10 ms·

This is the same Hasbro that tried to retroactively close off the D&D Open Game License (and thus the third party ecosystem). It was a massive betrayal that cau

This is the same Hasbro that tried to retroactively close off the D&D Open Game License (and thus the third party ecosystem). It was a massive betrayal that caused a ton of pushback: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/jan/12/dungeons-and-dragons-wizards-of-the-coast-ogl https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/jan/12/dungeons-and-d... They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in them (just a few pieces of paper, not enough dice, sub par instructions ). Or really expensive character toys. D&D has undoubtedly gotten more popular, but I wish it were under the stewardship of someone more deserving, like a geekier board game shop than greed-enthralled Hasbro. They've become the Disney of board games, all quantity and profit and no real concern for a high quality gamer experience. I bet someone like Larian (Baldur's Gate 3) would've taken better care of the IP and rulesets (and they're working on a Divinity tabletop game!)

dumpsterlid 3y ago
We just need to move on from DnD to other IPs at this point, it is absurdly clear that everyone putting all their eggs in the basket with wizards of the coast and it is just a bad idea. There are plenty of fantastic alternatives, we really don’t need the DnD universe. I mean, as highly acclaimed as BG3 is, people in general seem to feel that the dev’s previous game Divinity Original Sin 2 has better combat mechanics… so idk I just think it’s time to move past wizards of the coast and embrace better systems.
- solardev 3y ago
  I think Forgotten Realms has a special place in many people's hearts (especially the millennials and around them), being a formative part of our childhoods: Minsc and Boo, Drizzt, beholders, mimics, etc. It's like Star Wars or LOTR, people get attached and emotionally invested and it's not so easy to let go overnight. I enjoyed the Original Sin series and played them for many hours,but never finished either one. The characters and stories weren't their strong suit IMO (they were kinda cheesy, honestly), but yeah, tactically they played better than BG3. That's the downside of trying to accurately transfer tabletop mechanics, I guess, and combining it with the poor UI of the BG3 series (too many different types of actions and reactions to squeeze in the toolbars). Anyway that's beside the point. I agree new IPs would be great, but those are rare! It would be cool to see an open source fantasy world where high quality fanfic could be curated into canon.
  - Sander_Marechal 3y ago
    > The characters and stories weren't their strong suit IMO (they were kinda cheesy, honestly) Yes, but so are D&D characters like Drizzt and Minsc. But they come with added feel-good nostalgia. > I agree new IPs would be great, but those are rare! I am really enjoying "The Timescape" at the moment. It's the setting from Matt Colville / MCDM. It's used in a range of D&D supplements, streams, literature books, videos and more. And soon in a new TTRPG as well. It is more concise and less "out there" that the Forgotten Realms. And it doesn't carry 40+ years of inconsistent lore baggage.
    - thesuitonym 3y ago
      "Soon" in this case means 2025 or later.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  The alternative systems flourished with DnD 4.0 back in 2008, since that system just wasn't as good as 3.5 or the new 5th edition. Wizards of the Coast did a great job with the balance of customization vs simplicity of 5e and that's why DnD did so well recently. But the alternatives always were there. Its a big community of literal house-rule makers (everyone plays DnD with their own houserules). Its a community used to making rules for themselves, buying 3rd party rules packages or discussing balance things online. The community will figure something out one way or the other.
  - seabird 3y ago
    Was 4 really worse than 5? Everyone I've heard speak on it is pretty hesitant to say 5 is better, and that a lot of of great design choices (martial classes not being completely outclassed, less frustrating saving throws, rule clarity, better handling of numbers on enemies, better rest mechanics, etc.) were thrown out in 5 because 4 caught so much shit for being "not 3.5".
    - nyssos 3y ago
      > Was 4 really worse than 5? They're just very different. 4 is as much a tactics game as an RPG.
      - musicale 3y ago
