TTRPGS, Blockchains, and NFTs

When Kickstarter announced recently that it would be investing in blockchain-based infrastructure, there was widespread backlash. Blockchain technology is environmentally damaging and is of limited use. Creators such as Possum Creek Games (Wanderhome) announced their intentions to move off Kickstarter, while companies such as Chaosium and Wizards of the Coast continue to express interested in non-fungible tokens, digital items which exist on a blockchain.

While I'm writing this article, I do need to point out that I'm not a great person to do so; my understanding of blockchains, NFTs, cryptocurrencies, and related technologies is very, very limited and my attempts to get a handle on the subject have not been entirely successful. I'm sure more informed people will post in the comments.

What the heck is an NFT (& what does it mean for digital artists)

What is a non-fungible token (NFT)? In this graphic designer's guide to NFTs, we explore how Non-Fungible Tokens work in the context of digital art and how you can start turning your digital creations into sought-after NFTs.

dribbble.com

Kickstarter is not the only tabletop roleplaying game adjacent company delving into such technologies. Call of Cthulhu publisher Chaosium announced in July 2021 that it was working with an NFT company to bring their Mythos content to a digitally collectible market, with specific plans to sell two different models -- the Necromonicon and a bust of Cthulhu -- from the Cthulhu Mythos; and while things went quiet for a while, last week the company tweeted that 'We have more - lots more -- to drop... when the Stars are Right." A Facebook statement from Chaosium's CEO appeared on Twitter talking more about the decision.

D&D producer Wizards of the Coast said in April 2021 that it was considering NFTs for Magic: The Gathering. More recently, an email from WotC's legal representatives to a company planning to use NFT technology in conjunction with M:tG cards, alleging unlawful infringement of its IP, indicated that WotC was "currently evaluating its future plans regarding NFTs and the MAGIC: THE GATHERING cards" but that "no decision has been made at this time."

On Twitter, ErikTheBearik compiled Hasbro/WotC's involvement with NFTs so far.

Gripnr is a '5e based TTRPG NFT protocol' with Stephen Radney-MacFarland (D&D, Star Wars Saga Edition, Pathfinder) as its lead game designer. OK, so that's about as much of that as I understand!

Some company in the TTRPG sphere have taken a stand. DriveThruRPG stated that "In regard to NFTs – We see no use for this technology in our business ever." Itch.io was a bit more emphatic:

A few have asked about our stance on NFTs: NFTs are a scam. If you think they are legitimately useful for anything other than the exploitation of creators, financial scams, and the destruction of the planet the [sic] we ask that [you] please reevaluate your life choices. Peace. [an emoji of a hand making the “Peace” symbol]

Also [expletive deleted] any company that says they support creators and also endorses NFTs in any way. They only care about their own profit and the opportunity for wealth above anyone else. Especially given the now easily available discourse concerning the problems of NFTs.

How can you be so dense?

NFTs -- non-fungible tokens -- and blockchains have been dominating the news recently, and with individuals and companies taking strong stances against them, it's fair to ask why. The environmental impact of the technology has been widely documented - it's inefficient, and the need for blockchains -- a sort of decentralized ledger -- to have multiple users validate and record transactions makes it very energy intensive. In an era when climate change is having more and more devastating effects around the world, use of such technologies attracts considerable backlash.

Other ethical concerns regarding NFTs specifically is that the purchaser of an NFT is not actually purchasing anything, and the value for the digital 'token' they've purchased is speculative. When you buy the NFT of a piece of art (for example) you don't own the art itself; you only own a digital token associated with the art. The whole concept is likened to a 'house of cards' or a 'scam' by its critics.

 

[J.Quondam]

On a side note: so the cyber-currency is a data packet, right?

Could said data packets be used as a virus delivery systems? I ask because I've got a thread about attacking the Net for a RPG campaign.

Yes, NFTs at least could harbor malicious code, though my understanding is it's dependent on whatever platform being used to manage them. An exploit that could steal cryptocoin out of user's wallets was identified and fixed last year on the biggest platform, Open Sea:

Bugs allowing malicious NFT uploads uncovered in OpenSea marketplace

Malicious NFTs could have become an attack vector for hackers trying to steal digital wallet funds.

www.zdnet.com

Whether that sort of thing could be exploited for something more general across the internet, I don't know. But hackers and security people are always discovering new exploits.

 

[jolt]

It's totally a scam because there is zero inherent value to it. It's not even a license. The closest equivalency that I can think of is an Internet link. I can make an internet link to any webpage I want whether or not I'm involved in the website. I then sell that link for $5 a pop. The only way for someone else to make money is to sell it for more than they paid for it, which is a lot easier if you got in at the beginning, because an Internet link has no actual value - it's just a link. Now, the company that owns the website I'm linking to isn't necessarily even going to be aware that I've made these links and are now selling them. Then, that company closes and the website is gone. What happens to those links? Well, nothing; they're just not pointing anywhere anymore. That's what an NFT is. Buying one (or many) does not give you ownership of anything. It doesn't give you a license. It doesn't give you a claim. All it does is to say that this particular link is yours (but there could be millions of other links) by assigning a very complex calculation number to your link.

