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DND is collapsing due to changes in its Open Gaming License
- Thread starter NecrosaroIII
- Start date
NecrosaroIII
Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
Not to mention homebrewing is as foundational to the game as rolling a d20. It's baked into the game's DNA.
PaddyOCanager
Member
They forced an employee to fall on the sword and are promising to do a 180. The new draft will be open and sent to the community for voting and feedback.
It's a delay tactic and will probably work.
Doczu
Member
You think so? Tbh they do have a lot at stake as their subs have fallen by a lot and competition isnramping up with their ideas and the public are liking it
OmegaSupreme
advanced basic bitch
All this after generating all that goodwill with their all new and inclusive revisions! So sad to see!
PaddyOCanager
Member
I'm really not sure - I'm being cynical more than anything I suppose.
This whole situation is unheard of - the fact that the DnD community made a multi-billion-dollar company immediately abort their plans is kind of crazy to think about. Anything could happen I guess.
Doczu
Member
WotC and (hopefully) Hasbro know that the OGL was the only thing that gave DnD the upper hand and position of market leader. Fucking that up will have it's price and the nerds are angry so they (at least for now) are backtracking.
Never thought i'd say it here but DnD nerds: keep the gate. Hold the line. Cancel your subs.
Wildebeest
Member
Please tell us what sort of empty promises and meaningless jargon would make you feel comfortable with a new exploitative contract with terms that only work for us?
Nice consultation.
Torrent of Pork
Member
They don't actually do shit with playtest surveys, it's all to keep bitching off of Reddit and Twitter. They won't do shit with these fake surveys for the OGL. This has been reported by D&D Shorts who has contacts at WotC.
Fuck it all, cancel your subs, don't spend another dime, and hop to Pathfinder 2e. Perhaps in 5 years I'll see if they grovelled enough.
Fuck it all, cancel your subs, don't spend another dime, and hop to Pathfinder 2e. Perhaps in 5 years I'll see if they grovelled enough.
Nobody_Important
“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
Give Gloomhaven a try. Different than DnD, but super fun tabletop RPG. Is also available for free via a mod for Tabletop Simulator on Steam.
PaddyOCanager
Member
+1 recommendation for Gloomhaven. Been playing the Steam version with my friends and it's been great.
NecrosaroIII
Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
I've owned gloomhaven for 2 or so years. I'm terrified of it. So many things inside.
I recommend Numenera or anything on the cipher system. Numenera puts a lot more agency in the players hands and allows for more varied interaction since all characters are not balanced for combat. Monte Cook puts out excellent and high quality sourcebooks that are a pleasure to flip through on their own
PaddyOCanager
Member
Honestly I recommend getting the Jaws of the Lion expansion and playing that first instead. It's a much more streamlined experience and will teach you how to play.
NecrosaroIII
Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
I have that as well, but haven't opened it.
Have you played Frosthaven? Any big changes?
PaddyOCanager
Member
I haven't played Frosthaven yet, but word on the street is it's massive - even more so than Gloomhaven.
Go ahead and crack open Jaws of the Lion I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. My girl and I had the game up and running within like 10 minutes never having played anything else before. It has a lot of quality-of-life features that let you get in and out quickly. You don't even have to read the rules ahead of time, the first few missions are explicitly tutorial based.
Darkmakaimura
Member
I think the setting of Nunenera is neat but it is super woke. More so than any other tabletop role-playing game that I've seen and that's saying something.
Edit: there's also way too much weirdness in it that it doesn't balance out with normalcy. It's a setting where pretty much everything is really weird and bizarre.
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NecrosaroIII
Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
Looks like OGL 1.2 is up.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/attachments/39j2li89/OGL1.2_DraftForDiscussionPurpose.pdf
https://www.dndbeyond.com/attachments/39j2li89/OGL1.2_DraftForDiscussionPurpose.pdf
Nobody_Important
“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
After looking at the details they are 100% just doing it for money. The whole "harmful and offensive" angle is pure shielding for their actual motives. Hope everyone just goes to Pathfinder or finds other options.
WOTC have completely lost the plot when it comes to their properties and their communities. I can only assume the terrible state of Hasbro and their new president who has no idea wtf the games are about is playing hard into this.
NecrosaroIII
Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
So features like fog of war and shit probably follow under that as well.
Nobody_Important
“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
Fully expecting a digital DnD tabletop video game announced in the coming months.
LordCBH
Member
Yeah it’s pretty fuckin shit. I don’t see how they can lord over VTT features like this. 10000% won’t apply to their own VTT on DnDBeyond. They just don’t want people to use competitors services.
LordCBH
Member
10000%. I’m diving into Pathfinder. Paizo seems to be full of relatively cool people and I don’t mind learning a new system.
NecrosaroIII
Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
I'm not really sure they can apply it at all tbh. Most VTT are entirely system agnostic. Sure using copyrighted images and shit is obviously something they can crack down on. But the rules are clearly not copyrightable. Functionality is well outside of anything they can copyright or claim.
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Nobody_Important
“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
Yea I was thinking the same. They even specifically use the words "magic missile". So all people have to do if they REALLY want to be sacks of shit about it is call it "Magic Bolt" or some shit and use the same animation.
Anyone making their own world, spells, characters etc etc based on the DnD rules are completely protected from the VTT bs.
"Woke"? That's one that I haven't heard before.
StreetsofBeige
Member
I like PC board games, and wanted to try GH. But my crusty laptop cant run it. I even tried one of those Can Your PC Run It programs and my computer got denied. lol
Torrent of Pork
Member
Yeah, there's jack shit Hasbro can do about people playing D&D, or any other system on VTTs like Roll20. I just fired it up for the first time in months, and everything on the character sheets are just just stylized excel spreadsheets with with math in the backgrounds.
