Once again, the D&D community is dealing with the ripples and consequences of yet another decision from you that seemed aimed at alienating thousands, if not millions, of gamers. The initial decision to give all DDB users a forced “free” upgrade to 2024 spells and magic items was an astoundingly bad one, a decision clearly made without input from anyone with active ties to or understanding of the gaming community.
The last 20 months or so have seen a surprising, deeply discouraging series of unforced errors on the part of WOTC: the OGL announcements, the use of AI for illustrations, the very mixed messages of providing 2024 PHB and then slapping incredibly restrictive terms on using it for reviews, and the (now reversed) decision to force all users on DDB to use the 2024 versions of spells on their character sheets.
These decisions (and others) have done deep, severe damage to the trust and generally good relationship you’d built with fans and users prior to this. The reverberations of the shockingly terrible initial OGL policies are still being felt.
I’ve worked in the corporate world for 30 years. I’ve worked with people at all levels within business, from entry level individual contributors to C-suite executives. While I’m loathe to paint with too broad a brush here, every bit of information that’s come to light in the last 20 months about who is making these decisions and why points very strongly towards executive leaders with no real knowledge of the market, customers, or products making decisions purely for profit and short term gains. Everything thing I’ve seen indicates a huge communications and ego problem within WOTC itself.
I want to be very clear: it’s my assumptions that NONE of these decisions are being driven, championed, or even suggested by the many talented and passionate creatives who actually make the products that make your company possible. It’s my assumption that the dev team for DDB are working their collective asses off to try and keep up with the often unrealistic and uninformed decisions made by VP-level executives who care only for that week’s stock prices and the next quarterly performance report.
These are assumptions that I am very confident in making, again based on 30 years of personal experience as well as all information about the OGL scandal that’s come to light. Jeremy Crawford, Todd Kenrick, and their teams LOVE this game. They’re fans themselves. I simply do not believe they are behind these often punitive and amazingly tone-deaf decisions that alienate, anger, and dismiss huge swaths of your customer base. Likewise, the front-line teams for DDB: they’re hardworking folks who actually understand the users, the game, and how things work.
So there are three things WOTC could and should be doing much better:
Proactively Communicating. Communications about changes, releases, shelf life of print and digital assets, and more: if you want to foster customer loyalty, trust, and goodwill, WOTC will take a very proactive approach to communicating with users/customers. This also means multiple communications that repeat information, rather than assume all customers see every announcement, video, or press release the instant its made public. This means providing concrete, specific information regarding coming changes so that customers can understand how it might affect their games and content. This means thinking of communications with customers as a way to help support your business rather than to provide cover for bad executive decisions.
For instance: if at some point you plan on sunsetting all legacy (2014) content, communicate this well ahead of time (ideally at least a year, but a minimum of 6 months) and consider giving discounts to holders of the content if they purchase the new rules. Be considerate and respectful of the people who have made this game so popular, and treat their patronage as something to be earned rather than taken for granted.
Active and Strategic Listening. Since the initial reaction to the initial, disastrous OGL policy change, it has become painfully, frustratingly clear that the top business executives within WOTC had no interest or understanding of the game itself, its customers, and the culture surrounding both. We need WOTC – not just the creatives, not just the frontline DDB devs, but the TOP LEADERSHIP—to make it a regular, ingrained business practice to listen to the people who actually play the game first and foremost. We’re the ones buying your products. We’re the ones supporting your business. We’re the ones making this the most popular TTRPG. When you’re contemplating big changes to the business model, content, content access, rules, etc.—don’t keep everything in house and classified. Enlist experienced focus groups, players, and DMs, to provide you with clear eyed, frank feedback and information. LISTEN to your creative folks and your on-the-ground development teams. Value them and show them the respect they should have for loving, knowing, and supporting the game we all like. Don’t assume your past experience in a parallel industry—video games, for instance—easily and fully translates into knowing what works best for D&D. You can easily avoid the PR nightmares and damage to your brand by simply listening to the people who make the damn game.
