The Aftermath of Wizard's OGL Decision
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- Опубликовано: 27 янв 2023
- The Opendnd Movement and the TTRPG community at large have come together to push back against Wizards of the Coast and their push for a new OGL. And as the dust settles, I find myself unable to forget the darkness that revleaed itself in the corporations behind the game I love. And that is a strange feeling.
#opendnd #OGL #dnd #wotc #ttrpg
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Игры
How are you feeling about all this? What’s your favorite type of cheese?
brie, and pepperjack and depressed im gift from twitch i hi
1. I can't trust WotC/Hasbro anymore. Not even with this. I'm out.
2. Emmental AKA Swiss Cheese.
Management has to go. Myzithra blue cheese.
We won, 5th edition belongs to us, and it always will.
Cross-classing cheese is my favorite.
I have never acually played dnd before but I have been playing pathfinder for about 8 years now. I think dnd is really interesting and I would love to buy stuff to try it out but I am not sure if I should because of hasbro. Anyways, I like cheddar.
Q: Why doesn't this feel good. A: The war against evil never ends.
We won the battle but the war is far from over
There is no final victory. There is only surviving one more day.
The final victory is getting the hell out of the relationship with the toxic partner.
Leave WotC. Leave D&D.
Find something new.
Just like a breakup with a former lover who turned out to be a piece of shit.
It sucks. It hurts. There is a period of uncertainty... but then you have the chance to meet and have someone and something SO MUCH BETTER.
When you experience the alternatives and dig in with the same kind of passion, you'll find out... D&D 5e sucks.
It always has, you were just in a glamor of love that blinded you to the facts that were true the whole time.
They lied, deceived, and attempted to increase their wealth without giving anything to the community.
If WOTC had come out with new, high quality, and exciting products we all would have gladly spent more and been happy. Instead, they attempted to squeeze their customer base and not even put out any decent products in the last 12 months let alone new offerings.
Plenty of people have listed numerous ways they could have increased their bottom line and bolstered the community but they went for the easy way out and paid for it.
I would pay money to hear this reply in a Fallout narration
It's a victory, but against a foe that we used to treat as a friend.
We won a battle that shouldn't have been fought.
I am cautiously optimistic.
WotC digital goals will likely come to pass. But it's the content creators protection that I am most satisfied with.
Keep your antennae up.
This is just a ploy.
It's a corporation that has lied to you and tried to trick you and exploit you.
You think this action is anything different?
It's not.
I think you expressed well the feeling.
@@babayada that's every corporation.
I'm optimistic for what this means for my favorite content creators. CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC.
Good take. I don’t think Hasbro/WOTC is done with their bullshit by any means, but for the time being the creators seem safe.
If we want to disarm Hasbro/WOTC completely, we must challenge their ownership of the trademark “Dungeons and Dragons”, which has already become a generic phrase for fantasy role play games over the past 40+ years.
@@B00Radl33, the sad thing is that I don't agree that that's every corporation.
All of them exist to make money, but there are some that will do it by making the clients happy, they try to get money by increasing the number of clients offering good products that will attract more people.
My go to example is Microsoft with the Age of Empires franchise.
Instead of squishing the players for money, what they did was hire people who had experience with real time strategy games, put those people to study what the players liked and what they disliked about the games.
Then those people created new editions of most of the old games (there is one that is still on the works), correcting many problems and improving on what was liked.
And they created a new game (widout forcing anyone to leave the others) giving a good deal of creative freedom (things still had to be approved, but there was not many intrusions) and the game is good (it had a difficult start with many glitches, but those were worked on and the game is now reasonably successful).
I don't think the Microsoft executives objective was to make good games, making good games was the best strategy.
As someone who's been playing mtg for a long time, it's easy to forget that the dnd community didn't already experience WotC's willingness to do deeply unpopular things to try and get bigger slices of the pie, then double down multiple times.
However, the dnd community rallied as a community and got the win I wasn't expecting. The dnd community is a strong community and rallied in support of creatives. Y'all did what the MTG community rarely succeeds at, I couldn't be prouder to be part of the dnd community.
Personally, I'm content with this resolution. If you aren't, that's okay too.
Very well put. I think I’m content with it is as much as I can be. It is amazing that the dnd community could rally as much as it did. The situation leaves a bad aftertaste in my mouth that it needed to happen at all.
I think the fact that TTRPGs is a cooperative and communal game helped a lot...
We literally fight dragons, which are big fire breathing hoarding lizards for fun. I don't know what did they expect.
In MTG Arena, there is a clause in Terms and Agreements that pretty much says “Cheating isnt ok, unless WotC says its ok. “
Not sure why this hasnt come out during all of this, but its there.
i think the 3 factors that gave the dnd community an upperhand
1. very cooperative based system, so we are all preety helpful to one another.
