Why D&D 2024 Will Probably Fail

[@SupergeekMike]

What’s your favorite Wizards of the Coast scandal? Thanks so much to WorldAnvil for sponsoring this video! Visit www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike and use the promo code SUPERGEEK to get 51% off any annual membership! www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike

[@Roukle]

Idk I probably don't know about half of them. Probably the AI stuff we've been hearing about, although forced 'updates' to ppls character sheets on D&D Beyond is um, quite stupid. I never used D&D Beyond much b/c I don't trust them anyway and you can bet I'm in no hurry to start using it now.

[@jaysw9585]

Do you mean the manufactured outrage from KZbin creators for clickbait? Most of it is complete BS, or over reaction. None of it really affects players. For the most part, they've done nothing worse than their competitors, which gets next to no attention.

[@morrigankasa570]

You do know there is a free wiki website that has all the 5e content except character sheets? 16:37

[@jaysw9585]

@@morrigankasa570 it's the 2014 content and an unpublished book. Also, it doesn't change the fact. Two Wrongs don't make a Right. Peoples very livihoods depend on the work they do.

[@andrewlustfield6079]

I'm going to wind up disagreeing with the basic premise of the post--I think 2024 is going to be a wild success. The is the evergreen version of the game for the VTT. If you wind up playing D&D on their VTT and through D&D Beyond, then they have succeeded. Book sales are going to drop off as the game becomes more and more digital. And the promise of being backward compatible with 2014--that won't translate online. Just think of the programing nightmare that would be. If you play live, around a table or you want to use a different VTT than the one in WOCs walled garden--get used to homebrewing. First off, it's actually fun.

[@emmathomas2832]

i do genuinely question the sanity of people who expect infinite growth to be possible. Profit is possible. insane amounts of profit is possible. more profit than last year until forever isn't possible

[@prasiolite]

So many corporations are obsessed with this now. My friend works at Petsmart and they keep raising the expectations for dog spa sales every year. Now they're having weekly meetings berating the staff and threatening to fire them or cut their hours because they aren't magically squeezing more and more money out of the same staff and clients that they had last year.

[@Grimlore82]

...and this is why editions will bloat until burst, then the big reset button gets pressed. They will make a streamlined version, then add power bloat more and more until it bursts. Wash, rinse, repeat. What infuriates me is the plethora of older modules, etc they keep locked in their vault, and seem to refuse to look or utilize. For example, Dark Sun campaign setting. But, nope they just want to recycle the same ol Forgotten Realms and put out the occasional lackluster book for Ravenloft, Spelljammer, etc.

[@haraldbredsdorff2699]

I mean, infinite growth to be possible. As long as population grow, tech improve and the hobby is not replaced. The problem is that they expect it to grow every year. Also, a large amount of the people in charge, seem to not understand their own money. They think the more money they invest in, the more money they get back. I honestly wonder, how on god green earth, these people was able to get all that money, in the first place.

[@KrataLightblade]

​@Grimlore82 May I recommend being happy they are willing to ignore Dark Sun rather than doing to it the same thing they've done to other settings?

[@nouveauprofil]

The whole Hasbro mindset is utterly stupid. Incredibly dumb. For the record, their 2020 analysis was "Only wotc makes money in all of hasbro". And from there they decided to then BREAK their cash cow. They did the modern version of the golden eggs goose.

[@AlexLawngtv]

I'm still not sure why there is a monthly sub for DnDBeyond. It would make sense to have access to ALL the books and content included in your subscription, but having to buy the books and sub to the platform seems really weird to me.

[@KingRickardttv]

Yeah, honestly the biggest shame is that WotC HAD a system like that back during the 4E era, you could pay a subscription (it was 4.99 USD per month, less if you subbed for longer periods at a time) and you got access to... everything, anything that was ever published; whether it was in Dragon Magazine, an official book, online errata, you name it, it was on there. It also came with a character creator that was at least as good as DDB's is.

[@mandisaw]

It's an iteration and holdover from the 4e era DDI digital platform. That sub included the digital tools and all edition-published content, including the big searchable Compendium, and the two full monthly magazines, Dungeon and Dragon. And that itself was carried over from Ye Olde Days of the two magazines being print subscriptions. I don't play 5e, but recently got invited to join a friend's game, so I checked out D&D Beyond for the first time. Had no idea they individually paywalled most of the actual content. I assumed it worked like the old Character Builder, where if you had a subscription you had total access to everything.

[@ljskizzle]

The subscription isn't for book content, it's for website features

[@kjj26k]

_"Double Dipping is a common and lucrative business tactic for..."_

[@rogerwilco2]

DnDBeyond had subscriptions before WotC bought them, right? Also the DDI and DNDBeyond are unrelated and separately developed by different companies.

[@anewhero1216]

I know I’m probably sticking with 2014 5e, almost entirely for practical reasons - I’m broke, so buying new books is a non-starter. My players and I are familiar with 5e, I own a bunch of the 5e books, and we don’t use DnDBeyond, so we’re staying put lol

[@RyanWright]

and that is fine. I did get the new rulebooks and all, and it isn't like it is a totally new edition or anything, just has some changes, most of which I honestly like.

[@notsochosenone5669]

I mean, it isn't exactly hard to find new books in high seas. Changes are mostly cool - so using them is ok.

[@override367]

You're just going to play a worse version of the game even though the new version is creative commons and freely available? Really sucks for your martials, the new fighter, barbarian, rogue, and monk are better (rogues the least improved, sadly)

[@amiablereaper]

Ultimately, this is the biggest issue 5.5e will face. Wotc is, fundamentally, trying to get people to Play Another Game, and we all know how well that goes for every other ttrpg on the market.

[@WolforNuva]

@@override367 5e is easy enough without handing out even more power creep. My table's first game was Storm king's Thunder with only 3 martial new players as player characters and they still never had a real challenge beyond level 2. Their martial players will be fine.

[@JoULove]

Not to be that person but is it really unethical to download a digital copy of a book that you already payed for 👀

[@mattball8622]

Ah yes, the ROM argument. All you're doing is making a backup, after all. You can never be too careful (imagine me saying this while winking in a very exaggerated manner)

[@dsquaredentertainment]

@@mattball8622 this but unironically Live service purchases got people acting like stuff doesn't just disappear off websites overnight lol

[@verityverri6506]

No. Neither it is one you didn't. Piracy is not theft and even if it was, theft from a big company is a victimless crime.

[@Roukle]

@@verityverri6506 Piracy includes a wide variety of intellectual property violations, some of which are theft and genuinely hurt creators (such as AI 'art' generators, or pirating Ebooks which can result in authors being dropped due to low sales). Some piracy, on the other hand, is practically a moral obligation at this point and the only option if you wish to preserve certain media

[@hweidigiv]

Friendly reminder that unethical does not mean illegal. The folk hero Robin Hood is defined as a criminal, but is trying to counter the legal actions of his immoral government. Not saying that all crimes are moral, either. You should understand the justifications for the laws before you decide you are ethically obligated to oppose it and how.

[@Simon-RucknRideAUD]

I played a game with a group in a restaurant, back a few years ago, its was spur of the moment. The DM ran the entire thing with 2 Packs of ordinary playing cards and a Tarro deck and 1 set of dice. Our characters were written on napkins. It basically changed how I played and my mindset.

[@ChurchofCthulhu]

That's awesome. It's all about the storytelling and the group bonding of the players.

[@otakuofmine]

nice! just as little help: its Tarot :)

[@Simon-RucknRideAUD]

@@otakuofmine thank for that, I think it was from the Ravenloft box not sure on what it was.

[@scorpiovenator_4736]

Plenty of people did the same thing in 3rd edition. Why buy something if you already have it.

