D&D General IF D&D were for sale ...

[Mirrorrorrim]

Something not publicly traded, that's for sure.

Let Paizo have it.

NOPE. Wizards doesn't have a monopoly on being terribad.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Dropout.

If you aren’t familiar, the CEO Sam Reich believes that it should be illegal for a CEO to make extraordinarily more than the median employee, the company is dedicated to inclusion and representation both on and behind camera, and the cast and crew of Dimension20, which is Dropout’s D&D actual play show featuring DM Brennan Lee Mulligan, and has had Aabria Iyengar GM 3 different campaigns, and Matt Mercer I think has done 2. They’ve had the McElroy’s, most of the common faces of Dropout have been part of at least one “season” (limited run campaign with a theme), and the company is just genuinely good people.

I would trust them to take ownership of the D&D IP very seriously, to hire diverse creators including people who haven’t had their shot yet, to value both art and ethics more than profit, and to understand the humor, heart, and humanity, of D&D.


Barring that, me.
Why? Because I have a plan.

• Every edition of D&D gets a full SRD in both the OGL and CC, and the OGL gets updated to be explicitly irrevocable in the strongest possible terms.
• A lot more of the game would be in the SRDs. Maybe everything.
• I’d create a team to put out a book of alternate takes on much of the phb, balanced to play alongside the phb.
• Another team would go through older edition stuff and make work lists for tightened up versions of those editions, similar to the 2024 phb compared to the 2014 phb to print as special editions with special covers and extra art etc.
• 2e, 3/.5, and 4e each get dedicated teams.
• 4e would reduce page-space bloat with power source and role powers, fewer powers in general, more class features that can be subbed in place of Powers, and tier upgrades for powers rather than “replace a heroic encounter power with a paragon power”, all of which would reduce number of powers dramatically.
  • Also, math fixed and numerical scaling reduced
  • aim for the main 12 or so classes and most popular races in one book
  • each class has “basic attack” that uses the main stat of the class
  • Probably fewer feats total and no filler or tax feats
  • Multiclassing streamlined.
  • More powers and features explicitly non-combat
  • Skill challenges made a bit more scaled in results, so that the outcome is different if you succeed with eg 5 successes vs with only 3.
• Turn focus much more toward serving the community, and reaching out more to FLGSs for mutually beneficial arrangements.

Now I could get behind Sam Reich if he had the capital and never went public. Having shareholders (who aren't fans) is not a good thing for the game.

 

[CleverNickName]

"We shouldn't make assumptions."
"Yeah...but that's boring."

 

[Umbran]

I'm saying popularity and profit are orthogonal to making the game the best it can be.

What other non-subjective metrics would you suggest?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Now I could get behind Sam Reich if he had the capital and never went public. Having shareholders (who aren't fans) is not a good thing for the game.

Not a good thing for anyone but the bigger shareholders and the C-Suite.

 

[Minigiant]

Example of such an idea

From 4e to 5e alone

1. Dragonborn having bad stats
2. Tiefling having bad stats
3. Yoyo healing because healing surges bad
4. Wizards having no reason to short rest because ENCOUNTERS POWERS
5. Clerics having almost reason to short rest because ENCOUNTERS POWERS
6. Bloated FR as flagship setting

I doubt you can find many gamers who wouldn't let their bosses ruin everyone's fun because of looks

 

[Umbran]

That's what speculation is though. If people can't talk about things we don't have perfect knowledge about, what's the point of the forum at all?

Nobody said, "Don't talk about". After all, talking about the thing revealed that there may be values we as consumers cannot see!

I'm saying that if you want to honestly consider the thing, in the end you have to carve out spaces around what you don't know. Otherwise, you end up telling yourself the story you want to hear, whatever that is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What other non-subjective metrics would you suggest?

Deciding what the game is trying to support, and then supporting it. 4e, for example, was a good game because it supported the kind of play it intended to support, and was clear about what it intended. The fact that I don't personally like what 4e did is irrelevant to it being a good game. The fact that it didn't ultimately win the popularity contest is irrelevant to it being a good game.

So I guess, since 5e's intention as a game is just to be popular and maximally profitable (as far as I can tell), it is a good game, because it's doing what was intended.

 

[Sacrosanct]

D&D is a victim of its own success. It's become so valuable, that no one could buy it outside of a large corporation or someone ultra wealthy. None of those are good stewards of the game. None of those would place the what made the game great over profit or some one-man ego project.

And no one is going to sink billions into an IP just to let it go away.

So we're left with some multi-billionaire who isn't a jerk and cares about the IP more than they care about money. Who is that?

 

[Micah Sweet]

From 4e to 5e alone

1. Dragonborn having bad stats
2. Tiefling having bad stats
3. Yoyo healing because healing surges bad
4. Wizards having no reason to short rest because ENCOUNTERS POWERS
5. Clerics having almost reason to short rest because ENCOUNTERS POWERS
6. Bloated FR as flagship setting

I doubt you can find many gamers who wouldn't let their bosses ruin everyone's fun because of looks

Which of these are good things people should want, and which are bad reasons for not liking objectively good things? And how is any of this not personal preference based on a (presumed) fondness for 4e on your part?