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Hasbro has announced they are laying off 1,100 employees and it appears that Mike Mearls was one of those people.

Found this on Tenkar's Tavern:

https://youtu.be/hwoD_ISbSWc?si=oEP3eN6lVj6hj9Sa

Is this a bad sign? Or just another Wizards/Hasbro screwup?

Bad sign in what sense? A lot of us want WOTC to burn down, fall over, and sink into the swamp. The sooner the better.

When I see someone say they just got fired, and are excited for what the future holds, I know a tanker trailer of Copium just pulled up at their house.

It would be incredible if Hasbro tanks and they're forced to sell their IPs. I'd love for D&D and Magic to be bought by somebody that gives a fuck and doesn't hate their REAL supporters.

Quote from: Monero on December 12, 2023, 08:57:46 PM
It would be incredible if Hasbro tanks and they're forced to sell their IPs. I'd love for D&D and Magic to be bought by somebody that gives a fuck and doesn't hate their REAL supporters.

Yes it would.  Wonder who could afford to buy it?   I think that the VTT is going to tank.  Professor Dungeon Master tried it at Pax Unplugged and said it had good points but he didnt sound excited about it.

Hasbro would sooner go bankrupt than sell any of the many IPs they're not using. I doubt they even remember the vast majority of their acquisitions.

In Mearls' twatter profile it still says he's working at WotC, but he hasn't posted anything in months.

Quote from: GhostNinja on December 12, 2023, 08:36:23 PM
Is this a bad sign? Or just another Wizards/Hasbro screwup?

I imagine it's typical corporate shenanigans. Fire a bunch of people to save money. Rehire people when they need to ramp up again.

I don't think WOTC/Hasbro are going anywhere.

I'm sure they had Mearls sign a no compete agreement, a long time ago.  But it sounds like they let him go, rather than him leaving them.  The way this all plays out, could get interesting.

I'd love to see him do work for a competitor, now.  Just for giggles.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 12, 2023, 09:43:12 PM
I imagine it's typical corporate shenanigans. Fire a bunch of people to save money. Rehire people when they need to ramp up again.

I don't think WOTC/Hasbro are going anywhere.

True and with WOTC being prone to stupid mistakes, its unsurprising.

Kyle Brinks told us that guys like Mike Mearls can't leave soon enough.  I guess they decided to press the issue.
I bet almost all the layoffs are white men.

QuoteGuys like me, we're leaving the workforce, to be blunt. We're not the face of the hobby anymore. I'm not the majority of this hobby anymore.

And so it's important to me that my team of creators look like my players, and have the lived experience that my players do.

And I think there's been mistakes made in years past where people assumed that D&D players were all, y'know, white dudes in a basement. Which has been a faulty assumption for a lot of years and gets more and more false every day and so in my viewpoint, honestly, guys like me can't leave soon enough for this hobby.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/18h3oto/mike_mearls_a_lead_designer_of_5e_has_been_laid/

Reddit toasted the thread about it, claiming that "Posts made to /r/dndnext must be related to DnD, or specifically of interest to the DnD community."

So, by the looks of it it was a woketard purge, I bet there's still lots of them there left but still, below a list of those fired from WotC that we KNOW off so far:

Dan Dillon: Woketard confirmed
Trystan Falcone: Pronoun Wearer (so woketard confirmed)
Dixon Dubow: Woketard confirmed
Bree Heiss: Woketard confirmed
Eytan Bernstein: Woketard confirmed

Mike Mearls either because he's a true believer or out of fear threw his lot with the they/thems, so same difference

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 12, 2023, 11:05:03 PM
So, by the looks of it it was a woketard purge, I bet there's still lots of them there left but still, below a list of those fired from WotC that we KNOW off so far:

I mean... ok, maybe.  But here's my hypothesis; finding out that firing a bunch of people at WotC (location: right outside Seattle, Washington) results in a lot of pushers of woke ideology getting fired is a lot like finding out your fishbowl crashing onto the ground results in a really high percent of creatures you are rescuing from the floor being water breathers.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 12, 2023, 11:05:03 PM
So, by the looks of it it was a woketard purge, I bet there's still lots of them there left but still, below a list of those fired from WotC that we KNOW off so far:

Dan Dillon: Woketard confirmed
Trystan Falcone: Pronoun Wearer (so woketard confirmed)
Dixon Dubow: Woketard confirmed
Bree Heiss: Woketard confirmed
Eytan Bernstein: Woketard confirmed

Mike Mearls either because he's a true believer or out of fear threw his lot with the they/thems, so same difference

I thought WOTC loved the woke crap.  Or are they seeing the light and seeing it's backfiring and trying to stear the ship in a better, non-woke direction?

I think it's just non-targeted layoffs across the board, from Hasbro down; and if it seems like a lot of Wokes are getting the boot, that's just because WOTC is full of Wokies.

Like when terrible online 'news' sites die, and they scream women of color are being targeted, because dun dun duuuunnnn, they hired lots of useless activists before dying.

Bunch of party poopers can't leave a man dream? XD

Of course it's not Hasbro course correcting, I'm still cellebrating some cancel pigs lost their jobs.

I'd love to see the lawfare / legal yoga that would ensue, if Mike Mearls released an adventure for Pathfinder 2E; that featured a floating eyeball monster.

Quote from: Monero on December 12, 2023, 08:57:46 PM
It would be incredible if Hasbro tanks and they're forced to sell their IPs. I'd love for D&D and Magic to be bought by somebody that gives a fuck and doesn't hate their REAL supporters.

Problem is the IPs would likely end up in some morons hands like Star Frontiers and Torg did.

Hasbro is declining in large part because toy sales in general are declining. Gen Z and A grew up addicted to phones and don't buy physical toys anymore. The only people who buy toys now are collectors and Hasbro isn't interested in them.

It's a real pity, because they have a lot of IP they could monetize. Instead we got a Paramount+ show where Optimus and Megatron are buds with no explanation.

Quote from: Omega on December 13, 2023, 07:23:27 AM

Quote from: Monero on December 12, 2023, 08:57:46 PM
It would be incredible if Hasbro tanks and they're forced to sell their IPs. I'd love for D&D and Magic to be bought by somebody that gives a fuck and doesn't hate their REAL supporters.

Problem is the IPs would likely end up in some morons hands like Star Frontiers and Torg did.

Also, MtG and D&D are some of the only things still making them any money (D&D only because of BG3 royalties, but still more coming in than going out from that vector.

Basically, MtG and D&D will probably be the last things sold off (along with Monopoly).

More likely as they spiral past the point where job cuts will save them* is they'll let go of the "toxically masculine" toy lines like G.I.Joe or Transformers that companies like Netflix or Microsoft might want as a content/game IP (because Mattel is in just as bad a shape and Disney has got their own cash flow problems).

One of Hasbro's lasting problems is that a lot of their biggest sellers are media tie-ins (particularly Star Wars/Marvel/Disney properties). When the entertainment is trash, no one wants toys of it and so there go your profits.

Basically, Hasbro is being kept afloat by price-hikes on their cardboard gambling packs and royalties from a game they had almost no hand in developing (and isn't sustainable income) and which still only barely covered the losses from the D&DBeyond debacle with the OGL1.1).

Things tend to happen slowly at first, then all at once. "Get Woke, Go Broke" is like that; but eventually the ESG investment dollars dry up (which is what's happening now) and the woke idiots put in charge by ESG compliance have no clue how to not be woke idiots and so just push the yoke forward instead of trying to level off.

2024 is going to be anything but boring as Woke companies supply all sorts of entertainment they never intended. You'll need lots of popcorn.

* between this and earlier cuts they've fired 1900 of the 5600 employees they had in 2021... a third of their workforce gone in a single year. There's likely zero fat left to cut employee side (and what's left is probably pretty demoralized by one-in-three of their co-workers being fired and wondering when it's their turn).

MTG sales are up 20%, however WotC's revenue only rose by 3% this quarter, I wonder what is dragging down WotC's profitability - eyeing D&D failing sales.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 13, 2023, 09:54:34 AM
MTG sales are up 20%, however WotC's revenue only rose by 3% this quarter, I wonder what is dragging down WotC's profitability - eyeing D&D failing sales.

I think that the biggest hit was making toys tied to Disney movies.

Quote from: Reckall on December 13, 2023, 10:07:33 AM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 13, 2023, 09:54:34 AM
MTG sales are up 20%, however WotC's revenue only rose by 3% this quarter, I wonder what is dragging down WotC's profitability - eyeing D&D failing sales.

I think that the biggest hit was making toys tied to Disney movies.

Toys hurt them, but they just got their cut from BG3 sales for D&D, and gee somehow WotC only had a 3% yoy revenue growth.  It likely means that D&D is tanking and tanking very hard and hurting WotC's overall sales.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 13, 2023, 09:54:34 AM
MTG sales are up 20%, however WotC's revenue only rose by 3% this quarter, I wonder what is dragging down WotC's profitability - eyeing D&D failing sales.

Canceled DNDBeyond subs.

The boycott worked.

20% sales increase for MtG is pretty impressive. Unfortunately, both WotC and D&D will probably live on for a good long while.

Quote from: daft on December 13, 2023, 12:21:39 PM
20% sales increase for MtG is pretty impressive. Unfortunately, both WotC and D&D will probably live on for a good long while.

If MTG increased sales by 20% and WotC only saw a 3% sales increase, what does that mean?

Hmm, something in WotC is dragging them down.

Well BG3 did gangbusters and that's D&D. Huh, the other BU of WotC is D&D.  If you look at their other BU's they are new or funded, usually they don't cause problems financially.  Then you have D&D that has been around for a while, that has spent a year stepping on their dicks using censors and trash talking their white customers.  They just lost their publishing deal and are getting ready for an edition change meaning less people buying.  I'm willing to bet, the taint known as D&D is dragging down WotC.

https://company.wizards.com/en/who-we-are

Clownfish TV has been covering this Hasbro/WotC downfall for awhile now.....

Quote from: daft on December 13, 2023, 12:21:39 PM
20% sales increase for MtG is pretty impressive. Unfortunately, both WotC and D&D will probably live on for a good long while.

Not if they keep putting out crap like this.....

Hey they put out their Radiance module, it sold so well my hobby shop still has the same two module son the wall right now.  25K physical for Radiant Citadel vs 75K physical for Descent into Avernus.  Who'd have thought that racist advertising and writing doesn't sell.  It's almost as if those progressives in Seattle are on the racist side of history instead of the right side of history.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 13, 2023, 10:21:15 AM

Quote from: Reckall on December 13, 2023, 10:07:33 AM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 13, 2023, 09:54:34 AM
MTG sales are up 20%, however WotC's revenue only rose by 3% this quarter, I wonder what is dragging down WotC's profitability - eyeing D&D failing sales.

I think that the biggest hit was making toys tied to Disney movies.

Toys hurt them, but they just got their cut from BG3 sales for D&D, and gee somehow WotC only had a 3% yoy revenue growth.  It likely means that D&D is tanking and tanking very hard and hurting WotC's overall sales.

Low toy sales hurt Hasbro, which in turn puts more pressure in WotC, but as far as I know WotC doesn't make toys. Unless you count the minis and terrain at 3 dollars a pop in Ollies.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 13, 2023, 09:54:34 AM
MTG sales are up 20%

Given how shitty MTG has been lately, this stat makes me scowl at the consumers responsible for it.

Last few booster packs I  bought were full of smudgy, dusty, blurry excuses for cards. The mechanics on them weren't much better either.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked on December 13, 2023, 03:32:21 PM
Given how shitty MTG has been lately, this stat makes me scowl at the consumers responsible for it.

Last few booster packs I  bought were full of smudgy, dusty, blurry excuses for cards. The mechanics on them weren't much better either.

You can blame people like me for that. I haven't played Magic for well over 10 years but dropped $100 on a couple LotR sets. I imagine there are tons of people buying up the Dr. Who sets, Jurassic World, and whatever else they have slated. Literally just collectible cards that will probably sit on a shelf unplayed since I have yet to even use the ones I did get, I play the online version and scanned the code.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 13, 2023, 09:54:34 AM
MTG sales are up 20%, however WotC's revenue only rose by 3% this quarter, I wonder what is dragging down WotC's profitability - eyeing D&D failing sales.

Factoring in inflation, 3% is a revenue loss!

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 13, 2023, 03:27:14 PM


Low toy sales hurt Hasbro, which in turn puts more pressure in WotC, but as far as I know WotC doesn't make toys. Unless you count the minis and terrain at 3 dollars a pop in Ollies.

I stocked up on stocking stuffers for pennies on the dollar and giving all those products to people.  why? Cause each product was $2. The lil pogs and terrain are worth it it, the case is portable and the card stock is quality.

Quote from: Brad on December 13, 2023, 03:37:23 PM
You can blame people like me for that.

[Shakes fist in impotent anger.]