In fact, it's even worse than that. Let's say I invest $10,000 US in some cryptocurrency. Someone else calculates that it might be worth $50,000 US now so I decide to sell. Except I can't. Yet again, there's no actual commodity with value here. The company that created the cryptocurrency doesn't pay anything to anybody. The only way I can make money is to find another buyer and convince them that my stuff is worth 50 grand. Then, that person has to convince another buyer that's it's worth more than that. And all you own is a link that may or may not still be pointing to something.

It is, in every way, shape, and form, a scam.

 

[Mistwell]

Yes, Morrus stated he doesn't understand cryptocurrency. I have offered to explain it to him many times. He understands "This is all nonsense and I want nothing to do with it". That's all he needs to know, so like most people, he doesn't care to look into it more. He runs a news site so has to report on the news and, as an editor, knows he has reporters like me who have done the research he can lean on if necessary.

Right. So this is where, normally, you'd apologize to me for claiming I made some broad statement that nobody here understands it and didn't realize I was responding directly to the quote from Morrus, which I quoted directly in my post.

Oddly, you didn't. In fact, you seem to be just running with it...even though it should be real clear by now (particularly given I had quoted him directly) that I hadn't made a broad statement but was specific to the article written here. Which...you are not the author of, right? Why did you try to spin that as something that it wasn't?

I also notice that in none of your posts, you have not refuted a single criticism anyone has made of cryptocurrency, the blockchain, or NFTs.

Correct, and I explained why. I am not trying to persuade anyone to like cryto or blockchains or NFTs (and I didn't even comment about NFTs - I only mentioned Crypto). I find it perfectly fine that you don't like them and have your reasons for not liking them. This forum isn't really a place to just discuss that kind of topic anyway unless it relates to RPGs, right? My point was, others do like them and have their reasons for liking them as well, and it doesn't matter what their reasons are for liking them. And it's not really your place to tell them they're wrong for liking them, provided they're not evangelizing to you to like them.

All you've done is insult us and dismiss us as old people who just don't get it.

I am old too And I didn't say "you just don't get it" other than Morrus literally saying that. I did however say this whole trendy thing to be highly dismissive of these topics looks very much to me like the trends which took place throughout modern history where older-tech-oriented people were dismissive of new technology, and I listed several of those, and it turned out they were badly wrong and were not adapting to changes in society as they were happening.

Now there were other trends in history where those old white men turned out to be correct. People who dismissed 3D TVs for example, they were right. But the odds are usually against dismissing new technology, and I cannot think of many which got 14 years in and still were climbing, and which reached these financial heights, which ended up being a flaming out fade of the type y'all are claiming this one to be. Can you? I bet if you can, it's a pretty narrow exception to a fairly broad set of technologies which otherwise tended to be successful and not on the level of pogs.

Wait, sorry, that's not entirely true. You said


As of January 2022, only 400,000 cryptocurrency wallets (the accounts online that hold assets on the blockchain) have ever held an NFT, and 80% of all NFTs are held by only 40,000 wallets. That is a very, very small minority. To put that in perspective, more people own copies of Sonic Boom for the Nintendo WiiU than own NFTs. So no, this is not the "next big thing".

I didn't say ANYTHING about NFTs. If you think I did, look again. Are you confusing me with someone else? NFTs are to me a much trickier subject than Crypto Currencies, and the "trillion" number I mentioned was in reference to BitCoin and not Ether, and NFTs run almost entirely on Ether. If your response is about NFTs and Ether, well...I didn't really comment on those topics so OK I guess?

 

[Jd Smith1]

Yes, NFTs at least could harbor malicious code, though my understanding is it's dependent on whatever platform being used to manage them. An exploit that could steal cryptocoin out of user's wallets was identified and fixed last year on the biggest platform, Open Sea:

Bugs allowing malicious NFT uploads uncovered in OpenSea marketplace

Malicious NFTs could have become an attack vector for hackers trying to steal digital wallet funds.

www.zdnet.com

Whether that sort of thing could be exploited for something more general across the internet, I don't know. But hackers and security people are always discovering new exploits.

Close enough for RPG setting detail. Thanks!

 

[UngainlyTitan]

On a side note: so the cyber-currency is a data packet, right?

Could said data packets be used as a virus delivery systems? I ask because I've got a thread about attacking the Net for a RPG campaign.

As far as I know (but I am not an expert) the currency token cannot deliver a virus, it is a unique identifier of some type as far as I understand it.
Now while NFT does not have the capacity to deliver one (a full blown virus) either but the NFT refers to an external url that could deliver a virus.
Furthermore the NFT could deliver a text snippet that could be executed in the application (often the database) as a command.

