D&D General Interview with D&D VP Jess Lanzillo on Comicbook.com

[SlyFlourish]

Disagree.

The dichotomy is between the game being an in-person social experience and a remote much-less-social experience. You can't do both at once, if for no other reason than that "in-person" and "remote" can't happen at the same time.

And any attempt to turn the former into the latter should IMO be met with the sternest possible resistance. We're becoming less and less well-socialized as a society as it is, which is bad in every way. No need to encourage the trend.

That's not true either. I have two games that are both in-person and remote. In one of them we have one player who plays remote. We play as though it's fully in person except we share a camera of what's going on if there is a map and we do voice through Discord. It works fine for him.

In another we have seven of us – six players and a GM (me). My wife and I are in the same room and one of the other couples is in the same room. We use mostly remote tools -- pretty much just Discord for that game. The players use DDB for their characters but I use a notepad app to manage initiative and track the abstract map. I use physical books and roll my real-life dice in this game. Some players do the same. Others use DDB. I'll share screenshots of a map with my players through Discord. One of my players is blind so we don't use a VTT. If I did, it would probably be Owlbear Rodeo.

So those are two hybrid examples. I think lots of different groups have lots of different ways they play without a super-clean break into just digital and just physical.

 

[SlyFlourish]

If physical books ever go away (unlikely any time in the near future, unfortunately for the environment), it'll be because consumers have made that choice, not companies. WotC is going to keep printing books for as long as there is good money to be made off it, and the suggestion that they will try to force players to go strictly digital is not supported by any evidence.

That's following a line of thought that isn't always true – the rational executive model. There are plenty of times where executives in a company made bad economic choices that went against profits because they had a moonshot project in mind.

I don't think its likely for Hasbro and WOTC to stop publishing physical books but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen because the executives want to go "all in" on digital.

In my continual push that we should ask WOTC to sell us PDFs, the common argument coming back is "why would they? They want you to buy it on D&D Beyond!". The same could be said for physical books. They may make money on physical books but, as we've discussed, it's a one-time purchase and we may never need to come back again. What if they could make more money selling us a subscription every month?

Again, I don't think it's likely that WOTC will stop publishing D&D books anytime soon but I don't think its impossible. I don't think its a simple matter of them saying "we're still making money on books so let's keep making books". They clearly want to drive us towards a subscription model. Every company wants this.

 

[SlyFlourish]

There is zero evidence that WotC is looking to create a dystopian digital experience for D&D, including (bad) microtransactions (and even good ones), and core material being moved to digital only.

They are definitely growing the digital D&D experience, but so far in a very consumer friendly way with their own products and allowing competitors to license both the current edition and classic editions.

They took away the ability to buy individual mechanics from books. That wasn't a benefit to customers, it was a limitation. Maybe you didn't use it but that doesn't matter. Lots of people did.

That's an example of them changing how the whole site works for their own business needs in a way that limits what customers could do with it. It's not hypothetical. It happened.

 

[mamba]

Sure! As long as that ecosystem is D&D Beyond.

last I checked they support Roll20, Fantasy Ground and are about to add Foundry

I think part of the problem is that executives deeply inside WOTC don't see any world outside of WOTC. They think its whole and inclusive as long as everyone is inside. I saw this when Dan Rawson, at the community summit, truly thought it was a huge benefit to the whole community to let other publishers on D&D Beyond.

it’s not like it is not a benefit, but sure, it helps WotC as well by making money and strengthening their position

I don’t doubt that they want everyone on DDB and their VTT and try to make that happen, but so far they have not made any moves to force the issue (much too early for that, the VTT is not even out yet). So I am keeping an eye on them (ever since the OGL debacle that is a given), but I don’t think I need to sound the alarm just yet.

I agree with all the rest you wrote

 

[TiQuinn]

Disagree.

The dichotomy is between the game being an in-person social experience and a remote much-less-social experience. You can't do both at once, if for no other reason than that "in-person" and "remote" can't happen at the same time.

And any attempt to turn the former into the latter should IMO be met with the sternest possible resistance. We're becoming less and less well-socialized as a society as it is, which is bad in every way. No need to encourage the trend.

But that’s you making a choice of how to play the game for other people. If the printed game is still available, why would you have issue with what the way people play?

 

[Oofta]

Disagree.

The dichotomy is between the game being an in-person social experience and a remote much-less-social experience. You can't do both at once, if for no other reason than that "in-person" and "remote" can't happen at the same time.

And any attempt to turn the former into the latter should IMO be met with the sternest possible resistance. We're becoming less and less well-socialized as a society as it is, which is bad in every way. No need to encourage the trend.

I've played in person using DDB's maps. A VTT and in person play are not mutually exclusive. It's just a preference on whether you play TotM, on a physical battle map or a digital battle map.

As far as remote play "should be resisted", I play with people at my table while simultaneously playing with people from across the country or in a different country. It's a weird mix of in-person and remote play, and I'd rather have everyone sitting at the same table but that's not always an option.

While I will extoll the virtues of playing in person, I will never tell other people how they "should" play.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Lanzillo is telling us that WotC is currently trying to support all modes of play. Fully in-person at the table, at the table with digital support, and fully digital. Which is exactly what they should be doing.

