7 ms·

Dungeons and Dragons embarks on an epic quest to finally make money

helsinkiandrew 4y ago
https://archive.ph/PNs1H https://archive.ph/PNs1H
h2odragon 4y ago
"Finally?" I thought the whole history of D&D was defined by lawsuit happy owners asserting their right to be paid for every mention of a thought they'd shared, from pre-history to perpetuity.
- User23 4y ago
  Which is hilarious, because 1st edition was basically a giant pastiche of the pulps and Tolkien, when it wasn’t outright copying Moorcock. And it was awesome. Reminds me of the old days of MUDs where you could murderhobo your way from Sesame Street on to Xanth and then from Camelot to the literal Zodiac. I miss that spirit of building a common cultural mythology that corporate “monetization” has strangled.
  - MrJohz 4y ago
    Fwiw, that stuff is definitely still out there, you've just got to find it. A lot of stuff in the OSR scene tends to go in weird directions, of particular note is probably Troika!, a fairly simple game set in a sort of dumping-ground universe for all sorts of wacky creatures and people. The system is based loosely on the underlying system behind the Fighting Fantasy books, and there are lots of hacks and variations, including (for a time, now sold out) one where you play as the characters from Seinfeld. Some links: Troika! itself: https://www.troikarpg.com/ https://www.troikarpg.com/ A review/example of Troikafeld that you can probably use to reconstruct the original Troikafeld game: https://www.prismaticwasteland.com/blog/troikafeld-a-review-and-starting-adventure https://www.prismaticwasteland.com/blog/troikafeld-a-review-...
    - matusp 4y ago
      Is Troika! popular? I had a 1-on-1 session of Troika! and I really enjoyed the vibe, but I found it hard to find people interested in this particular style of play.
      - MrJohz 4y ago
        In comparison to D&D 5e, unfortunately not so much, but I think that's true of most games, outside perhaps Pathfinder and some regional favourites. I've mainly had success using it for occasional one shots between other games with an existing group. If you're willing to play online, I believe there are a few discord groups where you can find people specifically interested in particular games.
- stu2b50 4y ago
  That nets you revenue, not profit.
- ourmandave 4y ago
  I always thought that last attempt to limit 3rd party open content was because it was taking off with Stranger Things and also knowing this upcoming movie is going to continue that.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rcarr 4y ago
Watched the film today, thought it was great. Never really played the game (only once) so don’t know if it was true to the universe or not but throughly enjoyed the film. Definitely had a Marvel vibe to it though (theres even some scenes that could be take for take from the first avengers movie just swapped for a fantasy setting) so if you don’t like the marvel movies then stay away.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  That sounds scary. While I liked the comics, I hate the movies. On the other hand, I love TTRPGs and CRPGs, including baby D&D based ones. Did you happen to watch Vox Machina? Because that was an RPG show that I very much enjoyed.
  - rcarr 4y ago
    No I’ve not. I went through a board game phase a few years ago so watched an episode or two of critical role and pretty much every episode of Tabletop. Played a lot of console games growing up and some warhammer so it’s always been something I’m aware of and kind of adjacent to my interests but I’ve never really delved into it much outside of downloading a few dnd pdfs and skimming through them. Oh and the monster madness board game which is great.
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      I actually know next to nothing about critical role other than that it's some kind of D&D webserial and VM is based on it ;) FWIW, I love boardgames (especially those with 10s of pages of manual) and hate console games ;)
      - wlesieutre 4y ago
        While we’re recommending D&D media, I’m really enjoying Worlds Beyond Number. It just started last month with three episodes so far (every other Tuesday), available wherever you get your podcasts. Website is a bit out of date with the podcast having started, still reads as prerelease marketing but you get the idea: https://worldsbeyondnumber.com/ https://worldsbeyondnumber.com/
gamblor956 4y ago
I watched the 2000 D&D film before watching the 2023 film. TBH, the 2023 film isn't that much better than the 2000 film. The special FX are better but the dialogue and acting is just as campy in the second film as it was in the first. It's just that our tastes have changed. The 2000 film reflects the way D&D was played 2 decades ago, i.e., more as high fantasy; the 2023 film reflects that D&D today is played more as action comedy. EDIT: see, for example, Stranger Things, in which D&D is played a straight high fantasy. The 2000 has comedic relief (D&D isn't Warhammer), but it's first and foremost a high fantasy. The new film is an action comedy with a few serious moments, like Vox Machina or any of the dozens of D&D gaming podcasts.
- gedy 4y ago
  > D&D today is played more as action comedy. Is it? I may be isolated but the small group I game with (newer players) definitely play it straight, gritty serious vibe.
  - Taywee 4y ago
    Really depends what the group wants out of it. My group has always been joking and riffing, both in game and out. Most groups of friends I've been a part of really like making each other laugh regularly, and that will carry naturally into gameplay and role playing.
  - TigeriusKirk 4y ago
    That's my preference as well, and I think it represents a fairly large contingent of players. But the podcasters and streamers lean heavily to action comedy, and I think that's what's in the popular culture as far as the game goes. Given that, I can't blame the movie for not playing it straight.
  - ecshafer 4y ago
    D&D is a really bad game for playing straight, gritty, serious. Older editions like 2e are good at it, but 3.5,4,5e are all really bad. Its much better to play like Runequest, Mythras, Warhammer, Mork Mork or any number of games that actually support that play.
antiterra 4y ago
I’m all for powering up the consumerist engines but they keep making really generically bad enthusiast collectibles like ‘the wand of orcus.’ They keep just missing the demographic of the lucrative rich middle aged adult looking for escape.
- whitemary 4y ago
