So, they fired the guys that bought the guys who fired the guys who created the game. IOW, this is the world of TTRPGs. Play for decades and you gonan see this play out over and over and over again in all the TTRPG companies -- if they don't collapse.
I saw folks talking about Paizo, and I will just take a moment to mention a company called Judges Guild.
The only bad thing here is that they did it in December. That's just farking rude and uncouth.
Wall street is happy-ish, though -- that "lean" comment is a six sigma reference, so it was going to be brutal to anyone who was in a management role.
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You are, of course, welcome to engage in whatever speculation you would like--but I do hope you realize it has about as much utility as gazing into a crystal ball. The simple reality? It could go either way--and there is not enough data to say conclusively what might happen. There is a reason courts do not allow speculation by laypeople, and only allow speculation by experts under controlled circumstances--speculation based on incomplete data can certainly be fun, but its probative value is nonexistent. I am not asking you not to engage in speculation--doomsaying based on incomplete information has been a mainstay of being human for thousands of years--and I certainly am not being so gauche as to ask you to change your posts, but I do hope you recognize that things could go either way. Far too often, the D&D/Magic community gets all worked up over incomplete data, engages in speculation, then holds a grudge based on their speculation for years to come--even if things actually got better.
That's valid. But It's the fault of the speculator, not the speculation, if their predictions are desperately held onto even after being obviously disproved.
Regarding Magic, I think you missed the point. The point was not about blocks per se, but that some folks in Wizards' senior development are still designing cards like we are in a block system--but that system is gone. If you look carefully, some of the issues with mechanic and dead content bloat likely stem from folks who have not yet realized we are in a new paradigm, and what worked in 2017 is not working for the block-less 2023. That's neither here nor there for the thread, but I did want to clear that up since your bolded text indicated a disconnect in our communication.
Huh... So essentially, you're saying that the "game design issues" that come from obsolete block system design strategies being used by employees that have their heads' stuck in the past?I'm not trying to be rude but my drowsy 5 Intelligence brain is confused: What "mechanical and dead content bloat" are you citing? And what do you mean by "bloat" when you're not referring to the company but to game design?
and I certainly am not being so gauche as to ask you to change your posts, but I do hope you recognize that things could go either way.
Firstly, I obviously grasp that this won't automatically be a negative change. I haven't gazed through a crystal ball, but my guess is that its more likely to be a harmful one. Though I have little idea where you got the idea that me predicting something potentially means I believe my prediction could never be off.
And I misunderstand your usage of the word "corporate bloat" when I first replied and asked you to edit your original post to correct it. I do still think it'd be smarter to edit your original post so genuine users like me aren't confused as to your thoughts on the change based off you rationalizing it.
And I'ma edit my post to explain that I misunderstood you even though yours is 1 below mine. You should've requested I do so and I have little understanding of why you somehow believe misconceptions and inaccurate info should be allowed to flourish. So even though I misunderstood you, asking for the og post to be edited wouldn't have been ridiculous if I were correct and I dunno why you view asking me to update mine to avoid further miscommunication would be problematic.
--
But anyways, I agree with most of what you're stating, so I doubt I'll continue this unproductive argumentfest unless I'm badly misinterpreted or something.
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It's hard to tell if these cuts are likely to be harmful long-term or not. Hopefully everyone agrees the short-term PR is a nightmare, and will cause significant disruption to the work environment / organization. IMO the big question that remains to be considered is how the other TTRPG companies respond. Whether Paizo or another company takes advantage of this to head-hunt the best talent still at WotC (who might be considering leaving due to the risk of further lay-offs) or that has been layed off from WotC already, to try to build on the OGL-exodus, or not.
It's hard to tell if these cuts are likely to be harmful long-term or not. Hopefully everyone agrees the short-term PR is a nightmare, and will cause significant disruption to the work environment / organization. IMO the big question that remains to be considered is how the other TTRPG companies respond. Whether Paizo or another company takes advantage of this to head-hunt the best talent still at WotC (who might be considering leaving due to the risk of further lay-offs) or that has been layed off from WotC already, to try to build on the OGL-exodus, or not.
I would not say it is a PR nightmare, but it definitely is not a good look, since Wizards is Hasbro's bright spot. Or maybe it might not be as bright as we thought it would be, and there might be some issues going on we do not know about.