[@quirkygeekgirl]

The spell mishap happened in the latest ep of CR - Marisha and Matthew were referencing different versions of a spell and not sure which version to use

[@override367]

a player selected the new one or matt did

[@Vampster19CockedD20]

Yeah I caught that too

[@LostWhits]

I caught that too. I like that in the end Matt went with the "rule of cool". Whichever option sounded cooler.

[@verdurite]

there isn't even a 2024 version of the spell they were talking about, spirit of death, I think matt was looking at the book version that doesn't have the stat block built in

[@bradleyhurley6755]

It was funny especially since they haven't been keeping up with the rule changes and Liam was the only one who knew what was going on. Definitely makes me think they are going Daggerheart after this campaign.

[@justinsinke2088]

Ah yes, the quest for infinite growth, where unrealistic expectations abound because they numbers say X. It's never enough to be profitable, you always need to be more profitable, so profitable ventures get canned for "not meeting expectations" and then they wonder why the product that their data driven analytics told them would be a product everyone in the world would love ended up being a complete flop.

[@ffreed]

That’s one of the most frustrating parts about this for me. WotC had ALREADY WON. It was an industry leader in ttrpgs, experiencing a golden age of the hobby with a game synonymous with that hobby. But instead of being content with that, they decided to hunt down any remaining money on the table, and in effect, shot themselves in the foot in the process of trying to shoot the fan community. And all because the bottom line didn’t double or triple enough.

[@redrum47]

@@ffreed Silver lining, it's a good example to show that absolutely no company is too big to fail. Hubris and Greed get em' all, eventually.

[@kjj26k]

​@@redrum47 Unfortunately, the bigger they are the more of us they take with 'em. This hubristic quest for infinite wealth is destroying the only biosphere in known existence and will kill billions of people including everyone here at this video. The ones responsible? Will survive in relative luxury. Oh well, should've done something about it.

[@ffreed]

@@RenoReborn The core audiences are who, again?

[@Oznerock]

It's because the shareholders change. They need to get new shareholders buying and to keep the numbers profitable for the old ones to sell - It doesn't matter how much money the company actually makes, only the difference between how much shares got bought for, and how much they sold for.

[@pippastrelle]

Obviously I hope the new edition wars don't get vitriolic but I must say, as a lover of game design, I am LIVING for all these new ttrpgs being released. Even if they're not my cup of tea, I want all the youtube videos about them!

[@Barlmoro]

i will buy the 3 new books if the relase them as a bundle like with the old core books and than cherry pick the cool stuff out of it and toss the rest away. And i will switch to cyberpunk red too.

[@sethb3090]

Yeah, honestly I think the OGL crisis spurred a golden age for ttrpgs

[@Stephen-Fox]

...I can hypothesize on why they might not be thinking about people not wanting to change the rules of the game they're playing midway through a campaign - Because of the amount of management of WotC and Hasbro at the moment who come from a video game background, and this is how video game updates work. The update is put out, everyone's game is updated to reflect the change, people always play on the latest version. (And this isn't actually how things work with video games. Speed runners especially, when the game doesn't support easy downgrading to the best edition for the particular run you're doing, will go to great measures to play older versions of the game. But as far as the AAA sector is concerned, particularly for multiplayer games, it is how it works. It's more work to play on older versions of games, so the default is to play on the latest version. While with TTRPGs it's more work to update your in progress campaign to the latest version than keep playing with the old rules. And I'm not sure D&D's current management [not the designers] were ready for that change in the default player behaviour this results in)

[@grokka]

I am a DM from jump who has lived through all the edition wars, and the only place they seem to actually exist is in forums and on sites like youtube. Most people play whatever game a friend is willing to run. You might as well have a war over which place in the food court you prefer, just enjoy the buffet. Play D&D, Play Fate, Play Pathfinder, Play TMNT and other Strangeness, Play Vampire, Play Dungeon Crawl Classics, play whatever scratches your itch, and if WOTC stops making crap...it wont matter. We own D&D, not WOTC. Not Paizo. Nobody Owns Chess. Nobody Owns TTRPG's. Most experienced DMS could make up a set of rules on their own to play just from memory. So just play...or don't. Reality is an adventure too.

[@drewb1979]

Most longtime DMs have this perspective. We really don't need WOTC.

[@cendresaphoenix1974]

Ok but 2024 rules still suck and no one likes them.

[@grokka]

@@cendresaphoenix1974 That is patently untrue. I am not going to argue that you like them, but plenty of folks like them, as they are basically the same as the 2014 rules with some small changes and by and large a ton of people liked those. Peddling hate and vitriol is pointless. If you don't want to play 2014, 2024, or even 3.5 nobody is making you. Grognards and Trolls are only interesting to other Grognards and Trolls. Sucks is not constructive or useful and basically amounts to "I don't like this and cannot be bothered to actually communicate." Grow up or shut up.

[@Wiz_and_Pippy]

Wow Mike just blew my mind! The last video's thumbnail having "Past" felt off in your typical composition and I was wondering what that was all about because your thumbs are usually very cohesive. Now I see it! We're going on a little journey and now I am super excited for the "Future" video! What a neat idea!

[@Keovar]

33:40 - Infinite growth is what cancer does… or what it tries to do, since that's inherently unsustainable, and often becomes deadly to the organism which develops it.

[@Wipomatic]

The Pinkertons were final straw for me, I'll still play D&D if I'm invited, and obviously I'll happily watch and support small creators making D&D content, but Wizards won't get another cent out of me, if they think doing that kind of thing is ever okay.

[@The_Sharktocrab]

Not sure why you think you need to pay wotc to play d&d, everything is easily acquired for free

[@MrBrothasky]

Or secondhand. I'm with you. That Pinkerton call was the line for me as well.

[@andrewburgess9578]

For me it was Christmas layoffs - at a toy company...

[@crazyscotsman9327]

The Christmas layoffs really made me double down. I have straight up told my group. “I will not play 5.5 period. If you guys want to one of you can dm I will not play it.”

[@override367]

@@MrBrothasky Did they kill someone?

[@TheBahamaat]

Failure in business hasn't been about sales or profits for a long time - which is why big business has become untethered from reality for several decades now.

[@CheezMonsterCrazy]

Its still about sales and profits, its just that sales and profits alone aren't the metrics by which corporate success is measured. Growth is the most important metric. That's why profitable ventures are routinely shut down if they do not demonstrate potential for scalability. The very nature of a publicly funded company precludes you from simply having and enjoying healthy profits. A static share price, no matter how high or how low, is virtually worthless for investors.

[@voiceofthevoid2284]

Companies don't even have to provide a good or service, anymore. As long as the bottom line goes up, they can stop producing things, and just fire people to widen the gap between operating costs and income.

[@lindsaythegreat]

​@@CheezMonsterCrazy And that's why I consider an IPO the death knell for any company with quality products or services. The cost-cutting measures tend to be implemented shortly thereafter, to the detriment of the consumer.

[@claytonpfeifer6166]

The whole 5.5e situation is like your friend who dates a jerk, you hope they break up or that things get better for them, but deep down you know they're likely gonna be stuck together good or bad, and anything you do will just be seen as unwanted meddling

[@ZWilson2000]

This is a great analogy.

[@Lathlaer]

A quick fact check while I am watching. 8:46 Hasbro didn't made WotC lay off 1100 people. Hasbro laid off 1100 people. Some of them were from WotC. See, the difference here is that if Hasbro made them lay off 1100 there would be no one working at WotC.

[@maeburekaiser]

I would argue that the company isn't easier to "bully". D&D's core fanbase are people who spend way too much time thinking about the game, have spent years arguing with each other over minute details, with a massive variety of problem-solving skills sets, trained to work together against horrific odds, and who's biggest problem is scheduling. And half of us already gave up on new editions each generation anyway.

