so basically Wizards is the only thing that makes money for Hasbro anymore since nobody is playing Monopoly or doing puzzles. So Hasbro is basically making WOTC a full on division of the company sort of like what Activision did with Blizzard (and if you are a g*mer you probably know how that ended).
here comes more digital releases, tighter release schedules, and the end of customer-friendly copyright permissions. we're about to get all the shitty parts of TSR without even a Spelljammer book. This probably has something to do with why the owners of D&D Beyond all jumped ship a few weeks ago.
homebrew is praxis.
steal all the books.
I'm with you mostly, but sometimes I like to get paid for my homebrew. Mostly concerned about how this is going to change the Open Gaming License because I'm almost positive Hasbro is going to yoink it. Without the OGL independent content creators get shafted - so say goodbye to all the patreons you borrow from for maps and such.
I would hope someone could convince the suits that's a TERRIBLE idea, but that'll probably never happen, or at best, work for 4 years before they try it again when who ever told them it was a bad idea leaves the company or something.
oh its a done deal if we're hearing about it, this was part of their investor call. that means if they didn't do it they could go to jail.
I do hope this kills Wizards of the Coast though. Honestly I've been playing D&D my entire life, I bought my first set of dice directly from the guy who invented them lol. If they get greedy and kill D&D's golden age with 5th Edition I'll laugh my ass off and go play Pathfinder or something
The OGL is super important for the life of each DnD edition, they'll ALWAYS outpace official releases, but you cant play any of them without an official rulebook to reference at some point.
it's just pointless screaming on my part. sometimes I forget that hasbro has the rights to the whole franchise. I hope they at least keep the D20 system open, but despite knowing that it's probably too late to put the genie back in the bottle, there's good chance a pro-business judge could say that Hasbro can control their copyright even though DnD has been common knowledge and EVERYWHERE since the 80's
I don't think they can do anything about the d20 system, if memory serves they tried to squash it when they released 4e but they couldn't. The next best thing is to just be Hasbro and start flooding the market with D&D merch and trashy movies until the fad is over. As far as the current SRD goes, they'll probably leave that open but not let people publish material inspired by official releases and yoink people's permission to publish for the Forgotten Realms. Although, they might have to wait until Ed Greenwood dies for that. He's got a pretty cush deal lol. Worst case scenario is they make a 6th edition and I'll be pissed because I spent a lot of money on my books and they promised 5e still had a lot of life in it.
Either that or they'll get real lazy and just start publishing popular DM's Guild stuff and exploit the shit out of actual creators. Nothing good will come of this.
A thought occurs.
The biggest reason for the rise in DnD content, aside from the pandemic, is the wave of live play content like Critical Role, Dimension20, Arcadum, etc, etc. it’s pulling all the weight for Hasbro here, since you cant really sell the point of DnD by describing what the games like, but SHOWING. And they’ve tried, Wizards does their own streams, but who gives a fuck about those?
A sensible person would see that they should encourage people to buy their rule sets and materials, and modules if they want, that there is an infinitely replayable game. But who ever heard of a sensible business person?
Also, i think they already do sell DM guild modules and junk.
Absolutely. I mean theres a reason why Critical Role is an all but official D&D product. I mean Mercer writes for them and they playtest rules on the show and stuff. I can absolutely see Hasbro getting greedy though and shutting it all down, or at least expecting to get paid royalties or some such. It's what they do.
The DM's guild has a print on demand for popular titles which Wizards makes a lot of money on, and shafts creators (authors get something like 40% of sales just for the privilege of being hosted on their platform lol), but nothing outright just published for pennies and "exposure" like TSR did back in the old days with Dragon. But even then, good Dragon contributors could get jobs that way. It's not like that anymore.
agreeeeee
while you're at it 3d print your obscenely expensive warhammer 40k figurines too
good time to post this