  > They keep just missing the demographic of the lucrative rich middle aged adult looking for escape. I'm curious. What is this group more interested in? Exotic vacations?
  - antiterra 4y ago
    More immersive escape. The skull wand replica idea is fine but an adult needs to be able to mentally role play that it’s a real thing. Think adults who go to Disneyland regularly or pay for the Star Wars resort thing.
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    I think there is a fundamental monetization problem in that D&D players in my experience tend to be people who broadly gravitate towards anti-consumerist and anti-corporate tendencies in general. I think this is somewhat inherent in the design of D&D, which puts a high emphasis on low tech, imagination, and DIY. The game itself is not much more than a set of basic mechanics and rules, all of which are negotiable to some extent, or can be easily modified to suit various gameplay needs. It's basically a more organized version of telling stories around the campfire. Trying to monetize something like that with movies and restrictive content licenses, given the kinds of people who are drawn to it especially in the 2020s, seems like a fundamentally doomed effort. You can sell new campaigns and sourcebooks, rulebooks for new editions, dice, software subscriptions for VTTs and platforms like D&D Beyond, and branded merchandise like posters, t-shirts, Funko Pop dolls, etc. That seems like a good enough situation to me, but I expect that there are few enough dedicated players, and fewer still who are likely to be repeat customers, that a large corporation like Hasbro might it feel like it's an unsatisfactory revenue source. Personally I think they would do much better by just trying to sell more D&D related stuff, but there are apparently some real knuckleheads working at Hasbro who have no idea how to market to this audience.
mirekrusin 4y ago
They should pair with openai: gpt4, text<->voice, image generation and plugin to track player attributes is all you need, no?
- basch 4y ago
  A domain specific LLM trained on fantasy, science fiction, role playing etc, embedded into a hardware speaker / mask. Something you can prop up at the table, and have disconnected from the internets.
- simonh 4y ago
  It seems to work in the short term, for generic adventures, but it has no sense of place. What I mean is it doesn’t understand geography, or the layout of a city, or factions, or metaplot. It’s not creative in that way. If you ask it to create factions for a city it will do it, or a city with particular history and culture it will do that, but if you ask it to run a city adventure, it doesn’t know it needs to do those things first. So you’d need to hand hold it through generating a specific setting, and then you’d hit the token window limit.
  - freedom2099 4y ago
    If you ask to set it in the forgotten realms it reuses existing factions without using tokens! With gpt4 it’s amazing! It is better than my actual human dm!
  - mirekrusin 4y ago
    By pairing I mean something more than using chat gpt through iframe.
- htag 4y ago
  1. I openly question gpt's ability to generate compelling narratives. Perhaps modules could be feed into it to provide enough background for it go off of, but I would consider this a weakness to GPT compared to humans. 2. Current GPT based DMs allow the player to do basically anything they want. Human DMs offer more control over the game, and will follow closer to tradition and unwritten roles than GPT allows. There's also a fun part of the game for the player in which they convince the DM to allow an action they wouldn't otherwise. 3. D&D's low tech nature is a draw for a lot of players. Some books, some paper, pencils, dice, a table. Simple stuff. I think many players would push back on screens and other high tech.
creamyhorror 4y ago
Saw the film with friends today, we thought it was a B (pretty meh, by the numbers plot and humour, a bit overlong, but I appreciated the namedrops of Icewind, Neverwinter, Underdark, Baldurs Gate). I wouldn't be surprised to see it spawn a franchise, given D&D's general rise in recent years.
markus_zhang 4y ago
I have been longing to play a DND game for many years but aside from CRPG experience I don't quite enjoy playing with a group. ChatGPT solved the problem overnight and I'm happily playing a Ravenloft ADND 2e adventure "The Awakening" with it. It has been a couple of nights and I progress slowly, but the experience has been very good so far. I can bargain with it; I can ask it to drop in a companion from nowhere. It understands everything I said; It follows my set of DM rules; It keeps a journal for me. I'm very happy to pay 20 bucks about it although I think maybe 3.5 is good enough.
- debacle 4y ago
  How did you train the AI on the adventure?
  - markus_zhang 4y ago
    I gave it a set of DM rules (for example do not make decisions for me; do not cheat for me, etc.) but other than that I just asked it to DM the module for me. TBH I'm not really sure whether it is following the module, but at least it is following the undead theme. It's a good question though. I know the gist of the story so I assume I'm still in the hook. The game went slowly as I don't have much time for it.
  - stolenmerch 4y ago
    Something like: Prompt GPT4 with basic rules (in several batches) and have it create JSONL prompt-completion pairs to use as fine-tuning for GPT3. Freeze that model then continue fine-tuning it with a new set of prompt-completion pairs for each adventure module.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ftxbro 4y ago
I feel like they are making fun of it like "D&D embarks on a epic quest to get a job and hair cut and move out of their parents basement."
ehutch79 4y ago
Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks and Wizards of the Coast CEO Cynthia Williams are looking to grow the future of Dungeons & Dragons through “the type of recurrent spending you see in digital games.” https://kotaku.com/dungeons-and-dragons-dnd-fifth-edition-one-dnd-1849884812 https://kotaku.com/dungeons-and-dragons-dnd-fifth-edition-on...
- ladyattis 4y ago
  I don't see that working out as well as they imagine. The big thing is that folks use D&D as a form of structured play whether it's online or offline. It's that interaction and the freedom of both the players and the GMs to figure out how to structure it. Unless Hasbro accepts that they must limit their 'recurring payment' model to make that less painful for players then I suspect that D&D the brand will decline in relevance with competing TTRPGs replacing them.