[@Skip6235]

Maybe the real BBEG was the Capitalsim we made along the way 😢

[@guydude6388]

The never ending battle

[@sinisterplank3113]

As someone with 30 years of Warhammer experience, I've been living with unchecked capitalism in my hobby for a while now 😂 I think that's why stuff like the OGL situation etc doesn't really bother me, it was nothing we haven't seen before, or won't see again. On paper, they're effective monetization strategies, exactly the kind of stuff you should always expect from consumer product companies. The OGL stuff was just free market capitalization working as intended. Companies monetize, consumers make it clear where then line is drawn, companies correct.

[@hectamus_]

I really hoped they had just released a brand new edition with a fresh start. This approach of making everything backwards compatible is almost a half-ass solution. I don’t really think adds anything substantial to 5e in the first place.

[@brilobox2]

Aside from making character classes universally better particularly less powerful ones (yes even rangers), more mechanical codifiers like what people simp for Pathfinder over, a dozen cleaned up rules that are actually usable now like new versions of Surprise and Exhaustion and a spell-per-turn limit that actually makes sense, significant fixes to a number of game-breaking exploits and braindead powergaming, etc

[@michaelramon2411]

Oddly enough, Pathfinder 2e is doing something very similar to D&D 2024 with the "Pathfinder Remaster" - new but backwards-compatible player's books and DM's guides to scrape all the remaining OGL intellectual property out of the system and tweak a few things. But the main Pathfinder rules site, Archives of Nethys (which is free), kept all of the old content with "Legacy" labels. Looking at a Remaster version of a spell or whatever will even have a little link to the Legacy version, and vice versa. There are a few kinks in it (if you search for a magic item name that's been renamed, it will show you the new one without making it immediately obvious that it is what you are looking for rather than some random other thing), but it's overall a good system that clearly understands that some people will keep using the older 2e stuff (and, because of backwards compatibility, even Remaster players will still draw upon older stuff). (The website also has a whole separate site for Pathfinder 1e stuff, so that's still totally usable - just no longer updated.)

[@sethb3090]

Pathfinder wasn't advertising it as The Next Big Thing either, just a big quality of life update to get out from under the OGL

[@soreg666alex]

Tbh I always said "fuck DNDB". The corporate greed was ingrained into the platform from the start, even before WOTC deal. I'd rather import everything by hand in Roll20 than worry about my stuff being pulled from my hands by overlords. And about DND5.5 - I saw enough that I feel like I'd like at best the third of changes, maybe 1/4 of them. Who knows, maybe at the end of the day I'll compile my own fork just for my players to reference in our next campaign.

[@alexisglaab2572]

Honestly Pathfinder 2e seems like a good fit for you. Did you know the employees are unionized? Paizo also doesn't seek infinite growth and then get mad and knee-jerk when it doesn't happen, they have a realistic release schedule that makes enough profit to keep the engine going. They aren't perfect, but they are SO MUCH BETTER as a company than Hasbro/WotC. They actually play their own game and are concerned with having a good one.

[@RayneGrimm1]

Honestly my growing frustrations with it on a whole comes down to how many people were happy to condemn them, and then immediately go to get the new stuff when it came out. Everything else asside it was sad to see people unwilling to stick to a moral standard. Play what you like and all that but it felt so performative *adendum* also super agree on the physical book thing. Been touting physical Media in general especially in this day and age where companies wiping things from online is becoming ever present. I want the thing I paid for. I'm tired of the forever rental systems in place

[@hawkname1234]

The outrage was ENTIRELY performative. But that's because almost all of these TTRPG KZbinrs KNEW THEY WERE LYING when they fabricated the OGL "crisis", got people riled up about "the Pinkertons" (a brand from another company that did a different thing than they do now and which they remember from History class, something something something happened 150 years ago). The CULTURE of TTRPG KZbinrs is just thoroughly DISHONEST. And they are doing it to placate dishonest people like you, baying for blood because you just want to all hate the same people.

[@MajorHickE]

Yeah, the 180 turn from a lot of people, especially some of the more prominent creators once they got their books on D&DB, was kinda gross.

[@RayneGrimm1]

@@MajorHickE NGL I was rather disappointed. I know alot of people have tied themselves fast to the brand as a whole so they cant pull a full revolt but it really was them toeing the line. I'm glad i avoided making my channel about one system

[@The_Crimson_Witch]

To be clear, I was prepared to drop WOTC immediately when the OGL was happening and move on to other systems. But then WOTC gave me what I wanted and then some (the SRD being in creative commons was far more than I expected). They then also gave me changes that I liked and wanted to use. What's the point of a boycott if you keep going after your demands are met? That just encourages people to not meet your demands.

[@hive_indicator318]

Reminds me of a youtuber who laid out 18 minutes of all the times they showed their hand in the past couple years, but is still going to buy/play/discuss 5.5

[@theboulder027]

The fact that buying the physical book doesn't give you access on dnd beyond is absolutely ridiculous.

[@hisinger889]

I can access both 2024 and 2014 spells on DnD beyond at the time of release of the video. However, it is a little annoying that I see both at the same time, which means my spell list is twice as long, and I have to make sure I prepare the right version of the spell.

[@DreadPirateRobrt]

One word, Hasbro. Corporate overlords want to make it a repeating more reliable revenue stream. When there are so many other TTRPG options out there, strong arm techniques against competitors and trying to force your "faithful customers" to do something they don't necessarily want to do is ultimately going to fail.

[@jaysw9585]

You know those same Hasbo overlords are now letting their competitors host their products on DnDBeyond. This introduces people to smaller companies like Kolbald Press and Renegade Games that never before had that access.

[@ryanschramm8147]

It definitely was more cost effective to buy the whole book, but if I wanted, say, to access the Bladesinger subclass, it made more sense to mee as a player to pay $4-6 for the "subclasses" section than $30 for the full book with things I was never going to use.

[@herebyaccident5174]

Theres a free app i love called 5e character. Its got every 5e class, subclass, race and background. Its got a red dragon oroboris as its app art. Its great and the adds are unintrusive

[@dragonmiko]

It used to be if you purchased parts and then bought the book the price you already paid was deducted

[@neckbeardcat6777]

​@dragonmiko yep, now you have to call customer service to get the same discount, and you know damn well that will be like pulling teeth.

[@ryanschramm8147]

@@neckbeardcat6777 true but the point was you weren't planning on buying the whole book

[@stuggaroy]

So you are REALLY wrong about the Jorphdan channel and why they took the content down. EVERY content creator at that time was told "you may talk about anything in the book. You may NOT show pages in the book". So people like Treantmonk rewrote everything, and also double checked that they could. Jorphdan showed every page. I even warned him in a comment right when he posted the FULL book review that it was probably a violation of the agreement that he signed. That is not unresonable of Hasbro. They are still jerks, but Jorphdan did that to himself.

[@TheSwamper]

Another point: when 4e was the current version, I was subbed, and for 9 bucks a month, I got access to ALL the books, a character builder, an encounter builder AND a VTT that was pretty good.

[@trently89]

When you care more worried about money than customers or employees, you're the problem

[@hawkname1234]

Or integrity, like TTRPG KZbinrs

[@Elighght]

​@@hawkname1234stop liking your own comments, wtf

[@GrizzledNoob]

That is every corporation that exists. Their job is to make money for their shareholders. That's it. There are lots of ways to do this but usually it's not in a customer friendly method. Stick to small publishers and you'll get the gaming love from the company you are hoping for.

[@sjwarhammer4039]

D&D4e didn't have official pdfs. Everything floating out there are scans to this day. I don't know what was put on Drive-thru, but if I had to guess, I bet it's scans.