Quote from: Brad on December 13, 2023, 03:37:23 PM
[You can blame people like me for that. I haven't played Magic for well over 10 years but dropped $100 on a couple LotR sets.

(https://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=620204&type=card)

You know there was something about that set that didn't make want to own a box or whatever.

WOTC DELENDA EST.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 13, 2023, 03:27:14 PM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 13, 2023, 10:21:15 AM

Quote from: Reckall on December 13, 2023, 10:07:33 AM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 13, 2023, 09:54:34 AM
MTG sales are up 20%, however WotC's revenue only rose by 3% this quarter, I wonder what is dragging down WotC's profitability - eyeing D&D failing sales.

I think that the biggest hit was making toys tied to Disney movies.

Toys hurt them, but they just got their cut from BG3 sales for D&D, and gee somehow WotC only had a 3% yoy revenue growth.  It likely means that D&D is tanking and tanking very hard and hurting WotC's overall sales.

Low toy sales hurt Hasbro, which in turn puts more pressure in WotC, but as far as I know WotC doesn't make toys. Unless you count the minis and terrain at 3 dollars a pop in Ollies.

This is what people keep missing you read this:

MTG is up 20%
Wotc is only up 2%

Out of their divisions, the cash dump is D&D, that is what most likely ate MTG's lunch and took MTG's 20% profit and lowered it to 2% for all of Wotc.  Now given, a good portion of that has got to be for the digital push of D&D but the other good portion is their shit books aren't selling and that is tanking everything.  Their 50 year publishing deal is dead, I don't buy WotC did this voluntarily.  You don't drop a business partner of that long because you have very favorable trade terms due to negotiations every couple of years to maintain.

I know it's not normally a thing to discuss here, but I'll point out that two of the latest book offerings- Glory of the Giants and Book of Many Things - both offer AD&D 2e-esque levels of power creep in one particular dimension, the Background. 

In 5e, the PHB tells you, right before the sample background list, To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proticiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds.
Each of the sample backgrounds then has a background feature, helpfully labelled Feature.
The fact that you are intended to make your own background hasn't stopped the 5e community from being confused about that and using the preexisting ones as if they are like, classes or feats- reasonably immutable things.

The latest books offer a Feat as part of their new backgrounds.  One of them, Rewarded, grants you a pick from a list that includes Lucky, an extremely powerful feat.

Now, maybe their ideal table exists- the DM runs everything dndbeyond, the DM is fine with whatever the players bring, and the players can only add stuff from books to their dndbeyond sheet if they buy the book.  In that world, the book is essentially pay2win, and while I'm sure WotC knows that this is a very small percent of table, maybe they had that thought, you know?

Anyway, I'm not 100% sure that's why. Splatbooks tend to powercreep like crazy at the end of any edition, and we are staring at 5.5 in just a few months here.  So it could just be that.

While it is true that BG3 was an unexpected raft for Hasbro, let's not forget how it could also hurt their VTT initiative.

I stopped following BG3 shortly after launch due to family matters but I still remember a statement made by Larian at the time. Paraphrasing:

"We don't plan to devote [to BG3] the effort needed to turn it into a VTT. However, the opportunity to do so is in the code. A group of talented modders, given enough time and patience, can achieve this result."

At once, everyone and his dog remembered how a "minor" part of the OGL fiasco was that, under the new rules, only Wizards/Hasbro could program VTTs for D&D. This was repelled and - if things didn't change while I was away - now their VTT initiative could be in jeopardy. Also, WotC wanted a model riddled with microtransactions (of course), while Larian doesn't. It will be interesting to see how things will evolve.

Updated list of the people fired:

Dan Dillon Pronoun Wearer
Mike Mearls Woke
Chris Lindsay ???
Liz Schuh Woke White Liberal Woman
Bree Heiss Woke
Natalie Egan ??? Probably not?
Amy Dallen Pronoun Wearer
Jesse Hill ??? Probably not? Posted only MtG shit
Larry Frum ???
Eytan Bernstein Pronoun Wearer
Deserae Dawn Pronoun Wearer Blue haired Feminazi landwhale
Vanessa Cuanan ???
Michael Rexford Pronoun Wearing suporter of Burn Loot Murder
Ellie Lockhart (It's a man man!) Pronoun wearer
Jana Hodgins ???
Megan Galbraith Donahue ???
Mike Vaillancourt ???
David McDarby Pronoun Wearer, pro "Muh Represhentashun!"
Paul Cheon ???

Quote from: Venka on December 13, 2023, 06:07:41 PM
You know there was something about that set that didn't make want to own a box or whatever.

Yeah, there are multiple things about the set that are obnoxious and fucktarded, but I watched some videos that detailed The One Ring mechanics and decided why not...Magic actually IS a fun game, but only if you actually play Magic. Some of the videos I've seen are nothing more than "how can I win this game instantly" instead of playing a card game. There was one video with Richard Garfield playing with some champion. power guys or whatever and his face is just, "WTF is going on here," like he couldn't believe what was happening. ANYWAY, they got me, what can I say.

McFarlane Toys to produce action figures for Hasbro



Either Hasbro is in worst shape than we think or they want to switch from toys to video games.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 13, 2023, 09:59:51 PM
McFarlane Toys to produce action figures for Hasbro

Either Hasbro is in worst shape than we think or they want to switch from toys to video games.

Come on now, we are talking about Hasbro, they want to switch from toys to buttplugs.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 13, 2023, 10:01:25 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 13, 2023, 09:59:51 PM
McFarlane Toys to produce action figures for Hasbro

Either Hasbro is in worst shape than we think or they want to switch from toys to video games.

Come on now, we are talking about Hasbro, they want to switch from toys to buttplugs.

Any toy's a buttplug if you're brave enough.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 13, 2023, 10:15:23 PM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 13, 2023, 10:01:25 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 13, 2023, 09:59:51 PM
McFarlane Toys to produce action figures for Hasbro

Either Hasbro is in worst shape than we think or they want to switch from toys to video games.

Come on now, we are talking about Hasbro, they want to switch from toys to buttplugs.

Any toy's a buttplug if you're brave enough.

We'd have to talk to Hasbro's Inclusivity Reader to see if we can write, wait, Hasbro fired him, ok, I'll allow that joke.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 13, 2023, 01:40:45 PM

Quote from: daft on December 13, 2023, 12:21:39 PM
20% sales increase for MtG is pretty impressive. Unfortunately, both WotC and D&D will probably live on for a good long while.

If MTG increased sales by 20% and WotC only saw a 3% sales increase, what does that mean?

Hmm, something in WotC is dragging them down.

Well BG3 did gangbusters and that's D&D. Huh, the other BU of WotC is D&D.  If you look at their other BU's they are new or funded, usually they don't cause problems financially.  Then you have D&D that has been around for a while, that has spent a year stepping on their dicks using censors and trash talking their white customers.  They just lost their publishing deal and are getting ready for an edition change meaning less people buying.  I'm willing to bet, the taint known as D&D is dragging down WotC.

https://company.wizards.com/en/who-we-are

TrueBG3 was a blessing for them and the IP I think, and there is a possibility that it will boost D&D RPG sales down the line, but we would probably have seen that already if so. I think the D&D movie was pretty decent as well, yet they still seem to have found a way to squander the IP. But no fat lady has sung yet.

Yeah, I'm unfortunately skeptical that this represents cleaning house on Wizards' part.  Rather they're so infested that you can't swing a stick without hitting three dangerhairs in their office, so that's what got laid off.  It was just a matter of numbers.

Quote from: daft on December 14, 2023, 01:07:59 AMTrueBG3 was a blessing for them and the IP I think, and there is a possibility that it will boost D&D RPG sales down the line, but we would probably have seen that already if so.

Baldur's Gate 3 is more likely to get D&D players to switch to video games than to get video gamers to play the tabletop game.

Unfortunately the crpg scene is pretty bland. It's >99% interchangeable D&D ripoffs. Nothing against D&D, I'm just burned out on D&D cliches. The remaining trace amounts of other genres aren't worth discussing. It's not even as creative as TSR's collated output, including Gamma World, Alternity, and Amazing Engine, or the d20 Modern supplements and Polyhedron mini-settings.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 13, 2023, 09:59:51 PM
McFarlane Toys to produce action figures for Hasbro

Either Hasbro is in worst shape than we think or they want to switch from toys to video games.

They wish to be an IP farm, outsource all the IP to other companies and have them produce the merchandise for them with minimal overhead.  Think Disney without the theme parks. What does Disney make? Nothing.  They license their IP to other companies and make 30% without lifting a finger.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on December 14, 2023, 10:03:30 AM
Baldur's Gate 3 is more likely to get D&D players to switch to video games than to get video gamers to play the tabletop game.

I don't buy this at all.  Even if it were true per capita, there's way more video game players who are running Baldur's Gate than D&D players who are running it, just because video games is an incredibly huge genre compared to TTRPGs.
But there's also things like, "many players played D&D in the past and might consider a TTPRG again after Baldur's Gate" and "all D&D players either play video games or have a reason not to, but most video game players don't play tabletop and many could".

Baldur's Gate 3 is definitely good for WotC's bottom line, definitely good for D&D as a brand, and might actually have an overall positive effect on the total TTRPG playerbase, maybe.

It's also probably the best CRPG ever, and certainly in the lifetime of any young gamer (like 25 and younger, not just like kids).  It singlehandedly revitalized a dead genre.  Larian deserves a lot of respect, I didn't personally think a western developer would even be permitted to make a game that is that good.

Doesn't surprise me that d&d isn't doing great after last year. Who announces a replacement product way before it is ready? All that does is kill the market for the existing line. I'm pretty sure that happened to 4E. Who craps on existing loyalists before the very expensive movie comes out? Who doesn't fire the dolt responsible for such company hobbling decisions?

They should have shut up about vet and reeditted the core books to gain time and fill the war chest during the transition. I know we all would have hated the re-edited books but it still would have been the smart move.

I also would have taken one of the almost a basic set versions of the game, called it a basic set and packaged it for newbies and kids.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on December 14, 2023, 10:03:30 AM

Quote from: daft on December 14, 2023, 01:07:59 AMTrueBG3 was a blessing for them and the IP I think, and there is a possibility that it will boost D&D RPG sales down the line, but we would probably have seen that already if so.

Baldur's Gate 3 is more likely to get D&D players to switch to video games than to get video gamers to play the tabletop game.

The other thing is that BG3 took what, 6 years and 200+ people to make. It's a one time sale for $60. No DLC. Apparently it sold like 20 million copies, so obviously it's profitable, but it doesn't seem like a great model for your product line, releasing one huge game every 5-6 years.

Quote from: JeremyR on December 14, 2023, 03:40:54 PMThe other thing is that BG3 took what, 6 years and 200+ people to make. It's a one time sale for $60. No DLC. Apparently it sold like 20 million copies, so obviously it's profitable, but it doesn't seem like a great model for your product line, releasing one huge game every 5-6 years.

I've been trying to find out how much of that money went to Hasbro and I'm seeing numbers around $100 million. This is significant considering their digital revenues are normally in the range of $300 million. While, as you said, it is a once in 6 years windfall, I'd expect Baldur's Gate 4 to be easier and quicker to develop.

However, Hasbro generally has revenue over $5 billion. So $100 million is great but not really game changing.

Quote from: JeremyR on December 14, 2023, 03:40:54 PM
...
The other thing is that BG3 took what, 6 years and 200+ people to make. It's a one time sale for $60. No DLC. Apparently it sold like 20 million copies, so obviously it's profitable, but it doesn't seem like a great model for your product line, releasing one huge game every 5-6 years.

Correct.

The Microsoft suits were right about D&D (The DOMINANT RPG brand) being "under monetized".

Yet they really seem to have been dragging their feet on the whole "monetization" thing...


Lego makes medieval themed sets. WTF are there no D&D themed lego sets?

Critical Role has a 'totally not D&D' anime series on amazon. WTF is there no D&D animated series anywhere?

Hasbro makes toys? Yet D&D action figures tied into their non-existed animated series are nowhere to be seen.

BG3 was a big hit. But that license was signed for Six Years ago!

Where is the 'Forgotten Realms: Total War' computer wargame?

Where is the D&D themed version of the 'Gauntlet' dungeon multiplayer video game?

D&D themed 'Mortal Kombat' or 'Street Fighter' anyone?

BG3 should just be one of many products bringing home that licensing cheddar.

The truth is that Wotc is just utterly incompetent.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 14, 2023, 07:24:47 PM

Quote from: JeremyR on December 14, 2023, 03:40:54 PM
...
The other thing is that BG3 took what, 6 years and 200+ people to make. It's a one time sale for $60. No DLC. Apparently it sold like 20 million copies, so obviously it's profitable, but it doesn't seem like a great model for your product line, releasing one huge game every 5-6 years.