You can't copyright that.
Nobody_Important
“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
Yep. In fact if you go into the specifics apparently they try to say the rules are copyrighted. So are the class archetypes. I saw it mentioned on Reddit.
They literally cannot do that lol
NiiloPielinen
Member
anthraticus
Member
Also check out the OSR scene ppl
Pilgrimzero
Member
D&D isnt going anywhere. It may suffer some losses for a time but its to big.
If anything Hasbro can sell the brand and some other company will keep it going.
If anything Hasbro can sell the brand and some other company will keep it going.
Fools idol
Member
I called this would happen on the Hasbro thread way back.
When a company like this gets bought out, the IP's and qualities get watered down to reduced costs, maximise profits, fuck the fans.
It's like when Blizzard fell under Activision.
When a company like this gets bought out, the IP's and qualities get watered down to reduced costs, maximise profits, fuck the fans.
It's like when Blizzard fell under Activision.
Fools idol
Member
Just got off the phone with a friend who did contract work for WotC.
He said Hasbro literally just fired half of the staff working on DnD. Blanket firings, no explanations given. What the fuck? happened this morning by email and slack group messenger from higher up.
I guess they dont agree on rolling back the changes!
He said Hasbro literally just fired half of the staff working on DnD. Blanket firings, no explanations given. What the fuck? happened this morning by email and slack group messenger from higher up.
I guess they dont agree on rolling back the changes!
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Facism
Member
well that fucking sucks.
NecrosaroIII
Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
Probably has to do with this
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/hasbro-to-lay-off-1000-staffers-1235310817/
How much "staff" does DnD really need? A couple folks planning the adventure supplements, some one riding herd on the book design, someone putting out press releases, a small team thinking up new rules.
Everything else can really be contract/freelance work. Art, individual adventures, ancillary fiction, all that crap doesn't merit many full time staff IMHO.
Everything else can really be contract/freelance work. Art, individual adventures, ancillary fiction, all that crap doesn't merit many full time staff IMHO.
NecrosaroIII
Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
I think that's pretty much their model currently. I don't think they have too large of a core team. All the art and what not is freelancers. Based on this, the core team is 5 people https://dnd.wizards.com/news/introducing-dnd-studio-blog
Jinzo Prime
Member
Time to move on. Paizo is planning a true open source license for Pathfinder. Let's stop supporting greedy corporations like Hasbro.
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NecrosaroIII
Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-dragon...thorize-its-open-1850041837?rev=1674849859537
Looks like WotC is giving up. They're not going to update the OGL
Looks like WotC is giving up. They're not going to update the OGL
StreetsofBeige
Member
If WOTC and Hasbro are that amped up for money, instead of doing a giant swath of control and legal shit, just do a modest royalty fee like what every other licensor does. And not 25% what they planned.
Hasbro knows better than that. They do toys. Toy royalty agreements are not 25% cuts. If they successfully push through a 25% cut I bet that'd be the biggest license cut they got at their entire company.
It's more like 3-10% (at least when I dabbled with toy franchise licenses in the 2000s having to do with superheroes and Disney stuff and Blues Clues). Start small at 5% and see what happens. And get rid of all the stuff about taking control of people's content, with exception of content that should be taken down like someone trying to use D&D and sell porn content or heinous stuff tarnishing the brand.
Hasbro knows better than that. They do toys. Toy royalty agreements are not 25% cuts. If they successfully push through a 25% cut I bet that'd be the biggest license cut they got at their entire company.
It's more like 3-10% (at least when I dabbled with toy franchise licenses in the 2000s having to do with superheroes and Disney stuff and Blues Clues). Start small at 5% and see what happens. And get rid of all the stuff about taking control of people's content, with exception of content that should be taken down like someone trying to use D&D and sell porn content or heinous stuff tarnishing the brand.
PaddyOCanager
Member
DKehoe
Member
They also now have D&D Beyond and are in the process of building their own virtual tabletop system.
gothmog
Member
All that damage to the brand basically for nothing. I guessed that this would not end until they fired Kyle Brink, but here we are.
The cut wasn't 25%. It was 25% of revenues above $750,000. If your business did $2,000,000 in revenue you would owe Hasbro $312,500 which is only around 16% of revenue. Larger companies like critical role would sign a direct licensing deal on better terms. The concept was fine in principle since it allows independent publishers to grow quite large before needing to think of royalties. the low reporting requirements ($50,000 or more) which would hurt smaller games. the increased control over the property and other aspects made it look like a hit job on bigger publishers.
StreetsofBeige
Member
Maybe all this D&D stuff has to do with this?
Hasbro Inc. plans to slash 15% of its global workforce over the year, and layoffs of approximately 1,000 workers will start in the coming weeks, the company announced Thursday.
The news came as the Pawtucket-based toymaker (Nasdaq: HAS) reported a weak fourth quarter and a disappointing year. The company saw Q4 2022 revenue of around $1.68 billion, down 17% from the same period last year. Full-year revenue was pegged at around $5.86 billion, down 9% compared to 2021.
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www.bizjournals.com
Hasbro COO departs as company slashes 15% of workforce
Hasbro Inc. plans to slash 15% of its global workforce over the year, and layoffs of approximately 1,000 workers will start in the coming weeks, the company announced Thursday.
The news came as the Pawtucket-based toymaker (Nasdaq: HAS) reported a weak fourth quarter and a disappointing year. The company saw Q4 2022 revenue of around $1.68 billion, down 17% from the same period last year. Full-year revenue was pegged at around $5.86 billion, down 9% compared to 2021.