Monetizing the Hobby

[Sparky McDibben]

So this article (https://www.dicebreaker.com/categories/roleplaying-game/news/dungeons-and-dragons-under-monetised-says-executives) has been getting a lot of attention lately - everyone from YouTubers to Reddit to our own humble forumites have been up in arms about this stuff.

If you've either been under a rock or just don't care about WotC drama, the biggest takeaway is that WotC is planning to monetize the hobby via a combination of payment features that run the gamut from charging for character skins on their VTT to moving players to a subscription model in D&D Beyond, etc. WotC execs have noticed "that while dungeon masters comprise roughly 20% of the D&D player base, they make up 'the largest share of our paying players'."

I will pause so everyone can contain their shock at this statistic (seriously, did WotC not know this?).

So they see the other 80% of users out there not paying to play Wizards' game, and go, "Well, we gotta get some of that scratch!" Hence, microtransactions.

Now, I chafe at this for a number of reasons (I hate freemium software packages, I passionately loathe subscription models, I don't like using VTT or grids in my games, and I detest valueless cost). But the other reason that I chafe at this is that these schmucks are charging us to get out of a box they've put themselves in.

After all, if only 20% of your user base are DMs, and DMs are the ones spending all the money, isn't the best answer to just convert as many players as possible over to DMs???

Now, if I've thought of this, the big-brain bois over at WotC sure as hell have. I think it's telling that they didn't settle on this as an approach. Maybe hiring 300 programmers and charging people for everything was easier, I don't know. But I think it's telling that their faith in their own player base was low enough that they didn't think most players would run 5E games.

So, my questions for the Playground:

How would you go about encouraging more players in 5E to DM if you were WotC?
What changes to the game would lower the barrier to entry for DMing?
Do you think the barrier to entry for DMing is a major restriction on the population of new DMs?
When we see this "DM's Tools" drop for the D&DOne playtest, what changes do you think will be made?

Curious (and excited!) to hear what folks think!

[Unoriginal]

As I said in another thread, corporate suits are always eager to slaughter the Golden Egg Goose, because surely killing the bird will wield more benefit than letting it lay one gold egg a day.

WotC cannot incentivize players into becoming DMs unless they lower the various investments required for DMing, including the monetary one, which they are unwilling to do.

They *could* get some non-DM players to pay for a service if they had, for example, an HeroForge-style visual character creator, which would allow players to create art for their PCs easily (and maybe serve as basis for 3d printing a custom mini), or any other service that is a) providing something that is somewhat hard for players to get otherwise b) isn't just a tax required to play, but I don't think they will want to spend the money to set that up.

[JackPhoenix]

After all, if only 20% of your user base are DMs, and DMs are the ones spending all the money, isn't the best answer to just convert as many players as possible over to DMs???

No, because that's not how things work. A group is naturally based around the DM running the game for about 4 players (per the statistics). Within that group, you don't really need more than one set of books: even if the group switches DMs, they can just share the same books. Even if you convince more players to run games, that won't change unless they form a new group.. at which point, you're back where you've been, as the new group also only needs 1 set of books per about 5 members.

The only way to make that work would be to stop book sharing, which is pretty much impossible, and I think the result would only be less players overall.

[Unoriginal]

No, because that's not how things work. A group is naturally based around the DM running the game for about 4 players (per the statistics). Within that group, you don't really need more than one set of books: even if the group switches DMs, they can just share the same books. Even if you convince more players to run games, that won't change unless they form a new group.. at which point, you're back where you've been, as the new group also only needs 1 set of books per about 5 members.

The only way to make that work would be to stop book sharing, which is pretty much impossible, and I think the result would only be less players overall.

Very true.

It's like selling a board game labelled "for 3 to 7 persons" then being displeased that only one third to one seventh of your playerbase are paying for the product they're using.

[EggKookoo]

The only way to make that work would be to stop book sharing, which is pretty much impossible, and I think the result would only be less players overall.

Thankfully, there's no conceivable path for WotC to take that leads to subscription-based, digital-only versions of their books that they could...

crap

[ProsecutorGodot]

Thankfully, there's no conceivable path for WotC to take that leads to subscription-based, digital-only versions of their books that they could...

crap

Campaign Sharing content is already monetized through DNDBeyond, it has been since day 1.

People will still play at a real table with real books though, and the point being made is that WotC won't really be able to stop you from only having one copy of a book per group.

The digital sharing cost is a convenience I'm willing to pay too, for that small fee I can keep the users who live cross country up to date with all the content rather than having to beg and plead with them to purchase their own copies because there's no conceivable way for me to share a physical purchase with them.

Of course I wish this was a free option, but it's not, and it's sort of mandatory for my group dynamic so it's a small price to pay for actually being able to easily play the game. I don't think they're going to change this feature beyond a potential price increase for the subscription tiers when their new planned features and VTT do roll in, at which point I'll have to reconsider whether the cost is still worth it.

[Samayu]

After all, if only 20% of your user base are DMs, and DMs are the ones spending all the money, [B][I]isn't the best answer to just convert as many players as possible over to DMs???

Sure, but we still have only the same number of DMs per session. When a new person decides to become a DM, the previous one sits back down as a player. The only way to convert more players do DMs if with sheer numbers - more people playing the game requires more DMs. I assume they're doing what they can on that account.

One thing they might be forgetting is that some groups chip in funds to buy a campaign book. Sure, the DM's are paying their money, but it's not always their own money. So while increased monetization is the way of the future, I hope they don't use dungeon masters comprise roughly 20% of the D&D player base, they make up 'the largest share of our paying players' as a punitive measure.

[Sparky McDibben]

No, because that's not how things work. A group is naturally based around the DM running the game for about 4 players (per the statistics). Within that group, you don't really need more than one set of books: even if the group switches DMs, they can just share the same books. Even if you convince more players to run games, that won't change unless they form a new group.. at which point, you're back where you've been, as the new group also only needs 1 set of books per about 5 members.

So, I disagree pretty strongly with that take. For one, that implies that people don't mix out of their groups - that is, there's one set of books per every five players, when players might play in multiple groups, or swap groups if they find a playstyle problem. DMs, of course, do the same thing. For two, it ignores that it's rude to mark up someone else's book (when my wife decided to try running games for me, she ordered herself new copies because mine were "too messed up"). And thirdly, while only one set of books is necessary, (and we can quibble about necessity, too, honestly) at least a couple PHBs at a table can drastically speed up a session. There are several DMs I know of who own multiple copies of PHBs and Monster Manuals for use at the table.

All of which only highlights my point: D&D shouldn't be looking to create just new players (which aren't worth much to their top and bottom lines even if they are monetized), but new DMs (which are worth a lot more).


Sure, but we still have only the same number of DMs per session. When a new person decides to become a DM, the previous one sits back down as a player. The only way to convert more players do DMs if with sheer numbers - more people playing the game requires more DMs. I assume they're doing what they can on that account.

Except that assumes that DMing is a closed environment - no one ever goes from player in group A to DM for group B under that model. I think you did bring up a good point that more DMs support more games, but that only reinforces my point - DMs aren't just the revenue drivers, they're the growth drivers, too.

[EggKookoo]

People will still play at a real table with real books though, and the point being made is that WotC won't really be able to stop you from only having one copy of a book per group.

That was what the "digital only" part meant. What if there were no physical books?

[Xihirli]

That was what the "digital only" part meant. What if there were no physical books?

Then I'd either buy a permanent PDF I can save to my computer or just play a different game, personally. I don't buy any game I have to pay for over and over again.

[Cheesegear]

After all, if only 20% of your user base are DMs, and DMs are the ones spending all the money,

Okay. Here's the thing; That makes sense.

A party nominally consists of four players, plus a DM. 5 people, 1 DM. That's "20% of your playerbase." I have no idea why people find this weird. 20% of your audience is DMs because that's the way the game is played. There is no surprise.


isn't the best answer to just convert as many players as possible over to DMs???

The only way to make more players DMs, is to increase the amount of one-shots. That's the only way that can work. However, as I've pointed out - and what should be obvious - is that D&D has been moving away from one-shots for a long, long, long time. We are moving - or have moved - to year-long campaigns and/or multi-month adventures. Having multiple people at a table be the DM, for that table, is a rarity, because the game's direction just hasn't gone that way in a very long time.

The best way to make more players DMs, is to force tables to rotate their DM. ...And that's simply not doable. It just isn't. Not only does everyone not want to DM. Not everyone can DM.


How would you go about encouraging more players in 5E to DM if you were WotC?

Tell them (and everyone else, for that matter) that Critical Role is not real D&D. And be unequivocal about it. ...I'm not even kidding. Something, something, Matt Mercer Effect.

But, more to something that actually might happen:
Digitise and/or automate most of the work. Provide RNG tools that output something useful.
Donjon's dungeon and treasure generators are the first step in a long, long journey. But they aren't made by WotC... And WhyTF not?

Of course the vast majority of digital aides that a DM can have essentially require that the DM bring a laptop or tablet to every session - if they aren't already. This digital content would monetise the **** out of DMs even further - not players.

...And that's the other problem. Almost everything I can think of to make DMing easier, has to do with electronics...That means it's run through D&D Beyond, that means it will (or could be) monetised. That is, anything that makes DMing easier, would make DMing more expensive - not less.


What changes to the game would lower the barrier to entry for DMing?

The barrier to entry, is players. Most people aren't equipped to wrangle cats. DMing, on some level, isn't fun, and that's a huge problem. Players need to want less bulls*** out of their characters, and they need to stop trying to "get the most" out of their characters. Players, for lack of a better phrase, need to stop optimising, and start playing. But, the first time your character dies, a player will instinctively not want to die again. They will want to make their character well, not die. How do you do that? Well, the DM can stop killing characters, for one You make your next character stronger. Until eventually you break the DM (or the DM breaks you).

...You can't really stop players from power-gaming because even if they don't have access to the internet, they can still read books. Anyone who can read, can know that a d10 Hit Dice, gives more Hit Points than a d6. Anyone who can read, knows that AC 18 is better than AC 14. Optimising your character isn't exactly hard. It's just that Online Guides make it so much easier because all of the reading that you need to do, has simply be done by somebody else. Optimisation Guides aren't the problem. The want to optimise in the first place, is the problem - and unfortunately that's kind of just human nature. Nobody wants to play a character who sucks.

Which ties into the next problem sort of. I almost addressed it in another thread, but here we go.

A DM plans for something. They think it's great. They think their players will get a kick out of it.
Wrong.
1. The players solved the challenge in seconds (e.g; Divine Sense), the players dice roll hot, they pass everything, the hostiles fail everything, and what should've taken ~30 minutes, took less than 10. Or worse,
2. The players make roleplaying and/or narrative choices that invalidate the DM's planning and force the DM to throw out what they prepared 'cause the players either skipped it, or, it doesn't make sense anymore. Or, perhaps worst of all,
3. The players hate it; They came, they saw, they nope'd out.

DMs have to be able to improvise. Your notes, don't mean ****. This, more than anything, is the hardest part of DMing. Your brain needs to work faster than your players'.

On improvising; It's a fairly common meme that a character is only as intelligent, wise and charismatic as their player. It's hard enough for a player to roleplay their own character. It's the same for a DM creating NPCs. But, a DM is all characters that aren't the players. This is a massive tax on the brain power of any DM whenever the party enters a new town. No RNG table in the world can tell you what to say if a player says or does something you don't expect.


Do you think the barrier to entry for DMing is a major restriction on the population of new DMs?

Yes.

As I said in other threads, the best thing for D&D is to try and find a way to be DM-less.
...No. I don't know what that looks like. No. I don't know how to make it happen.
And no, I don't even think that DM-less D&D would even be D&D as we've known it (and I think it would be more like pseudo-scripted video games than well, D&D)

But I still think DM-less D&D is the way D&D kind of needs to go. And also, this does need to said; I don't want it go that way.

[False God]

So, I disagree pretty strongly with that take. For one, that implies that people don't mix out of their groups - that is, there's one set of books per every five players, when players might play in multiple groups, or swap groups if they find a playstyle problem. DMs, of course, do the same thing. For two, it ignores that it's rude to mark up someone else's book (when my wife decided to try running games for me, she ordered herself new copies because mine were "too messed up"). And thirdly, while only one set of books is necessary, (and we can quibble about necessity, too, honestly) at least a couple PHBs at a table can drastically speed up a session. There are several DMs I know of who own multiple copies of PHBs and Monster Manuals for use at the table.

All of which only highlights my point: D&D shouldn't be looking to create just new players (which aren't worth much to their top and bottom lines even if they are monetized), but new DMs (which are worth a lot more).

Except that assumes that DMing is a closed environment - no one ever goes from player in group A to DM for group B under that model. I think you did bring up a good point that more DMs support more games, but that only reinforces my point - DMs aren't just the revenue drivers, they're the growth drivers, too.

I was reading this thread and about to say the same thing. Honestly this idea that people play with one group, with one DM, where noone else really buys the material and is entirely reliant on a single person to game seems...unhealthy at best, parasitic at worst and generally a bit dull.

I've played with at least 3 different groups at my local game store, each with a different DM, 2-3 unique players per group, and probably every other person owned multiple books. Most of them had DM aspirations, and only a couple of them owned nothing and were only players, and frankly the were usually the least fun of anyone to play with.

5E is probably the easiest edition, maybe one of the easiest games (intended to be played with long running campaigns rather than one-shots) to get into DMing. The monetary cost to do so is fairly low, and it's pretty easy to learn. Maybe not as many people as possible, but it certainly seems like I run into more people willing to run D&D than before.

[ProsecutorGodot]

That was what the "digital only" part meant. What if there were no physical books?

Are you suggesting that they'll pivot to a fully digital product line or that there will be digital exclusive content?

In the first case, that seems unrealistic. We already know they're going to be pushing digital physical bundles.

In the second case, also not really new, though that's not something they've done yet with any big release title. If they ever did, very little is stopping someone who wants a physical version of it from... making their own, or simply doing as Xihirli suggests above and keeping a digital copy that you can reference over a phone or tablet at the table.

Suggesting they would go fully digital is just... so silly. I know we have a largely negative view of corporate entities but WotC is keenly aware that physical collectibles are a large part of their purchasing base. They don't have to completely leave that market to enter the digital space.

[Frogreaver]

Are you suggesting that they'll pivot to a fully digital product line or that there will be digital exclusive content?

In the first case, that seems unrealistic. We already know they're going to be pushing digital physical bundles.

In the second case, also not really new, though that's not something they've done yet with any big release title. If they ever did, very little is stopping someone who wants a physical version of it from... making their own, or simply doing as Xihirli suggests above and keeping a digital copy that you can reference over a phone or tablet at the table.

Suggesting they would go fully digital is just... so silly. I know we have a largely negative view of corporate entities but WotC is keenly aware that physical collectibles are a large part of their purchasing base. They don't have to completely leave that market to enter the digital space.

What I can see with D&D Beyond and them owning a VTT is giving you a subscription model that gives you all 5e/One content, but disables everything the moment you stop paying. That keeps initial costs low, gets players in the monetization game and if they can get X dollars a month from most online players along with some microtransaction money for art/skins then that model may actually be good for all involved - both the company and the players - and would be extremely new player friendly. Say 5-10 dollars a month to get started playing with all current content vs at least the PHB investment a new player likely would want to make now.

[Psyren]

I will pause so everyone can contain their shock at this statistic (seriously, did WotC not know this?).

Er... Given that they're the source of the statistic, I think it's safe to say they know it, yes.



After all, if only 20% of your user base are DMs, and DMs are the ones spending all the money, isn't the best answer to just convert as many players as possible over to DMs???

Well yes, more DMs is of course a good thing, but there will always be more players than DMs just by the baseline expectations of the game itself.

(Also I'm curious why you think focusing on digital offerings is somehow in opposition to such a goal.)



So, my questions for the Playground:

How would you go about encouraging more players in 5E to DM if you were WotC?
What changes to the game would lower the barrier to entry for DMing?
Do you think the barrier to entry for DMing is a major restriction on the population of new DMs?
When we see this "DM's Tools" drop for the D&DOne playtest, what changes do you think will be made?

Curious (and excited!) to hear what folks think!

I would probably do what they're doing, and invest in products like Baldurs Gate 3 that let people get comfortable with playing and running the D&D rules (or a reasonable proxy thereof) in a solo environment. I'd also do another thing they're doing, and modernize the PHB so it's more appealing to a broader audience. After all, more people wanting to play will mean more people willing to try their hand at DMing eventually.

[AvatarVecna]

Before getting into anything else, I'll echo everybody else: a typical game of D&D is a DM running the game for a four-man band. That's what D&D has been for as long as D&D has been a thing. It's always looked like that, or something very close to it. In fact, most RPGs look something like that. If you're lucky (as a company), you can maybe get the players to each buy a player's handbook, so they're not just passing a single book around the table all the time, but most books are things players don't need to play the game, they're things DMs need to run the game. And each group only needs one DM, so most books are looking at a 20% purchase rate. And there's not really a way to improve that, it's just a matter of supply and demand. As long as there are five people willing to play the game, one of them is gonna have to knuckle under and DM the thing. But only one. If there's currently 5 million players, then there's currently 1 million DMs, and there's basically nothing you can do about that. The only way to have "more DMs" is to increase the total size of the player base - if another million people wanna play D&D, ~200000 of them will have to knuckle under, agree to DM, and buy whatever books are necessary to DM.

The problem isn't that the game is too hard to run (not to say it's easy either - DMing is almost universally a chore), it's that there's no need. Your group already has a DM who has all the books needed. If you decide to be a DM, there's still only one DM, and you still only need one copy of a given book, which you already have access to via the ex-DM. Only new blood in the market will necessitate a need to actually purchase books. And WotC knows that. There's nothing anyone talks about in this thread that WotC doesn't already know.

If your goal is "making money off people who play D&D", and the problem to solve is "there's basically no reason for more than 20% of our players to buy the books", you've got basically two options: first option, you need to monetize some aspect of the hobby where there's no such thing as "I have enough of that already". In D&D, this is primarily dice and minis, but merchandize is also a good source of revenue here. But with a lot of gaming moving to digital, the need for physical dice and minis is shrinking, even while the game's popularity is growing. The secondary sales that have kept D&D vaguely profitable are less effective in the Internet Age, and piracy (whether PDFs of existing books being file-shared, or unofficial archives of mechanics) will even cut into their book sales.

That's option 1: if you can no longer sell X to gamers (because they already have all the X they need), sell Y, then Z, then W, and so on. But with how economics and gaming culture have shifted in response to the internet...that's not anywhere near as viable as it once was. And so that leads them to option 2: find a way of selling X that requires the consumer to buy X from you multiple times. Turn a purchase into a subscription. Which is...exactly what they're doing, from the sound of it.

But it won't work, because they're not a monopoly. There's tons of systems out there, many of which came about in the first place because somebody was trying to fix some issue they had with D&D. You can always make your own system, or dig out your old 2e/3e D&D books and use those instead. Heck, as previously mentioned, WotC isn't even the only source of their own stuff.

[Tanarii]

My players have always spent a lot of money. They spend it on:
- Dice
- custom character miniatures
- spell cards
- sometimes books with character options, provided I've approved it

Unfortunately for WotC, the first two are available outside of their company. Spell cards are a great money maker for them though.

One thing they could do to milk players, is put far less player options in a single PHB, and release them as smaller releases. Possibly including some that were bought individually online. Of course, the odds that I'd approve them for play is far less that way.

[Mastikator]

There is an actual shortage of DM's. DM's ought to be 1 in 5 D&D players (roughly), but it's much less. Source: https://hellgatenyc.com/no-on-wants-to-dungeon-master-any-more

Playing the role of Dungeon Master can be a rewarding job but it is sometimes thankless, and always taxing. D&D can be overwhelming to any new player; this is especially true for a DM, who needs to know all the rules, adjudicate them, create or manage the story, plan logistics for their group, and cater the experience to what each player wants. The amount of effort involved makes it inaccessible for new players and difficult for experienced ones to sustain long-term.
That is a barrier to entry too high for most new DM's. Too much is asked of DMs. The standard reply of "if you can't do all that then you shouldn't be a DM" just leads to no more DMs and no more D&D. We need a better answer than "git gud" for new DMs.

How could WotC help with that and make money?
1) Focus on better (simpler) starter packs where all supplements are explicitly not used or allowed. Everything available to the DM and the players are found in the starter pack. Keep it simple, just the basic rules, a few stat blocks for basic enemies, a basic starter quest from levels 1 through 3. The starter pack should be cheap, if not free. The starter pack is not a cash cow, it's a net that catches new customers by allowing non-customers to dabble.
2) And content subscriptions on Dndbeyond, i.e cheap subscription plans that unlock everything while you subscribe. A single month subscription could for example let players and DMs access everything without having to buy it (which is expensive) and then quit if they decide they don't like the hobby.

Those two things would be huge boons to new players and new DMs to enter the hobby without dumping huge piles of coins and time.

[JadedDM]

It probably doesn't help any that WotC has made DMing a lot less pleasant in recent years, too. They've fostered a community where players are favored significantly over DMs. And as a result, players are a lot more entitled, pushy and tend to take DMs for granted more. Or that's been my experience, anyway.

Twenty years ago, when I would run a 2E game, it often felt like hosting a dinner party. My job was to make sure everyone was having a good time, sure, but it was my house, my party. I was afforded a certain amount of respect. People were expected to ask my permission for certain things, like using a splatbook, or coming up with homebrewed stuff for one of my games. If I made a ruling, players were expected to abide by it. Refusing to concede once I put my foot down was seen as selfish and poor table etiquette.

Nowadays when I run a 5E game, it often feels like I'm a beleaguered customer service retail employee. Players make demands of me, and if I don't give them what they want, they ask to see my manager. (No, seriously. I've literally had players actually tweet at Chris Perkins or some other higher up at WotC to get them to disagree with a ruling I've made, as if he could somehow overrule me in my own game.) When a new book comes out, players don't ask if it's okay to use material from it; they just assume it is. If I bar it, I get a lot of pushback. If I put restrictions on certain races or classes (say, no orcs on Krynn or no warforged on Oerth, for instance), I get a lot of pushback. Players argue with me a lot more. I'm told I'm 'doing it wrong.' I'm supposed to let them do whatever they want. I'm supposed to ensure they succeed at everything they do. If someone dies, that's my fault; I'm a bad DM for letting it happen. Never say 'no' to a player. What I want is immaterial. My fun is to be sacrificed in service to their fun.

As a result, I enjoy playing 5E, but I don't enjoy running it much. And maybe that's just me; maybe I've had really bad luck with players and this is not a universal experience, I don't know.

(And yeah, I'll admit that back in my day, the power was completely inverted, and DMs were essentially petty kings. And a lot of them were jerks about it. They'd abuse and punish their players to make themselves feel more powerful, and that was bad, too. So I don't want things to go back to being like that, but I feel there's a balance to be struck between the two extremes.)

[Cheesegear]

It probably doesn't help any that WotC has made DMing a lot less pleasant in recent years, too. They've fostered a community where players are favored significantly over DMs. And as a result, players are a lot more entitled, pushy and tend to take DMs for granted more. Or that's been my experience, anyway.

Hooray! There's more DMs that have my experience!
Where are you in the other threads having my back?


Nowadays when I run a 5E game, it often feels like I'm a beleaguered customer service retail employee. Players make demands of me, and if I don't give them what they want, they ask to see my manager. (No, seriously. I've literally had players actually tweet at Chris Perkins or some other higher up at WotC to get them to disagree with a ruling I've made, as if he could somehow overrule me in my own game.) When a new book comes out, players don't ask if it's okay to use material from it; they just assume it is. If I bar it, I get a lot of pushback. If I put restrictions on certain races or classes (say, no orcs on Krynn or no warforged on Oerth, for instance), I get a lot of pushback. Players argue with me a lot more. I'm told I'm 'doing it wrong.' I'm supposed to let them do whatever they want. I'm supposed to ensure they succeed at everything they do. If someone dies, that's my fault; I'm a bad DM for letting it happen. Never say 'no' to a player. What I want is immaterial. My fun is to be sacrificed in service to their fun.

Players show up to my table with this mindset. It takes me several sessions to undo these bad habits.


As a result, I enjoy playing 5E, but I don't enjoy running it much.

You might say...That you're a DM...That's jaded.
...I'll see myself out.


So I don't want things to go back to being like that, but I feel there's a balance to be struck between the two extremes.

In my experience, when a player with...Bad expectations...sees another player react to a DM's judgement, fairly, I often feel like I see a light switch go off in their brain. D&D is not a game you can "win." Once you can disabuse a player of the notion that you can "win at D&D" I've found a lot of bad behaviours go out the door. But as I mentioned, that can take several sessions, and in that time, things may get a bit (pun unintended) dicey.

[Unoriginal]

Two other things WotC & Hasbro could do to get more money:

1) Release "Class Booklets", gathering all class info and subclasses in one handy document that let a player have everything about their character without having to search through the PHB. Including spell cards for all spells the class/subclasses have access, if they want to really do an useful product.

It would requitre them no additional writing effort, just editingwhat they already have in one doc.

2) Make a D&D cartoon.

I'm not joking. Recent years have proven again and again there is a whole audience of people with cash who like watching high-quality fantasy cartoon and spend said money on related products.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was kind of a juggernaut franchise in nerd circles for years, so Hasbro has to be aware of that fact to some extent at least.

If the suits think D&D can make money as a live-action movie, there's no reason to think it cannot work as a cartoon.

[Martin Greywolf]

After all, if only 20% of your user base are DMs, and DMs are the ones spending all the money, isn't the best answer to just convert as many players as possible over to DMs???


I agree with "not gonna happen because 1 in 5 statistically is how the game is designed" crowd here. You could try to encourage smaller groups than that, but...




How would you go about encouraging more players in 5E to DM if you were WotC?
What changes to the game would lower the barrier to entry for DMing?
Do you think the barrier to entry for DMing is a major restriction on the population of new DMs?
When we see this "DM's Tools" drop for the D&DOne playtest, what changes do you think will be made?

Curious (and excited!) to hear what folks think!

Being a DM is having to wear a lot of hats, and the books help you with bugger all. Here is a list of jobs you need to do:


customer service
mechanical game design
story design
encounter design
worldbuilding
improv


Customer service part can be mitigated by not having players who are... less than decent human beings... and it can also be mitigated by DM laying down the law at the outset, and saying that they are the god king of the game and what they say goes, and will use this power responsibly. Thing is, if you are new, you'd need a few chapters containing a frank discussion of how to handle these things, conflict resolution and how to not destroy friendships over it. The best I've seen is a page or two.

Story design needs discussion of pacing, differences in kind, three-act structure and how things like Hero's journey work, and how to implement them in TTRPG context. How do you create NPCs with meaningful stories and so forth. I've never seen a game system that does this, the closest one is Planet Mercenary, and that one was written in part by a comic book writer.

Encounter design needs such things as being able to ballpark how much damage a single monster will do, how that changes when there is more than one and pretty much discussing Lanchester's laws of combat at the least. What I'm describing here is more or less not giving monsters CR, but explaining how to calculate the CR in detail so that a DM can do it on their own or adjust if something weird comes up.

Mechanical game design is for custom spells and items, and while it is not necessary every time, the knowledge of why item X has a price Y is always useful. You'd need to reveal what math is used to determine what the spell level should be for a spell that does a certain amount of damage.

Worldbuilding is addressed most often, but also in a way that is useless to actual DMs out there. We all heard about bottom up and top down methods, and both of them will work out poorly in practice, one requiring a DM that is extremely experienced and can improvise on the spot, and the other requiring a team of at least half a dozen people with six months of working days' worth of time to create something workable. What a DM needs is a guidelines on what is necessary for a given story, how to create besic premises and principles of a world, and when to stop fleshing out grand concepts and organizations and go more downwards.

Improv is pretty difficult too, but there is some solid advice on how to act in-character as an NPC out there, it's just pretty hard to do. Especially if the players keep laughing at you.

So, yeah, DMing is a job that, if you want to do it well, needs you to take in and master the amount of material that could fill in several books, almost none of which actually exist. A new DM will run a new module, maybe even with good success if the customer service part of the job doesn't rear its ugly head too much, but after that is over and pre-made module is no longer there... It's a bit like finishing a tutorial in a massive, sprawling game and then being let out into the world to do whatever you want. The overwhelming feeling of "now what" hits, and heavens help you if you have next session in a week.

If we were to borrow from game design, we'd have to first create those books about how to do things, so that DMs who run into a problem have somewhere to turn to find it discussed in-depth, and then create some sort of training wheels that we could take off bit by bit. You finish a pre-made game, to graduate to the book on specific part of the setting where you have adventure outlines, but you have to do encounter design (and encounter design only) yourself, and then you get to more and more general outlines of plot.

What you get in the books tends to be "here are some hooks, good luck".

[hifidelity2]

Edited by me

There is an actual shortage of DM's. DM's ought to be 1 in 5 D&D players (roughly), but it's much less. Source: https://hellgatenyc.com/no-on-wants-to-dungeon-master-any-more

That is a barrier to entry too high for most new DM's. Too much is asked of DMs. The standard reply of "if you can't do all that then you shouldn't be a DM" just leads to no more DMs and no more D&D. We need a better answer than "git gud" for new DMs.

How could WotC help with that and make money?
1) Focus on better (simpler) starter packs where all supplements are explicitly not used or allowed. Everything available to the DM and the players are found in the starter pack. Keep it simple, just the basic rules, a few stat blocks for basic enemies, a basic starter quest from levels 1 through 3. The starter pack should be cheap, if not free. The starter pack is not a cash cow, it's a net that catches new customers by allowing non-customers to dabble.


