TG as an Industry: A pendulum swing against the excesses of Rule 0 culture

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG as an Industry: A pendulum swing against the excesses of Rule 0 culture

«‹›1235 »

Dexo: Aug 15, 2009; A city that was to live by night after the wilderness had passed. A city that was to forge out of steel and blood-red neon its own peculiar wilderness.

What's funny is Dancey literally said what the score was when they originally were making and pushing the OGL

https://web.archive.org/web/20020404235238/http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/md/md20020228e

quote:

...
That brings us to Open Gaming, and why we're pursuing this initiative inside Wizards and outside to the larger community of game publishers.

Here's the logic in a nutshell. We've got a theory that says that D&D is the most popular roleplaying game because it is the game more people know how to play than any other game. (For those of you interested researching the theory, this concept is called "The Theory of Network Externalities.")

[ Note: This is a very painful concept for a lot of people to embrace, including a lot of our own staff, and including myself for many years. The idea that D&D is somehow "better" than the competition is a powerful and entrenched concept. The idea that D&D can be "beaten" by a game that is "better" than D&D is at the heart of every business plan from every company that goes into marketplace battle with D&D game. If you accept the Theory of Network Externalities, you have to admit that the battle is lost before it begins, because the value doesn't reside in the game itself, but in the network of people who know how to play it.]

If you accept (as I have finally come to do) that the theory is valid, then the logical conclusion is that the larger the number of people who play D&D, the harder it is for competitive games to succeed, and the longer people will stay active gamers, and the more value the network of D&D players will have to Wizards of the Coast.

In fact, we believe that there may be a secondary market force we jokingly call "The Skaff Effect," after our own [game designer] Skaff Elias. Skaff is one of the smartest guys in the company, and after looking at lots of trends and thinking about our business over a long period of time, he enunciated his theory thusly:

"All marketing and sales activity in a hobby gaming genre eventually contributes to the overall success of the market share leader in that genre."

In other words, the more money other companies spend on their games, the more D&D sales are eventually made. Now, there are clearly issues of efficiency -- not every dollar input to the market results in a dollar output in D&D sales; and there is a substantial time lag between input and output; and a certain amount of people are diverted from D&D to other games never to return. However, we believe very strongly that the net effect of the competition in the RPG genre is positive for D&D.

The downside here is that I believe that one of the reasons that the RPG as a category has declined so much from the early 90s relates to the proliferation of systems. Every one of those different game systems creates a "bubble" of market inefficiency; the cumulative effect of all those bubbles has proven to be a massive downsizing of the marketplace. I have to note, highlight, and reiterate: The problem is not competitive >product<, the problem is competitive >systems<. I am very much for competition and for a lot of interesting and cool products.

So much for the dry theory and background. Here's the logical conclusions we've drawn:

We make more revenue and more profit from our core rulebooks than any other part of our product lines. In a sense, every other RPG product we sell other than the core rulebooks is a giant, self-financing marketing program to drive sales of those core books. At an extreme view, you could say that the core >book< of the PHB is the focus of all this activity, and in fact, the PHB is the #1 best selling, and most profitable RPG product Wizards of the Coast makes year in and year out.

The logical conclusion says that reducing the "cost" to other people to publishing and supporting the core D&D game to zero should eventually drive support for all other game systems to the lowest level possible in the market, create customer resistance to the introduction of new systems, and the result of all that "support" redirected to the D&D game will be to steadily increase the number of people who play D&D, thus driving sales of the core books. This is a feedback cycle -- the more effective the support is, the more people play D&D. The more people play D&D, the more effective the support is.

The other great effect of Open Gaming should be a rapid, constant improvement in the quality of the rules. With lots of people able to work on them in public, problems with math, with ease of use, of variance from standard forms, etc. should all be improved over time. The great thing about Open Gaming is that it is interactive -- someone figures out a way to make something work better, and everyone who uses that part of the rules is free to incorporate it into their products. Including us. So D&D as a game should benefit from the shared development of all the people who work on the Open Gaming derivative of D&D.