Think Long Term. Unfortunately, this last one is pretty much anathema to many C-suite leaders; there’s an obsession with today’s stock price and the next quarterly earnings report, with everything else treated as unimportant. If you want to maintain dominance in this market, if you want to hold onto the title of world’s greatest role-playing game, you have to be thinking about the next five years, and the next ten years. You have to be mindful of past errors and failures while considering what comes next, and after that, and after that. You need to remember that the shiny object you’re chasing now which seems to promise all the profit will likely have a time limit on its value to the company and to not count on it to be what keeps you both profitable and in the good graces of the purchasing public.
I know it’s incredibly idealistic to post this; the chances of anyone in the upper echelons of the company reading this, let alone taking it seriously, are slim to none. Hopefully, the unity and strength of the fans of this game are strong enough to get through C-suite arrogance and presumptions. Hopefully, the seriousness of the damage done by the unforced errors of the last 20 months will foment some changes along the lines suggested above.
Hopefully, WOTC won’t continue to make decisions that lead me to conclude my best resort is to revert to a wholly analog, in-person game using already purchased content and only buying from third parties.
This would be a lot more effective if you didn't lump in overblown clickbait "scandals" and things that weren't decisions by WOTC at all with their actually questionable corporate choices
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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)
Wizards’ big problem has always been proactive communication.
The OGL issue? Much of the outrage could have been alleviated if they came out at the beginning and said “Hey, listen, our existing legal document was really poorly written, and we just had someone try to steal our intellectual property to make something horrifically racist. We were able to beat that down, but realized we had accidentally left D&D open to the same attack and are trying to close that loophole.” Most reasonable players would be fine with that - but, instead of saying anything, Wizards was silent for days, losing control of the narrative.
This most recent issue? They probably could have eliminated concerns if they explained their reasoning. “We are removing these spells because we want folks to turn on the legacy filter, but not have the spell and items lists be too unwieldy for new players. Here are the spells being updated substantively, if you want to make homebrew copies.” That level of information, explaining the common sense reasons for the changes and helping facilitate their chosen work-around, would have likely reduced the reasonable complaints.
So, once again, Wizards PR dropped the ball early, let rabble-rousers control the narrative, and decided to capitulate once things grew beyond any possibility of damage control. Once again, the game as a whole suffers because Wizards’ PR didn’t have the common sense to say “Hey, you know what, if we explain ourselves first, maybe people will be annoyed, but at least they might listen.”
The OGL issue? Much of the outrage could have been alleviated if they came out at the beginning and said “Hey, listen, our existing legal document was really poorly written, and we just had someone try to steal our intellectual property to make something horrifically racist. We were able to beat that down, but realized we had accidentally left D&D open to the same attack and are trying to close that loophole.” Most reasonable players would be fine with that - but, instead of saying anything, Wizards was silent for days, losing control of the narrative.
I think this an overly favorable and incomplete view. The OGL included punitive and at-will statements about licensing fees/tariffs/whatever for third party creators. It also stated it could use any homebrew content on D&D Beyond without giving credit or renumeration. And so on.
The leaked policy absolutely stank of corporate greed and envy.
The OGL issue? Much of the outrage could have been alleviated if they came out at the beginning and said “Hey, listen, our existing legal document was really poorly written, and we just had someone try to steal our intellectual property to make something horrifically racist. We were able to beat that down, but realized we had accidentally left D&D open to the same attack and are trying to close that loophole.” Most reasonable players would be fine with that - but, instead of saying anything, Wizards was silent for days, losing control of the narrative.
I think this an overly favorable and incomplete view. The OGL included punitive and at-will statements about licensing fees/tariffs/whatever for third party creators. It also stated it could use any homebrew content on D&D Beyond without giving credit or renumeration. And so on.
The leaked policy absolutely stank of corporate greed and envy.
The leaked draft only contained licensing for about 10 companies in the entire world - no one else met those threshold requirements - and those elements were the first thing Wizards abandoned once the draft was leaked. The only thing Wizards actually fought for were the “please don’t use our stuff to spread racism” provisions, and, in exchange for those, they offered a far better OGL than the original version ever had been.
But, because they were slow on the draw and never actually articulated the obvious and contemporaneous threat that resulted in them trying to change their license? Instead of the OGL 2.0, which increased third-party rights and gave them some fairly significant boons, we got… the OGL 1.0 (a document no self-respecting lawyer would want their name on) and the Creative Commons (which, while strong, does not provide all the additional rights OGL 2.0 was prepared to convey).
