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Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: Razor 007 on January 18, 2021, 01:35:39 AM

Title: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Razor 007 on January 18, 2021, 01:35:39 AM
By Hasten; I mean that WOTC will cave in to pressure to go full Wokeness, in a Big Way soon.

By Delay; I mean that WOTC will leave the money machine alone, because 5th Edition is a proven profit maker.  Nobody wants to be blamed for another 4th Edition type flameout.


Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Omega on January 18, 2021, 01:56:36 AM
WOTC cares only about failure so one way or another they will fuck things up.

The fact that 5e continues to be chugging along despite their best efforts is testament to how freakishly solid the game is despite how off kilter some rules are and how WOTC has been trying to woke-ify it to death.

If going to 6e will kill off WOTC faster then WOTC will go for 6e because failure is the only option.

The real factor is if Hasbro tightens the dogs leash enough to stop them.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Jaeger on January 18, 2021, 04:43:49 AM
Hasten:
WOTC is a few personnel changes away from going full woke. It is an inevitable result of the local politics they came from, and that they now self select and filter all new hires through.

IMHO, 6e is inevitable. The prospect of a new edition at the 50th anniversary of D&D will prove irresistible. With the ongoing woke lore changes they are continuing to introduce they are setting things up to make a core book revision a necessity to consolidate all the “updated” lore.

The actual mechanical rules set will be largely irrelevant. It might actually be mechanically quite solid.

What will be important will be the woke lore and writing permeating the books.

If I was in charge of 6e I know exactly what design goals I would have. But they’d be oriented to trying to capitalize on the market that has been made by 5e. Not alienate half of it.

Delay:
Hasbro to only steps in when WOTC really screws up. Because they think that the people at WOTC are the market experts.

Which of course means that WOTC has free reign to shoot themselves in the foot.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: robh on January 18, 2021, 05:51:06 AM
......The prospect of a new edition at the 50th anniversary of D&D will prove irresistible.....

This.

More of an issue for me (with absolutely no interest in 5th , 6th or 7th editions) is will "Full Woke" mean they cave to pressure to cull the back catalogue of stuff. Any money raised from sales of previous edition books and pdfs is basically free bonus for WOTC but I am sure that there is a point at which the $$ do not cover the constant bullshit about the sexist/ableist/ racist back catalogue.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Steven Mitchell on January 18, 2021, 07:42:37 AM
Don't care.  As far as I'm concerned, WotC has already struck out and run out of innings.  I wouldn't buy a 6E even if it were God's gift to gaming.  Of course, that's easy to say when more likely it will be a train wreck.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Altheus on January 18, 2021, 08:42:38 AM
I'd say neither. 6th ed will face the problem that it is competing largely against 5th edition which is pretty good and the sums of money people have already sunk in to 5th.

I would need something spectacular to warrant replacing my existing stuff and I haven't even spent that much.

I can see some kind of subscription model coming where you pay monthly for access to everything and then individually buy the physical bits you want.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Eirikrautha on January 18, 2021, 10:32:26 AM
I'd say neither. 6th ed will face the problem that it is competing largely against 5th edition which is pretty good and the sums of money people have already sunk in to 5th.

I would need something spectacular to warrant replacing my existing stuff and I haven't even spent that much.

I can see some kind of subscription model coming where you pay monthly for access to everything and then individually buy the physical bits you want.

Honestly, that's why I think that WotC will produce a "50th Anniversary Edition" of 5e (call it 5.5) that includes all of the changes, errata, new material, etc. in a few new books.  There are enough collectors out there that will pay money for it, even if they basically already have it.  Why split your base, when you can resell the same product?
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Chris24601 on January 18, 2021, 11:12:32 AM
Honestly, it’s in my financial interests for WotC to go full woke for a 6e/50th Anniversary edition, so I really hope they do it.

My system will certainly be out by then and would definitely benefit from people looking for non-political alternatives that are still modern mid-crunch kitchen sink systems with non-random character creation and Big Damn Heroes style play (vs. most of the OSR systems which are generally lower crunch, use mostly classic races/classes, often use random chargen elements and typically focus on Zero-to-Hero style play).

Heck, if I nabbed even a fraction of 1% of disaffected WotC players after they released their woke edition I’d be in fantastic shape.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Dimitrios on January 18, 2021, 12:21:14 PM
Honestly, that's why I think that WotC will produce a "50th Anniversary Edition" of 5e (call it 5.5) that includes all of the changes, errata, new material, etc. in a few new books.  There are enough collectors out there that will pay money for it, even if they basically already have it.  Why split your base, when you can resell the same product?

This sounds about right. Between the options of making a new edition a) 5e with cosmetic changes or b) another attempt at selling people on a totally different game called D&D (because it worked so well the last time), option "a" is the obvious choice. And "Special Anniversary Edition" is probably the best pitch for getting people to pay for a minor 5e update.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Jaeger on January 18, 2021, 01:05:52 PM
...
Honestly, that's why I think that WotC will produce a "50th Anniversary Edition" of 5e (call it 5.5) that includes all of the changes, errata, new material, etc. in a few new books.  There are enough collectors out there that will pay money for it, even if they basically already have it.  Why split your base, when you can resell the same product?

This is also a perfectly viable way for WOTC to go. And probably an easier sell for them to wokeify the core book text.

IMHO it depends on what personnel changes happen at WOTC before the 50th anniversary comes up.

If things stay the same, a 5.woke 50th version seems the safe bet. But because it will be solidly 5e based the wokeification will have limits.

If there are a few significant personnel changes, I think they will find an excuse to really put their stamp on D&D, and a 6e will be irresistible to a more progressive leadership. They will not be able to help themselves from making D&D all rainbow happy joy joy all the time...
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Rhedyn on January 18, 2021, 02:01:26 PM
I think it will also be a 5.5 D&D update. The Tasha race rules will go into core. They will stop calling them races. Combat Wheelchair will be the PH just to scare the Nazi's off. The DMG will have a consent section. Monster Manual descriptions of sapient creatures will change.

It's a shame because the game really does need a 6th ed. All the levels after 10 are useless and the game really drops off in quality after level 4 and most players want to start at level 3.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Ratman_tf on January 18, 2021, 03:24:51 PM
Hasten:
WOTC is a few personnel changes away from going full woke. It is an inevitable result of the local politics they came from, and that they now self select and filter all new hires through.

Delay.

WOTC going full woke means they will spend the majority of their time in Diversity and Awareness meetings, and less time working on actual RPGS.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Steven Mitchell on January 18, 2021, 03:44:23 PM
Delay.

WOTC going full woke means they will spend the majority of their time in Diversity and Awareness meetings, and less time working on actual RPGS.

Good one!  They announce the change, making people mad and hampering their sales on the end of 5E.  Then they miss the dates and/or roll out obviously unfinished work. 
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Spinachcat on January 18, 2021, 07:37:34 PM
I agree that 2024 will be a "50th anniversary edition" that will be a woke 5.5e.

Collectors will collect.
Wokesters will approve.
Cucked gamers will cuck ("but-but it's the only game my players will play!!!)

And it will make plenty of money.

As for my own predictions, the edition might even have a section denouncing Gary & Dave for not being woke and how "diverse" the fanbase is now. If it skips that section, it will instead feature "testimonials" from prominent wokesters who will effectively say the same thing.

Whatever happens, fuck WotC. The OSR rolls on just fine.

Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Mistwell on January 18, 2021, 08:39:09 PM
An overwhelming majority of current players and potential new players just don't care about this issue. Of those who do care, the number who LIKE it probably outnumber the people who dislike it, due to the wealth of players coming from younger generations and the dying off of older players (either literally or figuratively as they stay with a prior version of the game).
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Jaeger on January 18, 2021, 09:53:46 PM
An overwhelming majority of current players and potential new players just don't care about this issue. Of those who do care, the number who LIKE it probably outnumber the people who dislike it, due to the wealth of players coming from younger generations and the dying off of older players (either literally or figuratively as they stay with a prior version of the game).

This is an interesting hypothesis.

 I readily admit that this idea is not without some basis. 5e with its inclusions of "woke lite" seems to be a license to print money. And if you look at twitter, youtube, and various online forums, the preponderance of 5e players do seem to fall into the "woke is OK" crowd.

