Gizmodo: Dungeons & Dragons Has Burned Up All the Goodwill

[Horacio]

I rather agree with most of the article, specially that all the missteps, half truths and strong-arm tactics from WotC had eroded the trust and the goodwill.

Dungeons & Dragons Has Burned Up All the Goodwill

Fans will have to fight for what they want, keep what they have, and determine when their fight will end.

gizmodo.com

 

[Mallus]

I think that's true for a lot of the Very (Mostly?) Online segment of the D&D community. But over the weekend I played with 14 people in 2 groups and the OGL fiasco came up zero times in conversation. Both campaigns are 5e. One uses a paid Beyond sub for book-sharing, the other Roll20.

 

[SAVeira]

I think that's true for a lot of the Very (Mostly?) Online segment of the D&D community. But over the weekend I played with 14 people in 2 groups and the OGL fiasco came up zero times in conversation. Both campaigns are 5e. One uses a paid Beyond sub for book-sharing, the other Roll20.

I have been saying this for awhile. There is a bit of an echo chamber, where this is getting a lot of play within the online D&D community. Elsewhere, hard to say. My players just do not care. In fact, more than one has told me that they have unfollowed or unsub a ton of individuals since this began as they have zero interesting the drama.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I think that's true for a lot of the Very (Mostly?) Online segment of the D&D community. But over the weekend I played with 14 people in 2 groups and the OGL fiasco came up zero times in conversation. Both campaigns are 5e. One uses a paid Beyond sub for book-sharing, the other Roll20.

Hard to say.

I was quite surprised to hear from from my wife the other day, that some of our friends (who only started playing RPGs/5e a few months ago) had not only heard about it, but were apparently quite angry about what WotC was doing. Given how recently they started playing, I wouldn't have expected that they'd have heard of it, much less care.

Certainly the "Very Online" segment is likely to be watching the goings on most closely, but it definitely seems to have spread beyond.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

It felt like this article leaned heavily into righteous advocacy.

 

[Jer]

FTA:

This is a community that literally invented the term “rules lawyer.” WotC simply didn’t realize how literally that would be taken.

Now that's comedy!

 

[Steel_Wind]

In the four gaming groups I am a member of, WotC and the OGL it has been a constant topic for the past three weeks.

 

[DarkCrisis]

No more Goodwill? Where am I going to buy cheap used clothes?

Thank you, I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress.

 

[Jer]

In the four gaming groups I am a member of, WotC and the OGL it has been a constant topic for the past three weeks.

My very casual players have brought it up in our text chain when we haven't played since before Thanksgiving.

My wife keeps showing me things on her Facebook feed from friends of hers talking about it and she doesn't even play D&D herself nor does she talk about D&D at all. They're almost all library folks (she's a librarian) who are very angry about all of it - some of them are library folks who run D&D groups for their libraries so have basically been acting as unpaid teachers of the game to groups of kids for the last decade and they're actively talking amongst themselves about what to do. Those conversations are not going in WotC's favor from what she's shown me.

This feels bigger to me than the typical "online drama" around gaming normally gets.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Article quote:

Dungeons & Dragons is not the only game out there—and never has been​

Um? I guess technically, if you consider things like Arneson running his proto-D&D thing. On the larger scale, it definitely was the "only game" for a few years.

 

[Mallus]

Certainly the "Very Online" segment is likely to be watching the goings on most closely, but it definitely seems to have spread beyond.

Oh definitely. I've seen a lot of coverage in the mainstream media. I was just relating my recent experience. Frankly, I was a little surprised that it didn't come up.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think that's true for a lot of the Very (Mostly?) Online segment of the D&D community. But over the weekend I played with 14 people in 2 groups and the OGL fiasco came up zero times in conversation. Both campaigns are 5e. One uses a paid Beyond sub for book-sharing, the other Roll20.

I mean, that's nice, but I don't think that's necessarily representative of much. I'm come up with multiple DMs I know. I am the most "online" of those DMs for sure, and that's why people came to me with questions/concerns, but that tells me people are concerned. I was even talking to a couple of players who were vexed by the impact this was having on some Kickstarters they'd backed.

It seems very unlikely that 14 people don't know about it. More likely they've had enough of talking about it. I mean, that happens plenty with plenty of issues.

 

[ReshiIRE]

People have to remember this wasn't a few creators or people talking about this and discussion wasn't limited to the extremities of Reddit.

Publishers, a ton of big and small TTRPG writers and YouTubers, every major and minor TTRPG forum, Discords, etc. talked about this.

Unless you are someone who plays or runs TTRPGs in your own space and quite literally never thinks about it outside of that - you would know about it. It probably easily came up for anyone even just looking for news on new D&D products.

