D&D General Not gonna worry, Will just keep playin (+)

[SkidAce]

I've been here for nearly the entire D&D ride, and at first I was concerned about "today's news". Cause I'm a big fan of Dancey and his efforts.

But I realized that it doesn't matter. I am just going to keep on gaming. Ninjas will not come to my house and take my books (and even if they did I could probably reproduce enough from memory to still keep playing).

There were times in the late 70s and 80s were it was hard to find gamers in the environments I was in, but we met each other and played, made house rules, and had fun. If the whole thing crashes (and I doubt it will) we will just press on....which is the point of this "plus" thread.

How Would You Keep Gaming and What Good Methods Would Your Group Adopt?

For us, since due to schedules, travel, and job moves, we have become spread out and mostly game together online;

a. Probably create Excel or equivalent character sheets. Could use hand written, but in the last decade or so we have really gotten used to at least basic calculations.

b. Discord for chat, definitely. (Maybe dice roller, maybe not, we are trusting sorts.

c. Theater of the mind for the play? We love us some maps though. Hmmmm.

d. We have used Roll20 for nothing but token position and maps, could continue in that manner. Or I could draw a map and have a camera pointed at it, and move stuff for folks.


So really, assuming the sky is falling and the Armageddon has commenced, what cool ideas do you have for playing in "isolation" if you had to?*

(no OGL debates/arguments here please)

 

[Scribe]

How Would You Keep Gaming and What Good Methods Would Your Group Adopt?

The books remain, and there is more content than we could consume in a lifetime really out there on the web.

 

[Stormonu]

With access to physical books or PDFs, it will never be an end for me. Many of the RPG games I own have long outlived the company and they are still of value to me. I live near a college and a FLGS, I doubt I'll ever run out of players if I go looking. I even used to joke that I had kids so I could make my own gaming group. With them both now running their own games, I doubt I'm ever going to run out of a chance to play if I really want to.

 

[iserith]

I've been here for nearly the entire D&D ride, and at first I was concerned about "today's news". Cause I'm a big fan of Dancey and his efforts.

What happened today?

 

[Clint_L]

What happened today?

A really badly written (as in, the writer doesn't even understand how basic grammar works) "leak" of WotC threatening to tear up the OGL and generally acting like a Bond villain was pushed by clickbait YouTubers and this was enough to cause a frenzy of conspiracy theories and internet lawyering and all the usual stuff that has nothing to do with the game.

D&D will be fine. It survived the implosion of TSR. Twice. It's way beyond any of these tempests in teapots.

 

[CleverNickName]

So really, assuming the sky is falling and the Armageddon has commenced, what cool ideas do you have for playing in "isolation" if you had to?*

(no OGL debates/arguments here please)

I've been jonesing to start up a full-bore, 1st-to-36th-level D&D campaign using the old BECM rules and classic modules. Roll20 has all of the stuff I need to keep playing remotely; I have hardcopies and PDFs of all of the materials that I can copy-paste in as needed, and I have a half-dozen geeky friends who are ready and willing for an old-school romp through The Keep on the Borderlands. Or the Isle of Dread. Or Rahasia, or The Master of the Desert Nomads, or Twilight Calling.

So yeah, we're gonna be just fine.

 

[MNblockhead]

There are few things in my life that I am feel more secure about than I'll be able to continue playing D&D so long as I'm alive and physically and mentally able. Assuming my personal financial situations remains stable and I don't find myself in some WROL hellscape, almost nothing will change for me if WotC goes away. I would lose access to D&D Beyond at most. Already have that monster stats, spells, abilities, etc. saved in D&D beyond. The fluff I care most about I have in physical books.

I will still have my VTT, all content in my VTT. I will still have all the books. I will still have all third-party digital and physical material.

The only thing I can see doing differently is that if DDB went away, I might scan my books into PDF format and OCR them.

Or just play a system other than D&D but I read this post as asking how we would continue to play D&D, specifically, is D&D was no longer available for new content and DDB went away.

 

[delericho]

I'm reasonably sure that the news isn't true - it doesn't pass the smell test for me, and the OGL was specifically written to prevent this sort of thing.

However, I am currently running what is probably my last-ever campaign. If this does turn out to be true, and WotC attempt to de-authorize OGL 1.0, whether they succeed or not, then replace that "probably" with "definitely". And, until such time as the OGL 1.1 is published, and we can see the damage for ourselves, I won't be buying any more D&D books. Which is a small loss, both to them and to me, but there it is.

So yeah, I'll continue playing as I am. For now. But I am worried.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So really, assuming the sky is falling and the Armageddon has commenced, what cool ideas do you have for playing in "isolation" if you had to?*

Well, at least for my current game, I would simply keep running Dungeon World for my friends. We're a few months out from the 5th anniversary of the game, and Big Plots are finally coming to fruition, seeds the players and I planted way back in spring 2018.

