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.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
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.
I'm more bemused by your priorities than "upset."
And the character builder will likely be updated along with the VTT rollout.
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.
I'm more bemused by your priorities than "upset."
And the character builder will likely be updated along with the VTT rollout.
This worries me more than excites me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
And the character builder will likely be updated along with the VTT rollout.
My priority is being able to play the game, RAW as of 2014. I cannot yet do that fully in DDB. A fancy VTT with shiny new graphics won't change that fact.
I hope you're right, sincerely. But recent events lead some of us to doubt.
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.
I'm glad the site has been working for your group and that it has so far met your needs. But just a quick 5 minute scroll through some of the Bugs & Support threads and you'll find the issues aren't few and have been persisting now for several years with zero intention of fixing them.
I wonder if any of the big names in the D&D house had any feedback for top management after it was released that the OGL was being revised? Could they have thought out loud that killing third party engagement might be the wrong way to grow the brand? Skyrim seemed to enjoy some extra legs embracing third party creators.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I wonder if any of the big names in the D&D house had any feedback for top management after it was released that the OGL was being revised? Could they have thought out loud that killing third party engagement might be the wrong way to grow the brand? Skyrim seemed to enjoy some extra legs embracing third party creators.
wotc has done a 180 in 12 months, or appears to be starting. The OGL nightmare, which in a normal business would have had the decision-makers who agreed to that fired, is apparently forgotten, and now, 3rd party material is starting to appear. For a DM, that is just more headaches, but for wotc, more income.
I wonder if any of the big names in the D&D house had any feedback for top management after it was released that the OGL was being revised? Could they have thought out loud that killing third party engagement might be the wrong way to grow the brand? Skyrim seemed to enjoy some extra legs embracing third party creators.
I wonder if any of the big names in the D&D house had any feedback for top management after it was released that the OGL was being revised? Could they have thought out loud that killing third party engagement might be the wrong way to grow the brand? Skyrim seemed to enjoy some extra legs embracing third party creators.
wotc has done a 180 in 12 months, or appears to be starting. The OGL nightmare, which in a normal business would have had the decision-makers who agreed to that fired, is apparently forgotten, and now, 3rd party material is starting to appear. For a DM, that is just more headaches, but for wotc, more income.
I don't see it as a 180, more of a 90 to let things settle and creep towards the grail that is a walled garden of profits. The OGL debacle was not about stopping 3rd party it was about monetizing 3rd party. Having 3rd party IP in the DDB store accomplishes this albeit without near the negation leverage.
Nothing WotC has done this year has shown a change of anything but the sheep's clothes on this particular wolf for me.
The letting go of employee's at this time is likely a stop gap to satiate the board and share holders with a good first quarter so they can continue down the path to the garden of profits. It is a horrible PR move regardless of the underlying reasons
Hey, you have to admit it's not like they're not doing any legwork bringing 3rd party sources to Beyond. It's quid pro quo; the 3rd party people get a lot more visibility and their material gets integrated with D&DB's infrastructure (a not inconsiderable draw for people who are already using Beyond for their characters/campaigns), and Wizards gets a cut of the sales. If you're gonna go casting aspersions on the model, you're gonna need to start giving dark looks to GrubHub and DoorDash too.
Hey, you have to admit it's not like they're not doing any legwork bringing 3rd party sources to Beyond. It's quid pro quo; the 3rd party people get a lot more visibility and their material gets integrated with D&DB's infrastructure (a not inconsiderable draw for people who are already using Beyond for their characters/campaigns), and Wizards gets a cut of the sales. If you're gonna go casting aspersions on the model, you're gonna need to start giving dark looks to GrubHub and DoorDash too.
Hell they added Tal'dorei to Maps even, and given all the Drakkenheim promos that's probably not far behind. They could have easily said "first-party only!"
In short, Hasbro sucks, but there are good people trying to do good things in spite of them.
I do love the third party being on DDB and in the character builder.
That 3rd party material in the char builder is the nightmare scenario for a DM. We all know that is the process it would naturally follow, but is still brutal for a DM, as they now have to curate and cull even more stuff that players bring to the table to avoid wildly OP PC's.
That 3rd party material in the char builder is the nightmare scenario for a DM. We all know that is the process it would naturally follow, but is still brutal for a DM, as they now have to curate and cull even more stuff that players bring to the table to avoid wildly OP PC's.
Examples of wildly OP PCs from third party material in the character builder?
That 3rd party material in the char builder is the nightmare scenario for a DM. We all know that is the process it would naturally follow, but is still brutal for a DM, as they now have to curate and cull even more stuff that players bring to the table to avoid wildly OP PC's.
Examples of wildly OP PCs from third party material in the character builder?
I doubt he has any. He says that about all the newer official stuff, too.
The curation problem is real, even if it has nothing to do with stuff being "overpowered". A GM's current ability to control what their players can use from the pool of "everything anyone in the game has, including stuff they added to their homebrew collection" is limited to telling their players to turn off various toggles when they make their character.