After reviewing all the factors, I think there's a very, very strong business case that can be made for the idea of embracing the ideas at the heart of the Open Source movement and finding a place for them in gaming.

Honestly this is insanely prescient thinking. And it's funny watching the new money people at WotC not learn from the past lol.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 18:43

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 6, 2024 17:47

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

NGDBSS posted:

Frog God is also headed by noted unruly alcoholic and occasional sex pest Bill Webb.

Yeah, Webb can jump in a lake with his OGL sob story

# ? Jan 12, 2023 18:54

Siivola: Dec 23, 2012

Dexo posted:

What's funny is Dancey literally said what the score was when they originally were making and pushing the OGL

https://web.archive.org/web/20020404235238/http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/md/md20020228e

Honestly this is insanely prescient thinking. And it's funny watching the new money people at WotC not learn from the past lol.

That was absolutely fascinating, thanks!

# ? Jan 12, 2023 19:17

Malek Deneith: Jun 1, 2011

So two bits of news dropped one after another. First one is that Roll For Combat claims their sources say WotC will be releasing a video response "January 12th, at 3 pm EST". They did get things wrong before so take it with a grain of salt until it happens.

The other is that there is some inside dirt from a WotC employee and, uhhh, it implies the attitude on the other side is about what you'd expect:

...and the journalist who broke the story for gizmodo thinks this is legit:

# ? Jan 12, 2023 19:24

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Dexo posted:

What's funny is Dancey literally said what the score was when they originally were making and pushing the OGL

https://web.archive.org/web/20020404235238/http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/md/md20020228e

Honestly this is insanely prescient thinking. And it's funny watching the new money people at WotC not learn from the past lol.

that's incredible (figuratively)

# ? Jan 12, 2023 19:26

Dexo: Aug 15, 2009; A city that was to live by night after the wilderness had passed. A city that was to forge out of steel and blood-red neon its own peculiar wilderness.

Yeah I had a rolling D&D beyond sub that I kept because whatever it's like 50 dollars a year and I occasionally still play and run D&D, but yeah I just canceled mine, as I don't use it in a weekly game anymore.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 19:29

MonsterEnvy: Feb 4, 2012; Shocked I tell you

Malek Deneith posted:

So two bits of news dropped one after another. First one is that Roll For Combat claims their sources say WotC will be releasing a video response "January 12th, at 3 pm EST". They did get things wrong before so take it with a grain of salt until it happens.

The other is that there is some inside dirt from a WotC employee and, uhhh, it implies the attitude on the other side is about what you'd expect:

...and the journalist who broke the story for gizmodo thinks this is legit:

I don�t know if I buy the letter, the first thing should be accurate.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 19:33

Bottom Liner: Feb 15, 2006; a specific vein of lasagna

Not to say they don�t care about D&DB subs, but that can�t be their top revenue source or main drive going forward, right?

# ? Jan 12, 2023 19:33

Saxophone: Sep 19, 2006

Bottom Liner posted:

Not to say they don�t care about D&DB subs, but that can�t be their top revenue source or main drive going forward, right?

No, but it could be a solid indicator of who and how many are willing to pay vs how many will leave.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 19:37

MonsterEnvy: Feb 4, 2012; Shocked I tell you

Bottom Liner posted:

Not to say they don�t care about D&DB subs, but that can�t be their top revenue source or main drive going forward, right?

There not much insensitive to get a sub for Beyond as it�s not required to use it�s services. I did not have one for years, I only got one a few months back so I could share some content with my players.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 19:37

Malek Deneith: Jun 1, 2011

Bottom Liner posted:

Not to say they don�t care about D&DB subs, but that can�t be their top revenue source or main drive going forward, right?