Wizards said everyone won at the end of the OGL issue, and were sort of right - Creative Commons was a win for anyone. But the racists were the big winners, and everyone else could have had a more impressive victory, had Wizards controlled the narrative, instead of allowing this game’s worst elements to set the story.
Wizards needs to get better at getting out there before the problematic elements of the community so. But, they probably have not learned their lesson - they never do - and have only been reinforcing the lesson of “being loud will cause us to capitulate, even if it means letting the game suffer.”
The OGL issue? Much of the outrage could have been alleviated if they came out at the beginning and said “Hey, listen, our existing legal document was really poorly written, and we just had someone try to steal our intellectual property to make something horrifically racist. We were able to beat that down, but realized we had accidentally left D&D open to the same attack and are trying to close that loophole.” Most reasonable players would be fine with that - but, instead of saying anything, Wizards was silent for days, losing control of the narrative.
I think this an overly favorable and incomplete view. The OGL included punitive and at-will statements about licensing fees/tariffs/whatever for third party creators. It also stated it could use any homebrew content on D&D Beyond without giving credit or renumeration. And so on.
The leaked policy absolutely stank of corporate greed and envy.
The leaked draft only contained licensing for about 10 companies in the entire world - no one else met those threshold requirements - and those elements were the first thing Wizards abandoned once the draft was leaked. The only thing Wizards actually fought for were the “please don’t use our stuff to spread racism” provisions, and, in exchange for those, they offered a far better OGL than the original version ever had been.
But, because they were slow on the draw and never actually articulated the obvious and contemporaneous threat that resulted in them trying to change their license? Instead of the OGL 2.0, which increased third-party rights and gave them some fairly significant boons, we got… the OGL 1.0 (a document no self-respecting lawyer would want their name on) and the Creative Commons (which, while strong, does not provide all the additional rights OGL 2.0 was prepared to convey).
Wizards said everyone won at the end of the OGL issue, and were sort of right - Creative Commons was a win for anyone. But the racists were the big winners, and everyone else could have had a more impressive victory, had Wizards controlled the narrative, instead of allowing this game’s worst elements to set the story.
Wizards needs to get better at getting out there before the problematic elements of the community so. But, they probably have not learned their lesson - they never do - and have only been reinforcing the lesson of “being loud will cause us to capitulate, even if it means letting the game suffer.”
What does racism have to do with this conversation, and why do you add it to any given conversation at every given opportunity? Just let it die already.
The leaked draft only contained licensing for about 10 companies in the entire world - no one else met those threshold requirements - and those elements were the first thing Wizards abandoned once the draft was leaked. The only thing Wizards actually fought for were the “please don’t use our stuff to spread racism” provisions, and, in exchange for those, they offered a far better OGL than the original version ever had been.
Right, except the policy also contained language that said they could change the percentages and thresholds at any time. It would've have a very chilling effect on content creation.
There's a lot we agree on here, to be clear. Specific, transparent communication would've solved some of this - but not at all of it.
Maybe it's just me getting older but I simply can't understand what all of the fuss is about. Anytime this game has made changes to the game, they have literally changed how you would bring over characters, spells, mechanics etc. to some extent.
We can go as far back as 2e to 3e, 3e to 3.5e and even 4e to 5e. Guess what happened then? Yep in most cases you couldn't use the same character, spells, mechanics etc. Why? Because the game was being revised one way or another.
Why now, is this such a big deal? What has changed in this community that understood there would be changes 10 years ago going from 4e to 5e? Yet ten years later, people are acting like this will be the doom of Hasbro's venture into rpg's? This is almost similar to when TSR revised 1e to 2e, except they limited level advancement to 20 and changed the attack tables to use THAC0 method.
There are multiple threads about the OGL issues and the latest changes to character sheets, so I would encourage you to read those. Folks are quite clear about why it's a big deal.
All of the "issues" WotC had over the past 4 years can be boiled down to "miscommunication". None of the issues at surface level seemed malicious.