        Older D&D editions actually had a tactical miniatures game. Of course D&D originally evolved from the Chainmail miniatures rules. 4e had a miniatures game as well as some great tactical board games that are fun with friends and can even be played solo. With 5e they wanted to emphasize "theater of the mind" but you can still have fairly tactical battles with miniatures, terrain, etc. All D&D versions seem pretty great. I've played the 2.5e CRPGs (fun!), classic Pathfinder (basically 3.5+ - also fun!), 4e RPG, miniatures game, boardgames (all definitely fun!), and lots of 5e (also very fun!) The classic rulebooks are baroque, fascinating, and immensely charming. The settings (Forgotten Realms etc.) are brilliant.
    - solardev 3y ago
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  > Divinity Original Sin 2 has better combat mechanics While I think the combat in 5E combat in BG3 is fairly simple by comparison, DOS2 combat was definitely not better. All combat devolved into status effect versions of “the floor is lava” and a lot of builds become unviable late game.
  - solardev 3y ago
    You didn't like the environmental interactions? I thought it was awesome how the "floor is lava" could quickly become "the air is now noxious gas / steam / full of lava elementals", how undead and the living react to elements different, etc. But it's really more that the action points system gave you a lot more tactical flexibility than the D&D "attack/cast + move" limits. Still, though, I loved the different builds in both games :) When Original Sin first came out, I made a wine barrel build that just had an insanely strong level 1 character with telekinesis and no other skills... he could insta-kill any enemy in a single turn just by throwing 600 kg wine barrels at them. Or in BG3 how you could have a party of shovers that just throw people off cliffs.
    - bugglebeetle 3y ago
      I think the environmental effects were fun, but in longer or large battles, too much of the emphasis was placed on managing them. One thing I appreciated about BG3 is that you can use them to your advantage, but they’re not a primary focus of combat. I like the scale and variety of combat in DOS2 better overall, however. All the BG3 combat, outside a handful of battles, felt trivial and anti-climactic.
      - solardev 3y ago
        > I think the environmental effects were fun, but in longer or large battles, too much of the emphasis became on managing them. Oh, I see what you mean there. Yeah, I agree, the environmental effects were SO powerful they often occluded the usefulness of other skills. I'm glad they toned it down a bit in BG3.
      - imbnwa 3y ago
- jghn 3y ago
  > We just need to move on from DnD to other IPs at this point Or go back to AD&D 1e like the good lord ... err gygax intended :)
  - indigochill 3y ago
    Relatedly, Old School Essentials is, IIRC, B/X just more streamlined in presentation? They also have a cool-looking setting with Dolmenwood (as I gather, basically "a mix of darkness and whimsy in the style of old-school fairy tales") that just had a kickstarter for a big campaign setting guide earlier this year.
    - jghn 3y ago
      While I haven't played D&D in any form for nearly 30 years, I lurk in places like r/adnd. There's something I often wonder in the light of the OSR trend & renewed interest in B/X, early AD&D, etc. And that is - to what extent the style of play captures the older style of play vs. hybridizing the more modern style of play w/ the older rules. When I talk to friends who play contemporary versions of the game, even if one normalized the rules, what they play isn't what I played way back when. There's much more focus on the actual role playing & narrative/story. It tends more towards high fantasy, almost more like a superhero game. That sort of thing. I assume it must wind up as a hybrid, and find myself curious to see what that looks like. Granted, it's easy enough for me to try it first hand and find out :)
      - indigochill 3y ago
        There's a YouTube channel called 3D6DownTheLine which has video series of two campaigns using OSE (one in Dolmenwood and another in a popular megadungeon). I can't really comment on how close it fits D&D from 30 years ago but it at least seems like it plays like how people describe old-school D&D (more emphasis on player skill and creative problem-solving). From just watching a little bit of those videos, I think a significant part of the appeal today is that it's much quicker (thinking mainly in comparison to 3.5 since that was my introduction) to roll some attributes, pick a class, and go. It also makes the GM's job easier because they don't need to worry about balancing skill checks when the game doesn't even have skills.
- solardev 3y ago
