversible w/o years of work on reform of such.

This is exactly the pattern I'm seeing in the attacks on the OSR crowd by the SJW.  Coincidence? I doubt that,... more like part of a business strategy I would say.

Quote from: Slipshot762;1139289And now you know why you should've stood up loudly angrily and shoved the overton window as far the other way as you possibly could have at the first sign of subversion. Keep that window buried rightward while you navigate and govern from the middle I suppose. They got us to this point with baby steps, one little normalization at a time, and w/o something drastic occuring thats how you have to get it back. So unless anyone has their own versions of paypal and such ready to go, you have to wait for the crash and be ready to sell a remedy. I simply do not think it likely much can be done to save D&D from hasbro.

D&D is already saved for those of us in the OSR that care to keep the game alive. It has been separated though, from the massive politically correct profit machine that is pandering to a new generation of gamers. They are going to get their 5e/6e gender effected game that is "politically and morally correct" according to the new generation. Not that it actually is of course, but the kids don;t care to tell the difference, they only care the new shiney is exclusively for them.

Quote from: Almost_Useless;1139191Do you think they actually do any real "market research" like in the 3e days?  Or is it just management by echo chamber and whatever was the last thing on Twitter/Twitch is The Truth(tm)!

They didnt do much (real) marketing research with 3e either.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1139206So imagine a pure storyteller D&D where dice& GM are optional.

What is that exactly?

How does that address the hobby and what many gamers expect?

It doesnt. Thats the point. Gamers have those nasty expectations and that has to be put an end to.

Quote from: Tyberious Funk;1139231I find it funny that people think that WotC is "woke".  It's a subsidiary of a major corporation... corps don't have emotions or morals.

Problem is. WOTC loves to NOT make money. They are their own worst enemy. And its been that way for a long time. Hasbro seems to only sit up and take notice when WOTC really fucks up. Then they tighten the dogs leash. This was increasingly the case during 4e. Had 5e not succeeded that would have likely been the end.

Assuming Hasbro hasnt been infiltrated by this mind disease then they will tighten the leash again if WOTC fucks it up enough.

I'm guessing the vast majority of D&D players don't care either way. There are loud voices on either side of the spectrum. Hasbro will do what they think will continue to maximize profits, which likely means that WotC will make some cosmetic changes, shift some descriptions in upcoming books, keep the disclaimer, but not go overboard.

Meaning, while I agree with much of what the Pundit says, I don't think it will factor in all that much. Most people don't care about disclaimers or cosmetically adjusted descriptions or minor lore changes. They've already been doing that for decades (e.g. the drow curse didn't darken their skin...that was written out years ago, I think). If you're hoping for "no changes whatsoever, let's party like its 1974" or some mass exodus to the OSR, then you're howling at the moon. Similarly for those on the other end of the spectrum, who want everything (they deem) offensive removed from publication or changed.

In the end, Hasbro will make the decisions they deem make the most financial sense, which is likely mild appeasement.

Let's be real.

No one really cares about the "woke" aspects.

Really ---- will "woke culture" control this?

No..

All "woke culture" can do is destroy rpg culture.