It's hard to tell if these cuts are likely to be harmful long-term or not. Hopefully everyone agrees the short-term PR is a nightmare, and will cause significant disruption to the work environment / organization. IMO the big question that remains to be considered is how the other TTRPG companies respond. Whether Paizo or another company takes advantage of this to head-hunt the best talent still at WotC (who might be considering leaving due to the risk of further lay-offs) or that has been layed off from WotC already, to try to build on the OGL-exodus, or not.
I would not say it is a PR nightmare, but it definitely is not a good look, since Wizards is Hasbro's bright spot. Or maybe it might not be as bright as we thought it would be, and there might be some issues going on we do not know about.
Having had two of my family members take the "golden handshake" (early retirement to avoid being layed-off) twice each, when the company is doing that it isn't because of "issues" but because they believe those people are simply too expensive and the organization wants to replace them with workers paid a fraction of their current salary, even if those replacements are less competent. It usually comes down to math like: "we could replace X with someone with 70% of their skill and competence but who costs 50% of their current salary." or occasionally is it "we could replace X with someone with better qualifications but 0 experience but who costs 50% of their current salary."
However, the danger in these types of decisions is in underestimating the value of being #1 at something. The profit margins on any product that is the best in class of that product can be much much higher than the profit margins on the product that is #2 in class, because the reason people would "settle" for #2 is because it is significantly cheaper than whatever is #1 thus you instantly get a price squeeze.
It's hard to tell if these cuts are likely to be harmful long-term or not. Hopefully everyone agrees the short-term PR is a nightmare, and will cause significant disruption to the work environment / organization. IMO the big question that remains to be considered is how the other TTRPG companies respond. Whether Paizo or another company takes advantage of this to head-hunt the best talent still at WotC (who might be considering leaving due to the risk of further lay-offs) or that has been layed off from WotC already, to try to build on the OGL-exodus, or not.
I think nightmare is dramatically overstating it. A company laid people off in December, like all companies do. I’ve been laid off, it sucks. I feel for the people and hope they land on their feet soon. But this isn’t exactly some new thing Hasbro is trying out, here. Outside of the usual WotC-bashers on message boards (not trying to say that’s you), few will care. In the lists I’ve seen, they’ve only let one D&D game designer go. Again, I feel awful for him and hope he finds something that uses his talents soon. But really, losing one designer isn’t going to have a huge impact on the quality of the books. And in the end, when the new books drop in May — or whenever — I’ll wager exactly no one will choose not to buy because of these layoffs. There’s plenty who won’t buy, but it won’t be for this reason. Well, maybe the laid off people, so maybe not no one.
As far as paizo picking them up, I don’t know that they have extra positions just lying around unfilled. It’s a pretty small company.
It appears that the 50th anniversary of D&D will not be as impactful as either the owners of the IP nor the consumers of the IP wished. This reduction in staff is likely to diminish the amount of product that will be finished during the coming year. It is quite a shame when we knew the anniversary has been coming and some of us were anticipating something special. But with their most recent releases, I wasn't getting my hopes up.
While I don't have an Insider's Peek or anything into WotC's development of D&D products, my guess is that they pushed what seem to be rushed product through their dev pipeline very quickly in 2022 and 2023 in part b/c Chris Cocks was already anticipating some kind of layoffs in 2023. While I credit WotC with publishing some quality products during the pandemic years (such as Dragonlance and Fizban's Treasury) during a time a reduced overall productivity, I wonder if the roll-out of two out of three major world-building book sets felt rushed because they were, in fact, rushed to satisfy a timeline that had more to do with staffing costs than actual concerns about product integrity. (I'm talking about Spelljammer and Planescape.) IOW, we got a large volume of new modules and settings in 2022 and 2023 at the expense of some that published content.
IOW, now that Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, and Planescape have been all refurbished for 5E and the development of OneD&D is mostly completed, WotC will just focus on milking the most likely-to-be-profitable of its I.P. in 2024 and 2025, namely OneD&D via release of updated PHB, DMG, Monster Manual , it's much (internally) hyped VTT platform, and, ofc, further iterations of MtG as well as various digital games using the OneD&D ruleset.
So, to address the PR-nighmare commentary. What has WOTC done in the past year (or so) that's been a "good look"?
There's not a lot to my mind and the only thing I can name that speaks to good long-term strategy is (potentially) the VTT. That's a smart business move, completely necessary and I'll also hazard way behind the curve. That's a reactive move, certainly not something from a proactive market leader*.
