I am recently coming back to D&D after an almost two decade hiatus. I have noticed that there seem to be a lot of sour grapes towards Hasbro and WotC. I know that there was the whole issue with the Open Game License, and that there has always been a portion of the community that think that the new edition has killed the game. But it seems a little extreme for these items (or at least my understanding).
Is there another reason for the sour grapes or is there something that I am missing? It is hyped up for ratings/likes?
Hasbro desperately wants to enact a late stage capitalism “enshitification” model with D&D where they squeeze as much money out of customers and business partners as possible. Their priority for providing a satisfactory experience is no longer the player of D&D, it’s the shareholders and they have proved it over the last six months with their OGL and IP antics.
However, D&D is different than other products. The CEO’s in charge come from mobile games and Amazon and thought they could squeeze the same way they did previously, but because of an independent, creative, analog, and DM centric community, they weren’t able to and experienced a lot of pushback that made them relent.
Make no mistake, though, that is still their goal and have openly stated that the brand is “under monetized”. That’s why they want to lock players into using their VTT platform/digital tools and are prioritizing these while mildly discouraging actual physical products. This gives them 100% control of the brand and allows for them to squeeze money later.
If you’re here from Reddit, just know that Hasbro would love to do what Spez is doing. Sly Flourish has a great video on the enshittification of Reddit and how it affects D&D: https://youtu.be/9WGxBtObgl8
I don’t think it’s hyped up. You just need context.
The OGL stuff was a tipping point but WotC prioritizing profit at the expense of the player is hardly new. I think the last truly lauded release in D&D proper was the shift to 5th edition, which was nine years ago and was a correction after 4th. Before that it was probably Eberron, almost twenty years ago. Other changes have largely been to increase profit with little consideration on improving the game. 4th edition, while not actually a bad game, was a mistargeted attempt to cash in on MMOs as well as the first attempt to kill the OGL. More recently you will not find many active DMs who love the 5e splatbooks, or who think the game values how they spend their time preparing for a session, or thinks the game does a great job helping them design custom content, or who really loves how WotC is locking down the virtual tabletop space.
Tabletop game design, as well as how designers interact with their player bases, has completely changed for the rest of the TTRPG space.
You missed the rise of Paizo, where former D&D writers found a home to write pre-generated content that is legitimately good and saves GMs hundreds of hours of work, called Adventure Paths, and who later filled the niche of 3.5 when WotC forced closure in favor of something more easily monetized. You missed Apocalypse World/Dungeon World/Blades in the Dark and Cypher, systems where cutting down on prep time was a serious priority rather than a tertiary afterthought, making games much more fun for the GM. You missed the OSR, the return to D&D’s roots. You missed Savage Worlds, Fate, FFG’s Star Wars, Free League, Honey Heist, Gumshoe, Lancer, tons of innovative ideas.
The other old companies like White Wolf and Chaosium have reacted at every step, re-writing their games to reflect modern design principles unprompted and working to improve distribution of their content. Those have also been attempts to make money, but by making the product better, not by squeezing the player base. The one time WotC was forced to turn to its designers they got 5th and they’ve been milking it since.
A lot of people don’t care about any of that, they just buckle down and play D&D. But DMs and most of the people who talk online are power users who know what they’re missing.
Thank you very much for the insightful response, looks like I have a lot of reading ahead of me. This was exactly the type of answer that I was looking for. Thank you.
Wizards of the Coast also employ strike-breaking mercenaries to “protect” their IP.
https://www.polygon.com/23695923/mtg-aftermath-pinkerton-raid-leaked-cards
Yeah… that’s enough of a reason to steer clear. Thanks for the context.
I’d like to add the OGL they were pushing would have effectively allowed them to steal homebrew and 3rd party content. They’d reserve the right to resell this content as their own or make it disappear altogether.
This would include supplements and adventures, of course, but the way it was worded, it would even include blogs and YouTube videos, etc.
Of course this isn’t a unique situation (Meta has done this forever, for example)
Pinkertons were sent by Wotc to reclaim product. Yes, those Pinkertons. As a first resort not a last.
That’s extremely disappointing but seems to be the path for far too many companies.