  Side note: I had tremendous fun doing a BG3 combat-only playthrough (meaning paying no attention to the story or characters, just min-maxing combat). One of my most memorable encounters happened entirely by accident: I had just learned how to make my characters fly, and was exploring a new city by gliding from rooftop to rooftop. I ended up on top of some big castle thing by chance, and pissed off all the guards in what looked like a throne room. They chased me out onto a small patio, where I set up a perfect ambush: https://share.cleanshot.com/tPHhWk6p https://share.cleanshot.com/tPHhWk6p A cloud of darkness blocked vision out of the only exit, with only my fighter visible at the end of the ledge. Each enemy would come stumbling out of the darkness, only to be ambushed by arrows fired from a dust cloud. Enraged, they'd run towards the ledge, engage my fighter, only to be blown into the chasm below by my warlock hiding on a tower above. Over the next couple hours, I ended up killing like 40-60 of these huge guards, a pile of bodies at the river bottom. (Apparently this was some sort of boss fight, which I had no idea lol). It was just such a perfect tactical setup to blow them off the ledge, one by one, unaware and so angry :D One of the best moments I ever had in any video game. My full review, with more silliness: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561199138390397/recommended/1086940 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561199138390397/recomm...
csydas 3y ago
> They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in them (just a few pieces of paper, not enough dice, sub par instructions ). Or really expensive character toys. For me this is the most telling part that Hasbro doesn't quite get what you're actually selling if you have a tabletop company; it's not the ruleset, that will be leaked as soon as you sell a single copy and people actually play the game. It's instead ideas and world building visions from the people who were directly involved in creating the world and rules the company tries to sell to people. People are creative, but even the best story tellers wouldn't turn their nose up at some lore to help spark creativity, long as the lore isn't needlessly restrictive.
- musicale 3y ago
  Lore and adventure supplements are wonderful. Not only do I enjoy playing them, I enjoy reading them as their own form of literature.
- drxzcl 3y ago
  For me the naive part is focussing on player options. I understand that groups generally have one DM and 4 players, do if you include player options you might sell 5 books instead of one. But that's the shallow, cash-in-now-fuck-next-decade mentality. Meanwhile they haven't put out a decent adventure in a decade. The internet is awash with people trying to glue their ramblings back into coherent campaigns and running D&D (always a huge time sink) is becoming a worse experience every year as they keep flooding the market with crap. I love running games but I've come to the point where I'm not really interested in starting a D&D group anymore because of all the bullshit. WOTC: support your DMs or die.
  - mcv 3y ago
    > Meanwhile they haven't put out a decent adventure in a decade. Lost Mines of Phandelver, the adventure from the intro box, is pretty good (except when it switches to "every room has a monster" later on). It's very big for an intro adventure and there's tons of stuff in it. But it's quite possible that it's the only good one they made.
DonHopkins 3y ago
It's like Oracle buying Sun. We just need to move on from Java to other languages at this point.
- jsiepkes 3y ago
  I'm no fan of Oracle but Oracle's steward ship of Java has been pretty good. They have invested in long term (open source) improvements such as Loom and Graal and open sourced additional technologies such as Flight recorder.
- solardev 3y ago
  If you ever want another huge, ancient labyrinth of a language that also kinda sorta runs everywhere, the Javascript world welcomes you with open tentaces! Here we're controlled by an evil older than Oracle itself (Microsoft and Typescript), with upgrades and crossgrades and cross compilers that deliver astounding 15% improvements in performance in exchange for a mere few animal sacrifices and a lifetime of misery. In our delightful world, getting your app to run on other platforms is as simple as embedding your operating system into WASM and putting it in their browser. What could be simpler?
  - typon 3y ago
    Looking forward to the day Amazon buys Rust
    - imbnwa 3y ago
      Is Rust deployed internally at Amazon?
      - hughesjj 3y ago
        Fire cracker (lambda backend vm) uses it
  - sublinear 3y ago
    > controlled by an evil older than Oracle itself (Microsoft and Typescript) Who still uses typescript? It's not the mid-2010s anymore. Plain javascript is everywhere and I'd argue using a framework implies an immature project or team.
rtkwe 3y ago