The first counterpoint I would make would be that so far 5e is very 'woke lite'; The inclusions of the SJW narrative are very easy to ignore for the rest of the not-woke player base. The "woke" messaging has not been made apart of D&D's core identity yet in the main 3 rule books.

A second counterpoint would be what has happened to the major print comic book companies DC and Marvel since they went full woke.

If they were not owned by their respective big corporations they would have filed for bankruptcy years ago. Comic sales from them are at an all time low. The wokeification of  comics and woke versions of iconic characters do not even do close to the numbers that the original un-woke versions did.

You'd figure Marvel comics be riding high after the success of the marvel movie series. But they are not. Marvel and DC had both been steadily downsizing even before the Kung-Flu hit.

But even with Comics and RPG's being 'Geek' market products - I do admit that does not mean there is full crossover between the two respective fan bases. I use it merely as an indicator, not a 1:1 correlation.

Ultimately we'll see if the D&D audience will put up with a significant shift in tone. Or they'll do what a lot of the comic book audience has done, and just walk away.

It is worth noting though that even if the woke crowd are now the majority fans -  alienating even 30-20% of your audience with a 100% woke edition, and causing them to walk away will result in severe annual revenue reductions over time.

 And it would create an opening for a viable competitor to cater to that audience.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Omega on January 18, 2021, 10:27:49 PM
5th ed came out in 2014. We are now a year past the usual WOTC obsession with the damn "5 year plan". So assuming they are still addicted to that stupid. Then it is only a matter of time before 6e comes out. Despite it being the most crackheaded idea ever.

Failing that, for example HASBRO saying "No. Stick to 5e". WOTC will find some other way to fuck things up more than they already are. Gradually they will have gotten rid of the few writers who were toning down the stupid creeping into the books and we will have more of these woke indoctrination booklets in the works.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Eirikrautha on January 18, 2021, 10:34:50 PM
An overwhelming majority of current players and potential new players just don't care about this issue. Of those who do care, the number who LIKE it probably outnumber the people who dislike it, due to the wealth of players coming from younger generations and the dying off of older players (either literally or figuratively as they stay with a prior version of the game).

This is an interesting hypothesis.

 I readily admit that this idea is not without some basis. 5e with its inclusions of "woke lite" seems to be a license to print money. And if you look at twitter, youtube, and various online forums, the preponderance of 5e players do seem to fall into the "woke is OK" crowd.

It's funny.  Whenever I would suggest to someone on various message boards that there existed a flaw in X based on public reaction on that board (where X was either that person's favorite RPG, or the RPG that the message board was dedicated to), I would frequently be told that the vast majority of RPG players never bothered to read or visit online forums/materials/discussion of RPGs, so my perspective on play was hopelessly flawed.  That is probably a fair point.  I think it holds equally, or even more so, true for Twitter, YouTube, et al.  I have a profession that puts me in constant contact with young people (due to the present cancel culture here in the US, I'll be no more specific... but you can probably guess).  I can tell you that there are a small number (less than 10%) of the younger generation who are vocal wokesters, generally to get attention and/or provide a sense of importance to themselves.  The vast majority of the young people, on the other hand, simply roll their eyes and ignore the stupid. 

In fact, more young people than you would expect hold what could be described as right-leaning opinions, either due having been directly impacted negatively by wokeness (every time you "call out" someone in call-out culture, you are creating a potential enemy along with your self-aggrandizing display) or because in today's America, transgressive displays (the goal of every teenager) are almost exclusively clustered on the right.  Come out as gay or trans, and you are surrounded by authority figures (in schools, public institutions, the media, etc.) who will support you.  But if you really want to shock your parents and those in authority, declare support for Trump!  You'll get the same reaction an earring or tattoo would have gotten you in the 50's.

So I don't think the hypothesis is supported by anything other than the loudest voices on Twitter.  And I think we can safely say that isn't representative of the American public, or even American teens.  Hell, it'd be like asserting that RPGNet has captured the pulse of the hobby, because you never see a contradictory opinion there (and ignoring that this is true because all opposing voices are silenced, just like on Twitter, Reddit, etc.).  And WotC will be in for a big shock if they count on teens to buy the game simply because it goes woke.  Woke just isn't cool anymore...
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Mistwell on January 18, 2021, 10:37:47 PM
A second counterpoint would be what has happened to the major print comic book companies DC and Marvel since they went full woke.

If they were not owned by their respective big corporations they would have filed for bankruptcy years ago. Comic sales from them are at an all time low. The wokeification of  comics and woke versions of iconic characters do not even do close to the numbers that the original un-woke versions did.

You'd figure Marvel comics be riding high after the success of the marvel movie series. But they are not. Marvel and DC had both been steadily downsizing even before the Kung-Flu hit.

You might want to question your assumptions.  (https://www.comichron.com/yearlycomicssales.html)

I don't even think most middle age adults realize where a lot of sales from both major comic companies are coming from. For example, I don't think most middle age adults have even heard of Raina Telgemeier (https://www.comicsbeat.com/raina-telgemeiers-guts-is-the-bestselling-book-overall-in-the-us-this-week/), though her middle school graphic novels are outselling most books being published today. And I didn't make a mistake in language there - her graphic novels are outselling most BOOKS, including all comic books, these days.

I think when you're talking comic books, you're thinking superhero books. Superheroes is not even where most of the money is at these days. Not to mention, both companies are selling a lot in other languages and in other nations these days as well. The marketplace changed. It's huge, and not what you might expect.

Also, this is one of the very few topics where I have genuine insider knowledge. Neither company would be bankrupt. Neither has run a negative for any year as it's own unit other than the year decades ago when Marvel really did file. Neither is propped up by it's larger corporate owner. Both have run profitably every year for decades. While I do think woke politics are doing some internal damage to both companies, both are still doing OK with sales, though Covid did give both a gut punch as so many stores shut down. But that's unrelated to woke politics.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Razor 007 on January 18, 2021, 11:26:22 PM
I guess WOTC may allow 5th Edition to live on, since it's still making good money?

They may just release a "D&D Unchained" book, and include a few pages of wokification?
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Wiseblood on January 19, 2021, 12:04:12 AM
Mistwell,

I have gotten the impression that the comic shops were almost told by the big companies what to carry. Is that close to reality or am I missing or misunderstanding?

Another question: Do the numbers in the link include profit from merchandising or is it purely comic book sales?
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Ratman_tf on January 19, 2021, 12:59:06 AM
An overwhelming majority of current players and potential new players just don't care about this issue. Of those who do care, the number who LIKE it probably outnumber the people who dislike it, due to the wealth of players coming from younger generations and the dying off of older players (either literally or figuratively as they stay with a prior version of the game).

There's always a new generation coming into the picture. The aging wokesters are in the workforce and being replaced by... I'm going to coin them the memesters. Kids who have grown up with the internet and have a completely different perspective on social justice issues. They are going to be the new target demographic, and the wokesters trying to create content they'll enjoy are going to find they're completely out of touch. As the generation before them was.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Steven Mitchell on January 19, 2021, 07:03:18 AM
The vast majority of people don't care about such issues until you make them care.  Then they do.  Which is how, for example, ESPN went from losing a few thousand subscribers a month to hundreds of thousands, seeming overnight.  Kind of like a negative version of the "overnight sensations" in music that only worked hard for a decade or two before being discovered.

So yes, there is some amount of wokeness that any game can do that will not appreciably hurt their sales.  You could even argue that that the initial slice they lose is replaced, maybe even more than replaced, by those that agree with them.  The problem is that the woke never quit until they've completely won or killed something or someone manages to make them quit (AKA shareholders).  There is nothing special about a game that exempts it from this dynamic.  It is difficult to get people to give up something they like, either entirely or to find an alternative.  Unlike movies and sports, it is a hell of a lot easier to find an alternative for a game.  So the barrier to quitting is much smaller.  Will Hasbro tolerate a self-inflicted loss of 30% of the market?  Maybe.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Melan on January 19, 2021, 07:49:56 AM
Hasten:
WOTC is a few personnel changes away from going full woke. It is an inevitable result of the local politics they came from, and that they now self select and filter all new hires through.
That's correct. "Seattle, WA" and "Portland, OR" tends to explain a lot of these things. WotC is a "Seattle, WA" company through and through.

