D&D General Bob World Builder Recreates WOTC's "Do You Like Me?" Survey!

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My dream: Maybe one day it tanks enough to get licensed to a third party who cares about customers.

Given how well it's been doing, for how long it's been doing, and that Hasbro is holding onto licenses that have done little to nothing for it in decades -- how much money is Pound Puppies making Hasbro at the moment? -- I think you're going to be waiting for a very long time.

That said, we are spoiled for choice for RPGs, especially fantasy RPGs nowadays. Lots of great alternatives out there, of every possible flavor.

 

[Iosue]

I'm a bit late to this thread, but they really haven't done anything since the OGL debacle to rebuild trust. The shattered the trust we had with the OGL decision and putting it into creative commons after the uproar was more self-defense that trust building. Yes they went an extra step, but that extra step isn't enough to build trust with us.

They haven't bothered in the time since the OGL to rebuild trust. They didn't release the past editions into CC and are making us wait until 2025 sometime at the earliest. And they have made other minor missteps like they did by shutting down the Youtubers who have been posting snippets of the PHB. Rather than just be honest with them and say something like, "We really want it to be a surprise for our customers," they lied and told them a BS reason like, "We don't want someone to pull off each page of the PHB and create their own product." That's not a huge deal, but it's still a misstep when they should have been trying to rebuild trust this entire time.

The YouTubers they contacted did not just post snippets of the PHB. They posted full-page shots of dozens of pages at best, and the creator who set off the whole WotC reaction posted the entire PHB.

Nor did WotC ever say to anyone that it was to prevent people compiling screenshots for piracy. That was conjecture by fans based on the fact that it actually happened.

All WotC has said is that showing full page shots of multiple pages exceeded fair use. That’s all they need to say. They don’t have to provide a reason for enforcing their copyright.

 

[Maxperson]

The YouTubers they contacted did not just post snippets of the PHB. They posted full-page shots of dozens of pages at best, and the creator who set off the whole WotC reaction posted the entire PHB.

Nor did WotC ever say to anyone that it was to prevent people compiling screenshots for piracy. That was conjecture by fans based on the fact that it actually happened.

All WotC has said is that showing full page shots of multiple pages exceeded fair use. That’s all they need to say. They don’t have to provide a reason for enforcing their copyright.

"Mike Shea, aka Sly Flourish, also posted a walkthrough of the Player's Handbook. While he didn't receive a copyright takedown action, after an email from WotC he has blurred out all the page images. "Note, I blurred out pictures of the book after Hasbro sent me an email saying they worried people would take screenshots of the book and build their own. Yes, it's complete b******t, but we must all do our part to ensure four billion dollar companies maximize shareholder value.""

D&D (2024) - D&D Player's Handbook Video Redactions & Takedowns

There's a lot of YouTube videos looking at the brand new Player's Handbook right now, and some of them include the YouTuber in question flipping through the new book on screen. A couple of those video creators have been asked by WotC to redact some of the content of their videos, with one...

www.enworld.org

Yes. Yes they did.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Nor did WotC ever say to anyone that it was to prevent people compiling screenshots for piracy. That was conjecture by fans based on the fact that it actually happened.

All WotC has said is that showing full page shots of multiple pages exceeded fair use. That’s all they need to say. They don’t have to provide a reason for enforcing their copyright.

That’s not true. They explicitly told me it was because they were worried someone would screenshot it and stitch together a book. It seemed ridiculous but I guess someone did it which sucks. But the better way to combat that would be to put up their own pdf for sale. They’d rather choose to alienate fans and supporters than provide a product people want.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Yeah. A few things on that list would likely have been done anyway and mean profit for the company. Some of it was nice and I wasn't aware of those things. I disagree that it was a lot done to foster good will, but at least there was some stuff done.

Just because it means profit for the company doesn’t make it not valuable to us. Supporting multiple VTTs is beneficial to both us and them.

My point is, saying they’ve done nothing is inaccurate.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Or at least, we won't have "everything" in print (there will certainly be attempts to have exclusive species, classes, etc, on DND Beyond).

I argue we don’t need all that stuff. Nothing prevents us or other publishers from filling in any gaps we want. Outside of the core books and the SRDs, they’re free to put whatever exclusive stuff up on beyond they want. And we can make anything we want. They’re not in the way.

We don’t need their exclusive monsters. We don’t need their exclusive adventures. We have thousands of both available elsewhere.

 

[KYRON45]

The casual gamer has no idea any of this is going on. The casual gamer doesn't care. Most people; ie. the general gaming public think that ALL RPGs are D&D. Casual gamers don't know about 3pp's because they don't follow the insider news streams.

Profits are a red herring. The company is going to make money no matter what happens because of the X millions of books sold; only a small percentage of those customers are here discussing what silly thing the evil corporate overlords are up to. Every time an angry forum poster declares their hatred for WOTC some 12 year old convinces their mom in Walmart or Target to buy them the PHB and then they gets 5 of his friends to pick up PHBs and the cycle continues. These kids are going to have fun for years before they realise there is a quagmire of loathing and hatred for WOTC.

Thank you to Mr.Flourish for pointing out that not every action WOTC takes is them squishing the life out of their own community. It's to no avail though because of the cynical nature of the fan base. If there was an article titled "Wotc gave every puppy in the world free peanut butter" someone would trash WOTC for supporting the pro-nut allergy lobby.

Is anyone having any fun with this game anymore?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Is anyone having any fun with this game anymore?

Of course they are. They're just doing it in the privacy of their own homes. But no one is going to come onto a message board such as this and just say "Everything's good!" People need things to argue about, because that's the only thing to really do when you're here-- make a statement, wait for response, respond in turn. If you don't have that, why else hang around?

 

[mamba]

And I would assume you would have the same feeling if I put a handcam recorded copy of Deadpool and Wolverine on my YouTube channel and Disney cracked down on me? I mean, an 4k quality version will be on the web in a few months, so why come crashing down on their fans?

personally I would not bother watching this, and I doubt it has much of an impact on ticket sales either… probably more than for the PHB though, as you watch the movie once and do so while it is new

 

[mamba]

Committed to releasing the 2024 D&D rules in the 5.2 SRD in February 2025.

first time I am hearing February, so far I knew of sometime in 2025