Runequest has done this and produced a very good starter edition for only a few pounds (and you get it in pdf as well) that includes
- Some pre-gens and a bit behind how to create / update characters without the full rules
- Some adventures with plot hooks to go further
- rules (light) to play
- a bit about the setting

All this is to get the the DM and players invested in the system so (hopefully) get them to buy the books, adventures, supplements etc

[EggKookoo]

2) Make a D&D cartoon.

I continue to be baffled why Hasbro hasn't revived the 80s D&D cartoon, either straight up or as a kind ironic self-aware version.

[Sorinth]

So, I disagree pretty strongly with that take. For one, that implies that people don't mix out of their groups - that is, there's one set of books per every five players, when players might play in multiple groups, or swap groups if they find a playstyle problem. DMs, of course, do the same thing. For two, it ignores that it's rude to mark up someone else's book (when my wife decided to try running games for me, she ordered herself new copies because mine were "too messed up"). And thirdly, while only one set of books is necessary, (and we can quibble about necessity, too, honestly) at least a couple PHBs at a table can drastically speed up a session. There are several DMs I know of who own multiple copies of PHBs and Monster Manuals for use at the table.

All of which only highlights my point: D&D shouldn't be looking to create just new players (which aren't worth much to their top and bottom lines even if they are monetized), but new DMs (which are worth a lot more).



Except that assumes that DMing is a closed environment - no one ever goes from player in group A to DM for group B under that model. I think you did bring up a good point that more DMs support more games, but that only reinforces my point - DMs aren't just the revenue drivers, they're the growth drivers, too.

The way to create new DMs is to create new players because at the end of the day someone has to DM the group and more players will mean more groups because it's fairly common for groups to split/fall apart and then reform into other groups and if there's a group with no DM someone will almost certainly step up and be the DM.

To the main point I would be tempted to say the way to encourage more paying people is to lower the barriers to start playing, and to target younger players. A subscription model makes sense in principle but I have serious doubts it will work out in practice. I would think building out the peripheral stuff might actually be more lucrative for WotC.

[Dr.Samurai]

It probably doesn't help any that WotC has made DMing a lot less pleasant in recent years, too. They've fostered a community where players are favored significantly over DMs. And as a result, players are a lot more entitled, pushy and tend to take DMs for granted more. Or that's been my experience, anyway.

Hooray! There's more DMs that have my experience!

Players show up to my table with this mindset. It takes me several sessions to undo these bad habits.
I think you two sum up one of the parts of this where WotC/Hasbro may be working against themselves (depending on how they implement this monetization).

5E seems to give the DM less tools, while simultaneously giving players a crap ton of options. We've gone over skill DCs, but also lack of random encounter tables. And lack of ship combat rules in Spelljammer apart from "move in and board", and lack of the universe generation dice roll tables from the original setting. The game is less interested in assisting the DM through running the game, but don't forget, you can definitely play that creature you want because space travel and planar travel are things!

The player entitlement this is fostering seems like it could get worse once players are paying for a bunch of stuff, if that stuff is meaningful. If it isn't, then we're looking at pointless microtransactions. Something like Halo Infinite's "pay $9.99 for the most basic default color blue armor you will ever see in your life, and a little sticker for your gun".

Or obviously the subscription model of "play the game online and now pay just so that you can play it". Our DM is paying for Roll20 Pro (or Premium, not exactly sure). The rest of us don't pay a dime to play, though we have purchased kits or adventures for him to use.

It seems to me that the more financial investment there is for people, the more expectations they will have. On the player side, this can be a bad thing if it leads to more head-butting with the DM. On the DM side, it could be a good thing if it leads to useful tools for the DMs to help run the game.

But yeah, someone that's never played D&D before coming in and saying "we can make more money off these people" isn't exactly exciting on the face of it.

[Cheesegear]

and if there's a group with no DM someone will almost certainly step up and be the DM.

Strong disagree.

This very thread is evidence of the fact that in lot of cases - and by a lot, I mean the phrase "DM Crisis" exists for a reason - that if there's no DM, there's no group.


5E seems to give the DM less tools, while simultaneously giving players a crap ton of options. We've gone over skill DCs, but also lack of random encounter tables. And lack of ship combat rules in Spelljammer apart from "move in and board", and lack of the universe generation dice roll tables from the original setting. The game is less interested in assisting the DM through running the game, but don't forget, you can definitely play that creature you want because space travel and planar travel are things!

D&D gave players Tasha's.

D&D gave DMs, MPMM. Which in many cases was actually a nerf to many monsters out of Volo's and OG Mord's.
But then D&D also gave players MPMM, as well, and nearly everything that is player-facing in MPMM is a buff...It's also really good for players because your DM kind of has to buy it. :smallwink:

Players OP; Nerf DMs.

[EggKookoo]

Are you suggesting that they'll pivot to a fully digital product line or that there will be digital exclusive content?

Obviously not right now, no.

Eventually? Yes.

[Sorinth]

Strong disagree.

This very thread is evidence of the fact that in lot of cases - and by a lot, I mean the phrase "DM Crisis" exists for a reason - that if there's no DM, there's no group.

This thread isn't evidence of anything because people who post on forums make up such a small minority of the total player base. The "DM Crisis" is overblown, it exists for things like organized play and for individuals looking for a group, but if you already have a group of players and are just missing the DM then no it's not a crisis.

[False God]

Obviously not right now, no.

Eventually? Yes.

The problem with that is they'd be competing with every other online game.

Why play some weird text-based-game with some paper-cutout pictures when you can play the hot new MMO or MOBA?

[Tanarii]

2)Make a D&D cartoon.

I'm not joking. Recent years have proven again and again there is a whole audience of people with cash who like watching high-quality fantasy cartoon and spend said money on related products.
No. Just no. It's been proven again and again in multiple media forms that you cannot add Plot to universal D&D and still have universal D&D. From Dragonlance and Drizzt to D&D cartoons and films.

Not a claim that D&D is universal. Just that there is a core plot-free D&D that is 'universal' version of the D&D, before each table adapts it to their own campaigns or adventure arcs*. And publicly released media invariable loses that or is complete garbage. And worse, they create a feedback loop which ends up making the core game worse.

*IMO which are hopefully also plot free but that's a matter of taste

[EggKookoo]

The problem with that is they'd be competing with every other online game.

Why play some weird text-based-game with some paper-cutout pictures when you can play the hot new MMO or MOBA?

But if comes down to:

A) An "open" product with X people playing it but only 0.1X people paying to do so, or...
B) A "closed" product with 0.2X people playing but all 0.2X are paying to do so...

I'm can't say I'm confident a corporation wouldn't go with B.

In fact, I might even be tempted to believe the only reason WotC hasn't is because they literally can't. And they can't because the core playerbase of D&D is a system of grognards initiating newbies into the hobby, and as part of that indoctrinating those newbies about the virtues of that initiation process. WotC has to be frustrated that they're not the ones doing the initiating/indoctrinating, and almost certainly is working to change that.

[Oramac]

Then I'd either buy a permanent PDF I can save to my computer or just play a different game

You'll be playing a different game, guaranteed. No way in hell WOTC is going to release/sell a PDF when they can make you pay for DDB, regardless of whether or not DDB is a one-time fee or a sub.

The only way to get a PDF going forward will be to buy a book specifically to rip up and create your own, or to (ahem) "acquire" it. Which is dumb, but mark my words, that's how it'll be.


That was what the "digital only" part meant. What if there were no physical books?


Obviously not right now, no.

Eventually? Yes.

If by "eventually" you mean "OneD&D in 2024", then yes, I think you're absolutely correct.

[Xihirli]

You'll be playing a different game, guaranteed. No way in hell WOTC is going to release/sell a PDF when they can make you pay for DDB, regardless of whether or not DDB is a one-time fee or a sub.

Well then I'll play a different game. And if I really want to play specifically D&D, I have five previous editions worth of material to get to. I'm learning how to play 4th right now.
There's Call of Cthulhu, various Powered by the Apocalypse Games, Mutants and Masterminds, and Pathfinder to go to. 5e is increasingly for me the game I play because I have the rules memorized and because it's the game everyone else plays. If the rules are pay-per-view I don't think 5.5 will be the game everyone else plays, and I certainly won't bother to memorize them.

[Oramac]

Well then I'll play a different game. And if I really want to play specifically D&D, I have five previous editions worth of material to get to. I'm learning how to play 4th right now.
There's Call of Cthulhu, various Powered by the Apocalypse Games, Mutants and Masterminds, and Pathfinder to go to. 5e is increasingly for me the game I play because I have the rules memorized and because it's the game everyone else plays. If the rules are pay-per-view I don't think 5.5 will be the game everyone else plays, and I certainly won't bother to memorize them.

And that's totally cool. Honestly, I'll most likely do the same thing.

I just have lost a lot of faith in WOTC here recently.

[EggKookoo]

If by "eventually" you mean "OneD&D in 2024", then yes, I think you're absolutely correct.

I think they'll be seriously playing with the idea by 2024.

[Unoriginal]

No. Just no. It's been proven again and again in multiple media forms that you cannot add Plot to universal D&D and still have universal D&D. From Dragonlance and Drizzt to D&D cartoons and films.

Not a claim that D&D is universal. Just that there is a core plot-free D&D that is 'universal' version of the D&D, before each table adapts it to their own campaigns or adventure arcs*. And publicly released media invariable loses that or is complete garbage. And worse, they create a feedback loop which ends up making the core game worse.

*IMO which are hopefully also plot free but that's a matter of taste

What are you talking about?

I've said nothing about "adding Plot to universal D&D".

I'm talking about using the D&D lore and settings and aesthetics and telling stories within that universe, via a cartoon.

It's not a "this is the one D&D story", it's "this is one of the many stories happening in the D&D settings".

Same way that Baldur's Gate did, or the first D&D cartoon, or even the D&D movies.

Again, there is no reason why there can be a live action D&D movie happening in the Forgotten Realms but not a cartoon happening on a world created for the occasion. Heck if it works they could even make a campaign book about the world and let people do their own adventures in that setting.

[Oramac]

Heck if it works they could even make a campaign book about the world and let people do their own adventures in that setting.

We already know this works. All of the Critical Role sourcebooks very specifically call out using the world to write your own story, regardless of what the CR stream is doing. I'd have to go back and check, but IIRC there's even a paragraph that states your home game becomes your "local canon" (for lack of a better term) for Exandria.

[Cheesegear]

but if you already have a group of players and are just missing the DM then no it's not a crisis.

If you don't have a problem, there is no problem? Sure. I see where you're coming from. You'll be fine. But then that means that the only players who can ever player D&D are those who are already playing D&D. New Blood can't exist if they can't get a DM.

That's the issue. There's an influx of new players due to pop-D&D making D&D go mainstream, but the problem is that the supply of DMs doesn't match, and the supply of good DMs is even less. I guarantee if I asked my FLGS owner how many people he's got waiting for a D&D group, I'm gonna guess 5-10, just waiting for someone on the Facebook group to post a recruitment ad (like I will, soon).

But Cheesegear!? 5-10 players looking for a group? Don't they know that that's enough for two groups? ...Yeah, but not if not a single one of them can or is willing to DM.


I'm talking about using the D&D lore and settings and aesthetics and telling stories within that universe, via a cartoon.

My question, really, is what makes Dungeons & Dragons...Dungeons & Dragons? And not, generic pseudo-medieval fantasy?

For example, what separates The Dragon Prince, from Dungeons & Dragons? ...Is it just the lore? 'Cause the setting and aesthetic is very easy to do - it's been done for as long as I can remember, even.

If it is just the lore...Well ****. Where do you wanna start?

[Amnestic]

If it is just the lore...Well ****. Where do you wanna start?

Pick a setting and a plotline and that's it, you don't need to do make it all encompassing, same as with any D&D novel or comic series.

FR? Probably something in the Sword Coast, since it's the most well known (Self-fulfilling prophecy that).
Eberron? Drop them in Sharn and just do Arcane 2.0.
Spelljammer? That's just Firefly except with wizards instead of space cowboys (some of the wizards are also cowboys).

It doesn't need to be the definitive D&D anymore than Dragon Age Absolution was the definitive Dragon Age (it wasn't), it's just another story in the universe for consumers new and old to enjoy.

[Easy e]

Probably an unpopular opinion, but instead of trying to create more DMs, what they should think about doing is splitting player options into more books. Right now, if I want to play a Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, or Cleric all I need is the PHB. I can even multi-class using only the PHB. Instead, each class should have their own "codex" (to use Games Workshop terminology) and then players who want to play different classes then need different books. Therefore, if I want to play a Battlemaster, I need the "Fighter Book", and if I want to multi-class as a Figher/rouge I would need both books. That puts the "tax" on the players to have what they need to play their characters.

I mean, sure the DM could buy all the Player facing books, but why? The new expectations would be that the players should bring everything they need to operate their character, i.e. their own books/digital content.

What will happen is more classes will be stripped down into parts and sold as DLC. Oh, you want to play a Moon Druid? You need the Cleric core book, the Moon Druid DLC pack, and the expanded Druid spell list DLC.

Damn, I hate life-style games. This whole trend of Game as Product, vs Product is a Game is killing me.

[Unoriginal]

Pick a setting and a plotline and that's it, you don't need to do make it all encompassing, same as with any D&D novel or comic series.

FR? Probably something in the Sword Coast, since it's the most well known (Self-fulfilling prophecy that).
Eberron? Drop them in Sharn and just do Arcane 2.0.
Spelljammer? That's just Firefly except with wizards instead of space cowboys (some of the wizards are also cowboys).

It doesn't need to be the definitive D&D anymore than Dragon Age Absolution was the definitive Dragon Age (it wasn't), it's just another story in the universe for consumers new and old to enjoy.

Absolutely.

Make a world, use the D&D molds for how the various beings and phenomenon are (fitting the 5e art direction would be great, too, but eh them taking care of doing it for Baldur's Gate 3 does not mean they'll do it again), have some "big names" for the lore like Pelor or Boo or Tiamat, then have a plotline & the relevant characters, and the dish is cooked.

[Psyren]

One thing they could do to milk players, is put far less player options in a single PHB, and release them as smaller releases.

We already know the new PHB is guaranteed to have even more subclasses and races species than the current one does, so this isn't going to happen.


It probably doesn't help any that WotC has made DMing a lot less pleasant in recent years, too. They've fostered a community where players are favored significantly over DMs. And as a result, players are a lot more entitled, pushy and tend to take DMs for granted more. Or that's been my experience, anyway.


Username checks out :smallbiggrin:

On a serious note though, this doesn't match my experience at all. Granted, I live in a fairly big city with a vibrant geek community, local conventions and multiple FLGS, but most folks here are grateful just to have someone willing to DM at all (never mind being a friend who hosts at their home) and so are generally open to adult conversations about what might or might not be allowed. Banning Aarakocra and Owlin are common around here and I haven't seen entitlement or complaints. I haven't needed to DM for strangers online yet either - though if I did, I'd pretty clearly define any restrictions on the sign-up page.


This thread isn't evidence of anything because people who post on forums make up such a small minority of the total player base. The "DM Crisis" is overblown, it exists for things like organized play and for individuals looking for a group, but if you already have a group of players and are just missing the DM then no it's not a crisis.

This is very important to keep in mind. At the end of the day, we who post here are a niche of a niche, however comforting it might be to think you're not alone in a fringe experience doesn't stop it from being fringe.

[JonBeowulf]

...
Nowadays when I run a 5E game, it often feels like I'm a beleaguered customer service retail employee. Players make demands of me, and if I don't give them what they want, they ask to see my manager. (No, seriously. I've literally had players actually tweet at Chris Perkins or some other higher up at WotC to get them to disagree with a ruling I've made, as if he could somehow overrule me in my own game.) When a new book comes out, players don't ask if it's okay to use material from it; they just assume it is. If I bar it, I get a lot of pushback. If I put restrictions on certain races or classes (say, no orcs on Krynn or no warforged on Oerth, for instance), I get a lot of pushback. Players argue with me a lot more. I'm told I'm 'doing it wrong.' I'm supposed to let them do whatever they want. I'm supposed to ensure they succeed at everything they do. If someone dies, that's my fault; I'm a bad DM for letting it happen. Never say 'no' to a player. What I want is immaterial. My fun is to be sacrificed in service to their fun.
...
My response to this type of player is, "It's my world. You're just playing in it." I'm the one who spent time putting the lore together so that the world made sense. I'll listen to players' ideas and tweak things to support a concept that almost fits with what's already in place, but I'm not gonna let some entitled twit force me to change the world. D&D is a multiverse after all -- they can go play in someone else's world.

To the topic at hand, I felt that 5e was probably going to be the last edition for me and the OneD&D announcement sealed the deal. I'm not against subscription-based services but I don't want to continually pay for the right to play something I've already purchased. A sub for D&DB only lets you play D&D while a sub for Roll20 (or any other generic VTT) lets you play any game you want.

At least until WotC pulls their game from those platforms. What happens then? If the folks behind Pathfinder are smart, they'll do what they did before and release something that's similar enough to D&D. If nothing like that happens, everyone in my various groups has their own dice so I can set up a Zoom meeting and just share one of my screens if it comes to that.

[animorte]

The only way to get a PDF going forward will be to buy a book specifically to rip up and create your own, or to (ahem) "acquire" it. Which is dumb, but mark my words, that's how it'll be.
I’ve stated (twice now, methinks) that I have already begun to easily organize the released UA PDFs, and if it goes this way, I already have the game… We all do, at least until the links are, you know, {scrubbed}


This is very important to keep in mind. At the end of the day, we who post here are a niche of a niche, however comforting it might be to think you're not alone in a fringe experience doesn't stop it from being fringe.
That’s why so many of us keep bumping into each other, and on multiple roads threads… at the same time! It’s a large community here, but the majority stay inside while the same pile of extroverts play bumper cars daily.

[anamiac]

Two other things WotC & Hasbro could do to get more money:

1) Release "Class Booklets", gathering all class info and subclasses in one handy document that let a player have everything about their character without having to search through the PHB. Including spell cards for all spells the class/subclasses have access, if they want to really do an useful product.

It would requitre them no additional writing effort, just editingwhat they already have in one doc.


What if instead of a player handbook, there were 4 books. One for the martials, one for the specialists, one for the arcane and the last for the divine. (I think that's the way they're dividing it in 5.5, but I haven't been paying a lot of attention). To flush them out into full books, it might mean you'd want a few more subclasses presented in the initial release. Follow up books could be thematic as well (ie, Specialist Handbook II and Arcane Grimore III).

[Unoriginal]

What if instead of a player handbook, there were 4 books.

No thanks.

Having both would be nice, but a player handbook centralizing the majority of the class info is important.

Only way having multiple books completely replacing the one PHB would be worth it would be if all the books combined were cheaper than the hypothetical PHB, and neither Hasbro nor WotC will do that.

[Dr.Samurai]

I wouldn't mind a PHB without 400 pages devoted to spells and spellcasting actually... :smallconfused:

[Psyren]

Exaggerated pagecount aside, I don't really see a difference in practice between skipping the spellcasting booklet and skipping the spellcasting chapter, myself.

[NichG]

If you want to come up with monetization visions that aren't dystopian, awful, or basically create a visceral 'I guess the last edition I bought is the last edition I'll ever buy' response, you really need something other than 'how can I squeeze more money out of people to deliver the same or worse thing?' ideas...

If you want it to be well received and not something that the community basically acts immediately to sabotage, then someone who buys into whatever new monetization idea should feel happier for having had the chance to do so compared to what options they had pre-idea. That generally means going deeper than supply/demand charts and demographics of who is paying what, and looking at - for example - what things people are inefficiently providing for themselves in a decentralized way, that could be more efficiently provided in a centralized way at a lower effective level of cost.

So clearly, rather than trying to make players become DMs, WotC should transition to a DM for hire service.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If you want to come up with monetization visions that aren't dystopian, awful, or basically create a visceral 'I guess the last edition I bought is the last edition I'll ever buy' response, you really need something other than 'how can I squeeze more money out of people to deliver the same or worse thing?' ideas...

If you want it to be well received and not something that the community basically acts immediately to sabotage, then someone who buys into whatever new monetization idea should feel happier for having had the chance to do so compared to what options they had pre-idea. That generally means going deeper than supply/demand charts and demographics of who is paying what, and looking at - for example - what things people are inefficiently providing for themselves in a decentralized way, that could be more efficiently provided in a centralized way at a lower effective level of cost.


I agree with all of this. There are things they could monetize well. Including improved tools for DMs (the D&D Beyond ones suck horribly). But so far...

[Dr.Samurai]

Agreed as well.

I personally would buy practically every splatbook they put out if it was something more like 3.5 and 4E splats. I know everyone hates splats but just saying this would appeal to me greatly.

But the point is... it takes more than looking at metrics/demographics, as NichG explained, to implement something like this.

Like... that's the Intelligence part of it. There's also a Wisdom portion of "should" they implement various ideas and what ramifications might those have, etc.

It is possible to increase revenue in the now, but spoil things for later.

[skyth]

The trick to DM'ing 5E is having a good group. I'm the DM for our group. All the group have been playing 5E a lot longer than me. Other than a quick one-shot online, my first experience playing 5E was me actually DM'ing for this group (I showed up at my FLGS as a DM and randomly attracted the group on D&D night). I was just up front that my knowledge of 5E was limited and I asked them to let me know if I messed up any rules.

Granted, I have decades of experience DM'ing other editions and my own custom setting that is over 20 years old (I originally created it as a 2E/Rolemaster setting in 1998 I believe).

I guess I'm just saying that lack of rules knowledge isn't really an obstacle to DM'ing 5E.

What would make more DM's, I think is really encouraging player support of DM's (Rather than people thinking of the player vs DM) and adventures that can be easily run rather than needing to come up with your own stuff. Plus, more concrete rules to help DM's with running the game rather than the current 'figure it out yourself' way they have it, especially with the newer stuff.

[Oramac]

more concrete rules to help DM's with running the game rather than the current 'figure it out yourself' way they have it

I agree, but will point out that this can be a double-edged sword. Concrete rules are great to help new DMs, or to solidify something that is questionable. However, leaving things intentionally vague allows for a TON of customizability and interpretation.

Again, both sides of this coin are good. And both are bad. It's a delicate balancing act.

[skyth]

I agree, but will point out that this can be a double-edged sword. Concrete rules are great to help new DMs, or to solidify something that is questionable. However, leaving things intentionally vague allows for a TON of customizability and interpretation.

Again, both sides of this coin are good. And both are bad. It's a delicate balancing act.

True. However, having the rules be more concrete is better for newer DM's that don't have the experience to do things on the fly.

[Oramac]

True. However, having the rules be more concrete is better for newer DM's that don't have the experience to do things on the fly.

No argument there. Like I said, it's a balancing act. And in fairness to WOTC, it's probably better to err on the side of concrete rules. New DMs will appreciate it, and those of us who make **** up on the fly will just ignore the concrete stuff anyway.

[False God]

I agree with all of this. There are things they could monetize well. Including improved tools for DMs (the D&D Beyond ones suck horribly). But so far...

Given their current approach to greater monetization in MTG is "slam the players with so much content their heads explode", I honestly suspect they'll put exactly the same strategy to work in D&D.

We'll see an absolute stream of half-baked garbage, side-products (see: Secret Lair), overpriced reprints (Hey look it's the good Ravenloft from 2E! only $1000 a boxset!).

Because Hasbro and WotC collectively have no idea how to monetize something that doesn't function like a movie-spinoff toyline.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Given their current approach to greater monetization in MTG is "slam the players with so much content their heads explode", I honestly suspect they'll put exactly the same strategy to work in D&D.

We'll see an absolute stream of half-baked garbage, side-products (see: Secret Lair), overpriced reprints (Hey look it's the good Ravenloft from 2E! only $1000 a boxset!).

Because Hasbro and WotC collectively have no idea how to monetize something that doesn't function like a movie-spinoff toyline.

Except...digital and subscription based. At least that's my expectation[1]. Of course, since I have no plans to use any of it and will stop my current subscription if it goes all-in on OneD&D (because I don't plan on using that), it matters very little to me. Except to reinforce my prior decision to ignore OneD&D and everything associated with it. I'll still play 5e, but it will drift further and further away. As long as I have players, of course. Once I can't find new ones as needed, I'll find some other game.

[1] my mother calls me a pessimist--I can find the dark cloud in any silver lining. But WotC has done little to earn my trust recently and much to harm it. So I'm even more pessimistic about this than I am about most things, which says something.

[Pixel_Kitsune]

Spelljammer? That's just Firefly except with wizards instead of space cowboys (some of the wizards are also cowboys).

I love that you mention this. Because I've been sort of running SpellJammer for years, though the ship got to the Outlands and has been making that circle as a trading vessel. But the original group was heavily based on Firefly. Our Captain was a Mal Expy, our Mechanic/Engineer a Tinker Gnome based on Kailee, a tough as nails First Officer like Zoe and a Helmsman with a mysterious past which combined Wash with Book.

They don't look anything like that anymore (Captain became a "What if Peter from The Great, but not evil, Mechanic was replaced by an NPC Lionel from another game, the First made turned out to be a Phiarlan Assasin and the Helmsman is a full on Efreeti in a romance with one of the players.), but they definitely started there.

In terms of the actual topic. Eh. Of course they're trying to make money. And if it goes in a direction I am unsatisfied with I'll not give them my money. I'm not sure what the issue is.

I buy books I want to use info from or run.

[Keravath]

T

How could WotC help with that and make money?
1) Focus on better (simpler) starter packs where all supplements are explicitly not used or allowed. Everything available to the DM and the players are found in the starter pack. Keep it simple, just the basic rules, a few stat blocks for basic enemies, a basic starter quest from levels 1 through 3. The starter pack should be cheap, if not free. The starter pack is not a cash cow, it's a net that catches new customers by allowing non-customers to dabble.
2) And content subscriptions on Dndbeyond, i.e cheap subscription plans that unlock everything while you subscribe. A single month subscription could for example let players and DMs access everything without having to buy it (which is expensive) and then quit if they decide they don't like the hobby.

Those two things would be huge boons to new players and new DMs to enter the hobby without dumping huge piles of coins and time.

1) They already do this. The essentials kit with DoIP includes the basic rules along with character creation and an adventure. The Starter kit with Lost Mines of Phandelver or the Stormwreck Isle kit contains the basic rules and an adventure (including the monster stat blocks) and includes pregen characters. Each of these boxes has everything you need to start playing. I suspect that making these starter sets accessible is likely another reason contributing the popularity of 5e. They are also relatively inexpensive.

In addition to that, Lost Mines of Phandelver is now free on D&D Beyond. D&D Beyond also has all the SRD rules so if someone wants to start for free, they have access to an adventure, the rules and basic character creation using the SRD rules.

So honestly, the barrier to access is about as low as it has ever been.

2) Content subscription plans may be something that they are already considering since it makes sense but don't expect them to be "cheap" since they want to increase uptake without cannibalizing sales. They might hit a price point like $10-$20/mo for access to various ranges of content with discounts for paying 3, 6 or 12 months in advance.

One of the things that I suspect has been boosting their revenues in the last few years is the splintering in the digital marketplace and the desire for hard copies. Some (maybe many DMs who can afford it) have purchased the books in hard copy, some or all of the books on D&D Beyond and maybe purchased them again on Roll20 or whatever their favorite VTT might be. WotC sees revenue from each of those streams but it amounts to one person making all of those purchases. Depending on how prevalent it is (and I personally know at least three people in a group I DM and play with own all three types of content) this is acting as a multiplier for WotC revenue that will decline when market consolidation happens (eg WotC creates a decent VTT so folks buy content on Beyond only OR people become less concerned with owning the rules on digital only and stop buying hard copies).

3) Their best bet for monetization is likely to create things that will appeal to DMs and things that will appeal to players.
a) Subscriptions for character slots -
b) Subscriptions for DM tools -
c) Subscription for DM access to VTT that gets shared with players (Roll20 already uses this model).
d) Content subscriptions as you mentioned.
e) Marketplace purchases for "enhanced" experiences on their website or using their tools - character artwork, character models for their proposed 3D VTT, etc
f) Marketplace purchases for both 1st party and 3rd party content that can be integrated into Beyond and their VTT. Even a 10% royalty to WotC on 3rd party content integrated into their website and tools would give an enhanced revenue stream. Roll20 Marketplace, DMsGuild and others are ways to monetize this and each of those Marketplaces takes a cut of sales.

Keep in mind that the monetization comes from getting folks to pay for convenience and value added. Stuff that will save the DM and players time or enhance their play experience. There are lots of things WotC could do to achieve that goal without putting barriers in front of those new to the hobby or looking to get involved for the first time.

[Sorinth]

If you don't have a problem, there is no problem? Sure. I see where you're coming from. You'll be fine. But then that means that the only players who can ever player D&D are those who are already playing D&D. New Blood can't exist if they can't get a DM.

That's the issue. There's an influx of new players due to pop-D&D making D&D go mainstream, but the problem is that the supply of DMs doesn't match, and the supply of good DMs is even less. I guarantee if I asked my FLGS owner how many people he's got waiting for a D&D group, I'm gonna guess 5-10, just waiting for someone on the Facebook group to post a recruitment ad (like I will, soon).

But Cheesegear!? 5-10 players looking for a group? Don't they know that that's enough for two groups? ...Yeah, but not if not a single one of them can or is willing to DM.

