Damn, Mike Mearls got laid off. He’s been there since 3e, was one of the leads on 4e and then he was one of the leads in developing 5e. Though he’d moved away from game design in recent years. He’d released his own system under the 3e ogl called Iron Heroes which was really fun.
Wasn’t he involved in some controversy a while back? I had thought he was already gone, or at least on his way out the door.
And Dan Dillon, another game designer whose name is in a lot of 5e books.
Yeah. Between Dan, Amy, and a few others, it seems like a lot of these people were the “faces” of D&D and not just the folks working behind the scenes. I never would have expected it.
Yeah. There was something involving Mearls a few years ago. They moved him to less public-facing roles and out of game design. I don’t really remember the details. Pretty sure he’s actually been working on MtG for a bit.
they complain that very little work has been done recently.
Aside from the VTTs you mean? Both of them?
Many will get little to no use from those tools for various reasons, but many would benefit from patches to bug reports as old as the site, regardless of who currenyly owns the site. Who wants to buy in to a system that is more focused on marketing to new customers than providing fixes to complaints that are years old and hundreds of forum pages deep?
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CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
they complain that very little work has been done recently.
Aside from the VTTs you mean? Both of them?
Many will get little to no use from those tools for various reasons, but many would benefit from patches to bug reports as old as the site, regardless of who currenyly owns the site. Who wants to buy in to a system that is more focused on marketing to new customers than providing fixes to complaints that are years old and hundreds of forum pages deep?
Investors, who then provide the capital to keep the system going.
they complain that very little work has been done recently.
Aside from the VTTs you mean? Both of them?
Many will get little to no use from those tools for various reasons, but many would benefit from patches to bug reports as old as the site, regardless of who currenyly owns the site. Who wants to buy in to a system that is more focused on marketing to new customers than providing fixes to complaints that are years old and hundreds of forum pages deep?
Investors, who then provide the capital to keep the system going.
I mean, we'll see when the VTT rolls out. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if it flops.
I feel so sorry for the new people coming in, realizing the site has problems with reports and feature requests dating four years or so back.
You make it sound like DnDBeyond has issues galore. For my group, we use it regularly and haven't identified any issues at all. It works great. I am aware of a few issues it has, but those are generally options only a few use.
My only issue with DnDBeyond is the lack of DM support. To be fair, however, there has been some work lately with that.
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C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
Since Hasbro couldn't screw up the 3rd parties and thus players in the end by changing the OGL so that they can collect the money for purchasing DnDBeyond, did this lead them to instead dropping this on their employee by getting rid of their salary and at the same time maybe employee who may have defended the OGL?
I'd be curious....and curious to see if the fan base should show again their discontent on a product that has always been profitable for them...
I feel so sorry for the new people coming in, realizing the site has problems with reports and feature requests dating four years or so back.
You make it sound like DnDBeyond has issues galore. For my group, we use it regularly and haven't identified any issues at all. It works great. I am aware of a few issues it has, but those are generally options only a few use.
My only issue with DnDBeyond is the lack of DM support. To be fair, however, there has been some work lately with that.
Things clearly aren’t getting support, though. The devs keep starting new projects without fixing, updating, or improving on the old ones. When was the last time the encounter builder was updated? I’m not certain, but I’m pretty sure it’s been in beta for years. And that’s just one example.
Since Hasbro couldn't screw up the 3rd parties and thus players in the end by changing the OGL so that they can collect the money for purchasing DnDBeyond, did this lead them to instead dropping this on their employee by getting rid of their salary and at the same time maybe employee who defended the OGL?
I doubt it. Habro wasn’t losing any meaningful amount of money to the old OGL — their actions there were more preemptive than anything else.
I'd be curious....and curious to see if the fan base should show again our discontent on a product that has always been profitable for them...
The OGL controversy was pretty unique, and they were still in initial phases when they decided the backlash wasn’t worth it. I doubt that type of boycott can be replicated again.
So, how do we think Hasbro's recent layoffs (read article here) is going to affect D&D?
Man, I couldn't even hazard a guess. But as a player who is heavily invested in D&D Beyond, I hope things turn around at WotC/Hasbro and that the '24 rollouts are a huge success.
Look at page 7-10 of their recent earnings call to see that Wizards is the one bright spot for them lately. It is currently supporting the rest of the divisions. Only real risk to Wizards is the distraction the lagging of the other divisions takes attention away from making wizards more productive.
I really wish that Wizards had been able to spin off from Hasbro as was proposed back in 2022. This will only hurt DnD and arguably Magic the Gathering as well.
Damn, Mike Mearls got laid off. He’s been there since 3e, was one of the leads on 4e and then he was one of the leads in developing 5e. Though he’d moved away from game design in recent years. He’d released his own system under the 3e ogl called Iron Heroes which was really fun.
Wasn’t he involved in some controversy a while back? I had thought he was already gone, or at least on his way out the door.
And Dan Dillon, another game designer whose name is in a lot of 5e books.