The "OGL" scandal was probably started somewhere down the line due to licensing issues the OGL created for WotC, when TSR tried to create something, and due to the legacy of D&D being originally from TSR, there was bad blood pre-programmed. This was highly likely the nexus of the OGL changes. WotC even tried to communicate it with 3rd party creators. But somewhere between the TSR issue, the changes to the OGL and the communication to the 3rd party, seems overprotective zeal crossed the line.
[REDACTED]
And the recent Update issue, was a none issue. I believe that the DNDBeyond crew geniuinly wanted to do something nice and give FREE ACCESS to the spells for everyone, while they also have the issues that spells (and magic items and rules text) are hyperlinked all over DNDBeyond, making it a major hassle to figure out a way to make it link to the correct versions for everyone. It seem they have found a workaround, or they only can do it on a the sheets but the rest will still link to the 2024 versions, we will see.
These issue are not malicious, no matter what content creators and doomer might want to claim. Sure, some miscommunication might have gone certain parts to go a bit over board. But i can see no "evil corporate greed" at play here, not anykind of "anti-consumer" actions. And i say this as a european, who knows the protection i have. People need to calm down.
And the recent Update issue, was a none issue. I believe that the DNDBeyond crew geniuinly wanted to do something nice and give FREE ACCESS to the spells for everyone, while they also have the issues that spells (and magic items and rules text) are hyperlinked all over DNDBeyond, making it a major hassle to figure out a way to make it link to the correct versions for everyone. It seem they have found a workaround, or they only can do it on a the sheets but the rest will still link to the 2024 versions, we will see.
The Update issue wasn't a None issue. It probably wasn't malicious because it doesn't do them any good, but it was stupid. It should have been obvious that it wouldn't be popular, and if you aren't sure... ask the users. Just announcing "here's our tentative plan, what do you all think" two weeks ago would have had the same final outcome without all the annoyance.
And the recent Update issue, was a none issue. I believe that the DNDBeyond crew geniuinly wanted to do something nice and give FREE ACCESS to the spells for everyone, while they also have the issues that spells (and magic items and rules text) are hyperlinked all over DNDBeyond, making it a major hassle to figure out a way to make it link to the correct versions for everyone. It seem they have found a workaround, or they only can do it on a the sheets but the rest will still link to the 2024 versions, we will see.
The Update issue wasn't a None issue. It probably wasn't malicious because it doesn't do them any good, but it was stupid. It should have been obvious that it wouldn't be popular, and if you aren't sure... ask the users. Just announcing "here's our tentative plan, what do you all think" two weeks ago would have had the same final outcome without all the annoyance.
Agreed. The fact is, there would have been people on either side, but if they'd asked what the players wanted...then at least they'd have what most people wanted from the off...and they could point to their attempts to do what the customers wanted as a motivation, rather than...whatever was going through their heads.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I was totally on board with the OGL debacle but this reaction is overblown. Most of the spells are the same and they improved so many of the others. Oh noes my cure wounds heals for a bit more my character is hopelessly broken! How will my DM ever balance the encounters now?
I'm happy people get to have more options- but I'd rather dndbeyond focus on other features.
And the recent Update issue, was a none issue. I believe that the DNDBeyond crew geniuinly wanted to do something nice and give FREE ACCESS to the spells for everyone, while they also have the issues that spells (and magic items and rules text) are hyperlinked all over DNDBeyond, making it a major hassle to figure out a way to make it link to the correct versions for everyone. It seem they have found a workaround, or they only can do it on a the sheets but the rest will still link to the 2024 versions, we will see.
The Update issue wasn't a None issue. It probably wasn't malicious because it doesn't do them any good, but it was stupid. It should have been obvious that it wouldn't be popular, and if you aren't sure... ask the users. Just announcing "here's our tentative plan, what do you all think" two weeks ago would have had the same final outcome without all the annoyance.
That's what they did. They showed proudly their plans, nearly 4 weeks in advance of the real launch, and still more then 1 weak for master subscribers. This was no shadow patch that got anyone unawares. They probably expect some feedback here and there that they could fix until the real launch, not that overblown screeching of a nonsensical issue.
Great letter, adding my signature to it. The Gothic Shark. I will like to add, since I was a teen in the mid 80s, the companies behind D&D have always had an issue with thinking long term. TSR, WotC, and now Hasbro. I honestly think American Capitalism has failed at the idea of making a 30 year plan.