https://archive.ph/PNs1H https://archive.ph/PNs1H

"Finally?" I thought the whole history of D&D was defined by lawsuit happy owners asserting their right to be paid for every mention of a thought they'd shared, from pre-history to perpetuity.

User23 4y ago
Which is hilarious, because 1st edition was basically a giant pastiche of the pulps and Tolkien, when it wasn’t outright copying Moorcock. And it was awesome. Reminds me of the old days of MUDs where you could murderhobo your way from Sesame Street on to Xanth and then from Camelot to the literal Zodiac. I miss that spirit of building a common cultural mythology that corporate “monetization” has strangled.
- MrJohz 4y ago
  Fwiw, that stuff is definitely still out there, you've just got to find it. A lot of stuff in the OSR scene tends to go in weird directions, of particular note is probably Troika!, a fairly simple game set in a sort of dumping-ground universe for all sorts of wacky creatures and people. The system is based loosely on the underlying system behind the Fighting Fantasy books, and there are lots of hacks and variations, including (for a time, now sold out) one where you play as the characters from Seinfeld. Some links: Troika! itself: https://www.troikarpg.com/ https://www.troikarpg.com/ A review/example of Troikafeld that you can probably use to reconstruct the original Troikafeld game: https://www.prismaticwasteland.com/blog/troikafeld-a-review-and-starting-adventure https://www.prismaticwasteland.com/blog/troikafeld-a-review-...
  - matusp 4y ago
    Is Troika! popular? I had a 1-on-1 session of Troika! and I really enjoyed the vibe, but I found it hard to find people interested in this particular style of play.
    - MrJohz 4y ago
      In comparison to D&D 5e, unfortunately not so much, but I think that's true of most games, outside perhaps Pathfinder and some regional favourites. I've mainly had success using it for occasional one shots between other games with an existing group. If you're willing to play online, I believe there are a few discord groups where you can find people specifically interested in particular games.
stu2b50 4y ago
That nets you revenue, not profit.
ourmandave 4y ago
I always thought that last attempt to limit 3rd party open content was because it was taking off with Stranger Things and also knowing this upcoming movie is going to continue that.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

rcarr 4y ago

Watched the film today, thought it was great. Never really played the game (only once) so don’t know if it was true to the universe or not but throughly enjoyed the film. Definitely had a Marvel vibe to it though (theres even some scenes that could be take for take from the first avengers movie just swapped for a fantasy setting) so if you don’t like the marvel movies then stay away.

