this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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Kinda
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I don't think Tencent would be a particularly great owner for the D&D brand, but they might have been more hands-off than Hasbro went it comes to mucking with the business model, and a major shakeup for D&D could be good. Honestly, WotC (or just D&D) could be doing better if it was an independent operation as opposed to subsidizing the Hasbro revenue sink.
Hasbro was extremely hands off for a long while. But then their toy lines fell apart and their board game revenue just became "How many times can we sell you the same box of Monopoly pieces?"
Suddenly WotC was their revenue stream, and the head managers decided they needed to apply their magic touch to the franchise.
I don't really care, because D&D is more a style of playing than a product for sale. Sucks to see Faerun or Eberon cannibalized by these ghouls, but there's just so much fucking material out there that's never going away.
It's just not a game you can ruin (and 4e fucking tried, let me tell you). Too much of it is bound up in what you and your friends bring to the table.
I agree that D&D will always exist, I am just personally uninterested in the direction the game is going with the OneD&D, and I think the source of this muddling path is do to the failure of the original business maneuver with the OGL revision. I don't really see things getting better under Hasbro, so any major shakeup might be a good thing overall.
I absolutely agree. Although, I think the consequences of that decision has been something of a "Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom!" D&D-knock-off renaissance. And I'm pretty happy with that, given how a lot of my old favorites from Palladium and Rollmaster and GURPS seem to have found some new life.
I would love to see the Onyx Path (ie, old White Wolf) folks find their legs again. Miss myself some old school Vampire: The Masquerade.
I'd be careful with that. When D&D 3E came out, AD&D 2 wasn't cool anymore compare to other games, and many people weren't really playing it or heavily modded. Remember how everyone was playing Vampire in the00's and how nobody plays it anymore ?
It's very easy to change game, and many GM/players do every so and on. The question is whether more people move to D&D than from D&D. If they try to squeeze too much money out of D&D they can easily go in the more people leave. Well with D&D being above 50% market share even if they loose 90% of their player base, they'll stay a big name in the RPG world. However, would a company keep investing in a product were the revenue stream is falling (even if "still existing" ?) Investor tend to be quite pragmatic and when an product line doesn't make enough money, they tend to get rid of it.
It's messy with Hasbro, but it doesn't mean that it'll be good if someone sees that they can make more money through movies/video-games and paid VTT than by publishing good TT RPG
I’m with you. I’ve been unhappy with the direction D&D has been moving for a couple of years now, and the rumours about the licensing changes were enough that in December 2022 I bought the Pathfinder 2e Core Rulebook. When I started a new campaign in 2023 I used that system, and I have certainly not looked back. It’s a great system from a game design perspective, but even better from now it treats its IP. I love the fact that everything is available completely open and free.