Yeah. Between Dan, Amy, and a few others, it seems like a lot of these people were the “faces” of D&D and not just the folks working behind the scenes. I never would have expected it.
Yeah. There was something involving Mearls a few years ago. They moved him to less public-facing roles and out of game design. I don’t really remember the details. Pretty sure he’s actually been working on MtG for a bit.
If anyone wants a version of the details:
Not listing other names to create a further tangent, but when someone who was listed as a consultant on D&D was accused of some truly vile stuff, many others came forward with other reports about this person. It was serious enough at the time that according to a former WotC employee, they set up a process in customer service to collect that information, anonymize it to protect the reporters, and investigate it. Mearls was one of the major public faces of D&D at the time and asked people to directly send him the info instead. He then took all of that info directly to the accused - names and contact info included - and asked if any of it was legit. Said person of course denied it, and then the accused person allegedly (gotta use that word, he likes the sue people) used all of that contact info and their comments to go on a vendetta harassment spree according to many of the people who reported, included one or two who had the foresight to set up a burner email to make the report to Mearls. Mearls' actions weren't nefarious, just someone massively stepping out of the lane by going against company plans, and many people being harassed because of it. The people who were outed to the person accused were understandably furious, and even internally in WotC many were furious about him bypassing the formal process to properly handle the reports. He vanished from social media and public D&D appearances and was shuffled around a couple different departments while keeping him out of public view. Honestly, I was shocked just from a corporate liability standpoint alone that he wasn't fired for what he did. Most places I have worked wouldn't have hesitated.
But back on topic... this is really sad. The juxtaposition of Swen Vicke talking about the incredible success of BG3 while noting that basically no one originally involved from the WotC side is around anymore is shocking. I imagine that also includes Liz Schuh who spent basically her entire 28 year career at WotC handling licensing. Spend nearly 30 years at a company including probably being a key person in the licensing of BG3, and laid off. It's tragic all around.
As one former boss told me about the shortsightedness of layoffs, "You can't cut your way to growth." This isn't trimming bloat, this is going to hurt WotC going forward.
they complain that very little work has been done recently.
Aside from the VTTs you mean? Both of them?
Many will get little to no use from those tools for various reasons, but many would benefit from patches to bug reports as old as the site, regardless of who currenyly owns the site. Who wants to buy in to a system that is more focused on marketing to new customers than providing fixes to complaints that are years old and hundreds of forum pages deep?
Investors, who then provide the capital to keep the system going.
I mean, we'll see when the VTT rolls out. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if it flops.
My point is that turning this terrible situation around to bellyache about the website's update schedule is gauche at best. Yeah, it's not likely to improve by this. No, they weren't doing the wrong thing by prioritizing the VTTs over the character builder to begin with.
My point is that turning this terrible situation around to bellyache about the website's update schedule is gauche at best. Yeah, it's not likely to improve by this. No, they weren't doing the wrong thing by prioritizing the VTTs over the character builder to begin with.
In what way is that gauche? It's a couple more data points in favor of the hypothesis that the ultimate decision-making authority behind the events at WotC, and D&D Beyond by extension, have interests that are quite different from those of many users. I don't really know why this upsets you so. It's not like we're dancing on the proverbial graves of these folks jobs. Quite the contrary.
But I'll push back on that last point. Unless the character builder is upgraded along with the new VTT, it will be a bottleneck in its utility.
My point is that turning this terrible situation around to bellyache about the website's update schedule is gauche at best. Yeah, it's not likely to improve by this. No, they weren't doing the wrong thing by prioritizing the VTTs over the character builder to begin with.
Yet we still support the company as they continue to create these "terrible situations" by justifying their actions as "it's just what corporations do". Label it what you will, but it doesn't change the fact that we still buy the product, and are here on their website debating these things.
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CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
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Cool, thanks.
Terra Lubridia archive:
The Bloody Barnacle | The Gut | The Athene Crusader | The Jewel of Atlantis
Many will get little to no use from those tools for various reasons, but many would benefit from patches to bug reports as old as the site, regardless of who currenyly owns the site. Who wants to buy in to a system that is more focused on marketing to new customers than providing fixes to complaints that are years old and hundreds of forum pages deep?
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Investors, who then provide the capital to keep the system going.
I mean, we'll see when the VTT rolls out. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if it flops.
Dan worked on the only books I cared about, damn.
I feel so sorry for the new people coming in, realizing the site has problems with reports and feature requests dating four years or so back.
You make it sound like DnDBeyond has issues galore. For my group, we use it regularly and haven't identified any issues at all. It works great. I am aware of a few issues it has, but those are generally options only a few use.
My only issue with DnDBeyond is the lack of DM support. To be fair, however, there has been some work lately with that.