Also their recent move to 3-book + DM screen sets is really annoying. They did it first with Spelljammer's rerelease into 5e and I think the oceanic thirst for Spelljammer content might have sent them the wrong signal about the popularity of the actual content which was pretty thin for the amount you paid for it with notable missing rules like long range travel... for the space setting.
- disgruntledphd2 3y ago
  OMG they rereleased spelljammer? Brb, gotta go buy some DND books. Which is to say, I am clearly part of the problem here.
  - SSLy 3y ago
    E-mail me at the profile, don’t give wotc money.
  - sklargh 3y ago
    Oh man it was super-disappointing and the end of my willingness to buy WoTC 5E. You'd be better off with the originals from DriveThru.
    - musicale 3y ago
      It was a bit thin, but I still had fun playing! I will be sad if they don't develop it further. Then again, I'd kind of like to see more of their legendary forgotten settings like Dark Sun...
      - Sander_Marechal 3y ago
        They will never release another Dark Sun. It is waaay to vile and racist. Personally I love the setting, but there is zero change they could publish it without some serious backlash from a lot of people ... for who that content is not intended. Let's put it that way. If they ever release something with the name Dark Sun, it will be that in name only. Disconnected from the original. Even worse than Spelljammer.
musicale 3y ago
I have enjoyed 5e greatly - I wish that Hasbro wasn't working so hard to kill D&D.
steve1977 3y ago
> They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in them Isn’t that the core business model of Hasbro?
nextlevelwizard 3y ago
If people are still going to pay money for D&D then they truly do not care about the hobby. I must admit before the OGL fiasco I didn't see much of the allure of other systems, but that really pushed me away and the world of TTRPGs is so much brighter and better than crappy D&D. I still play in one D&D campaign, but it was started before the fiasco, but I have already decided that at least I won't be running another D&D game.
- concordDance 3y ago
  What system would you recommend?
  - ZiiS 3y ago
    Pathfinder is DnD but better; most others focus on different settings so it depends on your interests I have always liked Cyberpunk 2020.
    - nextlevelwizard 3y ago
      In my experience (which is limited to Pathfinder 2e without any extensions) Pathfinder is by far inferior to D&D 5e. The classes _are_ more interesting, but you pretty much have to maximise your character's potential if you want to keep the game going or you just have to be willing to re-roll often and let characters die and just abandon quests. i.e. it is not good for heroic fantasy. Then again Pathfinder isn't gritty enough for me to be interesting as "bunch of peasants who try to be adventurers" either.
      - ZiiS 3y ago
        Yes; rulesets and even settings are not the most important thing and are highly subjective. It is hard to make recommendations. I would expect a GM to scale difficulty to prevent characters dying too much (at least if they don't want to) with any system. But I can see that Pathfinder dose incentivize min-maxing long lived characters which will not be everyone's cup of tea. Similarly the combat system is fairly terrible in Cyberpunk 2020 but never stopped me enjoying it.
mcv 3y ago
Yeah, WotC should never have sold themselves to Hasbro. Buying TSR was great, but selling to Hasbro was not. It may have seemed like a good idea at first because they got a lot of freedom in those first 10 years, but Habro has been tightening the screws lately and none of that has been good.
CivBase 3y ago
For those of you who are sick of Hasbro/WotC's shinanigans, give Pathfinder a shot. Its setting and rules should be very familiar for anyone used to DnD, but I've found the small changes they made to combat and progression really make the game much more interesting and rewarding. I've found Paizo's pricing to be much more reasonable than WotC and they work well with open source projects. I've been using the open source system for Pathfinder on FoundryVTT with Paizo's official content packs and it's amazing. My experiences with DnD in Roll20 and AboveVTT don't even come close.
THENATHE 3y ago
This happens in every industry once that business is opened to the stock market. Larian is great because its private. Steam is great because it's private. Facebook used to be great then it went public and went downhill fast. Same with basically any company that doesnt have 2 vectors of VERY solid competition (AMD v Intel v ARM, nvidia v AMD v Intel, Micro v Samsung v hynix, Ford v GM v Dodge, etc). Companies that exist only to drive profits will do shit to ruin their brand in the name of profits, because stock profits make more money than being a good company.

