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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 9393174" data-attributes="member: 2067">This kind of thought process always makes me a little sad. One of the virtues of an actual book is that other people can use it. "I have paid my money and gotten my use," sure, but your friends? Your family? How many of us found D&D by poking around bookshelves or learning at the table with an older relative or friend?It's kind of tragic that the only utility we imagine a product having for us is its immediate, personal utility for us. When I'm rotting in a grave, I hope my children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews can still know the delight of playing D&D, ideally without having to pay $20/month for it. I'm of a generation that knows that the future is no guarantee of progress or access. And if someone's ancestor becomes a developer for D&D or wants to make a TTRPG, I'd want them to have access to the history of the thing, to know what's tried and what's failed and what's succeeded.I keep thinking of how hard it is for people to find 4e games, and how tethered 4e was to the online compendium and character builder, of how quickly that whole span of the game has been largely memory-holed because of its high reliance on online tools. 5e is faring better, I think, but it's still at risk, and the more we rely on subscriptions to online platforms, the bigger that risk is, the more fragile and niche the experience is.It's a valid perspective (after all, the function of D&D today is for us, specifically, to play it), it just feels a little myopic to me, and it makes me think about the next generation, and the generation after that, the legacy I'll leave and the things that are important to multiple generations of folks.FWIW, I don't have much of a problem with a pre-order with early access or digital fobs. I don't think those things, specifically, are much other than bells and whistles for the consumers that are already committed fans or that are susceptible to the shiny things. And I'm OK with D&D trying to make more money where it can - the more it can make, the longer 6e will hold off. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> But I am suspicious about the game hard turning into a subscription model or leaning too hard on online tools.This resonates with me. Getting a TTRPG game up and running is hard work, and if you put in the work, it's pretty easy to run without buying more product.Video games are easy to get up and running, and it's hard to continually game without buying more games (even 130 hours of content gets used up eventually). TTRPG players need publishers a lot less than video game players need publishers.</blockquote>

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