Not sure how you got that from my posts. Like in your mind what happens when 4-5 friends watched some D&D themed pop-culture stuff and decide they want to play D&D together? Do they sit around saying "Gee I wish there was a DM for us to play, I guess we will just hang out and not play like we want too because there's a DM shortage."

[Dr.Samurai]

Not sure how you got that from my posts. Like in your mind what happens when 4-5 friends watched some D&D themed pop-culture stuff and decide they want to play D&D together? Do they sit around saying "Gee I wish there was a DM for us to play, I guess we will just hang out and not play like we want too because there's a DM shortage."
My friend group back home runs into this issue. They all like playing D&D but when it comes time for someone to DM there's a lot of grumbling. Someone will inevitably take a stab at it and the game will run for a few sessions and then flounder.

One has now taken a liking to DMing and enjoys it. But this has taken YEARS, and yes, some friend groups really do have an issue with finding a DM.

[animorte]

Keep in mind that the monetization comes from getting folks to pay for convenience and value added.
When you’ve worked in a place that has an entire department named: Value Adding Services. Immediately after that process, and in various other areas, having different jobs titled: Quality Control.

Incorporating value to their original product should be a natural part of the process. If I’m going to pay for it, I want it done right.

However, there are exceptions, some conveniences may be superfluous to me, but feel like a necessity to somebody else. Difficult to balance, really.

[Psyren]

Not sure how you got that from my posts. Like in your mind what happens when 4-5 friends watched some D&D themed pop-culture stuff and decide they want to play D&D together? Do they sit around saying "Gee I wish there was a DM for us to play, I guess we will just hang out and not play like we want too because there's a DM shortage."


My friend group back home runs into this issue. They all like playing D&D but when it comes time for someone to DM there's a lot of grumbling. Someone will inevitably take a stab at it and the game will run for a few sessions and then flounder.

One has now taken a liking to DMing and enjoys it. But this has taken YEARS, and yes, some friend groups really do have an issue with finding a DM.

Seems like AI DMs can't come fast enough then :smallsmile: And CRPGs like Baldurs Gate 3.

I'm with Sorinth though - while some groups might still flounder, most will have someone give the DMing thing a try - and that's what onramps like Starter Sets are for.

[Sorinth]

My friend group back home runs into this issue. They all like playing D&D but when it comes time for someone to DM there's a lot of grumbling. Someone will inevitably take a stab at it and the game will run for a few sessions and then flounder.

One has now taken a liking to DMing and enjoys it. But this has taken YEARS, and yes, some friend groups really do have an issue with finding a DM.

Which goes back to my original point, that increasing the player base will increase DMs. Someone will give it a try and with more players comes more chances of someone getting into the game and enjoying the DM aspect. If anything this example would imply that the issue of "DM shortage" is actually a problem of DM retention.

[Dr.Samurai]

Which would still be a DM shortage problem.

But the point is that you can indeed have a group of friends that like D&D but where no one really likes DMing, and therefore games don't occur regularly, if at all.

[animorte]

Which would still be a DM shortage problem.

But the point is that you can indeed have a group of friends that like D&D but where no one really likes DMing, and therefore games don't occur regularly, if at all.
I’ve been in this situation and it certainly helps when the trade-off for DM rotates and each DM actually outright chooses a thing that they want to play.

This generally transcends any one game in particular. These two weeks we’ll play 5e. The next two, we’ll play Gloomhaven. The next two weeks, random other board games. The next two weeks, movie night!

[PhoenixPhyre]

Seems like AI DMs can't come fast enough then :smallsmile: And CRPGs like Baldurs Gate 3.

Those are the same picture. Literally. D&D with an AI DM is exactly and only a CRPG. Unless those "AI DMs" are literally AGI (artificial general intelligences, aka human-scale AI).

[Psyren]

Those are the same picture. Literally. D&D with an AI DM is exactly and only a CRPG. Unless those "AI DMs" are literally AGI (artificial general intelligences, aka human-scale AI).

The latter is what I meant, yes. And I know we're not there yet, but I don't think an AI actually needs fully human-level intelligence to be interesting. (See the recent thread on ChatGPT for example.)

[NichG]

Even humans are not a general intelligence.

CRPGs have very bad openendedness and content flexibility, but extremely good consistency. Current chatbots have very good openendedness and very bad consistency. I'd put the average human DM as more consistent than the AI but less than a CRPG, more open-ended than a CRPG but actually less than the AI approaches, and if you could somehow sum those factors, moderately better in total than either other option but slowly losing ground to both.

After all, what fraction of human DMs would be willing to say, forget the plot, the adventure, the challenge - I will absolutely run your slice of life thing about starting a bakery and introducing new methods of laminating dough to a fantasy world?

[kazaryu]

So, my questions for the Playground:

How would you go about encouraging more players in 5E to DM if you were WotC?
What changes to the game would lower the barrier to entry for DMing?
Do you think the barrier to entry for DMing is a major restriction on the population of new DMs?

!

im of the opinion that, at least for 5e, the 'barrier to entry' for DMing is largely illusory. IMO if you know enough to be a player, confidently, then you know enough to start DMing. The 'problem' as it might be seen is that a big part of the reason DMing seems like its miles harder than just being a player is that many of the tools we, as DM's, employ make it seem like there's more going on behind the screen than actually is. For example, players take a turn we weren't expecting, so we start improvising...but we do so confidently. Its important that we do so to help maintain verisimilitude. however from the player perspective it can seem like we just...have all of this extra information ready to go. This includes things like lore, NPC relationships, locations, etc.

Now, this isn't to say that DMing is easy, it obviously isn't. I just think that most of the hardest parts of DMing are things that come with experience DMing...not playing. sure, knowing the rules is generally helpful...but if you're playing with experienced players it doesn't matter as much as say...being able to improvise. and practicing improvising comes with DMing, not just playing the game.

OTOH, if you try to encourage a player to DM by telling them 'don't worry, i make up 90% of the **** i say in a session anyway' you risk harming their verisimilitude.

[EggKookoo]

The latter is what I meant, yes. And I know we're not there yet, but I don't think an AI actually needs fully human-level intelligence to be interesting. (See the recent thread on ChatGPT for example.)

I've played with ChatGPT. It's really just a super-polished ELIZA.


im of the opinion that, at least for 5e, the 'barrier to entry' for DMing is largely illusory. IMO if you know enough to be a player, confidently, then you know enough to start DMing. The 'problem' as it might be seen is that a big part of the reason DMing seems like its miles harder than just being a player is that many of the tools we, as DM's, employ make it seem like there's more going on behind the screen than actually is. For example, players take a turn we weren't expecting, so we start improvising...but we do so confidently. Its important that we do so to help maintain verisimilitude. however from the player perspective it can seem like we just...have all of this extra information ready to go. This includes things like lore, NPC relationships, locations, etc.

Now, this isn't to say that DMing is easy, it obviously isn't. I just think that most of the hardest parts of DMing are things that come with experience DMing...not playing. sure, knowing the rules is generally helpful...but if you're playing with experienced players it doesn't matter as much as say...being able to improvise. and practicing improvising comes with DMing, not just playing the game.

OTOH, if you try to encourage a player to DM by telling them 'don't worry, i make up 90% of the **** i say in a session anyway' you risk harming their verisimilitude.

I would say this is very accurate.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I've played with ChatGPT. It's really just a super-polished ELIZA.

Yeah. It's a generalized linguistic BS (in the technical meaning of "doesn't care if true or not" meaning) generator. And doesn't do anything unless prompted. Which makes it totally unsuitable as a DM, who has to do lots of proactive things.

[EggKookoo]

Yeah. It's a generalized linguistic BS (in the technical meaning of "doesn't care if true or not" meaning) generator. And doesn't do anything unless prompted. Which makes it totally unsuitable as a DM, who has to do lots of proactive things.

I asked it "How could I make a space opera tabletop roleplaying game that's as much fun as dungeons & dragons but doesn't feel like it's copying it?"

It said:


One way to create a space opera tabletop roleplaying game that is different from Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is to focus on the unique aspects of a space opera setting. This might include things like space travel, alien races, futuristic technology, and interstellar politics. You could also incorporate elements of other genres, such as cyberpunk or post-apocalyptic, to add more variety to your game.

To make the game more fun, you could include exciting combat scenarios, such as space battles or combat on other planets. You could also create interesting and diverse alien races for players to interact with, and allow for a wide range of character customization options. Additionally, you could include various branching storylines and quests to give players a sense of agency and keep the game interesting.

It's also important to ensure that the game mechanics and rules are balanced and fair, and that there are clear goals and objectives for players to work towards. This will help keep the game exciting and engaging for everyone involved.

100% true, and 100% useless. And from what I gather it's basically just distilling things other people have said.

AI can help with DMing, but as a tool for a human DM, not as a replacement.

[NichG]

You have to know how to prompt it of course. See AI Dungeon for a better example.

Or for an example of the state of ongoing research (but not yet available), a paper on tuning to take into account DM intentions and theory of mind of the players: https://t.co/pIKnI20rqq

[animorte]

100% true, and 100% useless.
100% useless? Nah, maybe 90%. That 10% is a good standard reminder. Beyond that, I agree with you.

The AI generations seem to require more precision in request, else they continue to repeat and generalize in response.

[PhoenixPhyre]

100% useless? Nah, maybe 90%. That 10% is a good standard reminder. Beyond that, I agree with you.

The AI generations seem to require more precision in request, else they continue to repeat and generalize in response.

Another issue is their limited "memory"--ChatGPT (which is the best that I know of at this) only stores 4k tokens from previous queries/responses. 4k words, when you include its own responses...just isn't that much. And increasing that increases the computational cost a lot faster than linear. And it's entirely session-bound--if you close the chat window and come back, it doesn't remember at all where you left off. So while it's in-session continuity is...ok (not great, it tends to contradict itself and say things that are just logically wrong based on what you told it and what it just said), it's between-session continuity is zero unless you import a chat log (which means you're already at that 4k limit or close). And that's fatal for a DM.

[Psyren]

I've played with ChatGPT. It's really just a super-polished ELIZA.

To be clear, I'm not saying ChatGPT is anywhere near to an AI DM. At best it's a step in the right direction.


im of the opinion that, at least for 5e, the 'barrier to entry' for DMing is largely illusory. IMO if you know enough to be a player, confidently, then you know enough to start DMing. The 'problem' as it might be seen is that a big part of the reason DMing seems like its miles harder than just being a player is that many of the tools we, as DM's, employ make it seem like there's more going on behind the screen than actually is. For example, players take a turn we weren't expecting, so we start improvising...but we do so confidently. Its important that we do so to help maintain verisimilitude. however from the player perspective it can seem like we just...have all of this extra information ready to go. This includes things like lore, NPC relationships, locations, etc.

Now, this isn't to say that DMing is easy, it obviously isn't. I just think that most of the hardest parts of DMing are things that come with experience DMing...not playing. sure, knowing the rules is generally helpful...but if you're playing with experienced players it doesn't matter as much as say...being able to improvise. and practicing improvising comes with DMing, not just playing the game.

OTOH, if you try to encourage a player to DM by telling them 'don't worry, i make up 90% of the **** i say in a session anyway' you risk harming their verisimilitude.

I agree the barrier to entry is largely overblown, but that doesn't mean it can't be lessened or improved either. I think OneD&D has a lot of potential in that direction.

[Atranen]

Those are the same picture. Literally. D&D with an AI DM is exactly and only a CRPG. Unless those "AI DMs" are literally AGI (artificial general intelligences, aka human-scale AI).

Yeah, and this isn't coming anytime soon (and would have far reaching societal consequences that go beyond an easier D&D game). My experience with GPT-3 is it helps a bit with formatting or to bounce ideas off if you're really in a rut, but I don't think it is going to change things.

[False God]

AI can help with DMing, but as a tool for a human DM, not as a replacement.

Isn't a game where multiple people log in and play at the same time in the same world while the computer runs the game and enforces the rules just an MMO?

Hasn't Hasbro repeatedly shown they are completely incapable of making even a single-player computer game?

Even when, ironically, World of Warcraft effectively used a d20 system to generate random chance in its original core design.

[EggKookoo]

100% useless? Nah, maybe 90%. That 10% is a good standard reminder. Beyond that, I agree with you.

The AI generations seem to require more precision in request, else they continue to repeat and generalize in response.

What good would it be, then? If I have to explain in detail what I want it to do for me, aren't I basically just telling myself what I want to know? This is particularly problematic if we're thinking of AI DMs. A DM turns generalizations into specifics all the time.

[NichG]

What good would it be, then? If I have to explain in detail what I want it to do for me, aren't I basically just telling myself what I want to know? This is particularly problematic if we're thinking of AI DMs. A DM turns generalizations into specifics all the time.

Well the practical example is that someone else does the effort to figure out how to do all the necessary prompt decorators and knowledge-base stuff and so on, then sells access to it to people who want to play that sort of thing. Which is basically what AI Dungeon was. Combine that with an actual CRPG engine for combat stuff, using the AI to determine makeup of enemy forces and to deal with the results, and you've got something probably at least worth buying to play.

Total DM replacement? No, its not that good. But in 3-5 years I wouldn't be surprised if we have something that actually feels tabletop-y, is actually worth playing with in at least a oneshot kind of format, and is preferable to the worst human DMs.

And I'd also predict that such a thing wouldn't be or need to be 'AGI', or even human-level general intelligence at that point. ChatGPT already has this weird sort of 'as good as a starting graduate student in some things, worse than a 6 year old at other things' character to it.

[KorvinStarmast]

WotC execs have noticed "that while dungeon masters comprise roughly 20% of the D&D player base, they make up 'the largest share of our paying players'." Indeed.

So they see the other 80% of users out there not paying to play Wizards' game, and go, "Well, we gotta get some of that scratch!" Hence, microtransactions. LoL&D. Can I import my Corky skin that has the Red Baron plane? :smallbiggrin:

But the other reason that I chafe at this is that these schmucks are charging us to get out of a box they've put themselves in. After all, if only 20% of your user base are DMs, and DMs are the ones spending all the money, isn't the best answer to just convert as many players as possible over to DMs??? They need a 5e version of Into the Unknown, that has explicit 'how to DM for the new DM' in it. Lost Mines is a decent adventure, and Starter Set is OK, but that aspect of Into the Unknown was not captured.

But I think it's telling that their faith in their own player base was low enough that they didn't think most players would run 5E games. Well, that's the conventional wisdom. I had DM burnout to the point that I did not come to 5e except that I was promised I'd not be the DM. A few years in, guess who is DMing again? But thankfully, I also get to be a player.


How would you go about encouraging more players in 5E to DM if you were WotC? Tell them that they'll get to be as good looking as Matt Mercer if they are the DM. :smallbiggrin: But more seriously, see my "Into the Unknown" suggestion above.

What changes to the game would lower the barrier to entry for DMing?
Better tutorials in the DMG for how to run the game for new DMs, up front would be a start.

Do you think the barrier to entry for DMing is a major restriction on the population of new DMs? Yes.

When we see this "DM's Tools" drop for the D&DOne playtest, what changes do you think will be made? I have no idea. I am sure that Crawford's "follow your bliss" will be in there somewhere, though. :smallsmile:

All of which only highlights my point: D&D shouldn't be looking to create just new players (which aren't worth much to their top and bottom lines even if they are monetized), but new DMs (which are worth a lot more). Build a foundation and you can then build a house.

DMs aren't just the revenue drivers, they're the growth drivers, too. Bingo.

The only way to make more players DMs, is to increase the amount of one-shots. Candlekeep mysteries was a step in that direction.


Not only does everyone not want to DM. Not everyone can DM. True.
Tell them (and everyone else, for that matter) that Critical Role is not real D&D. And be unequivocal about it. ...I'm not even kidding. Something, something, Matt Mercer Effect. Wait, what? I don't get to be as good looking as Matt if I keep on DMing? :smalleek:


Digitise and/or automate most of the work. Provide RNG tools that output something useful.
Donjon's dungeon and treasure generators are the first step in a long, long journey. But they aren't made by WotC... And WhyTF not? A newer version of EGG's tables in the DMG. :smallwink:

The barrier to entry, is players. Most people aren't equipped to wrangle cats. DMing, on some level, isn't fun, and that's a huge problem. Players need to want less bulls*** out of their characters, and they need to stop trying to "get the most" out of their characters. Players, for lack of a better phrase, need to stop optimising, and start playing. But, the first time your character dies, a player will instinctively not want to die again. They will want to make their character well, not die. How do you do that? Well, the DM can stop killing characters, for one You make your next character stronger. Until eventually you break the DM (or the DM breaks you).



DMs have to be able to improvise. Your notes, don't mean ****. This, more than anything, is the hardest part of DMing. Your brain needs to work faster than your players'. Yep. But it's fun, if you have the wits to do it. :smallsmile:


No RNG table in the world can tell you what to say if a player says or does something you don't expect. I use a 2d6 to give me a nudge if I run into a "I have no idea here" moment. It's all that I need.



As I said in other threads, the best thing for D&D is to try and find a way to be DM-less.
...No. I don't know what that looks like. No. I don't know how to make it happen. Wait, you want to crap on the "DM for Pay" folks? One of the reasons that some folks pay for a DM is that Dming is a valuable skill.
But I still think DM-less D&D is the way D&D kind of needs to go. I am in strong disagreement. We already have CRPG and FRPG action games.


Before getting into anything else, I'll echo everybody else: a typical game of D&D is a DM running the game for a four-man band. That's what D&D has been for as long as D&D has been a thing. Untrue. In the games early days, parties varied from two or three to about a dozen. Same was true in AD&D days. Over time the practicalities of scheduling and a few other non game factors led to that design paradigm. (Which works well enough for 5e).

[Atranen]

And I'd also predict that such a thing wouldn't be or need to be 'AGI', or even human-level general intelligence at that point. ChatGPT already has this weird sort of 'as good as a starting graduate student in some things, worse than a 6 year old at other things' character to it.

I don't see this; the "as good as a starting graduate student" in particular is an exaggeration. From the bit that I know about AI, GPT wasn't such a surprise, but just a bit better than like Google searchs quick answer that it returns without loading a page. But because it presents the results as its own rather than a search, it seems better than it is.

But I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

[Brookshw]

The barrier to entry, is players. Most people aren't equipped to wrangle cats. DMing, on some level, isn't fun, and that's a huge problem. Players need to want less bulls*** out of their characters, and they need to stop trying to "get the most" out of their characters. Players, for lack of a better phrase, need to stop optimising, and start playing. But, the first time your character dies, a player will instinctively not want to die again. They will want to make their character well, not die. How do you do that? Well, the DM can stop killing characters, for one You make your next character stronger. Until eventually you break the DM (or the DM breaks you).





I laughed, accurate.

[NichG]

I don't see this; the "as good as a starting graduate student" in particular is an exaggeration. From the bit that I know about AI, GPT wasn't such a surprise, but just a bit better than like Google searchs quick answer that it returns without loading a page. But because it presents the results as its own rather than a search, it seems better than it is.

But I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Some of the firsts tests of it I did were to ask it to write code to simulate models from physics and ALife, which it did correctly.
It also modified the code just fine in response to specific instructions - add a state, etc.

But it couldn't start from the end and figure out the means. So something like 'find a CA rule that produces spiral defect chaos' doesn't work, but 'write a simulator for Conway's Game of Life. Now make it have three cell states' sorts of things do.

Given that it can do these basic examples and modify and integrate them (if instructed), that's a very comprehensive set of competencies - more than a lot of entering grad students would have. Even for someone on a statistical physics track I'd give even odds that a new student wouldn't say know how to do dynamic Monte-Carlo or how to stably discretize an advection operator for numerically solving PDEs.

On the other hand, it struggles to use those things to solve novel research problems, so it's not where a finishing grad student should be yet.

[Atranen]

Some of the firsts tests of it I did were to ask it to write code to simulate models from physics and ALife, which it did correctly.
It also modified the code just fine in response to specific instructions - add a state, etc.

But it couldn't start from the end and figure out the means. So something like 'find a CA rule that produces spiral defect chaos' doesn't work, but 'write a simulator for Conway's Game of Life. Now make it have three cell states' sorts of things do.

Given that it can do these basic examples and modify and integrate them (if instructed), that's a very comprehensive set of competencies - more than a lot of entering grad students would have. Even for someone on a statistical physics track I'd give even odds that a new student wouldn't say know how to do dynamic Monte-Carlo or how to stably discretize an advection operator for numerically solving PDEs.

On the other hand, it struggles to use those things to solve novel research problems, so it's not where a finishing grad student should be yet.

I don't think this is a good measure; it's impressive that the AI can do them, but it isn't really *doing* any of this. It's looking up code on the internet, restating it and presenting it on its own.

Now, maybe it's impressive that it knows the right search terms, which you'd have to be a beginning graduate student to know for certain fields. But that doesn't strike me as competency in a given area.

And it means that it's very far off from the finishing graduate student case, where searching won't get you very far.

[NichG]

I don't think this is a good measure; it's impressive that the AI can do them, but it isn't really *doing* any of this. It's looking up code on the internet, restating it and presenting it on its own.

Now, maybe it's impressive that it knows the right search terms, which you'd have to be a beginning graduate student to know for certain fields. But that doesn't strike me as competency in a given area.

And it means that it's very far off from the finishing graduate student case, where searching won't get you very far.

I mean, I'm not in need of a starting grad student to do these things, but I do find it notable that the reason I have to give for why I don't need to use GPT to help me do physics or ALife research has gone from 'it can't' to 'meh, it's like working with a new student, you spend as much time supervising as you'd take to just do it yourself, except it won't actually improve'

The sort of 'but internally it's not really doing X' arguments never age well in AI, because most of the time it turns out that X is some idealized vision of how we wish humans thought and that isn't how we think or at least nowhere near as important as we feel it is. And the Y that people think the AI is doing instead isn't really how the AI works either.

ChatGPT isn't looking up anything on the Internet - it can't. It did basically read and synthesize most of the Internet up to 2021. But it abstracts that into statistical patterns which generalize in a lot of ways. That's how it does new stuff - under transforms and abstractions, the new thing lands amongst the old things.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I feel like the suits are looking at this all wrong; you can't really monetize a TTRPG much more than they already are without losing fans and relevancy.

Which isn't to say that there isn't money to be made, just that the real money isn't in monetization. It's in merchandising.

Hasbro really ought to know this, they exist as a company partly because this is provably true. Appeal to your core audience for the "hardcore" part of your fandom in order to drum up interest, then sell them T-shirts, posters, toys, video games, whatever. A player doesn't want to need to pay to play; that same player might spend an easy $20 on a D&D shirt.

Trying to harvest their core players for nickels and dimes hurts the merchandising strategy by making them like the brand less. They should know better.

[Unoriginal]

I feel like the suits are looking at this all wrong; you can't really monetize a TTRPG much more than they already are without losing fans and relevancy.

Which isn't to say that there isn't money to be made, just that the real money isn't in monetization. It's in merchandising.

Hasbro really ought to know this, they exist as a company partly because this is provably true. Appeal to your core audience for the "hardcore" part of your fandom in order to drum up interest, then sell them T-shirts, posters, toys, video games, whatever. A player doesn't want to need to pay to play; that same player might spend an easy $20 on a D&D shirt.

Trying to harvest their core players for nickels and dimes hurts the merchandising strategy by making them like the brand less. They should know better.

100% true.

Sadly corporate suits tend to get very invested in trying to squeeze blood from a stone.

[Atranen]

I mean, I'm not in need of a starting grad student to do these things, but I do find it notable that the reason I have to give for why I don't need to use GPT to help me do physics or ALife research has gone from 'it can't' to 'meh, it's like working with a new student, you spend as much time supervising as you'd take to just do it yourself, except it won't actually improve'

The sort of 'but internally it's not really doing X' arguments never age well in AI, because most of the time it turns out that X is some idealized vision of how we wish humans thought and that isn't how we think or at least nowhere near as important as we feel it is. And the Y that people think the AI is doing instead isn't really how the AI works either.

ChatGPT isn't looking up anything on the Internet - it can't. It did basically read and synthesize most of the Internet up to 2021. But it abstracts that into statistical patterns which generalize in a lot of ways. That's how it does new stuff - under transforms and abstractions, the new thing lands amongst the old things.

Interesting take. By "look up on the internet" I did mean "look up things prior to 2021, which I don't see as a big difference. But I'm not an expert in AI, so if you think it really will develop more creativity, I'm excited to see that in action. I've tried using it to help write both scientific and d&d content, and I haven't had much luck. But maybe I need to learn how to use it more effectively.

[NichG]

Interesting take. By "look up on the internet" I did mean "look up things prior to 2021, which I don't see as a big difference. But I'm not an expert in AI, so if you think it really will develop more creativity, I'm excited to see that in action. I've tried using it to help write both scientific and d&d content, and I haven't had much luck. But maybe I need to learn how to use it more effectively.

It's definitely fiddly, and its not always useful. I'd also say creativity isn't the problem at all - if anything, these things are over-creative, hallucinating stuff that doesn't exist because it makes the whole sound better and more coherent. That creativity is not necessarily always coherent or novelty-seeking though (its more creative in the sense of being able to go outside of its data freely than something like the artist tendency to become bored with things you've already done or seen elsewhere - ability, not motivation). ChatGPT in particular was fine-tuned to be less creative and more strict to the training data, because it was envisioned as a replacement for search.

What they're not so good at yet is purposeful behavior or things like active exploration - doing things to find the information they would need to have to answer the question, rather than just making up an answer based on their current state. They have no dynamic motivation, they only emulate the motivation that authors of text reflect within the text they write. Which can actually be enough through theory-of-mind style imitation to model motivations quite accurately, as well as to solve logic problems centered around 'how would you do X?'. So its a subtle difference, but for something like DM-ing a game, without something to continually shore up that motivation you do get very repetitive, happy-to-be-lazy-DM kinds of outputs (as PhoenixPhyre was sort of getting at).

E.g. I did a test asking it to DM an ocean adventure for me. I got to an island, met the natives, went on a giant crab hunt, but when I said stuff like 'okay, I wait for something to happen' its response was 'you spend some time in the village, nothing happens, everyone is happy and you're a welcome member of the community. Now what?'

[EggKookoo]

E.g. I did a test asking it to DM an ocean adventure for me. I got to an island, met the natives, went on a giant crab hunt, but when I said stuff like 'okay, I wait for something to happen' its response was 'you spend some time in the village, nothing happens, everyone is happy and you're a welcome member of the community. Now what?'

I wonder what would happen if you gave it a hint. "I'm waiting for something to happen because I want my character to react to an outside event. Could you generate a semi-random event that feels appropriate to the game at this stage?" Or something along those lines. You might need to hold its hand a bit.

I've found it to be an interesting alternative to regular searching so far.

[NichG]

I wonder what would happen if you gave it a hint. "I'm waiting for something to happen because I want my character to react to an outside event. Could you generate a semi-random event that feels appropriate to the game at this stage?" Or something along those lines. You might need to hold its hand a bit.

I've found it to be an interesting alternative to regular searching so far.

Yeah, you can definitely sort of co-DM with it that way.

Another thing that evidently works, though I haven't tried this myself, is to ask it to separately write 'what you say to the player in boxed text' and 'what you're thinking about why you have this element'. That evidently helps constantly remind it that its not just writing to write, but there is some kind of purpose it's supposed to be emulating.

Edit: Tried it a bit, using the prompt:


Pretend that you are a DM running a D&D campaign about an well-paced ocean adventure for a single player, filled with challenges and interesting twists and turns. Write the text you speak to the player in a code block, but also write what your reasoning and plans for the adventure are separately in curly braces like {this is to foreshadow a conflict with the royal navy later on}. Ask the player specific questions about how they respond to a given situation, rather than letting them take the lead. The player is playing a 5th level Wizard named Rastaban.


I got:


As the waves crash against the hull of your ship, you can feel the excitement of adventure coursing through your veins. You are Rastaban, a 5th level Wizard with a thirst for discovery and a love of the open sea.

Your captain, a grizzled old sailor named Captain Jack, approaches you with a serious look on his face. "Rastaban, we've got a problem. There's a storm brewing on the horizon and I need your help to navigate through it. Can you use your magic to guide us through the rough waters?"

{This is to test Rastaban's problem-solving skills and see how they handle pressure in a potentially dangerous situation.}

What do you do, Rastaban? Do you use your magic to guide the ship through the storm, or do you suggest another course of action?

As the storm rages on, you begin to feel a sense of unease wash over you. Something doesn't feel right about this storm. Suddenly, you hear the sound of cannon fire and the deck of the ship begins to shake as cannonballs fly through the air.

{This is to introduce a conflict with pirates and foreshadow potential future encounters with other dangers on the open sea.}

What do you do, Rastaban? Do you use your magic to defend the ship and fight off the pirates, or do you try to find a way to escape and outmaneuver them?

As you and your crew emerge victorious from the battle with the pirates, you can't help but feel a sense of accomplishment. But you know that this is only the beginning of your adventure. You can't shake the feeling that there are bigger challenges ahead, and you can't wait to see what the ocean has in store for you next.

{This is to set the stage for future adventures and encourage the player to keep moving forward, even in the face of danger.}

Where do you go from here, Rastaban? Do you continue your journey and explore new waters, or do you return to port to rest and regroup?


So, uh, if you ask it to keep the pace too much, it starts to play the game as well :)

[False God]

I wonder what would happen if you gave it a hint. "I'm waiting for something to happen because I want my character to react to an outside event. Could you generate a semi-random event that feels appropriate to the game at this stage?" Or something along those lines. You might need to hold its hand a bit.

I've found it to be an interesting alternative to regular searching so far.