[@hweidigiv]

I don't believe they were official PDFs, but someone got hold of the files sent to the printers (the borders with colour blocks and lines are there to help book publishers get the right ink ratios) and shared them. They weren't technically scans, but they still weren't official. Later splat books were probably scans; I described the core rulebook leaks during the original release.

[@sjwarhammer4039]

@@hweidigiv ok, I bought the books back during release and didn't look for digital copies until much later when Insider went kaput and all that, so I never saw anything other than scans. But for most of my time with 4e, it was passing around books at the table and a laptop with the character builder. Didn't care about pdfs until I started gaming online.

[@SirMola742]

It actually has official PDFS NOW (4e core rulebook is $10 on drivethroughrpg right now), but they were added to drivethroughrpg in 2016, after 5e was out. Wizards is fine with making PDFs avalible of old stuff (because they know some people will insist on playing the old version no matter what, and you might as well get some money from them) But the current edition is apparently a step too far, because pdfs arnt an efficent enough way to monetize it.

[@ratherfungames]

14:00 This is because "intellectual property" laws are intended to protect huge companies, even though we're fed the lie that IP is designed to protect individual creators.

[@Cointelpronoun]

If they're worried about people scanning the book from a KZbin video, they should be more worried about people doing that with a physical copy which would be vastly easier.

[@j0nasbs]

If they could get away with not selling physical books, they would. It costs more to make them and they need to be shipped, so the price shoots way up and the profit margins are not great. That might be one of the reasons for them to invest so much in digital play, eventually introduce digital-only content and make the digital version in their own platforms the best value propostion.

[@clever4600]

Last week Critical Role ran into a spell being changed and didn’t know what happened but defaulted to the initial spell effect. It was confusing

[@bigdream_dreambig]

Um. In a 35-minute video, you didn't get to your main point until the 29-minute mark. I'm not saying you should have cut the first 29 minutes, but framing the purpose of the video differently in its intro and title would have made more sense.

[@JamesRiley-fb3lg]

Hasbro needs to steal a page from gamefreaks playbook. Pokemon makes a ridiculous amount of money, but a surprisingly small cut of that is from the actual games. Rather it's the plushies, T-shirts, animated films, card games, ect. They decided very early on that this IP was going to be more than just a video game and as a result it is a culture phenomenon. Why isn't Hasbro doing the same? It certainly has brand recognition and they are a toy company, the stuff practically designs itself. Chibi Beholder plushies with a dozen pallet swaps (because they are known for their insane variations) or plastic beholders with interchangeable eye stocks. I would've loved seeing a Chris Pratt action figures with 40+ points of articulation (ala Marvel Legends). It's also a criminal miss that I never saw a Themberchad squishmellow. That chunky dragon boy could have been Hasbro's new baby yoda. Let's see a hand of Vecnew holding his eye, im thinking something like how people own the infinity gauntlet but timed for release with Halloween cause why not. Video games, sure you have balder's gate, but why stop with triple a games? Give people a DND themed candy crush for their phones. There are so many opportunities for merch. Unlike the books you could have repeatable buy in as new swag gets released.

[@OneTrueBelmont]

Clearly the answer is we all play Shadowrun.

[@doomedwit1010]

Current ed 3rd ed 4t ed or they are rereleasing 2nd ed mainbook physical book I think? I mean I love Shadowrun. But these days I have a simplified homebrew version I play. I will still never forgive them when they came out with am expansion book that said "all your software is registered unless you use the special rules in this book." It broke me. Still love every edition. But that and some bad experiences with 4th ed means I haven't played in a while. I read all the rules like 4 times and it felt like it was basically "okay gm, tell me what to do next." Because there was no standard approach. None of my gear was wireless, but only because I owned the right book to do that! What it really tought me is I can love playing a game without loving all the rules.

[@FantasticMrLP]

I havn't and likely won't buy the new books at all. Between the OGL and then learning how little was actually being updated or fixed, THEN learning that some changes they did make broke things even harder in new ways, I have said "screw it". Its not worth my time or money.

[@HughRGlen]

The whole "breaking things harder than before" is what does it for me. Rangers were already uniquely over reliant on BA and Concentration and 2024 doubled down on both of those aspects. Several spells were broken AF in 2014; so they made a couple of even more broken spells in 2024. After removing attribute bonus limitations from races "to allow for player freedom", they added attribute bonus limitations via backgrounds instead. Meaning they removed the player choice they said was SO IMPORTANT just a couple years ago. I also find a lot of the things people are discovering about 2024 that they're going gaga for... Were already in 2014.

[@NateJones10]

The OGL debacle was my final straw with WOTC. That combine with the mess they have made with Magic the Gathering, and how they are dead set on using culture war issues to make them look good while they do unethical legal actions like the copyright strikes and Pinkertons. On top of everything, they are so determined to push the digital initiative to monetize this hobby to the point they risk ruining the D&D. WOTC is an all consuming, soulless corporation and it does not care about our joy or the joy of its creatives at all.

[@lucamonticelli267]

On a purely egotistical standpoint, you don't want your favourite system to be the unrivaled monolith in an industry since that give the system the luxury to perform anti-consumer practices without worrying. I can go to any convention and take a random physical copy of a system and be sure that it will come with a pdf for free, i can find many of them like lancer, WWN and pathfinder that put the entire rules online for free etc... Mainwhile I can't even buy legally a pdf for the "greatest tabeltop roleplay game" or share the content that I bought with my players without paying a subscription fee

[@ryanschramm8147]

The most recent DnDBeyond controversey genuinely came down (to me, and sounds like to you/Mike too) to Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to Malice what you can attribute to Incompetence. People with the conspiracy theories about them forcing you to buy the new handbook, and I was just like....they just didn't stop to consider people wanted old rules

[@hawkname1234]

This is like the only person in this comment section with any critical thinking.

[@hweidigiv]

It's also exactly what happened when the platform shifted to 4e and 5e; previous edition support was dropped as quickly as possible.

[@EarnestVictory]

And when WotC had the Penny Arcade guys playtest 5e (or D&D Next, as it was called at the time) since they had been playing 4e, they had no answer when they were asked *why* they would want to play a different edition when they already had 4e. Because WotC will always think you should be as excited for their shiny new thing as they are.

[@verdurite]

@@hweidigiv thing is, that's why the "backwards compatibility" stuff is the last thing people should be complaining about because it means that support for 5e won't be ending

[@verdurite]

@@EarnestVictory is this really a statement tho? a company makes a new product and wants their customers to be excited for that new product, fork found in kitchen

[@thatoneoctopus7494]

So the main takeaway I got from this is, much like how GW is Warhammer's biggest problem, WoTC is the biggest problem with D&D

[@Elighght]

I've been done with WotC ever since the Pinkerton problem, and now my life is better (thanks to Shadowdark, Blades in the Dark, Draw Steel, etc.)

[@jamesc.7216]

I've been playing both MTG and D&D since the early 90s. This is not the first OGL scandal and it always leads to poor sales and a bad reputation for the edition of D&D that gets associated with it. Unfortunately for us, Hasbro has made some bad business decisions that have made them think that the best course of action is to cash in all their products loyalty and good will for money. They will continue to take thing way too far, then step back two steps, apologize, and then wait to see when they can continue going too far again without as much pushback. As my friend who is smarter than me would say "penny wise but pound foolish".

[@jordanwhite8718]

For me at least I would have no problem just using all of the fifth edition content that I’ve bought over the last 10 years. I don’t see any reason to go to the new rules, especially since they haven’t seem to have made many changes. The changes they did make to the Druid and paladin. I didn’t really like so I probably just won’t use the new rules. if they make any other good adventures or other books, I might decide to buy them or I might not. But I’m perfectly happy with just sticking to the content I have.

