What's up?

So it has been over 7 years since I updated this blog.

Time and the will to do it were the main inhibitors. Family life plus job did not leave a lot of time unless I forced it. And if you do that enough, something you do for relaxation turns into an un-fun job.

But I’m here because I have a little more free-time and feel like it again. I doubt I’ll be doing it regularly but eh.

The group is still together though it has changed with several people coming in and out over the years. Most left due to life, one left due to me being a prick, one left shortly before being booted, and one I booted because he couldn’t stop being a munchkin. There’s still Dale though.

We play on Roll20 now. Initially it was for the obvious reasons. Now it’s because half the group is spread out across the country (Dale is in Arkansas). I should probably change the group name now, but I’m not going to.

As for what we play now, it is still 5E. It’s still a solid game, but it’s lost its shine as of late.

And that is mostly thanks to WotC’s recent OGL bs.

I mean there are some definite problems with 5E:
- AC is too exploitable.
- The combats still take forever.
- The amount of work the DMs need to do is still too much.
- The game cannot easily be altered without breaking or nerfing something else.
- WotC’s modules have sucked hard for 5E. The most loved one (Strahd) was painful to play in and run.
- The game is catering too much to newer fantasy…which is mostly my problem but if you want to play a Tabaxi at my table, no.

We’ve been playing on Roll20 since the pandemic began, and while it is a reasonably easy tool. I pay the $5 a month to get dynamic lighting which I really like. But setting it up is still work, not a lot of work but when you have to do a little here, and a little there, suddenly you’ve spent 2-4 hours for a map that may only be used for an hour.

And WotC wants to monopolize virtual tabletops?

Why?

Because they want to monetize it?

How, by making us pay for skins for our characters?

Are they going to sell those in online special random packs like Magic cards?

Several years back Aaron (no longer with the group) joked about buying PHBs with randomized classes inside like a Magic pack. I bet he’s regretting that joke now. “Sweet, I got paladin finally!”.

But here’s the real kicker, D&D Beyond as a VTT is not going to be what you want unless you spend big bucks buying pre-made maps and modules.

The amount of time it takes to build a Roll20 encounter is minor compared to how much time it will take to build something in D&DB.

Remember Neverwinter Nights 2?

I do.

It was supposed to be something akin to building modules and adding monsters for your group to be able to play in like it was almost a tabletop.

But that’s not what happened.

If you wanted something special you had to spend hours writing the code to have all the special rules for each and every thing in the game to act as you wanted it to.

Now if you wanted to make a map with various kobolds to act as the AI is already programmed to act, then you are probably good to go.

But what if one kobold is supposed to be different. How much time will that take to code?

And we all know that AI is exploitable. Someone will notice that when you do X in a game, the AI automatically does Y. “Hey paladin, go over there and dodge while we sneak over to this tile here. The AI will not switch targets and we can kill it with no damage.”

And I’m not going to go that deep into the OGL. I don’t believe it should be legal for WotC to do what they’re doing, but unless someone is willing to push back in a court of law and get a clear answer from the legal system, WotC will get what it wants.

Large corporations seem to get whatever they want anymore don’t they?

They’ll get what they want and it will cost them.

They are going to lose all the smaller companies that support them with ancillary products.

They’ll monetize things and get all the newer players to pay for everything monthly and/or with microtransactions.

The current online numbers I am hearing is that D&D made them $150,000,000 last year. And they are wanting to turn it into a $1,000,000,000 system.

It won’t happen.

Maybe they’ll increase the annual money made by the game, but they’re going to lose out in the end.

They overpaid for D&D Beyond with the goal of turning D&D into an online system where your phones and tablets have all your information.

They have made an overcomplicated game that encourages you to work with D&D Beyond with the illusion of saving money (don’t spend $50 per book when you can pay $10 a month) and getting the convenience of never having to have your character sheet with you.

I expect the release of One D&D will be repeat the schism that happened with 4E’s poorly done game (those were some beautiful books though weren’t they?).

They’ll lose the older gamers who know that all you need is the books. Maybe they’ll go to OSR gaming, or Pathfinder, or whatever.

Well, I’m old, nostalgic, and remember when it took less than 15 minutes to make a level 1 character.

My group is going to look online for simpler pastures.

And that’s what I told WotC in their recent survey.

They’ve lost the faith I had in them to be the company that lead my fantasy rpg-life.

The kicker, those in charge of WotC and Hasbro will be gone in 2-4 years but others will be left with the mess to clean up. And the shareholders will scream “You messed this up!”.

Maybe then they’ll make 7E and lure all the people back who left, like what happened with 5E.

And the cycle will repeat again.