I have been running 5e on Roll20 for some friends, but I'm trying to get them to move to OSE (Old School Essentials).
The response is pretty positive so far, but I'll finish off a scenario I got going in 5e first and then move over to OSE and see if they like it.

I've been running OSE for some other friends for a bit now at the actual tabletop and they're enjoying that.

Never used DnD beyond and don't intend to and don't intend to buy anymore Wotc product.
Actually, It's been a year or so since I bought any DnD/WotC product anyway, I've been getting tired of 5e for quite a long time anyway.

Probably going to scale back my DMing too, will try out playing more often, particularly Call of Cthulhu and other RPGs.

Atlas Games is looking into some kind of Open Ars Magica via ORC.

https://atlas-games.com/news/post?s=2023-01-13-atlas-games-orc-license-for-the-horde

I don't know in this case.  Normally I'd say, "Oh, the terminally online are only a tiny percentage, 95% of their customers will never even hear of an online scandal."  But in this instance, a lot of D&D's clientele hinged on stuff like Critical Role and online influencers proselytizing, so are in a position to hear a lot about the clusterfuck.  Also thanks to the coronas a lot of gamers were forced to engage online to play, providing more avenues for online drama to find its way to their ears as opposed to the basement nerds of yesteryear.

I would not be shocked if this actually did cause a shift in the marketplace.  I would be shocked if D&D lost its number one spot in the market, but I do expect its competition to gain ground on it.

Quote from: Spinachcat on January 21, 2023, 05:02:28 AM

Quote from: tenbonesBut I'm very curious about our fellow Mos Eisleyans here that publish and design.

I gotta say, I'm perversely interested in publishing some throwaway work for 6e (aka turning the Temple of Elemental Evil into the Fortress of Ethereal Chaos) just to see what the weather is like within the WotC Walled Garden.

So many of these 3PP companies have existed as remora fish attached to the bloated Woketard of the Crapass Coast for 20+ years and they are not going to enjoy the grand and overcrowded wilderness outside of the reliable sales from their current edition D&D fandom.

Speaking of clones. Hackmaster already parodied many D&D adventures.
Check out these fine films most of which aren't parodies.

Quote from: tenbones on January 19, 2023, 07:05:29 PM
Anyone else following other lines hear/see anything like this?

AD&D1e books on ebay have gone up 500-1,000% in price in the last week or so. Other older game systems are up, too, but just 200% or so.

Quote from: DocJones on January 21, 2023, 11:05:21 PM
Speaking of clones. Hackmaster already parodied many D&D adventures.
Check out these fine films most of which aren't parodies.

I think these are different issues.

I haven't seen any films by The Asylum, but my understanding is that they are treading on trademark, not copyright. My impression is that the content of the deceptively-titled films has very little to do with film it is imitating. It's relying on a similar title - because unique titles are difficult, and descriptive art to deceive people into buying. But the characters and action have little resemblance.

Parodies are a specially recognized case of "fair use" in copyright. Parody films often have very close match-up to the films that they are parodying. And Hackmaster can get away with "fair use" of a lot of D&D material because it justifies that it is transformative via parody.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on January 21, 2023, 11:10:02 PM

Quote from: tenbones on January 19, 2023, 07:05:29 PM
Anyone else following other lines hear/see anything like this?

AD&D1e books on ebay have gone up 500-1,000% in price in the last week or so. Other older game systems are up, too, but just 200% or so.

That's wild. But I do not begrudge anyone trying to get their hands on some 1e to learn how we did. Marking it up 1000%... that's a bit ruthless.

From a 4K survey (how well was it done? Don't know!) 1 in 10 vow to never again play D&D even though they own the books, etc to do so.

https://www.fandomspot.com/one-in-ten-ttrpg-players-done-with-dnd/

Gamers love being abused by exploitative megacorps, so I doubt that 1/10th of the people saying they won't buy D&D ever again will renege on their vow.

But it's possible that could be a pyrrhic win for WOTC/Hasbro with their investment. Lets hope so. I want to see the dragon slain.