dumpsterlid 3y ago

We just need to move on from DnD to other IPs at this point, it is absurdly clear that everyone putting all their eggs in the basket with wizards of the coast and it is just a bad idea. There are plenty of fantastic alternatives, we really don’t need the DnD universe. I mean, as highly acclaimed as BG3 is, people in general seem to feel that the dev’s previous game Divinity Original Sin 2 has better combat mechanics… so idk I just think it’s time to move past wizards of the coast and embrace better systems.

solardev 3y ago
I think Forgotten Realms has a special place in many people's hearts (especially the millennials and around them), being a formative part of our childhoods: Minsc and Boo, Drizzt, beholders, mimics, etc. It's like Star Wars or LOTR, people get attached and emotionally invested and it's not so easy to let go overnight. I enjoyed the Original Sin series and played them for many hours,but never finished either one. The characters and stories weren't their strong suit IMO (they were kinda cheesy, honestly), but yeah, tactically they played better than BG3. That's the downside of trying to accurately transfer tabletop mechanics, I guess, and combining it with the poor UI of the BG3 series (too many different types of actions and reactions to squeeze in the toolbars). Anyway that's beside the point. I agree new IPs would be great, but those are rare! It would be cool to see an open source fantasy world where high quality fanfic could be curated into canon.
- Sander_Marechal 3y ago
  > The characters and stories weren't their strong suit IMO (they were kinda cheesy, honestly) Yes, but so are D&D characters like Drizzt and Minsc. But they come with added feel-good nostalgia. > I agree new IPs would be great, but those are rare! I am really enjoying "The Timescape" at the moment. It's the setting from Matt Colville / MCDM. It's used in a range of D&D supplements, streams, literature books, videos and more. And soon in a new TTRPG as well. It is more concise and less "out there" that the Forgotten Realms. And it doesn't carry 40+ years of inconsistent lore baggage.
  - thesuitonym 3y ago
    "Soon" in this case means 2025 or later.
dragontamer 3y ago
The alternative systems flourished with DnD 4.0 back in 2008, since that system just wasn't as good as 3.5 or the new 5th edition. Wizards of the Coast did a great job with the balance of customization vs simplicity of 5e and that's why DnD did so well recently. But the alternatives always were there. Its a big community of literal house-rule makers (everyone plays DnD with their own houserules). Its a community used to making rules for themselves, buying 3rd party rules packages or discussing balance things online. The community will figure something out one way or the other.
- seabird 3y ago
  Was 4 really worse than 5? Everyone I've heard speak on it is pretty hesitant to say 5 is better, and that a lot of of great design choices (martial classes not being completely outclassed, less frustrating saving throws, rule clarity, better handling of numbers on enemies, better rest mechanics, etc.) were thrown out in 5 because 4 caught so much shit for being "not 3.5".
  - nyssos 3y ago
    > Was 4 really worse than 5? They're just very different. 4 is as much a tactics game as an RPG.
    - musicale 3y ago
      Older D&D editions actually had a tactical miniatures game. Of course D&D originally evolved from the Chainmail miniatures rules. 4e had a miniatures game as well as some great tactical board games that are fun with friends and can even be played solo. With 5e they wanted to emphasize "theater of the mind" but you can still have fairly tactical battles with miniatures, terrain, etc. All D&D versions seem pretty great. I've played the 2.5e CRPGs (fun!), classic Pathfinder (basically 3.5+ - also fun!), 4e RPG, miniatures game, boardgames (all definitely fun!), and lots of 5e (also very fun!) The classic rulebooks are baroque, fascinating, and immensely charming. The settings (Forgotten Realms etc.) are brilliant.
  - solardev 3y ago
bugglebeetle 3y ago
> Divinity Original Sin 2 has better combat mechanics While I think the combat in 5E combat in BG3 is fairly simple by comparison, DOS2 combat was definitely not better. All combat devolved into status effect versions of “the floor is lava” and a lot of builds become unviable late game.
- solardev 3y ago
  You didn't like the environmental interactions? I thought it was awesome how the "floor is lava" could quickly become "the air is now noxious gas / steam / full of lava elementals", how undead and the living react to elements different, etc. But it's really more that the action points system gave you a lot more tactical flexibility than the D&D "attack/cast + move" limits. Still, though, I loved the different builds in both games :) When Original Sin first came out, I made a wine barrel build that just had an insanely strong level 1 character with telekinesis and no other skills... he could insta-kill any enemy in a single turn just by throwing 600 kg wine barrels at them. Or in BG3 how you could have a party of shovers that just throw people off cliffs.