2. unlike mtg, the creatives can achieve a bit of a career, so rallying them is far easier.
3. the dnd community is made up of people who literally disect rules and argue over their written language vs their meanings as a game.
Monte Cook’s firearm jamming analogy seems apt. We can’t trust WotC to act even in their own interest. It’s fine to enjoy the game. Your Imagination is yours, and is an amazing tool. Only you can take it away from you.
The fact that they tried to shoot you is still there. We can't unring that bell.
I don't want to take a win away from anyone, I just personally think WotC/Hasbro will absolutely regroup and try stupid shit again in the future.
I mean they're not handling MTG well either
They don't care about consumer backlash, they care about shareholder backlash, and that's what makes the "victory" feel hollow.
And when they do, will be ready.
@@jordanwhite8718 Ready to fight _and_ ready to pick up and move on to whatever game systems we've been dipping our toes into since this whole mess started. Being a big videogamer and knowing a lot of card players, the TTRPG community is one of the few gaming communities that I've seen that's really able to pack up and leave on an impactful level.
@@conspiracypanda1200 Innoway, we’re kind of like corporations outsourcing to get cheaper labor. I think one thing that wizards will learn is that they need to keep us happy or we can always just go somewhere else. It’s nice to feel powerful.
They cant though. At least not with the creative commons stuff.
Future stuff? That's totally their right to make as dumb and restrictive as they want.
@SilverishKitten it is their right to license 6e as they wish. And it is our right to try to influence that both vocally and with our money. For example, I feel nervous about buying digital content on dndbeyond. To be honest I always have but now they've shown they are willing to remove things we rely on and promises they've made in the past are worthless I would much rather buy a book I own and that can't ever disappear. Their VTT looks like a trap to me, and to be frank, I play this game to use my imagination not to lose it in just another video game. I hope the corporate overlords have learnt a lesson and understand the hobby, dnd players and the wider community that has built their brand and made them money but which they do not own and can not control.
If not they'll go away and do their own thing for a few years and the rest of us who don't want what theyre offering can enjoy the wider market.
It feels like a win, but with how people are nowadays we're used to companies having ulterior motives. So we are just waiting for the boot to drop even though in all accounts we won.
"Good has to win every single time, Evil only needs to be lucky once"
It doesn’t feel good because they had bad intentions to begin with, and every concession they’ve made also had hidden bad intentions.
Basically, they’ve tried to get away with bad intentions at every step…so this feels like: “Ok…but what’s the catch?”
Because every step so far has had a catch.
I'd say the catch is simply this: OneDND will go ahead and they're relying on brand-new customers to fill the gap left by those who've looked behind the smiling mask into the cold dead eyes, and turned away.
OneDND will be more tightly locked-up than a, well, a tightly locked-up thing.
They wanted to kill 5E and any hopes of continuing 3rd party support under the OGL (which is what happened the last time they tried to pull this trick), and they failed again. So they've tossed the SRD to CC like a discarded bone, perhaps in the hope of robbing the ORC and Black Flag of some of their momentum.
Meanwhile new gamers will be introduced to OneDnD and told it's the only *real* DnD, and die hard 5th Ed players will be amongst the outcasts. Expect a war of image. Don't be surprised at the way WotC will try to paint those who won't pay extortionate fees every month to use their own imaginations. The langauge is already in use. In every press release, they repeat that they're the welcoming option, the inclusive option, the hate-free option. They and they alone.
it's like when a partner cheats on you; you can leave or you can stay but you'll not forget
I have always held onto the knowledge that there exists no corporation that is your friend, that cares about you, or that will put literally anything other than money first. So this win surprised me. I fully expected them to barrel head first down the road to self destruction if they thought it could make them more money. So surprisingly it seems they believe the changes would have been a net loss in the end. Nothing else would have been able to motivate them to reverse course. Now I just wonder what scheme they might be planning to try and make money.
You know that applies to the companies people were trying to save from WotC, too, right?
@@nctpti2073 alot of it comes down to the people, would you say the Granny running the candy store at the corner is as bad as the Amazon CEO trying to see how close they can get to human right violations without overstepping the line to squeeze out a little more money? These small companies filled with people that are passionate about TTRPGs may some day turn into giant heartless corporations like WotC but they aren't right now.
@@nctpti2073 There can be significant differences between an "owner operated" company, which most other ttrpg publishers are, and a corporation/company owned by and purely responsible to share holders.
Expect some form of lootboxing in the near future of DnD products.
