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

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yeah, just like how my purchases from Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Nestle, or Disney are tacit approval of all the behavior of the company engages in.

Amazon is a tough one for me.

I would LOVE to boycott Amazon. Unfortunately, because of certain issues involving my island lair which was modelled after Dr. No, I have to engage with them.

But they still suck.

 

[payn]

Amazon is a tough one for me.

I would LOVE to boycott Amazon. Unfortunately, because of certain issues involving my island lair which was modelled after Dr. No, I have to engage with them.

But they still suck.

And TNF… damn you Amazon

 

[Remathilis]

It's very hard to avoid Microsoft or Google if you're going to use a computer or cellphone. D&D is easier.
Just my opinion.

So it's ok to engage with a morally bad company if the alternative would inconvenience you. Got it.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

And TNF… damn you Amazon

That too. But seriously, even ignoring the terrible labor practices. And the squeezing of other companies. And the lying. And the leveraging of their position to benefit their own products. And the (insert so many issues)....

COULDN'T THEY AT LEAST USE APPROPRIATE BOXES? I swear, you order a friggin' lip balm, it comes in a box that you could put a chair into.

 

[MGibster]

Goodness. I still won't buy VW because of the whole "1940s Germany" thing.

I still avoid tea because of those damned Intolerable Acts perpetrated by the British government.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I still avoid tea because of those damned Intolerable Acts perpetrated by the British government.

I also boycott tea!

Because it's not gin.

 

[Alzrius]

I still avoid tea because of those damned Intolerable Acts perpetrated by the British government.

I avoid ever going to Liechtenstein because of their refusal to sign the Convention on International Civil Aviation. <Shakes fist>

 

[BookTenTiger]

Relationships have nothing to do with feelings.

Good to know.

But mostly, this thread appears to be about people affirming their loyalty to the concept of D&D.

It's discouraging to me to see that 65% of respondents are cool with what we've seen from WotC/Hasbro.

I think these are really disingenuous replies that honestly show very little respect for the community you are participating in.

What I see from this thread is that people feel differently. I think one can use the poll and posts to build empathy rather than reinforce stereotypes or negative bias.

I created the poll because I found myself getting upset at how much discussion about WotC was showing up in threads just about D&D. I wondered why some folks brought up issues with WotC and Hasbro over and over. This poll and discussion show that a large number of folks see their enjoyment of D&D largely impacted by WotC and Hasbro. To them, posts about rules or settings are not separate from the topic of the companies.

So even if I still get frustrated by such posts, at least now I have more of an understanding of it and can act out of empathy.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

So it's ok to engage with a morally bad company if the alternative would inconvenience you. Got it.

At what point does personal benefit out weigh a moral stand? It seems that many will only take such a stand if convenient. I wonder how many of the 4s and 5s in this poll actually play D&D? I wonder if any like it?

It's easy to take a moral stand at no cost to you. But if D&D is your favorite TTRPG, voting 4 or 5 is harder. And we see in comments in this very thread that people aren't boycotting other companies with equally bad or worse behavior. Another post even says, in essence, "Amazon would be too hard to boycott."

So this idea that there is a moral pejorative, or some greater purpose, and that it's objectionable that many wont pull that trigger, seems like a double standard. One where people will tell others to boycott a company who's products they don't value, while claiming similar companies are "too hard" to do the same.

Maybe some of those 1's would rather boycott Amazon. Maybe they'd rather boycott Apple. But because they don't have the same arbitrary moral line, they are some how wrong. No one in this thread is boycotting every company that engages in morally objectionable behavior. And they aren't because some are "too hard."

I don't know that we should demonize the choice with WotC, but ignore it with Amazon or Google, or Apple. It all seems like a weird distinction.

 

[Voadam]

Again, though, that's you. And those are perfectly valid feelings to have!

I would just say the following-

1. IMO, the vast majority of people who play D&D don't care about the company. They are more causal. The forums of enworld are definitely not representative of the overall D&D hobby.

2. Of those who follow the company, people can care about the decisions they have made in different amounts, or assign different normative values to those decisions.

3. Finally, even if people don't like the company's decisions, they might just have a different metric in terms of it impacting their purchasing decisions. For example, some people might not every buy a VW (overall brand, incl. Audi, Porsche, SEAT, etc.) because they still are angry about the lyin' diesel gate. Others might try to avoid Exxon because of the, um, Exxon-ish of it all. Some still refuse Chick-fil-a. And so on. For you, their recent actions might have crossed that line. For others, it's nowhere close. But I would say that this is more a personal decision than a moral imperative.

It's all good. I think that when we are personally invested in something, we tend to overestimate how others might perceive it. YMMV.

And the impact on purchasing is a bit of a different issue than your feelings on D&D.

For me purchasing decision is often a different issue from how Wotc's actions impact my feelings towards D&D.

For the most part I currently buy very little current WotC stuff for my playing and running 5e games as a baseline. I have a preorder on the 24 PH and that is my only purchase of 5e WotC stuff for a number of years now and my only planned purchase of WotC 5e stuff for the near term. My purchases are mostly either non-WotC 5e or non-D&D PDFs or old edition D&D PDFs that I am interested in and have not gotten yet. My purchases are more based on good deals that overlap with my interests, for the most part. I get a bunch of bundle of holding and humble bundle RPG deals as well as charity bundles and things that are on sale. I like 5e and it is my current system of choice to run RPGs but I have enough to run it so everything I get is gravy and on the value scale WotC just does not put out a lot that I want at their price points over other stuff that is available to support my 5e games.

Sometimes there is overlap or connections between WotC actions that impact my enjoyment of D&D and my purchasing habits though.

When WotC yanked the old PDF sales in the 4e era it affected my purchasing decisions as I had been buying old D&D PDFs regularly as resources for my 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e games and I switched instead to buying non-WotC OGL and non-D&D PDFs for my games. I was annoyed at having access to D&D stuff I was interested in getting cut off and I was annoyed at WotC for trying to manipulate me as a customer by making things worse for me, and I was annoyed at the insultingly bald faced illogic of claiming it was done for piracy issues.

Switching from a subscription of new online tools you own to renting access to those tools once I got into 4e also was an overlap of annoyance and WotC purchasing for me as I canceled my tools subscription when that hit.