Semaphor 4y ago
That sounds scary. While I liked the comics, I hate the movies. On the other hand, I love TTRPGs and CRPGs, including baby D&D based ones. Did you happen to watch Vox Machina? Because that was an RPG show that I very much enjoyed.
- rcarr 4y ago
  No I’ve not. I went through a board game phase a few years ago so watched an episode or two of critical role and pretty much every episode of Tabletop. Played a lot of console games growing up and some warhammer so it’s always been something I’m aware of and kind of adjacent to my interests but I’ve never really delved into it much outside of downloading a few dnd pdfs and skimming through them. Oh and the monster madness board game which is great.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    I actually know next to nothing about critical role other than that it's some kind of D&D webserial and VM is based on it ;) FWIW, I love boardgames (especially those with 10s of pages of manual) and hate console games ;)
    - wlesieutre 4y ago
      While we’re recommending D&D media, I’m really enjoying Worlds Beyond Number. It just started last month with three episodes so far (every other Tuesday), available wherever you get your podcasts. Website is a bit out of date with the podcast having started, still reads as prerelease marketing but you get the idea: https://worldsbeyondnumber.com/ https://worldsbeyondnumber.com/

gamblor956 4y ago

I watched the 2000 D&D film before watching the 2023 film. TBH, the 2023 film isn't that much better than the 2000 film. The special FX are better but the dialogue and acting is just as campy in the second film as it was in the first. It's just that our tastes have changed. The 2000 film reflects the way D&D was played 2 decades ago, i.e., more as high fantasy; the 2023 film reflects that D&D today is played more as action comedy. EDIT: see, for example, Stranger Things, in which D&D is played a straight high fantasy. The 2000 has comedic relief (D&D isn't Warhammer), but it's first and foremost a high fantasy. The new film is an action comedy with a few serious moments, like Vox Machina or any of the dozens of D&D gaming podcasts.

gedy 4y ago
> D&D today is played more as action comedy. Is it? I may be isolated but the small group I game with (newer players) definitely play it straight, gritty serious vibe.
- Taywee 4y ago
  Really depends what the group wants out of it. My group has always been joking and riffing, both in game and out. Most groups of friends I've been a part of really like making each other laugh regularly, and that will carry naturally into gameplay and role playing.
- TigeriusKirk 4y ago
  That's my preference as well, and I think it represents a fairly large contingent of players. But the podcasters and streamers lean heavily to action comedy, and I think that's what's in the popular culture as far as the game goes. Given that, I can't blame the movie for not playing it straight.
- ecshafer 4y ago
  D&D is a really bad game for playing straight, gritty, serious. Older editions like 2e are good at it, but 3.5,4,5e are all really bad. Its much better to play like Runequest, Mythras, Warhammer, Mork Mork or any number of games that actually support that play.

antiterra 4y ago

I’m all for powering up the consumerist engines but they keep making really generically bad enthusiast collectibles like ‘the wand of orcus.’ They keep just missing the demographic of the lucrative rich middle aged adult looking for escape.

whitemary 4y ago
> They keep just missing the demographic of the lucrative rich middle aged adult looking for escape. I'm curious. What is this group more interested in? Exotic vacations?
- antiterra 4y ago
  More immersive escape. The skull wand replica idea is fine but an adult needs to be able to mentally role play that it’s a real thing. Think adults who go to Disneyland regularly or pay for the Star Wars resort thing.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  I think there is a fundamental monetization problem in that D&D players in my experience tend to be people who broadly gravitate towards anti-consumerist and anti-corporate tendencies in general. I think this is somewhat inherent in the design of D&D, which puts a high emphasis on low tech, imagination, and DIY. The game itself is not much more than a set of basic mechanics and rules, all of which are negotiable to some extent, or can be easily modified to suit various gameplay needs. It's basically a more organized version of telling stories around the campfire. Trying to monetize something like that with movies and restrictive content licenses, given the kinds of people who are drawn to it especially in the 2020s, seems like a fundamentally doomed effort. You can sell new campaigns and sourcebooks, rulebooks for new editions, dice, software subscriptions for VTTs and platforms like D&D Beyond, and branded merchandise like posters, t-shirts, Funko Pop dolls, etc. That seems like a good enough situation to me, but I expect that there are few enough dedicated players, and fewer still who are likely to be repeat customers, that a large corporation like Hasbro might it feel like it's an unsatisfactory revenue source. Personally I think they would do much better by just trying to sell more D&D related stuff, but there are apparently some real knuckleheads working at Hasbro who have no idea how to market to this audience.

