D&D 5E Don't Throw 5e Away Because of Hasbro

[Clint_L]

Sure. I wish that Chaosium didn't celebrate Lovecraft so much - devoting chapters in their RPG core rules to how influential and awesome he is. (In fact, I think they've largely moved past needing Lovecraft at all in their game.)
That said, it doesn't prevent me from buying the books. But if Lovecraft were still alive and the CEO of Chaosium, I wouldn't want to buy Call of Cthulhu products.

Side note: To give Chaosium their due, I just picked up the newest CoC Starter Kit and it actually begins with a long explanation of why Lovecraft is so problematic, and why they love the world he created but completely reject his horrible beliefs.

I'm also currently reading a Lovecraftian novel by Victor Lasalle. Who is Black. You can be a fan of Lovecraftian cosmic horror without wanting anything to do with his detestable personal beliefs.

 

[Minigiant]

Because of the one big company at the top.

Not the big company.
A big company.

You need a big corp dumping money into the industry to create what we have. Someone has to be the big evil corp WOTC, TSR, or even Paizo or KP.

So don't take the corporate greed personally.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Not the big company.
A big company.

You need a big corp dumping money into the industry to create what we have. Someone has to be the big evil corp WOTC, TSR, or even Paizo or KP.

So don't take the corporate greed personally.

We don't actually need them. They want us to think they need them so we keep giving them money, lay back and don't hold them accountable ever again.

 

[Art Waring]

Not the big company.
A big company.

You need a big corp dumping money into the industry to create what we have. Someone has to be the big evil corp WOTC, TSR, or even Paizo or KP.

So don't take the corporate greed personally.

I seem to remember back in the 90's that TSR was in decline (before wotc bought dnd), and other ttrpg's were doing just fine. In fact, without TSR at the head of the pack, it gave a lot of other games room to breathe and grow.

Cyberpunk 2020, Underground, Shadowrun, Paranoia, Rifts, VtM, WoD stuff, Call of Cthulhu, all of these games had a greater chance to shine, and I would regularly see a variety of games being played at the LGS, not just dnd.

In fact, at the time, dnd was in a steep decline amongst players in my area too (the midwest), and the industry didn't just disappear overnight.

If dnd died then and there, the hobby would 100% still be here.

We don't need any big corps in the industry, we were doing just fine without them, and we will do just fine long after they have packed up their bags in search of the next great cash grab gig in the sky.

 

[Minigiant]

We don't actually need them. They want us to think they need them so we keep giving them money, lay back and don't hold them accountable ever again.

We don't need them.

We just need someone or someones to inject tens of millions into the industry. And we need keep spending ourselves.

In fact, if we abandon Hasbro we need to spend more. Because no one else is prepared to takeover WOTC'S mantle and mega corps have the capitol and market trust to spend more egregiously.

Or else D&D and all other RPGs in its sphere contract back into its late 90s state.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Side note: To give Chaosium their due, I just picked up the newest CoC Starter Kit and it actually begins with a long explanation of why Lovecraft is so problematic, and why they love the world he created but completely reject his horrible beliefs.

I'm also currently reading a Lovecraftian novel by Victor Lasalle. Who is Black. You can be a fan of Lovecraftian cosmic horror without wanting anything to do with his detestable personal beliefs.

I think you could tie into the mythos while staying clear of HPL's direct stuff too, like Laundry Files, which never really references it, yet is clearly mythos. CoC is a bit stuck there however given its own legacy. It's clearly no walk in the park anyway.

 

[SakanaSensei]

We don't need them.

We just need someone or someones to inject tens of millions into the industry. And we need keep spending ourselves.

In fact, if we abandon Hasbro we need to spend more. Because no one else is prepared to takeover WOTC'S mantle and mega corps have the capitol and market trust to spend more egregiously.

Or else D&D and all other RPGs in its sphere contract back into its late 90s state.

