They could try to go after Avrae or something but it is run non profit, IIRC and almost certainly helps them more than hinders. Edit: And isn't really a VTT in and of itself.
actually, avrae was acquired by beyond, and so is owned by wotc, so they probably will not go after it at all
Since they own it, they can simply close it down - why let people play on discord when they should be playing on the D&D VTT
Separately though, how does the OGL affect the average player who does not post any 3rd-party content but just plays a small campaign with their friends? What about your average DM who already has the rulebooks and doesn't need to buy anything more to run a game with their students? How does this OGL and WotC crisis affect those people?
A couple random musings:
While the D&D 5e system is good, it's not great, and 3rd party creators often fill the gaps, resolve disliked rules, or provide more "crunchy" options for folks looking for alternative levels of detail in martial combat, magic/spellcasting, etc.
My group does NOT play D&D pure "as written" as many rules don't meet our standards or expectations for reasonable, logical, or aligned to our style of play. Without 3rd party creator content of self-written homebrew options we may not choose to play D&D and could shift to other systems.
If 3PP content and Homebrew is restricted via subscription levels on sites like D&D Beyond that incentivizes our group to seek more flexible and open systems to play.
TTRPG is about each groups desired style to derive enjoyment. Restricting our options to tailor the game to our style will simply drive us to more open and flexible systems that better accommodate our style of play.
If 3PP content and Homebrew is restricted via subscription levels on sites like D&D Beyond that incentivizes our group to seek more flexible and open systems to play.
Techncially, no 3PP content has been added to D&DBeyond since they killed Unearthed Arcana updates. So that hasn't been an issue in a while.
As to homebrew, it is already somewhat subscription based, as I need to be have a certain subscription level to create and share my Homebrew content to my campaign on D&DBeyond. So that is not a new idea either. D&DBeyond was never about verifying that a particular role was successful or not, or tracking actions inside your game, or what rules you use to resolve those. That is impossible to enforce from a programmatical standpoint, and a boogey man type argument. "Big Brother is going to watch my game and make sure I only make rules calls inline with D&D official interpretation of the rules." So nothing about D&DBeyond is affected by, or improved by, 3pp. Homebrew stuff in D&DBeyond is all "Races, Items and spells". Not actual homebrew or 3pp rules.
So 3pp publishers have almost nothing to do with 3PP. 3pp is reliant on Kickstarter, Word of Mouth, and other digital market places to sell their goods. You won't find Kobold Press 3pp goods on D&DBeyond marketplace, without a distribution contact with D&DBeyond (WotC).
So all three of your issues are completely sperate from the OGL and a new OGL does not stop you from doing any of those in your own games.
Techncially, no 3PP content has been added to D&DBeyond since they killed Unearthed Arcana updates. So that hasn't been an issue in a while.
As to homebrew, it is already somewhat subscription based, as I need to be have a certain subscription level to create and share my Homebrew content to my campaign on D&DBeyond. So that is not a new idea either. D&DBeyond was never about verifying that a particular role was successful or not, or tracking actions inside your game, or what rules you use to resolve those. That is impossible to enforce from a programmatical standpoint, and a boogey man type argument. "Big Brother is going to watch my game and make sure I only make rules calls inline with D&D official interpretation of the rules." So nothing about D&DBeyond is affected by, or improved by, 3pp. Homebrew stuff in D&DBeyond is all "Races, Items and spells". Not actual homebrew or 3pp rules.
So 3pp publishers have almost nothing to do with 3PP. 3pp is reliant on Kickstarter, Word of Mouth, and other digital market places to sell their goods. You won't find Kobold Press 3pp goods on D&DBeyond marketplace, without a distribution contact with D&DBeyond (WotC).
So all three of your issues are completely sperate from the OGL and a new OGL does not stop you from doing any of those in your own games.
I do believe some 3pp content has been introduced in the homebrew section as well. Probably none of it is "official" from the content makers.
Sorry for being padantic about your use of technically.