I tend to fall into the camp of WOTC basher, they've squandered all my goodwill and after PR Incident #... I just gave up caring - I'll keep my Premium Membership until this Campaign's done. The issue is, it's not just another knock to my goodwill, it's cumulative. DDB's likely swingy on its bias, it IS a D&D forum after all, but anecdotally, I don't see much goodwill or excitement towards D&D products or WOTC in general. My general feelings - are on par with backing a bad-Kickstarter project. Things aren't on time, stupid stuff's been said and done publicly and the product's not of the quality it was hyped to be. On the plus side... Starting to bring in third party content is something I can "buy into" mentally as a good move. I'm a bit baffled as to why Grim Hollow Campaign and not Campaign Setting... but I suspect the long-term strategy here is to move away from READING as a core skill for PLAYING D&D.
* Foundry, Above, Owlbear - so many VTT's up and running, choose your preferred flavour, but it's absolutely shocking that there's nothing - even (and I'm not knocking Owlbear) at the "basic" level of Owlbear Rodeo available.
I'm pretty bullish on the VTT. Stephen Glicker and Mark Seifter from Roll for Combat did a stream about it, having gotten to try the newest version that was unveiled to select people at PAX Unplugged a couple of weeks ago. They were notoriously negative on WotC the first time they got to see it during D&D Direct, but Glicker is insisting that it's come quite a long way since then.
The video is long but I'll probably type up a summary later on at some point (I'm off work for the rest of the year so nothing better to do, lel.)
So, to address the PR-nighmare commentary. What has WOTC done in the past year (or so) that's been a "good look"?
There's not a lot to my mind and the only thing I can name that speaks to good long-term strategy is (potentially) the VTT. That's a smart business move, completely necessary and I'll also hazard way behind the curve. That's a reactive move, certainly not something from a proactive market leader*.
Yeah, well the movie overall wasn't bad, but I think the directors should have had some PR people vetting their public commentary. Everybody's got their woke-detectors running non-stop these days. My biggest annoyance was the film's opening that prominently displayed the title "Hasbro's" Dungeons & Dragons. I was like, "What? Shouldn't you be giving credit to Gygax and Arneson? Maybe even Ed Greenwood who created Forgotten Realms, the setting the movie takes place in." [REDACTED]
But there were definitely some worse WotC scandals that happened this year. I've been playing D&D (yes, I used "&") since the 1980's and I would like to see the game returned to its former glory, but my confidence is pretty low at this point.
He makes a good point of comparing Nintendo to Hasbro. The Nintendo CEO chose to take a pay cut (and presumably ordered some other execs to accept a pay cut as well) instead of laying off scores of employees. That speaks to how, in Japan, the patronage system of corporations is to look out for employees like family as opposed to the norm in US business where "family" is more a euphemism from HR. This norm is not without it's detractors, however, as some business analysts claim that this is one of the major reasons for Japan's decades-long recession.
I've got to say, I strongly disagree on the film. [REDACTED] My problem with the film was that it was boring, Grant was the high comedic point, Chris Pine and Rodrigues seemed to be going through the motions and the script was bad. The rest of the cast were just incidental non-characters that I really didn't care about at all. There was no verve to the script. Think of The Simpsons, that works on a few different levels, there's jokes in there for adults that kids won't get, you can still enjoy it as an adult. The film really didn't have that and the "most exciting" parts were all in the trailer - Gelatinous Cube "cool", but so what? Yeah, there were Easter Eggs for "us fans", but little more than "I recognise that" and they may well have also been the places for some actual comedic elements. Also, the CGI bizarrely seemed to get better as the film went on. It felt like that element started off weak and actually improved by the end of the film. That just destablised my suspension of disbelief and I'm a fan of the hobby that went into the film hopeful.
I felt it over-reached towards the tween market, there was no grit to it whatsoever and off the back of the "humour" there's little to be gained from repeat viewings. I really doubt there'll be a kid introduced to the hobby that will be citing the film as their favoutite hook into D&D in 10 years. Hell, at least I can be "not sober" and actually enjoy the first couple of films in their stupid, cheap and cheesy glory. At least I'm laughing with them, not them laughing at me.
3/10 - if you had a child capable of sitting through a film that length, they probably would have enjoyed it. Anyway, I digress and please, that's not aimed as a personal attack at all - gimme a whole bunch of consultancy money and I'll tell you my plan for a series ;)
Supplementary thought: WH40K's got a greenlight. I'd argue there is a market for a good D&D tv series.