[@hweidigiv]

You might want to at least let the monk player update to the new ruleset, even if nobody else does.

[@jordanwhite8718]

@@hweidigiv The problem is if I give it to the monk, everybody else is going to want to do it. And quite frankly, I don’t want to buy it. If other people want to spend their money on it, I’m more than fine with that.

[@Rolling_with_Hope]

It's only been a few games but I am really liking the 2024 version of 5e so far. We may switch to something else at some point (I want to give Daggerheart a spin on the final version after playtesting it several times), but I'm not really planning to go back to 2014 for the games I GM. Would certainly play 2014 as a player again if a GM I was playing with wanted to run it. They're close enough to each other that it's not hard to switch back and forth.

[@oshermdaddy2058]

Those are my thoughts exactly, outside of monks, as a player I will only ever want to play a 2024 monk.

[@kelpiekit4002]

*The Pinkertons come knocking on your door* "Let us in! We're here to edit the content of your physical books as per the latest errata!"

[@xolotltolox7626]

>blames capitaliskm >the actual problem comes from a company eing publically traded it is so funny how often this happens

[@ryanstudham640]

To your point about virtual tools. I haven't been a DM for years: it was so much fun, but it was just too much responsibility for my personality and life. I ran a few sessions of 4e using Masterplan: a tool that lets you plot out a flowchart of encounters, load them up on the fly, and drop your players' tokens and statblocks into them instantly. Players doing better than you expected? Screw it, just crank up the monster's CR in the app and watch it calculate the correct AC, damage, to-hit, and everything else right in front of you. Masterplan makes me WANT to run D&D.

[@WexMajor82]

Too many carrots go for positive reinforcements, and carrots are pricey. The stick, you only need one.

[@thebaikalseal7335]

For pathfinder, I haven't experienced much of an edition war. Personally I play both.

[@matthewblanchard9805]

Over on the Paizo forums there was definitely a schism between those embracing PF2 and those dyed in the wool PF1 players.

[@thebaikalseal7335]

@@matthewblanchard9805 I see, I never spent much time on the forums

[@isitnotwrittenthat1680]

The general vibe I've gotten is it's a fairly polite edition war because a lot of 1e players are quite dug in and a lot of 2e players are new/from other editions A schism to some extent, but with less of a breaking and more the establishment of distinct groups

[@Anarch_Bushey]

There are only a small amount of hold outs for Pathfinder 1e from the switch to Pathfinder 2e. And PF2e is even more distinct since the OGL crisis triggered a rules overhaul Remaster. So you know it's good.

[@CerberusPlusOne]

14:20 wait, I could've sworn much of 5th edition 2024 was made into a free PDF by WOTC?

[@JackCharlesBrightwell]

Minor thing, you implied that TOFV isn't currently playable. Both the Player Guide & Monster Vault have both had their physical books available. I have had mine arrive from the kickstarter already so that one is openly playable as an alternative to 5e. It just seems like it's been pretty dead on arrival due to it being so similar to 5e, which I think is a real shame, I like the tweaks as they seem to be increasing the power level for the players but also give a lot of power back to the GM and the books are actually stitch bound

[@JSRLPadre]

Commenting on how awesome your background song selection is on this video.

[@SupergeekMike]

Thank you!

[@DaDinoDM]

The hugest shout out to Linda Codega who broke the OGL scandal so we got the OGL changed to CCL for 5e so we don’t have to worry about adding 5.5 in our games if we don’t want and can continue to use 5e as it was, to stream, homebrew, and continue to run our games as we’d like and just add whatever makes sense at our own tables, as we would like to. We don’t have to buy the books if we don’t want to and there are more great options than there ever have been. I think(and hope) 5.5’s failure will fuel a dnd revolution where when we say “dnd”, we don’t have to mean the game that hasbro owns, it could be Pathfinder, or Daggerheart, or DC20, or Draw Steel, or so many other things! Ps I’m just calling 5.5 cuz I hate how they named it, I’d also be fine with 5+.

[@Oznerock]

More like dnd 5 minus... I guess it's not as catchy.

[@Shalakor]

I think I'll be sticking with calling it 5.24E

[@doctorspook4414]

It's not capitalism, it's corporatism that you're against. Capitalism and the invisible hand theory have existed far longer than modern day laws implemented for corporate sturctures with investments by black rock/vanguard and massive union/socialist pension funds that are the largest investors of most corporations in the western world today.

[@AlexBarnes86]

DnD and Pathfinder are great for those who like more structure to their roleplaying, but for those who enjoy the actual narrative and story focus of role playing more than the lengthy combat; take a moment to try any of the Powered by the Apocalypse (PBtA) or other alternative roleplaying systems. Many alternative systems are story and character first focusing on where and who you are and less on what you have and depart from min-max power leveling. Alt systems move away from binary outcomes to more dynamic results (potential for mixed/partial success), negotiation with the group and GM for what makes the most interesting narrative, and bring deep richness to roleplaying sessions. Lastly, alt systems get off the endless version/edition upgrade train; usually having at most one corebook, maybe a couple optional expansions (usually the most popular ones), and are pretty mix and match hackable when you start to explore what rules work best for your group!

[@alexisglaab2572]

I don't like Pathfinder 2e being there with DnD. Pathfinder 2e has degrees of success pretty much all the time, has proper exploration and downtime rules and has plenty of roleplay systems to use. Just because it has a robust combat system doesn't mean that's all that's there.

[@spudsbuchlaw]

If you think 1st and 2nd edition are the major inspirations for the OSR, you haven't seen much OSR. honestly, aside from BECMI, they are kinda the least influential DnD editions in the space. It's MAJORITY Moldvay BX and 0e/Whitebox/Little Brown Books/DnD 1974 It's also worth noting most games these days dtray further and further away from emulating or even refining those original rules, but innovating and advancing the old school style and philosophy

[@crowtalk]

I wonder how many of the people they've laid off could have prevented some of these fumbles.

[@SneakyNinjaDog]

And just within these last few days (almost as you posted this video I think) there is something weird going on with the marketing claims from Hasbro about the new book. Is it really selling superfast (as they claim) and much better than 2014? Why then are there less than 100 Amazon reviews of it? Why are normal bookstores not stocking it? Why is Bookscan saying they only sold 3-4000 copies? And have Hasbro relabelled the book as "toys" instead of books to avoid book returns and might that be why it is not in Wallmart and similar places?

[@imayb1]

WotC's headline proclaimation used the word "product", NOT "book". I think they are touting fantastic numbers based on DNDB digital sales of the PHB. What I'd really like to know is if someone gets a PHB on DNDB but bought the bundle for a physical book with the rental version, did WotC count that as two sales of the PHB? Similarly, if someone bought a bundle of all three core books, did WotC also count that as 1 sale of the PHB? Most book sites separate sales of a single book vs. a boxset trilogy, for example. However, WotC is not at all transparent about their numbers, so we may never know.

[@bigdream_dreambig]

I haven't purchased any content on D&D Beyond since they removed the a la carte options. Because of this, I didn't do the conversion I'd planned to a fully electronic setup, and I may stop using their tools altogether, simply reverting to paper (or PDF) forms and looking at whatever new content I need in hard copy at my local library. Their "cash grab" failed with me because I don't have more cash for them to take!

[@deejaytee]

Good video but... I have literally never heard anyone say a single negative thing about Tomb of Annihilation, it almost always comes up as one of the best 5e adventures ever written.