Prior to the Wizards buy out, technically, there was3pp stuff from Matt Mercer. It was long set aside as optional content before the official Critical Role content. Of course, that was part of the sponsorship contract I am sure, so it is a bit murky. Plus a more formal connection has been made now..
Without money, they cease to exist, and cease to perform their actions.
Some companies, like Chik-Fil-A or Hobby Lobby, choose to take their profits and put them towards anti-LGBT legislation, lobbying, and politicians with the main goal of removing the rights of gay people and making America a living nightmare for anyone that isn't the cookie cutter person that they've approved of. These are bad actions that hurt people.
Without money, they cannot do these actions.
When a company starts performing actions you do not like, whether they be making a product you don't agree with or supporting endeavors that you think are in bad taste, like trying to strip away the rights of third party content creators, you can remove your contribution of money and thus weaken that company and it's ability to perform those actions.
While any one single individual may not be able to do enough damage to hurt them, the point is that there are enough people together that if even 1/3rd of them agree that this company is doing bad things, they'll remove their financial support - and the company will be significantly hindered or even potentially cease to exist.
That is why.
And while it is true that there's no perfect consumption under capitalism, there's a difference between black and white 'well then you can't buy anything from anyone ever because it's all bad!' stance and a more realistic, possible, 'I've seen this company recently decide to start doing this bad thing, and I won't support them anymore because of it'.
The one thing that corporations care about is making money.
Subscriptions to D&D Beyond are the way that WOTC/Hasbro hopes to increase their money making ability.
The quickest most direct way to let WOTC/Hasbro know that their ******* with the OGL is a bad idea is to show them how their bad actions with the OGL are going to do the opposite of "make them money" and instead "cost them money". Unsubscribe and make your "voice" heard and have impact.
Prior to the Wizards buy out, technically, there was3pp stuff from Matt Mercer. It was long set aside as optional content before the official Critical Role content. Of course, that was part of the sponsorship contract I am sure, so it is a bit murky. Plus a more formal connection has been made now..
That was prior to WotC buy out. So once WotC bought out D&D beyond, 3PP was no longer sold by D&D Beyond.
I understand the controversy of the OGL. I can see what the community is trying to do. But unsubscribing from the great tools that D&D Beyond offers is so ridiculous. The fact that people are willing to sacrifice helpful D&D tools just to put out their opinion is, in my eyes, over-the-top. Why does it matter where your money goes? The D&D Beyond website hasn't changed at all and dozens of D&D YouTubers are basically rebelling against the website. Why? I haven't seen a YouTuber say that they actually prefer paper character sheets because, let's be honest, nobody does. Digital character sheets, stat blocks, and combat trackers are so useful, and even D&D players who don't make 3rd party content are unsubscribing and are refusing to buy any more official D&D products, for no apparent reason that I understand.
I am going to get a lot of hate for this comment and I'm risking that just so I can have the answer: why?
For me the issues are product transparency and concerns about the integrity of my purchases. I don't have confidence in the future viability of D&D Beyond given the tremendous investment WoTC has made in their forthcoming VTT. If that VTT has character sheet integration, D&D Beyond becomes redundant. If D&D Beyond is only for digital books and not character sheets, they why bother with a subscription? The only way D&D Beyond stays viable is if the new VTT uses its character sheets.
This issue of the VTT and the monetization digital assets is a big part of the outrage about OGL changes. The goal of the WoTC corporate team was/is to make their digital play space the only digital play space. There is also some evidence/concern that they bought D&D Beyond simply to dismantle it.
Additionally, the development on all alpha and beta site features, which the subscription fee grants access to, has been halted. Why pay for a subscription fee if they've abandoned those features?
WoTC's recent terrible decisions, especially those of Chris Cao, present a direct threat to this community and the continued viability of the D&D Beyond site. It is a jump ship or go down with it scenario.