Now a competent developer should not run any arbitrary piece of text received from the internet is a way that it would execute a command in their systems. However, a lot of people are using tools developed by total strangers to generate NFTs and there is no reason that those people could not include backdoor commands that could be activated by scanning the right NFT at some later time.

 

[Gradine]

 

[Staffan]

But is buying graphics cards illegal? No? Immoral? Again, no. Using electricity you purchased? In the USA, certainly not.

Driving up the prices of entertainment and energy to the point where they are priced out of reach? Yes, I'll call that immoral. Not illegal (currently), but certainly immoral.

And we've already established that NFTs are a scam and that cryptocurrency is evil. This is just another bad side effect of them.

 

[gamerprinter]

Intel and a smaller company is working, separately, on a low wattage server designed for crypto mining, though it probably won't be available for a year, but maybe crypto mining could become less environmentally impactful. I don't do cryptos, NFTs or any of that, but for those concerned, it might offer some hope... because crypto mining is not going to stop, anytime soon.

 

[Umbran]

Intel and a smaller company is working, separately, on a low wattage server designed for crypto mining, though it probably won't be available for a year, but maybe crypto mining could become less environmentally impactful.

So, a long time ago, folks invented the fluorescent light bulb, and touted that its use in commercial lighting would allow for energy savings.

It didn't. What happened is that, since it was cheaper, folks used more of it - you started seeing buildings with more lighting, and leaving the lights on all night because it was cheap and made the building look impressive at night.

This fits a general pattern - improvements in energy efficiency do not generally lead to energy savings. They lead to increased consumption due to the decrease in cost. If you decrease the energy cost per server, folks will throw more servers at it because now they can get more calculation done per $$.

 

[Mannahnin]

A DAO which stands for "Decentralized Autonomous Organization" and is hard to describe but it's basically a way to pool cryptocurrency together into a single account like contributing to a pot for a single goal, the most famous was the recent purchase of a copy of the filming bible for Darren Aronofsky's cancelled adaptation of Dune. Then said, because they bought the book, they were going to sell scans of the book as NFTs and make their own movie based on Dune not understanding that buying a book, no matter how rare, does not give you the copyright of the book. Like just because I have a first printing of Deities & Demigods on my shelf doesn't mean that I now own Dungeons & Dragons.

Alejandro Jodorowsky's Dune, but yes. Hilarious.

Isn't music, literature, and gaming products produced in electronic format simply virtual assets invested in with the hope they explode in value?

I know I shelled out a hundred bucks for the right to use Roll20 more effectively. I doubt their business is exploding, but from what I read they're doing all right.

No, I don't think I've ever heard of anyone buying a digital copy of a song, book, or game in the hopes that it will increase in value, never mind explode. They're not investment vehicles. They're things we buy to use, for entertainment and enrichment. I don't think you spent a hundred bucks on Roll20 in the hopes that you could resell your account to someone else down the line for two hundred bucks. You spent it to increase the utility/enjoyment you get out of the product. No?

-----------------------------

One of the key takeaways of this thread is that NFTs don't actually have any practical use. They are functionally a net loss. Tulip bulbs had more value, because you could grow a flower from them. NFTs are nothing but hype.

Blockchain theoretically has practical uses. The most solid I've ever heard is a distributed property/deed ledger. Where you don't have to rely on the authority of a (potentially corrupt) local government to register deeds and transfer of real property. But the technology has been around for many years at this point, and no such practical use has yet come to fruition. Often because there are other functional hurdles. For example, in any circumstance in which the local government is corrupt and cannot be trusted to protect your land deed, having an online distributed proof isn't really going to help you enforce your claim, because said local government is going to be the ones with the legal authority and the cops with guns to do so. :/

As was discussed earlier in the thread, in theory cryptocurrency can have practical uses too, but in practice it simply hasn't worked out as a currency. Vendors like NewEgg have stopped accepting Bitcoin, for example, in part because the transaction lag and volatility literally made it impractical to use as a medium of exchange. The value could fluctuate between the transaction being agreed to and it being concluded, and to a much greater extent than happens with national currencies.

I've known a bunch of technophile futurist folks who've had hopes for Blockchain and cryptocurrency to be leveraged for more human freedom of choice, and less reliance on corrupt central governments. But so far none of that* has materialized, and instead cryptocurrency has become an investment vehicle. And without practical use, it becomes a Bigger Fool investment, where the thing being bought and traded only has value as long as people think it does, and only increases in value as long as it's marketed to larger numbers of people, but you never get any value from the investment unless you duck out before the crash/find a "bigger fool" to liquidate to.

I do think some of the folks investing in crypto DO still have an idealistic component to it, and genuinely believe that it will eventually have practical uses. But OTOH if they're deeply invested in it, it may be difficult to remain objective about those prospects. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." -Mencken



(*well, ok, some edge cases like The Silk Road, as long as that lasted)