[edit]Just read Death to the Minotaur (https://www.salon.com/2001/03/23/wizards/), an article by John Tynes describing the company's corporate culture... in the 1990s. Now add 20+ years, and there you are.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Charon's Little Helper on January 19, 2021, 10:15:37 AM
Delay: WoTC doesn't get the final say about such major decisions. Hasbro does. Hasbro likely doesn't want to kill the golden goose that is 5e. Hasbro lets WoTC get away with a lot so long as D&D is profitable - but it's unlikely they'll let them do anything major that might risk that.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Chris24601 on January 19, 2021, 11:39:34 AM
While I previously stated I’d love them to go full-woke for my own financial benefit, my realistic expectation is that, given history, now that those in power have largely secured it, the need for destabilizing social elements is rapidly declining.

Case in point; during their rise to power c. 1917-1930, the Soviets legalized gay and transgender activities to destabilize things, once power was secured they re-criminalized both in 1933 with even harsher penalties and labeled them as subversive pro-fascist behaviors because even the Commies knew better than to really base their civilization on the preferences of a few percent of non-breeding snowflakes in their population.

I would not be surprised at all to see wokists thrown under the bus over the next few years now that they’ve exceeded their usefulness and keeping the 95% of the population that is “cis-gender” relatively docile takes precedence. Most darkly humorous of all is that those in power will likely adopt the “get woke go broke” mantra as their rationale and the right-leaning culture warriors who aren’t paying attention will declare it a win.

By the time 2024 rolls around woke may be again back on the ash heap of history and “pro-authority” the cultural message du jur of a “50th Anniversary Edition” (basically 5e, but repackaged as “D&D50”).

Because sorta like how Windows jumped straight from 8 to 10 (and [product]2000 was all the rage at the turn of the millennium) for marketing reasons, I suspect the marketing department will decide that “50th” is much stronger branding than “6e” so even if there are significant revisions (akin to the jump from 1e to 2e) it will never be called out as 6e during its lifetime (similar to how Vampire 20th Anniversary edition/V20 was never called Vampire 4e... but it’s successor is called V5/5th Edition).
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: hedgehobbit on January 19, 2021, 12:16:53 PM
I don't even think most middle age adults realize where a lot of sales from both major comic companies are coming from. For example, I don't think most middle age adults have even heard of Raina Telgemeier (https://www.comicsbeat.com/raina-telgemeiers-guts-is-the-bestselling-book-overall-in-the-us-this-week/), though her middle school graphic novels are outselling most books being published today. And I didn't make a mistake in language there - her graphic novels are outselling most BOOKS, including all comic books, these days.

Raina Telgameier's books are not made by "major comic companies" nor do her sales help the comic book industry in any way. It is wrong to include her sales in with the likes DC and Marvel. The same could be said about including manga sales as "comic books".

DC and Marvel sales have been dropping for several years now. Comichron shows this. They only keep their revenue up by charging more per issue. And their drop in sales corresponds exactly to the point where they went woke.

The movie industry does the same thing. When ticket sales started to drop, they raised the price. When that no longer worked, the movie industry started to only talks about global box office, which is (was?) rising.

And WotC also does this by including people who watch Critical Role into the "D&D Community" despite those people not actually contributing to their bottom line.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Dimitrios on January 19, 2021, 01:20:29 PM
I'm not super plugged in, but I haven't seen or heard anything to contradict the claim that traditional Marvel/DC superhero comics have seen declining sales (number of books sold, not $$) for a while now. Of course the overall picture for "comics" in general is different, especially, as noted above, if you are including manga.

To get back on topic, I'll stick with my "cosmetic changes only" prediction for the next edition. Maybe I'm just overestimating how rational managers are, but after Wizards nearly killed the golden goose once, it's hard to believe that Hasbro would let them try again.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: jhkim on January 19, 2021, 01:39:39 PM
While I previously stated I’d love them to go full-woke for my own financial benefit, my realistic expectation is that, given history, now that those in power have largely secured it, the need for destabilizing social elements is rapidly declining.

Case in point; during their rise to power c. 1917-1930, the Soviets legalized gay and transgender activities to destabilize things, once power was secured they re-criminalized both in 1933 with even harsher penalties and labeled them as subversive pro-fascist behaviors because even the Commies knew better than to really base their civilization on the preferences of a few percent of non-breeding snowflakes in their population.

I would not be surprised at all to see wokists thrown under the bus over the next few years now that they’ve exceeded their usefulness and keeping the 95% of the population that is “cis-gender” relatively docile takes precedence. Most darkly humorous of all is that those in power will likely adopt the “get woke go broke” mantra as their rationale and the right-leaning culture warriors who aren’t paying attention will declare it a win.

By the time 2024 rolls around woke may be again back on the ash heap of history and “pro-authority” the cultural message du jur of a “50th Anniversary Edition” (basically 5e, but repackaged as “D&D50”).

I would express it differently, but I can understand that argument. I think the recent example in the U.S. is how the 1990s saw much more moderate Democrats predominate -- compared to the push in the 1960s and 1970s by the more progressive fringe. Bill Clinton was more of a uniparty candidate, and there was much less pushback against the War on Drugs and mass incarceration, and other parts of the liberal agenda. Currently, mainstream elements are trying to push "police are good" message to mainstream Democrats -- because of riots and unrest.

I think we may be close to peak partisanship, because people are emotionally exhausted from maintaining their current levels of outrage.

As far as a D&D edition - *if* things go this way, I wouldn't think all liberals would all be thrown under the bus. I think rather, that they'd keep in a few token changes to satisfy mainstream Democrats, and they'd push back against the more progressive wing as "you're never satisfied". The 50th Anniversary edition would be more like 5E Essentials -- repackaged but compatible. It would have a more old-school overall look and feel, with some token inclusions of a few non-whites and strong women.

Then again, we might have to go a little further before reaching peak partisanship. I think a lot depends on how the Republicans re-organize in the post-Trump era.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Theory of Games on January 19, 2021, 01:51:04 PM
Neither:

Making a 50th edition is smart money and WotC isn't that far gone to miss the opportunity. I remember cracking open 3e for the first time and seeing a completely different D&D. Then 4e was again a different game. 5e went back to some older elements while tossing in some new ones. But, I attribute 5e's success mainly to great marketing (Critical Role, Stranger Things, Big Bang, Community, Freaks and Geeks, and a lot of plugs from cartoons like Gumball) rather than it's design.

TV's a wonderful device for creating/changing culture.

The SJWokehold will impact 6e. I could see a game with DIY Classes and Races. Alignment will be removed completely so Demons and Chromatic Dragons can be our friends :-* And, you can play gender-fluid, paraplegic, schizophrenic half-dragon, half-Tabaxi Monk/Magus/Artificer with a teleporting golf-cart --- at L1, of course.

Who wouldn't want to play THAT?!?!?
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Snark Knight on January 19, 2021, 03:35:43 PM
I think it will also be a 5.5 D&D update. The Tasha race rules will go into core. They will stop calling them races. Combat Wheelchair will be the PH just to scare the Nazi's off. The DMG will have a consent section. Monster Manual descriptions of sapient creatures will change.

It's a shame because the game really does need a 6th ed. All the levels after 10 are useless and the game really drops off in quality after level 4 and most players want to start at level 3.

This seems the most likely to me. There's still some milk left in the cow yet and I think Covid will probably have impacted on their plans as well, wherein even if they were writing up a 6e (which wouldn't surprise me even if it is some ways away) they'd have a good reason to delay it until things are largely back to normal. A lot of games may have moved online, but I'd bet that's not the majority of them - most groups have probably been on hiatus.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on January 19, 2021, 05:08:57 PM
I doubt they would release 6e now, after turning to quite prudent and slow milking the cow with 5-ed.
But definitely they will try to umph a game for 50th aniversary - maybe some anniversary version of older edition or smth - and probably it will go woke-lite like most of their products.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: RPGPundit on January 19, 2021, 07:08:32 PM
As I pointed out in our latest episode of Inappropriate Characters, I think that the sign of it is in the Candlekeep book. It's got every look of being absolute woke garbage, almost every adventure written by people with no real background in RPGs, full of woke signalling.

Now, because of sheer inertia, it will probably still sell OK. But there will be a bunch of people who will buy it, regret it instantly, and then never buy another D&D book again.

