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In the nineties TSR was known in some circles as T$R for their reputation for issuing C&D letters or suing people at the drop of a hat. In 2003 WotC released 3.5 with little warning, causing the D20 bubble to burst, costing 3PPs and FLGSs a fortune. When they released 4ed they first delayed the...

Or they asked, and either didn’t believe the response, or didn’t think it was all that important. Big brands crush small competitors all the time, or engage in immoral conduct that generates customer outrage… and then a week or two later it’s forgotten. The WotC execs probably thought the same...

No, I don’t find it hard to explain at all. They thought they could get away with it because they thought only a handful of customers would notice or care.

I suspect they see those people pouring all their efforts into non-DnD products as preferable to them poring those efforts into 6e (or worse, 5e!) material. It comes back to the “under monetisation” comment. WotC see a lot more potential for profit in the DnD brand. But they also see a lot of...

There was another factor in this case too: David Kenzer was a lawyer, one with a familiarity with trademark/IP law. Most RPG companies have to pay a lot of money for the kind of knowledge he provides for free.

Even that is risky, as WotC can change the terms with just 30 days notice. Imagine you’re preparing to release your new product, anticipating 500k or so in sales, when WotC changes the OGL again and renders your product entirely non-viable. You’ve already paid for art, writing, layout etc. All...

Questions were already being raised as to whether 6e was going to be OGL or not. And 3PPs need to know now whether or not they will be able to produce 6e products. If WotC didn’t contact the 3PPs now, they would have started getting increasingly vocal about it. People would begin to wonder if...

That’s unlikely to be much of a problem. While a handful of people will complain that a new edition is a cash grab, they’re usually a small minority. Even the negative reaction to 4th wasn’t because it was seen as a cash grab, it was because it “wasn’t DnD”. I think they decided to do this...

Plus - 5e will be 10 years old by 2024. That’s quite a long time for a DnD edition. They’ve already released all of the more popular “must buy” books. They’ve even on to some of the niche settings like Spelljammer. They need a new edition to get people buying a new set of PHBs and MMs and player...

You go along with pretending the OGL is killed because the 800 pound gorilla says he killed it and you don’t want to make him angry.

I don’t think 2 would have been the likely outcome. I think it would have been: WotC shares the draft of 1.1 and says, "Here's the new license but you can still use 1.0a if you want." Third parties say, “This sucks” and leak the document, leading to public backlash against WotC.

I think so, yes. Necromunda is a fan favourite, and recently had a (poorly received) computer game. The forthcoming Darktide game has you play pretty low level thugs. The highly popular Dark Heresy RPG was about playing lowly Inquisitorial acolytes (though in standard zero to hero style you...

The rules matter. Whether the GM obeys them or not doesn’t. Certainly if it bothers you, you can talk to your GM about it. And they’ll either agree with you, or they won’t — at which point you can continue playing with them, or stop. But a GM deciding to ignore the rules can still be a great...

The other choice you have is to not play the game. If you don’t like what the GM is doing, don’t play with that GM. That's your recourse. I’ve been in plenty of games where the GM has broken the rules. It never had any bearing on whether the game was fun or not. Conversely I had a GM who was...

Yeah, “conservative fear of change” is nonsense. It’s just a non-argument used to dismiss the real concerns people have about NFTs. The problems NFTs present have been thoroughly explained (repeatedly) in this thread. Responding with “gamers really don’t like new things” is just a distraction...

First of all, you are, because you were overcharged for your artwork. You paid a premium because your artwork was an NFT. It’d be like someone charging you double for your limited edition book because they included a receipt written in neon green ink. You may still be happy with your purchase...

The answer to “why would anyone spend money on NFTs” is “because they were scammed”. It’s basically a variation on the “pump and dump”, as someone mentioned above, combined with a pyramid scheme. You hype up a worthless product, sell it at an inflated price, then get out before the market crashes.

Just heard about this. Very disappointed. Won’t be purchasing Chaosium products again.

I’ve seen it, though never been subject to it myself (I’m usually the GM). Most notably in a few DnD 3.X games. In one game I joined briefly one of the other players created what he thought was a funny character concept, but which resulted in his character being absolutely useless at the table...

Yeah, there’s plenty of people playing it face to face. There’s just been an uptick of online play due to covid.