Correct.

The Microsoft suits were right about D&D (The DOMINANT RPG brand) being "under monetized".

Yet they really seem to have been dragging their feet on the whole "monetization" thing...


Lego makes medieval themed sets. WTF are there no D&D themed lego sets?

Critical Role has a 'totally not D&D' anime series on amazon. WTF is there no D&D animated series anywhere?

Hasbro makes toys? Yet D&D action figures tied into their non-existed animated series are nowhere to be seen.

BG3 was a big hit. But that license was signed for Six Years ago!

Where is the 'Forgotten Realms: Total War' computer wargame?

Where is the D&D themed version of the 'Gauntlet' dungeon multiplayer video game?

D&D themed 'Mortal Kombat' or 'Street Fighter' anyone?

BG3 should just be one of many products bringing home that licensing cheddar.

The truth is that Wotc is just utterly incompetent.

Wrong, they released action figures of their ONLY animated series, you can find them at Ollies for a buck or two.

The rest you're spot on.

Thing is most kids don't play with action figures anymore, they play videogames, but WotC is retarded and haven't been releasing phone games up the wazoo.

Their big idea is their VTT to bleed ACTUAL TTRPG gamers, when they should be marketing to normies.

Dungeon Builder, where you're the BBG building your dungeon and stocking it with monsters to defend it from the adventurers, think theme park tycoon but D&D.

D&D JumpnGun, 2d sidescroller

D&D Platformer 2d sidescroller

D&D shoot em up vertical scroller where you have a Spelljammer ship shooting space dragons and shit.

2.5d Dungeon crawl

2d Dungeon crawl a la enter the gungeon

2d RTS but D&D where you choose a faction to fight with others

FPS where you're a Thief, Wizard, Warrior, etc

But WotC (and Hasbro) are retarded.

Dungeon Builder, where you're the BBG building your dungeon and stocking it with monsters to defend it from the adventurers, think theme park tycoon but D&D.

That IS actually a game, not from Hasbro though. Dungeon Keeper, from Bullfrog and Electronic Arts. You can still get it on GOG, and there was a huge mod just released. Bullfrog did a bunch of those types of games. There was even a sequel, Dungeon Keeper II.

Certainly Hasbro should do one, but you can just point to the actual game for an example (rather than "Dungeon Builder" and "Theme Park Tycoon").

Quote from: Baron on December 14, 2023, 07:53:56 PM
Dungeon Builder, where you're the BBG building your dungeon and stocking it with monsters to defend it from the adventurers, think theme park tycoon but D&D.

That IS actually a game, not from Hasbro though. Dungeon Keeper, from Bullfrog and Electronic Arts. You can still get it on GOG, and there was a huge mod just released. Bullfrog did a bunch of those types of games. There was even a sequel, Dungeon Keeper II.

Certainly Hasbro should do one, but you can just point to the actual game for an example (rather than "Dungeon Builder" and "Theme Park Tycoon").

I could have if I had known about the game before reading your answer. Alas I didn't.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 14, 2023, 07:58:02 PM
I could have if I had known about the game before reading your answer. Alas I didn't.

You should get it then, it's a lot of fun. EA even sells it for the phone, I have it on my Android.

Quote from: JeremyR on December 14, 2023, 03:40:54 PM
The other thing is that BG3 took what, 6 years and 200+ people to make. It's a one time sale for $60. No DLC. Apparently it sold like 20 million copies, so obviously it's profitable, but it doesn't seem like a great model for your product line, releasing one huge game every 5-6 years.

I mean, actually releasing one huge game every 5-6 years would be just fine for your product line.  If it's profitable, great.

Here's the thing though; Hasbro could just hire like three companies, and now there's a game with six years of development time coming out every two years.  Obviously, there aren't two more Larians, but there's no law preventing other companies from being great.

Larian doesn't have anything that is woke, but there's huge piles of degeneracy if you go nosing around in there.  This is likely how they "got away with" making a game where you can just play a white guy and bang all the bitches or just be a virtuous hero, without any giant flashing burn loot murder screens or whatever.  Most of the industry hasn't been given a green light for just "you can pick a weirdo", they have to actually push the message actively and unavoidably.

So it remains to be seen whether Larian will be permitted to continue to make profitable games.  Given their ownership doesn't have much Blackrock / Blackstone / etc. and has more Tencent (30% IIRC), there's a very good chance that Larian will be able to continue with their current set of employees, and to continue with their current business plan.  Assuming that's true, I'd love to see what they do next.

Quote from: Venka on December 12, 2023, 10:58:00 PM
Kyle Brinks told us that guys like Mike Mearls can't leave soon enough.  I guess they decided to press the issue.
I bet almost all the layoffs are white men.

Nope. Looks very much like it was equal opportunity layoffs. Seems more dependent on job rather than person. They basically eliminated positions, and then informed whoever was in those positions.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 13, 2023, 01:40:45 PM

Quote from: daft on December 13, 2023, 12:21:39 PM
20% sales increase for MtG is pretty impressive. Unfortunately, both WotC and D&D will probably live on for a good long while.

If MTG increased sales by 20% and WotC only saw a 3% sales increase, what does that mean?

Where are you getting that number from, other than repeating what someone else said in this thread? Last quarterly report I recall D&D was up 13%. The third major part of WOTC is "digital gaming" by the way.

Quote from: Venka on December 14, 2023, 08:02:04 PMSo it remains to be seen whether Larian will be permitted to continue to make profitable games.

Not a hope in hell. The parasites smell success like a predator smells a carcass, they're going to worm their way in and kill the golden goose.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on December 14, 2023, 06:28:16 PM

I've been trying to find out how much of that money went to Hasbro and I'm seeing numbers around $100 million. This is significant considering their digital revenues are normally in the range of $300 million. While, as you said, it is a once in 6 years windfall, I'd expect Baldur's Gate 4 to be easier and quicker to develop.

However, Hasbro generally has revenue over $5 billion. So $100 million is great but not really game changing.

Gross profits don't mean much.  A company can be pulling in billions in gross profits while going out of business.  Net margins are far more telling and Hasbro's net margins for the last two quarters have been -4.62% for quarter ending 6-30 and -10.33% for quarter ending 9-30.  That's not good.

Quote from: Mistwell on December 14, 2023, 10:05:20 PM
Nope. Looks very much like it was equal opportunity layoffs. Seems more dependent on job rather than person. They basically eliminated positions, and then informed whoever was in those positions.

Good, I'm thrilled to be wrong about that kind of thing.

A new theory has droped, it sounds kind of plaussible, and it has receipts.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 15, 2023, 08:38:53 PM
A new theory has droped, it sounds kind of plaussible, and it has receipts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHaU3jJokrY

While he is likely right about MtG LOTR floundering being a cause why Wotc is getting hit so hard by layoffs...

He is completely wrong about Hasbro upper management "identifying the cancer" in their ranks.

Hasbro has been a converged corporation for quite some time now. Upper management is part of the problem.

And the culture at Wotc will never change as long as they are located in liberal Seattle.

Get woke, go broke, is a journey. We must remember that it took the BBC Ten Years to kill off Dr. Who from it's ratings peak to its current irrelevance.

That is the type of timeline that we are looking at. And D&D will absolutely get a sales boost with it's 50th anniversary "totally not a new edition" edition.

The good thing though is like Pundit pointed out - as they carelessly layoff the more competent people, and the new kids gain more power within the company, things will get more entertaining as time goes on...

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 15, 2023, 08:38:53 PM
A new theory has droped, it sounds kind of plaussible, and it has receipts.

I bet Grima Wormtongue stayed a pasty white guy though.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 15, 2023, 10:35:46 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 15, 2023, 08:38:53 PM
A new theory has droped, it sounds kind of plaussible, and it has receipts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHaU3jJokrY

While he is likely right about MtG LOTR floundering being a cause why Wotc is getting hit so hard by layoffs...

He is completely wrong about Hasbro upper management "identifying the cancer" in their ranks.

Hasbro has been a converged corporation for quite some time now. Upper management is part of the problem.

And the culture at Wotc will never change as long as they are located in liberal Seattle.

Get woke, go broke, is a journey. We must remember that it took the BBC Ten Years to kill off Dr. Who from it's ratings peak to its current irrelevance.

That is the type of timeline that we are looking at. And D&D will absolutely get a sales boost with it's 50th anniversary "totally not a new edition" edition.

The good thing though is like Pundit pointed out - as they carelessly layoff the more competent people, and the new kids gain more power within the company, things will get more entertaining as time goes on...

Collapses like we're seeing tend to be avalanches; not much happens as the weight continues to grow, then suddenly it all starts to slide and just picks up speed as it descends.

Hasbro and Disney have both passed the trigger point... their acceleration into oblivion is going to be much quicker than the build up that got them here.

Somehow I don't think Hasbro has enough cultural significance to be worth a hostile takeover as looks to be happening to Disney; It may not matter that Hasbro never willingly sells their IPs if they end up having to liquidate everything of value in a court-ordered bankruptcy.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 16, 2023, 01:33:13 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 15, 2023, 08:38:53 PM
A new theory has droped, it sounds kind of plaussible, and it has receipts.

I bet Grima Wormtongue stayed a pasty white guy though.

Quote from: LOTR, WOTC VersionFor I am Saruman the Woke, Saruman the Ally, Saruman of Many Colours!'

I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but had rainbow flags all over them, and if he moved they shimmered and changed so that new flags appeared; pink and blue for trans, yellow and lavender for twinks, shades of brown for bears, black and gray for aesexuals. And as more colors and stripes appeared, for genders and preferences that had yet to be discovered, his robes became a nonsensical panoply of colors, so much so that the eye was bewildered.

Looking at everything I can find, I think that Hasbro is already in preparations for bankruptcy procedures.  To me, it loos like they are doing their last bast options for preventing ending up in court.

Quote from: Aglondir on December 16, 2023, 03:30:55 PM

Quote from: LOTR, WOTC VersionFor I am Saruman the Woke, Saruman the Ally, Saruman of Many Colours!'

I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but had rainbow flags all over them, and if he moved they shimmered and changed so that new flags appeared; pink and blue for trans, yellow and lavender for twinks, shades of brown for bears, black and gray for aesexuals. And as more colors and stripes appeared, for genders and preferences that had yet to be discovered, his robes became a nonsensical panoply of colors, so much so that the eye was bewildered.

LOL

Honestly I don't normally buy the "go woke go broke" in the short term, because there are moneyed interests who have purchased shares and are making demands of the companies.  Long term, yes, the market forces will work, but who knows how long that will take.
Still, if they are experiencing failures related to the most spiteful and hatred-filled of their works, that's a very good sign.

Quote from: Venka on December 16, 2023, 04:27:05 PM

Quote from: Aglondir on December 16, 2023, 03:30:55 PM

Quote from: LOTR, WOTC VersionFor I am Saruman the Woke, Saruman the Ally, Saruman of Many Colours!'

I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but had rainbow flags all over them, and if he moved they shimmered and changed so that new flags appeared; pink and blue for trans, yellow and lavender for twinks, shades of brown for bears, black and gray for aesexuals. And as more colors and stripes appeared, for genders and preferences that had yet to be discovered, his robes became a nonsensical panoply of colors, so much so that the eye was bewildered.

LOL

Honestly I don't normally buy the "go woke go broke" in the short term, because there are moneyed interests who have purchased shares and are making demands of the companies.  Long term, yes, the market forces will work, but who knows how long that will take.
Still, if they are experiencing failures related to the most spiteful and hatred-filled of their works, that's a very good sign.

Given that the ESG scam was pumping funds into corporations in exchange for they taking the mark of the beast I think Razorfist is correct and it's Go Broke, Get Woke, Ultimately Croak, at least most of the time.

Oh hey, I was just about to mention Razorfist's analysis of the go broke process. Saves me the trouble 😂

The thing that gets to me is who's even left at the company who does actual work?  It seems to me that everyone with actual D&D development skills has either wandered off or gotten canned at this point, leaving only a bunch of underpaid freelancers and diversity hires.  Is there a single big name developer left at WotC now?

Quote from: Valatar on December 16, 2023, 10:19:41 PM
The thing that gets to me is who's even left at the company who does actual work?  It seems to me that everyone with actual D&D development skills has either wandered off or gotten canned at this point, leaving only a bunch of underpaid freelancers and diversity hires.  Is there a single big name developer left at WotC now?

Dude, look, buy a good popcorn popper and a lot of grass fed butter.  Prep up for 2024, because when the shitfest known at 6E gets released, its going to be very entertaining and you'll want to have a lot of buttered popcorn available.

Quote from: Valatar on December 16, 2023, 10:19:41 PM
...leaving only a bunch of underpaid freelancers and diversity hires.  Is there a single big name developer left at WotC now?

