They're trying to kill Paizo for being too based. Allowing the first unions in our TTRPG market? No fucking way! Don't buy from Wizards ever again you hogs
They're trying to kill Paizo for being too based. Allowing the first unions in our TTRPG market? No fucking way! Don't buy from Wizards ever again you hogs
I think this bodes poorly for the actual viability of D&D 6 as a game. A lot of the decision that WOTC seems to be making, seems to be informed by the practices of AAA Video Game publishers, and their aggressive rent-seeking over cash-cows; and assuming that they can make the same kinds of money in what isn't necessarily the same kind of market.
I do wonder how this will go. I know DnD is way more popular today than it was when 4e came out. I think WotC thinks they can get away with it now.
Well, the problems that WOTC is gonna face are embedded in the nature of the product itself. AAA Videogame publishers can add whatever stupid bullshit rent-seeking behavior they want to their games, because fundamentally they're a piece of software that requires specific hardware to run it; hardware that they directly own & operate in the form of hosting servers. You cannot play fuckin COD MCMXXXVI- Operation Eternal Ukraine, or Genshin: Daycare Raiders without using the servers owned & operated by those companies.
Pen & Paper TTRPGs are a fundamentally different kind of product; they may both be information products, and intellectual property. But one requires an actual physical hardware device to run, and the other by definition doesn't. This means that they are either trying to make D&D 6 more like a digital product/a videogame, or they know they are making a bad fucking game & they're trying to compensate by extorting revenue out of 3rd-party intermediaries.
Honestly do they not understand that most TTRPG groups could legit use most any other rules-set standard and fuck off if it becomes too much of a clusterfuck? Also like zoom/FB video chat and virtual tabletop emulators are low cost or free and plain just easy to use. WOTC also just cancelled a lot of DnD video games for no fucking reason (prolly had a lot of NFT crap in them is my guess). Legit WOTC acting like vampires not wanting to admit there's no more blood to squeeze out without murdering and butchering the golden goose of DnD.
WotC isn't just selling a ruleset. Its a lifestyle brand. Plenty of people are introduced to TTRPGs via video games like Baldur's Gate or Let's Plays like Critical Role or Penny Arcade's Acquisition's Incorporated (which occasionally turn into their own TV franchises, like The Legend of Vox Machina).
Yes, technically you can fuck off and do your own kissing-cousin ruleset. And if you don't like the NFL you can play Arena Football. But its a significantly smaller market with virtually non-existent exposure.
D&D grows as a franchise because of its market saturation. Their product is largely just the branding. Give Shadowrun or Onyx Path or Mechwarrior a Matel-sized advertising budget and they'll be competitive in a heartbeat.
Thing is I feel Stranger Things did the most heavy lifting on making DnD mainstream by way of having characters styled as 80s nerds doing basic gygaxian dungeon delving, nowadays though I feel WotC has the possibility of strangling content creators if they get their hand stuck in the proverbial cookie jar because lets face it capitalists aren't smart on understanding factors of long term success. DnD as all lifestyle brands requires a avid community acting as a self feeding oroborus (YouTubers, supplement OGL makers, streamers). The tightening of the OGL to DnD 6 gives a hint though that WotC wants more at the cost of harming part of their community ecosystem (i.e. people able to make some income from making in certain cases far better supplements and adventures than the WotC writing team). For those that remember 4e a similar thing occurred in which WotC created subpar crap, had a game system that sucked, and tried to monetize DnD with everything you can imagine (remeber DnD heroclix or the weird card game?).
Idk if Stranger Things bouyed D&D or just jumped on the bandwagon. But its notable that they're playing a TSR game rather than Warhammer or Rolemaster or GURPs or even some made-up generic analog. It isn't as though the 80s had a deficit of table-top alternatives.
Disney works as a lifestyle brand despite being rigorously litigated and enclosed. If anything, it works precisely because so much historically public content (everything from Grim's Fairy Tales to Greek Tragedy to Shakespeare) is cornered off into an exclusive private domain.
But it does also hinge on WotC vomiting up a Disney-tier of high quality production and regular content. If they just abandon the old TSR game formula, an audience nostolgic for 80s-era content isn't likely to follow.
One reason Paizo had so much room to grow was because WotC abandoned the 2e/3e framework for a more MMORPG style of game in 4e. Suddenly, Pathfinder was the D&D alternative that actually felt like a D&D game. 5e reclaimed a bunch of that space (and pf2e didn't really do Paizo any favors). If they walk away again, I imagine either Paizo or some other developer will happily milk the old 1.0 OGL for all its worth in their absence.
I think Stranger Things introduced a lot of newbies to the TTRPG scene and also removed some of the leftover satanic panic and 1980s revenge of the nerds stigma to it by incorporating it well into a 80s send off series about kids growing up (something that resonates with millennials and zoomers and tbh even genxers and boomers). This injection of new blood also coincided with the new financialization of DnD (mugs, books, tshirts, all the branded lifestyle crap we now and love). As of now I honestly feel that the most likely outcome is that if DnD is truly horrible on OGL designers then we could see a mass exodus of popular OGL makers to Paizo or other systems which could then drag along Youtubers and eventually streamers (especially if DnD tries pushing the liveservice digitized market they always seem to dance around but also mention is there and ready to be used to extract more from the IP during investor statements).
I'm still upset that VLARP let's plays never really took off. So... fingers crossed