D&D General Why Enworld should liberate D&D from Hasbro

[Warpiglet-7]

If you don’t like the current direction, don’t buy it. It’s cyclical. More of what you like will make a comeback.

I am a 1st, 3rd, 5th guy…skipping 2e, 3.5 revised and mostly 4e.

If you don’t like the weather, make a great game with your pals and focus on that. 6e may bring u joy…

But NOW matters. 2024 D&D has not detracted from my fun with 2014 one bit…

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Magic would make the dungeon raid at WoTC HQ go from being a Mission: Impossible to a Mission: Possible. First, we employ a team of Divination Wizards and Artificers to scope out where WoTC hides its' D&D stuff, both its' physical copies and their PDF equivalents. The Artificers can extract the PDFs from the WoTC mainframe. As for the physical copies, we then get to use some Conjuration Wizards to teleport in a team of Rogues and their multiple Bags of Holding...

Sven Vincke has already done it.

 

[Seramus]

or is it specifically those powers and spells that are powered by The Weave (as defined by the 5E14 Player's Handbook),

Definitely can't be The Weave, since that's a setting specific power station constructed around a populated planet. You might find similar power stations built around other populated planets, but you won't find them just out in space.

...what?

 

[Kannik]

Magic would make the dungeon raid at WoTC HQ go from being a Mission: Impossible to a Mission: Possible. First, we employ a team of Divination Wizards and Artificers to scope out where WoTC hides its' D&D stuff, both its' physical copies and their PDF equivalents. The Artificers can extract the PDFs from the WoTC mainframe. As for the physical copies, we then get to use some Conjuration Wizards to teleport in a team of Rogues and their multiple Bags of Holding...

Scry. Buff. Teleport.

Classic.

 

[The Firebird]

One of the last groups I DMed for was composed 50% or so of people in the LGBTQ community.

This is pretty typical for the AL games I ran, at least at one store. In the city I'm in now, multiple game shops are explicitly pitched at a LGBTQ audience and there are some rpg groups marketed that way as well. Wizards would be fools not to include representation in their marketing. It's such an important audience.

Say you hate pepperoni. You walk into a pizza place where loads of people are seeming to enjoy pepperoni pizza. What do you want to get out of telling them how much you dislike pepperoni? What do you expect their response to be the first time you do it? The tenth? The hundredth?

I picked this to respond to from the conversation with @Micah Sweet because I like the way it's phrased.

I guess I'd say: I'm young enough to be part of their target demographic now, and have been aging into a juicer consumer population every year. And you know what? It's great. They rerelease movies I love, publish books and make tv shows that have the representation I want and which was often not present before, and which deal with topics that I find timely and important. At some point the music in the grocery store became all things I like rather than things I associate with my parents.

I haven't been on the reverse side, but I imagine it sucks. We had another thread talking about the social and mental health benefits to rpg groups. If rpgs were really important to you socially, or a part of your identity, or even just a hobby you spend loads of time on, finding out it isn't any longer for you is not going to be a pleasant experience. That doesn't mean the right response is to join the toxic fandom. It's probably a mix of wisdom and humility and willingness to accept negative change.

But, you know, I guess I would just like to acknowledge that it probably is hard and unpleasant to experience the landscape changing like that, and I've got some sympathy if it takes some time to come to terms with. (But not sympathy for becoming hostile and exclusionary as a result--I want to be clear about that).

 

[môrgondír]

My acquisition of 2024 DMG and PH didn't really have anything to do with marketing, insofar as I can tell, and it had everything to do with randomly-timed nostalgia.

What's strange to me is that I haven't availed myself of the opportunity to actually play the game, although I did do the character creation - but otherwise it's almost as though I'm content to read the books, and/or experience the game vicariously through others' direct experience of it.

 

[Umbran]

What was the goal of that post?

To point people at merchandise they were selling for LGBTQ+ history month, to raise awareness and funds for crisis hotlines.

 

[Remathilis]

This is what I'm trying to say. You don't have to abandon one demographic to go after another.

But at a certain point, you have to decide which fans are the priority.

Let's take a purely hyperbolic example for the sake of simplicity. Let's say there is a certain demographic of D&D players who want D&D to keep the classic downwards AC/Thac0 system that existed in D&D since inception. These players simply will refuse to play any edition where AC goes upwards. Yet a large majority of players either don't care or prefer upwards AC. Which group do you cater to? And if you're a player who wants/prefers/demands downwards AC, have you now been abandoned to chase a different demographic? What is WotC going to do when 6e rolls around: revert to downwards AC to recapture those lost players, perhaps print AC rules in both directions, and give every enemy two ACs (AC: 13 (7))? Or will they assume the latter players are lost and opt to get more players via keeping the conceptually simpler upwards AC?

Now, replace "Upwards AC" with any element where there is division by edition or playstyle. Which does WotC support? Level limits or unlimited advancement? Class restrictions by race/alignment/ability score or free access? XP for Gold or milestones? Combat as sport or Combat as War? Post Greyhawk Wars or original Folio? Vancian magic vs ADEU? Unrestricted multiclassing or no multiclassing at all? Etc etc. You aren't going to please everyone with everything, and even if WotC opted to try to cater to those fans who prefer the style that was en vogue 40 years ago, how many of them are still playing, still interested, and haven't found an alternative?

Which is why I restate at a certain point you gotta accept either the game isn't your jam anymore and move on or you suck it up and accept it. Crying about how the world has moved on past you never stops the sun from turning.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

At some point the music in the grocery store became all things I like rather than things I associate with my parents.

Tangent: I was a teen/young adult during the Satanic Panic, and I remember the lawsuits & allegations involving Ozzy Osbourne, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. The backwards satanic messages; people driven to suicide by their music. Etc.

Fast forward to 2023 or so. I’m sitting in my dentist’s waiting room and the music service they’re using has an eclectic mix. To my surprise, in a 15 minute window, I heard both an Iron Maiden and a Judas Priest tune.

The most dangerous music of the 1980s has become acceptable relaxation music.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We have several d20 retroclones, not only Pathfinder, and 3PPs can publish D&D content in DMGuild. I guess WotC is focused into to update old settings, interesting modules and, teorically, the best crunch.

The strategy by Hasbro is to attract potential new players/consumers/fans, because they are the best ones to "open doors". Maybe other companies could offer more interesting titles but they only follow paths created by others before. WotC is the best to promote the hobby but not totally essential.

My opinion is if you want to sell a brand in the complete globe, for all the markets, then you should try a serious effort to be ideologically neutral. Several companies from the entertaiment industry have lost of a money because a lot of consumer think they aren't going to spend their money to buy propaganda by people whose point of view is different. Other risk is foreigner markets with different criteria about censorhip.