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

Here’s some negative things: - the random encounter tables are reeeeally boring. Like. Awful compared to anything in the OSR (see Shadowdark). - there is almost nothing to do in the hex map. There’s no “roll for a point of interest, here’s some tables of fitting points of interest and some treasure/encounter tables for this area” - the game gives this overarching time crunchy objective and then says “hey, do you want to do all these side quests that seem to have nothing to do with the thing you’ve been hired to do?” - they have named locations on the map with literally one paragraph of flavor and no other reason to go there. In a hexcrawl - it goes from open world hexcrawl and then takes a really weird hard left into the tomb and becomes an uncharacteristic death trap. Also the formatting and organization is terrible, but that is across all WotC adventures. Basically WotC forgot how to make a hexcrawl. It was boring to the point of almost quitting it until our DM started doing their own thing with it and fixing a lot of the issues.

[@shannonhall8870]

​@@johnathanrhoades7751 I loved it, one my favorites personally. I don't share your criticism of Tomb of Anhilation, which seem to boil down to WotC bad.

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

@@shannonhall8870 Did you run it or play in it?

[@shannonhall8870]

@@johnathanrhoades7751 both

[@shannonhall8870]

@@johnathanrhoades7751 both

[@mrmuffins951]

10:50 Not only did dndbeyond quietly remove the option to purchase character options piecemeal, but they also removed the legendary bundle from the website quietly

[@user-vg6sg7kh1q]

You should also follow magic the gathering news. You would realize that Wizard of the coast is also making a mess on that side. They also have problem printing cards, make mistake in the printing of the good version of the card , used AI, did not test the cards enough etc.

[@MorningDusk7734]

I know it’s mostly off topic, but I’m concerned that the Acolyte background gives you the Magic Initiate (Cleric) feat, which gives you access to Healing Word, so any class now has access to healing if they’re willing to spend their background in service to a temple

[@slasherhawk]

The edition war in Pathfinder was more of a town hall debate; due to the fact Paizo provides all their stuff for free each player base just kept using their preferred edition. There will always be people who start conflicts on Reddit or the like, but it’s different from WotC due to the availability of the game rules and options.

[@Vipercobra88]

Hasbro doesn’t seem to recognize that in TTRPGs, most of the buying is done by the DM. I don’t see this as a huge problem, but more of a challenge to work around creatively. Older D&D modules were pretty cheap and weren’t long campaigns like the ones we see today. This made it easy for groups to finish them quickly and then buy another one to play. Another idea is to release a second Player's Handbook with more character options and rules just for the players. Books like Volo’s, Xanathar’s, and Tasha’s felt like they were for both DMs and players. I think having separate materials for DMs and players could boost sales, especially if WotC focused on making books that really appeal to players.

[@doomedwit1010]

The challenge is as the gm I feel I need to own every book the players own because there will be power creep and I need to read the rules they use too.

[@crazyscotsman9327]

I honestly hope that Hasboro loses money and this whole situation teaches a lesson to the boards. Don’t piss off the fan base. (Mostly watching this video and commenting to pay homage to the math gods that determine what videos are shown to people.) I personally will never ever buy another Wotc or Hasboro game. I still do not get how people can go and buy more stuff from these pos after let going a lot of people around Christmas. F Hasboro and F Wotc.

[@MrSilvUr]

I'm pretty hung up on the statement, "I believe in positive reinforcement," in this context. The idea that a corporation's behavior can be changed by giving them business just doesn't ring true for me. And it seems so close to the expected status quo as to be questionable whether it could even be considered a stimulus -- especially after you've already established a D&D KZbin channel. The change in behavior came after after the company recieved public backlash from their begavior, and you mentioned yourself the company being able to be "bullied into doing the right thing," so it seems like if anything positive punishment works -- adding an unpleasant stimulus after an undesireable behavior to discourage that behavior. Going back to buying their products ( and -- effectively -- advertising for them on your KZbin channel) is really more just ending the conditioning. Which in pronciple sounds fine -- once the undesirable behavior stops, you want to stop the punishment so that the pairing between behavior and stumulus is stronger. But that assumes that corporations can be operantly conditioned, which given their organized and collective nature, I think is a bit of a bold claim. Even the punishment mentioned before seems to have mild -- if any -- lasting effects. The comment also... KIND OF suggested that (former) D&D players should take responsibilty for WotC's actions and try to course-correct them with their dollar. Like, saying, "I stopped boycotting them because I believe in positive reinforcement," suggests that not giving them your business again means that you don't believe in positive reinforcement -- and intimated an invalidation of the position that you're just... Ready to break up with the corporation rather than try to fix it.

[@ichifish]

Great discussion. Subbed. I have a question. As a usually-GM occasional player who, since 3.5, has only played DnD when necessary (i.e. it was the only game in town), I'm confused about why the community cares this much about new editions, published material, or whether or not Subclass 153 is balanced, the buttons on DnD Beyond work as expected, and a 2024 tweak to the rules is important. What I mean is, in my small circle (about 10-20 older parents (ie occasional players), mostly guys, and their teens, primarily), no one cares (most of them don't even know, I just like rpg news). Rules get figured out at the table. Of course this attitude comes from playing PbtA/FitD,/indies/homebrews and being comfortable with ad hoc decisions, but I still can't quite imagine how issues other than an ongoing lack of access to digital materials impacts DMs or players. The uncharitable way to imagine "the issue" is that A) there's an unhealthy attachment to the DnD brand, B) there's too much collecting/analyzing/discussion and not enough time at the table, and/or C) groups are playing DnD like Magic, being obsessive about rules, and the only valid experience comes from following the most current rules. I just don't get why anyone would look at 2024 and not think "cool, maybe I'll change to that when this campaign finishes, maybe not" and promptly ignore it until 2025 or later. This can't be the whole story, though. Could someone explain it to me?

[@imayb1]

A) There IS an huge attachment to the DnD brand. It's the biggest. B) D&D attracts nerds. So, yes, there is a lot of analyzing and discussing that occurs. C) As long as there has been D&D (or wargaming) there have been "Rules Lawyers", people who get deep in the weeds about wording of rules and interpretations. (See section B). D) People in general are averse to change and perceived loss. There are a multitude of studies about this but it boils down to putting more value something we already have, and a dislike for perceived loss. Change can also be seen as a problems to overcome. So, rather than thinking, "Cool, new stuff!" Some folks will think, "Ugh, why are they taking away my stuff and giving me extra problems!"

[@Cloud_Seeker]

Something about WotC and using AI. They have never said that they will not us AI. They are using and and plan to use AI. What they have been saying is slimeball word salad that makes you think they have said that they will not use AI. What they have said is that they will not use AI in finished products. That does not mean they will not use AI. They can use AI on everything, and then make a real artist or designer do the finishing touches and/or look it over. Then finish is. If you create a image using AI for 98%, and then have 2% just finished by an artist. That is technically not an AI image. Which means they haven't lied about how they use AI. They never technically said they will not use it.

[@charlykuhnast31]

I canceled my subscribtion to D&D Beyond in the time of the OG L Scandal. In November of 2023 I thought: Okay, it now looks okay, not perfect but okay, so i bought a digital adventure of WotC at Black friday. And wanted to make a new subscribtion in 2024...well...after what happend in December i never bought something from them again and did not subscribe again. And I never will. But now I have a question. If I buy a book from another creatore (example Kobold Press with Tome of Beast I), who has the same book on D&D beyond, if I buy there book at kobold press website will WotC get money from the purchase?

[@imayb1]

Answer: No, if you buy a book off the Kobold Press website, it has absolutely nothing to do with WotC and WotC will not get a cent. Kobold Press is a stand-alone company, but they essentially offer some products on DNDB to players as a service (and WotC gets a fee for that service). Same thing goes for Drakenheim products, or Ghostfire Gaming's Grim Hollow products. If you want to cut WotC out of the picture, purchase directly from the websites of the companies who make the products you enjoy.

