Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="SlyFlourish" data-source="post: 9442216" data-attributes="member: 54840">Roll20 could definitely become enshittified or die or change in some other way we don't like. WOTC could pull their licenses and you'd lose all your stuff and it wouldn't even be Roll20's fault.Yes. Because there's no guarantee they'd always be a great service with great prices. Anything can happen to cause them to start to suck and you're going along for the ride. The more you invest in it, in time, money, emotion, expertise, or just plain inertia, the more you have to eat what they serve. It may be tasty now but may be bitter later.We're seeing right now, with D&D Beyond making it impossible to build or run pure D&D 2014 classes in the character builder, what happens when a service that people generally liked starts to change. So this is it. For some, it's probably not a big deal. For others, it obviously is.For D&D there are other alternatives. Not all of them are fantastic or as user-friendly as we would like. Foundry and Fantasy Grounds let you download your own copies of their clients with your own libraries of material. They can change but you can always go back to the old ones. Foundry works hard to make it easy to back up your stuff. Other solutions like More Purple More Better are fully downloadable so as long as you ran render their PDF in Adobe, you're good.And yes, there's always paper. I think our own grip on the hobby is stronger when we're willing to use paper. We did it for a long time.What can we do?<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Stop trusting online services to not change.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Have fall-backs we're ready to jump to.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Get used to using paper again.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Work with our players to let them use what they want but also show them alternatives.</li> </ul>There is no average gamer. There is us, and our friends. That's who matters. Our jobs as GMs isn't to solve the industry's problems. Our job is to run awesome games for our friends.You're right. I've just been reading over the original D&D 3.5 books and if we can do that on paper, we can do a lot of things.But if its reasonable to use paper character sheets, why are people so mad about this?You can feel about it how you feel about it. So can I. And so can everyone else. I think people are free to be upset about this and its not unreasonable to feel that way. But no one should be surprised. If they are, this is a good wake-up call.Thank you! I still believe WOTC is doing and has done a whole lot of great things for this hobby:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">5.1 SRD in the CC in five languages.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Supporting Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, and Roll20 with D&D 2024 alongside D&D Beyond.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Great after-school program.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Continuing to release and support physical books.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A promise to release the 5.2 SRD in the CC in early 2025.</li> </ul>I think this, along with the blur-gate stuff from a few weeks ago, and most of their missteps in the past year and a half have all been the signs of a confused company who can't get out of its own way and steps on a lot of rakes in the process. I don't see the malevolence here that we saw with the OGL. This is just clumsiness.</blockquote>

Verification