I understand the controversy of the OGL. I can see what the community is trying to do. But unsubscribing from the great tools that D&D Beyond offers is so ridiculous. The fact that people are willing to sacrifice helpful D&D tools just to put out their opinion is, in my eyes, over-the-top. Why does it matter where your money goes? The D&D Beyond website hasn't changed at all and dozens of D&D YouTubers are basically rebelling against the website. Why? I haven't seen a YouTuber say that they actually prefer paper character sheets because, let's be honest, nobody does. Digital character sheets, stat blocks, and combat trackers are so useful, and even D&D players who don't make 3rd party content are unsubscribing and are refusing to buy any more official D&D products, for no apparent reason that I understand.
I am going to get a lot of hate for this comment and I'm risking that just so I can have the answer: why?
"The D&D Beyond website hasn't changed at all..." for about the last two years. It doesn't even support all of the content and they've admitted that it never will. It's a broken tool at best. We're not really giving up much of anything if all you're doing is character sheets. I have no clue what makes you think it's so awesome...
It actually does, you're just not grasping the concept. A corporation's leadership looks at the bottom line, the money they effectively make, as such is their fiscal duty to their shareholders. There can be a lot said about the ethics of this judgement, but that is another debate entirely. As such, any corporation doesn't care very greatly about losing a few customers here or there as long as they can make more money, assuming this also keeps the future of the company healthy and stable. Otherwise a balance must be struck. This also means a few loud voices aren't very interesting to a corporation, since to them the overall costumer numbers matter; not the loud ones.
Now, with that in mind, D&D Beyond is owned by WotC, and canceling subscriptions are a very short-term, fast method to express grievance, when your voice will not reach.
Effectively; yes, it thus matters where your money goes.
All those 3rd party producers also have bottom lines, though. What about them shows they care any more than Hasbro does?
They're run by people who actually play the games they make. D&D is probably the only ttrpg controlled by someone who has never played the game they're in charge of. Literally nothing but corporate suits making the decisions for D&D.
They're run by people who actually play the games they make. D&D is probably the only ttrpg controlled by someone who has never played the game they're in charge of. Literally nothing but corporate suits making the decisions for D&D.
Say someone likes having cars but does not drive them and says to someone "You can use this car in perpetuity" Are they not allowed to sell the car, ever? If they replace the car, does the person have the right to use the next car, in perpetuity, simply because they were allowed to use the first car? Even if there were a series of cars that the person was allowed to use, does the next car purchased have to fall under the same agreement?
And, regardless of such agreements, are the cars not still those of their actual owner, rather than the person allowed to use them?
And still not convinced that Hasbro is getting any material benefit from the current arrangement.
A license is not a car. Its not a valid analogy.
And the benefit to Hasbro has been explained before - go listen to the expert, Ryan Dancey, explain it. There's no world where they didn't massively benefit from the OGL.
Exactly. We are voting with our dollars. It also makes me profoundly sad almost to the point of tears. I love DnDB and have been here since early on. I really enjoy it and the community and devs are great but it's a display of no confidence and way to communicate that these new arrangements and licenses don't work for us at all.
I hope the people who put all their hard work into this space come out on top but we have seen the face of the leadership and let's just be plain here...Hasbro just sucks.
There is nothing to say that if things improve people won't vote with their dollars again but as it stands a lot of people feel they can't put their trust in the brand or this current slate of leadership until matters are fixed to a level of satisfaction for us, the community.
No one wants to have unfriendly and outright hostile to the game, terms "forced" upon them by the end of a sword.
I'd say walking away with your money from something you care about because you know something is fundamentally wrong is a very clear act of bravery and moral courage. What is not morally courageous is foisting bad legal and license agreements on people who have little choice but to yield to them.
Bad decisions were made and even apologies were made because of how bad those decisions were recognized as super problematic.
Indeed and well said. This is how me make things better. Holding people accountable and holding feet to the fire. People are unsubbing because they care about this issue strongly.
I sometimes forget how there are those involved in the community while the vast majority just enjoy the fruits from the tree they grow.
Perhaps some basic history might make for the best demonstration of how this works.