Their entire drive is "D&D is undermonetized, in part because only DMs buy most of the product". Cutting out physical books and moving to all-digital/all-VTT walled garden would allow them to monetize everyone, and in ways they can't with books and imagination. It's a plan that makes a lot of sense... if you're coming from video games sector and have no idea how people actually play RPGs, which the current head honcho's apparently are. Granted it's all speculation, but "the whole plan is to go all digital" is an explanation that fits with what we know of 1.1 to a scary degree.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 19:38

Dexo: Aug 15, 2009; A city that was to live by night after the wilderness had passed. A city that was to forge out of steel and blood-red neon its own peculiar wilderness.

Bottom Liner posted:

Not to say they don�t care about D&DB subs, but that can�t be their top revenue source or main drive going forward, right?

Their top consistent revenue source probably yes.

Guess what, if you didn't buy the Dragonlance/SpellJammer books they've released because they don't interest you, but you still run a campaign on Beyond, that's 50 dollars a year from you.
Their entire goal is to try and get people into subscriptions where they can essentially sunk cost people into sticking into their ecosystem.

Like I own most of the books(before like 2022) or whatever of D&D on Beyond, at some point I bought the legendary bundle on some stupid large sale.

Guess what I'm not going to ever do, go to Fantasy Grounds, or Roll20(well there are addons, but only if I sub there too) and rebuy all that poo poo.

So if I ever run another campaign of 5e or OneD&De, that campaign is almost assuredly going to be set up in D&D beyond. And since I'm the forever GM, I'm probably going to sub to be able to share my books and materials with my players, because only I should be the one to bear the burden of being stupid enough to buy all these books. And then guess what if another player of mine decides hey I want to run a D&D game, they are most familiar with Beyond, and will almost assuredly stay in that ecosystem.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 19:40

Tsilkani: Jul 28, 2013

Dexo posted:

What's funny is Dancey literally said what the score was when they originally were making and pushing the OGL

https://web.archive.org/web/20020404235238/http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/md/md20020228e

Honestly this is insanely prescient thinking. And it's funny watching the new money people at WotC not learn from the past lol.

Holy poo poo Dancey posted:

Here's the logic in a nutshell. We've got a theory that says that D&D is the most popular roleplaying game because it is the game more people know how to play than any other game. (For those of you interested researching the theory, this concept is called "The Theory of Network Externalities.")

[ Note: This is a very painful concept for a lot of people to embrace, including a lot of our own staff, and including myself for many years. The idea that D&D is somehow "better" than the competition is a powerful and entrenched concept. The idea that D&D can be "beaten" by a game that is "better" than D&D is at the heart of every business plan from every company that goes into marketplace battle with D&D game. If you accept the Theory of Network Externalities, you have to admit that the battle is lost before it begins, because the value doesn't reside in the game itself, but in the network of people who know how to play it.]

I am amazed they let him say this on an interview published on their own website.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 19:42

MockingQuantum: Jan 20, 2012

Dexo posted:

What's funny is Dancey literally said what the score was when they originally were making and pushing the OGL

https://web.archive.org/web/20020404235238/http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/md/md20020228e

Honestly this is insanely prescient thinking. And it's funny watching the new money people at WotC not learn from the past lol.

Wow yeah that's an extremely incisive way of putting it and he definitely knew exactly what they were doing, it's funny to read that in context of the other Dancey quotes I've seen thrown around in the last few days that paint the picture (probably more through omission of info like this than being intentionally misleading) that Dancey's motivations were purely about creating an environment that fostered contributions from what was a growing community of creators. That's not to say it couldn't be or wasn't motivated by that in addition to being a very intentional marketing move, but the article you linked definitely confirms it was a marketing move first and foremost. And that yeah, undercutting that move by putting out a more restrictive OGL is basically only really cutting your own throat (though as others have said, D&D's inertia probably minimizes those losses).

# ? Jan 12, 2023 20:20

Leperflesh: May 17, 2007

D&D Beyond subscriptions as the thing the top level business folks are focused on makes a ton of sense to me. Even simpler than an argument about locking people into digital delivery/an ecosystem: my experience in corporate america is that if you create metrics, upper management will abandon all other avenues of understanding their business lines and just obsess over those metrics forever. They're neat, constrained, quantifiable, you can make a pie chart. You can prove to your boss that you're good by showing number go up, and you can maybe complain and get more resources when you show number go down.