@@torfinnzempel6123 Or a BattlePass
Im really touched to find a creator who feels pretty much exactly the same way I do about DnD. It got me through Covid, it pulled me through a dark place and catapulted my life back into a healthy space. Thank you for sharing
It’s a bit like finding out that your best friend stole from you. Even though they admit what they did was wrong, and they’ve returned what they took, you can’t really go back to the way it was. Or trust them ever again.
Your thoughts exactly match mine. On one hand I'm kind of happy, but I also feel very deeply that the people driving the boat are just never going to steer it in the right direction.
I understand that DnD means a lot to a lot of people. This is evident from the fact that the vast vast majority of TTRPG content out there is 5e related.
I might be in a minority here, but I have been craving content that is explicitly not 5e, and my big hope from all this drama was that some of my favorite content creators would start to do just that.
Thank you for framing the current corporate environment as an eldritch Lovecraftian horror. I would never have thought of it, but it’s so spot-on that it gives me chills.
You win the Internet. 👍
Do I win or do we all just lose together? Haha
It's not a win. We lost when WotC released 1.1
They failed. We didn't win.
They will try again. This isn't over.
They showed us who they are. Never forget. Never another dime for WotC.
I just got back into to DND after many year away and this happened…It’s like breaking up with a toxic partner…I’m cutting my losses before that toxic partner start saying they only hit me because they love…wow that got dark quick…anyway, stay safe out there folks…find you someone that can appreciate and value you as a person…yeah that’s better 😊
It doesn't feel good because this all could just be a distraction and delaying tactic. They could be cooking something up in the legal team to further undermine the original OGL, they could be investigating internally to see who supplied all the leaks and making the list of the next batch of employees to purge, they could be planning something that we can't even properly anticipate. A money-hungry corporation doesn't usually capitulate like this, and when they do it's very suspicious.
OMG - You hit the nail on the head. A money-hungry corporation doesn't usually capitulate like this, and when they do it's very suspicious. Something is probably still coming...
To your face they tell you what you want to hear, while behind your back they plot and scheme.
It's a win only in the sense that we're likely getting "4E debacle 2.0" with the next edition and its restrictive controls, rather than "Ye gods, they're killing off a third of the entire hobby."
Defensive victories are rarely satisfying, because nothing's gained. The best you can hope for is to limit the casualties.
Of all the things that came from this I'm just happy that this pushed me to learn how to do things traditionally, commit to that and learn to step away from dependence on DND Beyond to do the math for me. Now I don't need them anymore.
It's a wonderful win but you're right it certainly feels unsettling. I've definitely moved to other systems to create a new safe space. Pathfinder is looking like the go-to but I'm still going to keep exploring other systems so I'm never just tethered to one again.
I'm planning to put my support behind small third-party creators. They went to bat for the community and the community unified for them. I'm not going to let the esprit du corps falter.
I'm probably going to get some more D&D stuff, but I'm going to hunt through Kijiji and FB Marketplace for it. Hasbro has enough of my money.
But I got exposed to a lot broader range of great stuff. That has excited me. And, as a small scale independent producer, my fellows have my solidarity.
I've been proud to be part of this movement. And if you do still want to buy into WoTC, nobody has a place to tell you how to find joy. You follow your own path, brother. Do what brings you joy. If you ditch them, more power to you then, too.
I feel this deeply. Truth is, D&D is the gateway into the community and that isn't changing anytime soon... as we branch out, discover, and fall in love with more games and systems, it's from that pool we'll be grabbing others to join us... and to do that, it's best we keep some sort of foundation there.
Thanks for putting this out there man. I think a lot of us feel the same way and were struggling to find an eloquent way to put it. I'd say you hit the nail on the head.
I think this is a move to salvage as much as they can and kill off support for a third license. In other words, it's an ORC-killer.
It’s a feint. Subatai was notorious for turning his cavalry away from a fight to get his enemies to chase him, only to wheel and crush them when they were disorganized.
They’re hoping you’ll celebrate your win by going to see their movie and renew your subscription to D&D Beyond.
Watch for what they do down the road. They’re not giving up on this. There will be a sixth edition and it won’t have the OGL protections that 5e and earlier have. I started playing in the ‘80s, so I’m fairly confident in my assessment that this is a trap.
It has made more people aware of and willing to try alternatives. Which is healthy for TTRPGs. As someone who doesn't even like Class/Level based systems I'm happy. Having diverse options and breaking a practical monopoly is a good. Doesn't matter what industry I feel no single company should control more then half of any market.
Part of what made the OGL so important was it a sheild from being dependent on the (soulless, money grubbing) corporation to create and enjoy the hobby.
Great vid! First time viewer and I hope to see more from you 😁
Daddy hit mommy at the dinner table. Everyone hugged and made up, and we will carry on and have many more years of joy and happiness, but we can't ever unsee that.