The lack of granularity means that if you're allowing anything from under a toggle, potentially anything can come in, and it's not obvious to the players what the source is. So, if you're running a Theros game, Strixhaven stuff can seep in. (And some of the main-book stuff requires you to turn on secondary source toggles.) And Forgotten Realms stuff is just there, and if you use any homebrew, you get All! The! Homebrew!
And this is genuinely a hard problem, especially since I'm sure the backend has no support for it at all. If they're rebuilding the backend for the new rules revision, I hope they're including support for this.
Edit: Actually, the backend does support granular access control, because you have to buy stuff. It's still not a trivial operation, but it's probably less hard than I initially thought. The homebrew problem remains. (Give each campaign its own homebrew collection.)
Agreed, the appropriate solution then is to grant individual DM's finer control over what is or isn't allowed in their particular campaigns. Claiming 3rd party material is a 'nightmare scenario' for reasons that would apply to any other 1st party source is absurd.
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.
I'm more bemused by your priorities than "upset."
And the character builder will likely be updated along with the VTT rollout.
This worries me more than excites me.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
My priority is being able to play the game, RAW as of 2014. I cannot yet do that fully in DDB. A fancy VTT with shiny new graphics won't change that fact.
I hope you're right, sincerely. But recent events lead some of us to doubt.
I'm glad the site has been working for your group and that it has so far met your needs. But just a quick 5 minute scroll through some of the Bugs & Support threads and you'll find the issues aren't few and have been persisting now for several years with zero intention of fixing them.
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].Doubt is healthy, doubt away.
@FossMaNo1: Agreed
I wonder if any of the big names in the D&D house had any feedback for top management after it was released that the OGL was being revised? Could they have thought out loud that killing third party engagement might be the wrong way to grow the brand? Skyrim seemed to enjoy some extra legs embracing third party creators.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
wotc has done a 180 in 12 months, or appears to be starting. The OGL nightmare, which in a normal business would have had the decision-makers who agreed to that fired, is apparently forgotten, and now, 3rd party material is starting to appear. For a DM, that is just more headaches, but for wotc, more income.
They also tried to kill them.
To paraphrase a poster above, corporations gonna corporate.
I don't see it as a 180, more of a 90 to let things settle and creep towards the grail that is a walled garden of profits. The OGL debacle was not about stopping 3rd party it was about monetizing 3rd party. Having 3rd party IP in the DDB store accomplishes this albeit without near the negation leverage.
Nothing WotC has done this year has shown a change of anything but the sheep's clothes on this particular wolf for me.
The letting go of employee's at this time is likely a stop gap to satiate the board and share holders with a good first quarter so they can continue down the path to the garden of profits. It is a horrible PR move regardless of the underlying reasons
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Hey, you have to admit it's not like they're not doing any legwork bringing 3rd party sources to Beyond. It's quid pro quo; the 3rd party people get a lot more visibility and their material gets integrated with D&DB's infrastructure (a not inconsiderable draw for people who are already using Beyond for their characters/campaigns), and Wizards gets a cut of the sales. If you're gonna go casting aspersions on the model, you're gonna need to start giving dark looks to GrubHub and DoorDash too.
I do love the third party being on DDB and in the character builder.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Hell they added Tal'dorei to Maps even, and given all the Drakkenheim promos that's probably not far behind. They could have easily said "first-party only!"
In short, Hasbro sucks, but there are good people trying to do good things in spite of them.
That 3rd party material in the char builder is the nightmare scenario for a DM. We all know that is the process it would naturally follow, but is still brutal for a DM, as they now have to curate and cull even more stuff that players bring to the table to avoid wildly OP PC's.
Examples of wildly OP PCs from third party material in the character builder?
Neutral Good
Characters in active campaigns:
Rowan Wood elf, 10 Circle of Stars Druid
Wyll Forest Gnome, 4 Divination Wizard
I doubt he has any. He says that about all the newer official stuff, too.
The curation problem is real, even if it has nothing to do with stuff being "overpowered". A GM's current ability to control what their players can use from the pool of "everything anyone in the game has, including stuff they added to their homebrew collection" is limited to telling their players to turn off various toggles when they make their character.
The lack of granularity means that if you're allowing anything from under a toggle, potentially anything can come in, and it's not obvious to the players what the source is. So, if you're running a Theros game, Strixhaven stuff can seep in. (And some of the main-book stuff requires you to turn on secondary source toggles.) And Forgotten Realms stuff is just there, and if you use any homebrew, you get All! The! Homebrew!
And this is genuinely a hard problem, especially since I'm sure the backend has no support for it at all. If they're rebuilding the backend for the new rules revision, I hope they're including support for this.
Edit: Actually, the backend does support granular access control, because you have to buy stuff. It's still not a trivial operation, but it's probably less hard than I initially thought. The homebrew problem remains. (Give each campaign its own homebrew collection.)
Agreed, the appropriate solution then is to grant individual DM's finer control over what is or isn't allowed in their particular campaigns. Claiming 3rd party material is a 'nightmare scenario' for reasons that would apply to any other 1st party source is absurd.
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].