So the decline will start after the next book from Candlekeep. It will be BECAUSE of the SJWs, and yet they will probably be able to successfully argue to the WoTC/hasbro execs that this wasn't the case ("candlekeep sold well!"), and that in fact the reason is because a new more Woke D&D edition is required. So unless Hasbro execs are way more intelligent than I think they are, the new edition will happen 1-2 years after the book after Candlekeep comes out.

And of course that new edition will end up being absolute disaster.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: RPGPundit on January 19, 2021, 07:21:24 PM


The SJWokehold will impact 6e. I could see a game with DIY Classes and Races. Alignment will be removed completely so Demons and Chromatic Dragons can be our friends :-* And, you can play gender-fluid, paraplegic, schizophrenic half-dragon, half-Tabaxi Monk/Magus/Artificer with a teleporting golf-cart --- at L1, of course.

Who wouldn't want to play THAT?!?!?

Exactly! Who wouldn't want to play a muddle, a thing, that doesn't actually mean anything at all??? Hooray for the new world where no definitions matter and nothing is held true!

The reason these people want to mess with Call of Cthulhu so badly is because they ARE Cthulhu Cultists.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Two Crows on January 19, 2021, 07:55:39 PM
A second counterpoint would be what has happened to the major print comic book companies DC and Marvel since they went full woke.

If they were not owned by their respective big corporations they would have filed for bankruptcy years ago. Comic sales from them are at an all time low. The wokeification of  comics and woke versions of iconic characters do not even do close to the numbers that the original un-woke versions did.

You'd figure Marvel comics be riding high after the success of the marvel movie series. But they are not. Marvel and DC had both been steadily downsizing even before the Kung-Flu hit.

You might want to question your assumptions.  (https://www.comichron.com/yearlycomicssales.html)

I don't even think most middle age adults realize where a lot of sales from both major comic companies are coming from. For example, I don't think most middle age adults have even heard of Raina Telgemeier (https://www.comicsbeat.com/raina-telgemeiers-guts-is-the-bestselling-book-overall-in-the-us-this-week/), though her middle school graphic novels are outselling most books being published today. And I didn't make a mistake in language there - her graphic novels are outselling most BOOKS, including all comic books, these days.

I think when you're talking comic books, you're thinking superhero books. Superheroes is not even where most of the money is at these days. Not to mention, both companies are selling a lot in other languages and in other nations these days as well. The marketplace changed. It's huge, and not what you might expect.

Also, this is one of the very few topics where I have genuine insider knowledge. Neither company would be bankrupt. Neither has run a negative for any year as it's own unit other than the year decades ago when Marvel really did file. Neither is propped up by it's larger corporate owner. Both have run profitably every year for decades. While I do think woke politics are doing some internal damage to both companies, both are still doing OK with sales, though Covid did give both a gut punch as so many stores shut down. But that's unrelated to woke politics.

The OP's point regarding the traditional superhero comics is valid, IMO.

The are rumors AT&T will be shutting down DC comics this June, and Forbes recently ran an article stating hero comics were now actually less than 10% of what is sold.

Perennial mainstays that stayed in print for decades have already been canceled (AquaMan, Suicide Squad, Hellblazer, Teen Titans).  They are talking about licensing Batman & Superman off to another publisher.

Also, it's worth noting all the sites claiming "positive" movement for superhero comics are sticking with apples-to-oranges comparisons (i.e. a switch to Total Gross Revenue instead of the traditional Units Sold).  That both uses inflation as a mask of performance and simultaneously obfuscates recent sales with nostalgia via graphic novels (such as The Killing Joke & Watchmen). 

Given the example was intended to illustrate the effect of "wokeness" on superhero comics (not Dog Man, Manga, etc.), AND assuming that is the primary cause (I have seen nothing examining this), I'd say it's a fair point.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Omega on January 19, 2021, 08:15:10 PM
I'm not super plugged in, but I haven't seen or heard anything to contradict the claim that traditional Marvel/DC superhero comics have seen declining sales (number of books sold, not $$) for a while now. Of course the overall picture for "comics" in general is different, especially, as noted above, if you are including manga.

I know a few people in the comics industry still, and a few who have quit, either totally, or gone indie.
Things are bad for Marvel and if it were not for the movies their rampant and often outright hateful woke agenda would have sunk them well before Covid. Marvels underhanded business practices have been pissing off and eventually repulsing vendors for a while now and their attempts to either force shops to buy, or create their own venue have damaged things even more.
For a while DC was reaping the benefit of Marvel's stupid. But they have been gradually infiltrated over the last year or so as well and like Marvel have gotten increasingly hateful in pushing their woke agenda. And sales are plummeting. Not as fast as Marvel. But its started.
IDW has been back and fourth for a good while now and you never know what they will do great, and what they will ruin with their on again/off again woke agenda.

And various RPG and gaming companies are doing exactly the same and several are only staying afloat due to momentum, near cult level fans, or swinging between woke and not such that some product fail but the rest succeeds. WOTC, Chaosium and FFG come to mind right off. And there are many others, some going full on woke cult and attacking others. Some more quiet about it.

The thing with WOTC is that in their product the agenda is not really present. The few things in books are nearly every time meaningless and have no impact or backing.
Staff on the other hand are a totally different matter and have gotten, of course, increasingly nasty towards people.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: KingCheops on January 19, 2021, 09:08:27 PM
They're getting sucked into the online world too much.  They're stuck in the big woke bubble and think they're doing well.

Twitter ain't real life folks.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Chris24601 on January 20, 2021, 01:07:44 AM
They're getting sucked into the online world too much.  They're stuck in the big woke bubble and think they're doing well.

Twitter ain't real life folks.
No, its not. I forget where I read it, but there's a pretty standard pattern for internet populations; 10% of a total interest group passively follows their interest online to some degree. 10% of those passively follow daily. 10% of those will sometimes interact (post/tweet something). 10% of those will do so daily.

Net result... about 0.01% of a given interest group is actually the vocal face on the internet and are always the most extreme in terms of interest/opinions about it.

Throw in the general Twitter demographic skew (80% millennial, 76% female) and your typical Twitter vocal fan group is a band of rabid millennial women representing a tiny percentage (1:10,000) of the actual customer base.

Basically, if Twitter is all you're taking cues from; you're ignoring 99.99% of your audience to appease the least reasonable extremists... then wondering why everyone hates your plot twists designed to pander to them.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: wmarshal on January 20, 2021, 08:39:34 AM
I’m thinking Hasbro may actually want to delay a 6th edition. The Candlekeepnbook sounds like a product to put out just to get something out the door without a lot of work by WOTC resources. The recent legal entanglements (some since resolved) did seem to be a possible sign that Hasbro could be trying to clear the deck of WOTC to make it easier to sell off D&D. A D&D movie is supposed to be going into production soon. Hasbro may be hoping for a successful movie to increase the value of the D&D IP even more. If Disney at that point came with an offer to buy D&D I think Hasbro would sell. I can easily see a D&D theme park as part of Disney Land/World. Trying to create a woke version of D&D at this point can readily lead into a cycle a analysis paralysis as they try to figure out a woke version that doesn’t become problematic after a few years. Better to leave that to the new owners of D&D, and the game being at a point where it’s “ready” for a new version of the game to be rolled out by the new owners becomes a selling point. So to go back to the original question, overall I think trying to make D&D more some actually delays a new version coming out in addition to the other reasons I gave above. If there’s going to be a 50th anniversary edition of D&D it’ll likely be a formal 5.5 version.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Omega on January 20, 2021, 09:39:09 AM
A D&D movie is supposed to be going into production soon. Hasbro may be hoping for a successful movie to increase the value of the D&D IP even more.

Little problem. The D&D movie is not from WOTC or Hasbro. Its still under Solomon who did the 1st and 3rd D&D movies and has stonewalled any D&D movies or cartoons long as he holds those rights. I'd have thought he had lost that by now since the last movie was some time ago. But apparently not as his name is still attached to the proposed one. Which might never see light or more likely, will, and be so woke its worse than the 3rd movie.

This is why WOTC wanted Dragonlance as 5e's setting. It is not covered under Solomon's stranglehold.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: wmarshal on January 20, 2021, 10:11:56 AM
A D&D movie is supposed to be going into production soon. Hasbro may be hoping for a successful movie to increase the value of the D&D IP even more.