Wizards of the Coast created 4th edition, universally it was generally rejected by the community because... well, opinions may very but it was not very good.
Wizards of the Coast wisened up. Hired whole army of 3rd party content creators and designers to help them build 5th edition while simultaneously reaching out to the community for advice on how to make a version of the game everyone would like. Fast forward a couple of years later, we get 5e.
The community responds by adopting the new game. They make Youtube Channels, Shows like Critical Role, VTT support, DnDBeyond... the community grows by leaps and bounds, 50 million strong making Wizards of the Coast tons of money and creating a new future for D&D.
Suddenly they decide.. hey we don't need to community, they are making too much money off "our" franchise, so they start making cuts. They buyout DnDBeyond, try to push an OGL that effectively cuts 3rd party content creators out, announces their own VTT while trying to kill the ones the community created just to name a few of the money making schemes.
So what are they doing? Well they are cutting out the very community on which their success was built. Sure it doesn't directly effect you, you are not a contributor, not part of the community that builds the game, you simply sit back and enjoy all of the labor and effort that was made to create the community for you... but, many of us, myself include, understand why this situation is complete crap... and its why we are fighting it.
The reason DnDBeyond subscriptions are being canceled is that companies like Hasbro and WotC only listen when they are losing money as was the case when they made 4e...: They didnt ask anyone anything when they made that game, they just did what they thought would make the most money but what they failed to understand then and what they are failing to understand now is that they don't actually own D&D. They don't have control... We do.. the community. We dictate what Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro can and can't do with the game and if they don't do what we demand... we (the community) will shut them down financially.
So.. this whole thing.. its working as it should. If you love D&D and you want it to be a thing in the future, stop buying books, stop supporting DnD Beyond and join the Boycott and assure you WotC will do the right thing ...eventually. Every once in a while WotC just needs to be reminded of how things operate and re-learn this lesson.
Thank you for this analysis. As a relative newbie enjoying those proverbial fruits, it explains a lot of the sentiment and (thus far in my eyes ridiculous) feeling of a lot of folks here that ‘making our voices heard’ actually matters.
However, it might very well be that this uproar + accompanied (temporary?) account-cancellations is just a calculated risk they’re taking. Beside the (strategic) mistakes in the communication about the new plans, this has to be part of a bigger, long term strategy. It sounds to me like they’re hoping an upcoming movie + new version of D&D + WotC-VTT + Vox Machina s02 etc. will bring more new people in (that will pay for the basics again) then they may lose (people loudly voicing how much they love 3pp, that WotC makes no money from).
From what I understand WotC wants to make D&D bigger, thus making more money. The community sees it as abusing 3rd party content creators. Can’t there be a win-win somewhere in this? What do long-time players think about this?
They're run by people who actually play the games they make. D&D is probably the only ttrpg controlled by someone who has never played the game they're in charge of. Literally nothing but corporate suits making the decisions for D&D.
Say someone likes having cars but does not drive them and says to someone "You can use this car in perpetuity" Are they not allowed to sell the car, ever? If they replace the car, does the person have the right to use the next car, in perpetuity, simply because they were allowed to use the first car? Even if there were a series of cars that the person was allowed to use, does the next car purchased have to fall under the same agreement?
And, regardless of such agreements, are the cars not still those of their actual owner, rather than the person allowed to use them?
And still not convinced that Hasbro is getting any material benefit from the current arrangement.
A license is not a car. Its not a valid analogy.
And the benefit to Hasbro has been explained before - go listen to the expert, Ryan Dancey, explain it. There's no world where they didn't massively benefit from the OGL.
The license is not the IP, either. The license is the agreement as to how the IP can be used.
I have heard all sorts of claims regarding the benefit to Hasbro. I have yet to see anything other than assumptions.
Were you around when WotC was convincing third party publishers to sign onto to the OGL and make content for them; the boom for WotC and third publishers under the OGL during 3e and 3.5e; the bust for WotC when they left the OGL during 4e; and WotC’s rise from the ashes when they returned to the OGL for 5e?