We're here because we're here, because we're here, because we're here...
I just relish the fact that we are here together, it feel bad yes, we've seen wrong things done to something we love, but we stood, and thank y'all for that, it might be difficult to move on but we must, because we're here...
Man. You are one of the wisest man out here who had an opinion on it all. Thanks.
You are welcome. but also don't worry, I'm trying to post more unhinged content to balance it out.
The truth is, in the modern era (From 1940s up to now):
Almost any company, especially one that is publicly traded, does not care about the consumer. They care about how much money they can extract from the consumers, and how it will create value for the shareholders
It is extremely rare to find a company that do not fall into this "value extraction" paradigm that is so common nowadays.
So we gotta carry on, and encourage smaller builders, smaller companies, because these companies are all about the products, the people, the lifestyle, or the community.
Their up to something, make sure to keep an eye on them and remember what they've done.
The collective TTRPG community is bigger then the D&D community. I can see it being a hard time for some only in to one game system. there's nothing stopping D&D players from still being a D&D player and being part of an even bigger TTRPG community. More boats , more friends, more chesse.
Wow that description of a home base really hit me. I have always loved trying out new game systems but always find myself going back to 3.5. As far as content goes, honestly I just found this channel but love the vibe, I'll stay and listen to whatever drops
I love dungeons and dragons too. In my mind, no company can ever truly take 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, 4e, or 5e away from us. As long as we have one copy of the rules, a group of friends, and a table, we can enjoy the game indefinitely.
20 years ago we gave this money-making entity too much credit for creating a wonderful thing called the OGL. Today we should give a lot, but not too much, credit to the same money-making entity for surrendering that thing to Creative Commons.
We are better off now than we were 20 years ago. This is a big win, and the OGL debacle was worth it to get here.
Yep, exactly. An awakening is rough. It gets you to wonder what else could I be ignorant about? So many were forced to level up because of this in the actual real world. If you don't go to another game system, call it DD&D. Dungeons, Dragons & Devils as a reminder to never forget who's behind the curtain.
It was sudden! Corporations DO NOT learn from their mistakes so they WILL try this again! We won this battle but not the war. Do not renew your DnD beyond subscriptions, do not see the movie, keep supporting 3rd party creators and PLAY other systems!
Everyone who made these decisions at WotC are still there. They are still in charge!
Exactly this. The only thing that WotC can do to win back trust in my eyes, is to surrender their control and join Paizo's OCR not with existing editions that are on their way out in terms of WotC producing content for them, but with future editions like OneDnD and whatever else comes out going forward. Anything else is mostly just empty PR bullshit and damage control.
That movie is going to get pirated anyway lol irony never had a d&d beyond subscription but I still play balders gate so unfortunately I do support them in that regard
The wizard cast Major Illusion. DC 18.
player base *rolls*
Dm: you failed
It seems like now a days you need to separate your love of most things from the love of the creator of those things.
What perception check is being failed here?
Mostly I see people going "still not giving any money to WotC", what's being celebrated is primarily that 5e's existence as a hobby regardless of how WotC feels about it is secured.
You've always needed to do that. Corporations are not your friend. All corporations exist only to make money. Period.
@@colbyboucher6391 they were willing to steal people's content and sell it without even giving any form of royalties to that person that made it they created their new policies in such a way they could do this to anyone and they were willing to take most of the money that creators created The fact that blew up in their face is pretty funny while many people are buying things from them The fact that the company backpedaled so hard because of the loss of subscriptions shows that most of their money is made off of those subscriptions this is also coming from people that actually worked inside the company who risks their jobs by leaking this out so we know it's true
@@cooperton4949 true The day that people realize this is the data companies will start losing their power since no one will trust them anymore
@@ingamingpc1634 I know all of that. What does it have to do with what I just said? And why does your keyboard have no punctuation keys?
I've been burned by corporations wrecking things I love several times in the past. Don't get invested at a personal level in anything owned by a corporation that can and will ruin them the moment they smell money.
Well if you were a magic the gathering player you would have probably seen this as coming, In fact you would be more surprised that it took them So long to show their true colors..... But more importantly You would Be shocked To see them back off of any bad idea.
I'm with you 100%. My first (and really only) response was I don't trust it, and I probably never will.
Same.
Hasbro/WotC's change of heart still feels like the famous quote "don't pee on me and tell me that is raining".
Very well put. I know exactly how you feel and agree with all points you brought up. It's hard to go back once you know the truth, like being a kid and learning adult stuff, you cannot go back once innocence is lost
It doesn't feel like a win because we know what WotC was planning all along, and they didn't want input from the community until it blew up in their face. The people that were the architects of the OGL 1.1 are still in charge, and they will try to find a way to sneak in parts of that horrible license.