Little problem. The D&D movie is not from WOTC or Hasbro. Its still under Solomon who did the 1st and 3rd D&D movies and has stonewalled any D&D movies or cartoons long as he holds those rights. I'd have thought he had lost that by now since the last movie was some time ago. But apparently not as his name is still attached to the proposed one. Which might never see light or more likely, will, and be so woke its worse than the 3rd movie.

This is why WOTC wanted Dragonlance as 5e's setting. It is not covered under Solomon's stranglehold.

I’m not saying Hasbro’s hope is going to be rewarded with a good movie, just that they’re hoping the movie will increase the value of the IP. Whether or not the movie will be bad in the artistic sense (and there’s a good likelihood it will) isn’t as important as Hasbro’s hope that it’ll help the D&D brand. Plenty of terrible films enjoy a limited time of popularity, and D&D is very much in a “fad phase” for now.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Wicked Woodpecker of West on January 20, 2021, 04:46:13 PM
Quote
Which might never see light or more likely, will, and be so woke its worse than the 3rd movie.

Dunno, those Solomon seems like quite schlocky studio considering last D&D movies, I'm not sure they're one to go really deep into woke.

Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Two Crows on January 20, 2021, 08:18:30 PM
A D&D movie is supposed to be going into production soon. Hasbro may be hoping for a successful movie to increase the value of the D&D IP even more.

Little problem. The D&D movie is not from WOTC or Hasbro. Its still under Solomon who did the 1st and 3rd D&D movies and has stonewalled any D&D movies or cartoons long as he holds those rights. I'd have thought he had lost that by now since the last movie was some time ago. But apparently not as his name is still attached to the proposed one. Which might never see light or more likely, will, and be so woke its worse than the 3rd movie.

This is why WOTC wanted Dragonlance as 5e's setting. It is not covered under Solomon's stranglehold.

If that is the case, they could be screwed.  Depends on the deal.  And that one is old enough that it is probably terrible.

Marvel Studios/Disney has been trying for DECADES to recover film rights to all sorts of characters.  The only ones that have been successfully reclaimed in full were part of a purchase in excess of $70 billion dollars.

They still don't hold The Hulk, Spiderman (and the whole damn Spiderverse, such as Venom or the Sinster Six), Sub-Mariner, and more.


Honestly though, I can't say I've ever been excited by the notion of a "D&D" movie.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: RPGPundit on January 20, 2021, 09:34:50 PM
I’m thinking Hasbro may actually want to delay a 6th edition. The Candlekeepnbook sounds like a product to put out just to get something out the door without a lot of work by WOTC resources. The recent legal entanglements (some since resolved) did seem to be a possible sign that Hasbro could be trying to clear the deck of WOTC to make it easier to sell off D&D. A D&D movie is supposed to be going into production soon. Hasbro may be hoping for a successful movie to increase the value of the D&D IP even more. If Disney at that point came with an offer to buy D&D I think Hasbro would sell. I can easily see a D&D theme park as part of Disney Land/World. Trying to create a woke version of D&D at this point can readily lead into a cycle a analysis paralysis as they try to figure out a woke version that doesn’t become problematic after a few years. Better to leave that to the new owners of D&D, and the game being at a point where it’s “ready” for a new version of the game to be rolled out by the new owners becomes a selling point. So to go back to the original question, overall I think trying to make D&D more some actually delays a new version coming out in addition to the other reasons I gave above. If there’s going to be a 50th anniversary edition of D&D it’ll likely be a formal 5.5 version.

Hasbro almost never sells ANY of its IP.  It will not sell D&D. This is a pipe dream.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Omega on January 21, 2021, 05:04:34 AM
Quote
Which might never see light or more likely, will, and be so woke its worse than the 3rd movie.

Dunno, those Solomon seems like quite schlocky studio considering last D&D movies, I'm not sure they're one to go really deep into woke.

Depends on how much pressure Hollywoke or WokeTC put on the movie to push their agenda. Which is hopefully very little. But I never underestimate WOTCs ability to fuck things up.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Omega on January 21, 2021, 05:08:46 AM
Hasbro almost never sells ANY of its IP.  It will not sell D&D. This is a pipe dream.

They have released a few IPs that they had zero interest in. And have, mostly through WOTCs ineptitude, allowed a few IPs to slip through their fingers. Also mostly minor ones. They have acquired so much they barely have any idea what all they have.

Assuming the rights carried over from SPI to TSR to WOTC  to Hasbro. Then Hasbro may have the rights to SPIs whole line. And Avalon Hill.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Charon's Little Helper on January 21, 2021, 08:54:26 AM
Hasbro almost never sells ANY of its IP.  It will not sell D&D. This is a pipe dream.

They have released a few IPs that they had zero interest in. And have, mostly through WOTCs ineptitude, allowed a few IPs to slip through their fingers. Also mostly minor ones. They have acquired so much they barely have any idea what all they have.

Assuming the rights carried over from SPI to TSR to WOTC  to Hasbro. Then Hasbro may have the rights to SPIs whole line. And Avalon Hill.

Now we just need to wait for the D&D / Peppa Pig crossover event! /s
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Philotomy Jurament on January 21, 2021, 10:24:39 AM
If I had to guess, I'd say "hasten," but that really is just a pure guess. I don't keep up with WotC or 5e, so my guess isn't informed by much of anything. And I don't really have a dog in the fight, in any case (i.e., I don't care what they do as I'm not part of their customer base and don't expect to become a WotC customer).
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: S'mon on January 21, 2021, 06:13:24 PM
Going by what my 13 year old son says

Gen Z are very liberal on social issues. He thinks it's hilarious I have any issue with the gay couple in Star Trek: Discovery.

At the same time, they have utter contempt for Ctrl-Alt-Delete Woke censorship, and the anti-'white' racism of the PTB.

Take that as you may.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Charon's Little Helper on January 21, 2021, 10:40:57 PM
Going by what my 13 year old son says

Gen Z are very liberal on social issues. He thinks it's hilarious I have any issue with the gay couple in Star Trek: Discovery.

At the same time, they have utter contempt for Ctrl-Alt-Delete Woke censorship, and the anti-'white' racism of the PTB.

Take that as you may.

Interestingly, I've read than Gen Z is actually a bit more conservative than millennials on average (I didn't dig deep into the article's definition of conservative). Apparently it's largely because most kids use their parents as a baseline and then go more liberal from there.

That matters because statistically conservatives have substantially more kids than liberals (I have no idea the % - but substantial) so most Gen Zs have a reasonably conservative baseline to go more liberal from.

I'd guess that at least some of that difference is just more of the rural/urban divide. (People in major cities are predominantly liberal, and people in major cities have fewer kids - rather than a major causal relationship between being liberal and having fewer kids.)
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: TJS on January 22, 2021, 12:18:19 AM
Going by what my 13 year old son says

Gen Z are very liberal on social issues. He thinks it's hilarious I have any issue with the gay couple in Star Trek: Discovery.

At the same time, they have utter contempt for Ctrl-Alt-Delete Woke censorship, and the anti-'white' racism of the PTB.

Take that as you may.

Interestingly, I've read than Gen Z is actually a bit more conservative than millennials on average (I didn't dig deep into the article's definition of conservative). Apparently it's largely because most kids use their parents as a baseline and then go more liberal from there.

That matters because statistically conservatives have substantially more kids than liberals (I have no idea the % - but substantial) so most Gen Zs have a reasonably conservative baseline to go more liberal from.

I'd guess that at least some of that difference is just more of the rural/urban divide. (People in major cities are predominantly liberal, and people in major cities have fewer kids - rather than a major causal relationship between being liberal and having fewer kids.)
I suspect it's more about the youth traditionally liking to transgress boundaries, and the woke are right there throwing up ever more boundaries to transgress.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Eirikrautha on January 22, 2021, 08:04:52 AM
Going by what my 13 year old son says

Gen Z are very liberal on social issues. He thinks it's hilarious I have any issue with the gay couple in Star Trek: Discovery.

At the same time, they have utter contempt for Ctrl-Alt-Delete Woke censorship, and the anti-'white' racism of the PTB.

Take that as you may.