I have noticed a definite shift away from D&D. Heck, this even predates the OGL debacle; I remember watching a Colville a few months ago where he mentioned Paranoia and described it in a positive light to show how D&D doesn't do everything, so I think this isn't exactly the start of a big trend away from D&D, but it is going to be the incident which many players remember as the cause.

Will it happen overnight? No. Most groups will wrap up current games and that's 2-10 sessions, so expect the swing to not start in earnest for several months, anyways. But there is a definite decrease in D&D-Dominance in the market.

Quote from: Fheredin on January 22, 2023, 10:31:12 PM
I have noticed a definite shift away from D&D. Heck, this even predates the OGL debacle; I remember watching a Colville a few months ago where he mentioned Paranoia and described it in a positive light to show how D&D doesn't do everything, so I think this isn't exactly the start of a big trend away from D&D, but it is going to be the incident which many players remember as the cause.

Will it happen overnight? No. Most groups will wrap up current games and that's 2-10 sessions, so expect the swing to not start in earnest for several months, anyways. But there is a definite decrease in D&D-Dominance in the market.

Despite there being many people (me included) who genuinely enjoy most D&D games (especially D&D-like games not under the control of idiots) more than many would like to admit, there are definitely people who jump on it as a bandwagon, without even exploring other options.  Some of them would indeed prefer something else if they gave it a try.  Others, would retain their enjoyment for D&D but find that they also enjoy other options (me included, a long time ago).   

So it takes something pretty seismic to move people off wholesale.  It takes something a lot less significant than that to get people to look.  And that's all everyone else really needs.  If 3% of the current 5E players look, and 2% of those jump, and 1% drop WotC entirely, it's a blip on Wanker's radar but huge for the people where they land.  If the numbers go up from that, adjust accordingly.  I think events so far are already such that more than 3% will look.  10% looking is an earthquake, because that puts us back to mid-TSR days, as far as the size of the market for everyone else.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 23, 2023, 08:15:23 AM
So it takes something pretty seismic to move people off wholesale.  It takes something a lot less significant than that to get people to look.  And that's all everyone else really needs.  If 3% of the current 5E players look, and 2% of those jump, and 1% drop WotC entirely, it's a blip on Wanker's radar but huge for the people where they land.  If the numbers go up from that, adjust accordingly.  I think events so far are already such that more than 3% will look.  10% looking is an earthquake, because that puts us back to mid-TSR days, as far as the size of the market for everyone else.

Very much this. There's a theory in independent content creation called "1000 true fans" where a content creator can make enough to support themselves (not rich, but paying the bills as their actual job) if they can get a thousand people to buy everything they produce (or these days, pay $1/month on patreon).

WotC claims somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 million currently active players worldwide... 1% of that is 130,000 people... even just counting the GMs out of that number... that's a LOT of prospects for a smaller creator to pick up "1000 true fans." (or a few hundred who help supplement your day job).

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 23, 2023, 08:15:23 AM
there are definitely people who jump on it as a bandwagon, without even exploring other options.

My experience is that new players seek out DMs and games to join, not specific systems. Our group has seen dozens of first-time TTRPG players, all of whom were seeking out "their first D&D experience", and none of whom cared one iota which game rules provided it. My current players refer to our game as "D&D night", although we don't play D&D, or a clone of any kind, and never have.

Someone mentioned D&D being the Kleenex of TTRPGs. Just because new players call something D&D doesn't mean it's WoTC's product they're playing, or even looking for.

Quote from: Zalman on January 23, 2023, 08:52:10 AM

My experience is that new players seek out DMs and games to join, not specific systems. Our group has seen dozens of first-time TTRPG players, all of whom were seeking out "their first D&D experience", and none of whom cared one iota which game rules provided it. My current players refer to our game as "D&D night", although we don't play D&D, or a clone of any kind, and never have.

Someone mentioned D&D being the Kleenex of TTRPGs. Just because new players call something D&D doesn't mean it's WoTC's product they're playing, or even looking for.

