WotC WotC President Chris Cocks is Hasbro’s New CEO

Hasbro has appointed WotC president Chris Cocks as it’s new CEO.

Hasbro has appointed WotC president Chris Cocks as it’s new CEO.


Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAS) today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Chris Cocks as Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors, effective February 25, 2022. Mr. Cocks currently serves as President and Chief Operating Officer of Hasbro’s Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming division, a global leader in tabletop and digital gaming. He will succeed Interim CEO, Rich Stoddart, who was appointed following the October passing of Hasbro’s longtime CEO Brian Goldner. Mr. Stoddart, who has served as a Hasbro independent director since 2014, will become Chair of the Board, effective February 25, 2022.

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bedir than

Full Moon Storyteller
Hasbro needs the best relation with different companies that are rivales among them: Netflix, Disney, Warner, Amazon, Paramount... And these may want exclusivity in any partnership deal, but this couldn't be the best strategy for Hasbro. And if Hasbro can becomes an entertaiment empire the others will not want that poppy to grow too tall as future new rival.
When one looks at eOne's partnerships, you'll see that they already have them with multiple distributors.
Your narrow focus on genre ignores that they distribute dozens of series and movies, and have partnerships with every single outlet you list plus others.
 

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Nathaniel Lee

Adventurer
Dark Sun had enough influence to receive adaptation guidance for 3rd edition play in Dungeon Magazine and a full revision for 4e. Planescape had no such thing
Ultimately, whether an IP had support in 3E and 4E is mostly irrelevant. 5E represents massive growth for the game due to an influx of new players. The vast majority of 5E players have never played a previous edition of the game and so have no built-in love for older settings. Any new gamer could have read books set in any of those worlds, but I'd put more money on someone having played Planescape: Torment or having backed Torment: Tides of Numenera on Kickstarter and doing some research on all the talk there about it being the spiritual successor to that earlier game.
 

Nathaniel Lee

Adventurer
The EG guys are already tackling that and I think it's already on pre-order. (Esper Genesis is highly under-rated for both its high compatibility with 5e and its wild sci-fi imagination)
Dark Matter by Mage Hand Press is another good option for people interested in "D&D in space" even if Wizards themselves never goes back to that well.
 

dirtypool

Explorer
Ultimately, whether an IP had support in 3E and 4E is mostly irrelevant.
It does matter in the context of a conversation where someone directly compares the two and says that the one that existed in exactly one edition was bigger and had more impact than the one that was translated across multiple editions.
 

Mage Hand Press is an interesting 3PP. I hope a great future for them.

Maybe it is my fault because English isn't my first languange but I unknow the deals between EOne and other companies.

We can't forget Dark Sun was designed with space for mass battles. This means some possible miniature wargame.

Now my new theory is Hasbro wants IPs where intercompany crossovers to be easier, for example Transformers or Magic: the Gathering Beyond Universe. Products (of "limited edition") to be collected by the fans of other franchises.

I wouldn't be too suprised a new Warcraft d20 but this time by WotC. Hasbro has got deals with Blizzard-Activision.

If Hasbro's titlles by Renegade Games Studio work, maybe we could see computer RPGs using that system.
 

teitan

Legend
Dark Sun had enough influence to receive adaptation guidance for 3rd edition play in Dungeon Magazine and a full revision for 4e. Planescape had no such thing
Planescape very much did have Dragon magazine articles on using the factions in 3.5 and so much of the Planescape lore just became default D&D. Sigil was in the 3e Manual of the Planes, the 4e Manual of the Planes, the Fiend books for 3.5 were drenched in the blood of the Blood War, even 4e didn’t escape the Blood War and it’s implications. Once they ended the factions in 2e just a Manual of the Planes with a description of Sigil was… Planescape because everything about the planes and outsiders defaulted from Planescape. The idea of the Abyss being infinite layers and not 666? Planescape. The gate cities? Planescape. Lady of Pain? Planescape. Even Descent Into Avernus is, by and large, a Planescape adventure because it’s a Blood War adventure. Even Vecna becoming a god is a Planescape, Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms crossover adventure. Don’t get me wrong, Dark Sun is cool and all but Planescape is integral to what D&D is now so much so that in all honesty it would feel pointless to call a campaign setting “Planescape” but “Mordenkainen’s Guide to the Multiverse”? A Manual of the Planes with Sigil and then the planes plus a chapter on making your own planes? Planescape in all but name. Toss in the Spelljammer and call it a day.
 