Interestingly, I've read than Gen Z is actually a bit more conservative than millennials on average (I didn't dig deep into the article's definition of conservative). Apparently it's largely because most kids use their parents as a baseline and then go more liberal from there.

That matters because statistically conservatives have substantially more kids than liberals (I have no idea the % - but substantial) so most Gen Zs have a reasonably conservative baseline to go more liberal from.

I'd guess that at least some of that difference is just more of the rural/urban divide. (People in major cities are predominantly liberal, and people in major cities have fewer kids - rather than a major causal relationship between being liberal and having fewer kids.)
I suspect it's more about the youth traditionally liking to transgress boundaries, and the woke are right there throwing up ever more boundaries to transgress.

This right here.  Getting an earring or announcing you're gay might get a rise out of the most conservative parents.  But if you want to scandalize your teachers, administrators, the media, etc., declare that you like Trump and that sex is determined at birth...
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Chris24601 on January 22, 2021, 08:25:11 AM
Yup. The thing about youthful transgression is it’s gotta be counter-cultural. The reason wokism has attracted the young is because, until recently, it has been counter-cultural.

These days though, a scrawny white boy self-identifying as a black transgendered lesbian satanist gets him a pat on the back from the establishment. Coming out as being proud to be a straight white male Christian is regarded with shock and horror.

I think something billed as a “50th Anniversary Edition” in 2024 is inevitable. It might just be 5e with new art and fluff text, a 5.5-ish rules clean up, or a new edition (though I’d expect it to be more like 1e to 2e than from 3.5e to 4e), but I figure the name of it HAS to be “50th Anniversary Edition” regardless because that term is just so damnably marketable.

Existing customers may put up with a certain degree of additional woke in it, but only because the draw of the D&D50 nostalgia factor. But woke is unlikely to be that big a draw to teenagers coming of age for whom wokist is the mainstream.

Again, that’s why my own game system is superversive themed; heroes are heroic, virtues matter, classic fantasy hero tropes are encouraged rather than subverted.

I’m sure someone could use my system to put all their wokist stereotypes front and center using my system, but in my books they go unremarked on in the forms the woke want them to be (i.e. I reference changlelings as spies and assassins not as a non-binary sexual fetish).

That’s also why I feel the need for my own system license. Not to protect any mechanics, but for content compatibility. Create Superversive content and you can use my trade dress and logos to market your supplement. Make subversive garbage and you can only reference “compatible with the R&R game system” in 10pt comic sans on the back cover.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Melan on January 22, 2021, 03:23:19 PM
While it is usually brought up as laughing matter (and to make fun of "the SJWs", as it is done here), it is not entirely accidental the liberal media, particularly in its online branches, is in a moral panic about "gamers" being violent right-wing extremists. Some of it is laughable bullshit and sleazy political denunciation... but they are not entirely wrong.  It is a fact of life that many younger gamers have drifted to the right or the far right. Why wouldn't they? Their demographic (young, usually white men) is subjected to a constant barrage of nagging disapproval aimed to break their spirit, and the dominant ideology of our time considers them a sort of enemy class that needs to be taken down a few notches, and kept down.

Now, as online communities go, leftist forums these days tend to be joyless pits of mutual denunciation and constant browbeating, where deviating one step from the constantly updated orthodoxy will get you shamed or socially ostracised. Right-wing ones have an anarchic sense of fun and mischief that's infectious, they tend to be welcoming big-tent affairs, and far less judgemental than lefty outfits.

The kids are alt-right? Imagine my shock!
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Jaeger on January 23, 2021, 06:49:33 PM
…I think when you're talking comic books, you're thinking superhero books. ...

What gave it away?

Was it the fact that I directly mentioned Marvel and DC comics who are known for their respective superhero universes? Perhaps when I mentioned the Marvel movie series in direct reference to their comic books? Did your genuine insider knowledge allow you to see through my subterfuge?

You seem a like real smart boy who can figure things out for himself. So you should be able to independently confirm the following then with your genuine insider knowledge.



The Below was current as of late 2017:

Marvel filed for bankruptcy in 1996.

In 2007 Marvel took in 45% unit market share. Marvel was on a roll, Iron Man came out the next year, which brought in $585 Million at the box office.

In 2009 it was bought for $4 Billion by Disney. An incredible turn around. Unfortunately, by then Marvel had become entirely converged.

What’s more, the security of being owned by Disney allowed the Marvel executives to let their Social justice Freak Flag Fly. It would be hard to find a SJW cause that Marvel has not Relentlessly pushed. Everything from LGBTQ, Body-positive Obesity, feminism, and pushing comics that tried race/gender flipping a good chunk of their iconic characters.

When Marvel got pushback after introducing  Spider-Man replacement Miles Morales in 2011, Marvel Marvel’s editor in chief Axel Alonzo responded “Simple fact is Marvel Comics reflect the world in all its shapes, sizes and colors. We believe there’s an audience of people out there who are thirsty for a character like Miles Morales.” Original Spider-Man creator Stan Lee voiced his support saying “Doing our bit to try to make our nation, and the world, color blind is definitely the right thing.”

But whether doing their bit to impose color blindness on the world is right or not, their belief in the size of that audience was evidently misguided.

Six years later, Axel Alonso was out of a job, the most recent issue of Spider-Man featuring Peter Parker had sold close to a million units, while the Miles Morales version has seen one series after another shut down after 12 issues or so. After one year, Brian Michael Bendis’ new comic chronicling the further adventures of Miles Morales had lost almost two-thirds of its readership.

As a result of its convergence, despite an almost ten-year string of successful movies that constantly advertised its famous characters to the public, Marvel as of 2017 was still the #1 seller but at a 39% unit market share. It was a comic industry in decline. Single issue sales declined 10.40% and graphic novel sales declined 9.38%, for a total drop of 10.09% over 2016. In fact July 2017 Sold 25% fewer comics than July 2016.

How did Marvel stay #1 in a declining market?

Because their closest competitor, DC comics had decided early on that they, under no circumstances whatsoever, would allow DC comics to become less woke than Marvel…



And as we have seen in the time of the Corona-Chan, when people have more time than ever to stay home and read:

Print book sales actually rose 8% in 2020:
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/85256-print-unit-sales-rose-8-2-in-2020.html

Yet...

You have Marvel doing things like this late last year:
Disney Axes Two Top Marvel Employees In Latest Round Of Job Cuts:
https://boundingintocomics.com/2020/11/09/disney-axes-two-top-marvel-employees-marvel-in-latest-round-of-job-cuts/

And hear things like this being bandied about DC comics:
DC COMICS WILL CLOSE DOWN IN JUNE SAYS RUMOR
https://cosmicbook.news/dc-comics-closing-down-june

Get Woke - Go Broke, might actually be a thing...

Who knew?
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Spinachcat on January 23, 2021, 06:57:50 PM
Hasbro almost never sells ANY of its IP.  It will not sell D&D. This is a pipe dream.

Very true. Hasbro's fortune is built on the long tail and licensing of IPs. They are sitting on a treasure trove of various IPs that's either waiting to be licensed out or retooled in the future or just sat on to ensure others can't use it.

You'd have to see a collapse of Hasbro before IPs went on the market. Of course, that's quite possible in the future as with any major company. And before anyone says Hasbro is too big to fail, go read up on Sears, TWA, Woolworths and Pan Am.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Jaeger on January 23, 2021, 09:40:16 PM
As I pointed out in our latest episode of Inappropriate Characters, I think that the sign of it is in the Candlekeep book. It's got every look of being absolute woke garbage, almost every adventure written by people with no real background in RPGs, full of woke signaling.

Candlekeep seems be a litmus test for them pushing the envelope beyond the woke-lite they have been slowly filtering into 5e.

After all, if people will buy a book with a combat-wheelchair accessible dungeon in it, what won't they buy?



Now, because of sheer inertia, it will probably still sell OK. But there will be a bunch of people who will buy it, regret it instantly, and then never buy another D&D book again.

As you said, due to the geek "completest" attitude, the next few books should sell ok.

This attitude will also slow any exodus from D&D.

D&D is a beloved game, and the Geek crowd tend to be very brand/IP loyal.

Many will be very reluctant to go to a different game even after the woke kicks into high gear.