Subscriptions are real-time info. They can undoubtedly see direct impact of the OGL leak in the sub numbers, today. It's very believable that someone is saying "look you can't judge the whole market based on the loudest people on Twitter, let's look at the subs" and if they're only down 5% week over week or whatever, they're going to say "this is just a temporary blip, we can ride it out and the twitterverse will move on soon."

Upper managers get lazy as poo poo. Even the "hard working" ones work hard by having more meetings. Actually understanding the minutiae of their product lines, the problems and complicated solution options for their lower level employees, etc. takes too much work, when you can just review the executive summary on reports you demand from your underlings (the old way) or review the top brass dashboard on your in-house metrics engines and deep learning big data solution from AWS or whatever, and then prove your value by making bold decisions like "let's cut this entire product line, because the number on the chart shows it's underperforming."

The frustrating part is that this approach to business often works. "Works" in that eliminating an underperforming product line can and often does show an improvement on the bottom line, at least in the short to intermediate term. Long term effects like loss of in-house expertise, ceding a growing market segment to competitors, etc. are harder to spot or quantify in the numbers. It's tough to prove that some c-suite's decision that saved money or made money in Q3 contributed to a general loss of market share three years later because it eroded the brand's image, or because some of the people you laid off were your best in-house experts on your whole product line and with them gone to competitors, your general product development across the company is suffering while your competitors have a better understanding of how to outcompete you.

This is all from my view in a totally different sphere, of course - enterprise software - but I think it's informative of what's going on within Wizards/Hasbro right now, and that letter is very believable to me as a result.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 20:35

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

A 'cool story bro' anonymous message from someone who might be a DDB insider:

# ? Jan 12, 2023 20:37

Rescue Toaster: Mar 13, 2003

MockingQuantum posted:

Wow yeah that's an extremely incisive way of putting it and he definitely knew exactly what they were doing, it's funny to read that in context of the other Dancey quotes I've seen thrown around in the last few days that paint the picture (probably more through omission of info like this than being intentionally misleading) that Dancey's motivations were purely about creating an environment that fostered contributions from what was a growing community of creators. That's not to say it couldn't be or wasn't motivated by that in addition to being a very intentional marketing move, but the article you linked definitely confirms it was a marketing move first and foremost. And that yeah, undercutting that move by putting out a more restrictive OGL is basically only really cutting your own throat (though as others have said, D&D's inertia probably minimizes those losses).

Yeah people need to stop portraying the OGL as this magnanimous gift to the community that of course Wizards should be free to revoke at any time. It was always about making money and in return they were cementing themselves as the center of the TTRPG universe for the next two decades. Dancey's 2 hour interview linked above clearly tells that the first meeting he left with the directive of MONEY!!!! and that was always the goal.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 20:43

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

Another 5e heartbreaker announced, this time from publishers of Aeltatis:

https://cnghrpg.com/

# ? Jan 12, 2023 20:45

Siivola: Dec 23, 2012

I'm sorry, who?

# ? Jan 12, 2023 20:47

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Siivola posted:

I'm sorry, who?

Ateltasit

# ? Jan 12, 2023 20:49

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

sebmojo posted:

Ateltasit

Gesundheit!

# ? Jan 12, 2023 20:51

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

Sorry, Aetaltis is a very vanilla but really high-production value and well-reviewed heroic fantasy setting for PF1e and 5e.