Does a company that is not going to change their core books even need a large staff? Certainly for the virtual table-top but for the actual table top a handful of free lancers could probably handle things. At some point they'll probably franchise off the rights to create table top products to another company anyway so they can ignore it, but still get the consistent cashflow.

Quote from: Valatar on December 16, 2023, 10:19:41 PM
The thing that gets to me is who's even left at the company who does actual work?  It seems to me that everyone with actual D&D development skills has either wandered off or gotten canned at this point, leaving only a bunch of underpaid freelancers and diversity hires.  Is there a single big name developer left at WotC now?

They'll be fine, as long as they retain a single Australian man.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 16, 2023, 08:43:21 AM
...
Collapses like we're seeing tend to be avalanches; not much happens as the weight continues to grow, then suddenly it all starts to slide and just picks up speed as it descends.

Agreed.

People would point to the decline in Dr.Who ratings, and the apologists would just scramble and justify its current ratings as indicating somehow that Dr.Who was still "doing well".

The switch only really flipped in the last few seasons before the female doctor. By that time they had alienated enough of the audience by slow dripping the woke that they thought they needed to double-down on chasing the new stunning and brave one...

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 16, 2023, 08:43:21 AM
Hasbro and Disney have both passed the trigger point... their acceleration into oblivion is going to be much quicker than the build up that got them here.

Much of that build up was very sudden in the past ten years. (For D&D anyway)

I'm don't think that we will begin to see a real decline of D&D until at least a few years after 2024.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 16, 2023, 08:43:21 AM
Somehow I don't think Hasbro has enough cultural significance to be worth a hostile takeover as looks to be happening to Disney; It may not matter that Hasbro never willingly sells their IPs if they end up having to liquidate everything of value in a court-ordered bankruptcy.

A worthy dream, but unfortunately unlikely.

Filing for Bankruptcy is very unlikely to end Hasbro. Corporations really don't like to file because it usually involves changes at the top...

The likely result of Hasbro filing for bankruptcy is that they come to a deal with their creditors on their debt - do massive corporate restructuring, and emerge a leaner, more potentially profitable company.

At this point they will never let go of the golden goose (Wotc) that is currently keeping the whole ship afloat.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 14, 2023, 07:24:47 PM

Quote from: JeremyR on December 14, 2023, 03:40:54 PM
...
The other thing is that BG3 took what, 6 years and 200+ people to make. It's a one time sale for $60. No DLC. Apparently it sold like 20 million copies, so obviously it's profitable, but it doesn't seem like a great model for your product line, releasing one huge game every 5-6 years.

Correct.

The Microsoft suits were right about D&D (The DOMINANT RPG brand) being "under monetized".

Yet they really seem to have been dragging their feet on the whole "monetization" thing...


Lego makes medieval themed sets. WTF are there no D&D themed lego sets?

Critical Role has a 'totally not D&D' anime series on amazon. WTF is there no D&D animated series anywhere?

Hasbro makes toys? Yet D&D action figures tied into their non-existed animated series are nowhere to be seen.

BG3 was a big hit. But that license was signed for Six Years ago!

Where is the 'Forgotten Realms: Total War' computer wargame?

Where is the D&D themed version of the 'Gauntlet' dungeon multiplayer video game?

D&D themed 'Mortal Kombat' or 'Street Fighter' anyone?

BG3 should just be one of many products bringing home that licensing cheddar.

The truth is that Wotc is just utterly incompetent.

Unfortunately there is a D&D fighting game and its one of the worst ever made, and ravenloft branded for some reason. There was also a d&d game simlar to Gauntlet on the original Xbox but the name escapes me. Though D&D has had some great games in the past (Shadows over Mystara).

With a few exceptions, everything D&D related that WOTC or Hasbro has produced that is digital was a steaming pile of crap. So a decision to go full digital should be hilarious.

Quote from: Valatar on December 16, 2023, 10:19:41 PM
The thing that gets to me is who's even left at the company who does actual work?  It seems to me that everyone with actual D&D development skills has either wandered off or gotten canned at this point, leaving only a bunch of underpaid freelancers and diversity hires.  Is there a single big name developer left at WotC now?

Here's a tweet, later deleted, from one of the guys at the studio that made Baldur's Gate

(https://i.imgur.com/07hbaFp.jpg)

So, it does seem like they gutted the D&D management.

From what I am hearing WOTC is sending their physical product to discount places to get rid of it and from what it sounds whatever the next D&D is, its going to be .pdfs, and digital through the VTT.

It doesn't even sound like they are going to print books.  We have been hearing rumors about this and it has been talked about a great deal.  I guess we won't know for sure until the next D&D is released.

Quote from: GhostNinja on December 17, 2023, 04:12:36 PM
From what I am hearing WOTC is sending their physical product to discount places to get rid of it and from what it sounds whatever the next D&D is, its going to be .pdfs, and digital through the VTT.

It doesn't even sound like they are going to print books.  We have been hearing rumors about this and it has been talked about a great deal.  I guess we won't know for sure until the next D&D is released.

You will NOT get a PDF.  A PDF can't be censored when they decide that all character art needs to be black men in dress and they need to put a forward on the PDF decrying whiteness and promising to help punish all white children they can find.  It will be a subscription, you won't own any of it.  Hell they will probably negotiate a deal with the browser partners and Apple and Microsoft to prevent printing of the manuals as well.

Right now WotC is going after Millenials who don't have spend vs Gen X that does have spend.  Good luck Hasbro.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 17, 2023, 04:22:18 PM
You will NOT get a PDF.  A PDF can't be censored when they decide that all character art needs to be black men in dress and they need to put a forward on the PDF decrying whiteness and promising to help punish all white children they can find.  It will be a subscription, you won't own any of it.  Hell they will probably negotiate a deal with the browser partners and Apple and Microsoft to prevent printing of the manuals as well.

Right now WotC is going after Millenials who don't have spend vs Gen X that does have spend.  Good luck Hasbro.

You are probably right.  Thank god I am already moving on from WOTC and making sure they do not get one more dollar from me.   It appears with their financial situations that a lot of people are doing the same.  I am working to get my 5e players to try a different system and sway money away from WOTC.   Of course if they go into the new model loke you think they are, then there will be nothing for them since even if I continue to run my 5e game it will still be in person.

Quote from: GhostNinja on December 17, 2023, 04:37:57 PM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 17, 2023, 04:22:18 PM
You will NOT get a PDF.  A PDF can't be censored when they decide that all character art needs to be black men in dress and they need to put a forward on the PDF decrying whiteness and promising to help punish all white children they can find.  It will be a subscription, you won't own any of it.  Hell they will probably negotiate a deal with the browser partners and Apple and Microsoft to prevent printing of the manuals as well.

Right now WotC is going after Millenials who don't have spend vs Gen X that does have spend.  Good luck Hasbro.

You are probably right.  Thank god I am already moving on from WOTC and making sure they do not get one more dollar from me.   It appears with their financial situations that a lot of people are doing the same.  I am working to get my 5e players to try a different system and sway money away from WOTC.   Of course if they go into the new model loke you think they are, then there will be nothing for them since even if I continue to run my 5e game it will still be in person.

As much as I find Colvilles public political beliefs odious, he has put out some good ideas. 

His combat system is crap as described.  He's casualiing the game for character builds, it simply doesn't matter.  Just change your kit and you have a new subclass.  Your gear gives you hit points.  You always hit and do damage.  All of this is purified crap.  You will need a calculator and spreadsheets to run it.  And then we have Colville's lack of balancing, he really sucks at it.  So the encounter balance system will probably be a 1E character grind simulator rather than a system that can be used.

However, increasing the villains stats as the party takes rests, if a player does something great they get a triumph I think that can be applied to healing surge, and the players start to power up with more and more encounters rather than get weaker (I assume their hp's do go down), all of which means the players smurfing content and only attacking the boss when everything has been cleared.  Well his system builds in hard counters to it.  It's similar to what I do by adding NPC's or increasing monster capabilities if the party keeps dicking around to smurf the fight.

Unfortunately, its most likely going to be a 4E clone, because that seems to be Colville's favorite, uggh.

Quote from: GhostNinja on December 17, 2023, 04:12:36 PM

It doesn't even sound like they are going to print books.  We have been hearing rumors about this and it has been talked about a great deal.  I guess we won't know for sure until the next D&D is released.

Hmm, I wonder who it was who first predicted that, and has been saying it for over a year now? Three core books maybe, and perhaps one annual "special collector product", and the rest is all-in on the VTT.

RIP D&D. Your legacy will love on in the generic medieval fantasy genre you inspired.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 17, 2023, 06:58:59 PM
RIP D&D. Your legacy will love on in the generic medieval fantasy genre you inspired.

The IP is of worth.  What will happen is D&D will be sold off to another company that isn't ESG.  The ESG firms are going broke.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 17, 2023, 04:22:18 PM

You will NOT get a PDF.  A PDF can't be censored when they decide that all character art needs to be black men in dress and they need to put a forward on the PDF decrying whiteness and promising to help punish all white children they can find.  It will be a subscription, you won't own any of it.  Hell they will probably negotiate a deal with the browser partners and Apple and Microsoft to prevent printing of the manuals as well.

Yeah.  You won't own the content you buy on the VTT.  Like D&D Beyond, you will actually be buying a license to view the content on their servers.  They will also be able to cancel that license whenever they want without reimbursing you like they can on D&D Beyond.  If they decide that content you have purchased in "problematic" they will be able to alter it or remove it and there won't be a thing you can do about it.  You won't actually own any of it.

Quote from: GhostNinja on December 17, 2023, 04:12:36 PM
From what I am hearing WOTC is sending their physical product to discount places to get rid of it and from what it sounds whatever the next D&D is, its going to be .pdfs, and digital through the VTT.

It doesn't even sound like they are going to print books.  We have been hearing rumors about this and it has been talked about a great deal.  I guess we won't know for sure until the next D&D is released.

I'll be surprised, if they don't at least offer some deluxe printed editions via a boxed set.

Quote from: Jam The MF on December 18, 2023, 05:24:22 AM

Quote from: GhostNinja on December 17, 2023, 04:12:36 PM
From what I am hearing WOTC is sending their physical product to discount places to get rid of it and from what it sounds whatever the next D&D is, its going to be .pdfs, and digital through the VTT.

It doesn't even sound like they are going to print books.  We have been hearing rumors about this and it has been talked about a great deal.  I guess we won't know for sure until the next D&D is released.

I'll be surprised, if they don't at least offer some deluxe printed editions via a boxed set.

For what the 3 people who will be playing 6E?  I run multiple 5E games, fairly heavily modded with my own campaign world and older 1E-3.5E modules updated to 5E.  I have zero need to upgrade to 5E.  There were enough supplements for 5E I haven't bought yet that can act as extensions to 5E for at least 5 more years. 

WotC is going after millenials, and I wish them good luck with that as they continue to go bankrupt.  The millenials that are wroking, well they don't go to Disney movies and they don't buy Disney toys.  The same thing applies to poorly written woke trash that 5E keeps putting out.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 13, 2023, 08:56:51 AM
Also, MtG and D&D are some of the only things still making them any money (D&D only because of BG3 royalties, but still more coming in than going out from that vector.

Prior to BG3 D&D was making a surprising amount of money for wotc which was then being funneled into Hasbro. That realization was what sparked a years worth of more stupid than usual stupid from wotc.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 13, 2023, 08:18:44 AM
Hasbro is declining in large part because toy sales in general are declining. Gen Z and A grew up addicted to phones and don't buy physical toys anymore. The only people who buy toys now are collectors and Hasbro isn't interested in them.

It's a real pity, because they have a lot of IP they could monetize. Instead we got a Paramount+ show where Optimus and Megatron are buds with no explanation.

Whistling by the graveyard, possibly, but at least the Transformers haven't been turned into homosexuals.

Quote from: Rod's Duo Narcotics on December 18, 2023, 09:39:44 AM
Whistling by the graveyard, possibly, but at least the Transformers haven't been turned into homosexuals.

ahem...

Quote from: Rod's Duo Narcotics on December 18, 2023, 09:39:44 AM
Whistling by the graveyard, possibly, but at least the Transformers haven't been turned into homosexuals.

  No, but the series mentioned does have a nonbinary Transformer asserting 'they/them' pronouns ...

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on December 18, 2023, 10:18:00 AM

Quote from: Rod's Duo Narcotics on December 18, 2023, 09:39:44 AM
Whistling by the graveyard, possibly, but at least the Transformers haven't been turned into homosexuals.

  No, but the series mentioned does have a nonbinary Transformer asserting 'they/them' pronouns ...

The whole non-binary they/them thing has replaced trans as the fashionable identity flavor of the month.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 18, 2023, 10:55:03 AM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on December 18, 2023, 10:18:00 AM

Quote from: Rod's Duo Narcotics on December 18, 2023, 09:39:44 AM
Whistling by the graveyard, possibly, but at least the Transformers haven't been turned into homosexuals.