An interesting point of note, I've played numerous open-world sandboxy style games where that AI response is exactly what the DM would respond with. Because in these games adventure doesn't come to you, you have to go to the adventure. In a setting that works like real life, this is a completely accurate response. Staying around in the village is easy and relaxing and as long as you contribute you're a welcome member of the community.

[Kane0]

-snip-

Username tracks.

[NichG]

An interesting point of note, I've played numerous open-world sandboxy style games where that AI response is exactly what the DM would respond with. Because in these games adventure doesn't come to you, you have to go to the adventure. In a setting that works like real life, this is a completely accurate response. Staying around in the village is easy and relaxing and as long as you contribute you're a welcome member of the community.

Yeah, its not an improbable or uncharacteristic response - saying plausible things is what it's good at! But its not a great response for satisfying the (implicit) goal of the user going to this thing to be entertained, which is the bit its not so good at yet.

Edit: This prompt was actually pretty good until I derailed it by joining the cult, which made it sort of go 'uh, okay, you do that'.


Pretend that you are a DM running a D&D campaign about a surreal, Lovecraftian jungle adventure for me, filled with challenges and interesting twists and turns. Write what you would say aloud to me in a code block. Separately, write what your reasoning and plans for the adventure in curly braces. Take notes of consequences that need to be remembered later in square brackets. Whenever there is a decision point, stop and ask me what I want to do next.

[False God]

Yeah, its not an improbable or uncharacteristic response - saying plausible things is what it's good at! But its not a great response for satisfying the (implicit) goal of the user going to this thing to be entertained, which is the bit its not so good at yet.


I would argue the flaw is the player looking to be entertained. That's the domain of movies and books.

If the player isn't going to participate in the game, the game isn't going to move forward. I've certainly seen games fall apart by players simply saying "I do something that is inherently un-adventurous."

So I think, functionally the AI works fine, at least in a semi-sandbox sense where there is a central storyline, but not a railroad, and when you diverge from that the DM basically sits back and says "Okay, well, let me know when you want to go back to playing the game I prepped for you."

[NichG]

I would argue the flaw is the player looking to be entertained. That's the domain of movies and books.

If the player isn't going to participate in the game, the game isn't going to move forward. I've certainly seen games fall apart by players simply saying "I do something that is inherently un-adventurous."

So I think, functionally the AI works fine, at least in a semi-sandbox sense where there is a central storyline, but not a railroad, and when you diverge from that the DM basically sits back and says "Okay, well, let me know when you want to go back to playing the game I prepped for you."

Well if you're trying to sell access to this kind of thing as a product, its your problem, not the players'.

[False God]

Well if you're trying to sell access to this kind of thing as a product, its your problem, not the players'.

I mean, I suppose, but even in WoW you have to go where the adventure is to ya know, have an adventure. And frankly I still think this whole "AI DM" concept sounds basically like a slightly more variable MMO.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I mean, I suppose, but even in WoW you have to go where the adventure is to ya know, have an adventure. And frankly I still think this whole "AI DM" concept sounds basically like a slightly more variable MMO.

Without the nice graphics or smooth gameplay and wealth of highly mechanically-inclined boss fights.

[False God]

Without the nice graphics or smooth gameplay and wealth of highly mechanically-inclined boss fights.

Again, it impresses me that Hasbro has been entirely unable to make a D&D MMO.

And no, I'm not going to talk about that one MMO, even if it does use my favorite edition.

[Cheesegear]

Do they sit around saying "Gee I wish there was a DM for us to play, I guess we will just hang out and not play like we want too because there's a DM shortage."

Players who have played D&D before, already know how hard it is to DM. They want to play D&D, as players. They do not want to play D&D, as the DM.

All DMs can be players. Not all players can be DMs.


The barrier to entry, is players. Most people aren't equipped to wrangle cats. DMing, on some level, isn't fun, and that's a huge problem. Players need to want less bulls*** out of their characters, and they need to stop trying to "get the most" out of their characters. Players, for lack of a better phrase, need to stop optimising, and start playing. But, the first time your character dies, a player will instinctively not want to die again. They will want to make their character well, not die. How do you do that? Well, the DM can stop killing characters, for one You make your next character stronger. Until eventually you break the DM (or the DM breaks you).


...That's really clever. That sounds like something I would write. Wait...I did write that! You forgot the quote tags :smalltongue:


Wait, you want to crap on the "DM for Pay" folks? One of the reasons that some folks pay for a DM is that Dming is a valuable skill.

I'm doing the opposite.
In fact, I'm crapping on D&D because it's gotten to the point, where DMs feel like they should be paid.

Something's gone horrifically wrong with D&D, that DMs...Feel the way they do.


I am in strong disagreement. We already have CRPG and FRPG action games.

That's kind of what I mean.
I think D&D needs DM-less D&D. But, I think once we start down that road, we're not playing D&D anymore.

Of course, the much better option is that players could stop being so...Look...Forum...I'm going to use a word; Entitled. I don't think it's the word I'm looking for, but it's the only word I have for the concept.

Players feel like they can do whatever they want, because that's what's on the tin. D&D is an escapist power-fantasy, where everything is fictional, and you can do whatever you want.

You enter the tavern, inside you see a barkeeper, polishing glasses just before the evening rush when all the miner's start drinking when they get off shift. You can smell mutton roasting from the kitchens. Laying fresh sawdust on the floor, is a young woman who-
Is she hot? Is she looking at me?
Of for...There's a staircase that leads to a landing, in darkness. There is no light up-
I have Darkvision! If the room is less than 60 ft. I can see what's up the stairs.
I'm trying to...Nevermind. You walk in the tavern. There's a guy behind the bar and a lady around the tables, a short stairway leads to the second floor.
Well that's not very immersive.
...I...Yep. Sure.


Which isn't to say that there isn't money to be made, just that the real money isn't in monetization. It's in merchandising.

This guy gets it.
'Cartoons in the '80s were just made to sell toys.'
And Spongebob and Bluey aren't!? You think Pokemon doesn't sell ****tillions of SKUs every single second?


Hasbro really ought to know this, they exist as a company partly because this is provably true.

Not really.
We ought to know that...About Hasbro.
He-Man, Transformers, G.I. Joe, My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite, Care Bears...Those weren't just "shows". Those are (were?) brands.


A player doesn't want to need to pay to play; that same player might spend an easy $20 on a D&D shirt.

Do what Star Wars and Marvel tried to do - to varying degrees of success. You want to make D&D a brand that your aunt who drinks wine every day has heard of, and buys for you. You want to move away from your "hardcore" audience (much to their annoyance), and you want to target normies. You don't want five neckbeards to spend $50 on a book. You want five thousand people to buy mugs and t-shirts, and Amazon subscriptions.

[kazaryu]

Players who have played D&D before, already know how hard it is to DM. They want to play D&D, as players. They do not want to play D&D, as the DM.

All DMs can be players. Not all players can be DMs.
this is categorically untrue. in fact its exactly that myth that contributes to the illusory barrier to entry for DMing. all players can DM. not all people are going to make good dm's for any group (like, not all people are going to be flexible enough in their playstyle to say...handle a bunch of new players). but every player that has a basic grasp of how the rules work can DM. its not even that much more difficult than being a player. WAIT WAIT WAIT LET ME EXPLAIN. im not saying that you can't design a campaign that is difficult to DM for, as opposed to playing in. obovusly if you have some hefty expectations for a campaign and you're taking on the burden of running a living, ever flowing world with factions and what not, it can be VERY difficult. much moreso than it is to play in that type of world. but you don't need to do all that to DM. you can...and it can be very rewarding. but to perform the basic function of a DM isn't all that hard compared to being a player. it just requires a higher attention commitment.






I'm doing the opposite.
In fact, I'm crapping on D&D because it's gotten to the point, where DMs feel like they should be paid.

Something's gone horrifically wrong with D&D, that DMs...Feel the way they do.

i think you have it backwards. i don't think professional DM's exist out of a sense of entitlement, anymore than graphic designers are. due to the massive spike in popularity of DnD, combined with the relative ease of group forming created by the internet, there is a major increase in demand for DM's. professional DM's aren't charging their friend groups to run for them...they're charging strangers. exactly as an artist might charge a stranger for a commisioned art piece...but then give away a drawing to a friend for their birthday. its 2 different categories.



Players feel like they can do whatever they want, because that's what's on the tin. D&D is an escapist power-fantasy, where everything is fictional, and you can do whatever you want. players feel like they can do whatever they want because the hobby as become inundated with new players that haven't had time to be integrated into the social norms of TTRPG's. having never, or rarely ever, been exposed to anything remotely similar to a collaborative game like DnD, they don't have access to the decades of experience that was previously baked into DnD's core audience.

to put it another way, think of it like this. at one point dnd was a small island country. lets say it had a pupulation of 50,000. now that number has seens a slow ebb and flow as new people are born, or occasionally immigrate their, while others die or move away. However the rate of turnover was relatively small. a fraction of a percentage. as a result, the new element was easily integrated into this island nations culture. raised by people that knew it, and raised with the lessons that had been learned over the years. as a result, these 'new' people to the island easily adapted to life on the island and all its struggles.

however, down the road, suddenly there was a massive influx of immigration. the islands population swelled from 50,00 to 500,000. Many of these newcomers being isolated from the islands original residents are now floundering, trying to figure out the answers to many questions that the islands core residents already knew...but since there are so many of the newcomers, its much harder for those lessons to spread.

this is why sessions 0's are such an important step, especially if its a group of new players, or a group of players that are playing together for the first time. the group needs to onboard expectations.

[Envyus]

If you've either been under a rock or just don't care about WotC drama, the biggest takeaway is that WotC is planning to monetize the hobby via a combination of payment features that run the gamut from charging for character skins on their VTT to moving players to a subscription model in D&D Beyond, etc.


No people have been making theories, there is no evidence of anything like skins or mandatory subscriptions.

Monetizing the BRAND as they actually said is more likely to be about merchandise, games, and tv, going by what people in the know have said.

While I bet there will be a subscription for using the VTT they are making, I doubt they plan to do much different from what they are currently doing on Beyond.

[Envyus]

If by "eventually" you mean "OneD&D in 2024", then yes, I think you're absolutely correct.

They are not going to stop selling physical books in 2024. The idea that they are going to stop anytime soon has no basis in reality.

[Mastikator]

Not only are they going to continue selling books, they're actually selling them with unlock codes for dndbeyond. Something people have wanted since time immemorial but was never possible.

I've never understood this weird baseless fearmongering about hobbies. What do people think they're going to do, break into your home and steal your money? Oh no they're going to sell VTT skins and make a movie or two and you have to pay royalties if you make more than three quarters of a million dollars. If you don't like the product they're selling don't buy it, it is and has always been as simple as that.

The worst thing they can do is make pathfinder 2 more popular.

[Cheesegear]

If you don't like the product they're selling don't buy it, it is and has always been as simple as that.

No it isn't. Because what you really have to do, is convince the three, four, five other people you play with, that they don't like it, either.

Not only can I not buy the product, but nobody I play with can, either. Nobody gets to have fun with the thing I don't like.
That's insane. Nobody actually thinks that way. Or if they do, they put up with it. Because "Bad D&D is better than being alone and otherwise not spending time with your friends."

D&D is a social game; It relies on consensus. Social circles rely on consensus. [Something, something real world].

If you don't like a product, are you going to prevent your four friends from hanging out on a Tuesday night and playing without you? No. That's crazy. You're not an a**hole, right?
On said Tuesday night, are you going to be alone watching TV wondering what your friends are now doing without you? Maybe? That's gonna suck. Don't you wish you could just convince them that they don't actually like what they like...Oh wait, there's no actual way to do that.

It has never been as simple as 'Don't like it, don't play it.' because that can only work if nobody likes it.

'That's cool you don't like activity. I hope you didn't make any friends who continue the activity 'cause you can't really hang out anymore. That thing you had in common? You don't anymore. That's over. I sure hope you have other ways to stay friends...If not, that sucks.'


The worst thing they can do is make pathfinder 2 more popular.

The worst thing they can do is split the existing D&D audience right down the middle and force tables to disband over not being able to decide on a system the whole table likes, fracturing the community.

[EggKookoo]

Not only are they going to continue selling books, they're actually selling them with unlock codes for dndbeyond.

I dunno. Physical books are expensive. They're becoming more expensive all the time, and it doesn't look like that trend will reverse. Also, if you stick with print books, grognards can happily ignore your shiny new updates because they're not forced to consume them. Those players still have the books on their shelves. Not to mention how mistakes get enshrined forever.

The only value in maintaining an atmosphere of print-superiority (from WotC's point of view) is that it makes fans want physical books because of some "prestige" value, and that keeps smaller competitors at bay.

Almost all media has gone digital. People don't buy physical discs any more. I mean, sure, some people do, but that's not how movies and music is consumed in general. I haven't bought a paper novel in over a decade, simply because it's easier to read it off my phone (well, it was back when I was commuting by rail and had the time).

Have you used any major software lately, like Office or Adobe stuff? It's all subscription-based. I think it's inevitable that at some point you will only be able to get game content via some kind of subscription. The barrier to that is not WotC, it's us. If they made 1D&D online-only, older fans would leave in droves. They can't afford that, but best believe that will change once WotC has determined that the game has reached a certain threshold of younger players.

[Tanarii]

What are you talking about?
First thing I'm talking about is media (books & films & video games) intentionally or unintentionally creating meta-plot, and how it harms TTRPG settings, and especially harms a universal setting-agnostic system like D&D.

White wolf is the all time record holder for hurting themselves with meta-plot. But D&D settings have shown this harm again and again, especially Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms.

Second thing I'm vaguely alluding to about is how attempts to create setting agnostic media that tries to not cause a problem by creating meta-plot, especially the cartoons and films, they always turn out terrible, which hurts the brand.

So it's a catch 22. Either they do the wrong thing, which helps the brand but hurts the game, or they do the right thing, which hurts the brand but hurts the game.

Whenever I see " Dungeons and Dragons" media advertised, especially films or CRPGs, I groan a little inside. Yeah, I get they're trying to expand monetization of the brand. And they may actually turn out setting specific ones that are enjoyable in their own right, like the original Dragonlance books. But in doing so it will inevitably hurt the TTRPG. Sometimes it's only a setting I don't care about, but other times it actively makes it painful to try and DM. (Looking at you Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance books and computer games!)

[False God]

First thing I'm talking about is media (books & films & video games) intentionally or unintentionally creating meta-plot, and how it harms TTRPG settings, and especially harms a universal setting-agnostic system like D&D.

White wolf is the all time record holder for hurting themselves with meta-plot. But D&D settings have shown this harm again and again, especially Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms.

Second thing I'm vaguely alluding to about is how attempts to create setting agnostic media that tries to not cause a problem by creating meta-plot, especially the cartoons and films, they always turn out terrible, which hurts the brand.

So it's a catch 22. Either they do the wrong thing, which helps the brand but hurts the game, or they do the right thing, which hurts the brand but doesn't hurt the game.

Whenever I see " Dungeons and Dragons" media advertised, especially films or CRPGs, I groan a little inside. Yeah, I get they're trying to expand monetization of the brand. And they may actually turn out setting specific ones that are enjoyable in their own right, like the original Dragonlance books. But in doing so it will inevitably hurt the TTRPG. Sometimes it's only a setting I don't care about, but other times it actively makes it painful to try and DM. (Looking at you Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance books and computer games!)

Well, D&D could resolve all of this by making a "closed multiverse" rather than an open one and using tiers of canon similar to Star Wars.

Dragonlance is Dragonlance. The books are the books. The movies are the movies. The cartoons are the cartoons. These aren't one big interconnected interworking totally-functional-with-each other thing. These are all unique and individual incarnations. No different than the game you play at your table and the game someone else plays at their table.

I think MTG is actually doing quite well in this regard with their "Universes Beyond". They're using the same setting-agnostic ruleset to figure out how Godzilla or Optimus Prime or Street Fighter would look within their system, but they're not integrating any of these things into their worldbuilding and storytelling. It is explicitly universes beyond. Sure you can play them in the same game, but the game is explicitly the game and not the setting.


But of course D&D is hell-bent on continuing to keep their game from being setting agnostic, littering it with references, sacred cows, and various clutter that has built up over the years within the rules themselves that tie it to all the multitude of settings that it has built that should rightly remain separate, but get mashed into this "D&D casserole" that is the base game.

[Sorinth]

First thing I'm talking about is media (books & films & video games) intentionally or unintentionally creating meta-plot, and how it harms TTRPG settings, and especially harms a universal setting-agnostic system like D&D.

White wolf is the all time record holder for hurting themselves with meta-plot. But D&D settings have shown this harm again and again, especially Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms.

Second thing I'm vaguely alluding to about is how attempts to create setting agnostic media that tries to not cause a problem by creating meta-plot, especially the cartoons and films, they always turn out terrible, which hurts the brand.

So it's a catch 22. Either they do the wrong thing, which helps the brand but hurts the game, or they do the right thing, which hurts the brand but hurts the game.

Whenever I see " Dungeons and Dragons" media advertised, especially films or CRPGs, I groan a little inside. Yeah, I get they're trying to expand monetization of the brand. And they may actually turn out setting specific ones that are enjoyable in their own right, like the original Dragonlance books. But in doing so it will inevitably hurt the TTRPG. Sometimes it's only a setting I don't care about, but other times it actively makes it painful to try and DM. (Looking at you Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance books and computer games!)

Can you give examples of how a "meta-plot" actually harm(ed/s) a TTRPG setting?

Because I can see how "bad" media harms the brand/game, but if well done I'm not sure I see how it hurts, or frankly what you even mean by "meta-plot". As an example the Baldur's Gate series of video games was extremly well done and almost certainly helped expand the player base of the tabletop versions of the game. So how did it hurt the game?

[skaddix]

Maybe its time for Pathfinder 3.0, DnD with Hasbro Greed has given them an opening again.
Granted I like the world building stuff in Golarian but the class balance and design in Pathfinder 2 just aint for me.

The problem is the best DM in DnD don't need all these extra material to do their job.

[Slipjig]

In the first case, that seems unrealistic. We already know they're going to be pushing digital physical bundles.

I don't think they'll exactly have to "push" this. A lot of us want to have a copy of the books, but don't love needing to buy the same content on D&D Beyond.

[Envyus]

I dunno. Physical books are expensive. They're becoming more expensive all the time, and it doesn't look like that trend will reverse. Also, if you stick with print books, grognards can happily ignore your shiny new updates because they're not forced to consume them. Those players still have the books on their shelves. Not to mention how mistakes get enshrined forever.

The only value in maintaining an atmosphere of print-superiority (from WotC's point of view) is that it makes fans want physical books because of some "prestige" value, and that keeps smaller competitors at bay.

Almost all media has gone digital. People don't buy physical discs any more. I mean, sure, some people do, but that's not how movies and music is consumed in general. I haven't bought a paper novel in over a decade, simply because it's easier to read it off my phone (well, it was back when I was commuting by rail and had the time).

Have you used any major software lately, like Office or Adobe stuff? It's all subscription-based. I think it's inevitable that at some point you will only be able to get game content via some kind of subscription. The barrier to that is not WotC, it's us. If they made 1D&D online-only, older fans would leave in droves. They can't afford that, but best believe that will change once WotC has determined that the game has reached a certain threshold of younger players.

They literally said they are now doing bundles of physical and digital books, and have already started doing so. The Physical Books sell very well. They have no reason to stop selling them. None of what you are saying matters.

Your conspiracy that WotC desires to get rid of physical books and only does not because of older fans has no basis beyond paranoia. D&D Beyond has no mandatory subscription, you get access to the books you own, and that is unlikely to change.

[NichG]

Can you give examples of how a "meta-plot" actually harm(ed/s) a TTRPG setting?

Because I can see how "bad" media harms the brand/game, but if well done I'm not sure I see how it hurts, or frankly what you even mean by "meta-plot". As an example the Baldur's Gate series of video games was extremly well done and almost certainly helped expand the player base of the tabletop versions of the game. So how did it hurt the game?

Planescape Faction War. Here's a setting, here's a premise and a lot of details and everything hangs on those details, people build up their campaigns and work their own histories into that. Then you have a module published that establishes a canonical outcome 'yeah all of those details basically get wiped away, and we're not going to actually give you other detailed stuff to replace it'. Time of Troubles stuff in Forgotten Realms is similar.

Its less about making it unattractive to new players, and more that it makes old players with ongoing stuff in those settings decide to either scrap everything to stick with canon, or basically selectively ignore bits of published canon material (and then have to communicate to new people joining the group which bits of canon hold and which bits don't). So it fragments people's perception and versions of the setting they're exposed to.

[Envyus]

Maybe its time for Pathfinder 3.0, DnD with Hasbro Greed has given them an opening again.
Granted I like the world building stuff in Golarian but the class balance and design in Pathfinder 2 just aint for me.

The problem is the best DM in DnD don't need all these extra material to do their job.
Hasbro greed has done nothing yet, nothing has been released or changed yet. And Paizo suddenly abandoning Pathfinder 2 would be more damaging to them then anything involving D&D edition changes.


Planescape Faction War. Here's a setting, here's a premise and a lot of details and everything hangs on those details, people build up their campaigns and work their own histories into that. Then you have a module published that establishes a canonical outcome 'yeah all of those details basically get wiped away, and we're not going to actually give you other detailed stuff to replace it'. Time of Troubles stuff in Forgotten Realms is similar.

Its less about making it unattractive to new players, and more that it makes old players with ongoing stuff in those settings decide to either scrap everything to stick with canon, or basically selectively ignore bits of published canon material (and then have to communicate to new people joining the group which bits of canon hold and which bits don't). So it fragments people's perception and versions of the setting they're exposed to.

That was a game book released. Not a TV show, game or novel.

[Theodoxus]

They *could* get some non-DM players to pay for a service if they had, for example, an HeroForge-style visual character creator, which would allow players to create art for their PCs easily (and maybe serve as basis for 3d printing a custom mini), or any other service that is a) providing something that is somewhat hard for players to get otherwise b) isn't just a tax required to play, but I don't think they will want to spend the money to set that up.

Hasbro has deep pockets. They probably could convince HF to sell... though I'm 100% certain this would kill the 'make your own mini' market. I just don't see Hasbro reinventing the wheel, and allowing competition drive the marketplace. It's just not the world of the neo-roaring 20's.


It probably doesn't help any that WotC has made DMing a lot less pleasant in recent years, too. They've fostered a community where players are favored significantly over DMs. And as a result, players are a lot more entitled, pushy and tend to take DMs for granted more. Or that's been my experience, anyway.

Twenty years ago, when I would run a 2E game, it often felt like hosting a dinner party. My job was to make sure everyone was having a good time, sure, but it was my house, my party. I was afforded a certain amount of respect. People were expected to ask my permission for certain things, like using a splatbook, or coming up with homebrewed stuff for one of my games. If I made a ruling, players were expected to abide by it. Refusing to concede once I put my foot down was seen as selfish and poor table etiquette.

Nowadays when I run a 5E game, it often feels like I'm a beleaguered customer service retail employee. Players make demands of me, and if I don't give them what they want, they ask to see my manager. (No, seriously. I've literally had players actually tweet at Chris Perkins or some other higher up at WotC to get them to disagree with a ruling I've made, as if he could somehow overrule me in my own game.) When a new book comes out, players don't ask if it's okay to use material from it; they just assume it is. If I bar it, I get a lot of pushback. If I put restrictions on certain races or classes (say, no orcs on Krynn or no warforged on Oerth, for instance), I get a lot of pushback. Players argue with me a lot more. I'm told I'm 'doing it wrong.' I'm supposed to let them do whatever they want. I'm supposed to ensure they succeed at everything they do. If someone dies, that's my fault; I'm a bad DM for letting it happen. Never say 'no' to a player. What I want is immaterial. My fun is to be sacrificed in service to their fun.

As a result, I enjoy playing 5E, but I don't enjoy running it much. And maybe that's just me; maybe I've had really bad luck with players and this is not a universal experience, I don't know.

Honestly, I think this is primarily a case of your mindset and what you're willing to tolerate. I have a player who is a "forever DM" - who kinda got burnt out on D&D but was happy for a chance to play. He's a decent DM, but running him as a player, I'm now convinced 1) he doesn't know the rules and 2) if I ever get to play in another game with him, I'm gonna make the perfect Mary Sue, because, see 1.

I've had to seriously curtail his character builds, as they break the rules (having two BAs when using action surge, casting two leveled spells when one is a BA to cast, etc.) Though honestly, they don't actually break the game, just the rules... But you have to be willing to say 'no' and sometimes that no is a complete sentence. But when it doesn't hurt the campaign, and the understanding is that it's campaign specific, mucking with the underlying engine for a player's concept doesn't have to be bad.


this is categorically untrue. in fact its exactly that myth that contributes to the illusory barrier to entry for DMing. all players can DM. not all people are going to make good dm's for any group (like, not all people are going to be flexible enough in their playstyle to say...handle a bunch of new players). but every player that has a basic grasp of how the rules work can DM. its not even that much more difficult than being a player. WAIT WAIT WAIT LET ME EXPLAIN. im not saying that you can't design a campaign that is difficult to DM for, as opposed to playing in. obovusly if you have some hefty expectations for a campaign and you're taking on the burden of running a living, ever flowing world with factions and what not, it can be VERY difficult. much moreso than it is to play in that type of world. but you don't need to do all that to DM. you can...and it can be very rewarding. but to perform the basic function of a DM isn't all that hard compared to being a player. it just requires a higher attention commitment.

I wouldn't go far as to say 'All players'. In my current group of 4, we have one guy that barely understands the rules. He's a fun player and can roleplay really well, but once fluff turns to crunch, his brain just bisects. He'd make an amazing co-DM, running plot and even coming up with strategies for encounters, but I wouldn't want him adjudicating when to call for a skill check or running combat. Fortunately, he also knows this limitation and flatly refuses to even try to DM.


I dunno. Physical books are expensive. They're becoming more expensive all the time, and it doesn't look like that trend will reverse. Also, if you stick with print books, grognards can happily ignore your shiny new updates because they're not forced to consume them. Those players still have the books on their shelves. Not to mention how mistakes get enshrined forever.

I've heard part of the reason books are getting more expensive is due to electronic piracy. It makes sense they'd want to recoup their expenses somehow... but it becomes a positive feedback loop, and eventually becomes too expensive for anyone to justify owning the physical book.


The only value in maintaining an atmosphere of print-superiority (from WotC's point of view) is that it makes fans want physical books because of some "prestige" value, and that keeps smaller competitors at bay.

And here I think is the ultimate answer to piracy. If the books legitimately are prestige - leather bound, vellum (esque), $100 collectors items, and the PDF versions are cheap (say $20 for fully indexed and OCR), and unlocked on DDB then WotC will get to have their cake and eat it too, and while pirates will still pirate, it'll only be useful for offline consumption as the book won't be unlocked on DDB. So, you'll essentially have 3 types of players: The prestige hounds who want all the pretty books; the regular players who are using DDB and maybe buying DDB splatbooks for something specific which unlocks a PDF copy as well, and the "cheap bastards" pirates who grab illegal PDF versions for themselves to use at the table.


Planescape Faction War. Here's a setting, here's a premise and a lot of details and everything hangs on those details, people build up their campaigns and work their own histories into that. Then you have a module published that establishes a canonical outcome 'yeah all of those details basically get wiped away, and we're not going to actually give you other detailed stuff to replace it'. Time of Troubles stuff in Forgotten Realms is similar.

Its less about making it unattractive to new players, and more that it makes old players with ongoing stuff in those settings decide to either scrap everything to stick with canon, or basically selectively ignore bits of published canon material (and then have to communicate to new people joining the group which bits of canon hold and which bits don't). So it fragments people's perception and versions of the setting they're exposed to.

Honestly, I think 'settings' should either die, or at the most, be promoted as examples. With all the cross pollination of products, it's hard to find a 'pure' game. I've yet to encounter an Eberron game that wasn't also infested with Guildmasters of Ravnica, or an FR game that didn't feature Airships or Lightning Rails. So... either take all the ideas and mash them up, or really push for homebrew worlds where you can drag and drop whatever you want from examples and have a ball.

[NichG]

That was a game book released. Not a TV show, game or novel.

It's still an example of metaplot ruining something. I wasn't agreeing with the entirety of the original argument, just pointing out that there is something there not to just be casually dismissed.

I actually think its rarer for games, novels, etc to actively ruin settings than the stuff that is actually intentionally published to 'update the storyline', though it does happen too. There was a Planescape novel - forgot the name (was it Pages of Pain?) that's pretty poorly regarded for basically depicting the Lady of Pain as a humanized, concrete character who actively participates in the concerns of a protagonist rather than as an implacable force of nature. On the other hand, Planescape: Torment did really good things for the setting.



Honestly, I think 'settings' should either die, or at the most, be promoted as examples. With all the cross pollination of products, it's hard to find a 'pure' game. I've yet to encounter an Eberron game that wasn't also infested with Guildmasters of Ravnica, or an FR game that didn't feature Airships or Lightning Rails. So... either take all the ideas and mash them up, or really push for homebrew worlds where you can drag and drop whatever you want from examples and have a ball.


Settings are pretty much the only thing I'd be willing to buy though... I don't need more mechanics anymore, but inspirations are always welcome.

[Theodoxus]

Settings are pretty much the only thing I'd be willing to buy though... I don't need more mechanics anymore, but inspirations are always welcome.