It doesn't feel like we won because we didn't - We succeeded in protecting what's ours. In the same way that a Lioness defends her cubs from savage predators in the ecosystems of Africa, we defended our hobby and livelihoods from the predators heading Hasbro.
Having to defend something important like that is exhausting, and while triumphant in our success, people are rightfully wary and mistrustful given what just happened. Just because they pulled their foot off of our cub's neck doesn't mean people aren't justified in continuing to bare their teeth at these assholes for the attempt.
"this whole storm has unearthed something"
my brain: was it something arcane?
I am so happy our comunity got this win but I have a strong suspicion that it won't last corporation's will do what corporations do and we will have to be willing to hurt their bottom line every single time they do something like this we won the battle but the war will never end.
WotC should become a worker co-op. Then the workers would guide the decisions, not the bean counters.
I completely agree with you. They backed down...but only because they were caught and didn't see a way to push forward. I have no doubt they'll try something like this again (maybe with OneD&D). But this whole incident has left a bad taste in my mouth, they've broken our trust and I just don't think we can return to the way it was.
D&D(Fantasy table top roleplaying games) is a folk art, its something that comes from the poeple that play the game, it a tradition.
D&D as a brand can do anything they want, but it does not change the roots of D&D and that it comes from the people that play it.
You are right to feel like this is a hollow victory, WOTC are just giving up ground they couldn't win in court. When One D&D releases it will not be under the OGL, but some other restricted licenses and their is nothing any of us can do. The good news is we can all still keep playing D&D without giving money to WOTC because its still D&D if the book says pathfinder or OSE or worlds with out number. D&D is more then the brand and the only thing WOTC owns is the brand, we can keep the tradition alive without them.
In asking what sorts of things you'd like to see, personally, I liked your idea of Powered by the Apocalypse content. It's a completely different beast from most RPGs, and if you follow the rules as a GM it's a lot of fun to run since you'll feel more like a player than a manager of the game.
They are a corporation, they simply be more deceptive in the future.
I've got exactly the same feels.
Really, we cannot trust WotC anymore. They've shown their true colors. It's like learning something terrible about a person with whom you have a romantic relationship. They've been cheating on you the whole time, and you heard a conversation with another person in which they say that they can't believe you're such a clueless chump.
It can't go back after that.
Nor should it.
There are other games and communities out that there are just beautiful and more worthy of your attention. trust, energy. effort, time, and creativity.
Check out DCC RPG.
That is my current home base and tether.
A very good description of why this victory feels pyyric.
Yeah this "win" definitely does not feel good. This is what I've been commenting on the "victory videos". This one needs more views.
It feels bad because the “victory” is the status quo. Not a hard-won improvement; just another delay
My feeling is that while this is a clear victory, this is also the end to a battle we should never have had to fight and in part that explains why it doesn't really feel like a victory, because few if any of us can return to the way things were before, when there was no concept that WotC would pull something like this.
In the longer term, I wouldn't be surprised if there's something in the new edition release to sour the experience, but we have made it clear that there's a limit to what they can do, after all, Hasbro needs WotC money to cover for all the brands they have that operate at a loss
The only people that get to claim a victory are the ones that walk away from wizards of the coast.
This victory tastes like... ashes.
Here's where I feel a little old. I am part of that demographic sliver sometimes called Xennials, right at the tail end of Gen X and right at the beginning of Millennials, who belongs to either one or the other or neither depending on who you ask. Honestly, we're both. And while both groups have a deep distrust of powerful institutions, their expectations are different:
Millennials (especially younger Millennials) tend to be techno-optimists who believe that, despite being knocked down by repeated setbacks, progress is attainable. Good can, with enough effort, triumph over evil.
Gen X, however, are fundamentally cynical. Even a bit fatalistic. Sure, they'll back the fight against evil, but they also expect that even the best intentions will backfire now and again, and are honestly a little surprised humanity has managed to survive this long.
So the Gen X side of me isn't AT ALL disturbed at the peek behind the curtain you're describing - that horror is the world Gen X takes as a given. Gen X sees it as, yup, you're absolutely right. The table is rigged, there isn't a point, the game of life's a sham. You don't fight because you think victory over evil is possible. You fight because the greedy f**ks are gonna go down with you.
They need to add Irrevocable to the OGL 1.0a!
"How do I feel about this?"
1) I'm glad what was already promised as written by the OGL will remain as it is. That first and foremost was MY personal concern.
2) I am happy to see the SRD in CC. That is a nice get for all this pain and anguish.