dirtypool

Explorer
Planescape lore just became default D&D. Sigil was in the 3e Manual of the Planes
So they strip-mined it for what they liked and then discontinued the product line? So how then was the product line bigger than the Dark Sun product line? Remember you said one was "big sure" but the other was "huge."

If Planescape is baked into the current Forgotten Realms setting of D&D, how then is it any way likely that they would publish a second campaign setting focusing on the material they already made available - which is the argument this discussion about size and import of the two settings is based around supporting.
 

Staffan

Legend
So they strip-mined it for what they liked and then discontinued the product line? So how then was the product line bigger than the Dark Sun product line? Remember you said one was "big sure" but the other was "huge."

If Planescape is baked into the current Forgotten Realms setting of D&D, how then is it any way likely that they would publish a second campaign setting focusing on the material they already made available - which is the argument this discussion about size and import of the two settings is based around supporting.
Planescape material had a weird dualism to it. On one hand you had planar material, expanding on the various outer, inner, and transitive planes. A lot of that was based on the old Manual of the Planes, and a lot of what was established in Planescape was brought forward to 3e and 5e. But you also had the setting of Sigil (and I think you can include the gatetowns in this), with its factions, weird geometry, planar crossroads, and Dickensian London feel.

I think the thing most people care about as specifically Planescape is the Sigil-centric material, which has been mostly ignored in later editions. Sigil has been mentioned, but mostly in passing. The only mentions in 5e are about a paragraph in the PHB, three in the DMG, and a mention in the description of a Marut in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.

As for comparisons between Dark Sun and Planescape, remember that Planescape was mostly regular AD&D. You had some new races in first the Planescape boxed set and later the Planewalker's Handbook, and each of the factions was represented as a kit providing some benefits and penalties, but a Planescape cleric was pretty much the same as a regular cleric (except they had to concern themselves with how many planes were between them and their deity). But Dark Sun pretty much rewrote the whole races and classes chapters of the PHB. The 2e PHB had about 25 pages about races and classes, while the Dark Sun boxed set had about 40 (though some of that was the rules for character trees, but still). In a very real sense, Dark Sun was a different game that ran on the AD&D engine.

The point of this is that if you want to play Planescape in 3e or 5e, that's pretty easy. You might want to figure out some way to represent the factions, but the rest is just lore. But if you want an authentic Dark Sun experience, you need to figure out at least how to handle races, defiling, elemental priests and druids, templars, psionics, and bardic assassins. Ideally, you'd also deal with crappy materials in some way, unless you go the way athas.org did in 3e and Wizards themselves did in 4e, and say "Sure, metal is rare, but Athasians are resourceful and have learned to make weapons and armor out of other materials that are just as good" (because doing otherwise would seriously mess with class balance). But that's why you'll find more Dark Sun conversion material than Planescape conversion materials for later editions – Planescape doesn't need it, but Dark Sun does.
 

teitan

Legend
So they strip-mined it for what they liked and then discontinued the product line? So how then was the product line bigger than the Dark Sun product line? Remember you said one was "big sure" but the other was "huge."

If Planescape is baked into the current Forgotten Realms setting of D&D, how then is it any way likely that they would publish a second campaign setting focusing on the material they already made available - which is the argument this discussion about size and import of the two settings is based around supporting.
I don’t even know how to respond to you at this point. You’re either being intentionally argumentative or you really don’t get that it’s huge influence was why it was integrated. It’s like disregarding the importance of Greyhawk and Gygax because Greenwood and company became the company symbol. Or dismissing Marvel because DC integrated the Marvel style.
 

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