They don't need to completely go away, but should serve as inspiration, not canon. I don't care if there's a green dragon eating citizens around some forest in the FR. I can do that. A map would be good if I want to base my game where someone has done the heavy lifting... maybe the political structure of various kingdom/countries, whatever, but not King Borememore... settings should be fairly chrono-agnostic. That way when my table kills off King Borememore and a player goes to another game, and suddenly King Borememore is alive and well and giving orders to the player group there isn't a break in verisimilitude that needs to be explained away as 'multidimensional shenanigans'. I highly doubt two different games taking place in the same setting, in the same land would have two DMs name the king the same...

The only truly universal and immutable setting should be whatever they make for AL. Though most of the AL games I've played have been pretty setting agnostic too... but it would be nice if the setting was specifically crafted to allow all the various book options, even if individual players were limited in character creation.

[JackPhoenix]

First thing I'm talking about is media (books & films & video games) intentionally or unintentionally creating meta-plot, and how it harms TTRPG settings, and especially harms a universal setting-agnostic system like D&D.

White wolf is the all time record holder for hurting themselves with meta-plot. But D&D settings have shown this harm again and again, especially Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms.

That's the problem of those settings, not the media itself. Eberron has a bunch of novels, comics and even a pair of video games too, but none of them matter, have any influence on the setting's canon or form any form of metaplot.


Can you give examples of how a "meta-plot" actually harm(ed/s) a TTRPG setting?

Because I can see how "bad" media harms the brand/game, but if well done I'm not sure I see how it hurts, or frankly what you even mean by "meta-plot". As an example the Baldur's Gate series of video games was extremly well done and almost certainly helped expand the player base of the tabletop versions of the game. So how did it hurt the game?

Greyhawk wars. Prism Pentad. Hell, just look at Forgotten Realms.

[Envyus]

That's the problem of those settings, not the media itself. Eberron has a bunch of novels, comics and even a pair of video games too, but none of them matter, have any influence on the setting's canon or form any form of metaplot.



Greyhawk wars. Prism Pentad. Hell, just look at Forgotten Realms.

I actually prefer post Greyhawk wars Greyhawk.

I don’t mind progressing plot in settings too much. If a notable change happens I don’t think it should happen too often however.

Books, tv shows, and video games in the settings are also good in my opinion.

[Tanarii]

That's the problem of those settings, not the media itself. Eberron has a bunch of novels, comics and even a pair of video games too, but none of them matter, have any influence on the setting's canon or form any form of metaplot.
My understanding is that's only the case because they are all explicitly non-canon.

If that were the case for the general system or specific settings and books/movies/cartoons/games, before they're released they come with a disclaimer they're non-canon and will never have an effect on D&D (or the specific setting), it might work. But I'm not sure I can see that happening (again).

[PhoenixPhyre]

My understanding is that's only the case because they are all explicitly non-canon.

If that were the case for the general system or specific settings and books/movies/cartoons/games, before they're released they come with a disclaimer they're non-canon and will never have an effect on the D&D (or the specific setting), it might work.

The PHB is actually quite clear--there are two different canons. And this has been reinforced by developers beyond that. There's TTRPG canon (those things in the PHB/setting/adventure books) and there's media canon (games, books, movies, etc). And the one with primacy as far as anything game-related is the TTRPG one.

But of course with new!WotC, all bets are off the table.

[Tanarii]

The PHB is actually quite clear--there are two different canons. And this has been reinforced by developers beyond that. There's TTRPG canon (those things in the PHB/setting/adventure books) and there's media canon (games, books, movies, etc). And the one with primacy as far as anything game-related is the TTRPG one.

But of course with new!WotC, all bets are off the table.
It can be as clear as it likes, but the history of D&D shows the the feedback loop inevitably exists.

I don't know enough about Eberron to know if that feedback loop has happened in that setting in spite of the declared non-canon-ness

[Envyus]

The PHB is actually quite clear--there are two different canons. And this has been reinforced by developers beyond that. There's TTRPG canon (those things in the PHB/setting/adventure books) and there's media canon (games, books, movies, etc). And the one with primacy as far as anything game-related is the TTRPG one.

But of course with new!WotC, all bets are off the table.

There is no new wotc.

[Kane0]

There is no new wotc.

Yeah this is probably right. We may think of it this way, but like any corp its been a rotating roster of people behind the scenes with a few consistent faces sprinkled around for years.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yeah this is probably right. We may think of it this way, but like any corp its been a rotating roster of people behind the scenes with a few consistent faces sprinkled around for years.

But there is an explicit change in the design direction and design philosophy. They've come out and said as much.

[ProsecutorGodot]

But there is an explicit change in the design direction and design philosophy. They've come out and said as much.

It wouldn't be the first time this has happened, it probably won't be the last.

[Anymage]

My understanding is that's only the case because they are all explicitly non-canon.

If that were the case for the general system or specific settings and books/movies/cartoons/games, before they're released they come with a disclaimer they're non-canon and will never have an effect on D&D (or the specific setting), it might work. But I'm not sure I can see that happening (again).

IIRC, the big problem with metaplot was that it involved drip-feeding plot details through otherwise irrelevant sourcebooks. So if you didn't buy one, you'd be behind on the story and might well feel disjoint when you bought a book you were interested in. Minor stories in the setting don't change things too much. And major deliberate changes are okay if there's a free and easy to find TL:DR for folks who want to know the aftermath even if they didn't want to watch/read/play through the changes firsthand. It's just that making someone have to buy all the books to keep up with an evolving narrative is up there with power creep as predatory forms of RPG monetization.


It wouldn't be the first time this has happened, it probably won't be the last.

We have Hasbro executives noticing D&D's cultural cachet and saying that they're looking for ways to expand the monetization of the brand. Whether or not you expect them to break open predatory monetization tools depends on your overall level of paranoia*, but it isn't wildly implausible.

*(I personally hope that between the growing prevalence of piracy, the breadth of options people are aware of, WotC's own tumble and loss of customer base, and TSR's collapse when they tried to bully their way into monopoly of the space, that WotC will be aware that predatory monetization is bad for a hobby's long term health. But enough businesses have decided to use predatory tactics to meet earnings targets that I'm not as optimistic as I'd like to be.

[JackPhoenix]

My understanding is that's only the case because they are all explicitly non-canon.

If that were the case for the general system or specific settings and books/movies/cartoons/games, before they're released they come with a disclaimer they're non-canon and will never have an effect on D&D (or the specific setting), it might work. But I'm not sure I can see that happening (again).

Exactly. Eberron is set in 998 YK. The timeline doesn't move, there's no metaplot, where you take it from there is up to you. Even when there's a new edition, any changes resulting from that are simply handwaved with "it always worked like that." Meanwhile, in FR, all the novels (and random crap Ed Greenwood posts on the net) are canon, the timeline moves all the time, and there's some need to explain edition changes with global upheavals.

Guess which one is better of as a setting for a game...

[Envyus]

Exactly. Eberron is set in 998 YK. The timeline doesn't move, there's no metaplot, where you take it from there is up to you. Even when there's a new edition, any changes resulting from that are simply handwaved with "it always worked like that." Meanwhile, in FR, all the novels (and random crap Ed Greenwood posts on the net) are canon, the timeline moves all the time, and there's some need to explain edition changes with global upheavals.

Guess which one is better of as a setting for a game...

Depends on what the DM and players want. Tons of people love the realms and it’s story after all. While I quite like Eberron, I ultimately prefer the Realms to it, and novels and stories in the Realms are part of the reason for that.

Still it’s made clear that your version of the realms is different to the novel and game book versions.

[Cheesegear]

Tons of people love the realms and it’s story after all. While I quite like Eberron, I ultimately prefer the Realms to it, and novels and stories in the Realms are part of the reason for that.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I love Faerun (and Abeir-Toril); I hate The Sword Coast. Or rather, The Sword Coast is simply just...Played out.

[Kane0]

Whether or not you expect them to break open predatory monetization tools depends on your overall level of paranoia*, but it isn't wildly implausible.


Is it really paranoia if its actually fairly likely?

[Tanarii]

Yeah this is probably right. We may think of it this way, but like any corp its been a rotating roster of people behind the scenes with a few consistent faces sprinkled around for years.
No, it's definitely wrong. Stuff happened online regarding orcs, Mearls was ousted for other stuff that happened, they hired a whole new design crew, and the design direction wildly changed from Tasha onwards as a result of all these factors ... and we now live in a Tasha-model WotC design world.

[Psyren]

But there is an explicit change in the design direction and design philosophy. They've come out and said as much.


...and we now live in a Tasha-model WotC design world.

And thank goodness for that.


I've said it before and I'll say it again. I love Faerun (and Abeir-Toril); I hate The Sword Coast. Or rather, The Sword Coast is simply just...Played out.

For once we agree.

[PhoenixPhyre]

And thank goodness for that.

Feature or bug, that does put the lie to the idea that the PHB is somehow sacrosanct and immutable. I'm not claiming that I know that they'll change that particular thing, but changing it to be more player-entitlement heavy rather than DM-centric fits with their current model of making species choice matter fictionally as little as possible and avoiding any setting-based entanglement.

[DomesticHausCat]

There's also the fact that websites like this exist:

https://www.5esrd.com/

You don't need to buy the PHB with this bad boy in existence. Sure you won't have everything such as the Artificer and other juicy player options. However you get much more than the base PHB and you can easily search for what you need with a few clicks or even using a custom search on the website.

I am still surprised that not a lot of players I know use Google or websites like this to their advantage and still utilize physical books which takes a long time when you need to find an answer to a specific question.

I imagine that these kinds of free websites cuts into WOTC's profits quite a bit too. What player needs a subscription when these FREE resources exist? The only ones who need to keep buying stuff still are dms who perhaps are collectors/big fans and/or need modules to run.

I mean theoretically using these FREE websites makes the hobby entirely free to play aside from buying dice (if you play theater of the mind). And even then you can get a free app for rolling dice.

I mean really WOTC are fighting a losing battle when you take into account the cheap a$$es of the hobby. And you don't even really need to pirate to do this lol.

[Psyren]

Feature or bug, that does put the lie to the idea that the PHB is somehow sacrosanct and immutable. I'm not claiming that I know that they'll change that particular thing, but changing it to be more player-entitlement heavy rather than DM-centric fits with their current model of making species choice matter fictionally as little as possible and avoiding any setting-based entanglement.

Who said the PHB is "sacrosanct and immutable?" And why would such a thing be desirable in the first place?

When Tasha's came out, the prevailing complaint was that they should wait for a new edition to change these underlying design principles. Now we know we're getting one, and the complaint has shifted to that they shouldn't be making changes at all.

[Tanarii]

Feature or bug,I did do my best to make my comment neutral I that regard, despite :smallamused:strong opinions.


that does put the lie to the idea that the PHB is somehow sacrosanct and immutable.Yup. Evergreen was promised. That was a core tenet of 5e.

But it couldn't last forever. Eventually they were going to release a new edition, or risk another 1/2 edition.

And it is a Big Risk. D&D has had a success rate of 25% wildly successful, and 75% widely panned. WotC has a better track record than TSR though, 1 for 2 instead of 0 for 2. Of which the one that was successful was truly a half edition, a full core rule book release like D&Done. So that may be driving their decision to move forward with a 5.5

[Cheesegear]

For once we agree.

But I also understand that there's a very real possibility that Modern WotC, can't do anywhere other than The Sword Coast without creating, umm...Twitter-problems. Like when I read Radiant Citadel, everything feels so safe (?). Then I read the Human Ethnicities section in the PHB, and I'm like 'Nope. Can't go there. Can't go there, either. Maybe...But I doubt it. Surely we can go to Kara-Tur...Doubt it.'

That feel when WotC changes "Race" to "Species", but still leaves actual races in the game; What's the difference between a High Elf and a Drow? ...They are both the same species, but they're still different races. Way to fail. ...I feel like I'm going off track.

Anyway, point is, I'm sad that due to the real world, there's a non-zero chance that WotC can't ever make a city that isn't Waterdeep, and thus, they can't ever leave the Sword Coast. Not even to deal with obvious and overt bad guys like Szass Tam, because dealing with Szass Tam involves going to Thay, and that involves going to a non-western real-world culture, where that culture is bad guys.


When Tasha's came out, the prevailing complaint was that they should wait for a new edition to change these underlying design principles. Now we know we're getting one, and the complaint has shifted to that they shouldn't be making changes at all.

1. Are those conflicting complaints from the same person?

2. If they are, is it more a grudging acceptance that change is inevitable, but, if things will change, here are the new complaints.
If you asked me if I want a new edition; The answer is no. If you ask me what I want out of a new edition, well...I have some answers.

(e.g; Change is bad and I think Tasha's is probably as far as we need to go. We reached the ceiling... Oh, but if we are going to do a new edition - which we are - maybe don't change anything. All's you need to do is put Fizban's Dragonborn into the PHB, maybe port the Ranger changes in Tasha's over to the PHB, you're done. You just need to make minor mechanical changes to Races Species (but also Races), and to some Classes. Probably fix - or delete - some of the more silly Spells, and you're done...Oh wait you're making major mechanical changes too? ...No don't do that. No stop...)


3. How long apart were the complaints made? 2017 Cheesegear had complaints (why can't everything be like Storm King's Thunder) about D&D that are not the same ones that 2022 Cheesegear, has (why can't everything be like Rime of the Frostmaiden).

(e.g; After Xanathar's and Volo's came out; 'Don't change a thing.' Then, Volo's got redacted, we picked up Tasha's, then Mord's was turn into MPMM. Witchlight, Candlekeep and Citadel were nothing like Curse of Strahd (also Curse of Strahd was redacted)...Yeah we're done. It's new edition time. We broke it. 5e is done. We're heading in a different direction that needs new material, and the influx of new players post-pandemic and post-pop-D&D, is clearly making an influence on design choices that now need to be made. A new edition isn't, well, mechanically needed. But the audience has changed post-pandemic and post-pop-D&D, and things are moving away from grognard-mechanics and towards power-fantasy LARPing.

[Psyren]

But I also understand that there's a very real possibility that Modern WotC, can't do anywhere other than The Sword Coast without creating, umm...Twitter-problems. Like when I read Radiant Citadel, everything feels so safe (?). Then I read the Human Ethnicities section in the PHB, and I'm like 'Nope. Can't go there. Can't go there, either. Maybe...But I doubt it. Surely we can go to Kara-Tur...Doubt it.'

That feel when WotC changes "Race" to "Species", but still leaves actual races in the game; What's the difference between a High Elf and a Drow? ...They are both the same species, but they're still different races. Way to fail. ...I feel like I'm going off track.

Anyway, point is, I'm sad that due to the real world, there's a non-zero chance that WotC can't ever make a city that isn't Waterdeep, and thus, they can't ever leave the Sword Coast. Not even to deal with obvious and overt bad guys like Szass Tam, because dealing with Szass Tam involves going to Thay, and that involves going to a non-western real-world culture, where that culture is bad guys.

Contrary to seemingly popular belief here and elsewhere, it's not impossible to write about diverse cultures in a sensitive way. The key is to let the people who are actually from those cultures (the ones their fantasy analogues are based on) do the writing, and empower them to use their own voices, rather than relying on a cavalcade of Greenwoods and Salvatores and Reynolds and Bakers to speak for them.



1. Are those conflicting complaints from the same person?

2. If they are, is it more a grudging acceptance that change is inevitable, but, if things will change, here are the new complaints.
If you asked me if I want a new edition; The answer is no. If you ask me what I want out of a new edition, well...I have some answers.

(e.g; Change is bad and I think Tasha's is probably as far as we need to go. We reached the ceiling... Oh, but if we are going to do a new edition - which we are - maybe don't change anything. All's you need to do is put Fizban's Dragonborn into the PHB, maybe port the Ranger changes in Tasha's over to the PHB, you're done. You just need to make minor mechanical changes to Races Species (but also Races), and to some Classes. Probably fix - or delete - some of the more silly Spells, and you're done...Oh wait you're making major mechanical changes too? ...No don't do that. No stop...)


3. How long apart were the complaints made? 2017 Cheesegear had complaints (why can't everything be like Storm King's Thunder) about D&D that are not the same ones that 2022 Cheesegear, has (why can't everything be like Rime of the Frostmaiden).

(e.g; After Xanathar's and Volo's came out; 'Don't change a thing.' Then, Volo's got redacted, we picked up Tasha's, then Mord's was turn into MPMM. Witchlight, Candlekeep and Citadel were nothing like Curse of Strahd (also Curse of Strahd was redacted)...Yeah we're done. It's new edition time. We broke it. 5e is done. We're heading in a different direction that needs new material, and the influx of new players post-pandemic and post-pop-D&D, is clearly making an influence on design choices that now need to be made. A new edition isn't, well, mechanically needed. But the audience has changed post-pandemic and post-pop-D&D, and things are moving away from grognard-mechanics and towards power-fantasy LARPing.

I'm not the one to ask about the motivations behind the stance, it's not mine. All I'm saying is that, even if there was some belief (misguided in my opinion) that some kind of "evergreen promise" was made at the outset of the edition, in exactly those words, that promise expires when the edition does.

[kazaryu]

Contrary to seemingly popular belief here and elsewhere, it's not impossible to write about diverse cultures in a sensitive way. The key is to let the people who are actually from those cultures (the ones their fantasy analogues are based on) do the writing, and empower them to use their own voices, rather than relying on a cavalcade of Greenwoods and Salvatores and Reynolds and Bakers to speak for them.
i'd argue that the key is either to

-stop treating someone borrowing the aesthetic of a culture as though that person is writing about the culture itself. just because someone is writing a culture that resembles feudal japan, doesn't mean they're being insensitive about actual feudal japan, and its asinine to pretend otherwise. Yes, obviously the samurai weren't exactly as they are commonly depicted.

or

-just stop borrowing from real world cultures altogether. which is, of course, significantly harder. which is one reason why people do borrow from real world cultures...but it still would work. you can have diverse cultures, none of which are explicitly 'this is the japanese one' 'thats chinese' 'over there is greek..' etc.

[animewatcha]

Monetize stuff right?

1 dollar per month for access to restored (as much as possible) 3.5e archive.
5 dollars a month subscription for access to all 'official' / 'approved material like Critical Role' so long as payments keep coming.
20 bucks a book/source for permanent access to book even if subscription expires.

Too simple for WOTC?

[Cheesegear]

Contrary to seemingly popular belief here and elsewhere, it's not impossible to write about diverse cultures in a sensitive way. The key is to let the people who are actually from those cultures (the ones their fantasy analogues are based on) do the writing, and empower them to use their own voices...

I'm super excited for someone in 1DD to use their voice to say that Szass Tam is just misunderstood. Killing your opposition and creating undead servants out of them as a cruel joke, is just, like, you know...A different opinion, man.


that some kind of "evergreen promise" was made at the outset of the edition, in exactly those words, that promise expires when the edition does.

I think - like most things - promises expire when circumstances change.

As always, I'm very interested to know how D&D fares in the next two years. Inflation is real and D&D is not an essential good. Work-From-Home may have actually been a bad idea (at least in non-USA-land). I'm not entirely sure how long the new pandemic-audience sticks around, and I'm not entirely sure how "Monetising the Hobby" works when you're in a recession - you need to consolidate, not expand.

I think 1DD is something that's needed (but not something I want). But... What are people's disposable incomes in 2023-4 that they spend money on fictional dice skins for a fictional game of make believe on the internet?

...Of course I say this as someone who's money is worth ~33% less than the USD.

[Psyren]

i'd argue that the key is either to

-stop treating someone borrowing the aesthetic of a culture as though that person is writing about the culture itself. just because someone is writing a culture that resembles feudal japan, doesn't mean they're being insensitive about actual feudal japan, and its asinine to pretend otherwise. Yes, obviously the samurai weren't exactly as they are commonly depicted.

or

-just stop borrowing from real world cultures altogether. which is, of course, significantly harder. which is one reason why people do borrow from real world cultures...but it still would work. you can have diverse cultures, none of which are explicitly 'this is the japanese one' 'thats chinese' 'over there is greek..' etc.

I'd say it's "asinine" to pretend that intent is all that can ever matter, that inadvertent harm is impossible etc. Again, WotC can borrow from whatever cultures they want, they have the resources to ensure that people from those cultures have the right level of input into how they're portrayed. Major corporations get held to a higher standard, it comes with the territory of being a prominent player in the space, and they are the most prominent.


I'm super excited for someone in 1DD to use their voice to say that Szass Tam is just misunderstood. Killing your opposition and creating undead servants out of them as a cruel joke, is just, like, you know...A different opinion, man.

I was talking about Kara-Tur, not Szass Tam. Liches aren't based on any specific culture to my knowledge.


I think - like most things - promises expire when circumstances change.

Look at that, we agree again!

(Does anyone have the exact wording of this "promise" btw?)

[kazaryu]

I'd say it's "asinine" to pretend that intent is all that can ever matter, that inadvertent harm is impossible the responsibility for harm, when inadvertantly caused, should not automatically be laid at the feet of the author (wotc, in this specific instance). If you have an unreasonable expectation, and as a result are emotionally harmed when that expectation isn't met, then the problem is your unreasonable expectations. Now, if these portrayals were advertised as being 'accurate' or were in other ways obviously designed to be accurate portrayals of real world cultures, then its reasonable to expect WoTC to ensure they were portrayed as accurately s possible.
etc. Again, WotC can borrow from whatever cultures they want, they have the resources to ensure that people from those cultures have the right level of input into how they're portrayed. Major corporations get held to a higher standard, it comes with the territory of being a prominent player in the space, and they are the most prominent.


if those cultures are actually being portrayed...then yes, i can see your point. but they're not. they're being used as inspiration for a fantasy setting. they (WoTC) can, and should, have the freedom to make alterations, as necessary for the setting they're building.

[Kane0]

No, it's definitely wrong. Stuff happened online regarding orcs, Mearls was ousted for other stuff that happened, they hired a whole new design crew, and the design direction wildly changed from Tasha onwards as a result of all these factors ... and we now live in a Tasha-model WotC design world.

Any moreso than the inception of d20/3rd ed to 3.5 to 4e to Essentials to 5e? Something of note that hasnt happened before in WotC D&D in the last two or so decades?

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm gonna lay down a personal opinion here: giving editorial control to professional grievance mongers (aka sensitivity readers) has never improved the quality of any writing nor has it ever avoided offense. And never will it do either of those things. Rather the opposite.

And presuming to speak for a culture as a whole is a sure sign of being someone who cannot be trusted. Doesn't matter the culture or the person. No one speaks for any culture with any authority. Claiming that right is hubris and ego.

Furthermore, basing a fantastic culture on a real world one (without long lasting contact or direct imports a la Stargate) is a sign of lazy and bad world building because real culture is path dependent and the fictional history is quite different.

[animorte]

I'm gonna lay down a personal opinion here: giving editorial control to professional grievance mongers (aka sensitivity readers) has never improved the quality of any writing nor has it ever avoided offense. And never will it do either of those things. Rather the opposite.

And presuming to speak for a culture as a whole is a sure sign of being someone who cannot be trusted. Doesn't matter the culture or the person. No one speaks for any culture with any authority. Claiming that right is hubris and ego.

Furthermore, basing a fantastic culture on a real world one (without long lasting contact or direct imports a la Stargate) is a sign of lazy and bad world building because real culture is path dependent and the fictional history is quite different.
Can I second absolutely every single word of this?

People who are looking for a reason to be offended will always be able to find something to be offended by. Likewise, nothing can ever realistically seek to appease everyone.

However, I’m reminded of a DM tip. If you’re going to use accents or otherwise obvious inspiration resembling real world cultures, it helps to not specifically label one as strictly wrong-doers.


If you have an unreasonable expectation, and as a result are emotionally harmed when that expectation isn't met, then the problem is your unreasonable expectations.
Unfortunately this is not a realistic argument for dealing with misrepresentation or oppression.

[Psyren]

the responsibility for harm, when inadvertantly caused, should not automatically be laid at the feet of the author (wotc, in this specific instance). If you have an unreasonable expectation, and as a result are emotionally harmed when that expectation isn't met, then the problem is your unreasonable expectations. Now, if these portrayals were advertised as being 'accurate' or were in other ways obviously designed to be accurate portrayals of real world cultures, then its reasonable to expect WoTC to ensure they were portrayed as accurately s possible.

We clearly don't agree on what counts as "unreasonable" or not. I'm willing to wager that WotC doesn't agree with your definition either.


if those cultures are actually being portrayed...then yes, i can see your point. but they're not. they're being used as inspiration for a fantasy setting. they (WoTC) can, and should, have the freedom to make alterations, as necessary for the setting they're building.

You don't have to set out to portray a given culture, semiotic coding is a thing that exists. But that's all I'll say on this particular subject.

[Cheesegear]

I'm gonna lay down a personal opinion here: giving editorial control to professional grievance mongers (aka sensitivity readers) has never improved the quality of any writing nor has it ever avoided offense. And never will it do either of those things. Rather the opposite.

My usefulness (and income stream) is predicated on my ability to be offended. Therefore, it is within my interests to be offended.


I was talking about Kara-Tur, not Szass Tam. Liches aren't based on any specific culture to my knowledge.

No. But Thay, and the circumstances (read; culture) that lead to Tam's rise to power - and presumably his eventual (hopeful?) fall - is.

[JadedDM]

Liches aren't based on any specific culture to my knowledge.
Their phylactery is.

[Sparky McDibben]

Their phylactery is.

If this is a reference to a real-world religion, that's not what a phylactery is supposed to be in actual practice (to my understanding).

[Kane0]

Yeah i imagine Golem is used more accurately than Phylactery. And thats not incredibly accurate.

[Psyren]

Their phylactery is.

Not really; you don't need a specific culture to represent that concept, any more than JK Rowling needed such for horcruxes or Bioware needed it for Flemeth's amulet etc. It's a very straightforward idea that one can file the serial numbers off of easily.



No. But Thay, and the circumstances (read; culture) that lead to Tam's rise to power - and presumably his eventual (hopeful?) fall - is.

You can tweak/update Thay (in multiple ways) without Szass Tam, a single character, being merely "misunderstood."

[Anymage]

the responsibility for harm, when inadvertantly caused, should not automatically be laid at the feet of the author...

An accidental harm doesn't necessarily mean anything more than an accident. Continuing on a path after someone has called you out for being harmful is certainly a choice that people can rightfully judge you for. And many of these issues are things that have been called out for a long time. It's hard to call them accidental instead of intentional choices by now.


if those cultures are actually being portrayed...then yes, i can see your point. but they're not. they're being used as inspiration for a fantasy setting. they (WoTC) can, and should, have the freedom to make alterations, as necessary for the setting they're building.

Sometimes inspirations for fiction are merely surface level, and trying to glean more than the most superficial understanding of real world mythology from the God of War franchise is folly. Other times you have someone using fiction to very actively comment on real world positions (see: basically the entirety of satire). Other times still, people assume that an oft-repeated fictional idea is true in a way that causes real world harm (e.g: the idea that you need to wait 24 hours to report a missing person). The point being, you can't just claim "fictional" and claim that no connection to real world ideas is valid.

[Tanarii]

Any moreso than the inception of d20/3rd ed to 3.5 to 4e to Essentials to 5e? Something of note that hasnt happened before in WotC D&D in the last two or so decades?
No actually, it's pretty much exactly what happened with Essentials. Because essentials was the moment at which they decided they were going to make a new edition, and used it as a test bed for their new lead designers ideas. Just like Tasha's for 5e. (I don't recall the early warning sign for 3.5)

It was an underhanded move shooting the edition I care about and enjoyed in the foot both times, in order to "monetize the hobby" a few years later. Last time it happened to result in something just as fun in 5e. This time I haven't seen any sign of that, and they've just done it for a half edition to boot. D&Done looks to be like 3.5 instead. It wasn't needed for the continued success of 3e. It was purely a monetization move.

These other monetizing moves being discussed fit in perfectly with the current and historical WotC M.O.

Otoh 5e has been a success for almost a decade. So I can see how the higher ups would be getting antsy it might suddenly fall apart on them and they better milk it quick. :smallyuk:

[JackPhoenix]

We clearly don't agree on what counts as "unreasonable" or not. I'm willing to wager that WotC doesn't agree with your definition either.

Just because they agree with your opinion does not mean the opinion itself is right.

[Psyren]

Just because they agree with your opinion does not mean the opinion itself is right.

And just because you disagree doesn't mean it's wrong.

[EggKookoo]

Yeah, you can definitely sort of co-DM with it that way.

Quick digression back to AI. It might turn out to be a useful DM tool. I asked it to tell me the average damage per round dealt by a kobold inventor* over the first three rounds, and it worked it out (assuming a baseline target AC of 15). I then asked it what the inventor's most damaging attack was and it told me (the shortsword) and even broke out the most damage it could and then the most common damage it would deal. Could be good for working out encounter balance.

Now I just need an easy way to feed it my PCs' stats...

* AFAIK, the inventor is also a proprietary monster that you need to buy from MotM but maybe you can get it from some other source?

[Mutazoia]

And that's totally cool. Honestly, I'll most likely do the same thing.

I just have lost a lot of faith in WOTC here recently.

Sadly it's not even WOTC we have to blame. It's their corporate overlord HASBRO that has been pushing for more monetization (like splitting the 4E players' handbook into multiple books).

[JackPhoenix]

And just because you disagree doesn't mean it's wrong.

Sure, but I don't pretend my opinion holds any moral authority, and recognize my opinion is just an opinion, not some universal truth.

[kazaryu]

Unfortunately this is not a realistic argument for dealing with misrepresentation or oppression. thats my point...we're not dealing with misrepresentation, or oppression. fictional cultures that take inspiration from real world ones


We clearly don't agree on what counts as "unreasonable" or not. I'm willing to wager that WotC doesn't agree with your definition either.



