WotC New D&D survey from WotC as part of the 50th anniversary year.

[Reynard]

Giving us the 3.x SRDs now on CC would be cool.

Lol.

 

[mamba]

Maybe they seen enworlds poll about who was going to buy 5e2024

you beat me to it

 

[DrJawaPhD]

That's a good point. Recommending LevelUP5E or something from Kobold Press probably counts as recommending a "D&D" product that isn't a WoTC product.

The two questions were completely separate. The first recommendation question was about whether you would recommend the game of D&D to others, not about D&D Products. Then the second question was about WotC products which does include products for D&D but also others like MtG.

I recommend the game of D&D all the time, but would not recommend any D&D products. You can very easily play D&D without ever spending a dime on any product. All you need to play the game of D&D is knowledge of the rules (which are available for free) and your imagination (again free, although buy D&D products can help).

 

[Yaarel]

I love the game, and the direction it is going. It is probably coming down from a "covid high". But I suspect D&D continues to increase in popularity overall.


There is nothing "neutral" about my feelings about WotC. But my feelings are complex.

I feel positive toward the designers and toward how WotC supports the designers decisions.

I deeply appreciate WotC putting together the D&D movie, and I hope other shows pull thru.

The layoffs are concerning, and possibly suggest an exploitative work environment. I hope WotC addresses this concern.

The loss of Mearls, a major designer for 5e, is concerning.

The ap-OGL-ypse was deeply disturbing, but ultimately WotC did the right thing with a new appreciation for the OGL business strategy.

Complex.

 

[Parmandur]

I love the game, and the direction it is going. It is probably coming down from a "covid high". But I suspect D&D continues to increase in popularity overall.


There is nothing "neutral" about my feelings about WotC. But my feelings are complex.

I feel positive toward the designers and toward how WotC supports the designers decisions.

I deeply appreciate WotC putting together the D&D movie, and I hope other shows pull thru.

The layoffs are concerning, and possibly suggest an exploitative work environment. I hope WotC addresses this concern.

The loss of Mearls, a major designer for 5e, is concerning.

The ap-OGL-ypse was deeply disturbing, but ultimately WotC did the right thing with a new appreciation for the OGL business strategy.

Complex.

See, in my book that balances out to "neutral
"

 

[Yaarel]

See, in my book that balances out to "neutral"

I view "neutral" as homogeneous.

For me, "mixed" is a more honest assessment. A volatile mix.

In any case, because I didnt feel "neutral", I answered, "I like this company", which is honest enough on balance.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Intimidation isn't illegal, they weren't threatening to break his kneecaps or anything.

I would not definitely not say "intimidation isn't illegal", because it very frequently is, albeit the US tends to allow a great deal more than most developed countries (including the UK). This particular form of intimidation skirts the law by being implication-based and relying on semi-legal threats (often fanciful but the people they're being directed at rarely know that) rather than involving illegal verbal threats or the like, but by engaging in it, you're getting into very murky waters that risk significant reputational damage. I would suggest that potential for reputational damage - which people will long remember because it's sensational - continues to mean that it is always a bad idea if your company having a positive reputation matters (which is not the case for some business, but very much is for WotC). WotC indeed suffered reputational damage in this case - but it was small compared to what it could have been had the person involved not been pretty amenable.

I think the bigger issue it illustrates is a general lack of coherency of thinking, foresight and real care for WotC's reputation and brands in WotC's corporate layers (rather than say, within the D&D or MtG teams). WotC are B2C not B2B and I feel like they sometimes forget that. Or forget that the C (customers) exist at all or even have volition (again talking WotC corporate, not the actual D&D team - but the former overrule the latter). It's that lack of real consideration of their own brand that has lead to it being so damaged that, really at best people are putting "neutral" on WotC, despite having two extremely widely enjoyed and successful game lines (D&D and MtG).