[@urgon6321]

As an experiment I went to Bay of Pirates, and typed "D&D 5e". There are plenty of results. On related note, no one would bother with scanning a book from a video. It's not how its done. Personally I used a hand scanner to OCR an old electronics handbook from 1980, because I wanted to make my own PDF of a chapter relevant to my work... On related note: why spend money on D&D, when there is a ton of free, PWYW and cheap alternatives? Especially for someone like me, who never played an RPG with maps and figures. In my country this stuff is so expensive, that almost everyone plays games that lend themselves to "theater of the mind".

[@savnana3605]

I think WotC is walking into the same problem that happened to world of warcraft. No single mmo could kill WoW. Not FF14 or guild wars, or anyone. But as WoW got worse, and continued to split players further and further, suddenly they had a giant cave in as they'd lost more of their support. Draw Steel or Daggerheart won't kill DnD. WotC will, at a time when everyone has infinite choices.

[@tonysladky8925]

Calling them "Dragonslayers" is way more polite than calling them "fantasy heartbreakers" as I'm used to hearing people call Draw Steel!, Daggerheart, DC20, Tales of the Valiant etc. I feel like, to Hasbro's... "credit"?... the lesson from the Pinkerton situation should also be when a third-party partner makes an honest mistake, don't call the Pinkertons. WOTC's only mistake in that situation was the colossal PR clusterfuck of sending in the Pinkertons because fuck the Pinkertons. I forget if it was an FLGS or an online distributor that accidentally sent that KZbinr the wrong Magic cards, but whichever it was, I feel like that's an important distinction. "Edition War... Edition War never changes." It is interesting that Edition Wars evolved into essentially a tabletop version of video gaming's Console Wars.

[@hawkname1234]

They didn't understand how childishly petulant the TTRPG community is for dredging up a vocab word from 10th grade history and *pretending* to be outraged on behalf of steel mill workers a literal century and a half ago.

[@PowerfulLeadahYas-Yas]

I leafed through the new PHB in the shop last week. I saw nothing new or interesting that would convince me to buy it. I mean, just look at the design. Usually a new edition of D&D is an opportunity to refresh the brand- new art style, new formatting. Every previous edition has a distinctive look and vibe- but the new PHB is visually indistinguishable from 5E books- nothing that jumps out and says "look at me! I am new and different". I just thought the whole thing seemed... sad. I felt depressed just looking at it.

[@catherineelmore2004]

Really good job on this video- particularly enjoyed your use of the clip of Siobhan from Dimension 20’s Neverafter and her *absolute certainty* that, regardless of the setting of the campaign, if it’s run by Brennan Lee Mulligan, the bad guy is capitalism. That clip always makes me laugh so hard!

[@bagamer13]

Since I know you are a Matt Colville fan, would love to see you make a video on Draw Steel once it rolls out.

[@SupergeekMike]

I probably will!

[@jeffmcarthur5617]

I really like this video, and the information is great. But I do have to point out one inaccuracy that you are so adamant about, but are factually incorrect. Kyle Brink DID say white males are leaving. He was talking about being a white male, and other white males, and he said, "Guys like me, we're leaving the work force. To be blunt. And we're also not - This is not the face of the hobby anymore." One can run in circles interpreting that, but one thing that is objectively true is that he was saying white men are "leaving the work force" and we're "not the face of the hobby anymore." That's fact. Imagine someone saying that about women with Barbie. Everyone would recognize that that was a misstep. Now, I'm willing to look at it as a misstep and not get all agro about it; but you can't just dismiss it and pretend it didn't happen, or that the words have different meanings than they actually have. That's gaslighting.

[@SnekoftheOzarks]

I do not understand how anyone trusts anything that comes out of WOTC anymore. Look at all of their IPs since 2014, and it's just a massive record of missteps, underhandedness, and predatory maliciousness for over 10 years. How people can remember those events happening, but still think that "This book is different guys!" is beyond me. WOTC wants nothing more than infinite growth, to bleed it's customer base dry without bothering with thing like quality, care, fun, or transparency. I remember the days of 3.5 and 4E, listening to an official D&D podcast with Mike Mearls and Dave Noonan talking about rules, upcoming products, design philosophies, running content, converting older editions, and just telling wild stories. Articles from other designers talked about their particular area of expertise, and overall it just felt like the D&D team really enjoyed their jobs and were genuinely excited about the product they made. Now everything is filtered through PR speak, Crawford seems to be the only mouthpiece for an entire team, they have literally an entire unofficial errata of the rules through Crawford's tweets, and every product they have made is either a bandaid fix for what came before, or is some kind of cross-promotional material that just smacks of corporate decision making. All of this falls back to Hasbro viewing 4E as a failure. The D&D community was still quite small at the time (comparatively to today) so when a large chunk of the playerbase moved to Pathfinder, sales suffered as a result. As a product, 4E did just fine. As the multimedia presence that Hasbro was looking for, it utterly failed. And so Hasbro began to sink it's fingers into the D&D design team and demand changes. They pushed for monetization changes that effected design decisions, they pushed for illicit control of the TTRPG space that caused massive backlash from everyone who shared the space, they shut down the lanes of communication to the design to team for marketing purposes, they cracked down on creators that they even suspected of leaking information before their PR team was ready, etc. Until Hasbro relinquishes it's grip and some higher ups of WOTC are removed, we'll never get a decent edition of Dungeons & Dragons again.

[@Lockfin]

I’m sorry if this comes off as “edition war-y” but at this point, with everything that we have watched WOTC do, and with so many viable alternatives available, there is simply no way to ethically justify continuing to participate in the D&D economy. To continue buying D&D books requires one to consciously decide to give their money, time and attention to the giant, demonstrably evil monopoly. If you care about TTRPGs as a hobby, an industry and an art form, play a different game!! Play a bunch of different games!! Most of them cost less than $20 to pick up.

[@mistaree8394]

Your analasis of captitalism and the inability of corporate entities to understand that infinite growth is impossible is spot on. Why can't otherwise intelligent people get this? Is it greed or desperation that blinds them?

[@davidbowles7281]

They are paid to not understand it

[@thomasevans4578]

I can't imagine that everyone working on 5e isn't fully aware of the pdf situation; not one week after any book is released it's up on pdf sharing websites.

[@mholt76]

As a 5E DM, I don’t need WoTC! Everything they’ve released since the core 3 books has all been in the benefit of the player for the most part. Which has provided power creeped abilities and broken combo’s on the player side. (I’ve had to tap those down at my table.) Everything I need as a DM is already out there in prior editions and third-party materials. Am I going to adopt the 2024 rules? Maybe…but not for a few years after the errata has been released to fix the lack of proper play testing.

[@ghosteeniesmith6219]

I"m voting more d10 systems being overviewed on youtube: like werewolf, legend of the five rings, seventh sea, and more. Instead of rolling over 1 number; a player usually rolls as many dice as points are allowed. Difficulty is determined by how many dice rolled over 4 (easy), 6 moderate, 7 or 8 (hard). The d10 bell curve and point buy systems allows for more character customization as a player and game master.

[@EatenbyKirby]

Companies need to learn that they make more money if they make Produkts for their community and customers. Not to make money. And this goes for everything, sadly so many get away with it because so many humans want to flex with shit instead of having a good product.

[@Vipercobra88]

I’m getting more involved in the OSR movement, and from what I’ve seen, there isn’t much of an “edition war” happening. Most people are just comparing different systems and talking about which ones they like best. Like you said, the discussions are more lively, but not aggressive. There are some people who get caught up in arguing over editions, but they’re mostly ignored by the larger community. Disclaimer: this is based on my own experience, and other experiences may vary.