You don't have to set out to portray a given culture, semiotic coding is a thing that exists. But that's all I'll say on this particular subject. I appreciate that you were willing to engage at all and respect your unwillingness to continue down this rabbit hole. Thank you. :)


An accidental harm doesn't necessarily mean anything more than an accident. Continuing on a path after someone has called you out for being harmful is certainly a choice that people can rightfully judge you for. And many of these issues are things that have been called out for a long time. It's hard to call them accidental instead of intentional choices by now. i think you may have misunderstood my point. my point was that, that there are 2 ways to inadvertently 'cause harm'.

scenario 1: an author attempts to use a real world culture in place of a fantasy culture. But they do it incorrectly, or mistreat that culture in some way (whether intentional or not). But the essence behind the writhing is something like 'This is how the Viking cultures were, i just replaced Scandinavians with orcs'

scenario 2: an author like a particular aesthetic of a culture. so they borrow many of the cultural titles and such to create a fantastical culture that superficially looks similar to such a culture. so like...maybe the fantasy culture uses words like 'dynasty' to describe the royal family, and they have an 'emperor' (obviously both of those are english words, the actual real world cultures didn't use them) rather than a king, etc. But ultimately its just a borrowed aesthetic, they're not trying to represent...say, chinese culture in their homebrew world, they just liked some aspects of it.

in scenario 1, the author is clearly at fault. they set out to accurately recreate a real world culture, and failed. In scenario 2, that isn't true, they didn't set out to do that, as a result, even if a real person is 'harmed' the harm is coming from their own expectations, not the authors. and the author bears no responsibility for it.




Sometimes inspirations for fiction are merely surface level, and trying to glean more than the most superficial understanding of real world mythology from the God of War franchise is folly. Other times you have someone using fiction to very actively comment on real world positions (see: basically the entirety of satire). Other times still, people assume that an oft-repeated fictional idea is true in a way that causes real world harm (e.g: the idea that you need to wait 24 hours to report a missing person). The point being, you can't just claim "fictional" and claim that no connection to real world ideas is valid.

noone just claimed 'fictional'...i said that DnD races that borrow from real world cultures aren't meant to be perfect representations of that culture. they just borrowed some aesthetics.

[Boci]

scenario 1: an author attempts to use a real world culture in place of a fantasy culture. But they do it incorrectly, or mistreat that culture in some way (whether intentional or not). But the essence behind the writhing is something like 'This is how the Viking cultures were, i just replaced Scandinavians with orcs'

scenario 2: an author like a particular aesthetic of a culture. so they borrow many of the cultural titles and such to create a fantastical culture that superficially looks similar to such a culture. so like...maybe the fantasy culture uses words like 'dynasty' to describe the royal family, and they have an 'emperor' (obviously both of those are english words, the actual real world cultures didn't use them) rather than a king, etc. But ultimately its just a borrowed aesthetic, they're not trying to represent...say, chinese culture in their homebrew world, they just liked some aspects of it.

in scenario 1, the author is clearly at fault. they set out to accurately recreate a real world culture, and failed. In scenario 2, that isn't true, they didn't set out to do that, as a result, even if a real person is 'harmed' the harm is coming from their own expectations, not the authors. and the author bears no responsibility for it.

Intentions count for a lot, but they're the sole factor here. Let's imagine a Japanese writer who makes a character called Patrick o'Leprechaun. Could the author conceivably have not meant this to be offensive? Absolutely. They could have just liked what little they knew of Irish culture, and included that in the character. But surely you can see, regardless of the intentions of the author, how this might bother Irish people, especially if this work became internationally famous and English and American people started talking about the Patrick o'Lepreuchaun.

[NichG]

'It causes harm' isn't a silver bullet justification to end the behavior. There are bounds of reasonableness when dealing with shared spaces. Someone getting on the road in their car causes harm to everyone else on the road in the form of increased traffic, increased risks of accident, etc.

Of course you can judge anything and make your own decisions to participate or not participate in things - that's a harm you're generally reasonably allowed to impose upon others. But when that extends to making that decision on behalf of others, then thats also an act people can judge.

So if someone gets offended by the depiction of demons and devils in D&D on a religious basis and doesn't want to play if a campaign will have those elements, fine. When someone posits that letting people play make-believe demon summoners and murderhobos is inherently harmful due to how it shifts people's norms - well, even if they were correct, I would judge them for exceeding the bounds of reasonableness as to which things they have a right to curtail.

Because once you throw out those bounds, it becomes very difficult for people who have different values, who judge harms differently, who have different priorities to all coexist with one another without some sort of hostile detente of 'if you attack our thing, we'll attack your thing, so neither of us gets to be happy'.

Similarly, it's fine to want to avoid offending people just like 'I don't want to unnecessarily add to traffic, so I'll stay home rather than going out' is fine. But being so afraid of it that you let it distort creative work is going to impact quality negatively. And if that fear is being created by other people, then as a third party, I feel it's just as fair to judge the people creating that atmosphere as it is for them to judge the artist if that's where we're going to collectively choose to put the bounds of reasonable interference.

[Boci]

'It causes harm' isn't a silver bullet justification to end the behavior. There are bounds of reasonableness when dealing with shared spaces. Someone getting on the road in their car causes harm to everyone else on the road in the form of increased traffic, increased risks of accident, etc.

Of course you can judge anything and make your own decisions to participate or not participate in things - that's a harm you're generally reasonably allowed to impose upon others. But when that extends to making that decision on behalf of others, then thats also an act people can judge.

So if someone gets offended by the depiction of demons and devils in D&D on a religious basis and doesn't want to play if a campaign will have those elements, fine. When someone posits that letting people play make-believe demon summoners and murderhobos is inherently harmful due to how it shifts people's norms - well, even if they were correct, I would judge them for exceeding the bounds of reasonableness as to which things they have a right to curtail.

Because once you throw out those bounds, it becomes very difficult for people who have different values, who judge harms differently, who have different priorities to all coexist with one another without some sort of hostile detente of 'if you attack our thing, we'll attack your thing, so neither of us gets to be happy'.

Similarly, it's fine to want to avoid offending people just like 'I don't want to unnecessarily add to traffic, so I'll stay home rather than going out' is fine. But being so afraid of it that you let it distort creative work is going to impact quality negatively. And if that fear is being created by other people, then as a third party, I feel it's just as fair to judge the people creating that atmosphere as it is for them to judge the artist if that's where we're going to collectively choose to put the bounds of reasonable interference.

But we're already there, every one has already thrown out those bounds, its just a matter of where you draw the line. Unless you think it would be fine for a class to gain power from abusing children, and people who don't like that can just not use the class in their games, you too already have a limit of what should and shouldn't be allowed in the game.

Nor is that example entirely made up. Not WotC, but Paizo, had a ritual feat that required to do that every 30 days or so if you were dedicated to a certain deity. It largely seemed to have slipped by. it wasn't in a major spaltbook, but those who did know of it tended to agree Paizo had gone too far and shouldn't have printed that, and not that that it was a case of "don't like it, don't use it".

[Trafalgar]

Intentions count for a lot, but they're the sole factor here. Let's imagine a Japanese writer who makes a character called Patrick o'Leprechaun. Could the author conceivably have not meant this to be offensive? Absolutely. They could have just liked what little they knew of Irish culture, and included that in the character. But surely you can see, regardless of the intentions of the author, how this might bother Irish people, especially if this work became internationally famous and English and American people started talking about the Patrick o'Lepreuchaun.

I don't know. I don't see anyone protesting Lucky Charms cereal or the logo/mascot for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

[Boci]

I don't know. I don't see anyone protesting Lucky Charms cereal or the logo/mascot for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

https://www.irishpost.com/news/notre-dame-fighting-irish-leprechaun-mascot-voted-one-of-most-offensive-in-us-sports-219356

[EggKookoo]

I don't know. I don't see anyone protesting Lucky Charms cereal or the logo/mascot for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

There's no cultural currency in it.

[kazaryu]

Intentions count for a lot, but they're the sole factor here. Let's imagine a Japanese writer who makes a character called Patrick o'Leprechaun. Could the author conceivably have not meant this to be offensive? Absolutely. They could have just liked what little they knew of Irish culture, and included that in the character. But surely you can see, regardless of the intentions of the author, how this might bother Irish people, especially if this work became internationally famous and English and American people started talking about the Patrick o'Lepreuchaun.

i can see how it might bother them...that doesn't mean that japanese author should not have written the character. thats my point. just because someone is bothered by something i did, doesn't mean i did anything wrong.

to flip this on its head, homophobes are bothered by...well, you know. does that mean that homosexuals have done anything wrong? common consensus is that...no.

obviously its not a perfect analogy, im specifically illustrating a situation where offense was caused, but it wasn't the offenders problem, the problem is the offended.



im also not trying to say that its always the offended's problem. I've acknowledge that its perfectly possible for someone to set out to depict a culture accurately, and failing. and under those conditions the author absolutely bears responsibility. But i don't think there's anything inherently wrong with wholesale borrowing the aesthetic of a culture, without worrying about depicting every aspect of that culture accurately. Or, from a different perspective, just because someone added some traits (potentially negative ones) to a fictional culture that otherwise resembles a real world culture, doesnt mean that author is claiming those traits belong to the real world culture.



But we're already there, every one has already thrown out those bounds, its just a matter of where you draw the line. Unless you think it would be fine for a class to gain power from abusing children, and people who don't like that can just not use the class in their games, you too already have a limit of what should and shouldn't be allowed in the game. me limiting whats allowed in my games, or a single group limiting whats in their game, isn't whats being discussed. there's a difference between 'i don't care to use that in my game' and 'omg, X author is a bad person for including that'



Nor is that example entirely made up. Not WotC, but Paizo, had a ritual feat that required to do that every 30 days or so if you were dedicated to a certain deity. It largely seemed to have slipped by. it wasn't in a major spaltbook, but those who did know of it tended to agree Paizo had gone too far and shouldn't have printed that, and not that that it was a case of "don't like it, don't use it".

that is absolutely a case of 'don't like it, don't use it'. Further, its possible to believe that paizo 'shouldn't have printed it' without believing that paizo had overstepped. like...if i know that someone is going to take offense to something i say, even if its (as described in previous comments) entirely their problem. I can decide that it would be a mistake to say it. not because i think saying it makes me a bad person per se but because i don't want to deal with that person getting offended. similarly, you can say 'well, they should have known that there'd be backlash on that from some people, so it probably doesn't make much business sense to have published it'...doesn't mean you believe they're bad people for publishing it.

[NichG]

But we're already there, every one has already thrown out those bounds, its just a matter of where you draw the line. Unless you think it would be fine for a class to gain power from abusing children, and people who don't like that can just not use the class in their games, you too already have a limit of what should and shouldn't be allowed in the game.

I absolutely do think that should be allowed to exist in a game.

If someone said 'an RPG with a class that gains power from abusing children should not be allowed to be published, and even the suggestion of such acts in a fantasy medium should be illegal', I might say in response 'hey, maybe we should band together to prevent people like that from holding power over others'. That's what failure of mutual coexistence looks like - you threaten something I care about, I threaten something you care about, we both get to be miserable. Or there's 'the set of games that one kind of person is allowed to like' and 'the set of games that the other kind of person is allowed to like' and they become disjoint and people just start review-bombing across the divide, and liking the one game or the other becomes a strong indicator of 'what side' you're on, and so on - which is also pretty miserable.

I say this kind of thing about reasonableness in order to highlight a major - mostly implicit - mechanism that prevents us from just going straight to that point, and allows someone to say 'I like World of Darkness' without their former friends saying 'oh, you're one of those people'.

[Boci]

i can see how it might bother them...that doesn't mean that japanese author should not have written the character.

Why is that the only option? Why not "the Japanese writer should have made their work more sensitive to the culture they were borrowing from"?

I absolutely do think that should be allowed to exist in a game.

This wasn't "a game" though, it was Pathfinder. People didn't think Paizo should have printed it. I didn't recall anyone who objected to the feat argue that no game could ever feature that content, just that it didn't fit in Pathfinder. Are they not allwoed to voice such an opinion?

I like WoD. I don't want to see blood bonds and similar stuff that entails emotional and physical abuse in D&D. I think that would be wrong.


that is absolutely a case of 'don't like it, don't use it'. Further, its possible to believe that paizo 'shouldn't have printed it' without believing that paizo had overstepped. like...if i know that someone is going to take offense to something i say, even if its (as described in previous comments) entirely their problem. I can decide that it would be a mistake to say it. not because i think saying it makes me a bad person per se but because i don't want to deal with that person getting offended. similarly, you can say 'well, they should have known that there'd be backlash on that from some people, so it probably doesn't make much business sense to have published it'...doesn't mean you believe they're bad people for publishing it.

Yeah, so already we're moving beyond intentions. Yes, Paizo shouldn't have published that material, it was a mistake. Does that make them bad people? Probably not, everyone makes mistakes, though how you make this one was a bit of a headscratcher. Same as when WotC had a rule about requiring an atonement spell if your character got raped.

[kazaryu]

Why is that the only option? Why not "the Japanese writer should have made their work more sensitive to the culture they were borrowing from"?


if you're going to dictate behavior (as indicated by the word 'should') then you should first establish what behavior is acceptable, and what isn't. and you should establish a metric by which to determine that.

'i causes offense' is a really bad metric. Because there's always someone thats going to take offense to something.

of course, going back to the original prompt, there's more questions that actually need to be answered. its a nuanced discussion after all. for example: you just said that this japanese author named a character patrick o'leprachaun. Now, taken in a vacuum there's no reason this is a problem, its just a name. there's no context to make it a problem. context like

what genre/subgenre of book is it? or in other words, whats the book about? is it a book that is meant to depict Irish culture accurately? or is there basically no other reference to irish culture and the author just kinda...picked the name? based on the answers to those questions significantly changes whether the author should have been more culturally sensitive.

i've just thought of a new way to express my overall point. If i write a book wherein elven culture closely resembles irish culture. what matters (at least in regards to the discussion at hand) is am i writing about elven culture, and simply using aspects of Irish culture as a crutch to avoid having to wholesale generate a culture? or am i writing about irish culture, and just substituting elves?

the former is incredibly common in fantasy, particularly adventure/stories. whereas the latter is more common in books that are meant to be examinations of a culture. And i'd argue that the former is where modern DnD books falls (not like, novels, i mean the cultural descriptions given in rule books)

tolkein didn't really do this, but if he had, it wouldn't have mattered since none of his stories are about the various cultures. there are good and bad people among even the 'good guys' but the overall narrative isn't a critique of the cultures themselves, its more about the changes a person goes through as a result of traumatic events.

[NichG]

This wasn't "a game" though, it was Pathfinder. People didn't think Paizo should have printed it. I didn't recall anyone who objected to the feat argue that no game could ever feature that content, just that it didn't fit in Pathfinder. Are they not allwoed to voice such an opinion?

I like WoD. I don't want to see blood bonds and similar stuff that entails emotional and physical abuse in D&D. I think that would be wrong.


Well this is where thinking in terms of bounds of reasonableness come into play. A subgroup of people feels harmed for a mainstream RPG including child abuse in an official publication, what are the bounds of reasonableness as to what harms they want to levy against Paizo for publishing such a thing?

For me at least, reasonableness is less about whether someone is allowed to do something or not, and more about whether - as a third party potentially adjudicating a conflict or even just weighing in on one, what's the consequence of respecting their desires? So expressing an opinion is sort of tangent to that - of course they're allowed to do so, the question is the degree to which the rest of society should take that opinion as a mandate to enforce it, versus just view it as 'well you're allowed to have that opinion, but we won't do anything about it'.

In that sense, its reasonable for someone to voice the opinion 'Pathfinder should not have child abuse material in it', but I wouldn't consider it reasonable to actually echo that on the basis of that argument that that person feeling harmed, therefore something must be done to bring Paizo into alignment with that.

E.g. they can say 'I feel harmed' and I can say 'okay, I hear you, I acknowledge you're being harmed, but its a harm that I think Paizo has the right to inflict in this case'.

[Bohandas]

Intentions count for a lot, but they're the sole factor here. Let's imagine a Japanese writer who makes a character called Patrick o'Leprechaun. Could the author conceivably have not meant this to be offensive? Absolutely. They could have just liked what little they knew of Irish culture, and included that in the character. But surely you can see, regardless of the intentions of the author, how this might bother Irish people, especially if this work became internationally famous and English and American people started talking about the Patrick o'Lepreuchaun.

1.) I'm not sure anybody would care

2.) I think more people would be offended if this character was created by a writer from England

[Boci]

i've just thought of a new way to express my overall point. If i write a book wherein elven culture closely resembles irish culture. what matters (at least in regards to the discussion at hand) is am i writing about elven culture, and simply using aspects of Irish culture as a crutch to avoid having to wholesale generate a culture? or am i writing about irish culture, and just substituting elves?

But even using aspect can still be offensive. Drinking whisky is going to be an obvious example. To continue with the previous idea, the Japanese writer has elves with irish sounding names living on an island, they use bows, because they elves, and will often drink whisky before battle which somehow increases their aim even further.

Are they trying to offensive? Quite possibly not. They are Japanese, their own culture has a (presumably mythologised concept) of the drunken fist fighting style, and they were just doing their own version of that, combining it with elves and irish culture, both of which they enjoy and associate with the west.

So they aren't trying to be offensive, but can we agree this hypothetical Japanese writer has handled the concept poorly?


E.g. they can say 'I feel harmed' and I can say 'okay, I hear you, I acknowledge you're being harmed, but its a harm that I think Paizo has the right to inflict in this case'.

Again, this isn't how I remember the conversation involving people saying whether they had been harmed by it. If push came to shove I'm sure we would all agree with you that Paizo had the right to publish this. They can publish any non-criminal thing they want in their games, and as distateful and problematic as this thing was it wasn't criminal. But that isn't the only factor here, "is it legal?". You can acknowledged that something is legal, and still feel that a company shouldn't do it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Well this is where thinking in terms of bounds of reasonableness come into play. A subgroup of people feels harmed for a mainstream RPG including child abuse in an official publication, what are the bounds of reasonableness as to what harms they are permitted to levy against Paizo for publishing such a thing?

For me at least, reasonableness is less about whether someone is allowed to do something or not, and more about whether - as a third party potentially adjudicating a conflict or even just weighing in on one, what's the consequence of respecting their desires? So expressing an opinion is sort of tangent to that - of course they're allowed to do so, the question is the degree to which the rest of society should take that opinion as a mandate to enforce it, versus just view it as 'well you're allowed to have that opinion, but we won't do anything about it'.

In that sense, its reasonable for someone to voice the opinion 'Pathfinder should not have child abuse material in it', but I wouldn't consider it reasonable to actually echo that on the basis of that argument that that person feeling harmed, therefore something must be done to bring Paizo into alignment with that.

E.g. they can say 'I feel harmed' and I can say 'okay, I hear you, I acknowledge you're being harmed, but its a harm that I think Paizo has the right to inflict in this case'.

Yeah. "I'm offended and thus you have to change" is an attempted exercise of power. A statement coming from pure privilege. Personally, in this case, I think that Paizo
a) shouldn't have published that material (ie made a mistake in doing so, by my moral standards)
b) had the right to publish that material (ie cannot be morally forced to change that decision).

and those reading
a) had the right to complain about it
b) do not have the right to demand that other people do something about that complaint.
c) also have the right to say that they won't continue buying Paizo products.

I am more and more turned off by statements about "harm" and "offense". Because more and more they're naked attempts to bend others to the speaker's will, to exercise dominance. And more and more frequently they come from other people claiming offense or hurt on someone else's behalf. I personally try not to intentionally offend, but realize that there is no guarantee that offense will not be taken, because people can and do take offense to anything and everything, and do so at their personal choice. No one can offend someone else. They can attempt to trigger offense, but the other person also has their free will and can choose to take offense or not. To say otherwise is to infantilize the offense-taker.

[Bohandas]

i can see how it might bother them...that doesn't mean that japanese author should not have written the character. thats my point. just because someone is bothered by something i did, doesn't mean i did anything wrong.

to flip this on its head, homophobes are bothered by...well, you know. does that mean that homosexuals have done anything wrong? common consensus is that...no.

obviously its not a perfect analogy, im specifically illustrating a situation where offense was caused, but it wasn't the offenders problem, the problem is the offended.

It's one of the best analogies I've ever seen

[Boci]

It's one of the best analogies I've ever seen

Its a flawed analogy and kazaryu aknowledge this. Its comparing how a character is depicted to a character being depicted. It would work as an analogy if my example had been people complaining that irish/irish inspired character are depicted, but I didn't.

Its like comparing a stereotypical gay character who reinforces negative tropes about the community, with writers being allowed to include gay characters. Two very different things.

[NichG]

Again, this isn't how I remember the conversation involving people saying whether they had been harmed by it. If push came to shove I'm sure we would all agree with you that Paizo had the right to publish this. They can publish any non-criminal thing they want in their games, and as distateful and problematic as this thing was it wasn't criminal. But that isn't the only factor here, "is it legal?". You can acknowledged that something is legal, and still feel that a company shouldn't do it.

And what I'm saying is that as a third party, hearing someone say 'because I don't like this, Paizo shouldn't do it', I would not automatically consider that person's wishes to be reasonable = to be something that I or others should step in and help them attain.

There could be a standard of content where I would decide differently, but the bar is a lot 'someone could be offended' or 'indirect representational harm exists'. Different people may well put the bar at different places, too! But it's important to talk about that bar being somewhere and negotiating about where it should be, rather than presuming that 'demonstrating that harm could exist = win'.

For me that bar almost always would require an intent to harm in order to justify a social attack in response. The exceptions being corner case things like a real-world-setting adventure module including a telephone number that happens to belong to an actual person and then refusing to change it to a 555 or things like that.

[Boci]

And what I'm saying is that as a third party, hearing someone say 'because I don't like this, Paizo shouldn't do it', I would not automatically consider that person's wishes to be reasonable = to be something that I or others should step in and help them attain.

There could be a standard of content where I would decide differently, but the bar is a lot 'someone could be offended' or 'indirect representational harm exists'. Different people may well put the bar at different places, too! But it's important to talk about that bar being somewhere and negotiating about where it should be, rather than presuming that 'demonstrating that harm could exist = win'.

Exactly. It's not about "once you throw out those bounds", everyone already has their own bounds, it not about other people making them appear, you have them as well, you just draw them differently, and that's an important starting point, not putting the existence of such bounds as being created by others, but a universal method everyone will use to judge content, they just won't all put it in the same place.


For me that bar almost always would require an intent to harm in order to justify a social attack in response. The exceptions being corner case things like a real-world-setting adventure module including a telephone number that happens to belong to an actual person and then refusing to change it to a 555 or things like that.

For individuals? Sure, I agree. But for companies? They're big boys. A social attack for them is a bit of bad PR, Its literally the minimum you can do.

[Bohandas]

Yeah. "I'm offended and thus you have to change" is an attempted exercise of power. A statement coming from pure privilege. Personally, in this case, I think that Paizo
a) shouldn't have published that material (ie made a mistake in doing so, by my moral standards)
b) had the right to publish that material (ie cannot be morally forced to change that decision).

and those reading
a) had the right to complain about it
b) do not have the right to demand that other people do something about that complaint.
c) also have the right to say that they won't continue buying Paizo products.

I am more and more turned off by statements about "harm" and "offense". Because more and more they're naked attempts to bend others to the speaker's will, to exercise dominance. And more and more frequently they come from other people claiming offense or hurt on someone else's behalf. I personally try not to intentionally offend, but realize that there is no guarantee that offense will not be taken, because people can and do take offense to anything and everything, and do so at their personal choice. No one can offend someone else. They can attempt to trigger offense, but the other person also has their free will and can choose to take offense or not. To say otherwise is to infantilize the offense-taker.

The more I think of it the more these people remind me of Saruman with his deceptive superficially righteous sounding arguments that lead people into ruin

[Sorinth]

Planescape Faction War. Here's a setting, here's a premise and a lot of details and everything hangs on those details, people build up their campaigns and work their own histories into that. Then you have a module published that establishes a canonical outcome 'yeah all of those details basically get wiped away, and we're not going to actually give you other detailed stuff to replace it'. Time of Troubles stuff in Forgotten Realms is similar.

Its less about making it unattractive to new players, and more that it makes old players with ongoing stuff in those settings decide to either scrap everything to stick with canon, or basically selectively ignore bits of published canon material (and then have to communicate to new people joining the group which bits of canon hold and which bits don't). So it fragments people's perception and versions of the setting they're exposed to.

The moment the PCs do anything of modest importance the game has broken from "cannon" and you have a fragmented version of the setting so I'm not seeing how new works of fiction causes any actual harm to your game/setting given that you'd have to deal with the same problems.

[Bohandas]

I despise monetization

[NichG]

Exactly. It's not about "once you throw out those bounds", everyone already has their own bounds, it not about other people making them appear, you have them as well, you just draw them differently, and that's an important starting point, not putting the existence of such bounds as being created by others, but a universal method everyone will use to judge content, they just won't all put it in the same place.

For individuals? Sure, I agree. But for companies? They're big boys. A social attack for them is a bit of bad PR, Its literally the minimum you can do.

Well as I said, intent to harm is for me much more 'problematic' than bad takes, from an individual or from a company. Because once you normalize intent to harm as long as the target is acceptable, you end up - at best - with chilling effects that make everyone a bit more afraid and hostile. And at worst, it doesn't stay at just targeting companies when people find out how effective it is to mob things in order to get their way. Or, what often happens, you get a few symbolic firings and resignations - real people, not just faceless companies, and the company goes on its way.

I think we're collectively better off to have the bar higher, and to have 'attacking something' or even 'exerting pressure on someone' as opposed to e.g. expressing opinions be a more serious threshold to cross. Because independent of arguments about what the best of all worlds would look like, operating society in a scrabble for dominance doesn't make society a comfortable place to be expressive, to find joy and wonder in things, etc. (And yes, that standard should apply just as well to companies trying to exert pressure on people!)

[kazaryu]

But even using aspect can still be offensive. offense is taken, not given. a person can try to be offensive without their target actually being offended, and a person can be offended, even if nothing was said/done that intended to offend. Thats my point. just because someone was offended by something, doesn't mean anyone did anything wrong. someone taking offense, doesn't inherently mean that someone else should change their behavior. unreasonable people get offended by unreasonable things. its unfortunate, its not even always malicious, but it is still unreasonable.


Drinking whisky is going to be an obvious example. To continue with the previous idea, the Japanese writer has elves with irish sounding names living on an island, they use bows, because they elves, and will often drink whisky before battle which somehow increases their aim even further. again...more context needed, is this author writing about irish culture, or writing about elven culture? the fact that the drink increases their aim seems to indicate that they're writing about elven culture (since it not only gives an reaslitic in world reason *why* the elves would drink the whiskey, it also is obviously unrealistic from a real world standpoint). They've just borrowed some things that are aesthetically similar to irish culture.


Are they trying to offensive? Quite possibly not. They are Japanese, their own culture has a (presumably mythologised concept) of the drunken fist fighting style, and they were just doing their own version of that, combining it with elves and irish culture, both of which they enjoy and associate with the west.

So they aren't trying to be offensive, but can we agree this hypothetical Japanese writer has handled the concept poorly?

. no...we can't. based on the little you've given, its very clearly not meant to be 'this is how irish people actually are'. its 'this is a concept that exists, and i thought it'd be interesting to use in that way'. Now, were the story to expand and we find out that its actually meant to be a symbolic examination of real irish culture, and the dangers of letting alcohol influence society/culture as a whole..then...yeah, obviously that would be bad. but its bad because the author got the details of the culture he's trying to examine wrong, not because his elves like to drink whiskey and have O' in front of their names.


The more I think of it the more these people remind me of Saruman with his deceptive superficially righteous sounding arguments that lead people into ruin

Im not sure i like the comparison, saruman was deliberately deceptive and overtly not trying to do what was best for middle earth. instead he was only out to survive and increase his own power base. and while there *may* be people like that on either side of issues like whats being discussed here, there's no reason to assume that anyone involved is even remotely on that page.

[Boci]

again...more context needed, is this author writing about irish culture, or writing about elven culture? the fact that the drink increases their aim seems to indicate that they're writing about elven culture (since it not only gives an reaslitic in world reason *why* the elves would drink the whiskey, it also is obviously unrealistic from a real world standpoint). They've just borrowed some things that are aesthetically similar to irish culture.

I'm always wary of "well if there's an in universe explanation", because you can justify anything, its not that hard. There are multiple in universe explanations for why power girl has a boob window in her costume. None of them "boobs", even though that is the proper reason.


no...we can't. based on the little you've given, its very clearly not meant to be 'this is how irish people actually are'.

Right, but I'm saying how an author intended isn't the only thing to consider. Case and point: we often won't know the authors intent, so you're going to have to be able to judge content without knowing that. Another poster said this would be more problematic is the writer was English rather than Japanese, so at least one suggestions has been "this is fine as long as an English person doesn't right it", which is a standard that sounds difficult to enforce.

[kazaryu]

I'm always wary of "well if there's an in universe explanation", because you can justify anything, its not that hard. There are multiple in universe explanations for why power girl has a boob window in her costume. None of them "boobs", even though that is the proper reason. im using the in-world explanation as an indicator of intent, not a justification in and of itself. if the intent was to just **** on irish culture, then there's no need to an in-world reason, particularly not one that makes a ton of sense. it implys that there's more to this elven culture than just 'irish, but tall, skinny, pretty, and pointy ears' (or whatever the physical attributes of these elves is).