I suspect the heavy Microsoft influence here is part of the issue - Microsoft's culture is one of "You will buy our products regardless, so we will simply do as we wish and you will comply", and that's getting stronger, not weaker. Anyone who has to work with them in IT will have seen that, more almost any company, they simply make changes or major decisions and then expect you to deal with them, often with limited or poor support. This impacts individual customers too - Windows 10 and 11 are far worse for people with dyslexia, ADHD and a number of other conditions than earlier versions, because Microsoft simply decided to prevent you from being able to selectively change background and text colours in Windows, and indeed stopped a lot of coloured overlay software from working at all (or forcing it to operate in ways that made it be far less beneficial). The reason they did this was strictly visual branding based - they wanted to prevent users from making Windows look "bad" by customizing it in ugly ways (this was outright stated). They did actually respond when multiple dyslexia organisations criticised them - they were extremely high-handed and stated that because their built-in screen-reader (i.e. text to speech) worked better in Win 10/11, people with dyslexia have to use that, rather than re-colouring stuff, even though that's obviously serving a completely different role, and completely impractical. Oh well, I guess there's still taping a bit of coloured transparent plastic to your screen. Microsoft do change course sometimes, but only when there's massive backlash, and they're always shocked pikachu about it, no matter how obvious it was.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The problem is almost all of them are popular, which is why they keep having to bring them back. Its why if they are killing Gods they should be new ones or those deaths are reversed by the end of the story.

Absolutely!

I am still mad from when they killed off Liera, who I think even most FR DMs often forgot existed, and even more annoyed about them killing off Mask, though both seem to be back in 5E. And I'm not even a huge FR fan!

I have no doubt in my mind that the people in charge of D&D are going to enshittify it in order to get bonuses and reward stock holders.

I think the 3D VTT, with its 250 employees, indicating a wildly outsized investment compared to D&D generally, is basically the project that WotC intends to do that to D&D, and turn it from this weakly-monetized deal where you have to keep printing large amounts of new books, and selling them at a tiny mark-up compared to MtG cards or the like, into a digital-focused subscription and MTX-driven powerhouse.

I mean, could there be a more clear statement of intent than hiring a guy from Microsoft who has zero experience with any kind of games, but whose main CV item is that he successfully lead campaigns to convert MS customers from purchasing actual individual products, to subscribing to digital services, and putting this guy in charge of D&D, whilst removing the previous guy, who had significant corporate and RPG dev/design experience (and under whom, D&D had been doing great!)?

I don't think there could be.

That shouldn't be read as "DOOOOOOOOOOM!", because personally, I think the 3D VTT is going to be an absolute flop relative to the investment, and I don't think the D&D playerbase will be "converted to digital subscribers", for the most part. But the intent seems very clear. It's not like D&D was doing badly under Ray Winninger. Quite the opposite. So replacing him with "Mr Subscription" is quite significant. Worth noting too that, unless I'm very mistaken, all the major mistakes WotC has made with D&D have been on Mr Subscription's watch, too.

 

[mamba]

I would not definitely not say "intimidation isn't illegal", because it very frequently is, albeit the US tends to allow a great deal more than most developed countries (including the UK).

I agree, they guy did not sound intimidated by their visit in the least however, he even said he wasn’t I believe, his wife however dis feel that way. I don’t think they did more than tell him what the consequences of not cooperating would be

WotC indeed suffered reputational damage in this case - but it was small compared to what it could have been had the person involved not been pretty amenable.

if he had been pretty amenable the visit would not have been necessary and he would have cooperated when WotC contacted him. To me that is entirely on him

I think the bigger issue it illustrates is a general lack of coherency of thinking, foresight and real care for WotC's reputation and brands in WotC's corporate layers (rather than say, within the D&D or MtG teams). WotC are B2C not B2B and I feel like they sometimes forget that. Or forget that the C (customers) exist at all or even have volition (again talking WotC corporate, not the actual D&D team - but the former overrule the latter). It's that lack of real consideration of their own brand that has lead to it being so damaged that, really at best people are putting "neutral" on WotC, despite having two extremely widely enjoyed and successful game lines (D&D and MtG).

no idea what people put at best, I put negative because of the OGL thing and the recent firings, all the other stuff some youtubers are outraged about made no difference to me.

WotC dug a deep hole with those ones and releasing the SRD under CC does not get them out completely. Let’s see what we get for the 2024 SRD first and what happens with the 3e SRD.

If they have no more screwups, then that might get them back out of it.

 

[Meech17]

The two questions were completely separate. The first recommendation question was about whether you would recommend the game of D&D to others, not about D&D Products. Then the second question was about WotC products which does include products for D&D but also others like MtG.

I recommend the game of D&D all the time, but would not recommend any D&D products. You can very easily play D&D without ever spending a dime on any product. All you need to play the game of D&D is knowledge of the rules (which are available for free) and your imagination (again free, although buy D&D products can help).

I see. I misread the question it sems.