Apart from that...? Who knows. Maybe I'd try my hand at actually building a system effectively from scratch. I've had ideas in that direction for ages, and if D&D's openness is going up in a cloud of nuclear smoke, perhaps people would actually be willing to give it a try.

 

[Yora]

So yeah, I'll continue playing as I am. For now. But I am worried.

About what?

 

[Knorrrssk]

The leak is obvious nonsense. The sky is not falling. And it won't spell the end of D&D.
But if it did, nothing would change for me. I'm used to running unsupported versions of D&D. I have everything I need to keep playing the D&D of my choice for the rest of my life, as does anyone else. D&D Beyond might end, but it's not like a digital toolset is vital for playing the game.

 

[delericho]

About what?

The OGL. While this leak doesn't ring true, there is clearly more to the story than we know.

But the OP asked us not to discuss that here, so I'll say no more.

 

[Schmoe]

I already have more material than I could ever hope to run. I'm still looking at 7 Paizo APs, a host of old Dungeon magazines, Necropolis, and a whole bunch of other adventures/campaigns that I'm itching to play. Plus my own home-brew ideas. And that's just 3rd edition/Pathfinder. I have plenty of 1e and BECMI material I never got to, as well as pretty much all of 5e that's been published so far. Plus I'd like to try playing in some other systems, maybe start a Car Wars campaign, and other random ideas. Considering I get through a campaign about once every 3-4 years (at best), that should take me out until I'm 6 feet under.

TL;DR - I'm not too worried.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's all so silly.

3E was "open"... 4E was "closed"... 5E was "open"... 1D&D was "closed"... yadda yadda yadda.

There's absolutely no reason to think that the "Official" Dungeons & Dragons game won't "re-open" again somewhere down the line, so being worried about anything having to do with this game is unnecessary. Even if the money people at Hasbro kill 5E's momentum with an attempt at monetization, all that will happen is that the game will slow down, the D&D team at Wizards will get gutted, a new group of folks will be hired to come into the design room, and then 6E/7E (whatever naming convention suits you) does what Mearls did with 5E and get the game back on its feet in a bunch of years.

Second verse same as the first.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My issue is that, having played countless RPGs over 30+ years, and having found relatively lighter ones with less prep play pretty great, I probably wouldn't want to run D&D without digital tools supporting it. They've been really helpful for my main group particularly. I'm not just talking about VTTs, but a probably integrated character builder, searchable rules databases, and so on. Currently for 5E only Beyond offers that (4E's offering was slightly better, weirdly, in terms of what it could do, but was much clunkier-looking and relied on Silverlight lol).

Without all that, I'd be willing to play D&D, but I wouldn't be willing to run it. Also, all my 5E "books" are on Beyond, because I don't have space in my stupid London flat for a whole ton more books. I haven't bought a physical RPG book for like, four or five years? Maybe longer.

On the bright side, I haven't got a bunch of 5E adventures/campaigns I want to run, because I've largely run my own campaign/adventures in 5E (like 4E), so it's not like I'll be stamping my foot and cursing!

So I think my main idea would be to just run a different game. Maybe PF2, maybe Worlds Without Number, maybe DIE, who knows!

 

[Oofta]

The 5E system works reasonably well for me and I've always run campaigns that I created and, if I buy modules it's only for inspiration. I don't see anything changing. While I prefer in-person gaming we do currently include my nephew and his SO in a game my wife runs, I don't see that changing. People are still playing variations on D&D from decades ago, why would it change?

As long as I can continue gaming, I will. For the foreseeable future it will be D&D. I may have to go back to a spreadsheet I created before DndBeyond was released. I might write an app to do some of the work for me, like I did in the past. But as long as I can find even a couple of people to play, I'll be rolling those D20s.

 

[Yora]

Whatever happens, the only edition of D&D I have any interest in is Old-School Essentials.

Worst case scenario is that nothing changes for me at all. Anything that makes 6th edition less popular and get people more interested in other existing editions can only be of benefit to my campaigns.

 

[mamba]

None of the content I own goes away, and I own more than enough already. So technically this has no impact even if I stop buying stuff altogether, that does not mean I am indifferent to this change, quite the contrary

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

It might be good to point out that nobody is going to force you to use any VTT or other online tools, libraries, wikis, or whatever. Playing D&D is actually entirely voluntary, and you are free to use whatever tools you like.

In our group we play at a table, use the PHB, MM and DMG (books made of paper) and we recently bought new dice! So our group definitely entered the Age of the Fruitbat.

 

[mamba]

It might be good to point out that nobody is going to force you to use any VTT or other online tools,

and I’ll make sure it stays that way for me, not liking the new direction one bit right now