Maybe it's just me getting older but I simply can't understand what all of the fuss is about. Anytime this game has made changes to the game, they have literally changed how you would bring over characters, spells, mechanics etc. to some extent.
We can go as far back as 2e to 3e, 3e to 3.5e and even 4e to 5e. Guess what happened then? Yep in most cases you couldn't use the same character, spells, mechanics etc. Why? Because the game was being revised one way or another.
Why now, is this such a big deal? What has changed in this community that understood there would be changes 10 years ago going from 4e to 5e? Yet ten years later, people are acting like this will be the doom of Hasbro's venture into rpg's? This is almost similar to when TSR revised 1e to 2e, except they limited level advancement to 20 and changed the attack tables to use THAC0 method.
🤔🤷🏿♂️
Because in all the previous editions, our character sheets were on a piece of paper tucked behind the cover of our hard copy PHB. There was absolutely nothing anyone else could do to change what was written there. Now both character and book are in the cloud on a server lord-knows-where, and both can be changed without our consent. I mean, technically, we actually did consent to them changing whatever they like when we agreed to the terms of service. They are very clear that we don’t own the books, we own a license to look at what they want to show us. But even though they have every right to, it’s still a pretty shitty thing for them to do.
The "pinkerton" issue, i didn't even knew was an issue until people mentioned some shady stuff about the pinkertons from *checks calendar* hundert years ago. I wouldn't know about that and would likely have hired them as a simple security firm too. Again miscommunication.
My firm belief is the only reason people got bent out of shape about the Pinkertons is they were the bad guys in Red Dead Redemption 2. Otherwise the whole thing would have had no traction. Sure, a handful of people knew that historical deep cut, but most of them were just still feeling bad about how they screwed the fictional character John Marston.
I was totally on board with the OGL debacle but this reaction is overblown.
Unless you're actually a third-party content creator yourself, I think this is really weird
The OGL "debacle" eventually resulted in a ton of good third-party content being available on DDB, and had it never gone viral, wouldn't have had any impact on the vast majority of players and DMs
This would have directly impacted people's actual characters and campaigns, and even if you view the changes as positive, would have created unnecessary confusion as people who aren't Terminally Online only noticed those changes when they went to play their next session
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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)
That's what they did. They showed proudly their plans, nearly 4 weeks in advance of the real launch.
They had scheduled maintenance (which is now delayed... three guesses as to why) tomorrow. Also, wording matters; "this is our current plan for what to do" is not the same thing as "this is what we are doing".
The OGL issue? Much of the outrage could have been alleviated if they came out at the beginning and said “Hey, listen, our existing legal document was really poorly written, and we just had someone try to steal our intellectual property to make something horrifically racist. We were able to beat that down, but realized we had accidentally left D&D open to the same attack and are trying to close that loophole.” Most reasonable players would be fine with that - but, instead of saying anything, Wizards was silent for days, losing control of the narrative.
It also stated it could use any homebrew content on D&D Beyond without giving credit or renumeration. And so on.
That is a misrepresentation of what is generally a fairly standard policy that is less about theft and more about saving WotC's butt from frivolous lawsuits.
They're not actually going to steal homebrew content. Clauses like that exist on the off chance the professional designers write a feat/ spell/ monster that works like someone's homebrew, so the creator doesn't sue over a coincidence.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Dear WOTC executive leadership:
Once again, the D&D community is dealing with the ripples and consequences of yet another decision from you that seemed aimed at alienating thousands, if not millions, of gamers. The initial decision to give all DDB users a forced “free” upgrade to 2024 spells and magic items was an astoundingly bad one, a decision clearly made without input from anyone with active ties to or understanding of the gaming community.
The last 20 months or so have seen a surprising, deeply discouraging series of unforced errors on the part of WOTC: the OGL announcements, the use of AI for illustrations, the very mixed messages of providing 2024 PHB and then slapping incredibly restrictive terms on using it for reviews, and the (now reversed) decision to force all users on DDB to use the 2024 versions of spells on their character sheets.
These decisions (and others) have done deep, severe damage to the trust and generally good relationship you’d built with fans and users prior to this. The reverberations of the shockingly terrible initial OGL policies are still being felt.