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    I think the environmental effects were fun, but in longer or large battles, too much of the emphasis was placed on managing them. One thing I appreciated about BG3 is that you can use them to your advantage, but they’re not a primary focus of combat. I like the scale and variety of combat in DOS2 better overall, however. All the BG3 combat, outside a handful of battles, felt trivial and anti-climactic.
    - solardev 3y ago
      > I think the environmental effects were fun, but in longer or large battles, too much of the emphasis became on managing them. Oh, I see what you mean there. Yeah, I agree, the environmental effects were SO powerful they often occluded the usefulness of other skills. I'm glad they toned it down a bit in BG3.
    - imbnwa 3y ago
jghn 3y ago
> We just need to move on from DnD to other IPs at this point Or go back to AD&D 1e like the good lord ... err gygax intended :)
- indigochill 3y ago
  Relatedly, Old School Essentials is, IIRC, B/X just more streamlined in presentation? They also have a cool-looking setting with Dolmenwood (as I gather, basically "a mix of darkness and whimsy in the style of old-school fairy tales") that just had a kickstarter for a big campaign setting guide earlier this year.
  - jghn 3y ago
    While I haven't played D&D in any form for nearly 30 years, I lurk in places like r/adnd. There's something I often wonder in the light of the OSR trend & renewed interest in B/X, early AD&D, etc. And that is - to what extent the style of play captures the older style of play vs. hybridizing the more modern style of play w/ the older rules. When I talk to friends who play contemporary versions of the game, even if one normalized the rules, what they play isn't what I played way back when. There's much more focus on the actual role playing & narrative/story. It tends more towards high fantasy, almost more like a superhero game. That sort of thing. I assume it must wind up as a hybrid, and find myself curious to see what that looks like. Granted, it's easy enough for me to try it first hand and find out :)
    - indigochill 3y ago
      There's a YouTube channel called 3D6DownTheLine which has video series of two campaigns using OSE (one in Dolmenwood and another in a popular megadungeon). I can't really comment on how close it fits D&D from 30 years ago but it at least seems like it plays like how people describe old-school D&D (more emphasis on player skill and creative problem-solving). From just watching a little bit of those videos, I think a significant part of the appeal today is that it's much quicker (thinking mainly in comparison to 3.5 since that was my introduction) to roll some attributes, pick a class, and go. It also makes the GM's job easier because they don't need to worry about balancing skill checks when the game doesn't even have skills.
solardev 3y ago
Side note: I had tremendous fun doing a BG3 combat-only playthrough (meaning paying no attention to the story or characters, just min-maxing combat). One of my most memorable encounters happened entirely by accident: I had just learned how to make my characters fly, and was exploring a new city by gliding from rooftop to rooftop. I ended up on top of some big castle thing by chance, and pissed off all the guards in what looked like a throne room. They chased me out onto a small patio, where I set up a perfect ambush: https://share.cleanshot.com/tPHhWk6p https://share.cleanshot.com/tPHhWk6p A cloud of darkness blocked vision out of the only exit, with only my fighter visible at the end of the ledge. Each enemy would come stumbling out of the darkness, only to be ambushed by arrows fired from a dust cloud. Enraged, they'd run towards the ledge, engage my fighter, only to be blown into the chasm below by my warlock hiding on a tower above. Over the next couple hours, I ended up killing like 40-60 of these huge guards, a pile of bodies at the river bottom. (Apparently this was some sort of boss fight, which I had no idea lol). It was just such a perfect tactical setup to blow them off the ledge, one by one, unaware and so angry :D One of the best moments I ever had in any video game. My full review, with more silliness: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561199138390397/recommended/1086940 https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561199138390397/recomm...