3) Worried about the future of the D&D Brand - for it is a household name, it is my first TTRPG system obviously, but this feels like the flap of a butterflies wings and will have consequences for the entire community if we keep to D&D without a change in both leadership at Hasbro and Wizards for their recent actions (not just in the D&D product space, but MTG's as well)
"What will I do with this?"
1) Take a breath; for a win is a win.
2) Watch closely as there reason for their massive compitulation is two-fold; 1 - the massive loss of subscribers in D&DBeyond, 2 - the future potential pull of the recent movie to come. Both of which again are in the hands of those who love this property, this system, and are glad to see it's grow, even despite the greed.
3) The Threat that current Hasbro and Wizards Leadership is still there. They're just licking their wounds now from the backlash. I wonder if this will have consequences for OneD&D/6e.
"Worst case?" - We jump ship and join the ORC Horde? Yeah, I played WoW I can get behind that.
"It doesn't really feel like the people that are in charge of the thing that I care about, care about me" that's how I feel with the government
The era of community owned dnd is on the horizon.
it's interesting seeing other people experiencing this feeling with dungeons and dragons
My two reasons why I'm not particularly happy with this win are:
First, not having a war is better than wining it, because the winer is just the side that lost less.
Second, because I know that even when motivated by greed one can act honourably and beneficially.
My go to example of this was Microsoft with Age of Empires.
In the last few years they decided to launch definitive editions of the games that already existed and launch AoE4.
I don't think the top executives of Microsoft had any significant motivation besides money and I really doubt they have any personal connection with the communities that play those games.
What did they do?
They hired a company that already had experience with Real Time Strategy games, not games in general, but the kind of game AoE is.
Then they put those guys, who were already exited to do this work in one of the biggest lines of Real Time Strategy, to study what the players like and what they dislike about the games.
So when they made the definitive editions they attempted to fix what didn't work and improve on what people liked.
Instead of just sucking the money of the fans, they increased the interest on the game and their participation on the market share.
When lots of people were disappointed with the glitches and other problems with AoE4, besides from working on them, they decided to launch the first expansion for free, instead of selling it, bringing back some of the people who left, and attracting even more people.
So I'm sad that instead of trying to understand their clients and working on get new clients and selling more products by offering something that people would want to from them instead of from the competition and getting new people from outside the hobby for having a product that is more and more amazing, they decided to just kill the competition.
I think it was DNDshorts (it might not have been, I forget.) who was saying that the new OGL policy was primarily aimed at competing VTTs, which is a sentiment I fully believe, and as someone who can only play virtually, I am finishing my DND games and will be switching to other systems.
The feeling is the same feeling everyone has been feeling about all the other properties/fandoms that have been messed with over the years. Just kinda numb to it here now.
They need to sign under ORC if they really want our trust back.
You are blessed for never thinking the problem with dnd is capitalism, as with most human problems. Capitalism and cooperative efforts of any type are opposites always.
I ended up cutting a whole capitalism rant from this video because it didn’t fits maybe I’ll make another capitalism vid sooner than later
Yay a "win". We are back to where we were in the first place with way way less trust, more fear, and knowledge about terrible executive management.
Yeah, better outcome than expected, but not really a win here.
Have been playing D&D since TSR. D&D may have troubles that come and go, but the community will survive. But sometimes D&D isn't going to be D&D. For right now, it's Pathfinder 2. And I'm happy with it.
Also, Gouda is good.
One of the things we have on our side is the popularity of D&D right now; more people than ever have witnessed WotC's and Hasbro's greed firsthand. This won't be like last time when 4e came out, people are not going to forget this.
I'd love to hear about your favorite characters because we hardly get an outlet to talk about our creations without feeling like we're being a void of conversation. These could be PCs or even NPC/BBEGs that deserve a spotlight.
its the fact that none of this needed too happen its like the captain saw some tresure in the wall of the ship and tried grabbing not knowing it would spring a leak no one would be able too fix unless put back just the way it was
I can't help but think that the only reason we have a 'win' is because Hasbro/Wotc acted in such a bad way. I don't feel good for winning a bad situation that was forced upon all of us for no reason other than corporate profits. It was an unnecessary stress on me as a content creator as I changed how I was doing stuff for Patreon. I would rather feel good by never having to do any of this and learning more about the OneDnD playtest. I would rather feel good by happily ordering the cool looking new alt cover of the new book coming out instead of skipping my first official book release in several years.
Thanks for your video, you are the first person to react in this way that I have seen and it matches how I have been feeling. Shocked? yes. Happy? no not really.
I agree with your trepidations, buddy. I'm really not sure what to think about the "win."
I said it before on another RUclipsr's page: "It's a trick, get an axe." I mean they're gonna drop a new rule set and probably clamp onto it REAL bad.. it'll fail but they'll find a way
Once you have the physical books, WotC/Hasbro can't tell you how to run anything and they won't come after you if you're "doing it wrong" (unless you're doing Adventure League).
