D&D General IF D&D were for sale ...

[KYRON45]

I meant more like "Buys a lot of stuff they don't need like boats and cars and houses in LA" etc etc etc

In general what i meant was...creatives are bad at running businesses due to their passion for their art. Business executives aren't interested in creativity beyond the point that they can make money off of it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's fair. But I look at it like any other product. For example, D&D is the Corvette of the RPG world. Each generation brings something new and different to the current market. I don't think it would have been a good idea to retire the Corvette after 1959, or we never would have gotten the 67 Stingray.

But we might have gotten a different car in '67 that you'd like just as much, and you wouldn't have people complaining about how they keep changing the Corvette from what you liked and the community won't stop talking incessantly about the new one.

 

[Micah Sweet]

People complained about 4e wizards having at wills, encounter, and daily spells because they didn't like the look of fighters, rogues, wizards, and clerics all having the same structure.

Fast forward to 5e, players are complaining about classes not having equal incentives to rest.

All because of looks. Not narrative purpose. Not gamist design. Looks.

That's why I can't trust anyone solely with the IP.

Did they? I wasn't really a fan of the AEDU structure for any class. I don't see it making the game better. And I legit don't know what you're talking about with the "equal incentives" thing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I am not a D&D-only kind of guy - I play and run lots of other games. So, I don't need D&D to be my personal cup of tea at any given moment. My considerations, then, are not about meeting my personal desires of rules, setting, or adventure content.

When I consider the RPG hobby as a whole, I think the existence of a "Big Fish" in the market is a natural and beneficial element. I am not personally invested in that Big Fish being D&D, but I don't mind that D&D is in that role. I think it would be bad for the hobby as a whole for D&D to suddenly collapse - if there's to be a new Big Fish, we players would be better off if that transition is based on us players migrating to something we like better over some business failure on the part of the owner of the IP leading to the D&D brand suddenly leaving the market.

So, as I consider such a transition, maintaining the popularity and business success is a major concern - I don't care if shareholders are profiting via rising stocks, but it matters if loads of people are buying and playing the game.

We've been told that there's a limit on the speed with which the Anniversary books can come out, not on the side of design and creativity, but in printing - the print runs expected to meet desire overwhelm printing capacity!

That means D&D ought to be bought by someone who has the capability of managing extremely large projects successfully.

Baldur's Gate 3 is a massive hit. While it doesn't seem to have been a major financial success, I found Honor Among Thieves to be highly entertaining, and I'm glad it got made, and would like to see future attempts.

That means D&D ought to be bought by someone who can manage licensing deals aiming at revenue on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Virtual tabletop play has been a boon for the hobby, and isn't going away. Digital delivery of game content is a huge vale to players. The third party market is a similar value, and boondoggles like last year's OGL fiasco do the game harm.

That means that D&D ought to be bought by someone who is tech-savvy, understands the broader marketplace that supports D&D, is willing to stay with some form of open license, and willing to slowly update licensing and/or technical capabilities to support digital and 3rd party realities.

D&D seems to have benefitted from the massive playtest efforts in recent core rules releases.

That means that D&D ought to be bought by someone open to design partly driven by community opinion, and community feedback in general.

I don't know of any current players in the space who meet these requirements.

All cogent points, but I reject the premise that having a "big fish" in the industry is a good thing for any game being played in that community, definitely including D&D.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes of course, there are no people in the world that aren’t secretly just greedy bastards.

Good lord

I'm not saying everyone is a greedy bastard.

But I am saying that many of the people who arent would innocently flip it to a greedy bastard for profit.

Or they wouldn't have the drive to keep it

Or the drive to please the fans.
Or the humility to state unbias with design.

 

[Umbran]

Shaming the community in a non-specific way like this is deeply unhelpful, and insulting to quite a lot of folks.

There is a reality that whoever would buy D&D will have to face, and we should face too...

Gaming does not, in and of itself, present much selection for the personal character of players. There is nothing about our hobby that filters our community such that it is somehow morally or ethically superior to the human population as a whole. If all the -isms and -phobias of the world are in our community, unless people act to reduce their prevalence.

Indeed, the social dynamics of communities often allows the community to be worse than the general population, as the communities can provide social pressures to accept bad behavior where the general population does not.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I'd sell it to a company run by Ed Greenwood, Jeff Grub, and Kieth Baker partnership.

Failing that Larian Studios.

Failing that Pornhub

 

[Umbran]

... I reject the premise that having a "big fish" in the industry is a good thing...

I was not seeking your acceptance of the premise.

I was stating it so folks would understand the context of my approach to the question, not to debate the validity of the premise.

 

[Zardnaar]

All cogent points, but I reject the premise that having a "big fish" in the industry is a good thing for any game being played in that community, definitely including D&D.

It's often pushed that WotC as a big fish is bad for the industry.

But the industry has had 50 odd years to displace D&D.

Pre 5E blowing up it was sonething like 13 million dollars.

So D&D is probably 90-95% of the industry. Specifically 5E.

Basically the industry is 5E if it rolled over and died I suspect no other RPG would replace it.

I don't think it's because D&D is holding then down I think it's
because to be blunt the world doesn't really care about RPGs in general they're basically niche.

 

[Minigiant]

Did they? I wasn't really a fan of the AEDU structure for any class. I don't see it making the game better. And I legit don't know what you're talking about with the "equal incentives" thing.

AEDU was abandoned instead of improved because it looked different. However by abandoning it, many classes and races had no incentive to take short rests. Which was detrimental to classes and races who relied on short rests.

Or how death saves were ported over but their recharge rate was ignored causing yoyo healing.

And that's just looks. Some people might just cut races and classes and monster and spells from the game they don't like as the IP holder. People are not above that.