I was around for all of that, and Dungeons and Dragons wouldn’t exist for Hasbro to ruin if not for the OGL.
Thank you for this analysis. As a relative newbie enjoying those proverbial fruits, it explains a lot of the sentiment and (thus far in my eyes ridiculous) feeling of a lot of folks here that ‘making our voices heard’ actually matters.
However, it might very well be that this uproar + accompanied (temporary?) account-cancellations is just a calculated risk they’re taking. Beside the (strategic) mistakes in the communication about the new plans, this has to be part of a bigger, long term strategy. It sounds to me like they’re hoping an upcoming movie + new version of D&D + WotC-VTT + Vox Machina s02 etc. will bring more new people in (that will pay for the basics again) then they may lose (people loudly voicing how much they love 3pp, that WotC makes no money from).
From what I understand WotC wants to make D&D bigger, thus making more money. The community sees it as abusing 3rd party content creators. Can’t there be a win-win somewhere in this? What do long-time players think about this?
You know if there was some precedence in WotC or Hasbros history on which we could base such a presumption, I think they may be given the benefit of the doubt, but the reality is that Wizards and Hasbro just do a lot of really greedy and stupid stuff and they have a very long history of pulling stunts like this. Not just in D&D but in Magic: The Gathering as well, their other major franchise which has also been treated really badly in recent months.
The community has no problem with D&D continually growing and expanding, nor does anyone have issue with Wizards of the Coast making more money. They want to make a VTT.. go for it. You want to bring more inclusivity and eliminate bigotry from D&D, holy shit man, you have my vote. You want to expand into video games, movies, shows... for the love of god do it.
But do it in good fate. Take the community with you. Don't leverage our goodwill and wield it like a weapon against us. What we basically have here is a kind of stand-off where on one side you have a billion-dollar corporation and on the other the consumers of that corporation's product. Trust me when I tell you that this corporation doesn't stand a chance. They will yield to this communities demand or this community will shut them down.
They have simply gone too far and at this point the damage to D&D is already done, its just going to take several months for that damage to become apparent. They are going to have to release Q4 numbers soon and I promise you they won't be any better than Q3 and at this stage Q1 of 2023 is going to be even worse. 6e is still a long ways away, their VTT won't see the light of day until 2024 if they are lucky.. which means that their product for the next year is 5e and right now, there is a mass exodus on principle away from the game.
It's going to be a rough ride but the harder we hit them early the faster the recovery will be and trust me, there will be a recovery. The D&D community is equally as harsh as they are forgiving. That said... I think by Q1 2023, Pathfinder 2nd edition will be the most widely played and best selling RPG on the market until 6e comes out and that is assuming that Wizards of the Coast changes their tune.
Since they own it, they can simply close it down - why let people play on discord when they should be playing on the D&D VTT
A couple random musings:
TTRPG is about each groups desired style to derive enjoyment. Restricting our options to tailor the game to our style will simply drive us to more open and flexible systems that better accommodate our style of play.
Techncially, no 3PP content has been added to D&DBeyond since they killed Unearthed Arcana updates. So that hasn't been an issue in a while.
As to homebrew, it is already somewhat subscription based, as I need to be have a certain subscription level to create and share my Homebrew content to my campaign on D&DBeyond. So that is not a new idea either. D&DBeyond was never about verifying that a particular role was successful or not, or tracking actions inside your game, or what rules you use to resolve those. That is impossible to enforce from a programmatical standpoint, and a boogey man type argument. "Big Brother is going to watch my game and make sure I only make rules calls inline with D&D official interpretation of the rules." So nothing about D&DBeyond is affected by, or improved by, 3pp. Homebrew stuff in D&DBeyond is all "Races, Items and spells". Not actual homebrew or 3pp rules.
So 3pp publishers have almost nothing to do with 3PP. 3pp is reliant on Kickstarter, Word of Mouth, and other digital market places to sell their goods. You won't find Kobold Press 3pp goods on D&DBeyond marketplace, without a distribution contact with D&DBeyond (WotC).