So the decline will start after the next book from Candlekeep. It will be BECAUSE of the SJWs, and yet they will probably be able to successfully argue to the WoTC/hasbro execs that this wasn't the case ("candlekeep sold well!"), and that in fact the reason is because a new more Woke D&D edition is required. So unless Hasbro execs are way more intelligent than I think they are, the new edition will happen 1-2 years after the book after Candlekeep comes out. ...

I think this is a very good way for them to get a 6th edition made.

3e D&D to 4e was an eight year run.

4e to 5e was a six year run.

In 2024 at the 50th anniversary of D&D, 5e would have been out for ten years - two years longer than any other WOTC edition.

As the woke content goes up and the books sales go down post Candlekeep, the SJW's at WOTC will make the claim that 5e is on a downward life cycle and is beginning to get played out. Not because of "inclusive content". As that trend continues to play out they can easily make the pitch to launch 6e in 2024.

They will point to twitter and various internet fora (not this one) that going full woke is a must to keep all the "new players".

And if twitter is anything to go by, 6e will go in the opposite direction of 4e (3e + Heroclicks + MMO)  and be more of a blend of 5e + Dungeonworld + Fate.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out as the SJW's at WOTC will have three years to make their case.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: RPGPundit on January 24, 2021, 01:13:37 AM
Hasbro almost never sells ANY of its IP.  It will not sell D&D. This is a pipe dream.

Very true. Hasbro's fortune is built on the long tail and licensing of IPs.

The long tail really works.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Charon's Little Helper on January 24, 2021, 01:44:53 AM
I think this is a very good way for them to get a 6th edition made.

3e D&D to 4e was an eight year run.

4e to 5e was a six year run.

In 2024 at the 50th anniversary of D&D, 5e would have been out for ten years - two years longer than any other WOTC edition.

It's certainly possible, but you need to consider the release schedule of the books. Both 3.x & 4e churned out books like crazy of various qualities. With 5e Hasbro pretty obviously wanted to focus upon fewer high-profit books, as opposed to WotC where the bulk of the books likely didn't make a lot. Revenue may have even been higher (due to the quantity of books) at least back in 3.x, but their margins were much lower.

By the end of the 3.x cycle, there was just too much stuff, so they basically HAD to do a new edition soon, as they couldn't keep piling new rules onto the pile. 4e was cut a bit sooner because it failed hard enough that D&D lost their market leader slot (and they also had a lot of quantity). But 5e is still both very profitable and doesn't have the mass of rules. They don't have a major business reason to roll the dice (pun intended) on a new edition being as successful as 5e, especially after 4e bombed.

And remember - Hasbro probably makes as much off the brand of D&D via merchandising (t-shirts/plushies/board games) and licensing (a piece of BGIII) than they do off the books themselves. I'd be surprised if they'd be willing to risk hurting the brand on a new edition, even though it would basically guarantee a solid initial sales number. (Like novel & video games sequels - how well the new edition of an RPG sells initially likely tells you more about the quality of the last one was than the current one.)

Of course - I'm talking out of my donkey - so I could certainly be wrong.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Jaeger on January 24, 2021, 02:46:55 AM
...By the end of the 3.x cycle, there was just too much stuff, so they basically HAD to do a new edition soon, as they couldn't keep piling new rules onto the pile. 4e was cut a bit sooner because it failed hard enough that D&D lost their market leader slot (and they also had a lot of quantity). But 5e is still both very profitable and doesn't have the mass of rules. They don't have a major business reason to roll the dice (pun intended) on a new edition being as successful as 5e, especially after 4e bombed.

That is true. But for the SJW's at WOTC all that doesn't really matter.

The question is can they get the powers that be to accept the Narrative that they will be pushing.

The Narrative being that declining book sales are due to the longest ongoing WOTC D&D edition just running out of steam, and not in any way due to the increase of woke content and political activism that they have been pushing.



And remember - Hasbro probably makes as much off the brand of D&D via merchandising (t-shirts/plushies/board games) and licensing (a piece of BGIII) than they do off the books themselves. I'd be surprised if they'd be willing to risk hurting the brand on a new edition, even though it would basically guarantee a solid initial sales number. (Like novel & video games sequels - how well the new edition of an RPG sells initially likely tells you more about the quality of the last one was than the current one.)

D&D as a brand is fairly edition agnostic.

Hasbro has only really stepped in when WOTC screwed the pooch with 4e.

And corporations can be incredibly short-sighted when the prospect of a healthy sales spike is dangled before their eyes...



Of course - I'm talking out of my donkey - so I could certainly be wrong.

We are all talking out of our donkey.

But history has shown that some peoples donkey's have proven more prescient than others.

And if woke setting elements and "inclusion/representation" really are selling points that attract new players, then the Blue Rose RPG would be bigger than it is.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Mistwell on January 25, 2021, 01:23:41 PM
D&D revenues increased 35% in 2020 over 2019; and online play is up 86% (for obvious reasons) (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-13/online-d-d-provides-relief-covid-19-pandemic) "Revenue was up 35% in 2020 compared with 2019, the seventh consecutive year of growth, she said."
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Jaeger on January 26, 2021, 12:15:32 PM
D&D revenues increased 35% in 2020 over 2019; and online play is up 86% (for obvious reasons) (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-13/online-d-d-provides-relief-covid-19-pandemic) "Revenue was up 35% in 2020 compared with 2019, the seventh consecutive year of growth, she said."

Your point?

The fact that 5e is currently riding high on a wave of success due to increased popular culture awareness is not in dispute.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Charon's Little Helper on January 26, 2021, 12:34:39 PM
D&D revenues increased 35% in 2020 over 2019; and online play is up 86% (for obvious reasons) (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-13/online-d-d-provides-relief-covid-19-pandemic) "Revenue was up 35% in 2020 compared with 2019, the seventh consecutive year of growth, she said."

Your point?

The fact that 5e is currently riding high on a wave of success due to increased popular culture awareness is not in dispute.

I believe that his point was that this makes it less likely that Hasbro would be willing to risk the golden goose on a new edition just for an initial spike in sales, especially considering the issues with the previous edition (4e).
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Jaeger on January 26, 2021, 02:25:57 PM
...
I believe that his point was that this makes it less likely that Hasbro would be willing to risk the golden goose on a new edition just for an initial spike in sales, especially considering the issues with the previous edition (4e).

Maybe he should articulate that instead of trying for a failed mike drop.

In 5e we are only now starting to see the heat on the lobster pot getting turned up.

Personally, I don't think we will really know how things will go down until we see what they will do for the 50th in 2024.

And the signs are there that the people currently in charge of WOTC are willing to walk the same path that Marvel and DC comics have.

Outside of post 4e layoffs, Hasbro has been rather hands-off when it comes to WOTC. And Hasbro has also shown a willingness to indulge woke pleadings, the release of Ms. Monopoly being a prime example.

Does having great sales now somehow make D&D immune to the future loss of market share due to alienated fans walking away as we have seen in other media when they have doubled down on the woke path?
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Mistwell on January 26, 2021, 02:35:58 PM
D&D revenues increased 35% in 2020 over 2019; and online play is up 86% (for obvious reasons) (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-13/online-d-d-provides-relief-covid-19-pandemic) "Revenue was up 35% in 2020 compared with 2019, the seventh consecutive year of growth, she said."

Your point?

The fact that 5e is currently riding high on a wave of success due to increased popular culture awareness is not in dispute.

What's in dispute is whether it's popular because of the game, or it's popular despite the game. The more years it increases in popularity despite other versions ending by now suggests it's not all outside factors in play here but that there might be something about the game itself which is helping increase the popularity of the game in society.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Mistwell on January 26, 2021, 02:36:33 PM
D&D revenues increased 35% in 2020 over 2019; and online play is up 86% (for obvious reasons) (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-13/online-d-d-provides-relief-covid-19-pandemic) "Revenue was up 35% in 2020 compared with 2019, the seventh consecutive year of growth, she said."

Your point?

The fact that 5e is currently riding high on a wave of success due to increased popular culture awareness is not in dispute.

I believe that his point was that this makes it less likely that Hasbro would be willing to risk the golden goose on a new edition just for an initial spike in sales, especially considering the issues with the previous edition (4e).

That too
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: wmarshal on January 26, 2021, 04:39:04 PM
Were not many of the earlier versions not motivated in part to “office political” reasons of one kind or another?