So, to address the PR-nighmare commentary. What has WOTC done in the past year (or so) that's been a "good look"?
I think, overall, the playtest has been a good look for Wizards from a PR standpoint. It is getting tens of thousands of votes--the playtests are getting vastly more votes than the OGL poll ever did, so it appears it is being much more positively received than the OGL was negatively received by the actual non-internet public.
Wizards was the largest contributor to Extra Life this year, raising over a third of a million dollars across their two properties, and $100,000 more than the next highest contributor.
Wizards released their most popular Magic: the Gathering sets of all time. And, while there are some overpowered cards in the LotR set causing some balance issues, the set was still overwhelmingly received positively and the LotR IP brought a lot of positive attention to the game.
A fair number of the D&D releases this year were fairly well received--and were clearly designed to give players things they had asked for. More short-form adventures that can be used in homebrew (Keys from the Golden Vault), more monster-heavy books with lore components (Bigby Presents), introducing Planescape content to 5e, and content for fan favorite items and locations (Phandelver and Below; Book of Many Things). Now, different folks might have different opinions on the quality--but, overall, the "we are delivering products that players specifically have been asking for" is a pretty good look.
There is a lot of pretty solid things Wizards has done this year which are a pretty "good look" for them as a company. The big issue is that their PR team is kind of terrible--true to Wizards' form, they do a pretty bad job at promoting their positives while doing a bad/slow job responding to their negatives. This results in players getting a disproportionately "everything on the internet looks bleak, therefore I think it must be bleak!" impression... when, all things considered, most things are perfectly fine.
He makes a good point of comparing Nintendo to Hasbro. The Nintendo CEO chose to take a pay cut (and presumably ordered some other execs to accept a pay cut as well) instead of laying off scores of employees. That speaks to how, in Japan, the patronage system of corporations is to look out for employees like family as opposed to the norm in US business where "family" is more a euphemism from HR. This norm is not without it's detractors, however, as some business analysts claim that this is one of the major reasons for Japan's decades-long recession.
How many of those "business analysts" are CEOs, or former CEOs, or soon-to-be CEOs who have a personal financial incentive to justify CEOs making outrageous incomes? Japan's "recession" (which FYI is on average just half the economic growth seen in the other G7 countries) is due to the stagnant and aging population due to their highly restrictive immigration rules.
However, the danger in these types of decisions is in underestimating the value of being #1 at something. The profit margins on any product that is the best in class of that product can be much much higher than the profit margins on the product that is #2 in class, because the reason people would "settle" for #2 is because it is significantly cheaper than whatever is #1 thus you instantly get a price squeeze.
Corporations also tend to wildly undervalue institutional knowledge. "70 percent as competent for 50 percent of the salary" quickly drops to 25 percent as competent for 50 percent of the salary if there's nobody left in the department who understands why doing things a certain way actually was the best/most efficient way to do it, and the new folks have to learn all the old lessons the hard way
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I'm pretty bullish on the VTT. Stephen Glicker and Mark Seifter from Roll for Combat did a stream about it, having gotten to try the newest version that was unveiled to select people at PAX Unplugged a couple of weeks ago. They were notoriously negative on WotC the first time they got to see it during D&D Direct, but Glicker is insisting that it's come quite a long way since then.
The VTT seen in action on Twitch played with live players *Live* is impressive. Very Impressive. :)
This is coming from someone who has played enough video game adaptations of D&D, wanting to explore the D&D human tabletop experience out of sheer curiosity.
The size and scope of the highly rendered D&D miniature models and how these objects appear within a 3D landscape with the real-time lighting really helps the Dungeon Master as a utility to enhance and simulate the tabletop experience within an online environment.
Just from observation, the program works more and more as if it was an application than a video game; a video game usually contains an A.I. to compete against a human opponent.
The VTT version seen a week ago has no such A.I. to compete against any opponent; everything is controlled by the Dungeon Master; the human party members do interact with each other and the Dungeon Master extinguishing the notion that this technology is just another video game adaptation of D&D argument is no longer valid.
I'm pretty bullish on the VTT. Stephen Glicker and Mark Seifter from Roll for Combat did a stream about it, having gotten to try the newest version that was unveiled to select people at PAX Unplugged a couple of weeks ago. They were notoriously negative on WotC the first time they got to see it during D&D Direct, but Glicker is insisting that it's come quite a long way since then.