It's currently on deep sale on DTRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/6570/Mechanical-Muse

I don't know if they can pull of a good system, but the book will be very pretty at least.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 20:51

Stephenls: Feb 21, 2013; [REDACTED]

Leperflesh posted:

D&D Beyond subscriptions as the thing the top level business folks are focused on makes a ton of sense to me. Even simpler than an argument about locking people into digital delivery/an ecosystem: my experience in corporate america is that if you create metrics, upper management will abandon all other avenues of understanding their business lines and just obsess over those metrics forever. They're neat, constrained, quantifiable, you can make a pie chart. You can prove to your boss that you're good by showing number go up, and you can maybe complain and get more resources when you show number go down.

Subscriptions are real-time info. They can undoubtedly see direct impact of the OGL leak in the sub numbers, today. It's very believable that someone is saying "look you can't judge the whole market based on the loudest people on Twitter, let's look at the subs" and if they're only down 5% week over week or whatever, they're going to say "this is just a temporary blip, we can ride it out and the twitterverse will move on soon."

Upper managers get lazy as poo poo. Even the "hard working" ones work hard by having more meetings. Actually understanding the minutiae of their product lines, the problems and complicated solution options for their lower level employees, etc. takes too much work, when you can just review the executive summary on reports you demand from your underlings (the old way) or review the top brass dashboard on your in-house metrics engines and deep learning big data solution from AWS or whatever, and then prove your value by making bold decisions like "let's cut this entire product line, because the number on the chart shows it's underperforming."

The frustrating part is that this approach to business often works. "Works" in that eliminating an underperforming product line can and often does show an improvement on the bottom line, at least in the short to intermediate term. Long term effects like loss of in-house expertise, ceding a growing market segment to competitors, etc. are harder to spot or quantify in the numbers. It's tough to prove that some c-suite's decision that saved money or made money in Q3 contributed to a general loss of market share three years later because it eroded the brand's image, or because some of the people you laid off were your best in-house experts on your whole product line and with them gone to competitors, your general product development across the company is suffering while your competitors have a better understanding of how to outcompete you.

This is all from my view in a totally different sphere, of course - enterprise software - but I think it's informative of what's going on within Wizards/Hasbro right now, and that letter is very believable to me as a result.

As someone whose day job is yet a third sphere, I can corroborate much of this. The execs would be focusing on the DDB subscription issue not because DDB is their primary source of revenue, but because DDB is their primary source of quantifiable metrics. Executives are no more perfectly spherical rational actors than anyone else; they have biases, fears, resentments, and egos just like everyone, and will often make decisions that are somewhat bad in the short run and potentially disastrously bad in the long run if their bad consequences of those decisions are less easy to quantify than whatever good consequences of those decisions fit their existing metric schema.

I have no certain knowledge of WotC's executives' beliefs, but it wouldn't surprise me at all that they're looking at this whole thing and thinking "We need to get in on the games-as-a-service microtransaction economy because that's where the real money is" and then applying motivated reasoning to their reading of the richest source of up-to-date metrics they have (DDB subscriptions) to support that assertion and measure their success on the way to it.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 20:53

Siivola: Dec 23, 2012

I suddenly feel kinda bad for all these very skilled people whose hopes of moderate success will be dashed on the rocks of nobody wanting to learn their system.

I should email the Aleatits folks that Dancey interview and a link to the Fate SRD or something.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 20:55

Saxophone: Sep 19, 2006

As a DM I will now be ushering folks saying they want to play D&D to other games not because I�m making GBS threads on D&D, but because gently caress these absolute assholes forever.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 20:56

Cycloneman: Feb 1, 2009; ASK ME ABOUT
SISTER FUCKING

Bottom Liner posted:

Not to say they don�t care about D&DB subs, but that can�t be their top revenue source or main drive going forward, right?

If everybody decides not to buy the next book, WotC doesn't know until the next book comes out.

