WotC How much does Hasbro / WotC impact your feelings towards D&D?

[Vaalingrade]

I'm not gonna lie, if I had to choose a corporation right now to be angry at

Good News!

You don't have to! Just because someone isn't the literal, absolute worst doesn't mean we can't acknowledge that they're bad.

Which is a good thing because the past decade has been a lighting round competition to see who can claim the title of absolute worst.

 

[Voadam]

I love D&D but TSR and WotC/Hasbro have been actively interfering with my enjoyment again and again.

I loved Mayfair Games 1e Role Aids line, TSR lawsuit got them shut down and their line shelved entirely, no legal PDFs to this day.

I enjoyed the rise of fan materials in the beginning of the internet, TSR carpet bombing cease and desist actions against everyone got stuff I was enjoying taken down.

I really liked the OGL and SRD plans and was onboard from the draft SRD, but then there was the delay in the actual SRD and the removal of random stuff from the actual SRD (Carrion crawlers? Really?). Then later d20 STL shenanigans.

Then no 4e OGL and active attempts to poison pill OGL material in the original versions of the 4e GSL.

I was huge into OGL material and these kept hitting my enjoyment.

I was big in PDFs and regularly buying old D&D PDFs and WotC/Hasbro pulled all old edition PDFs from sale to attempt to get D&D players like me to not have access to stuff we wanted to incentivize us to get their new 4e stuff. And claiming it was to prevent piracy too. Also yanking PDFs of 4e so that even if interested, buying the physical books would be the only legal option.

When I joined a group playing 4e and got into it myself and enjoyed it I bought an online subscription for a year which gave me the online tools for everything published and monthly updates and all dragon and dungeon PDFs up to that point. Then one month later they changed it to no updates for online tools that I owned, just rented temporary access to stuff during my subscription, right at the time my group ditched 4e.

Then came 5e and I was decently big in 5e and OGL stuff and then there was the whole OGL fiasco threatening to cripple the whole OGL market I was using to support my 5e games.

I like a lot of D&D, but the company keeps doing stuff to directly negatively impact my enjoyment of the game.

I put down a 2 because I have continuously enjoyed D&D since I started, I have enough stuff that I could enjoy D&D for the rest of my life and have for decades regardless of the actions of the company or even if the whole industry shut down and I could never get another RPG product.

I just hate that the company actively works against my enjoyment of D&D again and again.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm a 1.

I use Twitter/X and Google daily. I don't own an Apple phone, but that's a tech preference. I'd buy their products if I liked their technology and will get one for my child. All these companies do worse things than Hasbro/WOTC, more often and with wider and more damaging harm in my view.

Life's too complex to fight every battle, so I choose mine. D&D isn't in my top 100. Being a good spouse and father takes effort. Running a business of 20 people, ensuring my employees live decently, takes effort. Being a 33-year vegetarian takes effort. Fighting for disabled rights in schools takes effort. Reducing environmental harm takes effort. The WOTC/Hasbro issue is minor, for me personally, compared to the issues I focus on. I'm not judging others who choose this fight.

I had a friend who tried to fight every battle. She purged animal products and animal-tested items, reduced her carbon footprint, researched companies to shop ethically, volunteered for charities, and lived simply. It burned her out before her mid-30s. She had to choose her battles to live life.

The TV show "The Good Place" (which is great by the way) addressed this with the character Doug Forcett, who lived the perfect life, and it wasn't enough.

Those fighting this battle are likely selective too. You have to be. So know I am not thinking less of you for choosing this fight. I know you probably made sacrifices to fight this battle you chose, and I respect that.

For me, D&D is a safe space to gather energy and gain endurance for the fights I choose. It's something which refreshes my spirit. That's why It's irritating to me when people imply or say my not choosing to join them in this battle makes me bad, and judge me for not making this choice. They're unintentionally sapping what gives me strength for other fights I deem most important in my life. And that's not something I'd do to them.

 

[Greg Benage]

I voted "1," but that may be a little unfair. Wizards as an organization has unquestionably been a better steward of D&D than TSR was for most of its existence. If you set aside how we got here, the state of the game/IP is remarkable. My only enduring complaint is that I feel like with the resources they still have, they could definitely improve the product quality. I think their product development processes are...somewhat less effective than they could be.

 

[Velderan]

I voted a 1.

The OGL was the only thing they've done that got me to seriously reconsider my spending habits and they ended up landing somewhere I was content with at the end of that saga. Aside from that, as others have mentioned they're pretty much an average corporation. My current lack of interest in playing 5e has more to do with their design choices making a game I don't enjoy running (though I do have fun as a player), but I will be following the release of the 2024 books to see if the updates end up addressing my gripes so who knows!

 

[MichaelSomething]

If you're looking for a morally righteous TTRPG to support, look no further than EnPublishing! Run by our very own Morrus! He never paid goons to go after someone! He never tried to steal another person's IP! He never violated the Geneva Convention!

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Good News!

You don't have to! Just because someone isn't the literal, absolute worst doesn't mean we can't acknowledge that they're bad.

Which is a good thing because the past decade has been a lighting round competition to see who can claim the title of absolute worst.

This thread is not about acknowledging feelings, it's about if what Hasbro does impacts your relationship to D&D.

And if naughty word practices and corporate greed would impact my enjoyment of D&D I'd have to stop playing REALLY early. Like, once the cash came in at TSR and people started thinking "what is our legal department doing all day, anyway".

Also, I've never seen that the forum autocensors words. "Naught word practices" is something I could use in a presentation tomorrow, hope Morrus don't sue.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

For me it impacts my view of D&D, but not so much that it's Hasbro specifically. It's more that the brand is handled by a very large corporation where profit and massive sales are in focus rather than the game itself. The game doesn't have to be better than enough to generate profit that satisfy shareholders.

And that's why I don't play D&D anymore, instead choosing games where the producer care about and are involved in the game for more than just naked profit, which is reflected - imho - in the quality and development directions of products I buy and play.

 

[TheSword]

For me it impacts my view of D&D, but not so much that it's Hasbro specifically. It's more that the brand is handled by a very large corporation where profit and massive sales are in focus rather than the game itself. The game doesn't have to be better than enough to generate profit that satisfy shareholders.

And that's why I don't play D&D anymore, instead choosing games where the producer care about and are involved in the game for more than just naked profit, which is reflected - imho - in the quality and development directions of products I buy and play.

It’s possible to aim for both. Developing a good product that beats its competitors and make some schmeckles doing it.

I often see that product-that-I-don’t-like gets equated with bad-product. I don’t buy that.

Folks should go and pick a selection of D&D adventure products from the early 1980s and see if what you get now is better value for money. On the basis that £10 then is around £40 now. Interestingly I pre-ordered my PHB for £32. How good a product would £7.50 have got me in the early 1980’s? Rose tinted spectacles all round.

Instead of using a comparative standard to judge WotC products, we use the What-I-Can-Find-Wrong-With-The-Assistance-Of-The-Entire-Internet-Using-Gaming-Comunity Standard. Which is notoriously judgemental and picky. If the same standard was applied to any product it would be found wanting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

For me it impacts my view of D&D, but not so much that it's Hasbro specifically. It's more that the brand is handled by a very large corporation where profit and massive sales are in focus rather than the game itself. The game doesn't have to be better than enough to generate profit that satisfy shareholders.

And that's why I don't play D&D anymore, instead choosing games where the producer care about and are involved in the game for more than just naked profit, which is reflected - imho - in the quality and development directions of products I buy and play.

That encapsulates my feelings about current D&D and the company that makes it very well.