The video is long but I'll probably type up a summary later on at some point (I'm off work for the rest of the year so nothing better to do, lel.)
It does sound like an exciting prospect and something that I definitely look forward to engaging with. The idea of it being lower barrier of entry into the Dungeons & Dragons table top experience makes it more accessible to more people, and (personally) an easier recommendation to non-D&D playing friends than the current online experiences. I have friends in different time zones who have expressed interest in giving D&D a try, and I hope this is the tool that allows me to play with them virtually in a near-in person manner. The adventure building tools looks like it will provide the system longevity to DM's beyond just the pre-published adventures, and predictably continue to grow the game alongside its player base.
My only potential reservation regarding it, will ultimately be WotC's monetization model plans for it. This company has not filled me with the greatest confidence to say that they will not try and milk this for every cent they can get their hands on while completely disregarding the integrity of the game. I've played far too many games that have been driven into the dirt by micro-transactions and loot box mechanics, and seen enough from Hasbro to know where this is potentially headed if they continue down that path. I hope more than anyone that I am proven wrong, but as of right now, I can not get my hopes up enough to trust WotC to properly steward this game to the degree it deserves.
Thank you for sharing the link, and I look forward to reading your summary also.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re angling to work microtransactions into the VTT, but as long as it has the basic utility of grid paper you can move tokens across and draw on and a way to link a D&DB character sheet to it, then the MTs don’t matter any more than any other system’s premium cosmetic options. Really I see it going one of two ways: either they have a monthly subscription with a fair amount of field design tools and cosmetics baked in, or they have a fairly simple but freely accessible base VTT with a lot of options for purchase. I don’t particularly care which; if I don’t perceive a subscription based model to be worth it to me, I’ll leave it be, and if the basic system is free then it’s just another case of caveat emptor for not purchasing boondoggles you don’t need.
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So, they fired the guys that bought the guys who fired the guys who created the game. IOW, this is the world of TTRPGs. Play for decades and you gonan see this play out over and over and over again in all the TTRPG companies -- if they don't collapse.
I saw folks talking about Paizo, and I will just take a moment to mention a company called Judges Guild.
The only bad thing here is that they did it in December. That's just farking rude and uncouth.
Wall street is happy-ish, though -- that "lean" comment is a six sigma reference, so it was going to be brutal to anyone who was in a management role.
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That's valid. But It's the fault of the speculator, not the speculation, if their predictions are desperately held onto even after being obviously disproved.
Huh... So essentially, you're saying that the "game design issues" that come from obsolete block system design strategies being used by employees that have their heads' stuck in the past?I'm not trying to be rude but my drowsy 5 Intelligence brain is confused: What "mechanical and dead content bloat" are you citing? And what do you mean by "bloat" when you're not referring to the company but to game design?
Firstly, I obviously grasp that this won't automatically be a negative change. I haven't gazed through a crystal ball, but my guess is that its more likely to be a harmful one. Though I have little idea where you got the idea that me predicting something potentially means I believe my prediction could never be off.
And I misunderstand your usage of the word "corporate bloat" when I first replied and asked you to edit your original post to correct it. I do still think it'd be smarter to edit your original post so genuine users like me aren't confused as to your thoughts on the change based off you rationalizing it.
And I'ma edit my post to explain that I misunderstood you even though yours is 1 below mine. You should've requested I do so and I have little understanding of why you somehow believe misconceptions and inaccurate info should be allowed to flourish. So even though I misunderstood you, asking for the og post to be edited wouldn't have been ridiculous if I were correct and I dunno why you view asking me to update mine to avoid further miscommunication would be problematic.
--
But anyways, I agree with most of what you're stating, so I doubt I'll continue this unproductive argumentfest unless I'm badly misinterpreted or something.
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HERE.It's hard to tell if these cuts are likely to be harmful long-term or not. Hopefully everyone agrees the short-term PR is a nightmare, and will cause significant disruption to the work environment / organization. IMO the big question that remains to be considered is how the other TTRPG companies respond. Whether Paizo or another company takes advantage of this to head-hunt the best talent still at WotC (who might be considering leaving due to the risk of further lay-offs) or that has been layed off from WotC already, to try to build on the OGL-exodus, or not.
