D&D General NFTs Are Here To Ruin Dungeons & Dragons

[Jer]

As with most attempts to use NFTs anywhere - the absolute worst part of all of this is that there's literally nothing that the NFT part of the tech here brings to bear other than the the buzzword "NFT". What they're proposing to do is:

• Have a common pencil-and-paper gameworld that everyone plays in.
• Generate 10000 random characters for that gameworld with different levels of "rarity" in their attributes (backgrounds, high stats, abilities - something).
• Sell those pre-gen PCs to folks who will play games offline (either at the table or virtually, but as traditional tabletop RPG characters)
• Have a setup where after each game people can level up their PCs and let people publicly see their progress.
• Have a setup where people can sell their PCs to each other.

Can you identify which of those bullet points need a blockchain implementation? If you said "none of them" then you win a cookie. They could do all of those things with a centrally managed database system that would have the benefit of not having to pay a "gas tax" every time you have to update your character sheet.

Of course if they did that nobody would pay to use it because why would you? It's the magic of NFTs and their ability to mint money out of literally nothing at all that makes this even rise to the level of an underpants gnome scheme.

If it weren't for the fact that NFT protocols are all such a waste of energy it would be hilarious how terrible this idea is.

 

[darjr]

Wait, Stephen Radney-MacFarland? He's got a pretty meaty credit list in RPGs, both from Wizards and Paizo. Sad to see him involved with shady poop like this.

Yea, I’m surprised he fell for this. I used to follow him on Twitter. I was increasingly getting included in NFT garbage, thankfully that mostly evaporated when I found out about gripnr and blocked the entire company.

But folks gotta work. I get that too. It sucks that things like this take advantage.

 

[Mort]

Wait, Stephen Radney-MacFarland? He's got a pretty meaty credit list in RPGs, both from Wizards and Paizo. Sad to see him involved with shady poop like this.

Sadly, the NFT guys probably filled his head with $$$ and fast business speak. If he's not careful, by the time this is all played out - far from getting rich, he'll owe THEM money!

 

[CleverNickName]

Well, up until Elon Musk tweets about it or something. Then our entire timeline will shift, yet again, in to something even stupider than it already is.
* sigh *

Yep. And that's when they turn to page 2 of the script:
"Yeah whatever, you just don't understand how NFTs work. It's actually pretty complicated because (jargon jargon jargon COMPUTER MONEY jargon jargon). Clearly you need to do your research."
-every NFT bro, ever

Serioulsy, I've never read a single pro-NFT article that didn't automatically assume the reader was poorly informed on the subject. They always start with "clearly you know nothing" and end with "take my word for it." That sales pitch is as old as snake oil.

 

[Jer]

Yep. And that's when they turn to page 2 of the script:
"Yeah whatever, you just don't understand how NFTs work. It's actually pretty complicated because (jargon jargon jargon COMPUTER MONEY jargon jargon). Clearly you need to do your research."
-every NFT bro, ever

Every single time they start in on the part in bold all I can think of is:

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I don't advice it. A too dangerous risk to try speculate. If I am a collector I would rather physicial objetcts, for example miniatures.

 

[darjr]

Ah, makes more sense now.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Or the even more dubious game structure of "making a high level character and pretending you've advanced it through play". Because why actually play a character through those levels to sell them if you can just make up stories about their exploits and pretend like you played a game? (Bonus - you can use the same stories for a whole party of characters - make 6-8 characters at a time that way!)

Here's the weird thing about that... the NFT Character's exploits are permanently on the blockchain. You can't even take the character and pretend they got to their current level through your own made-up history. Everything they've done and will do now that they're in your hands is immutable within the Gripnr's environment.

It makes the NFT Character worse environmentally than an NFT jpeg. For the jpeg, you only write to the blockchain when it's sold to a new owner (which is incredibly close to never), not every time you use it as an avatar somewhere or show it off on social media (so other people can download it for free).

Writing to the blockchain every time the character gets treasure, levels up, defeats an enemy, or who-knows-what-else they'll record, is just a massive waste of resources. Not to mention holding that quantity of data isn't really what the blockchain is meant for.

 

[Mort]

Here's the weird thing about that... the NFT Character's exploits are permanently on the blockchain. You can't even take the character and pretend they got to their current level through your own made-up background. Everything they've done and will do now that they're in your hands is immutable within the Gripnr's environment.

It makes the NFT Character worse environmentally than an NFT jpeg. For the jpeg, you only write to the blockchain when it's sold to a new owner (which is incredibly close to never), not every time you use it as an avatar somewhere or show it off on social media (so other people can download it for free).

Writing to the blockchain every time the character gets treasure, levels up, defeats an enemy, or who-knows-what-else they'll record, is just a massive waste of resources. Not to mention holding that quantity of data isn't really what the blockchain is meant for.

Also, aside from the monetization angle (which you could add through a third party app if you were so inclined) can't D&D Beyond or (heck, microsoft onedrive or even google sheets) do EVERYTHING they're planning on charging to do?

This just seems completely unnecessary except for the added buzzwords.

 

[darjr]

Another billionaire squeezing blood from some of us stones.

It might be good for that.