C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
According to an article in The Gamer, almost the entire D&D team that greenlit Baldur's Gate 3 is gone now.
https://www.thegamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-lead-dd-team-first-meetings-laid-off/?utm_campaign=TrueAnthem-TG&utm_medium=Social-Distribution&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0UoH1ZG8u_EQsGydYNxJh8a3YG34jjb1YnZ2ZH817L7Tgwvg-UYhQzABs
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I have a question
Since Hasbro couldn't screw up the 3rd parties and thus players in the end by changing the OGL so that they can collect the money for purchasing DnDBeyond, did this lead them to instead dropping this on their employee by getting rid of their salary and at the same time maybe employee who may have defended the OGL?
I'd be curious....and curious to see if the fan base should show again their discontent on a product that has always been profitable for them...
Things clearly aren’t getting support, though. The devs keep starting new projects without fixing, updating, or improving on the old ones. When was the last time the encounter builder was updated? I’m not certain, but I’m pretty sure it’s been in beta for years. And that’s just one example.
Terra Lubridia archive:
The Bloody Barnacle | The Gut | The Athene Crusader | The Jewel of Atlantis
I doubt it. Habro wasn’t losing any meaningful amount of money to the old OGL — their actions there were more preemptive than anything else.
The OGL controversy was pretty unique, and they were still in initial phases when they decided the backlash wasn’t worth it. I doubt that type of boycott can be replicated again.
Terra Lubridia archive:
The Bloody Barnacle | The Gut | The Athene Crusader | The Jewel of Atlantis
Well i don't know... i mean they we're expecting to get a big amount of money out of this
Boy, you've been active, joined 2 months ago and about 20 posts per day!
Lol, the first few days were crazy . . .
This is my second account on the site, though. So I’ve been around a lot longer than it looks.
Terra Lubridia archive:
The Bloody Barnacle | The Gut | The Athene Crusader | The Jewel of Atlantis
Man, I couldn't even hazard a guess. But as a player who is heavily invested in D&D Beyond, I hope things turn around at WotC/Hasbro and that the '24 rollouts are a huge success.
Neutral Good
Characters in active campaigns:
Rowan Wood elf, 10 Circle of Stars Druid
Wyll Forest Gnome, 4 Divination Wizard
Look at page 7-10 of their recent earnings call to see that Wizards is the one bright spot for them lately. It is currently supporting the rest of the divisions. Only real risk to Wizards is the distraction the lagging of the other divisions takes attention away from making wizards more productive.
https://investor.hasbro.com/static-files/a2a2197c-0a07-49c8-8506-34ccf3bee347
I really wish that Wizards had been able to spin off from Hasbro as was proposed back in 2022. This will only hurt DnD and arguably Magic the Gathering as well.
If anyone wants a version of the details:
Not listing other names to create a further tangent, but when someone who was listed as a consultant on D&D was accused of some truly vile stuff, many others came forward with other reports about this person. It was serious enough at the time that according to a former WotC employee, they set up a process in customer service to collect that information, anonymize it to protect the reporters, and investigate it. Mearls was one of the major public faces of D&D at the time and asked people to directly send him the info instead. He then took all of that info directly to the accused - names and contact info included - and asked if any of it was legit. Said person of course denied it, and then the accused person allegedly (gotta use that word, he likes the sue people) used all of that contact info and their comments to go on a vendetta harassment spree according to many of the people who reported, included one or two who had the foresight to set up a burner email to make the report to Mearls. Mearls' actions weren't nefarious, just someone massively stepping out of the lane by going against company plans, and many people being harassed because of it. The people who were outed to the person accused were understandably furious, and even internally in WotC many were furious about him bypassing the formal process to properly handle the reports. He vanished from social media and public D&D appearances and was shuffled around a couple different departments while keeping him out of public view. Honestly, I was shocked just from a corporate liability standpoint alone that he wasn't fired for what he did. Most places I have worked wouldn't have hesitated.
But back on topic... this is really sad. The juxtaposition of Swen Vicke talking about the incredible success of BG3 while noting that basically no one originally involved from the WotC side is around anymore is shocking. I imagine that also includes Liz Schuh who spent basically her entire 28 year career at WotC handling licensing. Spend nearly 30 years at a company including probably being a key person in the licensing of BG3, and laid off. It's tragic all around.
As one former boss told me about the shortsightedness of layoffs, "You can't cut your way to growth." This isn't trimming bloat, this is going to hurt WotC going forward.
My point is that turning this terrible situation around to bellyache about the website's update schedule is gauche at best. Yeah, it's not likely to improve by this. No, they weren't doing the wrong thing by prioritizing the VTTs over the character builder to begin with.
In what way is that gauche? It's a couple more data points in favor of the hypothesis that the ultimate decision-making authority behind the events at WotC, and D&D Beyond by extension, have interests that are quite different from those of many users. I don't really know why this upsets you so. It's not like we're dancing on the proverbial graves of these folks jobs. Quite the contrary.
But I'll push back on that last point. Unless the character builder is upgraded along with the new VTT, it will be a bottleneck in its utility.
Yet we still support the company as they continue to create these "terrible situations" by justifying their actions as "it's just what corporations do". Label it what you will, but it doesn't change the fact that we still buy the product, and are here on their website debating these things.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.