So all three of your issues are completely sperate from the OGL and a new OGL does not stop you from doing any of those in your own games.
Sorry for being padantic about your use of technically.
Prior to the Wizards buy out, technically, there was3pp stuff from Matt Mercer. It was long set aside as optional content before the official Critical Role content. Of course, that was part of the sponsorship contract I am sure, so it is a bit murky. Plus a more formal connection has been made now..
Because money funds companies.
Without money, they cease to exist, and cease to perform their actions.
Some companies, like Chik-Fil-A or Hobby Lobby, choose to take their profits and put them towards anti-LGBT legislation, lobbying, and politicians with the main goal of removing the rights of gay people and making America a living nightmare for anyone that isn't the cookie cutter person that they've approved of. These are bad actions that hurt people.
Without money, they cannot do these actions.
When a company starts performing actions you do not like, whether they be making a product you don't agree with or supporting endeavors that you think are in bad taste, like trying to strip away the rights of third party content creators, you can remove your contribution of money and thus weaken that company and it's ability to perform those actions.
While any one single individual may not be able to do enough damage to hurt them, the point is that there are enough people together that if even 1/3rd of them agree that this company is doing bad things, they'll remove their financial support - and the company will be significantly hindered or even potentially cease to exist.
That is why.
And while it is true that there's no perfect consumption under capitalism, there's a difference between black and white 'well then you can't buy anything from anyone ever because it's all bad!' stance and a more realistic, possible, 'I've seen this company recently decide to start doing this bad thing, and I won't support them anymore because of it'.
The one thing that corporations care about is making money.
Subscriptions to D&D Beyond are the way that WOTC/Hasbro hopes to increase their money making ability.
The quickest most direct way to let WOTC/Hasbro know that their ******* with the OGL is a bad idea is to show them how their bad actions with the OGL are going to do the opposite of "make them money" and instead "cost them money". Unsubscribe and make your "voice" heard and have impact.
For me the issues are product transparency and concerns about the integrity of my purchases. I don't have confidence in the future viability of D&D Beyond given the tremendous investment WoTC has made in their forthcoming VTT. If that VTT has character sheet integration, D&D Beyond becomes redundant. If D&D Beyond is only for digital books and not character sheets, they why bother with a subscription? The only way D&D Beyond stays viable is if the new VTT uses its character sheets.
This issue of the VTT and the monetization digital assets is a big part of the outrage about OGL changes. The goal of the WoTC corporate team was/is to make their digital play space the only digital play space. There is also some evidence/concern that they bought D&D Beyond simply to dismantle it.
Additionally, the development on all alpha and beta site features, which the subscription fee grants access to, has been halted. Why pay for a subscription fee if they've abandoned those features?
WoTC's recent terrible decisions, especially those of Chris Cao, present a direct threat to this community and the continued viability of the D&D Beyond site. It is a jump ship or go down with it scenario.
"The D&D Beyond website hasn't changed at all..." for about the last two years. It doesn't even support all of the content and they've admitted that it never will. It's a broken tool at best. We're not really giving up much of anything if all you're doing is character sheets. I have no clue what makes you think it's so awesome...
Your inability to understand the answer doesn't mean the answer isn't there.
All they care about is your money, they won't listen to a word you're saying unless you stop giving it to them.
They're run by people who actually play the games they make. D&D is probably the only ttrpg controlled by someone who has never played the game they're in charge of. Literally nothing but corporate suits making the decisions for D&D.
Outrage is trendy. Hollow acts based on faux moral outrage is easier than actually improving yourself and being a better person.
A license is not a car. Its not a valid analogy.
And the benefit to Hasbro has been explained before - go listen to the expert, Ryan Dancey, explain it. There's no world where they didn't massively benefit from the OGL.
Exactly. We are voting with our dollars. It also makes me profoundly sad almost to the point of tears. I love DnDB and have been here since early on. I really enjoy it and the community and devs are great but it's a display of no confidence and way to communicate that these new arrangements and licenses don't work for us at all.