Right, but I'm saying how an author intended isn't the only thing to consider. Case and point: we often won't know the authors intent, so you're going to have to be able to judge content without knowing that.author's intent is paramount, at least for me. specifically if you're going to attribute wrong-doing to the author. i'll talk general then get a bit more specific. If you don't have any evidence of wrongdoing (which, by my definition would be the author writing in such a way as to imply that the culture being portrayed is accurate to a real world culture, while getting that culture wrong) then you shouldn't assume that wrong doing occurred. Im a huge believer in the presumption of innocence as a concept, not just in relation to the legal system.

to get more specific about this particular 'issue'. i'd even argue that...if it isn't obvious from the writing that what is being depicted is meant to be an accurate representation of a real world culture...then it probably isn't. there are specific sub genre's of stories where accurate depictions of real world cultures may be used...and thats specifically when those cultures are central to the story, rather than just a backdrop. as an example:

culture as backdrop: a story set in mexico on all-hallows eve. a noir detective trying to solve a murder. perhaps the fact that its all hallows eve, and the traditions associated with that, make it difficult for the detective to gather their clues. But ultimately, the murderer was just...a regular guy that chose that night to perform the murder, hoping to use all hallows eve as a camouflage. (i.e. the night was chosen because of the details that made it hard to track the clues).

in this case, while it can harm verisimilitude for the author to get some details about all hallow's eve wrong, there's no moral imperative for them to get it right. because the story isn't about all hallows eve. its about a murder investigation. all hallows eve is just a backdrop. its just part of the setting.

culture as central: compare that to a story written with the same premise. murder on all hallow's eve in mexico. However, this time we find out that the murder was committed as part of all hallows eve celebration, or part of preparations for the day of the dead. and as the story unfolds its implied (or even outright stated) that this is normal, or at least used to be.

in the second case, the narrative ends up being about the culture (or at least one particular cultural meme). But its also pretty obvious that its about the culture because...well, it has to be. if its not obviously about the culture, then the author didn't get their point across. In this case, its imperative that details are correct. especially the ones that are directly being examined/critiqued. in this case the author has a moral imperative to ensure accuracy (even if they don't have a legal one).


Another poster said this would be more problematic is the writer was English rather than Japanese, so at least one suggestions has been "this is fine as long as an English person doesn't right it", which is a standard that sounds difficult to enforce.

the other poster didn't say it would be more problematic. they said that people were more likely to take offense. very different. they weren't creating a standard, they were talking about how it'd actually go in reality. and in either case, it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter than england has a history of oppressing the irish. an individual englishman should not be assigned that guilt until it becomes clear that they're actually guilty. its just as unreasonable to punish an individual englishman for 'his peoples' crimes, as it would be for all irishmen to be judged based on the actions of the IRA.

[Boci]

im using the in-world explanation as an indicator of intent, not a justification in and of itself. if the intent was to just **** on irish culture, then there's no need to an in-world reason, particularly not one that makes a ton of sense. it implys that there's more to this elven culture than just 'irish, but tall, skinny, pretty, and pointy ears' (or whatever the physical attributes of these elves is).

This relies heavily on racist people not realizing they can hide their racism by including an in world justification so they have plausibly deniability if they're ever called on their beliefs. We already see this happening. People will say "I'm not racist against black, but look at these FBI crime statistics". And you know at least some of those people are just using that as a smokescreen because they've realized they can't be openly prejudicial anymore without social consequences.


author's intent is paramount, at least for me. specifically if you're going to attribute wrong-doing to the author. i'll talk general then get a bit more specific. If you don't have any evidence of wrongdoing (which, by my definition would be the author writing in such a way as to imply that the culture being portrayed is accurate to a real world culture, while getting that culture wrong) then you shouldn't assume that wrong doing occurred. Im a huge believer in the presumption of innocence as a concept, not just in relation to the legal system.

There are plenty of examples of problematic representation that don't imply the culture is real world accurate. Male asian actors have long talked about how difficult it was to get lead roles in non-martial art films.


the other poster didn't say it would be more problematic. they said that people were more likely to take offense. very different. they weren't creating a standard, they were talking about how it'd actually go in reality. and in either case, it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter than england has a history of oppressing the irish. an individual englishman should not be assigned that guilt until it becomes clear that they're actually guilty. its just as unreasonable to punish an individual englishman for 'his peoples' crimes, as it would be for all irishmen to be judged based on the actions of the IRA.

I'm not too sure how its "punishing the English" to say "don't make irish people whisky drinking warriors, even if they're elves". It just seems like some reasonable, and easy to follow guideline. Same with "Don't sexualize children in shows aimed in part or fully at children". I don't think having a list of "don't"-s is a punishment for content creators.

[kazaryu]

This relies heavily on racist people not realizing they can hide their racism by including an in world justification so they have plausibly deniability if they're ever called on their beliefs. We already see this happening. People will say "I'm not racist against black, but look at these FBI crime statistics". And you know at least some of those people are just using that as a smokescreen because they've realized they can't be openly prejudicial anymore without social consequences. yes, presumption of innocence does mean that 'guilty' people can get away scot free if they're careful. the alternative is to knowingly punish innocent people. (yes, im aware, innocents get punished regardless, obviously the actual system is as imperfect as humans are) personally, i prefer a world where i might have to worry about a criminal getting away with it so long as i can't (in theory) go to jail just because someone falsely claimed i did something.




There are plenty of examples of problematic representation that don't imply the culture is real world accurate. Male asian actors have long talked about how difficult it was to get lead roles in non-martial art films.
that has...nothing to do with the topic at hand. at no point have i been talking about racial representation in visual media, nor have any of my arguments approached that topic...this entire time i've been almost exclusively talking about borrowing from real world cultures in the creation of a fictional culture.



I'm not too sure how its "punishing the English" to say "don't make irish people whisky drinking warriors, even if they're elves". It just seems like some reasonable, and easy to follow guideline. ok so there are 2 parts to this...the punishing part: social backlash is a form of punishment. period. the whole point of making a stink is to punish. in other words, you're not just saying 'don't write stories like this'. you're talking about pointing to a specific author and saying 'shame on this author for writing stories like this'. in fact, even worse, you're saying 'shame on this author for writing stories like this as an Englishman. its not 'punishing the English'. notice how i specifically said 'punishing an individual Englishman'. why? because when it comes to these types of topics generalizing 'the English' is exactly the same type of attitude that has lead to every single instance of bigotry and class based oppression (class referring to traits commonly shared by a group, not social class specifically).

the second part:
they're not making irish people whiskey drinking warriors. they're making elves whiskey drinking warriors, while borrowing naming conventions from the real world Irish. so let me ask you directly, what is wrong with that? what makes it reasonable for people to get offended by that?


Same with "Don't sexualize children in shows aimed in part or fully at children". seems like that should be 'don't sexualize children' i mean...unless you think its appropriate for children to be sexualized in adult content.

regardless, this isn't a great comparison, as the 'rules' about sexualizing children have nothing to do with offense. We don't want our media sexualizing children, because we as a culture have decided that its bad for children to be treated as sexual beings. and there are a laundry list of reasons for that, that have nothing to do with historical oppression or the reinforcement of steretypes (which is largely the concern regarding things like whiskey drinking elves named O'keefe.)


I don't think having a list of "don't"-s is a punishment for content creators.in order for a list of 'dont's to have any teeth, there have to be consequences for violating it...that is literally how rules work. if there are no consequences for violating the rules, the rules are meaningless. and i don't mean legal consequences, or lawfully binding rules. You're talking about social/cultural rules. which would have social consequences. shame and isolation being the most common.

[Boci]

yes, presumption of innocence does mean that 'guilty' people can get away scot free if they're careful. the alternative is to knowingly punish innocent people. (yes, im aware, innocents get punished regardless, obviously the actual system is as imperfect as humans are) personally, i prefer a world where i might have to worry about a criminal getting away with it so long as i can't (in theory) go to jail just because someone falsely claimed i did something.

You're talking about crime here. That is different.


that has...nothing to do with the topic at hand. at no point have i been talking about racial representation in visual media, nor have any of my arguments approached that topic...this entire time i've been almost exclusively talking about borrowing from real world cultures in the creation of a fictional culture.

And you don't see the connection here? How emphasising a characteristic of a race or ethnicity in this manner reinforces itself? Where do you think movie makers got the idea that "asian man = martial arts lead only"?


the second part:
they're not making irish people whiskey drinking warriors. they're making elves whiskey drinking warriors, while borrowing naming conventions from the real world Irish. so let me ask you directly, what is wrong with that? what makes it reasonable for people to get offended by that?

What? "I never said all X people are stupid. I just made a fantasy culture who are all stupid and then named them after X culture's naming convention". Can you not see how people might not appreciate this difference?


seems like that should be 'don't sexualize children' i mean...unless you think its appropriate for children to be sexualized in adult content.


in order for a list of 'dont's to have any teeth, there have to be consequences for violating it...that is literally how rules work.

This is where your I start to see your message getting diluted. How exactly do you propose your rule of "don't sexualize children" be enforced? Since you says that's how rules work.

Because it currently isn't. Content creators have a quite a lot of legal leeway to do this, in both adult content and non-adult content. Demon Slayer springs to mind. Nezuko in season 2 appears as fully grown woman with vaguely demonic features, and in this form the neckline of her clothing has plunged. And yet beyond the "fighting demons" thing, she still acts emotionally like a 12 year old girl. Demon Slayer has done this, and not received any real consequences, beyond some fans asking "is this really necessary?" And I get it. I like Demon Slayer, its a good anime, I just wish Nezuko had been handled differently. A 12 year old girl in a 12 year old girl's body kicking the head of a demon off would have been a strict upgrade IMO, and would have avoided the icky implications.

As for sexualizing children in adults content, that's more of a grey area for me. I don't think it should be done lightly, but I don't think it should be flat out off limits. Whilst the Malazon book series nearly needs to cool it with the sex stuff in general, the detail of how 14 year old Felisin has to adapt to survive after being sent to a prison colony is not something I feel the author should be punished for including.

You apparently disagree. How should they be punished?

[Bohandas]

Speaking of lists of don'ts for content creators, does anyone else here really wish that someone would make a superhero film that deliberately violates every item of both the Comics Code and the Hays Code? I'd watch something like that a dozen times.

I first had the idea years ago, and the talk about "lists of 'dont's" reminded me of it

[NichG]

Speaking of lists of don'ts for content creators, does anyone else here really wish that someone would make a superhero film that deliberately violates every item of both the Comics Code and the Hays Code? I'd watch something like that a dozen times.

I first had the idea years ago, and the talk about "lists of 'dont's" reminded me of it

How far is Watchmen from that? Edit: huh, I guess it needs werewolves ...

[Boci]

How far is Watchmen from that? Edit: huh, I guess it needs werewolves ...

This nicely illustrates why this idea might not be so great in practice. Having a coherent artistic vision that doesn't with conventional, social sensibilities is literally a point of art. Having an artistic vision of "I'm going to do the opposite of everything I'm told to do" is not as creative as people might initially think.

[NichG]

This nicely illustrates why this idea might not be so great in practice. Having a coherent artistic vision that doesn't with conventional, social sensibilities is literally a point of art. Having an artistic vision of "I'm going to do the opposite of everything I'm told to do" is not as creative as people might initially think.

The creative bit would be making it work well.

And really aside from that extremely specific prohibition, Watchmen does seem to be about as far as you'd get from those codes. And I'd say it actually works well for what it's trying to be.

It is a specific cultural commentary as well, and as such could and probably does offend people. But I'd say it's not just better for feeling free to do that, but fundamentally couldn't exist as inoffensive media.

[Boci]

The creative bit would be making it work well.

And really aside from that extremely specific prohibition, Watchmen does seem to be about as far as you'd get from those codes.

Exactly, so we don't need another one, especially not one which starts with "lets deliberately do the opposite of this list of codes", which likely wasn't the impetus for Alan Moore.

[Mastikator]

offense is taken, not given. a person can try to be offensive without their target actually being offended, and a person can be offended, even if nothing was said/done that intended to offend. Thats my point. just because someone was offended by something, doesn't mean anyone did anything wrong. someone taking offense, doesn't inherently mean that someone else should change their behavior.

And (vert often) sometimes people have subconscious biases, biases that are both subtle and rude.
Example: Skyrim, the khajiit. I'm not saying what they really are on this forum, but portraying a real world people as that is kinda sorta super offensive actually. Offense was given, the author didn't intend it, but it was.

[Anymage]

And (vert often) sometimes people have subconscious biases, biases that are both subtle and rude.
Example: Skyrim, the khajiit. I'm not saying what they really are on this forum, but portraying a real world people as that is kinda sorta super offensive actually. Offense was given, the author didn't intend it, but it was.

A follow up to this: We can give the author the benefit of the doubt that they either didn't think about how it might be interpreted, or more likely didn't realize in the first place. After someone says "hey, not cool", the author can no longer claim ignorance if they keep doing the same thing going forward. The author is certainly free to decide that they don't care about other people's claims.; if a homophobe came in and said that inclusion of LGBT+ characters was harmful to society, I don't think most of us would mind telling them to pound sand. But the author could not reasonably claim to not know that people didn't like their work or why.

[Boci]

And (vert often) sometimes people have subconscious biases, biases that are both subtle and rude.
Example: Skyrim, the khajiit. I'm not saying what they really are on this forum, but portraying a real world people as that is kinda sorta super offensive actually. Offense was given, the author didn't intend it, but it was.

Or in Oblivion where Redguard, the black humans of the setting, had a penalty to intelligence. This one is harder to imagine they didn't realise how offensive this was, but at the same time it likely wasn't a case of a Bethesda board meeting going "Okay, so all know and agree that black people are not intelligent, and this needs to be referenced in the game". Are the people who implemented this state modifier bad people? Not necessarily, but this was a mistake. You can make a mistake without being a bad person.

[EggKookoo]

After someone says "hey, not cool", the author can no longer claim ignorance if they keep doing the same thing going forward.

Something I always struggle with is, can literally anyone raise the "hey, not cool" flag and have the content (and related subject) eliminated? Is there a validation process for determining if it is, in fact, not cool? Or is the presence of a single individual making the statement enough?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Something I always struggle with is, can literally anyone raise the "hey, not cool" flag and have the content (and related subject) eliminated? Is there a validation process for determining if it is, in fact, not cool? Or is the presence of a single individual making the statement enough?

Agreed. That's a heckler's veto. And quickly devolves to rule by the ones most willing to claim offense.

And what about the meta offense? Saying that's not cool to someone saying that's not cool? Does that take saying that's not cool off the table? Or are there privileged viewpoints?

[Boci]

Something I always struggle with is, can literally anyone raise the "hey, not cool" flag and have the content (and related subject) eliminated? Is there a validation process for determining if it is, in fact, not cool? Or is the presence of a single individual making the statement enough?

You mean we have to use our judgement on a case-by-case basis to decide on a issue as to whether its problematic enough to warrant being addressed? The horror.

Seriously, what's your alternative? Authors and other artist can never be held accountable for any stuff in their work?

Lizzo made a song which included a lyric that can mean to be excited, but is also a slur for people with a certain disability. This was pointed out to Lizzo, and she produced a new version of the song with that lyric changed. How would you have preferred the situation be handled?

[PhoenixPhyre]

You mean we have to use our judgement on a case-by-case basis to decide on a issue as to whether its problematic enough to warrant being addressed? The horror.

Seriously, what's your alternative? Authors and other artist can never be held accountable for any stuff in their work?

The concept of "held accountable" is offensive. Everyone is and should be free to say or write whatever they want. And publishers are free to publish or not. And consumers are free to buy or not. But trying to punish people for their speech or command them to not say unfavored things or require them to toe the party line are, in my opinion, not morally acceptable actions.

[Bohandas]

How far is Watchmen from that? Edit: huh, I guess it needs werewolves ...

It's also missing the words "terror" and/or "horror" on the box art, IIRC


Lizzo made a song which included a lyric that can mean to be excited, but is also a slur for people with a certain disability. This was pointed out to Lizzo, and she produced a new version of the song with that lyric changed. How would you have preferred the situation be handled?

Only censor it in the UK, because that's the only place where that word is used as a slur. If we change it in the US then we are, in effect, importing a new slur from overseas.

[Boci]

The concept of "held accountable" is offensive. Everyone is and should be free to say or write whatever they want. And publishers are free to publish or not. And consumers are free to buy or not. But trying to punish people for their speech or command them to not say unfavored things or require them to toe the party line are, in my opinion, not morally acceptable actions.

So content creators can't be held accounted, you must never criticise them, your only option is to not buy their content.

I'm sceptical anyone actually believes that, because I feel sooner or later there will be an issue with an author they like or within a genre, and then suddenly they'll want to do more than just not buy the stuff because they will want to see stuff they like improve, rather than excluding themselves from it.

Lizzo fans didn't stop listening to Lizzo when he used a slur in one of her songs, they told her how this word was offensive, and she changed it. You wish they hadn't told her and had instead just stopped listening to her?

[EggKookoo]

You mean we have to use our judgement on a case-by-case basis to decide on a issue as to whether its problematic enough to warrant being addressed? The horror.

Is that what happens? What I notice is that there's a quiet parroting of offense, combined with a lot of silence. Except for those who might try to play devil's advocate in defense of the offending material, and you know who else played devil's advocate?


Seriously, what's your alternative? Authors and other artist can never be held accountable for any stuff in their work?

I agree. One of two extremes is typically the best way to handle stuff like this.


Lizzo made a song which included a lyric that can mean to be excited, but is also a slur for people with a certain disability. This was pointed out to Lizzo, and she produced a new version of the song with that lyric changed. How would you have preferred the situation be handled?

That seems sensible. What if she said "Sorry it offends some people, but that wasn't the intent. I'm leaving as is." Would that have been the end of it?

[Boci]

Is that what happens? What I notice is that there's a quiet parroting of offense, combined with a lot of silence. Except for those who might try to play devil's advocate in defense of the offending material, and you know who else played devil's advocate?

Some people complained about the portrayal of black people in Wednesday, fans considered and dismissed these complaints, the black characters were flawed, but not offensively so, and one of them likely had their flaw be the focus of the character arc. Stormzy had some homophobic tweets resurface from his teenaged years and issued a heartfelt apology. His career doesn't seem to have suffered as a result.

So yes, I tend to notice people do still use judgement. I don't agree with all instances of cancelling, but I do feel consumers should have some say in the market beyond just not buying stuff. For example I'm not exactly shedding tears for the guy who cancelled over calling Dolly Parton an "old (derogatory term for women)".


I agree. One of two extremes is typically the best way to handle stuff like this.

You didn't seem to be objected to the other extreme, but rather to the very practice of telling authors an aspect of their work is "not cool". That's not the other extreme, that's just an example of when personal judgement will be required, which has been the case for a while, its nothing new.


That seems sensible. What if she said "Sorry it offends some people, but that wasn't the intent. I'm leaving as is." Would that have been the end of it?

Probably not. You think that would be a problem that consumers could exercise influence?

[animorte]

That seems sensible. What if she said "Sorry it offends some people, but that wasn't the intent. I'm leaving as is." Would that have been the end of it?
Disney has a disclaimer at the beginning of several movies basically doing this exactly.

[Boci]

Disney has a disclaimer at the beginning of several movies basically doing this exactly.

And people largely accept this. They don't always accept this in other cases. Judgement is being used, the system works.-ish.

[Gignere]

I despise monetization

Tell your boss to stop paying you for your work if you hate monetization so much. You are monetizing your labor too.

[Boci]

Tell your boss to stop paying you for your work if you hate monetization so much. You are monetizing your labor too.

Its not like we don't pay for D&D products already. "Monetization" does not mean "goods and services costing money", since that's an assumed default. It instead refers to further costs associated with a hobby or activity.

[D+1]

Curious (and excited!) to hear what folks think!Every edition of D&D STILL has no expiration date.

If people don't want to get on the permanent payment bandwagon there is absolutely nothing forcing them to do so. They'll just keep playing anyway. If people start pay-to-play (or whatever it is WotC ends up actually doing) but then LATER decide to get off the merry-go-round... they will. This whole matter is much ado about nothing. If WotC can keep people persuaded that the money they spend is actually worth what they get for it, then all is right with the world. ANYBODY who objects to any particular level of monetization of the game has absolutely no reason to genuinely be upset as whatever they currently do for RP gaming will not change.

[Gignere]

Its not like we don't pay for D&D products already. "Monetization" does not mean "goods and services costing money", since that's an assumed default. It instead refers to further costs associated with a hobby or activity.

Not sure what dictionary you are using but that’s not what monetization means. I think that’s why you are offended with Hasbro when they used the term monetization, Hasbro since they are talking to investors are almost certainly using the Merriam Webster definition of the word. You along with those against the idea is almost using it to mean gouging instead of the normal every day English usage with no negative connotations especially when used in everyday business communications.

[Boci]

Every edition of D&D STILL has no expiration date.

If people don't want to get on the permanent payment bandwagon there is absolutely nothing forcing them to do so. They'll just keep playing anyway. If people start pay-to-play (or whatever it is WotC ends up actually doing) but then LATER decide to get off the merry-go-round... they will. This whole matter is much ado about nothing. If WotC can keep people persuaded that the money they spend is actually worth what they get for it, then all is right with the world. ANYBODY who objects to any particular level of monetization of the game has absolutely no reason to genuinely be upset as whatever they currently do for RP gaming will not change.

If you are a consumer you are affected by market trends.My friend stopped played Shadows of War (or whatever the sequal was called), because he realised it was designed to not be as fun for free to players (in a full price game), He had been enjoying the early game, but in the middle when it became a grind he stopped playing. Had the game not been designed that way, he likely would have played it for longer and gotten more enjoyment out of it.


Not sure what dictionary you are using but that’s not what monetization means. I think that’s why you are offended with Hasbro when they used the term monetization, Hasbro since they are talking to investors are almost certainly using the Merriam Webster definition of the word. You along with those against the idea is almost using it to mean gouging instead of the normal every day English usage with no negative connotations especially when used in everyday business communications.

No they aren't, it would be redundant. D&D products has literally never been free, and WotC is a business, they wouldn't need to use the term "monetization" to describe universal and fundamental business practice of offering goods and services for money.

[animorte]

D&D products has literally never been free, and WotC is a business, they wouldn't need to use the term "monetization" to describe universal and fundamental business practice of offering goods and services for money.
I believe it’s closer to a subscription service.

And let’s definitely stay away from the idea of micro-transactions. Imagine having to pay another 10 usd for this pack of Fighter subclasses, the same for each class. I know that’s not terribly different from getting another source book, but actually… it is. The price goes up significantly if you want access to all the content. Maybe it goes down for some people that don’t care for the extra content (but those same people likely wouldn’t anyway) out for those who only want the extra Warlock subclasses or what have you.

[Boci]

I believe it’s closer to a subscription service.

And let’s definitely stay away from the idea of micro-transactions. Imagine having to pay another 10 usd for this pack of Fighter subclasses, the same for each class. I know that’s not terribly different from getting another source book, but actually… it is. The price goes up significantly if you want access to all the content. Maybe it goes down for some people that don’t care for the extra content (but those same people likely wouldn’t anyway) out for those who only want the extra Warlock subclasses or what have you.

Yes, we've seen some efforts in the gaming industry to move away from games as products you buy to services you pay for. WotC might try something similar, and it hard to argue such a redefining is ever consumer friendly.

[Mastikator]

A follow up to this: We can give the author the benefit of the doubt that they either didn't think about how it might be interpreted, or more likely didn't realize in the first place. After someone says "hey, not cool", the author can no longer claim ignorance if they keep doing the same thing going forward. The author is certainly free to decide that they don't care about other people's claims.; if a homophobe came in and said that inclusion of LGBT+ characters was harmful to society, I don't think most of us would mind telling them to pound sand. But the author could not reasonably claim to not know that people didn't like their work or why.

It's more tricky than you give it credit for. I am fully willing to accept that the author(s) of how khajiit are depicted in Skyrim are ignorant of how it is perceived, because they are very likely ignorant of how stereotype they were pulling from relates to real people, they did it subconsciously, without knowing or realizing. I don't think they did it intentionally. I don't think George Lucas was knowingly and intentionally pulling from stereotypes when he made A Phantom Menace either. I think they were doing it subconsciously. I think the same is true for Tolkien's depiction of orcs. And the same for D&D's many author's depictions of its many evil races. I don't want to go into specifics, especially on this forum- what with it being forbidden (specifically, what those stereotypes are, anyone who disagrees that any of that is racist can do so and I am defanged from defending the side that they are). But the two salient points, the two things I really want to hammer home, the two things I think should be addressed above all others is these:

1) if you can't see it, or don't believe me, or do but disagree, then I can't show it to you on this forum. You can either take my word for it that there are problematic aspects in D&D or find out for yourself outside this webside. Because I can't tell you what it is. It is expressely against the rules to elaborate, this is a discussion where my hands are tied behind my back meanwhile you are free to take any swing. (frankly I think either the mods should just ban all discussion on this topic if the details of the topic are too incendiary. Any mod reading this: please just scrub any post dealing with this topic and close the thread (yes mine too), this forum is either adult enough to talk about it in earnest, or not at all.)

2) the authors didn't do it intentionally, they are not innately evil horrible people, they're just dudes and dames like you and I, we all have biases, known and unknown. It's not about condemning the author, or the audience who likes the problematic art. It's about examining what it says, and asking if it can't say something else. Because the problematic aspects aren't necessary.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yes, we've seen some efforts in the gaming industry to move away from games as products you buy to services you pay for. WotC might try something similar, and it hard to argue such a redefining is ever consumer friendly.

And this I can 100% agree with. Especially for something like a TTRPG that isn't intrinsically a live service game. MMOs? Yeah, those are live service and a subscription can be justifiable. Large-scale shooters? Maybe (hosting matchmaking and "blessed" servers). Fundamentally single-player games? No. TTRPGs that can (and often are) played entirely offline? Heck no.

[Gignere]

Yes, we've seen some efforts in the gaming industry to move away from games as products you buy to services you pay for. WotC might try something similar, and it hard to argue such a redefining is ever consumer friendly.

It’s been done in video games forever and a day. EverQuest, WoW, most online games whether it’s explicit monthly charges or IAPs, it’s not a recent trend. I don’t think the IAPs will work with D&D unless it’s just for skins, would work for D&D.

But even roll20/D&Dbeyond/ other VTTs charges a service fee, so that’s something D&D can try and do as well. To be honest I would be perfectly happy paying them $100 a year if their VTT was as good as roll20, that’s about how much I spend on Roll20 anyway.

They’ll be able to upsell me too if they can organize game play and hire DMs to run games, I wouldn’t mind paying another $50 or $100 a month. I’ve played with paid and unpaid DMs before and at least online play the paid DMs are generally much higher quality and much lower no shows than unpaid ones.

[NichG]

So content creators can't be held accounted, you must never criticise them, your only option is to not buy their content.

Criticize, but don't feel entitled to that criticism being echoed by others, adopted by the author, etc. Don't hold 'they ignored my criticism' as license to justify trying to escalate.

'I don't like Skyrim because of the cultural implications of the Khajiit' - fine. 'You shouldn't play Bethesda games because they doubled down on the Khajiit rather than fixing it' - you can say it of course, but in general I don't think the norm should be to give sympathy if others choose to ignore that call.

Or maybe to put it another way, it's not about what you should or shouldn't do, it's about how I think others should view a conflict over offense that they're being called to witness. And what protections people embroiled in such conflicts should be able to expect and rely on.

[Boci]

It’s been done in video games forever and a day. EverQuest, WoW, most online games whether it’s explicit monthly charges or IAPs, it’s not a recent trend. I don’t think the IAPs will work with D&D unless it’s just for skins, would work for D&D.

But even roll20/D&Dbeyond/ other VTTs charges a service fee, so that’s something D&D can try and do as well. To be honest I would be perfectly happy paying them $100 a year if their VTT was as good as roll20, that’s about how much I spend on Roll20 anyway.

They’ll be able to upsell me too if they can organize game play and hire DMs to run games, I wouldn’t mind paying another $50 or $100 a month. I’ve played with paid and unpaid DMs before and at least online play the paid DMs are generally much higher quality and much lower no shows than unpaid ones.

And you're entitled to that opinion, but other people are entitled to their opinion that this is bad for the hobby. My issue with monetisation like this is, who is the game being made for? Is it being made for the people who pay for monthly/yearly prescription services, with free-to-players tolerated, or is made for free-to-players foremost, with subscribers enjoying perks not assumed to be part of the core expirience?

Because there's a very big difference between them, and one of them is good, the other is bad.


Criticize, but don't feel entitled to that criticism being echoed by others, adopted by the author, etc. Don't hold 'they ignored my criticism' as license to justify trying to escalate.

'I don't like Skyrim because of the cultural implications of the Khajiit' - fine. 'You shouldn't play Bethesda games because they doubled down on the Khajiit rather than fixing it' - you can say it of course, but in general I don't think the norm should be to give sympathy if others choose to ignore that call.

Or maybe to put it another way, it's not about what you should or shouldn't do, it's about how I think others should view a conflict over offense that they're being called to witness. And what protections people embroiled in such conflicts should be able to expect and rely on.

So if there is something you find problematic in a medium or specific game you otherwise enjoy, you shouldn't have any options to address that?

[PhoenixPhyre]

So if there is something you find problematic in a medium or specific game you otherwise enjoy, you shouldn't have any options to address that?

