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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9224852" data-attributes="member: 6799660">I think this premise needs reconsideration. I'm not seeing a lot of people truly surprised by either the layoffs or bad press. Instead I see a lot of people venting frustration over it, which is another beast entirely. To not realize that a large corporation will act as large corporations do* would be naïve and deserving of some critique, to not be happy with the situation is a reasonable response to a personal-feeling example of the ways of modern life not working out how one would like.  *although <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/wotc-why-are-we-still-shocked-with-layoffs.701707/page-4#post-9224046" target="_blank">Malmuria </a>and <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/wotc-why-are-we-still-shocked-with-layoffs.701707/page-7#post-9224251" target="_blank">Hex08 </a>raise good points. The current status quo regarding corporate actions are not inevitable and inviolable. There are certainly some blog and Youtube articles going around which do act like what has transpired is utterly shocking and unprecedented. However, not predicting that bloggers and Youtubers court create nonexistent controversies to fuel negativity-seeking viewers would be equally foolish of us. Clutching pearls? Shame on us? Uh huh. Look, declaring the existence of as-of-yet un-pointed-out people truly shocked by what has transpired is a not altogether unheard of practice (after all, there must be someone out there that is like this), but then layering on a superiority judgement towards these undisclosed foolish people seems entirely too similar to wanting to feel superior to someone and not really caring if they exist or not. The peudolegal mumbo jumbo doesn't help that. Nor does this.Now, after all of that, ^^^this is a genuinely interesting question. Actively boycotting WotC certainly seems like shouting into the wind. Doubly so for something their parent company did that the rest of modern publicly traded companies also would likely do*. Triply because competing TTRPG companies are likely benefiting from a massive halo effect resultant from D&D 5e and WotC's recent success. *the company would never map your behavior to theirs in a way that would prevent them from repeating the same in the future. My general thoughts are thus: find some creative doing something you approve of (either you consider it great or just a step in the right direction) and then support it -- financially first (since a creative can't write a rent check on your passion for their work), but then verbally(/in print), publicly, in feedback to the creators, whatever you can do. In cottage industries, the perception that something is a big/up-and-coming thing often creates ongoing demand, expectation, and incentive for the creatives to keep going. 90s White Wolf WoD and 00s Pathfinder became as big as they did because random fans made enough of a big deal out of them for them to become (relative) big deals (and counter to that, other games big in those eras petered out because people decided no one was really still into them). Larry Elmore is still dragging his wrinkled butt to Cons across the country because at each one someone is there telling him about how such and such a rulebook illustration drew them into gaming. Some lessor known fantasy artist or developer for a tiny RPG company is not packing in the towel because they're still seeing passionate discussions on their Facebook/Discord. </blockquote>

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