  No, but the series mentioned does have a nonbinary Transformer asserting 'they/them' pronouns ...

The whole non-binary they/them thing has replaced trans as the fashionable identity flavor of the month.

Well, the transformers are all machines and have no genitalia one way or the other but using they/them to refer to an individual is still a terrible misuse of English and fucking stupid to boot.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 17, 2023, 06:35:06 PM

Quote from: GhostNinja on December 17, 2023, 04:12:36 PM

It doesn't even sound like they are going to print books.  We have been hearing rumors about this and it has been talked about a great deal.  I guess we won't know for sure until the next D&D is released.

Hmm, I wonder who it was who first predicted that, and has been saying it for over a year now? Three core books maybe, and perhaps one annual "special collector product", and the rest is all-in on the VTT.

It was the Youtuber DnD Shorts. And others have been carrying that tune ever since.

3:50 in:


People give him some static because some of his inside sources told him that the D&D dev team didn't really read the playtest survey contents, and then Wotc came out full-court-press saying: "Untrue!". Which meant that he was WRONG! So disregard everything else he leaked! Please ignore everything! He's discredited! Like, totally!

Because obviously, Wotzi employee's would never lie to the precious player base. Like, 'Duh.


Now will they move to books being a 'special edition' thing right away? I think not. Although I do think that it is a natural progression of their desire to make D&D digital.

In my opinion; It will more likely be something that they transition to over time, depending on how many DnDBeyond subscribers that they are able to flip over to the VTT. Once they feel that they have reached a certain critical mass, it is not a stretch to imagine that they will start to cut back on the less profitable print side of "D&D"...

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on December 18, 2023, 10:18:00 AM

Quote from: Rod's Duo Narcotics on December 18, 2023, 09:39:44 AM
Whistling by the graveyard, possibly, but at least the Transformers haven't been turned into homosexuals.

  No, but the series mentioned does have a nonbinary Transformer asserting 'they/them' pronouns ...

Yep. The culture was has seeped into the Transformers. Like everything else.
Transformers are heavily anthropomorphized. They have human faces and general body layouts (2 arms, 2 legs, head, hands, feet, etc) and very human personalities. It's easy to put some culture war crap into the franchise.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 18, 2023, 05:53:57 AM
For what the 3 people who will be playing 6E?  I run multiple 5E games, fairly heavily modded with my own campaign world and older 1E-3.5E modules updated to 5E.  I have zero need to upgrade to 5E.  There were enough supplements for 5E I haven't bought yet that can act as extensions to 5E for at least 5 more years. 

I hope you're correct, but the only version upgrade that failed was to 4.0, and that was because it was totally and completely disruptive (on purpose, possibly to be as incompatible with OGL stuff as they could). The version featured name squatting like a "pick N targets" ability being named lightning bolt in a game with no line aoe at all, and pretty much all iconic D&D names being shoehorned into wacky grid-based tactical things.  4e, while honestly a very good game, wasn't D&D, and that version mostly failed, with a lot of players splitting off to Pathfinder and the initial book sales being followed by a much larger sales dropoff than normal.

But when 3.5 and Pathfinder DMs said stuff just like what you're saying now- that they had their worlds, their houserules, everything was great- many still ended up being pulled over to 5e because that's what their friends play.

Will 5.5 end up like that, dragging you kicking and screaming?  I kinda bet it will (well maybe not YOU, but a LOT of people).  Here's how:

1a- 5.0 has an increasingly strange game starting at about 11th level but really being in full swing by 13th.  While every version of D&D has issues at the top end, and 5e is totally able to be hammered into shape just as every other version was, it's kind of out of tone, with economic exploits in several high level spells and an apparent lack of ability progression.  This is because 5e is designed to be "linear everyone", with the power scaling from 4th to 5th being intended to be the same as between 16th and 17th, but it clearly is not.  Martial classes are meant to get little powerups around 11th level, but all pale compared to the fighter, and mere six spell slots wizards gain over around 10 levels provide a lot more distortion to the game than you'd think, especially when you remember how gutted these spells really are compared to 3.X and AD&D.
1b- 5.5 will fix this.  You probably fixed this already if you ran a game to 14th or higher level, but 5.5 will address this in the book a lot. This means your work will (possibly) appear amateurish to some others, and you definitely won't be able to discuss it with other players of the current version, who will all assume the 5.5 version of the classes and rules. 

2a- 5.0 has a bunch of really odd options that 5.5 is going to fix.  These will be looked at the same way that 3.0's weapon master prestige class or mercurial greatsword, or bladed guantlets were viewed in 3.5- something from the older version.  The stuff you allow from 5.0 will look like an AD&D 2e game with a 1e monk running around- it will feel like a very big houserule, far enough removed to not be able to be discussed.
2b- This social pressure will encourage you to port your 5.0 stuff to 5.5. 

Again, maybe not YOU, but people who are in your position, will get bullied into 5.5.  Was 5e enough of an upgrade over Pathfinder and 3.5, objectively speaking, to convert?  Probably not, but once a huge inswell of 5.0 players joined, it was enough of a motivation for enough of people.

Now maybe I'm wrong and 5.5's attempted fixes will be poorly received, or maybe the big blast of players that moved in during 5.0 but not during 5.5 will create islands of 5.0-derived content.  I sure could be wrong here.  I just think you shouldn't dismiss it instantly.

I think he makes some good points about players moving GMs to the VTT and the "evergreen rules" when they go digital.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 18, 2023, 01:16:21 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on December 18, 2023, 10:18:00 AM

Quote from: Rod's Duo Narcotics on December 18, 2023, 09:39:44 AM
Whistling by the graveyard, possibly, but at least the Transformers haven't been turned into homosexuals.

  No, but the series mentioned does have a nonbinary Transformer asserting 'they/them' pronouns ...

Yep. The culture was has seeped into the Transformers. Like everything else.
Transformers are heavily anthropomorphized. They have human faces and general body layouts (2 arms, 2 legs, head, hands, feet, etc) and very human personalities. It's easy to put some culture war crap into the franchise.

I actually don't think this is culture "seeping" anywhere.
In the original incarnation, all the transformers appeared to not have a sex, and indeed, in a couple episodes they just flat out created adult transformers out of stuff.  They didn't waste much time introducing female transformers though, and one of their longest lived lores had the idea that some of their progenitors were female and most were male and everyone kind of descended from one of those when their sparks were made or whatever.

So that was different enough, and alien enough, and didn't pose any complex questions about robot sex or made up crap like "gender".  No problems here, because it was offtopic!

But once the top down order came to inject ideology into all products, the transformers line simply had to retcon to make this happen.  Suddenly, we have the most famous and first female transformer, Arcee, having had a "female spark" that for some reason manifested a "male body", or something, and then sought out sex reassignment surgery from some mad scientist to become the lady robot we all know.  This was later retconned a bit, but Arcee is still in the current canon a transwoman. 
Here's the thing- this is a top down excuse, changing tons of established stuff, to shoehorn a transgender story into a robot story.  It's not culture seeping in, it's the art equivalent of unprovoked violence.

Quote from: daft on December 18, 2023, 01:48:53 PM
I think he makes some good points about players moving GMs to the VTT and the "evergreen rules" when they go digital.

This is a really good video, and it absolutely shows a pretty big risk- once D&D Beyond has a top tier VTT with full integration with absolutely everything, there will be an audience of players and DMs who want nothing else, because it will be official, real, and fast.  Over the last fifteen years players who never cared before now care about "immersion", and these are not young people- these are players who were there over a plastic battlemat and even no stupid map at all!  It's a reasonable assumption that many players will start with a slick presentation and of that, some number will decide that that's all that they want, and they won't mess with other options.

Quote from: Venka on December 18, 2023, 03:10:51 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 18, 2023, 01:16:21 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on December 18, 2023, 10:18:00 AM

Quote from: Rod's Duo Narcotics on December 18, 2023, 09:39:44 AM
Whistling by the graveyard, possibly, but at least the Transformers haven't been turned into homosexuals.

  No, but the series mentioned does have a nonbinary Transformer asserting 'they/them' pronouns ...

Yep. The culture was has seeped into the Transformers. Like everything else.
Transformers are heavily anthropomorphized. They have human faces and general body layouts (2 arms, 2 legs, head, hands, feet, etc) and very human personalities. It's easy to put some culture war crap into the franchise.

I actually don't think this is culture "seeping" anywhere.
In the original incarnation, all the transformers appeared to not have a sex, and indeed, in a couple episodes they just flat out created adult transformers out of stuff.

There are different original incarnations. Even within individual sources. The comics had the Transformers being evolved machines, which implies some kind of replication analagous to biological reproduction.

(https://static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Transformers-Marvel-US-mini.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=750&dpr=1.5)

The cartoon wavered between Transformers being built, and that's that, to being built but requiring Vector Sigma to give them personalites.

Then the comics retconned the origin of the Transformers to be the divine creation of a nearly godlike being called Primus.

The animated film introduced the idea of robot "children". They weren't specific as to whether they were Transformers or not. And Wheelie is said in his bio to be childlike.

Then the cartoon retconned, at least the beast form Transformers, to being created by Primacron.

(I didn't watch Beast Wars, but that's the series that introduced the idea of Transformer souls, called sparks. I have no idea if they went into Transfomer reproduction.)

Then the live action movies had the Allspark being the mysterious macguffin that makes Transformers out of existing machinery.

None of these origin stories preclude sexual reproduction, and some imply it. Though I actually prefer the live action films origin. Or second to that Vector Sigma.

QuoteThey didn't waste much time introducing female transformers though, and one of their longest lived lores had the idea that some of their progenitors were female and most were male and everyone kind of descended from one of those when their sparks were made or whatever.

Yep. Like I said, the Transformers were heavily anthropomorphosized. The look like humans in robot suits. Except for some notable exceptions. Human, sex specific voices. Most of them are close enought to human male bodies to be recognizable as such.
It wasn't long before they made female characters simply because humans are writing the stories, and write about stuff they know.

QuoteSo that was different enough, and alien enough, and didn't pose any complex questions about robot sex or made up crap like "gender".  No problems here, because it was offtopic!

But once the top down order came to inject ideology into all products, the transformers line simply had to retcon to make this happen.  Suddenly, we have the most famous and first female transformer, Arcee, having had a "female spark" that for some reason manifested a "male body", or something, and then sought out sex reassignment surgery from some mad scientist to become the lady robot we all know.  This was later retconned a bit, but Arcee is still in the current canon a transwoman. 
Here's the thing- this is a top down excuse, changing tons of established stuff, to shoehorn a transgender story into a robot story.  It's not culture seeping in, it's the art equivalent of unprovoked violence.

No argument from me on that.

Quote from: Venka on December 18, 2023, 03:38:29 PM

Quote from: daft on December 18, 2023, 01:48:53 PM
I think he makes some good points about players moving GMs to the VTT and the "evergreen rules" when they go digital.

This is a really good video, and it absolutely shows a pretty big risk- once D&D Beyond has a top tier VTT with full integration with absolutely everything, there will be an audience of players and DMs who want nothing else, because it will be official, real, and fast.  Over the last fifteen years players who never cared before now care about "immersion", and these are not young people- these are players who were there over a plastic battlemat and even no stupid map at all!  It's a reasonable assumption that many players will start with a slick presentation and of that, some number will decide that that's all that they want, and they won't mess with other options.

What Proffesor DM gets wrong IMHO is that the exects Hasbro hired from Microsoft won't try and implement microtransactions.

Every major Vidya studio is doing it with a few exceptions here and there, of course they'll at least try to milk every last cent out of their player base.

Hey, if it works for them, and their Consoooooomers are happy more power to them. They take the loonies out of the Table Top RPG scene and that's a win-Win-Win from where I'm standing.

Quote from: Venka on December 18, 2023, 03:38:29 PM

Quote from: daft on December 18, 2023, 01:48:53 PM
I think he makes some good points about players moving GMs to the VTT and the "evergreen rules" when they go digital.

This is a really good video, and it absolutely shows a pretty big risk- once D&D Beyond has a top tier VTT with full integration with absolutely everything, there will be an audience of players and DMs who want nothing else, because it will be official, real, and fast.  Over the last fifteen years players who never cared before now care about "immersion", and these are not young people- these are players who were there over a plastic battlemat and even no stupid map at all!  It's a reasonable assumption that many players will start with a slick presentation and of that, some number will decide that that's all that they want, and they won't mess with other options.

Indeed. And if they manage to roll out a good VTT reasonably close to the BG3 hype, I think there could be a decent number of converts popping over and checking the 'paper' game out online.

It's going to be interesting for sure. I am personally very done with D&D, but I rarely (read never) play. I buy rules and supplements because I like reading them, but never actually manage to find games online for the systems I like lol

For me to actually try out the new VTT and D&D again, WotC would really have to shape up and fix their issues.