Everyone has the right to complain. No one has the right to have their complaints addressed to their satisfaction. To say otherwise is to claim the right to dictate to others what they can say or can't say. And that's incompatible with a lot of very important values.

[Anymage]

Something I always struggle with is, can literally anyone raise the "hey, not cool" flag and have the content (and related subject) eliminated? Is there a validation process for determining if it is, in fact, not cool? Or is the presence of a single individual making the statement enough?

Anyone can say "hey, not cool" because everyone has the right to say what they want too. Creators and publishers are then free to act on that in any way that they'd like, including ignoring it or even doubling down. Other people are then in turn free to judge the creators and publishers going forward. My point was just that if someone makes an accidental offense, is made aware that someone else doesn't like it, and then continues doing the same thing, they don't get to write the continuation off as just a clueless whoopsie.


Agreed. That's a heckler's veto. And quickly devolves to rule by the ones most willing to claim offense.

And what about the meta offense? Saying that's not cool to someone saying that's not cool? Does that take saying that's not cool off the table? Or are there privileged viewpoints?

I'm not a fan of our society's current trend towards ideological purity and handing a megaphone to anyone with a grievance either. That's something of an entrenched social state at the moment, and discussing it in depth is closer to the board rules than I like.

I will, however, say that Hasbro is concerned with making money over making a grand artistic statement. They have a vested interest in not finding themselves in the crosshairs of a twitter mob. So while I have skepticism for what the current trends will do for the enjoyability of both the lore and the mechanics of D&D going forward, I also can't fault Hasbro too hardly for deciding that this is not the hill they want to die on.


Not sure what dictionary you are using but thatÂ’s not what monetization means. I think thatÂ’s why you are offended with Hasbro when they used the term monetization, Hasbro since they are talking to investors are almost certainly using the Merriam Webster definition of the word. You along with those against the idea is almost using it to mean gouging instead of the normal every day English usage with no negative connotations especially when used in everyday business communications.

The problem is that "normal english usage with no negative connotations", when used in shareholder meetings, does carry an undercurrent of "meet these earnings targets or else" to employees. And there are lots of things that are good for short-term revenue generation but bad for the long term health of the hobby. I can't be too surprised at how WotC behaves under these conditions any more than I can fault Hasbro for not wanting to embroil themselves in a twitter ****storm, but I can say that these factors make it less likely that I'll enjoy the game or that I'd want to get invested in it.

[Gignere]

And you're entitled to that opinion, but other people are entitled to their opinion that this is bad for the hobby. My issue with monetisation like this is, who is the game being made for? Is it being made for the people who pay for monthly/yearly prescription services, with free-to-players tolerated, or is made for free-to-players foremost, with subscribers enjoying perks not assumed to be part of the core expirience?

Because there's a very big difference between them, and one of them is good, the other is bad.



So if there is something you find problematic in a medium or specific game you otherwise enjoy, you shouldn't have any options to address that?

Unlike you I don’t moralize game design or money being charged, I think everyone deserves fair pay especially if their product is good and accepted in the market place. In a free market if they turn away enough of the base they are gone and I will happily go spend my money on the next replacement, like I did with Pathfinder when I didn’t get 4th edition.

Hasbro choice is either start charging $100 a book because only 20 percent of the base buys the book. Or they can get more players to pay, so the books stay around $40 -$50 a book. They can do this by I guess for some of you the pure way by making more DMs or they can get more people to pay for micro transactions, in app purchases, licensing, other media products, or even just offering a VTT service. Either way increase monetization is the only way Hasbro can make D&D thrive, without increasing monetization the ecosystem will not thrive it’s that simple.

[NichG]

So if there is something you find problematic in a medium or specific game you otherwise enjoy, you shouldn't have any options to address that?

You shouldn't have any more options because of considering something problematic than you would have for any other other opinion about the medium or game you might hold.

'Problematic' and 'offensive' should not be automatic rhetorical force multipliers that entitle you to more than one person's share of say over something that many people have stake in.

[Boci]

Unlike you I don’t moralize game design or money being charged,

Neither do I. As I said, D&D product have literally never been free, and I don't have a problem with that.


Either way increase monetization is the only way Hasbro can make D&D thrive, without increasing monetization the ecosystem will not thrive it’s that simple.

You got a source for that? Because I've been hearing 5e was thriving, despite the apparently crippling market model of people paying WotC for books and other merchandise.


You shouldn't have any more options because of considering something problematic than you would have for any other other opinion about the medium or game you might hold.

'Problematic' and 'offensive' should not be automatic rhetorical force multipliers that entitle you to more than one person's share of say over something that many people have stake in.

And they don't. You're free to ignore such rhetoric. But I feel its good consumers have an option to do something about it and try and improve things.

How else will genres and industries get better?


Everyone has the right to complain. No one has the right to have their complaints addressed to their satisfaction. To say otherwise is to claim the right to dictate to others what they can say or can't say. And that's incompatible with a lot of very important values.

Whose been saying they have a personal right to have their criticisms heard and addressed?


In making the complaint or claim, you have addressed it.

Not sure why people feel that if something bothers them, it must be changed. That's the disconnect. You are entitled to your opinion, but not to morphing the world around your opinion.

Not sure where you get the idea that people think this. You seem be arguing have a right to complain but heavens forbid they expect anything to actually happen as a result. And sure, it shouldn't happen automatically, that would be a weird world, but if it never happens then you're basically just trying to negate the right complain by making sure it never achieves anything.

[PhoenixPhyre]

You shouldn't have any more options because of considering something problematic than you would have for any other other opinion about the medium or game you might hold.

'Problematic' and 'offensive' should not be automatic rhetorical force multipliers that entitle you to more than one person's share of say over something that many people have stake in.

Very much agreed. Because that way lies debasement of language and rule by heckler's veto/most easily offended.

Especially since "problematic" and "offensive" are completely subjective judgements on the part of the reader. And can be completely disconnected from the work itself. So if you pay the protection money to one group, there's no guarantee (or even slight protection) against a different group or even someone else from that same group demanding change/payment because they're offended. And you quickly get into the case where different groups' demands are mutually incompatible or result in no actual content at all.



Whose been saying they have a personal right to have their criticisms heard and addressed?

You. Because if all you're asking for is the right to complain...well then mission accomplished. You always had that right. Yet you're asking for more. You're asking for the right to be listened to and obeyed just because you dropped the "offensive" card.

[Boci]

Very much agreed. Because that way lies debasement of language and rule by heckler's veto/most easily offended.

Especially since "problematic" and "offensive" are completely subjective judgements on the part of the reader. And can be completely disconnected from the work itself. So if you pay the protection money to one group, there's no guarantee (or even slight protection) against a different group or even someone else from that same group demanding change/payment because they're offended. And you quickly get into the case where different groups' demands are mutually incompatible or result in no actual content at all.

Right, and is this happening? Wednesday was accused of being problematic due to the casting of two black characters, and the criticisms were dismissed. Seems people are still capable of rational evaluation, even if they don't always end up agreeing with you.


You. Because if all you're asking for is the right to complain...well then mission accomplished. You always had that right. Yet you're asking for more. You're asking for the right to be listened to and obeyed just because you dropped the "offensive" card.

No I haven't. You have misunderstood what I have said, I never claimed such a right. See above for a complaint was rightly not addressed, because it wasn't an actual issue.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Right, and is this happening? Wednesday was accused of being problematic due to the casting of two black characters, and the criticisms were dismissed. Seems people are still capable of rational evaluation, even if they don't always end up agreeing with you.



No I haven't. You have misunderstood what I have said, I never claimed such a right. See above for a complaint was rightly not addressed, because it wasn't an actual issue.

Then I have no idea what you're talking about/asking for. Because everyone always has the right to complain. And no one here's said differently. All we've ever said is that you don't get any special treatment for saying you're offended.

Complaining that you're offended by the presentation of the Khajit in Skyrim is on exactly the same moral ground as complaining about bugs in Skyrim. Anyone's always free to complain. And everyone else is free to ignore or mock you for complaining. Or agree with you.

Saying that you need to "hold someone accountable" is very different in connotation and denotation. It connotes legal or financial or broad-scale social consequences. It connotes forcing someone to comply on pain of penalties. And that's demanding a right to be listened to.

[EggKookoo]

Probably not. You think that would be a problem that consumers could exercise influence?

How do you define "exercise influence," though? Earlier you seemed to think that simply abstaining from consuming her music isn't enough? Fans voiced an objection. She (in my hypothetical scenario) acknowledged the object but declined to make a change about it. Fans then... what?

[Boci]

Complaining that you're offended by the presentation of the Khajit in Skyrim is on exactly the same moral ground as complaining about bugs in Skyrim.

No it isn't, and you again have misunderstood what is being said. There's quite a bit of nuance to it, but basically "racist stereotype" are not the same as "bugs". There's really no real comparison.


How do you define "exercise influence," though? Earlier you seemed to think that simply abstaining from consuming her music isn't enough? Fans voiced an objection. She (in my hypothetical scenario) acknowledged the object but declined to make a change about it. Fans then... what?

I think they should have further options, and they do. There's a lot of nuance to it, but I don't think fans not accepted "eh the slur stays" is inherently bad. How they go about trying to get this hypothetical artist to reconsider could be good or bad, and there will reach a point where they have to accept its not going to work and then they are left with a choice of ignoring it or dropping the artist as someone they listen to, but I don't think that point should come right after "asking nicely".

Fans sometimes protest outside a company headquarters. it doesn't always work, probably doesn't usually, but I still think the fans aren't wrong for exercising that option of theirs.

[PhoenixPhyre]

No it isn't, and you again have misunderstood what is being said. There's quite a bit of nuance to it, but basically "racist stereotype" are not the same as "bugs". There's really no real comparison.

That's your opinion. And like anything else opinion-based, people can disagree. Elevating "things Boci cares about" to some higher moral plane is, in my mind, morally wrong.



I think they should have further options, and they do. There's a lot of nuance to it, but I don't think fans not accepted "eh the slur stays" is inherently bad. How they go about trying to get this hypothetical artist to reconsider could be good or bad, and there will reach a point where they have to accept its not going to work and then they are left with a choice of ignoring it or dropping the artist as someone they listen to, but I don't think that point should come right after "asking nicely".

Fans sometimes protest outside a company headquarters. it doesn't always work, probably doesn't usually, but I still think the fans aren't wrong for exercising that option of theirs.

Sure. They have the right to protest. Or complain. But they don't have any right to be heard. Or treated any differently than fans protesting for any other reason, including not wanting their media to change because some people are over-sensitive and find offense everywhere. And let's be clear. When you say "further options", what exactly do you mean. Beyond "just asking nicely". Because that's a foregone conclusion everyone agrees with.

There is nothing that cannot be found to be offensive by someone. Thus, "offensive" cannot be a trump card. Or even one with any special weight. At all. Saying something is offensive has no moral weight--in fact it is most commonly an attempted exercise of inappropriate power, an act of attempted coersion. "Obey me or else", where the threatened action is anything from lawsuits to whipping up the online mobs to outright blackmail.

[Boci]

That's your opinion. And like anything else opinion-based, people can disagree. Elevating "things Boci cares about" to some higher moral plane is, in my mind, morally wrong.

Naturally. When did I say you couldn't disagree with me?


Sure. They have the right to protest. Or complain. But they don't have any right to be heard. Or treated any differently than fans protesting for any other reason, including not wanting their media to change because some people are over-sensitive and find offense everywhere. And let's be clear. When you say "further options", what exactly do you mean. Beyond "just asking nicely". Because that's a foregone conclusion everyone agrees with.

Online petitions, discussions, protesting outside places of business.


There is nothing that cannot be found to be offensive by someone. Thus, "offensive" cannot be a trump card.

And it isn't. I mostly hear about it from people like you in the context of "things that should be", and even if there are some people who genuinely think it should, they're few and far between, and what they think to be the case is not reality.

You're going one step further though, and saying something being offensive should be irrelevant. I disagree. It requires maturity on both sides, which can be lacking, but I see plenty of evidence of examples where this discussion can happen, which positive outcomes, both in in favour and against the initial complaint.

[NichG]

And they don't. You're free to ignore such rhetoric. But I feel its good consumers have an option to do something about it and try and improve things.

How else will genres and industries get better?


Well that's the thing, your better can be someone else's worse. And if you use strategies to make it so that your voice is being heard more loudly, then other people are going to feel justified in using strategies to make their voice heard more loudly in response. And we get a more strident, disingenuous kind of discourse as a result. Worse, this is a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma, because if the people who want the things you really don't want are already using those tactics, well, what move are you going to do other than use those tactics yourself? And then you get hostile discourse, and eventually numbness to oft-seen strategies.

So to avoid that kind of outcome we can use norms of communication and reasonableness and generally hold an attitude that we don't have to make everything perfectly align with our particular vision of how things should be, but that we can figure out where we're robust to tolerating deviations from that and where we aren't. And then if and when forming social power blocs to enforce things are called for, it should really only be for those things we really cannot be robust to tolerating, not just anything where we see a chance to push someone else to make their stuff more palatable to us.

And in cases where your better is also other peoples' better? Then make the thing and show that it's good rather than trying to co-opt other peoples' visions and efforts to do it for you. And if it is actually that good, you can point to it and build it up, rather than having to tear down or try to take control of what other people are doing. Is that more accessible, more successful in the end? Probably not - its hard to make something, its hard to get things recognized, etc. But its also a more fair way to go about things.

[EggKookoo]

I think they should have further options, and they do. There's a lot of nuance to it, but I don't think fans not accepted "eh the slur stays" is inherently bad. How they go about trying to get this hypothetical artist to reconsider could be good or bad, and there will reach a point where they have to accept its not going to work and then they are left with a choice of ignoring it or dropping the artist as someone they listen to, but I don't think that point should come right after "asking nicely".

So I think a lot of reasons this behavior gets pushback is that it feels like an outraged minority is making decisions for the majority. Most people like their music, movies, etc., more or less the way they are. When a minority comes along and finds offense, expresses outrage, and then the art is modified in response to that outrage, to the majority feels as though someone else has just made a decision for them.

For example, I loathe censored music. Hate it. Some special interest group decided at some point that certain words are magical and harmful and convinced music studios to release edited versions of their songs. Music streaming services will play those versions without asking me if that's what I want. Pandora (at least) lacks an option to prevent censored music from playing. I even asked them about it and they were baffled why I would want such a thing (I'm not asking for the uncensored version, I just don't want someone else making decisions like that for me).

I want violence, sexism, and racism in my art. I want ethically questionable stuff. I'm a big boy. I can separate fantasy from reality. I know orcs aren't coded placeholders for some real-world ethnicity, despite a shrill minority trying to convince me otherwise. I know the flaws that make a character interesting aren't advocacy for those flaws. If a person feels as though a work is offensive and chooses to close their own eyes to it, great! That's their right and I will argue for it. But don't close my eyes.

[Boci]

Well that's the thing, your better can be someone else's worse. And if you use strategies to make it so that your voice is being heard more loudly, then other people are going to feel justified in using strategies to make their voice heard more loudly in response. And we get a more strident, disingenuous kind of discourse as a result. Worse, this is a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma, because if the people who want the things you really don't want are already using those tactics, well, what move are you going to do other than use those tactics yourself? And then you get hostile discourse, and eventually numbness to oft-seen strategies.

So to avoid that kind of outcome we can use norms of communication and reasonableness and generally hold an attitude that we don't have to make everything perfectly align with our particular vision of how things should be, but that we can figure out where we're robust to tolerating deviations from that and where we aren't. And then if and when forming social power blocs to enforce things are called for, it should really only be for those things we really cannot be robust to tolerating, not just anything where we see a chance to push someone else to make their stuff more palatable to us.

And in cases where your better is also other peoples' better? Then make the thing and show that it's good rather than trying to co-opt other peoples' visions and efforts to do it for you. And if it is actually that good, you can point to it and build it up, rather than having to tear down or try to take control of what other people are doing. Is that more accessible, more successful in the end? Probably not - its hard to make something, its hard to get things recognized, etc. But its also a more fair way to go about things.

Sounds like a lot of doom and gloom in an attempt to discount options consumers legally have, and will likely continue to use regardless of whether you think they should or shouldn't.

I don't claim its a perfect system, there are definitely multiple cases where online campaigns have overstepped ethical (and sometimes legal) boundaries, but I am glad consumer have a right to protest and can, in more ways than just asking nicely. Sure, the system requires maturity, a lot of aspects of our modern society do. If you look for bad examples, you can usually find them, but you can also find good ones if you look too.


So I think a lot of reasons this behavior gets pushback is that it feels like an outraged minority is making decisions for the majority. Most people like their music, movies, etc., more or less the way they are. When a minority comes along and finds offense, expresses outrage, and then the art is modified in response to that outrage, to the majority feels as though someone else has just made a decision for them.

Maybe the majority should have shown as much interest as this allegedly vocal minority? Sounds like a plus to me, people becoming more involved in the stuff they like.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Well that's the thing, your better can be someone else's worse. And if you use strategies to make it so that your voice is being heard more loudly, then other people are going to feel justified in using strategies to make their voice heard more loudly in response. And we get a more strident, disingenuous kind of discourse as a result. Worse, this is a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma, because if the people who want the things you really don't want are already using those tactics, well, what move are you going to do other than use those tactics yourself? And then you get hostile discourse, and eventually numbness to oft-seen strategies.

So to avoid that kind of outcome we can use norms of communication and reasonableness and generally hold an attitude that we don't have to make everything perfectly align with our particular vision of how things should be, but that we can figure out where we're robust to tolerating deviations from that and where we aren't. And then if and when forming social power blocs to enforce things are called for, it should really only be for those things we really cannot be robust to tolerating, not just anything where we see a chance to push someone else to make their stuff more palatable to us.

And in cases where your better is also other peoples' better? Then make the thing and show that it's good rather than trying to co-opt other peoples' visions and efforts to do it for you. And if it is actually that good, you can point to it and build it up, rather than having to tear down or try to take control of what other people are doing. Is that more accessible, more successful in the end? Probably not - its hard to make something, its hard to get things recognized, etc. But its also a more fair way to go about things.

This. So very much this.

If you want change, be that change. Or at least fund it and talk it up. Show that your way is better. Don't try to force others to change to your will. That way lies fractured societies full of weaponized discourse.

[EggKookoo]

Maybe the majority should have shown as much interest as this allegedly vocal minority? Sounds like a plus to me, people becoming more involved in the stuff they like.

That's all well and good but honestly other peoples' values is none of your business. And taking a patronizing attitude might feel good but it's not going to change anyone's mind. It just makes you look disconnected at best, and authoritarian at worst.

Edit: It's also disingenuous. The vocal minority has a small number of rallying cries to unite behind. Racist! Sexist! The majority doesn't have these things.

[Boci]

This. So very much this.

If you want change, be that change. Or at least fund it and talk it up. Show that your way is better. Don't try to force others to change to your will. That way lies fractured societies full of weaponized discourse.

And you're certainly free to advocate this as a course of action. Just don't expect everyone else to agree with your opinion on how best to approach things.


That's all well and good but honestly other peoples' values is none of your business. And taking a patronizing attitude might feel good but it's not going to change anyone's mind. It just makes you look disconnected at best, and authoritarian at worst.

How is saying "more people can get involved if they don't like these changes" a patronizing attitude? If there's a petition to change something because its offensive, make one to keep it the same, and if that gets 10 times as many signatures the company might take notice.

[NichG]

Sounds like a lot of doom and gloom in an attempt to discount options consumers legally have, and will likely continue to use regardless of whether you think they should or shouldn't.

I don't claim its a perfect system, there are definitely multiple cases where online campaigns have overstepped ethical (and sometimes legal) boundaries, but I am glad consumer have a right to protest and can, in more ways than just asking nicely. Sure, the system requires maturity, a lot of aspects of our modern society do. If you look for bad examples, you can usually find them, but you can also find good ones if you look too.

I mean, the outcome of this is basically that I'm more and more inured to seeing groups of people be offended together. It's a tool that is so overused that even if there are legitimate intolerable things out there, if they aren't already something I have a strong stance on they're just going to be lost in the noise to me. And in general, when I see someone get offended, I'm more likely to think less of them than the company or person who they are being offended by.

You have a right to protest, sure. Exercising that right has consequences. I'm arguing that the consequences are worse than you just immediately see, and that it would be better in the long run for everyone if people were a lot more judicious about using that right. You can take that to heart or not, your choice. I do hope at least that when you see someone being extremely blase about stuff being offensive you at least keep that in mind.

[Boci]

You have a right to protest, sure. Exercising that right has consequences. I'm arguing that the consequences are worse than you just immediately see, and that it would be better in the long run for everyone if people were a lot more judicious about using that right. You can take that to heart or not, your choice. I do hope at least that when you see someone being extremely blase about stuff being offensive you at least keep that in mind.

Not impossible, but ultimately we can't know either way. I don't dismissive the possibility, but I don't see it as a forgone conclusion like you seem to. As for the "when you see someone being extremely blase about stuff being offensive", lol wut? That's already happening, and has been happening for years, predating any modern trend being discussed in this thread.

And as mention, I do see some hope that consumers can handle the nuances of this. Claims that the black characters in Wednesday were offensive were rejected. I don't see a reason to conclude that this can only badly. It might, but it could also make things better.

[EggKookoo]

How is saying "more people can get involved if they don't like these changes" a patronizing attitude? If there's a petition to change something because its offensive, make one to keep it the same, and if that gets 10 times as many signatures the company might take notice.

That is, of course, ultimately what happens, although it's not typically a counter-petition but rather people voting with their wallet. If we're lucky, the company in question notices it and reverses course before going under.

To tie it to the theme of the forum, I'm not worried about finding a good TTRPG if D&D changes to the point where I don't like playing it. I'll just play another game. I hope WotC is okay with that.

[Boci]

That is, of course, ultimately what happens, although it's not typically a counter-petition but rather people voting with their wallet. If we're lucky, the company in question notices it and reverses course before going under.

And that's perfectly valid too, but if you're sad a company or product you use to like went out of business when you and others went elsewhere, I don't think its patronizing for me to point out that getting involved before the changes could be made to counter the demand for them was an option too. You don't have to exercise this option, but it was one.


To tie it to the theme of the forum, I'm not worried about finding a good TTRPG if D&D changes to the point where I don't like playing it. I'll just play another game. I hope WotC is okay with that.

You they're definitely okay with. It will depend how many other people leave with you, and how many new players the game gains.

I say this not just to state the bleeding obvious, but also to highlight a point: its always unfortunate when a product you've been using for decades changes and you no longer like it. But if newer, youngest players have replaced you, then the fact that you and other veterans are now leaving doesn't necessarily mean the company failed. It feels bad and sucks, but its not necessarily indicative of a company making a mistake. Fortunately for D&D, we can play older editions if we don't like the new ones. In this sense we're quite lucky. Fans of other mediums might not necessarily have this option, at least not so easily.

[NichG]

Not impossible, but ultimately we can't know either way. I don't dismissive the possibility, but I don't see it as a forgone conclusion like you seem to. As for the "when you see someone being extremely blase about stuff being offensive", lol wut? That's already happening, and has been happening for years, predating any modern trend being discussed in this thread.

Complaining until people are just sick of the complaints and stop paying attention isn't a modern trend either. These things often happen in waves, within their communities. Comic Code/Hays Code years, followed by 'okay that was pretty pointless and regressive, lets go as extreme as we can in the opposite directions!'. Not a new thing, just an old thing that has some new fertile ground to expand.

[kazaryu]

You're talking about crime here. That is different. I've already told you that i believe in presumption of innocence as a concept, not just as a basis for our legal system. Its just as applicable when it comes to social rules as it is to legal ones.




And you don't see the connection here? How emphasising a characteristic of a race or ethnicity in this manner reinforces itself? Where do you think movie makers got the idea that "asian man = martial arts lead only"? ah yes, those poor studio executives, they just can't help themselves, they read a book where elves drank whiskey in order to improve their aim.

but seriously, why hold artists responsible for actions that aren't their own? unless you can draw a direct causal link, rather than just a hypothesis, there's no reason to assume that the whiskey drinking elves are going to make people think....anything about irishmen...and if they do, its because the person that was affect is terribly non-introspective. To me it makes far more sense to encourage people to think about why they do things than it does to stifle what should be harmless art.



What? "I never said all X people are stupid. I just made a fantasy culture who are all stupid and then named them after X culture's naming convention". Can you not see how people might not appreciate this difference?
this is again something i've addressed. i can absolutely see how people might not appreciate it...or get upset by it. that doesn't mean i think the author should feel any moral responsibility to change it. people can be upset about things...and be wrong to be upset. I asked you to explain why you think its reasonable for them to be upset. not to provide an example of them being so.





This is where your I start to see your message getting diluted. How exactly do you propose your rule of "don't sexualize children" be enforced? Since you says that's how rules work.

-snip-
well..for one it wasn't my rule, you were the one that said it. i just commented that i found it odd that you'd include the clause specifying it to children aimed content...but more on that below.

as far as how social rules are enforced, i've already answered. the most common consequences are shame and isolation. Which is precisely what you're proposing. 'hey, look at this ******* that included X in his story. he shouldn't have done that, amirite?' Thats shaming a person, and its almost always the first thing that occurs when someone is caught violating social rules. even if your first step is to say 'hey man, by the way, these people got offended by that thing you did in your story'. if said person were to double down, or refuse to 'fix' it, you'd resort to shaming. in fact we saw this some years ago when a movie called 'Cuties' was released on netflix.



As for sexualizing children in adults content, that's more of a grey area for me. I don't think it should be done lightly, but I don't think it should be flat out off limits. Whilst the Malazon book series nearly needs to cool it with the sex stuff in general, the detail of how 14 year old Felisin has to adapt to survive after being sent to a prison colony is not something I feel the author should be punished for including. and..continued from above. this is a clear example of us just using the term 'sexualizing children' differently. i think you're using it a bit more broadly than me. which is fair enough. I wasn't referring to just...mentioning a child might have to resort sex. or like, explaining that a child was sexually assaulted. I was exclusively talking about describing (or depicting in the case of movies) a childs looks or activities in a way that is meant to evoke erotic emotions.

[Boci]

ah yes, those poor studio executives, they just can't help themselves, they read a book where elves drank whiskey in order to improve their aim.

but seriously, why hold artists responsible for actions that aren't their own? unless you can draw a direct causal link, rather than just a hypothesis,

There are numerous studies that demonstrate direct casual links to these things. Mocking unconscious bias doesn't mean it isn't a thing.


this is again something i've addressed. i can absolutely see how people might not appreciate it...or get upset by it. that doesn't mean i think the author should feel any moral responsibility to change it. people can be upset about things...and be wrong to be upset. I asked you to explain why you think its reasonable for them to be upset. not to provide an example of them being so,

Because giving black sounding names to a culture/race that you explicitly state in your story as being stupid is leaning into a harmful stereotype. Either don't make them stupid, or don't give them a name them after such a culture / nation / ethnicity. Hardly feels like a crippling restrictions.


as far as how social rules are enforced, i've already answered. the most common consequences are shame and isolation. Which is precisely what you're proposing. 'hey, look at this ******* that included X in his story. he shouldn't have done that, amirite?' Thats shaming a person, and its almost always the first thing that occurs when someone is caught violating social rules. even if your first step is to say 'hey man, by the way, these people got offended by that thing you did in your story'. if said person were to double down, or refuse to 'fix' it, you'd resort to shaming.

And that's bad? The studio that has a 12 year transform into a young woman who has breasts which we get a decent view of, whilst staying a 12 year old girl mentally? Them feeling a bit of shame is bad?


a childs looks or activities in a way that is meant to evoke erotic emotions.

And how would you ever know this? If the author says "no, definitly wasn't meant to do that", you'll just accept like? I have my suspicions about the author of the Malazan series, mostly because I find it suspect such a thing would eb repeatedly mentioned without him getting something out of it, but I can't prove it. If it was just Felisin I would accept it, it makes sense in the circumstances and is relevant to her character arc, but it happen multiple times, often with little to no consequence for the story or character involved.

[Boci]

Whether you see it or not, you are speaking from a position of "if I make a complaint, something should happen to alleviate my concerns".

No I'm not. I'm aware that I can be wrong, in which case my concerns shouldn't be alleviated. You're reading something into my posts that isn't there.

People are going to be wrong sometimes. You are people. Everyone should be aware of that fact. But they shouldn't do nothing for fear of being wrong, that's not a practical approach.

[EggKookoo]

I am saying that people should temper their expectations and that expecting results because you're upset is unreasonable.

Unfortunately, corporations have and will continue to act in a timid, fearful way when criticized. If you can leaven that criticism with juicy stuff like "racism" it's all the more powerful.

And you can't counter-complain. You might think you're saying "Do we really need to have such a strong reaction to this criticism?" but your message is getting interpreted as "I support the things the critics are complaining about."

There's no winning this battle, except to vote with your wallet and move on.

[Boci]

Unfortunately, corporations have and will continue to act in a timid, fearful way when criticized. If you can leaven that criticism with juicy stuff like "racism" it's all the more powerful.

And you can't counter-complain. You might think you're saying "Do we really need to have such a strong reaction to this criticism?" but your message is getting interpreted as "I support the things the critics are complaining about."

There's no winning this battle, except to vote with your wallet and move on.

And yet there are examples where this hasn't worked. Sounds like you've given up before even trying, which is fine, you're not required to try, its your choice, but I'm not sold on the attitude of "there's nothing you can do" when there are examples of fans defending a property against such accusations.