I’ve worked in the corporate world for 30 years. I’ve worked with people at all levels within business, from entry level individual contributors to C-suite executives. While I’m loathe to paint with too broad a brush here, every bit of information that’s come to light in the last 20 months about who is making these decisions and why points very strongly towards executive leaders with no real knowledge of the market, customers, or products making decisions purely for profit and short term gains. Everything thing I’ve seen indicates a huge communications and ego problem within WOTC itself.
I want to be very clear: it’s my assumptions that NONE of these decisions are being driven, championed, or even suggested by the many talented and passionate creatives who actually make the products that make your company possible. It’s my assumption that the dev team for DDB are working their collective asses off to try and keep up with the often unrealistic and uninformed decisions made by VP-level executives who care only for that week’s stock prices and the next quarterly performance report.
These are assumptions that I am very confident in making, again based on 30 years of personal experience as well as all information about the OGL scandal that’s come to light. Jeremy Crawford, Todd Kenrick, and their teams LOVE this game. They’re fans themselves. I simply do not believe they are behind these often punitive and amazingly tone-deaf decisions that alienate, anger, and dismiss huge swaths of your customer base. Likewise, the front-line teams for DDB: they’re hardworking folks who actually understand the users, the game, and how things work.
So there are three things WOTC could and should be doing much better:
Proactively Communicating. Communications about changes, releases, shelf life of print and digital assets, and more: if you want to foster customer loyalty, trust, and goodwill, WOTC will take a very proactive approach to communicating with users/customers. This also means multiple communications that repeat information, rather than assume all customers see every announcement, video, or press release the instant its made public. This means providing concrete, specific information regarding coming changes so that customers can understand how it might affect their games and content. This means thinking of communications with customers as a way to help support your business rather than to provide cover for bad executive decisions.
For instance: if at some point you plan on sunsetting all legacy (2014) content, communicate this well ahead of time (ideally at least a year, but a minimum of 6 months) and consider giving discounts to holders of the content if they purchase the new rules. Be considerate and respectful of the people who have made this game so popular, and treat their patronage as something to be earned rather than taken for granted.
Active and Strategic Listening. Since the initial reaction to the initial, disastrous OGL policy change, it has become painfully, frustratingly clear that the top business executives within WOTC had no interest or understanding of the game itself, its customers, and the culture surrounding both. We need WOTC – not just the creatives, not just the frontline DDB devs, but the TOP LEADERSHIP—to make it a regular, ingrained business practice to listen to the people who actually play the game first and foremost. We’re the ones buying your products. We’re the ones supporting your business. We’re the ones making this the most popular TTRPG. When you’re contemplating big changes to the business model, content, content access, rules, etc.—don’t keep everything in house and classified. Enlist experienced focus groups, players, and DMs, to provide you with clear eyed, frank feedback and information. LISTEN to your creative folks and your on-the-ground development teams. Value them and show them the respect they should have for loving, knowing, and supporting the game we all like. Don’t assume your past experience in a parallel industry—video games, for instance—easily and fully translates into knowing what works best for D&D. You can easily avoid the PR nightmares and damage to your brand by simply listening to the people who make the damn game.
Think Long Term. Unfortunately, this last one is pretty much anathema to many C-suite leaders; there’s an obsession with today’s stock price and the next quarterly earnings report, with everything else treated as unimportant. If you want to maintain dominance in this market, if you want to hold onto the title of world’s greatest role-playing game, you have to be thinking about the next five years, and the next ten years. You have to be mindful of past errors and failures while considering what comes next, and after that, and after that. You need to remember that the shiny object you’re chasing now which seems to promise all the profit will likely have a time limit on its value to the company and to not count on it to be what keeps you both profitable and in the good graces of the purchasing public.
I know it’s incredibly idealistic to post this; the chances of anyone in the upper echelons of the company reading this, let alone taking it seriously, are slim to none. Hopefully, the unity and strength of the fans of this game are strong enough to get through C-suite arrogance and presumptions. Hopefully, the seriousness of the damage done by the unforced errors of the last 20 months will foment some changes along the lines suggested above.
Hopefully, WOTC won’t continue to make decisions that lead me to conclude my best resort is to revert to a wholly analog, in-person game using already purchased content and only buying from third parties.
