4 ms·
It really sucks that such bedrocks of our culture are owned by corporations and subject to their whims and profit motives. I grew up playing Dungeons and Drago
by wincy 4y ago
It really sucks that such bedrocks of our culture are owned by corporations and subject to their whims and profit motives.
I grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons - I don’t want to play Oubliettes and Wyverns or whatever.
- germandiago 4y agoDo not play then. It is their company, not yours. No matter how annoying. It they make a bad move they could mess it up. It is them who take the risk after all.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoI'll buy some shares in Hasbro and do as I please.
- germandiago 4y agoWell, that is the point. If a company does something stupid... it will eventually pay the stupidity.
- RajT88 4y ago> bedrocks of our culture D&D does indeed predate me, but there's nothing stopping me from inhabiting their world. I don't think they understand the extent to which moves like this harm their fanbase. Paying fans! They will soon find out. What I am certain of is is that the D&D phenomenon will outlive WotC. It's a movement, an ethos, and gross mismanagement will not kill it.
- chii 4y ago> D&D phenomenon will outlive WotC ... gross mismanagement will not kill it. while community driven projects _could_ live, it would be under constant legal threat, which prevents it from growing independently of WotC. Esp. if there's an aspect of commercialization in there. This means that any project would seek first to cooperate with WotC, which means they get a control, and may be commercial benefit.
- crooked-v 4y agoThere are plenty of D&D-adjacent works that exist with no legal dependency on WotC, which rely on how game mechanics (as distinct from the specific expression of them) can't be copyrighted.
- Kostchei 4y agoHonestly, as a 30+ year DM who has played every edition from 1st to cap (except 4th- only made it to 6th), what people play at their table is wildly different from group to group. I don't know many experienced DMs who don't do a huge amount of homebrew. And there is no legal threat to 95% of homebrew, never will be. Why? Because I just do what I want with their IP (Wotc) and it never reaches further than my players. Most people do not publish to the world, they present to their players. Very few folks make an official doc, get it printed, add their own mechanics, build a world atlas etc. It will stop things like the "wheel of time" (books not tv) adaption, the reasonably widely available dark sun fan made version, "one night strahd" etc. Now that is a shame. But. 50% + of it was drek. And half of what was good rode rough-shod over other folks ideas, vision and IP and made money for the writers for it. If you are re-doing elric's world in 5th ed, you owe a bit to Michael Moorcock (which is ironic as he dis-owns it as pulp and beneath him), and owe a bit to wizards-o-t-c because you are probably re-skinning their hard work. What is more disappointing is that Wotc is actively trying to model their monetization of DnD in the future on mobile gaming and free-to-play computer games.. I kid you not. Luckily there are basic, adnd 1st ed, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5 and 5th ed to choose form for cool playable systems, and that's if you want to stick to "original" dnd. So 6th ed, with whatever horrible monetization they formulate may well just rot in it's own lonely purgatory with it's older brother 4th edition. (which, to be fair has a couple of cool things but overall was a failure, IMO) *edited, spelling
- Justsignedup 4y agoPathfinder is a perfect alternative. All it'll take is for Critical Roll to just change to pathfinder.
- Semaphor 4y agoThe issue would be, that they could not release new material without adhering to the new license. PF 1&2 both use OGL SRD.
- Justsignedup 4y agoI mean they can just say make a fork of the license and say that this is the enshrined version of OGL SRD we're using. They have the power. But yeah your point is valid.
- trynewideas 4y agoHasbro can do whatever they want to the OGL, or throw it completely away, and still just give CRP an actual license (which Hasbro's already done by directly publishing CRP-setting products). I mean, there's a fucking Critical Role CLUE.
- danjac 4y ago"Gross mismanagement" and "D&D" are kind of synonyms: from Gygax' losing control to the incompetent Blume brothers (whose genius business decisions included trying to raise a 19th century shipwreck), to the takeover by Buck Rogers heiress/grifter Lorraine Williams. Thankfully the game has so far successfully rolled all its Bad Management Saving Throws.
- lll-o-lll 4y agoI completely agree with this. Much like when a “trademark” becomes common speech and loses its protection, cultural artefacts should move into the public domain. Not based on time, based on their value to the culture.
- klipt 4y agoJust call it Sword and Sorcery, that's a genre so presumably can't be trademarked?
- gilleain 4y agoJust be sure to not use any of : > Beholder, Gauth, Carrion Crawler, Displacer Beast, Githyanki, Githzerai, Kuo-toa, Mind Flayer, Slaad, Umber Hulk, Yuan-ti, Tanar'ri, and Baatezu. From https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/41942/is-there-a-website-that-tells-you-which-dd-creatures-are-under-copyright-protec https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/41942/is-there-a... (although it's a bit more complex than this, I think?)
- klipt 4y agoI'm sure the open source community can come up with new monsters that are even more fun than those.
- sbergot 4y agoI play various RPGs including a little bit of D&D. I only know about beholders & mind flayers. If that is the price to pay then I think it is fine.
- cafeinux 4y agoI play a French RPG called Rôle'n Play, that's heavily based on the DRS, essentially adding new classes, species, spells, and a whole lot more content. I'd be crushed if I had to see it cancelled because WotC decided they didn't like the competition. With this move anyway, they ensured that I would nevemore buy any WotC licensed product, and I'll start by not watching, not even pirating the upcoming DnD movie. I do hope they'll backpedal, but it'll be a long time before they get my trust again.
- Apocryphon 4y agoBeholder and Mind Flayer aside, those are pretty lame fantasy names anyway. Happy so long as Owlbear is public domain.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Apocryphon 4y agoDens and Drakes
- BerislavLopac 4y agoI'm sad to see this kind of sentiment - D&D is fun, but there are so many TTRPGs out there. I'm highly recommending checking out all the lesser known games by companies like Chaosium, Modiphius, Free League (I just recently had some great sessions of Tales from the Loop and The One Ring), Atlas Games, Steve Jackson Games and others!
- coremoff 4y agoa fair bit of the popularity is due to the splat books; world building is hard, and the world of Forgotten Realms is huge and detailed - combine that with the large number of iconic IP that they have, it would be a shame to have to abandon everything D&D completely.
- BerislavLopac 4y agoThat is true, although it's ultimately a matter of personal tastes. I prefer worlds that are not intrinsically intertwined with any specific ruleset. And for general fantasy I will always come back to Middle-earth. :)