The thing is, a BG3-ish battle map takes considerable work and expertise to build.  You don't just crank a couple out on an idle evening while prepping for your game that weekend.  Most GMs aren't going to be equipped to make them, so they're going to be relying on whatever library of maps WotC has.  Did you want a pretty particular map for your campaign?  Good fucking luck.  And whatever maps you can get on their VTT you can bet will not be free, and I expect not inexpensive either.  Right now for my Shadowrun game I've tossed a Patreon animated map guy five bucks a month for hundreds of maps.  I am awash in urban dark futureish maps for like sixty bucks in total, because I'm too lazy to do my own mapping.  Is WotC going to be offering their full-bore 3D maps for under a buck apiece?  I sorely doubt it.  But right now with Foundry I could drop a grid and draw out a map on the fly if I had to, drop on a bunch of monster tokens that I pulled off of a Google search for nothing, then roll for initiative.  And I could do it for basically any modern system in the world.

The only way WotC's VTT would become attractive to me would be if I suddenly hit the jackpot in Vegas and didn't care about having to buy all the maps, monster models, and optional rule add-ons that you know they're gonna nickel and dime everyone for.  Not to mention it would require me to want to play 5th edition in the first place, since you know they aren't going to make it backwards compatible with the older systems.

It is likely inevitable that one of the machine learning tools will be able to give you an 80 to 100% complete fresh map meeting your requirements.  I'm sure this isn't going to be coming out any time soon, but it is almost assuredly something that will exist sometime within the next six years.

I play in person with real dice and actual character sheets. These digital offerings don't have anything that I need.

Quote from: Valatar on December 19, 2023, 03:45:04 PM
The thing is, a BG3-ish battle map takes considerable work and expertise to build.  You don't just crank a couple out on an idle evening while prepping for your game that weekend.  Most GMs aren't going to be equipped to make them, so they're going to be relying on whatever library of maps WotC has.  Did you want a pretty particular map for your campaign?  Good fucking luck.  And whatever maps you can get on their VTT you can bet will not be free, and I expect not inexpensive either.  Right now for my Shadowrun game I've tossed a Patreon animated map guy five bucks a month for hundreds of maps.  I am awash in urban dark futureish maps for like sixty bucks in total, because I'm too lazy to do my own mapping.  Is WotC going to be offering their full-bore 3D maps for under a buck apiece?  I sorely doubt it.  But right now with Foundry I could drop a grid and draw out a map on the fly if I had to, drop on a bunch of monster tokens that I pulled off of a Google search for nothing, then roll for initiative.  And I could do it for basically any modern system in the world.

The only way WotC's VTT would become attractive to me would be if I suddenly hit the jackpot in Vegas and didn't care about having to buy all the maps, monster models, and optional rule add-ons that you know they're gonna nickel and dime everyone for.  Not to mention it would require me to want to play 5th edition in the first place, since you know they aren't going to make it backwards compatible with the older systems.

I think there's a "dungeon creator" included? But yes, it certainly will take some effort at least.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 19, 2023, 04:21:59 PM
I play in person with real dice and actual character sheets. These digital offerings don't have anything that I need.

Yep. Maybe others prefer online bling, or that's the only way they can get people together is online. But I prefer in person, and I really am not fond of the inevitable microtransaction model that WOTC seems to be aiming towards.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 20, 2023, 03:22:34 AM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 19, 2023, 04:21:59 PM
I play in person with real dice and actual character sheets. These digital offerings don't have anything that I need.

Yep. Maybe others prefer online bling, or that's the only way they can get people together is online. But I prefer in person, and I really am not fond of the inevitable microtransaction model that WOTC seems to be aiming towards.

There's only ONE thing that should give them pause:

They plan to charge the players AND the GM, currently you can play on roll20 totally free, and if your GM pays for a subscription you as the player get to enjoy whatever he paid for for free. But let's say you as a group pitch in so the GM can buy the subscription, it's still less than what WotZi will want to charge you as a player on top of what it charges the GM.

The new thing and all I don't think that's a good business plan, most people will not want to pay.

Quote from: Venka on December 19, 2023, 04:20:16 PM
It is likely inevitable that one of the machine learning tools will be able to give you an 80 to 100% complete fresh map meeting your requirements.  I'm sure this isn't going to be coming out any time soon, but it is almost assuredly something that will exist sometime within the next six years.

What do we think is the likelihood that WotC will prevent users from uploading custom maps? Whether on day one, or at some point in the future.

Given what we saw with the attempt to change the OGL at the start of the year, what is the likelihood that WotC attempts to claim ownership of any custom maps users upload, to resell to the rest of the user base?

I am not opposed to virtual tabletops, and it's ludicrous to think WotC couldn't put together a quality piece of software given the money they have at their disposal. I'm quite convinced that the shitstorm is far from over, and it's going to take more than a few youtubers raving about the program to change my mind. They can have a high quality virtual tabletop program and still fuck up the release. Next year WotC could easily invent five new ways to piss off all of their customers.

Let's put this into perspective. Who would have thought that putting a woman in charge of brand marketing in 2023 (so stunning and brave) and celebrating the transeses (so inclusive) would have blown up in a company's face so bad that other multi-billion dollar corporations backed off of their rainbow flag avatars in June? It seems so obvious now, but at this time last year, if any of us heard that, we would have thought there would be some right-wingers grumbling, and the stock would have risen 5 points. That was an entirely new way to fuck up a brand that no one thought was even possible.

WotC hired the same diversity, equity, and inclusion. I think there's a complete fucking disaster coming down the pipe. We only think the OGL thing was a major scandal, but we're going to find out it was just a minor misstep.

Given that there are several RPGs (even good ones) that are 100% free, a table can run games with nothing more than the cost of paper and pencils.  Many more tables play paid for games with only one copy of a book so the total expense is borne by one person or defrayed across the table to be nearly free.

When a hobby that costs less than $5 a month to play suddenly jumps to $100 or more a month, some people are going to have to take a deep look at their budget.  I suspect that this will result in more losses to the "D&D community" than the developers anticipate.

Quote from: Corolinth on December 20, 2023, 11:45:23 AM

Quote from: Venka on December 19, 2023, 04:20:16 PM
It is likely inevitable that one of the machine learning tools will be able to give you an 80 to 100% complete fresh map meeting your requirements.  I'm sure this isn't going to be coming out any time soon, but it is almost assuredly something that will exist sometime within the next six years.

What do we think is the likelihood that WotC will prevent users from uploading custom maps? Whether on day one, or at some point in the future.

Given what we saw with the attempt to change the OGL at the start of the year, what is the likelihood that WotC attempts to claim ownership of any custom maps users upload, to resell to the rest of the user base?

I am not opposed to virtual tabletops, and it's ludicrous to think WotC couldn't put together a quality piece of software given the money they have at their disposal. I'm quite convinced that the shitstorm is far from over, and it's going to take more than a few youtubers raving about the program to change my mind. They can have a high quality virtual tabletop program and still fuck up the release. Next year WotC could easily invent five new ways to piss off all of their customers.

Let's put this into perspective. Who would have thought that putting a woman in charge of brand marketing in 2023 (so stunning and brave) and celebrating the transeses (so inclusive) would have blown up in a company's face so bad that other multi-billion dollar corporations backed off of their rainbow flag avatars in June? It seems so obvious now, but at this time last year, if any of us heard that, we would have thought there would be some right-wingers grumbling, and the stock would have risen 5 points. That was an entirely new way to fuck up a brand that no one thought was even possible.

WotC hired the same diversity, equity, and inclusion. I think there's a complete fucking disaster coming down the pipe. We only think the OGL thing was a major scandal, but we're going to find out it was just a minor misstep.

WOTC Management: "What do you mean, these 19 year olds with pink hair living in their parents' basements, and working at coffee shops part time; aren't willing to pay to play in our awesome digital walled garden?  Haven't they realized by now, that assimilation is their only option?"

I do believe that during the OGL shitstorm there were claims that the plans for D&D Beyond were to charge everyone and not be the "GM pays/players free" setup that a lot of current VTTs go with.  IIRC, it was that things like character options and minis could not be shared by the GM and had to be paid for by the respective players; I don't think they were proposing that both the GM and the players would have to pay separately for an adventure module or things like that.

But that was from a leak and was not substantiated, and it's also possible they've altered course when the whole thing blew up on them.  We won't really know how they propose to monetize their system until it comes out.

Quote from: Valatar on December 19, 2023, 03:45:04 PM
The thing is, a BG3-ish battle map takes considerable work and expertise to build.  You don't just crank a couple out on an idle evening while prepping for your game that weekend.  Most GMs aren't going to be equipped to make them, so they're going to be relying on whatever library of maps WotC has.  Did you want a pretty particular map for your campaign?  Good fucking luck.  And whatever maps you can get on their VTT you can bet will not be free, and I expect not inexpensive either.  Right now for my Shadowrun game I've tossed a Patreon animated map guy five bucks a month for hundreds of maps.  I am awash in urban dark futureish maps for like sixty bucks in total, because I'm too lazy to do my own mapping.  Is WotC going to be offering their full-bore 3D maps for under a buck apiece?  I sorely doubt it.  But right now with Foundry I could drop a grid and draw out a map on the fly if I had to, drop on a bunch of monster tokens that I pulled off of a Google search for nothing, then roll for initiative.  And I could do it for basically any modern system in the world.

The only way WotC's VTT would become attractive to me would be if I suddenly hit the jackpot in Vegas and didn't care about having to buy all the maps, monster models, and optional rule add-ons that you know they're gonna nickel and dime everyone for.  Not to mention it would require me to want to play 5th edition in the first place, since you know they aren't going to make it backwards compatible with the older systems.

I have ZERO desire to deal with a fully rendered 3D battlemap monstrosity.  First the assets are going to be limited, and then the cost.  I can find free tokens and art and import them in now for Dungeondraft or Dungeonfog no problem.  I can export dungeondraft in full VTT format and my Fantasy Grounds imports the walls and sets everything up for me.  The 3D shit is going to be very costly to add content in I'm sure nice $5 to $50 "art packs".  Fuck that, Fuck Wotc.  I'm good with Fantasy Grounds and modding my own shit.

In the land of D&D I've never moved away from 1e AD&D. Since I'm not a customer Hasbro doesn't care what I think, and I only care to watch them fail. It's fun to read folks' comments, and fun to watch the blunders. I can't imagine an owner of the IP, whoever they might be, coming up with something that would "lure me away" from the game I've had a blast playing for over forty years. I've played lots of other games, and many of them I like, but 1e AD&D remains my favorite. I can always find players for the classics.

So fire up the barby and pass me a cold one.

Quote from: Valatar on December 20, 2023, 03:09:54 PM
I do believe that during the OGL shitstorm there were claims that the plans for D&D Beyond were to charge everyone and not be the "GM pays/players free" setup that a lot of current VTTs go with.  IIRC, it was that things like character options and minis could not be shared by the GM and had to be paid for by the respective players; I don't think they were proposing that both the GM and the players would have to pay separately for an adventure module or things like that.

But that was from a leak and was not substantiated, and it's also possible they've altered course when the whole thing blew up on them.  We won't really know how they propose to monetize their system until it comes out.

Let's say they ONLY want the players to pay a subscription fee, let's say it's JUST 5 US Dollars/month, let's also say that subscription includes character options AND minis.

How much do I HAVE TO pay to roll20 RIGHT THE FUCK NOW? ZERO, if the group pitches in to pay for the GM's premium then we pay very little.

But WotC wants to charge the GM AND the players.

Now, how long until they decide that just charging you isn't enough? That they need to charge you an extra for character options and another for minis?

Unless the other VTTs are so stupid as to jump in the "lets charge EVERYONE!" bandwagon, I don't see how the purple haired weirdoes (who are almost all broke) will jump to that.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 20, 2023, 04:08:05 PM

Quote from: Valatar on December 20, 2023, 03:09:54 PM
I do believe that during the OGL shitstorm there were claims that the plans for D&D Beyond were to charge everyone and not be the "GM pays/players free" setup that a lot of current VTTs go with.  IIRC, it was that things like character options and minis could not be shared by the GM and had to be paid for by the respective players; I don't think they were proposing that both the GM and the players would have to pay separately for an adventure module or things like that.

But that was from a leak and was not substantiated, and it's also possible they've altered course when the whole thing blew up on them.  We won't really know how they propose to monetize their system until it comes out.

Let's say they ONLY want the players to pay a subscription fee, let's say it's JUST 5 US Dollars/month, let's also say that subscription includes character options AND minis.

How much do I HAVE TO pay to roll20 RIGHT THE FUCK NOW? ZERO, if the group pitches in to pay for the GM's premium then we pay very little.

But WotC wants to charge the GM AND the players.

Now, how long until they decide that just charging you isn't enough? That they need to charge you an extra for character options and another for minis?