Signed,
A Concerned Gamer
This would be a lot more effective if you didn't lump in overblown clickbait "scandals" and things that weren't decisions by WOTC at all with their actually questionable corporate choices
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)
Wizards’ big problem has always been proactive communication.
The OGL issue? Much of the outrage could have been alleviated if they came out at the beginning and said “Hey, listen, our existing legal document was really poorly written, and we just had someone try to steal our intellectual property to make something horrifically racist. We were able to beat that down, but realized we had accidentally left D&D open to the same attack and are trying to close that loophole.” Most reasonable players would be fine with that - but, instead of saying anything, Wizards was silent for days, losing control of the narrative.
This most recent issue? They probably could have eliminated concerns if they explained their reasoning. “We are removing these spells because we want folks to turn on the legacy filter, but not have the spell and items lists be too unwieldy for new players. Here are the spells being updated substantively, if you want to make homebrew copies.” That level of information, explaining the common sense reasons for the changes and helping facilitate their chosen work-around, would have likely reduced the reasonable complaints.
So, once again, Wizards PR dropped the ball early, let rabble-rousers control the narrative, and decided to capitulate once things grew beyond any possibility of damage control. Once again, the game as a whole suffers because Wizards’ PR didn’t have the common sense to say “Hey, you know what, if we explain ourselves first, maybe people will be annoyed, but at least they might listen.”
I think this an overly favorable and incomplete view. The OGL included punitive and at-will statements about licensing fees/tariffs/whatever for third party creators. It also stated it could use any homebrew content on D&D Beyond without giving credit or renumeration. And so on.
The leaked policy absolutely stank of corporate greed and envy.
The leaked draft only contained licensing for about 10 companies in the entire world - no one else met those threshold requirements - and those elements were the first thing Wizards abandoned once the draft was leaked. The only thing Wizards actually fought for were the “please don’t use our stuff to spread racism” provisions, and, in exchange for those, they offered a far better OGL than the original version ever had been.
But, because they were slow on the draw and never actually articulated the obvious and contemporaneous threat that resulted in them trying to change their license? Instead of the OGL 2.0, which increased third-party rights and gave them some fairly significant boons, we got… the OGL 1.0 (a document no self-respecting lawyer would want their name on) and the Creative Commons (which, while strong, does not provide all the additional rights OGL 2.0 was prepared to convey).
Wizards said everyone won at the end of the OGL issue, and were sort of right - Creative Commons was a win for anyone. But the racists were the big winners, and everyone else could have had a more impressive victory, had Wizards controlled the narrative, instead of allowing this game’s worst elements to set the story.
Wizards needs to get better at getting out there before the problematic elements of the community so. But, they probably have not learned their lesson - they never do - and have only been reinforcing the lesson of “being loud will cause us to capitulate, even if it means letting the game suffer.”
What does racism have to do with this conversation, and why do you add it to any given conversation at every given opportunity? Just let it die already.
Right, except the policy also contained language that said they could change the percentages and thresholds at any time. It would've have a very chilling effect on content creation.
There's a lot we agree on here, to be clear. Specific, transparent communication would've solved some of this - but not at all of it.
Maybe it's just me getting older but I simply can't understand what all of the fuss is about. Anytime this game has made changes to the game, they have literally changed how you would bring over characters, spells, mechanics etc. to some extent.
We can go as far back as 2e to 3e, 3e to 3.5e and even 4e to 5e. Guess what happened then? Yep in most cases you couldn't use the same character, spells, mechanics etc. Why? Because the game was being revised one way or another.
Why now, is this such a big deal? What has changed in this community that understood there would be changes 10 years ago going from 4e to 5e? Yet ten years later, people are acting like this will be the doom of Hasbro's venture into rpg's? This is almost similar to when TSR revised 1e to 2e, except they limited level advancement to 20 and changed the attack tables to use THAC0 method.
🤔🤷🏿♂️
There are multiple threads about the OGL issues and the latest changes to character sheets, so I would encourage you to read those. Folks are quite clear about why it's a big deal.
All of the "issues" WotC had over the past 4 years can be boiled down to "miscommunication". None of the issues at surface level seemed malicious.