csydas 3y ago

> They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in them (just a few pieces of paper, not enough dice, sub par instructions ). Or really expensive character toys. For me this is the most telling part that Hasbro doesn't quite get what you're actually selling if you have a tabletop company; it's not the ruleset, that will be leaked as soon as you sell a single copy and people actually play the game. It's instead ideas and world building visions from the people who were directly involved in creating the world and rules the company tries to sell to people. People are creative, but even the best story tellers wouldn't turn their nose up at some lore to help spark creativity, long as the lore isn't needlessly restrictive.

musicale 3y ago
Lore and adventure supplements are wonderful. Not only do I enjoy playing them, I enjoy reading them as their own form of literature.
drxzcl 3y ago
For me the naive part is focussing on player options. I understand that groups generally have one DM and 4 players, do if you include player options you might sell 5 books instead of one. But that's the shallow, cash-in-now-fuck-next-decade mentality. Meanwhile they haven't put out a decent adventure in a decade. The internet is awash with people trying to glue their ramblings back into coherent campaigns and running D&D (always a huge time sink) is becoming a worse experience every year as they keep flooding the market with crap. I love running games but I've come to the point where I'm not really interested in starting a D&D group anymore because of all the bullshit. WOTC: support your DMs or die.
- mcv 3y ago
  > Meanwhile they haven't put out a decent adventure in a decade. Lost Mines of Phandelver, the adventure from the intro box, is pretty good (except when it switches to "every room has a monster" later on). It's very big for an intro adventure and there's tons of stuff in it. But it's quite possible that it's the only good one they made.

DonHopkins 3y ago

It's like Oracle buying Sun. We just need to move on from Java to other languages at this point.

jsiepkes 3y ago
I'm no fan of Oracle but Oracle's steward ship of Java has been pretty good. They have invested in long term (open source) improvements such as Loom and Graal and open sourced additional technologies such as Flight recorder.
solardev 3y ago
If you ever want another huge, ancient labyrinth of a language that also kinda sorta runs everywhere, the Javascript world welcomes you with open tentaces! Here we're controlled by an evil older than Oracle itself (Microsoft and Typescript), with upgrades and crossgrades and cross compilers that deliver astounding 15% improvements in performance in exchange for a mere few animal sacrifices and a lifetime of misery. In our delightful world, getting your app to run on other platforms is as simple as embedding your operating system into WASM and putting it in their browser. What could be simpler?
- typon 3y ago
  Looking forward to the day Amazon buys Rust
  - imbnwa 3y ago
    Is Rust deployed internally at Amazon?
    - hughesjj 3y ago
      Fire cracker (lambda backend vm) uses it
- sublinear 3y ago
  > controlled by an evil older than Oracle itself (Microsoft and Typescript) Who still uses typescript? It's not the mid-2010s anymore. Plain javascript is everywhere and I'd argue using a framework implies an immature project or team.

rtkwe 3y ago

Also their recent move to 3-book + DM screen sets is really annoying. They did it first with Spelljammer's rerelease into 5e and I think the oceanic thirst for Spelljammer content might have sent them the wrong signal about the popularity of the actual content which was pretty thin for the amount you paid for it with notable missing rules like long range travel... for the space setting.