You seem to see this as some kind of generous and good-spirited move, but it's the obvious profit-maximization strategy.

The ideal scenario for WotC is that you:

A) Pay a digital subscription to them (ideally on an annual basis, because that's the most reliable, and if even miss the cancellation point, they got an entire extra year of money out of you).

B) Buy books digitally.

C) Buy microtransactions to go with your digital subscription.

D) Buy physical books, especially if they attractive and displayed openly in your home and so on, helping to promote the brand to visitors and making you spend more money.

There is zero evidence that WotC is looking to create a dystopian digital experience for D&D, including (bad) microtransactions (and even good ones), and core material being moved to digital only.

What exactly do you mean by "dystopian" here? It's an odd word choice that doesn't seem to indicate anything specific, but clearly you have something in mind.

Also, what are you talking about microtransaction-wise? They already have microtransactions on Beyond, and literally the very first announcement of the 3D VTT/Sigil discussed how they wanted to use microtransactions extremely extensively with it (a bit of honesty I appreciated, to be fair).

So that's pretty conclusive evidence that WotC do want to go pretty heavy with microtransactions. They've also been really clear that there will either be a separate or extra sub to use the 3D VTT/Sigil on top of the Beyond sub. Is that "dystopian"? I mean, it's not lootboxes, I guess there's that, but it'd be downright dumb to get into lootboxes in this legal environment, as more and more countries legislate against them or outright ban them.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I've played in person using DDB's maps. A VTT and in person play are not mutually exclusive. It's just a preference on whether you play TotM, on a physical battle map or a digital battle map.

As far as remote play "should be resisted", I play with people at my table while simultaneously playing with people from across the country or in a different country. It's a weird mix of in-person and remote play, and I'd rather have everyone sitting at the same table but that's not always an option.

While I will extoll the virtues of playing in person, I will never tell other people how they "should" play.

I completely agree (and also play/have played in various configurations involving remote and at the table players), but just looking to the future, I think there is a tension between designing a TT RPG that works well with some or all players being remote/on VTT and a TT RPG that works well at the table. I'm not saying it's impossible to do both decently, nor that D&D is leaning in either direction, but I do think it'll be worth keeping an eye on, especially after the 3D VTT/Sigil comes out, and it'll be very interesting to look at the design of 6E or 2034 or whatever in the future. There are certain design elements that disfavour a VTT somewhat, especially as a semi-automated one (which is not the current ones nor the initial design of Sigil), with Reactions being a key issue.

 

[Oofta]

You seem to see this as some kind of generous and good-spirited move, but it's the obvious profit-maximization strategy.

The ideal scenario for WotC is that you:

A) Pay a digital subscription to them (ideally on an annual basis, because that's the most reliable, and if even miss the cancellation point, they got an entire extra year of money out of you).

B) Buy books digitally.

C) Buy microtransactions to go with your digital subscription.

D) Buy physical books, especially if they attractive and displayed openly in your home and so on, helping to promote the brand to visitors and making you spend more money.


What exactly do you mean by "dystopian" here? It's an odd word choice that doesn't seem to indicate anything specific, but clearly you have something in mind.

Also, what are you talking about microtransaction-wise? They already have microtransactions on Beyond, and literally the very first announcement of the 3D VTT/Sigil discussed how they wanted to use microtransactions extremely extensively with it (a bit of honesty I appreciated, to be fair).

So that's pretty conclusive evidence that WotC do want to go pretty heavy with microtransactions. They've also been really clear that there will either be a separate or extra sub to use the 3D VTT/Sigil on top of the Beyond sub. Is that "dystopian"? I mean, it's not lootboxes, I guess there's that, but it'd be downright dumb to get into lootboxes in this legal environment, as more and more countries legislate against them or outright ban them.

Preferring that people pay a subscription and play online does not in any way mean they will stop printing books. I'd guess that 90% of the cost of a book is in rules development and basic organization, formatting and structure which needs to be done for the digital versions of the rules anyway. Preparing for the first print is probably the next biggest cost. Because of the volume they do print runs, the actual printing and shipping of the books is a small fraction of the overall cost of the book.

As far as microtransactions, so what? Some people have more dice than they can ever use. Others have a miniature addiction, even going so far as buying a 3D printer which, trust me, was not a "micro" transaction by any measure. Still others spend thousands of dollars on dwarven forge terrain. It's up to people to decide how much they want to spend on what amounts to bling.

A lot of factors and influences come into play when writing rules, and I've certainly disliked some of the rules in every edition of the game. The influence of a VTT is just one of many and a minor influence at that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

D&D Pre-orders; this is sad

From the original post:


And there were other participants in that lengthy thread making the case that WotC's secret plan was to do away with physical books within the next X years.

We've had a few folks in this thread claim that "no one is saying" WotC will stop publishing physical books, so countering that argument is setting up a "strawman to defend WotC". The thing is, people have made that exact argument, multiple times, on these very boards!

You might want to quote me properly as well, except it would undermine what you were saying:

I don't think any significant proportion of the "commentariat" (ridiculous Twitter-mindset phrase in the context) has ever suggested anything of the sort.

I've bolded it for you to make it real easy.

Nothing you've presented contradicts that position.