The "OGL" scandal was probably started somewhere down the line due to licensing issues the OGL created for WotC, when TSR tried to create something, and due to the legacy of D&D being originally from TSR, there was bad blood pre-programmed. This was highly likely the nexus of the OGL changes. WotC even tried to communicate it with 3rd party creators. But somewhere between the TSR issue, the changes to the OGL and the communication to the 3rd party, seems overprotective zeal crossed the line.
[REDACTED]
And the recent Update issue, was a none issue. I believe that the DNDBeyond crew geniuinly wanted to do something nice and give FREE ACCESS to the spells for everyone, while they also have the issues that spells (and magic items and rules text) are hyperlinked all over DNDBeyond, making it a major hassle to figure out a way to make it link to the correct versions for everyone. It seem they have found a workaround, or they only can do it on a the sheets but the rest will still link to the 2024 versions, we will see.
These issue are not malicious, no matter what content creators and doomer might want to claim. Sure, some miscommunication might have gone certain parts to go a bit over board. But i can see no "evil corporate greed" at play here, not anykind of "anti-consumer" actions. And i say this as a european, who knows the protection i have. People need to calm down.
The Update issue wasn't a None issue. It probably wasn't malicious because it doesn't do them any good, but it was stupid. It should have been obvious that it wouldn't be popular, and if you aren't sure... ask the users. Just announcing "here's our tentative plan, what do you all think" two weeks ago would have had the same final outcome without all the annoyance.
Agreed. The fact is, there would have been people on either side, but if they'd asked what the players wanted...then at least they'd have what most people wanted from the off...and they could point to their attempts to do what the customers wanted as a motivation, rather than...whatever was going through their heads.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I was totally on board with the OGL debacle but this reaction is overblown. Most of the spells are the same and they improved so many of the others. Oh noes my cure wounds heals for a bit more my character is hopelessly broken! How will my DM ever balance the encounters now?
I'm happy people get to have more options- but I'd rather dndbeyond focus on other features.
That's what they did. They showed proudly their plans, nearly 4 weeks in advance of the real launch, and still more then 1 weak for master subscribers. This was no shadow patch that got anyone unawares. They probably expect some feedback here and there that they could fix until the real launch, not that overblown screeching of a nonsensical issue.
Great letter, adding my signature to it. The Gothic Shark. I will like to add, since I was a teen in the mid 80s, the companies behind D&D have always had an issue with thinking long term. TSR, WotC, and now Hasbro. I honestly think American Capitalism has failed at the idea of making a 30 year plan.
Because in all the previous editions, our character sheets were on a piece of paper tucked behind the cover of our hard copy PHB. There was absolutely nothing anyone else could do to change what was written there. Now both character and book are in the cloud on a server lord-knows-where, and both can be changed without our consent.
I mean, technically, we actually did consent to them changing whatever they like when we agreed to the terms of service. They are very clear that we don’t own the books, we own a license to look at what they want to show us. But even though they have every right to, it’s still a pretty shitty thing for them to do.
My firm belief is the only reason people got bent out of shape about the Pinkertons is they were the bad guys in Red Dead Redemption 2. Otherwise the whole thing would have had no traction. Sure, a handful of people knew that historical deep cut, but most of them were just still feeling bad about how they screwed the fictional character John Marston.
Unless you're actually a third-party content creator yourself, I think this is really weird
The OGL "debacle" eventually resulted in a ton of good third-party content being available on DDB, and had it never gone viral, wouldn't have had any impact on the vast majority of players and DMs
This would have directly impacted people's actual characters and campaigns, and even if you view the changes as positive, would have created unnecessary confusion as people who aren't Terminally Online only noticed those changes when they went to play their next session
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)
They had scheduled maintenance (which is now delayed... three guesses as to why) tomorrow. Also, wording matters; "this is our current plan for what to do" is not the same thing as "this is what we are doing".
That is a misrepresentation of what is generally a fairly standard policy that is less about theft and more about saving WotC's butt from frivolous lawsuits.
They're not actually going to steal homebrew content. Clauses like that exist on the off chance the professional designers write a feat/ spell/ monster that works like someone's homebrew, so the creator doesn't sue over a coincidence.