If everybody decides to unsubscribe from D&D Beyond, Wizards knows instantly.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:00

Bottom Liner: Feb 15, 2006; a specific vein of lasagna

Sure, I get the realtime feedback sub numbers gives them, but given that they've only owned the platform for ~8 months and paid less than 150m for it, it can't be the most lucrative or biggest focus of their business going forward unless they're building all of 1D&D on it. This would have to be a huge pivot in their business from books. It's nowhere near the money maker that something like MtG Arena is, which makes way more sense for the focus of the future of Magic. Pivoting from books to subscriptions might be the entire plan though, of course, I just don't think it's a smart one.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:05

Drone: Aug 22, 2003; Incredible machine

More and more convinced that the TTRPG hobby doesn't really have long-term compatibility with a capitalist model in general, but then again this may just be the beer and my latent socialism talking.

(I mean of course it is, and not only WOTC but indies have been able to flourish in the space, but unlike video games I don't see how big companies like Hasbro are going to be able to effectively squeeze even more blood from the stone without completely killing the hobby as a whole)

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:08

The Bee: Nov 25, 2012; Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!

Siivola posted:

I suddenly feel kinda bad for all these very skilled people whose hopes of moderate success will be dashed on the rocks of nobody wanting to learn their system.

I should email the Aleatits folks that Dancey interview and a link to the Fate SRD or something.

Honestly, I'm curious to see which of these projects pan out and which fizzle. Between Kobold Press, Matt Colville, these guys, the ever-looming shadow of Paizo, and other old dogs like 13th Age and Shadow of the Demon Lord getting in the ring for round 2, we're gonna see a lot of DnDlikes in the next few years.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:08

Saxophone: Sep 19, 2006

Bottom Liner posted:

Sure, I get the realtime feedback sub numbers gives them, but given that they've only owned the platform for ~8 months and paid less than 150m for it, it can't be the most lucrative or biggest focus of their business going forward unless they're building all of 1D&D on it. This would have to be a huge pivot in their business from books. It's nowhere near the money maker that something like MtG Arena is, which makes way more sense for the focus of the future of Magic. Pivoting from books to subscriptions might be the entire plan though, of course, I just don't think it's a smart one.

Corporate Assholes almost never make good decisions. Just ones they think might be short term profitable. They also, by everything we�ve seen, fundamentally do not understand the TTRPG ecosystem. They want quick money and they literally do not care or even know about all the poo poo they�ll burn down to get it. They just think that all these mooches are making money off of us and we�re not getting any!

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:09

Saxophone: Sep 19, 2006

The Bee posted:

Honestly, I'm curious to see which of these projects pan out and which fizzle. Between Kobold Press, Matt Colville, these guys, the ever-looming shadow of Paizo, and other old dogs like 13th Age and Shadow of the Demon Lord getting in the ring for round 2, we're gonna see a lot of DnDlikes in the next few years.

Good!

Seriously. I love options and honestly more options help get more folks into the hobby.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:10

The Bee: Nov 25, 2012; Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!

Saxophone posted:

Good!

Seriously. I love options and honestly more options help get more folks into the hobby.

Majorly agreed. And the more of these spins on the same general idea exist, future ones have more options available to study and learn from.

A full list of these projects and their pedigrees could be pretty interesting, honestly. Though maybe better saved for when they're closer to release.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:11

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Drone posted:

More and more convinced that the TTRPG hobby doesn't really have long-term compatibility with a capitalist model in general, but then again this may just be the beer and my latent socialism talking.

(I mean of course it is, and not only WOTC but indies have been able to flourish in the space, but unlike video games I don't see how big companies like Hasbro are going to be able to effectively squeeze even more blood from the stone without completely killing the hobby as a whole)

capitalism ain't even compatible with human beings surviving, so unless the super-evolved cockroaches who achieve sapience in 3022 take up the banner of TTRPG publication, the only question is exactly why you're right and how long it takes to vindicate :v:

anyone going into any kind of creative or artistic career whatsoever should read Oscar Wilde's "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" though; it's more about art than it is about socialism, and to the extent that it is about socialism it's a very airy utopian sort, but his point about the effect the profit motive has on aesthetics is timeless

e:

quote:

What I mean by a perfect man is one who develops under perfect conditions; one who is not wounded, or worried or maimed, or in danger. Most personalities have been obliged to be rebels. Half their strength has been wasted in friction. Byron�s personality, for instance, was terribly wasted in its battle with the stupidity, and hypocrisy, and Philistinism of the English. Such battles do not always intensify strength: they often exaggerate weakness. Byron was never able to give us what he might have given us.

Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Jan 12, 2023

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:12

Megazver: Jan 13, 2006

The Bee posted:

Honestly, I'm curious to see which of these projects pan out and which fizzle. Between Kobold Press, Matt Colville, these guys, the ever-looming shadow of Paizo, and other old dogs like 13th Age and Shadow of the Demon Lord getting in the ring for round 2, we're gonna see a lot of DnDlikes in the next few years.

The OSR scene somehow seems to support a whole bunch of similar, yet financially successful games.

These guys have more people to pay, but they sell more as well. Who knows, maybe some of them will pull it off?

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:13

Serf: May 5, 2011

Drone posted:

More and more convinced that the TTRPG hobby doesn't really have long-term compatibility with a capitalist model in general, but then again this may just be the beer and my latent socialism talking.

(I mean of course it is, and not only WOTC but indies have been able to flourish in the space, but unlike video games I don't see how big companies like Hasbro are going to be able to effectively squeeze even more blood from the stone without completely killing the hobby as a whole)

They can't kill the hobby. There will be plenty of people more than willing to play ball with whatever WotC ends up doing. And there will always be people making and playing RPGs outside that sphere, whether they're putting in the work to make their own PDFs, just using old material or publishing an endless stream of content on blogs.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:13

Hunter Noventa: Apr 21, 2010

Apparently they were going to do an announcement stream on the DnDBeyond twitch channel, but before it started it was basically nothing but #OpenDnD in the chat and then they cancelled the stream.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:19

Dexo: Aug 15, 2009; A city that was to live by night after the wilderness had passed. A city that was to forge out of steel and blood-red neon its own peculiar wilderness.

MockingQuantum posted:

Wow yeah that's an extremely incisive way of putting it and he definitely knew exactly what they were doing, it's funny to read that in context of the other Dancey quotes I've seen thrown around in the last few days that paint the picture (probably more through omission of info like this than being intentionally misleading) that Dancey's motivations were purely about creating an environment that fostered contributions from what was a growing community of creators. That's not to say it couldn't be or wasn't motivated by that in addition to being a very intentional marketing move, but the article you linked definitely confirms it was a marketing move first and foremost. And that yeah, undercutting that move by putting out a more restrictive OGL is basically only really cutting your own throat (though as others have said, D&D's inertia probably minimizes those losses).

I don't think it's particularly malicious(unless you think a company that wants to be the leader in an industry is inherently malicious, which tbf there are definitely some arguments for). It's just someone recognizing that a rising tide lifts all boats, and hey, this will allow us to lift all boats, and also keep all those boats and boat passengers in our little enclosed ocean where we are the big boat that people will eventually want to hang out on.

This new OGL is just such a cosmically stupidly short sighted thing lol.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:21

Rescue Toaster: Mar 13, 2003

Hunter Noventa posted:

Apparently they were going to do an announcement stream on the DnDBeyond twitch channel, but before it started it was basically nothing but #OpenDnD in the chat and then they cancelled the stream.

Pretty sure they have a regularly scheduled twitch stream and someone saw it and thought it was something else, and then it took off as a rumor since everybody's desperate for info.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:28

CitizenKeen: Nov 13, 2003; easygoing pedant

Edit: Other people more informed.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:30

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 6, 2024 17:47

Hunter Noventa: Apr 21, 2010

Rescue Toaster posted:

Pretty sure they have a regularly scheduled twitch stream and someone saw it and thought it was something else, and then it took off as a rumor since everybody's desperate for info.

That's probably true. Its still not a great look. None of this has been for WotC.

# ? Jan 12, 2023 21:32

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG as an Industry: A pendulum swing against the excesses of Rule 0 culture

«‹›1235 »