Even so, getting more exposure to different TTRPGs opens you up to learning how other games do things, which you can then selectively use in your D&D games if you so wish.
Last but not least, encourage others to diversify their TTRPG exposure so that less people are left out when WotC pulls some more shenanigans like this again.
Couldn't have said it better than how you expressed it. Very close to my heart and dear to me. But I get you completely. It feels weird...
I started with D&D till the end of TSR. I have never had much faith in wizards of the coast. Do I miss it?.. I did for a bit. But once I moved on I never looked back and didn’t regret it.
The major positive is that this has de-monopolized the RPG industry. Which should lead to more growth and higher quality of products. WotC's publications have definitely left a lot on the table to improve on still.
I've pushed the crazy pirate captains off of my boat over a year ago. I now just sail around meeting other people on really cool boats just like mine, who create better sails, better rigging and make the boat sail much smoother.
I can understand the feelings you have. I really can. I'd gone through them back when I gave up on WoTC handling of the game and realized that they were doing nothing but creating the illusion that you *needed* them. That you needed to subscribe to their product to make characters, or have easy access to books. That you had to have their adventures and rules because they were official.
The captains aren't needed at all. The books still exist, dice still exist, and there are excellent apps to keep notes in. The curtain got pulled back and the little Gollum creature at the controls got exposed, pulling it's little money levers and shrieking. I'll still play D&D again someday. Personally I find it refreshing that all these 3rd party companies are going to be either creating content for 5e with a little more breathing room now, or doing their own 'compatible' systems like Black Flag.
Wizards of the Coast aren't needed for D&D. The game will always exist in a multitude of forms. They just got caught out trying to turn it into something that could squeeze more money out of people. None of the books are invalidated, and the rules still act the same way. It's all good. It just means the loyalty to the brand has been shaken free from, and the love of the actual game has grown.
And I'm liking brie cheese lately :)
It feels good that the community has come together and achieved what we did. but it's also rough that we are going to have to keep the pressure up to ensure WotC doesn't try anything like this again. It's a balance and I hear what you're saying. This whole incident is going to leave scars and I do feel like the golden age of D&D is gone.
And my typical go to Cheese is sharp Cheddar, but you need to mix it up and know what cheeses pair best for the food you make.
We need to remember that it was never really the "D&D community" I was always the TTRPG community, and D&D was just the IP that was most prominent. As the biggest flag, it is where most of us rallied. But D&D is not responsible for that connection we felt to the other people at our tables. D&D did not create those friendships. D&D did not create the sense of confidence many of us learned to nurture at our tables. The community did. We did. D&D had a privileged position as the most recognizable, and most common game in that community. Hasbro, and the WotC execs saw the influence they had over us and chose to weaponize that privilege. Yes we were able to get them to back down, but they still destroyed the trust. The relationship has been spoiled. I for one will never be able to trust that any time, energy, or emotional investment I put into D&D wont just be yanked away again. It's like catching your partner lying and cheating. Even though you are the one ending the relationship, you still mourn what you had, and is now lost.
WoTC did it to the poor MPMB character sheet guy, this will happen more than once.
Because the whole community lost. On the other hand, I feel like people being pushed to discover new systems will eventually be a net positive.
It's not a victory, it's a retreat, regroup and rethink for Hasbro
At the heart of this conflict was the roll playing community. On a local scale any changes to house rules would go through a process of consent. This is the foundation of the group and spirit of D&D. If you don't respect the group it bound to fraction and divide. Yet on a macro level the spirit of common consent was lost on those who should have understood the players and the game. I propose this corporate entity be converted (in game) into a demi-god of whatever then slain in effigy.
My analogy on the wotc situation was like: we got through a hard level in a tower defense game. Harder levels waits ahead…
Absolutely agree. Has-Been-Bros will just try new stuff in the long run. Wizards are NOT the stewards of D&D. They lost that title long before this mess. Buy third party stuff and
Support content creators, better yet make your own!
Pathfinder calls
...My favorite cheese has gotta be blue cheese. Mmm, mold.
A couple of thoughts on this:
- This response seems like WotC looking at the 5e community as a gangrenous limb. They're taking ultimate control of 5e out of their hands, hoping to leave the old fanbase behind to push forward with all their VTT nonsense. Luckily, that means y'all can keep playing the game that you love without ever involving WotC.