My numbers are similar in starting with my games, and my experience is that it happens like that, OR, it happens when someone, usually fairly young, buys the game and figures it out with a group of friends, much like a lot of us did back in the day.  Occasionally, I get a cross-over from one of those groups into mine, even someone who taught themselves to GM.  That usually spawns an in-depth conversation about why I run the way I do (a lot more like early D&D than anyone would get opening up a WotC product and running it as their first experience).  There's usually some doubt about it, while at the same time acknowledging that they enjoyed my game.  The usual result is they leave the conversation in thoughtful silence.  Sometimes this has an actual effect on how they run their games, sometimes not.

There is a strain of wishful thinking that runs through this forum, or more accurately, one strain of wishful thinking and one of despair.  One group, the RPG mechanics snobs, thinks that enjoying a D&D-like game is, de facto, evidence that the person is either close-minded or dense or both.  If all of these people would ever try [insert their favorite game of the day], a new world would emerge with scintillating butterflies and heavy metal unicorns of good gaming.  Meanwhile, the despair crowd is convinced that there is something lowest common denominator about D&D (appeal, branding, bandwagon, whatever) that makes it akin to an addiction. So of course no matter what happens, everyone currently playing 5E will stick with whatever the Wankers produce.

The reality is that the snobs are correct about a tiny slice of the D&D (ish) player base, and the despair crowd is correct about a tiny slice of the same base (albeit, maybe a slightly larger slice than the snobs).  The vast bulk of the remainder of the player base is filled with mostly casual players and relatively few who really get into it.  Some of the casuals will become more interested if they can hit on the right group.  And with the recent bandwagon effects, there are of course a big chunk that aren't really TTRPG players, never have been, never will be.  They go through the motions, and as soon as the motions cease, they'll be off to something.  I hope that WotC keeps every last one of that last chunk in their new endeavors, because it will make the "community" they create completely alien to real players.

TL;DR:  We only want the quality players in that existing base to move, whether to something akin to D&D or something more exotic. 

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 23, 2023, 08:15:23 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on January 22, 2023, 10:31:12 PM
I have noticed a definite shift away from D&D. Heck, this even predates the OGL debacle; I remember watching a Colville a few months ago where he mentioned Paranoia and described it in a positive light to show how D&D doesn't do everything, so I think this isn't exactly the start of a big trend away from D&D, but it is going to be the incident which many players remember as the cause.

Will it happen overnight? No. Most groups will wrap up current games and that's 2-10 sessions, so expect the swing to not start in earnest for several months, anyways. But there is a definite decrease in D&D-Dominance in the market.

Despite there being many people (me included) who genuinely enjoy most D&D games (especially D&D-like games not under the control of idiots) more than many would like to admit, there are definitely people who jump on it as a bandwagon, without even exploring other options.  Some of them would indeed prefer something else if they gave it a try.  Others, would retain their enjoyment for D&D but find that they also enjoy other options (me included, a long time ago).   

So it takes something pretty seismic to move people off wholesale.  It takes something a lot less significant than that to get people to look.  And that's all everyone else really needs.  If 3% of the current 5E players look, and 2% of those jump, and 1% drop WotC entirely, it's a blip on Wanker's radar but huge for the people where they land.  If the numbers go up from that, adjust accordingly.  I think events so far are already such that more than 3% will look.  10% looking is an earthquake, because that puts us back to mid-TSR days, as far as the size of the market for everyone else.

I don't think you realize the reason for the switch; the OGL 1.1 was basically designed to skim 25% off Critical Role's revenue, which makes it quite likely that the most famous D&D podcast will drop D&D in favor of something else, at least in protest. And Colville already seems to be on a slow divorce trajectory with D&D. What's happening is that online influencers are leaving D&D, and that will have an effect on the most involved players and GMs, who will then discuss it with the rest of their groups, and you have a snowball.

How much of the market will actually drop D&D? I have no clue. But the real awakening point is not if you drop D&D; it's if you visit a website like DriveThru or Itch.