I believe 1st ed AD&D was partly developed to sever the ties the game had with Dave Arneson.

Similarly I believe 2nd ed AD&D was partly developed to sever ties to Gary Gygax, though there was work begun in the 2nd ed before Gygax was pushed out, I think Lorraine Williams saw actually releasing a new edition as a means to separate TSR further from him.

3rd ed D&D came out of WOTC’s take over of the game.

4th ed D&D (cursed be it’s name) came out of Hasbro’s take over of WOTC.

5th ed D&D came out of the abject failure of 4th ed.

5th ed is currently doing well. I don’t see woke-ism as being a strong motivator for Hasbro to invest in the development of a 6th ed. Besides, woke-ism can and is inserting itself into 5th ed just fine as it is.

I may have some of the above facts incorrect, but that’s how I recall them without going into a deep dive. The only time it seems that we got a new edition that was not tied to office politics/new owners was when we got 5th ed, and 5th ed is in far better shape than 4th ed was.

I think it’s perfectly possible that Hasbro keeps 5th ed going for many more years, with only a couple of significant releases each year to add in tweaks and gin up interest. It could be that Hasbro treats D&D development similar to how they treat games like Monopoly. Sure, there are custom versions of monopoly, but I can’t recall that Monopoly has ever been fundamentally re-designed as had happened with D&D. If 4th ed had been a success instead of a failure I think it’s possible that 4th ed could still be the current version and of the game.

If Hasbro ever sold off D&D (say to Disney with their mountains of cash) I think a new edition would almost be certain, but others have pointed out that Hasbro doesn’t sell off their IP.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Jaeger on January 26, 2021, 05:30:33 PM
What's in dispute is whether it's popular because of the game, or it's popular despite the game.

D&D has always been the RPG market leader barring a few big missteps by the IP holders.

No one is disputing that. Not sure what argument you are making here.


The more years it increases in popularity despite other versions ending by now suggests it's not all outside factors in play here but that there might be something about the game itself which is helping increase the popularity of the game in society.

It's popular because 5e as a system was well received by its base, and had landed at a time where popular culture outside of WOTC's control has made playing D&D cool.

Great timing and very good for D&D.

Design wise and systematically 5e is nothing special. But it does have the very marketable qualities having D&D on the cover and not sucking!

And in a time when pop cultural embraces D&D, and new people are joining the RPG hobby, not sucking as a game system is a very good quality for D&D to have!


Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: jhkim on January 26, 2021, 06:39:37 PM
The more years it increases in popularity despite other versions ending by now suggests it's not all outside factors in play here but that there might be something about the game itself which is helping increase the popularity of the game in society.

It's popular because 5e as a system was well received by its base, and had landed at a time where popular culture outside of WOTC's control has made playing D&D cool.

All companies have influences that are beyond their control in the market - but they still have *influence* on the market beyond just the quality of the core product. That's why advertising is widely considered important, for example.

Besides advertising, there are interviews and other public relations, licensing, book publishing, tie-in games, artwork, and other deals that influence how the brand is perceived. Sure, there is stuff beyond their control - but they also have significant influence. Given that the topic is about WotC's behavior as a company, I think those things are important.

They probably have private survey data that is better than anything we see - but I suspect they're pretty satisfied with the results from advertising and PR, and will try to keep going along roughly the same lines until sales start to falter.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: TJS on January 27, 2021, 01:52:32 AM
I suspect going woke is done less with the intention to appeal to people but more with the intention of avoiding what they perceive as negative publicity.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Charon's Little Helper on January 27, 2021, 01:53:08 PM
...the release of Ms. Monopoly being a prime example. [of Hasbro going woke]

Lol - do you know how MANY versions of Monopoly there are? Per a quick Google search, there are 1,144 versions. I don't think that one being "woke" (I didn't actually look at it) means much of anything.

Heck, there are versions of popular college sports teams. That doesn't mean that Hasbro hates smaller less popular colleges. It just means that Monopoly editions are Hasbro going scattershot - because making a new version costs them almost nothing.

They put new names for the properties, have a few mediocre pieces of art, and maybe have new pieces (though not always). It is very cheap to make a new edition, and Hasbro has chased every trend with them. It's not as if Ms. Monopoly is replacing the default game.

If you are actually upset by Ms. Monopoly, you are a very fragile person.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Two Crows on January 27, 2021, 03:08:16 PM
You are discussing two different things.

There are thousands of "re-themed" versions of Monopoly.  Exact same game with names changed around.

Ms. Monopoly is actually a different implementation of the game with different rules.  Very similar, but a different game.  It's also incredibly lowly rated.

You can check it out on BoardGameGeek if you feel like it:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/289363/ms-monopoly (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/289363/ms-monopoly)
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Charon's Little Helper on January 27, 2021, 03:26:49 PM
You are discussing two different things.

There are thousands of "re-themed" versions of Monopoly.  Exact same game with names changed around.

Ms. Monopoly is actually a different implementation of the game with different rules.  Very similar, but a different game.  It's also incredibly lowly rated.

You can check it out on BoardGameGeek if you feel like it:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/289363/ms-monopoly (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/289363/ms-monopoly)

Unless it's actually replacing the normal game of Monopoly permanently, my point stands. I really doubt that execs were even involved in yet another version of Monopoly. It was just someone on the Monopoly team trying for a low-hanging fruit cash-grab.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Pat on January 27, 2021, 04:17:59 PM
If you are actually upset by Ms. Monopoly, you are a very fragile person.
I just read a review of Ms. Monopoly. Apparently the only thing that's different is that women get $240 when they pass Go, while men only get $200.

When handicapping horses in a race, the fastest horse has to carry more weight. The slower, less capable horses carry less weight. The idea is to create, or at least approach, a level playing field, by providing a penalty to those with natural advantages so the less capable can keep up.

The game is literally giving men a handicap when they compete against women. Which leads to the obvious and blatant implication that men are superior to women, and need to be handicapped when playing with poor, slow women.

I don't think I could deliberately design a more misogynistic set of rules.

And it's supposed to be feminist.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Two Crows on January 27, 2021, 04:47:26 PM
There is more than just different amounts of money for Passing Go.
Many of the Community Chest cards have been altered, and pay differently to Men then Women, for example. 

The best way to see the relation of the two games to each other would be something like BECMI vs. AD&D (but in board game terms).  They co-exist, and are very similar, but they are not the exact same game.
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Godfather Punk on January 27, 2021, 04:58:20 PM
When I play Ms. Monopoly, can I choose to play as a female pawn? And do I get the women perks in that case? What about gender-fluid?  :P

Edit: from the 'description from the publisher'
 
Quote
..but who you are is up to you.
Ok, looks like they've got all bases covered ;)
Title: Re: Will the current Woke Environment Hasten, or Delay a WOTC commitment to 6th Ed.?
Post by: Jaeger on January 28, 2021, 06:43:24 PM
...the release of Ms. Monopoly being a prime example. [of Hasbro going woke]

Lol - do you know how MANY versions of Monopoly there are? Per a quick Google search, there are 1,144 versions. I don't think that one being "woke" (I didn't actually look at it) means much of anything.

Heck, there are versions of popular college sports teams. That doesn't mean that Hasbro hates smaller less popular colleges. It just means that Monopoly editions are Hasbro going scattershot - because making a new version costs them almost nothing.

They put new names for the properties, have a few mediocre pieces of art, and maybe have new pieces (though not always). It is very cheap to make a new edition, and Hasbro has chased every trend with them. It's not as if Ms. Monopoly is replacing the default game.

If you are actually upset by Ms. Monopoly, you are a very fragile person.


You added to my Quote and cut off the context:

My Original Post:

...Outside of post 4e layoffs, Hasbro has been rather hands-off when it comes to WOTC. And Hasbro has also shown a willingness to indulge woke pleadings, the release of Ms. Monopoly being a prime example.

How you got I was "upset" from that I don't know.

Right now D&D is very "woke-lite" - not enough to really alienate a significant portion of their fanbase.

I and others make the argument that enough signs show that WOTC will continue to ramp up the woke to the point they start to alienate fans and wind up in a similar situation to the comics divisions of Marvel and DC.

Others say HASBRO will not let the woke get to the point that it starts to affect the money train.

We'll see.