[@Inthepotwithdiogenes]

The OGL crisis pretty fundamentally impacted the development of bgiii, too. The way dev moral crashed was genuinly heartbreaking to watch in real time, particularly the Pannels from Hell. Up to this point, their excitment was intense, and building, to watch it disappear overnight was just awful. The uncertainty was palpable. There was very legitimate concern if the game would be able to be released at all for a brief moment. I believe there would have been more of the cut content (not all, not even most, but some) had the OGL crisis never happened. While i think the game is whole and complete, it was also pretty clear they lost the will to continue developing what ideas were still in their infancy. They did not want more of their work to be functionally stolen from them and lost all trust that it would not be in the future even after the dust settled, and i agree with that choice. The whole "we own your ideas, characters, everything for all time and can monetize it, use it, and change it however we please and without consultation or notification" was NASTY and posed huge risk to companies like larian and critical role, who were making absolutely iconic characters. I know if there was a risk of that happening to any of my characters, id burn my own shit to the ground before I'd surrender all control and let their stories be told, their likeness assumed, without my consent. But larian had contracts and over a decade of work to lose. It was a very clear larian would never work with WoTC/hasbro again before bgiii even fully released. I genuinely dread the day we see any of these characters in a d&d book 😅 D&D should always be a sandbox in which to freely build, not a tarpit of other people's creativity.

[@davedujour1]

Can we please stop saying that paying money for a book on D&DBeyond is "buying the whole book just like you would if you bought physical books." Paying money for a digital product isn't "buying" the product. It's a long-term rental. If (when) D&D Beyond goes under (or when Hasbro changes the terms) you will lose all access to any digital books. That isn't possible with a physical book. If I buy a book from my FLGS, it's mine forever. Not so with D&D Beyond. Those products are only yours as long as you keep an account there or until Hasbro changes the TOS. It's not "buying" anything. It's renting. Yes, you get to this later, but so many times you keep saying "buy the books digitally" and it's not buying them!

[@Mihhhha87]

Can’t you download a pdf from DND Beyond? Like after that you have that book forever, at least as much as you need it on your cloud or hard drive… That’s kinda weird to use this type of argument regarding e-books.

[@SupergeekMike]

No you can’t download a PDF from D&D Beyond, you can only access a digital file through their app or website

[@heatth1474]

Specially because they don't come with pdf files. Like, yeah, a digital file is not the same either as physical book, but at least you can save them on your own computer and it will still be there if the site colapses tomorrow.

[@Mihhhha87]

@@SupergeekMikeReally? Damn that’s weird… Sorry to ask but, what’s the point then in using Beyond? Never was a customer of it.

[@jonathanfrank1812]

@@Mihhhha87 So I've only used Beyond once but from what I experienced if you don't own the book in Beyond you can't use that info to create a character using Beyond. I'm sure that you could go about entering everything by hand as homebrew material but that's more effort than most people want to do, especially if they already own physical copies.

[@harley4683]

I refuse to pay for books from a company that broke my trust

[@SuprousOxide]

They're terrified someone could screenshot videos and turn them into a terrible pdf copy of the book. When, as soon as it is released to the general audience, there will be high quality pdf copies of the book....

[@Izelor]

It's funny because we live in the Internet era where all companies have to do is create a poll and have people vote about what they want, but instead they are paying expensive consultant who are clueless about the IP and only cause damage.

[@daelusraine2989]

I might be the asshole here, but I'd rather have no D&D than bad D&D. I hope it fails and gets sold to someone who cares about it. Either way, I have plenty of games to play and plenty of people to show the joy of Role Playing.

[@TheMineyist]

I got the book yesterday. Taking cursory looks only so far, I think they didnt change enough to warrant the hype they've drummed up that this is "the NEW 5th edition"

[@mattbriddell9246]

Have had it for a few days and I'd agree, while there are some noteworthy changes to a few classes/subclasses and some reworks of some spells and feats, by and large this looks to be about 80-90% similar to the original PHB content so far. Most impactful change so far is using backgrounds as the base for ability score improvements rather than racial bonuses (which I'm fine with). TBH I'm more excited to see what Tales of the Valiant is going to look like.

[@monkeyman3194]

It’s an update if anything, ran my first session using it after my 6 , 10th level players updated their classes, the book was organized enough to the point where I could find the info I needed faster then they could in dnd beyond, not to mention the players feeling more capable with the changes to spell casting, our monk now being an absolute badass, and our Paladin feeling like he had more options. It was an update well needed but I do know some people that have folders of homebrew to fix 2014s issues so there’s no need to jump sideways into a new ruleset. My thought is there’s a difference between needed homebrew and fun homebrew and if I was stuck pen and paper in a cabin I’d take this over the old any day

[@notsochosenone5669]

They were in lose-lose scenario - even this changes (wasn't enough changes for me) made part of community scream if how this is totaly new edition and there is no backward compatability. But yeah - new PHB is gloryfied Tasha's.

[@thisorscaff]

Over complicate the game, drive people to use a digital solution. Charge them for that solution.

[@gcvrsa]

As I keep saying about Hasbro, they aren't RPG geeks like us. They sell widgets. They are in business to sell books, and books are or can be a once in a lifetime purchase. In order to keep selling widgets, Hasbro has to constantly make new widgets that no one actually needs. That's why the RPG industry is really just a loosely associated bunch of cottage businesses who rarely make any real money. If I wanted to, I could have a great old time playing AD&D with the books I bought over 40 years ago (not to mention the stack of Dragon magazine issues I own), and have just as much fun as I can playing D&D5E, except for the part where the binding of some of my AD&D books are now falling apart due to the age of the glue. The truth is, I don't need to buy any new books, I can just make everything up myself based on what I already understand about game design. Hasbro is on track to divest itself of D&D within a few years, because it will no longer be profitable enough to satisfy neoliberal "line goes up" stockholders. Hasbro will probably retain MTG, because that's a pure widget game, but they will spin WotC off, there will be a true 6th Edition by the newly smaller WotC, and we will all return to the obscurity of the 1990s and 2000s.

[@tomgartin]

10:11 The a la carte purchases were nice because if you later decided to buy the whole book it would count toward the price so you weren’t paying extra.

[@AppleStrawberryLove]

Exactly. I used it to see if I liked things like the subclasses or monsters first before usually eventually purchasing the entire thing (frequently in book and digital form)

[@ahather]

so I'm not really in the target audience for 5.5e, I haven't bought a 5e book since XGtE, I finally got around to running it this year and have very much decided it's not for me (I already had some misgivings) I'm not really in the target audience for any of the dragon slayers, though I would gladly give some of the more interesting ones a go, I already have a favourite fantasy ttrpg (Exalted(2.5e or 3e)), honestly I dont know why I watch DnD youtube, maybe it's just a good idea to keep an eye on the big fish

[@FacelessPorcelain]

I just want to say, on the subject of WotC's attitude regarding PDF piracy, their behavior really only just guarantees that it will happen. As someone who doesn't have a DnDBeyond account and who will never be convinced to get a DnDBeyond account because I just don't like the platform or the idea of the platform, if I want their content online - because as much as I like physical books online resources are more convenient and purchasing a physical copy from a company that has become increasingly unreliable is seeming like more and more of a risk - I am going to look at online repositories and scanned PDFs. I would buy PDF copies from WotC if they were available - I buy SO much third party PDFs. I think WotC is leaving money on the table because of how tunnel-visioned they are on DnDBeyond. I would predict that PDF sales wouldn't eat into DnDBeyond subscriptions much because they have different merits and use cases. But even beyond that its just not very friendly to the consumer, and when a company isn't friendly to the consumer, well, they are going to look for better ways of getting the product.