I hope the people who put all their hard work into this space come out on top but we have seen the face of the leadership and let's just be plain here...Hasbro just sucks.
There is nothing to say that if things improve people won't vote with their dollars again but as it stands a lot of people feel they can't put their trust in the brand or this current slate of leadership until matters are fixed to a level of satisfaction for us, the community.
No one wants to have unfriendly and outright hostile to the game, terms "forced" upon them by the end of a sword.
I'd say walking away with your money from something you care about because you know something is fundamentally wrong is a very clear act of bravery and moral courage. What is not morally courageous is foisting bad legal and license agreements on people who have little choice but to yield to them.
Bad decisions were made and even apologies were made because of how bad those decisions were recognized as super problematic.
Indeed and well said. This is how me make things better. Holding people accountable and holding feet to the fire. People are unsubbing because they care about this issue strongly.
For years before D&D Beyond, I used spreadsheets. Not as convenient, but it does the job.
Thank you for this analysis. As a relative newbie enjoying those proverbial fruits, it explains a lot of the sentiment and (thus far in my eyes ridiculous) feeling of a lot of folks here that ‘making our voices heard’ actually matters.
However, it might very well be that this uproar + accompanied (temporary?) account-cancellations is just a calculated risk they’re taking. Beside the (strategic) mistakes in the communication about the new plans, this has to be part of a bigger, long term strategy. It sounds to me like they’re hoping an upcoming movie + new version of D&D + WotC-VTT + Vox Machina s02 etc. will bring more new people in (that will pay for the basics again) then they may lose (people loudly voicing how much they love 3pp, that WotC makes no money from).
From what I understand WotC wants to make D&D bigger, thus making more money. The community sees it as abusing 3rd party content creators. Can’t there be a win-win somewhere in this? What do long-time players think about this?
Were you around when WotC was convincing third party publishers to sign onto to the OGL and make content for them; the boom for WotC and third publishers under the OGL during 3e and 3.5e; the bust for WotC when they left the OGL during 4e; and WotC’s rise from the ashes when they returned to the OGL for 5e?
I was around for all of that, and Dungeons and Dragons wouldn’t exist for Hasbro to ruin if not for the OGL.
You know if there was some precedence in WotC or Hasbros history on which we could base such a presumption, I think they may be given the benefit of the doubt, but the reality is that Wizards and Hasbro just do a lot of really greedy and stupid stuff and they have a very long history of pulling stunts like this. Not just in D&D but in Magic: The Gathering as well, their other major franchise which has also been treated really badly in recent months.
The community has no problem with D&D continually growing and expanding, nor does anyone have issue with Wizards of the Coast making more money. They want to make a VTT.. go for it. You want to bring more inclusivity and eliminate bigotry from D&D, holy shit man, you have my vote. You want to expand into video games, movies, shows... for the love of god do it.
But do it in good fate. Take the community with you. Don't leverage our goodwill and wield it like a weapon against us. What we basically have here is a kind of stand-off where on one side you have a billion-dollar corporation and on the other the consumers of that corporation's product. Trust me when I tell you that this corporation doesn't stand a chance. They will yield to this communities demand or this community will shut them down.
They have simply gone too far and at this point the damage to D&D is already done, its just going to take several months for that damage to become apparent. They are going to have to release Q4 numbers soon and I promise you they won't be any better than Q3 and at this stage Q1 of 2023 is going to be even worse. 6e is still a long ways away, their VTT won't see the light of day until 2024 if they are lucky.. which means that their product for the next year is 5e and right now, there is a mass exodus on principle away from the game.
It's going to be a rough ride but the harder we hit them early the faster the recovery will be and trust me, there will be a recovery. The D&D community is equally as harsh as they are forgiving. That said... I think by Q1 2023, Pathfinder 2nd edition will be the most widely played and best selling RPG on the market until 6e comes out and that is assuming that Wizards of the Coast changes their tune.