mirekrusin 4y ago

They should pair with openai: gpt4, text<->voice, image generation and plugin to track player attributes is all you need, no?

basch 4y ago
A domain specific LLM trained on fantasy, science fiction, role playing etc, embedded into a hardware speaker / mask. Something you can prop up at the table, and have disconnected from the internets.
simonh 4y ago
It seems to work in the short term, for generic adventures, but it has no sense of place. What I mean is it doesn’t understand geography, or the layout of a city, or factions, or metaplot. It’s not creative in that way. If you ask it to create factions for a city it will do it, or a city with particular history and culture it will do that, but if you ask it to run a city adventure, it doesn’t know it needs to do those things first. So you’d need to hand hold it through generating a specific setting, and then you’d hit the token window limit.
- freedom2099 4y ago
  If you ask to set it in the forgotten realms it reuses existing factions without using tokens! With gpt4 it’s amazing! It is better than my actual human dm!
- mirekrusin 4y ago
  By pairing I mean something more than using chat gpt through iframe.
htag 4y ago
1. I openly question gpt's ability to generate compelling narratives. Perhaps modules could be feed into it to provide enough background for it go off of, but I would consider this a weakness to GPT compared to humans. 2. Current GPT based DMs allow the player to do basically anything they want. Human DMs offer more control over the game, and will follow closer to tradition and unwritten roles than GPT allows. There's also a fun part of the game for the player in which they convince the DM to allow an action they wouldn't otherwise. 3. D&D's low tech nature is a draw for a lot of players. Some books, some paper, pencils, dice, a table. Simple stuff. I think many players would push back on screens and other high tech.

creamyhorror 4y ago

Saw the film with friends today, we thought it was a B (pretty meh, by the numbers plot and humour, a bit overlong, but I appreciated the namedrops of Icewind, Neverwinter, Underdark, Baldurs Gate). I wouldn't be surprised to see it spawn a franchise, given D&D's general rise in recent years.

markus_zhang 4y ago

I have been longing to play a DND game for many years but aside from CRPG experience I don't quite enjoy playing with a group. ChatGPT solved the problem overnight and I'm happily playing a Ravenloft ADND 2e adventure "The Awakening" with it. It has been a couple of nights and I progress slowly, but the experience has been very good so far. I can bargain with it; I can ask it to drop in a companion from nowhere. It understands everything I said; It follows my set of DM rules; It keeps a journal for me. I'm very happy to pay 20 bucks about it although I think maybe 3.5 is good enough.

debacle 4y ago
How did you train the AI on the adventure?
- markus_zhang 4y ago
  I gave it a set of DM rules (for example do not make decisions for me; do not cheat for me, etc.) but other than that I just asked it to DM the module for me. TBH I'm not really sure whether it is following the module, but at least it is following the undead theme. It's a good question though. I know the gist of the story so I assume I'm still in the hook. The game went slowly as I don't have much time for it.
- stolenmerch 4y ago
  Something like: Prompt GPT4 with basic rules (in several batches) and have it create JSONL prompt-completion pairs to use as fine-tuning for GPT3. Freeze that model then continue fine-tuning it with a new set of prompt-completion pairs for each adventure module.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ftxbro 4y ago

I feel like they are making fun of it like "D&D embarks on a epic quest to get a job and hair cut and move out of their parents basement."

ehutch79 4y ago

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks and Wizards of the Coast CEO Cynthia Williams are looking to grow the future of Dungeons & Dragons through “the type of recurrent spending you see in digital games.” https://kotaku.com/dungeons-and-dragons-dnd-fifth-edition-one-dnd-1849884812 https://kotaku.com/dungeons-and-dragons-dnd-fifth-edition-on...

ladyattis 4y ago
I don't see that working out as well as they imagine. The big thing is that folks use D&D as a form of structured play whether it's online or offline. It's that interaction and the freedom of both the players and the GMs to figure out how to structure it. Unless Hasbro accepts that they must limit their 'recurring payment' model to make that less painful for players then I suspect that D&D the brand will decline in relevance with competing TTRPGs replacing them.