I would not say it is a PR nightmare, but it definitely is not a good look, since Wizards is Hasbro's bright spot. Or maybe it might not be as bright as we thought it would be, and there might be some issues going on we do not know about.
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Having had two of my family members take the "golden handshake" (early retirement to avoid being layed-off) twice each, when the company is doing that it isn't because of "issues" but because they believe those people are simply too expensive and the organization wants to replace them with workers paid a fraction of their current salary, even if those replacements are less competent. It usually comes down to math like: "we could replace X with someone with 70% of their skill and competence but who costs 50% of their current salary." or occasionally is it "we could replace X with someone with better qualifications but 0 experience but who costs 50% of their current salary."
However, the danger in these types of decisions is in underestimating the value of being #1 at something. The profit margins on any product that is the best in class of that product can be much much higher than the profit margins on the product that is #2 in class, because the reason people would "settle" for #2 is because it is significantly cheaper than whatever is #1 thus you instantly get a price squeeze.
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[Flourishing], [Sanguine],[Themberchaud], [Baldur's Gate 3], [Lego].I think nightmare is dramatically overstating it. A company laid people off in December, like all companies do. I’ve been laid off, it sucks. I feel for the people and hope they land on their feet soon. But this isn’t exactly some new thing Hasbro is trying out, here. Outside of the usual WotC-bashers on message boards (not trying to say that’s you), few will care.
In the lists I’ve seen, they’ve only let one D&D game designer go. Again, I feel awful for him and hope he finds something that uses his talents soon. But really, losing one designer isn’t going to have a huge impact on the quality of the books. And in the end, when the new books drop in May — or whenever — I’ll wager exactly no one will choose not to buy because of these layoffs. There’s plenty who won’t buy, but it won’t be for this reason. Well, maybe the laid off people, so maybe not no one.
As far as paizo picking them up, I don’t know that they have extra positions just lying around unfilled. It’s a pretty small company.
One only has to look at the job history of cocks and williams to understand why they did what they did.
While I don't have an Insider's Peek or anything into WotC's development of D&D products, my guess is that they pushed what seem to be rushed product through their dev pipeline very quickly in 2022 and 2023 in part b/c Chris Cocks was already anticipating some kind of layoffs in 2023. While I credit WotC with publishing some quality products during the pandemic years (such as Dragonlance and Fizban's Treasury) during a time a reduced overall productivity, I wonder if the roll-out of two out of three major world-building book sets felt rushed because they were, in fact, rushed to satisfy a timeline that had more to do with staffing costs than actual concerns about product integrity. (I'm talking about Spelljammer and Planescape.) IOW, we got a large volume of new modules and settings in 2022 and 2023 at the expense of some that published content.
IOW, now that Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, and Planescape have been all refurbished for 5E and the development of OneD&D is mostly completed, WotC will just focus on milking the most likely-to-be-profitable of its I.P. in 2024 and 2025, namely OneD&D via release of updated PHB, DMG, Monster Manual , it's much (internally) hyped VTT platform, and, ofc, further iterations of MtG as well as various digital games using the OneD&D ruleset.
So, to address the PR-nighmare commentary. What has WOTC done in the past year (or so) that's been a "good look"?
There's not a lot to my mind and the only thing I can name that speaks to good long-term strategy is (potentially) the VTT. That's a smart business move, completely necessary and I'll also hazard way behind the curve. That's a reactive move, certainly not something from a proactive market leader*.
I tend to fall into the camp of WOTC basher, they've squandered all my goodwill and after PR Incident #... I just gave up caring - I'll keep my Premium Membership until this Campaign's done. The issue is, it's not just another knock to my goodwill, it's cumulative. DDB's likely swingy on its bias, it IS a D&D forum after all, but anecdotally, I don't see much goodwill or excitement towards D&D products or WOTC in general.
My general feelings - are on par with backing a bad-Kickstarter project. Things aren't on time, stupid stuff's been said and done publicly and the product's not of the quality it was hyped to be.
On the plus side... Starting to bring in third party content is something I can "buy into" mentally as a good move. I'm a bit baffled as to why Grim Hollow Campaign and not Campaign Setting... but I suspect the long-term strategy here is to move away from READING as a core skill for PLAYING D&D.