You only NEED this if somehow your enjoyment of the game is directly related to a player base so big that you couldn’t ever meet all of those people given a neat line and a 5 second handshake per person. As Mike said in his video on this recently, you only NEED 4-5 people willing to play a game with you.

 

[Minigiant]

I seem to remember back in the 90's that TSR was in decline (before wotc bought dnd), and other ttrpg's were doing just fine. In fact, without TSR at the head of the pack, it gave a lot of other games room to breathe and grow.

Cyberpunk 2020, Underground, Shadowrun, Paranoia, Rifts, VtM, WoD stuff, Call of Cthulhu, all of these games had a greater chance to shine, and I would regularly see a variety of games being played at the LGS, not just dnd.

In fact, at the time, dnd was in a steep decline amongst players in my area too (the midwest), and the industry didn't just disappear overnight.

If dnd died then and there, the hobby would 100% still be here.

We don't need any big corps in the industry, we were doing just fine without them, and we will do just fine long after they have packed up their bags in search of the next great cash grab gig in the sky.

I'm not saying RPGs would die.

I'm saying someone has to keep flooding the Internet and stores with ads, business partnerships, and doing the mass community engagement or the fanbase will shrink as incoming fans will slow.

And if that happens, the third parties and independent creators will slow down drastically as the revenue will likely shrink. The profit of some products are not great.

So if we abandon Hasbro, we have to embrace someone else. Or all this shrinks.

And we must not be shocked if the new chosen one or ones turn into monsters as well.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If you love 5e, as I do, don’t throw it out just because you’re mad at one company publishing material for it. 5e is ours and I personally think it’s awesome. You’re not hurting anyone or supporting the wrong group by buing products for it, running it, and playing it.

This is a pretty fragile argument.

It's true right now that buying 5E "isn't hurting anyone", but if Hasbro/WotC had gone ahead with the OGL 2.0 insanity, you wouldn't have been able to make that argument. It's sadly reasonably likely that Hasbro/WotC will make a decision just as bad or worse involving 5E/D&D in the next few years - probably involving the 3D VTT. If so, continuing to supply money to Hasbro/WotC (rather than merely 3PPs who made 5E material) would, in fact, be "hurting [someone]".

As someone who doesn't "love" 5E (why would I?), I think it's perfectly reasonable to think that Hasbro/WotC's handling of D&D is sufficiently poor that I'm disinclined to purchase any products for it. It's only one factor, but it is a factor, and I would argue that's an entirely legitimate and reasonable consideration.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm not saying RPGs would die.

I'm saying someone has to keep flooding the Internet and stores with ads, business partnerships, and doing the mass community engagement or the fanbase will shrink as incoming fans will slow.

And if that happens, the third parties and independent creators will slow down drastically as the revenue will likely shrink. The profit of some products are not great.

So if we abandon Hasbro, we have to embrace someone else. Or all this shrinks.

And we must not be shocked if the new chosen one or ones turn into monsters as well.

This isn't a reasonable argument, because it's not supported by history, and further, it presupposes that pure maximalism, i.e. the largest number of people playing TT RPGs, at absolutely any cost, is the best thing for the TT RPG industry, and I don't think you've made that case. If we lose 10m of the 30m people playing D&D because they're only interested in D&D, and D&D turns rubbish or whatever, or WotC just stops making it (which I think it is sadly more plausible than it should be), well, that's not a real loss to TT RPGs. FLGSes are already not being supported by D&D for the most part, as far as I know anyway.

Depending on who stops playing, shrinkage is not necessarily a particularly bad thing, to be clear - I don't mean that in an elitist way, but some people will just never be interested in another TT RPG, not because D&D is so great (it's a pretty medium-quality crunch-heavy TT RPG with currently exceptional first and third party support, rather than anything else), but because they're interested in the brand more than y'know, playing a role-playing game. If they stop being around it doesn't really impact other TT RPGs, only 5E and 3PPs who focused primarily on supporting 5E.