disgruntledphd2 3y ago
OMG they rereleased spelljammer? Brb, gotta go buy some DND books. Which is to say, I am clearly part of the problem here.
- SSLy 3y ago
  E-mail me at the profile, don’t give wotc money.
- sklargh 3y ago
  Oh man it was super-disappointing and the end of my willingness to buy WoTC 5E. You'd be better off with the originals from DriveThru.
  - musicale 3y ago
    It was a bit thin, but I still had fun playing! I will be sad if they don't develop it further. Then again, I'd kind of like to see more of their legendary forgotten settings like Dark Sun...
    - Sander_Marechal 3y ago
      They will never release another Dark Sun. It is waaay to vile and racist. Personally I love the setting, but there is zero change they could publish it without some serious backlash from a lot of people ... for who that content is not intended. Let's put it that way. If they ever release something with the name Dark Sun, it will be that in name only. Disconnected from the original. Even worse than Spelljammer.

musicale 3y ago

I have enjoyed 5e greatly - I wish that Hasbro wasn't working so hard to kill D&D.

steve1977 3y ago

> They also sell so many overpriced kits with not much going on in them Isn’t that the core business model of Hasbro?

nextlevelwizard 3y ago

If people are still going to pay money for D&D then they truly do not care about the hobby. I must admit before the OGL fiasco I didn't see much of the allure of other systems, but that really pushed me away and the world of TTRPGs is so much brighter and better than crappy D&D. I still play in one D&D campaign, but it was started before the fiasco, but I have already decided that at least I won't be running another D&D game.

concordDance 3y ago
What system would you recommend?
- ZiiS 3y ago
  Pathfinder is DnD but better; most others focus on different settings so it depends on your interests I have always liked Cyberpunk 2020.
  - nextlevelwizard 3y ago
    In my experience (which is limited to Pathfinder 2e without any extensions) Pathfinder is by far inferior to D&D 5e. The classes _are_ more interesting, but you pretty much have to maximise your character's potential if you want to keep the game going or you just have to be willing to re-roll often and let characters die and just abandon quests. i.e. it is not good for heroic fantasy. Then again Pathfinder isn't gritty enough for me to be interesting as "bunch of peasants who try to be adventurers" either.
    - ZiiS 3y ago
      Yes; rulesets and even settings are not the most important thing and are highly subjective. It is hard to make recommendations. I would expect a GM to scale difficulty to prevent characters dying too much (at least if they don't want to) with any system. But I can see that Pathfinder dose incentivize min-maxing long lived characters which will not be everyone's cup of tea. Similarly the combat system is fairly terrible in Cyberpunk 2020 but never stopped me enjoying it.

mcv 3y ago

Yeah, WotC should never have sold themselves to Hasbro. Buying TSR was great, but selling to Hasbro was not. It may have seemed like a good idea at first because they got a lot of freedom in those first 10 years, but Habro has been tightening the screws lately and none of that has been good.

CivBase 3y ago

For those of you who are sick of Hasbro/WotC's shinanigans, give Pathfinder a shot. Its setting and rules should be very familiar for anyone used to DnD, but I've found the small changes they made to combat and progression really make the game much more interesting and rewarding. I've found Paizo's pricing to be much more reasonable than WotC and they work well with open source projects. I've been using the open source system for Pathfinder on FoundryVTT with Paizo's official content packs and it's amazing. My experiences with DnD in Roll20 and AboveVTT don't even come close.

THENATHE 3y ago

This happens in every industry once that business is opened to the stock market. Larian is great because its private. Steam is great because it's private. Facebook used to be great then it went public and went downhill fast. Same with basically any company that doesnt have 2 vectors of VERY solid competition (AMD v Intel v ARM, nvidia v AMD v Intel, Micro v Samsung v hynix, Ford v GM v Dodge, etc). Companies that exist only to drive profits will do shit to ruin their brand in the name of profits, because stock profits make more money than being a good company.