* Foundry, Above, Owlbear - so many VTT's up and running, choose your preferred flavour, but it's absolutely shocking that there's nothing - even (and I'm not knocking Owlbear) at the "basic" level of Owlbear Rodeo available.
https://wulfgold.substack.com
Blog - nerd stuff
https://deepdreamgenerator.com/u/wulfgold
A.I. art - also nerd stuff - a gallery of NPC portraits - help yourself.
I'm pretty bullish on the VTT. Stephen Glicker and Mark Seifter from Roll for Combat did a stream about it, having gotten to try the newest version that was unveiled to select people at PAX Unplugged a couple of weeks ago. They were notoriously negative on WotC the first time they got to see it during D&D Direct, but Glicker is insisting that it's come quite a long way since then.
The video is long but I'll probably type up a summary later on at some point (I'm off work for the rest of the year so nothing better to do, lel.)
Yeah, well the movie overall wasn't bad, but I think the directors should have had some PR people vetting their public commentary. Everybody's got their woke-detectors running non-stop these days. My biggest annoyance was the film's opening that prominently displayed the title "Hasbro's" Dungeons & Dragons. I was like, "What? Shouldn't you be giving credit to Gygax and Arneson? Maybe even Ed Greenwood who created Forgotten Realms, the setting the movie takes place in." [REDACTED]
But there were definitely some worse WotC scandals that happened this year. I've been playing D&D (yes, I used "&") since the 1980's and I would like to see the game returned to its former glory, but my confidence is pretty low at this point.
He makes a good point of comparing Nintendo to Hasbro. The Nintendo CEO chose to take a pay cut (and presumably ordered some other execs to accept a pay cut as well) instead of laying off scores of employees. That speaks to how, in Japan, the patronage system of corporations is to look out for employees like family as opposed to the norm in US business where "family" is more a euphemism from HR. This norm is not without it's detractors, however, as some business analysts claim that this is one of the major reasons for Japan's decades-long recession.
I've got to say, I strongly disagree on the film. [REDACTED]
My problem with the film was that it was boring, Grant was the high comedic point, Chris Pine and Rodrigues seemed to be going through the motions and the script was bad. The rest of the cast were just incidental non-characters that I really didn't care about at all.
There was no verve to the script. Think of The Simpsons, that works on a few different levels, there's jokes in there for adults that kids won't get, you can still enjoy it as an adult. The film really didn't have that and the "most exciting" parts were all in the trailer - Gelatinous Cube "cool", but so what? Yeah, there were Easter Eggs for "us fans", but little more than "I recognise that" and they may well have also been the places for some actual comedic elements. Also, the CGI bizarrely seemed to get better as the film went on. It felt like that element started off weak and actually improved by the end of the film. That just destablised my suspension of disbelief and I'm a fan of the hobby that went into the film hopeful.
I felt it over-reached towards the tween market, there was no grit to it whatsoever and off the back of the "humour" there's little to be gained from repeat viewings. I really doubt there'll be a kid introduced to the hobby that will be citing the film as their favoutite hook into D&D in 10 years. Hell, at least I can be "not sober" and actually enjoy the first couple of films in their stupid, cheap and cheesy glory. At least I'm laughing with them, not them laughing at me.
3/10 - if you had a child capable of sitting through a film that length, they probably would have enjoyed it.
Anyway, I digress and please, that's not aimed as a personal attack at all - gimme a whole bunch of consultancy money and I'll tell you my plan for a series ;)
Supplementary thought: WH40K's got a greenlight. I'd argue there is a market for a good D&D tv series.
https://wulfgold.substack.com
Blog - nerd stuff
https://deepdreamgenerator.com/u/wulfgold
A.I. art - also nerd stuff - a gallery of NPC portraits - help yourself.
I think, overall, the playtest has been a good look for Wizards from a PR standpoint. It is getting tens of thousands of votes--the playtests are getting vastly more votes than the OGL poll ever did, so it appears it is being much more positively received than the OGL was negatively received by the actual non-internet public.
Wizards was the largest contributor to Extra Life this year, raising over a third of a million dollars across their two properties, and $100,000 more than the next highest contributor.
Wizards released their most popular Magic: the Gathering sets of all time. And, while there are some overpowered cards in the LotR set causing some balance issues, the set was still overwhelmingly received positively and the LotR IP brought a lot of positive attention to the game.
