WotC On Fire OGL

Source MGM

“Oopsy did we just burn our own company?”

 Well WotC has decided to burn down their own Wizard’s Tower. 

I only started buying WotC products for D&D with 5E otherwise they were unwanted editions previously owned by others, or games stores could not sell like the day I was given 4E stock that wouldn’t sell. I only bought 5E because I found a box set super cheap and said why not? Let’s modernise. All my other D&D stuff is TSR era. Anyway I will keep playing RPGs but expect future posts to be about non-TSR and non-WotC products. 

Hasbro stocks were down today because WotC has oversaturated the market with Magic the Gathering Cards… I wonder what the stock market will make of the open revolt of D&D Beyond account holders deleting their accounts, D&D Beyond hiding the delete button (you have to submit a support ticket now), people being upset at WotC over the OGL, WotC failing to talk to anyone about the OGL that is suppose to take effect tomorrow and cancelling such announcements twice now, people upset over the 2E books being messed with by the PC patrol in WotC D&D Beyond… and the TTRPG community in general cutting ties. Oh and the community knows about the censoring on various platforms, more back firing. The leaks about how the community including the players are viewed as an obstacle is not good WotC. I understand WotC is 1/2 of Hasbro’s profits. Anyway trust has been broken now between WotC and the RPG community. My RPG library is big enough I really don’t need WotC to create anything new for me to play… and there many great non WotC games. 

I do think WotC has woefully underestimated the TTRPG community’s ability to convert to different games, our ability to play without their VTT, our tendency to amass written rule sets on paper versus just their “leased” stuff, our personal libraries, our own independent desires and creative streaks. TTRPG players are not just video game players exploring a prewritten environment like zombies, we like to be creative, we kit-bash games, constantly plug and play and house rule experiment on our own. 

I just ordered all new reprints of Arduin and a new game Skating Wizards…  it’s time for gonzo wild and fun gaming. Now Arduin is the old rules I have ordered, in addition Old-School Essentials has arrived. Arduin is suppose to have new core rules come out this year, so looking forward to that. Also many popular creators in the RPG community are declaring what systems they are moving to or if they will be producing new core rules.  

I can’t believe the suits at WotC think no comment is a plan. Last year’s marketing mistake was from the fashion industry, this New Year’s marketing mistake is on WotC.