Unless the other VTTs are so stupid as to jump in the "lets charge EVERYONE!" bandwagon, I don't see how the purple haired weirdoes (who are almost all broke) will jump to that.

I agree, in general, but I think there is a large group that are "purple hair weirdo adjacent" that might pay. They people that hate on themselves for being white and male. Question is how large of a group that actually is.

And yes, WotC will monetize the living daylights out of this digital offering. Luring people in with generous free trials.

Quote from: daft on December 21, 2023, 01:26:02 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 20, 2023, 04:08:05 PM
...
But WotC wants to charge the GM AND the players.
...

...
And yes, WotC will monetize the living daylights out of this digital offering. Luring people in with generous free trials.

Personally, I think that this is how it will go:

- The One VTT will have a Basic tier that is free for players, just like roll20 etc,..

- The monetization will come in the form of Extras, that while "Not needed for play", will be pitched as very desirable.

Yes with the Basic tier you can make a character, but: "For a few bucks you can really customize the look of your PC with these bazillion options." And all the "optional" new hotness will be never-ending...

Yes the GM will pay a steady subscription, but the players will be Nickle and Dimed fifty cents here, one dollar there, and on and on... Totally optional, and not needed for play of course!

Lots of video games already do something very similar, and they rake in the cash.

There will also be some kind of marketplace for people to sell maps and adventures that they made for the VTT, from all of which Wotzi will get a healthy cut.

And while I expect to see lots of 'free trials' at the beginning; Once The VTT reaches a sufficient size, all the licenses from D&DBeyond that Wotzi has extended to other VTT's will stop getting renewed...

In a few years the OneVTT will become the one-stop-shop for all things "D&D", available No Place Else.

They only thing that remains to be seen is how much of the player base Wotzi will be able to flip into their walled garden.



For some reason this scene comes to mind:

Quote from: Jaeger on December 21, 2023, 02:49:23 AM

Quote from: daft on December 21, 2023, 01:26:02 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 20, 2023, 04:08:05 PM
...
But WotC wants to charge the GM AND the players.
...

...
And yes, WotC will monetize the living daylights out of this digital offering. Luring people in with generous free trials.

Personally, I think that this is how it will go:

- The One VTT will have a Basic tier that is free for players, just like roll20 etc,..

- The monetization will come in the form of Extras, that while "Not needed for play", will be pitched as very desirable.

Yes with the Basic tier you can make a character, but: "For a few bucks you can really customize the look of your PC with these bazillion options." And all the "optional" new hotness will be never-ending...

Yes the GM will pay a steady subscription, but the players will be Nickle and Dimed fifty cents here, one dollar there, and on and on... Totally optional, and not needed for play of course!

Lots of video games already do something very similar, and they rake in the cash.

There will also be some kind of marketplace for people to sell maps and adventures that they made for the VTT, from all of which Wotzi will get a healthy cut.

And while I expect to see lots of 'free trials' at the beginning; Once The VTT reaches a sufficient size, all the licenses from D&DBeyond that Wotzi has extended to other VTT's will stop getting renewed...

In a few years the OneVTT will become the one-stop-shop for all things "D&D", available No Place Else.

They only thing that remains to be seen is how much of the player base Wotzi will be able to flip into their walled garden.



For some reason this scene comes to mind:

The other VTTs then switch to the retroclones and the CC BY SRD and give wotzi the finger. I mean you just create a character sheet for whatever retroclone is based of 1e, 2e, etc. and I can use it to play 2e, after all my group owns the books (because we're old grognards) so we don't need shit from wotzi.

Or better yet, create a character sheet the GM can easily customize by choosing what's in it from a series of menus, now you're not even remotelly legally liable for what my GM constructed for us to play with.

Most people don't even grasp the concept of a RPG that isn't D&D, much less a clone.

I have like 6-7 co-workers (all 20 somethings) who play D&D 5e and when I've mentioned other games to them, they get a deer in the headlights look. I brought up Shadowrun once and the only person who knew what I was talking about was the other Gen X guy (and he's still with the 2e rules for that, same as me actually).

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 21, 2023, 02:59:19 AM
...
The other VTTs then switch to the retroclones and the CC BY SRD and give wotzi the finger. I mean you just create a character sheet for whatever retroclone is based of 1e, 2e, etc. and I can use it to play 2e, after all my group owns the books (because we're old grognards) so we don't need shit from wotzi.
...

They can surely do that. But the majority of the paying audience for all the other VTT's is also current year D&D.

Can they survive financially when their D&DBeyond licences expire, and a good portion of those folks move over to the new hotness from Wotzi?

We are going to find out!

In my opinion; There will be a contraction as a few of these alternate VTT's go under when the One VTT becomes the only place for current edition D&D.


And this is why:

Quote from: JeremyR on December 21, 2023, 03:56:16 AM
Most people don't even grasp the concept of a RPG that isn't D&D, much less a clone.

I have like 6-7 co-workers (all 20 somethings) who play D&D 5e and when I've mentioned other games to them, they get a deer in the headlights look. ...

This is the way the hobby has been since the beginning.

The overwhelming majority of people in RPG land only play the current edition of D&D. Period.

People like me are an outlier. If you are on this forum you are an outlier. We are rounding error's to D&D's dominance.

For me this hit home when a gaming friend brought me down to reality:

Me: "Dude, what are all these 5e D&D player crying about online? There are enough classes in the corebook for years of play. Why are they whining for more!?"

Them: "Because it isn't enough. They will never switch systems to take a break, or try something different from D&D. D&D is the only game that they will ever play."

Me: "Oh..."

Quote from: Jaeger on December 21, 2023, 02:49:23 AM
For some reason this scene comes to mind:

"Ehh, One VTT is enough!" - WotC.

Quote from: JeremyR on December 21, 2023, 03:56:16 AM
Most people don't even grasp the concept of a RPG that isn't D&D, much less a clone.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 21, 2023, 01:29:25 PMThe overwhelming majority of people in RPG land only play the current edition of D&D. Period.

Indeed.

To GeekyBugle, the One VTT is a non-trap, and ridiculous. "Why would people pay for this when there are better, free options? But this is missing 2 key factors:

1) GeekyBugle is a gamer, in that he plays games. Most in the hobby are actually just D&D players, they lack the curiosity and mental flexibility to be gamers.

2) The power of branding.

"I love D&D! Shame it's so expensive though."

"Good news, there's an alternative, exactly the same, but free!"

"Why doesn't it say D&D on it?"

"Well it's a Clone. All of the mechanics are the same, just with different brandi..."

[The other person has logged out of the chat]

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 21, 2023, 01:38:32 PM

Quote from: JeremyR on December 21, 2023, 03:56:16 AM
Most people don't even grasp the concept of a RPG that isn't D&D, much less a clone.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 21, 2023, 01:29:25 PMThe overwhelming majority of people in RPG land only play the current edition of D&D. Period.

Indeed.

To GeekyBugle, the One VTT is a non-trap, and ridiculous. "Why would people pay for this when there are better, free options? But this is missing 2 key factors:

1) GeekyBugle is a gamer, in that he plays games. Most in the hobby are actually just D&D players, they lack the curiosity and mental flexibility to be gamers.

2) The power of branding.

"I love D&D! Shame it's so expensive though."

"Good news, there's an alternative, exactly the same, but free!"

"Why doesn't it say D&D on it?"

"Well it's a Clone. All of the mechanics are the same, just with different brandi..."

[The other person has logged out of the chat]

This is so sad. I don't like D&D all that much, but very hard to find games for other systems.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 21, 2023, 01:38:32 PM

Quote from: JeremyR on December 21, 2023, 03:56:16 AM
Most people don't even grasp the concept of a RPG that isn't D&D, much less a clone.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 21, 2023, 01:29:25 PMThe overwhelming majority of people in RPG land only play the current edition of D&D. Period.

Indeed.

To GeekyBugle, the One VTT is a non-trap, and ridiculous. "Why would people pay for this when there are better, free options? But this is missing 2 key factors:

1) GeekyBugle is a gamer, in that he plays games. Most in the hobby are actually just D&D players, they lack the curiosity and mental flexibility to be gamers.

2) The power of branding.

"I love D&D! Shame it's so expensive though."

"Good news, there's an alternative, exactly the same, but free!"

"Why doesn't it say D&D on it?"

"Well it's a Clone. All of the mechanics are the same, just with different brandi..."

[The other person has logged out of the chat]

That's true to a point, currently, as a player you can play for free on roll20, if your group pays for the GMs premium you pay very little each.

The One-VTT plans to charge everybody a subscription, let's say that it gives you (at first) access to character options, etc.
(This will cause a huge portion of the purple haired weirdoes and some normies to nope out)

How long before the leeches they hired from Microsoft decide they need to bleed the players more?
(This will cause even more players noping out)

Since everything is digital they'll keep editing it so the party is always right.
(This will cause some to also nope out)

It's an online only game, so, even if you play at home everybody needs to bring their own laptop, how much bandwith do you need to be able to play this shit at home with your friends?
(This will cause some to nope out from the word go, probably will still play 5e with their physical books if they have them tho)

What specs does your laptop need to be able to run it smoothly? Is it all on the server side? Either way this will cause issues and some will nope out due to that.

I'm not saying everybody that nopes out will land in the OSR (God forbid we get all the purple haired weirdoes here), but since the 5.1 SRD IS under CC By ANY VTT can use it, ergo they can have character sheets for that.

Given that WotZi won't have the One-VTT for the other editions of the game I doubt they're so stupid as to block the other VTTs from using those, but even if they do, Roll"0 can just use the rules from a retroclone on the backend and craft a character sheet or better yet design one the GM can easily customize to run whatever he wants.

Now let's talk assets:

Currently I can run a game without ANY battle map and with some tokens I made from the internet. I can also find suitable battle maps for free or dirt cheap.

How much will it cost you (if you even can) to have a custom 3d interactive map made? How about the "minis", bet you you'll only be able to buy those from them, a basic pack with your subscription but if you want more monsters or PC "minis" well pay up peasant! Same for the maps.

Now, the 5e player base plays mostly (or only) 5e, what about the GMs? Do they run other games besides D&D 5e? Dang your bad luck guy, now you have to pay for TWO VTT subscriptions.

It's the streaming service wars all over again, and Wotzi hopes the 3D + animation gimmick will convince enough people to make it worth their while... I bet it will, at least for a year or two, but remember "D&D is undermonetized" they need to deliver to the shareholders ever growing earnings quarter over quarter...

How long until they start with all the same sheananigans the AAA Vidya companies engage in? Microtransactions, loot boxes, etc.

On the long run they'll either have to open it to other non-D&D games to keep the growth (and even that won't be enough), or keep increasing the price for a shrinking ammount of goodies.

Freemium online games have microtransactions for cosmetics and unlocks, and they rake in billions of dollars a year.

Put up a basic-bitch VTT with the D&D brand, get Critical Role to feature it. The players arrive, and basic maps and characters are free. Have premium classes that cost a fee to unlock.

Weapon skins, weapon effects, clothing, armor skins, armor effects, spell effect coloring, base customization, race customization, etc etc. Each item between 99c and $5.

Then the GM needs a monthly fee for extra functions, plus they'll sell him maps and adventures.


Is the target audience broke weirdoes? Sure is, but these same broke weirdoes buy Starbucks and IPhones while being poor, they'll buy into this.


This VTT will further damage, and split the hobby, but (assuming it works, and doesn't take a supercomputer to run) will make a TON of money. At least till the nerd fad dies.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 21, 2023, 02:13:35 PM
...
The One-VTT plans to charge everybody a subscription, let's say that it gives you (at first) access to character options, etc.
(This will cause a huge portion of the purple haired weirdoes and some normies to nope out)

We don't know that for sure yet.

I would be very surprised if they don't do a roll20 model, and used "totally not needed for play" microtransactions for PC mini skins, and dice to milk the players.



Because this:

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 21, 2023, 04:05:49 PM
Freemium online games have microtransactions for cosmetics and unlocks, and they rake in billions of dollars a year.

Put up a basic-bitch VTT with the D&D brand, get Critical Role to feature it. The players arrive, and basic maps and characters are free. Have premium classes that cost a fee to unlock.

Weapon skins, weapon effects, clothing, armor skins, armor effects, spell effect coloring, base customization, race customization, etc etc. Each item between 99c and $5.

Then the GM needs a monthly fee for extra functions, plus they'll sell him maps and adventures.

Is the target audience broke weirdoes? Sure is, but these same broke weirdoes buy Starbucks and IPhones while being poor, they'll buy into this.

Eventually, I believe that they will become subject to the same market forces that have seen every edition of D&D, and even the big MMO's like WoW, slowly decline in sales. Much will also depend on how much they decide to poz it up in the interim as well.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 21, 2023, 04:05:49 PM
This VTT will further damage, and split the hobby, but (assuming it works, and doesn't take a supercomputer to run) will make a TON of money. At least till the nerd fad dies.