A fair number of the D&D releases this year were fairly well received--and were clearly designed to give players things they had asked for. More short-form adventures that can be used in homebrew (Keys from the Golden Vault), more monster-heavy books with lore components (Bigby Presents), introducing Planescape content to 5e, and content for fan favorite items and locations (Phandelver and Below; Book of Many Things). Now, different folks might have different opinions on the quality--but, overall, the "we are delivering products that players specifically have been asking for" is a pretty good look.
There is a lot of pretty solid things Wizards has done this year which are a pretty "good look" for them as a company. The big issue is that their PR team is kind of terrible--true to Wizards' form, they do a pretty bad job at promoting their positives while doing a bad/slow job responding to their negatives. This results in players getting a disproportionately "everything on the internet looks bleak, therefore I think it must be bleak!" impression... when, all things considered, most things are perfectly fine.
How many of those "business analysts" are CEOs, or former CEOs, or soon-to-be CEOs who have a personal financial incentive to justify CEOs making outrageous incomes? Japan's "recession" (which FYI is on average just half the economic growth seen in the other G7 countries) is due to the stagnant and aging population due to their highly restrictive immigration rules.
Corporations also tend to wildly undervalue institutional knowledge. "70 percent as competent for 50 percent of the salary" quickly drops to 25 percent as competent for 50 percent of the salary if there's nobody left in the department who understands why doing things a certain way actually was the best/most efficient way to do it, and the new folks have to learn all the old lessons the hard way
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
The VTT seen in action on Twitch played with live players *Live* is impressive. Very Impressive. :)
This is coming from someone who has played enough video game adaptations of D&D, wanting to explore the D&D human tabletop experience out of sheer curiosity.
The size and scope of the highly rendered D&D miniature models and how these objects appear within a 3D landscape with the real-time lighting really helps the Dungeon Master as a utility to enhance and simulate the tabletop experience within an online environment.
Just from observation, the program works more and more as if it was an application than a video game; a video game usually contains an A.I. to compete against a human opponent.
The VTT version seen a week ago has no such A.I. to compete against any opponent; everything is controlled by the Dungeon Master; the human party members do interact with each other and the Dungeon Master extinguishing the notion that this technology is just another video game adaptation of D&D argument is no longer valid.
It does sound like an exciting prospect and something that I definitely look forward to engaging with. The idea of it being lower barrier of entry into the Dungeons & Dragons table top experience makes it more accessible to more people, and (personally) an easier recommendation to non-D&D playing friends than the current online experiences. I have friends in different time zones who have expressed interest in giving D&D a try, and I hope this is the tool that allows me to play with them virtually in a near-in person manner. The adventure building tools looks like it will provide the system longevity to DM's beyond just the pre-published adventures, and predictably continue to grow the game alongside its player base.
My only potential reservation regarding it, will ultimately be WotC's monetization model plans for it. This company has not filled me with the greatest confidence to say that they will not try and milk this for every cent they can get their hands on while completely disregarding the integrity of the game. I've played far too many games that have been driven into the dirt by micro-transactions and loot box mechanics, and seen enough from Hasbro to know where this is potentially headed if they continue down that path. I hope more than anyone that I am proven wrong, but as of right now, I can not get my hopes up enough to trust WotC to properly steward this game to the degree it deserves.
Thank you for sharing the link, and I look forward to reading your summary also.
Free Content: [Basic Rules],
[Phandelver],[Frozen Sick],[Acquisitions Inc.],[Vecna Dossier],[Radiant Citadel], [Spelljammer],[Dragonlance], [Prisoner 13],[Minecraft],[Star Forge], [Baldur’s Gate], [Lightning Keep], [Stormwreck Isle], [Pinebrook], [Caverns of Tsojcanth], [The Lost Horn], [Elemental Evil].Free Dice: [Frostmaiden],
[Flourishing], [Sanguine],[Themberchaud], [Baldur's Gate 3], [Lego].I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re angling to work microtransactions into the VTT, but as long as it has the basic utility of grid paper you can move tokens across and draw on and a way to link a D&DB character sheet to it, then the MTs don’t matter any more than any other system’s premium cosmetic options. Really I see it going one of two ways: either they have a monthly subscription with a fair amount of field design tools and cosmetics baked in, or they have a fairly simple but freely accessible base VTT with a lot of options for purchase. I don’t particularly care which; if I don’t perceive a subscription based model to be worth it to me, I’ll leave it be, and if the basic system is free then it’s just another case of caveat emptor for not purchasing boondoggles you don’t need.