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

[BrokenTwin]

I'm torn, because in theory blockchain tech is fascinating, and I WANT it to have interesting application.
In practice, I have yet to see any application of blockchain tech that doesn't cause more problems then it solves.

The idea of an immutable ledger documenting the growth of my character is intriguing and fun. I could honestly imagine that there's probably at least a few people at this company that genuinely believe the product they're developing would provide actual value to their potential customer base. The promise of the blockchain in this application is authenticity, something that a simple database can't provide (since, in theory, any part of it can be edited at any time).

But... its akin to having a digital representation of the hours socially unaware people spend telling stories of their character's exploits to other people. Nobody cares what badass things your 20th level paladin got up to, because the rules are made up and the points don't matter.

Its a vanity product, which I don't mind in and of itself (I love me some commissioned character art and dice made of fancy materials), but the environmental impact and inherently predatory nature of NFTs means I can't support this project. Which is in a way a shame, because I do think that at least a portion of the people working on this genuinely believe that they're offering a product that provides value to their customer base.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Don't pretend I actually suggested that they are equivalent.

You tried to capitalize upon the legitimacy of #MeToo to lend legitimacy to your attempt to shut down an employee sharing their side of the story. I strongly believe that such frivolous and careless capitalization harms legitimate movements like #MeToo.

I never claimed that you suggested they were equivalent. Rather, it was a call for you (and others) to have a little perspective. What was said in the defense of this business was in no way, shape, or form like those who defended the indefensible.

 

[Vaalingrade]

We are wasting valuable time fighting among ourselves that could be much better spent pushing back against NFTs in our space.

 

[CleverNickName]

We are wasting valuable time fighting among ourselves that could be much better spent pushing back against NFTs in our space.

I think we can all agree on this.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Fine. They're a pyramid scheme.

Nope. It's not.

It's a system that requires more people to put money in so that anyone can get money out. When new investors stop, everyone loses everything.

That's true of a lot of lot of companies with actual products. If you have an IPO for your technology company and nobody buys shares, you're screwed.

It's true of gold, too. And diamonds. And fine art. And old comic books. And empty lots in Palo Alto (if such a thing existed).

Things are worth what people will pay for them.

Bernie Madoff was in jail for the exact same type of scheme.

No, his was a Ponzi scheme. It was not exactly the same.

Crypto fails at being a currency (7k transactions/second vs. Visa's 4 something million, not to mention gas fees in the hundreds of dollars), has no intrinsic value and the creator of NFTs declared them not fit for purpose when he realized you couldn't actually encode everything into the token.

It's a scam, a grift, a way to separate desperate people from their money in the hopes of getting rich.

Look, I agree that it's a house of cards and there's no intrinsic value to the actual currencies*, but that doesn't make it a ponzi scheme, or a pyramid, or even a scam. It would be a scam if, for example, the claims about the underlying technology were false, and more BitCoins could be created by BitCoin's mysterious founder. Or the Illuminati. Or Q. Or whoever. But that is provably not the case.

*I do think there is potential value in the technologies that enable BC, however.

 

[darjr]

 

[Fifth Element]

I never claimed that you suggested they were equivalent. Rather, it was a call for you (and others) to have a little perspective. What was said in the defense of this business was in no way, shape, or form like those who defended the indefensible.

It's directly analogous. Party A does bad thing, Party B, who only deals with Party A in a limited respect, defends Party A because Party A has always been nice to them. Party B has never seen the bad behaviour, because it's not within the purview of their relationship with Party A. Very common human foible. Party B should realize that their perspective is limited, and as such stepping in to defend someone when you don't have all the information is itself potentially quite harmful.

 

[Fifth Element]

Look, I agree that it's a house of cards and there's no intrinsic value to the actual currencies*, but that doesn't make it a ponzi scheme, or a pyramid, or even a scam. It would be a scam if, for example, the claims about the underlying technology were false, and more BitCoins could be created by BitCoin's mysterious founder. Or the Illuminati. Or Q. Or whoever. But that is provably not the case.

I think you're being too narrow in your use of certain terms, especially scam. You can be 100% truthful about the technology and still be scamming people, by misleading them about the implications of the technology or by manipulating the market with sham transactions, for example.

 

[Mecheon]

I'm.... Very confused why they're doing any sort of comparison to DTRPG to begin with?

Like, DTRPG has its issues, we all know that, but, they're not even in the same market as them? Their competitors are Roll20 or the like, services where you can play the game with just, anyone. DTRPG, the site that what sells RPG books you can buy, isn't exactly known for being in the market of VTTs

This is like a new football league going after a publisher who only produces sports-themed books.

Like, heck, in their position I'd be going along the lines of "Buy into our system with players you can trust", "Have stories that'll end up on r/rpghorrorstories be a thing of the past!". You're trying to sell the experience of buying into this thing and they don't even know who their competitors are?

This is going to crash and burn

Look, I agree that it's a house of cards and there's no intrinsic value to the actual currencies*, but that doesn't make it a ponzi scheme, or a pyramid, or even a scam. It would be a scam if, for example, the claims about the underlying technology were false, and more BitCoins could be created by BitCoin's mysterious founder. Or the Illuminati. Or Q. Or whoever. But that is provably not the case.

Its a bigger fool scheme. The point of it is to get people to buy into the ecosystem so people already in the ecosystem can cash out. That's all this is, just another way on this. It adds nothing, it just makes pre-existing stuff more complicated, and all its there to do is to make the people at the top richer.

 

[giant.robot]

The promise of the blockchain in this application is authenticity, something that a simple database can't provide (since, in theory, any part of it can be edited at any time).

Authenticity can easily be had with a cryptographic signature, no blockchain needed. If you wanted to make a digital version of the RPGA where a participant in an event was authenticated, they can have their character "signed" by the GM at the conclusion of the event. The GM's signature can be signed by the organized play organization.

So a player can have a full chain of signatures verifying they participated in an event. If their entry was edited after the fact it would need to be re-signed and counter signed. The digital character sheet can be used in subsequent events and get signatures from those.

This is all boring stuff done a million times a minute on the Internet when people access an SSL/TLS site. Your phone can do the operations in a millionth of a second. There's no blockchain needed.