I mean, think about it. 3rd Party D&D stuff - and increasingly, other TTRPG stuff - seems to do really well. That can't all be just megafans or the most engaged.

And it seems quite likely this would be spoken about in any game store.

Look. The fact that Paizo have come out and said that they sold what they expected to be 8 months of physiscal Pathfinder 2e Corebook stock in 2 weeks indicates that, in the most "only the really passionate / terminally online / DMs care about this", would inciate that near everyone discussing it went out and explored their options and bought stuff.

That feels unlikely to me.

Seems more likely that this has, and continues to have, some sort of legs, and is making me think the long term damage is gonna be bigger than I thought.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Article quote:


Um? I guess technically, if you consider things like Arneson running his proto-D&D thing. On the larger scale, it definitely was the "only game" for a few years.

I cringe when I see statements like that. While technically true, the person making them is telling us they have zero understanding on basic marketing knowledge. Branding is hugely important. It matters. A lot.

It's like saying, "Don't worry about losing access Windows or iOS, they aren't the only operating systems out there. Just develop your games for Morph OS."

 

[DarkCrisis]

I cringe when I see statements like that. While technically true, the person making them is telling us they have zero understanding on basic marketing knowledge. Branding is hugely important. It matters. A lot.

It's like saying, "Don't worry about losing access Windows or iOS, they aren't the only operating systems out there. Just develop your games for Morph OS."

I took them as saying that D&D was NEVER the ONLY game on the market. And that's simply not true. It was the first and it spent a good amount of time as the ONLY RPG.

Sure other people could have made their own and played with their friends and family (like Arneson did), but D&D was the first to make it a real product and put on the market.

It was the first and despite what sales and fans say it's also still "The best" in a marketing sense. Even in its worst times, it still outsold everything else. Like you said with your Windows OS parallel.

 

[overgeeked]

People have to remember this wasn't a few creators or people talking about this and discussion wasn't limited to the extremities of Reddit.

Publishers, a ton of big and small TTRPG writers and YouTubers, every major and minor TTRPG forum, Discords, etc. talked about this.

Unless you are someone who plays or runs TTRPGs in your own space and quite literally never thinks about it outside of that - you would know about it. It probably easily came up for anyone even just looking for news on new D&D products.

I mean, think about it. 3rd Party D&D stuff - and increasingly, other TTRPG stuff - seems to do really well. That can't all be just megafans or the most engaged.

And it seems quite likely this would be spoken about in any game store.

Look. The fact that Paizo have come out and said that they sold what they expected to be 8 months of physiscal Pathfinder 2e Corebook stock in 2 weeks indicates that, in the most "only the really passionate / terminally online / DMs care about this", would inciate that near everyone discussing it went out and explored their options and bought stuff.

That feels unlikely to me.

Seems more likely that this has, and continues to have, some sort of legs, and is making me think the long term damage is gonna be bigger than I thought.

Other RPGs are selling out across the US and Europe. Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (SWADE) is sold out. There’s no stock on Amazon, on Pinnacle’s website, or any locale stores that normally carry them. Pinnacle even put up a video on YouTube to say they were sold out. Savage Pathfinder is sold out on Amazon.

 

[Alzrius]

Look. The fact that Paizo have come out and said that they sold what they expected to be 8 months of physiscal Pathfinder 2e Corebook stock in 2 weeks

For anyone who wants more information about this:

Paizo Sells Out Eight Months of Pathfinder Supply In Two Weeks

Thanks to Paizo's Open Gaming Sale, the company has sold an eight-month supply of Pathfinder books in just under two weeks.

techraptor.net

 

[Sacrosanct]

I took them as saying that D&D was NEVER the ONLY game on the market. And that's simply not true. It was the first and it spent a good amount of time as the ONLY RPG.

Sure other people could have made their own and played with their friends and family (like Arneson did), but D&D was the first to make it a real product and put on the market.

It was the first and despite what sales and fans say it's also still "The best" in a marketing sense. Even in its worst times, it still outsold everything else. Like you said with your Windows OS parallel.

I don't know about that. By 1978 there at least 8 other RPGs that did pretty well.

 

[Morrus]

I think that's true for a lot of the Very (Mostly?) Online segment of the D&D community. But over the weekend I played with 14 people in 2 groups and the OGL fiasco came up zero times in conversation. Both campaigns are 5e. One uses a paid Beyond sub for book-sharing, the other Roll20.

Who are all these people in 2023 who aren't online? Who doesn't look up their hobby online? Even my grandma used to look up knitting patterns, and that was over a decade ago.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Who are all these people in 2023 who aren't online? Who doesn't look up their hobby online? Even my grandma used to look up knitting patterns, and that was over a decade ago.

Blizzard: "Don't you have a cellphone?"