You say that as if it is a bad thing!?

First there were crpg video games, then Magic the gathering came along. Then MMO's got all up in the gaming space.

In each case they pulled away the casual "gamer" that brought no real value to actual table to play.

RPG's have always been a niche hobby. D&D's success has always been an outlier. And even if the VTT 'splits the hobby' - there are still many more people playing RPG's in general then there were even twenty years ago.

In my opinion; Wotzi's VTT shenanigans will be a big eye opener for some people. And that will be a good thing.

Will other RPG's ever have the same number of players as D&D? Fuck no. Not even close.

But wotzi's nonsense will open a few eyes to the difference between D&D, and the rest of the hobby. And in my opinion that will be a good thing for the RPG hobby in the long run.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 21, 2023, 04:28:35 PM

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 21, 2023, 04:05:49 PM
This VTT will further damage, and split the hobby, but (assuming it works, and doesn't take a supercomputer to run) will make a TON of money. At least till the nerd fad dies.

You say that as if it is a bad thing!?

Oh not at all!

I've never been one of the people drinking the Kool-Aid, thinking the weirdoes and tourists inflating the hobby were going to discover the wider world of RPG's, and play good games.

ONE D&D can wall the freaks and degenerates off like Escape From New York, and I'll crack the champagne.

Here's the big revelation I had though: RPGs aren't coming back like we remember. I mean I know they were niche, but I foresee a hobby so niche that clubs will die out, and it will only survive in tiny pockets.

Why? Because digital RPGs are eating its lunch. Newer players want to use VTTs that handle character creation, calculate your dice rolls, hold your hand the whole way, even sat at a gaming table in person.

And that's just convenience. Soon VTTs will all have nice 3d environments, then comes Augmented Reality, then finally V.R. Who will want to sit playing CoC with dice and paper, when they can be the investigator talking to a virtual cultist, blasting Deep Ones with a virtual Tommy gun? An ultra-niche minority.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 22, 2023, 01:19:45 AM
Newer players want to use VTTs that handle character creation, calculate your dice rolls, hold your hand the whole way, even sat at a gaming table in person.

Interestingly, this hasn't been my experience with new players at all. Quite the opposite. Maybe I'm in a "pocket" -- of so, it's one of my own creation.

My guess is that if you spend all your time online, it will appear that everyone else does too.

Caveat: the popular method of trying to find "D&D players" I want to game with has never worked for me, whereas getting people who are already my friends to play in my old-school homebrews has never failed to keep me in a game.

Quote from: Zalman on December 22, 2023, 07:29:34 AM
Caveat: the popular method of trying to find "D&D players" I want to game with has never worked for me, whereas getting people who are already my friends to play in my old-school homebrews has never failed to keep me in a game.

Seconded, most strongly.  I'll even extend this to game networks of any kind.  The only time I got a stable group out of something other than network of friends and co-workers was putting up a sign up sheet in a FLGS.  That game was unusual, in that what I got signed up was an existing group entirely, whose GM had just been transferred out of state.  They all knew each other, of course, got along, and were open to whatever I wanted to run--not to mention inherently friendly.  Only thing that killed that game was me getting transferred a couple of years later. 

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 22, 2023, 01:19:45 AM
...
Here's the big revelation I had though: RPGs aren't coming back like we remember. I mean I know they were niche, but I foresee a hobby so niche that clubs will die out, and it will only survive in tiny pockets.

Why? Because digital RPGs are eating its lunch. Newer players want to use VTTs that handle character creation, calculate your dice rolls, hold your hand the whole way, even sat at a gaming table in person.

I'm generally more optimistic.

CRPG's have always eaten normal RPG's lunch. Fancier graphics and more sophisticated algorithms haven't changed a thing.

And yet in recent years D&D has gotten bigger than ever.

Board games have gotten big in past years as well.

In my opinion; these things go in cycles. RPG land has currently been riding an upcycle.

But, just like in the past when the hobby goes through a contraction; there will still be more RPG players left than there were 20 years earlier.

Quote from: Grognard GM on December 22, 2023, 01:19:45 AM
And that's just convenience. Soon VTTs will all have nice 3d environments, then comes Augmented Reality, then finally V.R. Who will want to sit playing CoC with dice and paper, when they can be the investigator talking to a virtual cultist, blasting Deep Ones with a virtual Tommy gun? An ultra-niche minority.

Here I am far more cynical.

"VR" has been a pipe dream for decades. In my opinion; it is the late 20th century's version of the 1960's flying cars... It'll just be a subset of video games because I don't think that they will ever be able to overcome the fact that a not insignificant group of people get motion sickness playing VR.

I'm not that concerned. Video games have been around awhile.

Even then, I think that there will be some good that comes out of VTT's and digitization.

It will impose a practical limit on the complexity of RPG's that want to see live play at the table.

This is a good thing. (No, I don't think it will lead to a 'dumbing down' of games; It will lead to tighter, better, game design.)

If a system greatly benefits by VTT automation; it is too much/bad design. Games like Shadowrun are going to have to get their act together.

In my opinion; The future of RPG's will be set by the companies that are able to promote playing together live at the table.

Because no video game can replicate the experience that a good GM and players can have.

So Mike Mearls started a Patreon  (https://www.patreon.com/mikemearls/posts)literally as a placeholder for him to someday start posting stuff. Fans found it, subscribed, started to pay him (44 paid subscribers so far), and so after he got finished being surprised three days ago he started to put stuff out though he did not intend to launch at this time and hadn't announced it anywhere.

And it's good. Interesting insights into things which were never supposed to go the direction they went in the 5e rules, things which were intended but never realized for things like skills and psionics, a replacement challenge rating system, that sort of stuff. And he's responding directly to questions over at ENWorld.

I'm not sure if "more secondary stuff about 5e from Mike Mearls" is something I think can very sustaining, but I wish him well. Who knows the future holds?

Quote from: pawsplay on January 25, 2024, 02:03:09 PM
I'm not sure if "more secondary stuff about 5e from Mike Mearls" is something I think can very sustaining, but I wish him well. Who knows the future holds?

I don't think that is his long term plan. It was more of a "Well if you guys are going to pay me for this thing I better give you something you might be interested in" sort of thing. I think his long term plan is a new 5e-based game, possibly fantasy and possible sci-fi, but he's very early in that process. Here are some quotes:

Quote from: mearls
No discord yet. Honestly, this entire thing was kind of an accident. I was setting up the Patreon for when I eventually did something in this space. I had no idea it would get any attention, but here we are!

So, with Discord I want to take some time to make sure I'm doing it right. It'll be something we grow into, or we'll find an alternative. I do like the idea of a forum-like place to answer questions and just interact with people. I was one of those oddballs who liked going into the office, and it's been an adjustment working from home.

Quote from: mearls
I'd like to keep the pieces I build compatible with the 5e SRD. If you look at the Challenge Point system I'm working on as a CR replacement, it's designed to function with any creature and give you a baseline point value based on CR.

The idea is to build modular systems that complement and improve what you have, rather than make something that forces you to pick A or B.

If I did a full game, it would be tied to a new world with its own set of ancestries, classes, magic system, monsters, and so on. I have some ideas for fantasy and science fiction worlds, but it is super early in the process.

Quote from: mearls
I'm focused on the 5e SRD for now, as that's the system I am most familiar with. In terms of [getting my content into] D&D Beyond, if that ever happened it would be pretty rad. But that's getting way ahead of myself!

   I'm surprised the Usual Suspects haven't come for his Patreon yet. Has that controversy been forgotten, do they feel they've gotten what they wanted, or is it just a matter of time?

Quote from: Mistwell on January 25, 2024, 02:16:35 PM

Quote from: pawsplay on January 25, 2024, 02:03:09 PM
I'm not sure if "more secondary stuff about 5e from Mike Mearls" is something I think can very sustaining, but I wish him well. Who knows the future holds?

I don't think that is his long term plan. It was more of a "Well if you guys are going to pay me for this thing I better give you something you might be interested in" sort of thing. I think his long term plan is a new 5e-based game, possibly fantasy and possible sci-fi, but he's very early in that process.

I think that's right. He is someone who has, if anything, too many options right now.

Quote from: Mistwell on January 25, 2024, 01:52:57 PM
So Mike Mearls started a Patreon  (https://www.patreon.com/mikemearls/posts)literally as a placeholder for him to someday start posting stuff. Fans found it, subscribed, started to pay him (44 paid subscribers so far), and so after he got finished being surprised three days ago he started to put stuff out though he did not intend to launch at this time and hadn't announced it anywhere.

And it's good. Interesting insights into things which were never supposed to go the direction they went in the 5e rules, things which were intended but never realized for things like skills and psionics, a replacement challenge rating system, that sort of stuff. And he's responding directly to questions over at ENWorld.

Hopefully he will find somewhere that actually appreciates a game designer. WOTC clearly isn't interested in hiring them anymore.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on January 25, 2024, 02:40:23 PM

   I'm surprised the Usual Suspects haven't come for his Patreon yet. Has that controversy been forgotten, do they feel they've gotten what they wanted, or is it just a matter of time?

I am sure it's a matter of time but I was shocked it's many pages into the ENWorld thread and not one person has raised that topic.

But yeah, you know someone will, and the usual suspects will pile on.

Quote from: Monero on December 12, 2023, 08:57:46 PM
It would be incredible if Hasbro tanks and they're forced to sell their IPs. I'd love for D&D and Magic to be bought by somebody that gives a fuck and doesn't hate their REAL supporters.

Instead it would end up in even worse hands.

Honestly I;d expect Habro/wotc to sell to only the worst possible new owner out of spite.

Quote from: GhostNinja on December 12, 2023, 11:21:08 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 12, 2023, 11:05:03 PM
So, by the looks of it it was a woketard purge, I bet there's still lots of them there left but still, below a list of those fired from WotC that we KNOW off so far:

Dan Dillon: Woketard confirmed
Trystan Falcone: Pronoun Wearer (so woketard confirmed)
Dixon Dubow: Woketard confirmed
Bree Heiss: Woketard confirmed
Eytan Bernstein: Woketard confirmed

Mike Mearls either because he's a true believer or out of fear threw his lot with the they/thems, so same difference

I thought WOTC loved the woke crap.  Or are they seeing the light and seeing it's backfiring and trying to stear the ship in a better, non-woke direction?

Only till it is convenient not to. Just like protecting the minorities and enforcing "diversity" is a priority. Only till it is convenient not to.

More likely it is just cutting off the chaff and excess and not even noticing who they are tossing out.

Quote from: Omega on January 25, 2024, 08:56:37 PM

Quote from: GhostNinja on December 12, 2023, 11:21:08 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 12, 2023, 11:05:03 PM
So, by the looks of it it was a woketard purge, I bet there's still lots of them there left but still, below a list of those fired from WotC that we KNOW off so far:

Dan Dillon: Woketard confirmed
Trystan Falcone: Pronoun Wearer (so woketard confirmed)
Dixon Dubow: Woketard confirmed
Bree Heiss: Woketard confirmed
Eytan Bernstein: Woketard confirmed

Mike Mearls either because he's a true believer or out of fear threw his lot with the they/thems, so same difference

I thought WOTC loved the woke crap.  Or are they seeing the light and seeing it's backfiring and trying to stear the ship in a better, non-woke direction?

Only till it is convenient not to. Just like protecting the minorities and enforcing "diversity" is a priority. Only till it is convenient not to.

More likely it is just cutting off the chaff and excess and not even noticing who they are tossing out.

Exactly. What all of these woketards don't understand is that they are still cisgendered white males. AKA the "Devil" in the eyes of the woke cult. There's not gold at the end of that alphabet rainbow.

All the woke talk from big corpos is window dressing. The top brass only sees one color: green. They think going woke is whats in and what makes money because they are told so by the people that want to push this propaganda everywhere.

Then, when it doesn't work, they create a reason why it wasn't because it was woke it was because of some other factor, like for example, the white male trolls that somehow made the woke product fail.

Oh but when it comes to the countries that do not have the woke ideology as a fancy twitter filter to raise their brownie points, then all of that goes out the window. No rainbow flags on the Sony Spiderman game in certain regions, because there is no money in that anyways.

Good riddance, Michael. You made your choice and you backed up the wrong horse. Hopefully, he learns from this mistake and his next project is designed and sold to the actual audience, that is, the one that actually buys the books.

But, I have found that the true believers never learn.

Problem is the big and even mid corps are being pressured into pushing the woke agenda by various groups with far more power than they should have and far less common sense than they should have. Add in marketing across the board pushing this and it is a disaster of wold spanning proportions this iteration.

The 1990 wave did not do even a tenth the damage this 2010 wave has and god only knows what the 2030 wave will be like. But it will somehow be worse.