- I can't seem to say this without someone going "you just hate 5e", generally people who are really emotionally attached to it. Which is frustrating. It's like people think I'm telling them "your idea of fun is wrong" while really I'm saying "There might be something else that follows your idea of fun even more closely, and you've never tried". So here goes:
Most likely all the stuff you like about 5e will be found in other games, and they might do "the 5e thing" better. It'll still feel like playing 5e except some people will enjoy it more. They *will* be easier to homebrew for. And outside of PF2e, they'll generally much cheaper and much easier to grasp on either side of the table. The chances of official D&D 5th Edition really being "the one for you" are 1 in however many 5e-ish games there are, you know?
Existing options include:
*Shadow of the Demon Lord / Weird Wizard* by Robert Schwabb, one of 5e's lead designers. It's very much an expression of everything good about 5e, with all the nonsensical bits (mostly old D&D tropes) just yanked right out. Caveats: Demon Lord is an *absurdly* dark game which is why Weird Wizard is being published, and in either case they're a bit higher lethality than 5e itself.
*13th Age* is a system closer to 3.5 and 4e, yet it's considered easier for a new player to wrap their head around, probably. It's even more of a "big damn heroes" game than 5e, less "how will I get around the trolls as Bilbo", more "What's the sickest kickflip I can do as Legolas".
*Quest* is not a game I would use for long campaigns, but for more "compressed" games and playing with new players, it's wonderful. And it's free, so there's that. All the character options and funky magic items of 5e with literally none of the math. Also the rulebook is just lovely.
*Fantasy AGE* is... considered unfinished by some people. But for others that's a blessing. It's another even more combat-focused game, but apparently the way combat works allows for a lot of freedom in how players do things. Stunts let you stunt all over the bad guys, idk.
Now the unfinished stuff, some of which holds a lot of future promise:
*ICON* is a game that seems to fit the "spirit" of 5e perfectly, at least the spirit of how many tables ultimately play it. You can download a playtest. In it's authors words it's "heavily inspired by the vast, unknown spaces of classic mythic fantasy, anime, and video games. It has a robust narrative system for story driven play and a final fantasy inspired tactical combat system, with either or both systems usable for play."
*DC20 RPG* by The Dungeon Coach, this guy is a big 5eHead who has somehow seen through the veil and gone "I want to play 5e, but 5e is broken, how do I fix it?" He's been working onit for a few years. So far what he's doing seems very promising. He's discussing it on his RUclips channel and planning out a Kickstarter to turn it into something real.
*MCDM* (Matthew Collville's company) will be making their own system. Matt has played 5e for it's whole lifespan, he's had a huge impact on it, but lately videos like "What are dungeons for" (you should watch it) have been more critical of how 5e stumbles over the fundamentals a bit.
...And finally, of course there's *Project Black Flag* which you certainly know about. Kobold Press will be pulling an original Pathfinder and truly just making 5e with minor adjustments and no WotC, almost certainly.
Speaking just for myself, props to those who are enjoying this, but for me this wasn't a boxing match where we won by decision, this was backstabbing in an alley that we just barely got away from. It doesn't give a happy feeling, just emptiness, frustration and more than a little upset. 😡
I feel it to. Its a win for the community... But yeah... Just feels weird. :/ On a side note, first video of yours I have seen, and I like it. :) You seem chill and understanding. +1 sub from me. :3
To quote Sir Arthur Wellesley Duke of Wellington; "Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won." We won but at what cost? How much did we lose in order to win this victory? I doubt that it was pyrrhic, but a lot of the community are asking what are they planning now for 6th edition (one D&D)?
This whole debacle was a giant wake-up call to the community. The company that owns the thing you love, doesn't love you, never has and likely never will. The thing you cherish, appreciate and understand to the core is a product to them. A marketable asset only. You can talk about D&D for hours. Stories you can recall about past games are like events you went to, places you visited and people you met... all in your imagination and on a tabletop. The company that owns that, the people in charge of protecting and developing it, don't "get it." They don't play it. They don't understand it or what it means to you beyond a purchase price. They don't understand how it makes you feel and what lengths you would go to to protect it, even from them, the owners.
Hasbro and the people who tried to murder the franchise had blinders on, chasing the bottom line. They don't know what their product is beyond terms they understand. Money. That's all D&D is to them. It's all they care about. It's the only thing they think about and the only thing that motivates their drive for change. Until those people are replaced with people who understand the product they are responsible for, I for one will never trust the company again. You must rip out the foundations of a burned bridge before you can build it anew.
The moral of this story is not to outsource your happiness to something that can be taken away from you.
Trust is the easiest thing to lose and the hardest thing to gain. The bottom line is that now we know that not even D&D, the most storied and sacred of nerd pasttimes, is insulated from the nasty, money-grubbing world of hyper-monetezation. The curtain has been violently yanked aside and torn asunder, and there's really no way to ever mend it back to the way it was.
They put strahd in the Creative Commons . They won me over.