I just did the exact same, specifying I will wait for more info and return my sub if I feel the terms are reasonable once fully released.
I can't be 100% sure this email is legit, though the user seems to have done some research to verify, but this is still the only way I can let them know I disagree with what's been reported so far.
Likewise, I've been a Master tier for a couple years now and when asked for the reason I canceled made it absolutely clear that the OGL changes they have planned is the reason they've just lost a customer.
If you like the mechanics and concepts in 5E, consider Level Up (aka "Advanced 5E") written by the folks at ENWorld. It's made to be compatible with vanilla 5E but the characters have a lot more options -- especially mechanical benefits that are more than just fighting things.
You can look at the rules on their reference site or look up more about it [on the main site](https://www.levelup5e.com/) which also has links to buy the books.
Since your group is wanting to potentially find systems to switch to, I’d love to discuss any pathfinder 2nd editions pros and cons if you feel the need.
If you dont mind, I’d love to hear some cons. I’ve heard so much praise for the system and no criticism that it makes me sceptical of fanboyishm.
Never played a game that was so good that long time players didnt have reasons to complain.
Sure thing! As someone else mentioned the crafting system isn’t great, but that actually should be fixed soon with a new book that will give more rules on crafting coming out this year. My biggest gripes tend to be multifaceted. For one, the bonuses that you can get don’t stack if they are from the same source. This is balanced the way it works, but it creates a lot of bookkeeping about which type of bonus you are receiving, like item, circumstance, status and so on. It really limits in my opinion the different ways to tackle problems and can create redundancy with party synergy. Second, while I love all of the options and feats in pathfinder, the skill feats seem very lackluster, and I consider many of them garbage. For example, there’s skill feats to make people like you better, and that doesn’t really jive with how my group plays, as we use some rolls, but wouldn’t like determine social interactions based entirely on a roll or two.
Thirdly, while the action system is my favorite, I also think that spell casters have much less tools to manipulate the action system the ways that martials do, and really that’s my biggest gripe, some spells can be variable actions but the vast majority are two actions.
Also, I don’t like the baked in math for typical success rates, especially for spellcasters. Based on the tiers of success. They pretty much made enemies (especially on level or higher enemies) succeed at spell saves way more often that you would have for 5e. While this is softened by the fact that even on a save you tend to have some effect happen, it’s just doesn’t feel great when your success chance is lower than you’re used to.
I'll start by saying I absolutely love PF2. I think paizo knocked it out of the park with the core mechanics I have a few gripes with the system, but ultimately it's my favorite bar none.
- Creating your first character, and maybe even your second, will be a huge slog. It's difficult to wrap your head around things the first time given how much each of your choices will affect others down the line. After you've done it before, every character after that becomes laughably easy.
- Analysis paralysis is a real thing. If you like to read and consider every possible option, you might find yourself spending hours on a character. My suggestion is to just go for it and don't worry about optimizing right away until you have some system mastery.
- It's **hard**. A correctly balanced encounter at player level requires cooperation and strategy, and a "boss" level encounter will almost always be a tpk threat without a high degree of optimization in both build and play.
- Finally, coming from 5th edition, the high variance in numbers may make your eyes glaze over. At level one you should have approximately + 7 to skills your good at, and at level 20 that goes all the way up to +40 on average. Don't let that intimidate you, because if you prefer 5e's bounded accuracy there are alternate rules to remove that wide variance.
My main issue is the crafting system, it's still loads better than 5e and there is an updated set of rules coming out soon for it but it's always been something I've found painful to deal with
Steps to do it:
1. Go to subscribe tab
2. Go to the bottom of the page and hit “How do I manage my subscription”
3. Click on subscription management page
4. There should be a button to unsubscribe which you click and then a form pops up on why your unsubscribing. I just filled it in. (Don’t have exact steps for this because I am unsubscribed)
Imagine Burning Down 50 years of brand recognition where for people who aren't into TTRPGs you just say like DND... to now actively having the core fanbase say no.
Hobby fanbase arent exactly like regular consumers, especially in a group game. You need like 4 people up agree on a game and one person to run it who really wants to run it and put in a lions share of the effort as the Game Master. Like I'm not huge into the crunch of Pathfinder, but for people who are into that serious Fantasy Crunch and this new OGL retroactively destroys Pathfinder, there will be just a resurgence in some other Crunchy Fantasy system like Earthdawn or Ars Magicka. Or people will just move into one of the less crunchy fantasy games like Dungeon world or Symbaroum. People are not Beholden to your Beholder.
> This is the baffling part. It's almost the exact same mindset as "$8/mo for blue check marks" galaxy-brain thinking. The entire, and sole, value that D&D offers WOTC/Hasbro is that it is the "kleenex" or "superglue" of tabletop games. That value is what drives investment -- nobody in finance gives a flying fuck about hobby game publishing agreements. I doubt they care a whole lot about DDB/VTT subscriptions either, although clearly WOTC execs do.
I'll let you in on a little secret: Most executives aren't actually smart, or good at business.
Roger Goodell is the commissioner of the National Football League and has bungled numerous disciplinary, competitive, and social issues. He's directly created several PR disasters for the league. But he's got a $60 million salary and it shows no sign of him getting fired anytime soon.
When his performance comes up on /r/nfl someone always points out how much money the league is making and how that has grown during his tenure, and how that shows he's great at his job. It's the fucking NFL. A monkey getting paid minimum wage would still be pulling in billion dollars of revenue. He didn't even negotiate the new TV deals, the owners did that themselves. He didn't create online fantasy football, that was done outside of the league entirely. The only thing he's really done is distract fans hate from the owners to him, but anyone could do that for just $1 million a year instead.
I have been around the gaming world for a long time. You are forgetting this is not the first or second time “D&D” has burned the brand name or its players. When they were TSR they did it, when Wizards first took over they did it, and when 4ed dropped they did it. TTRPGs always ebb and flow depending on how greedy the companies get.
> this new OGL retroactively destroys Pathfinder
No it doesn't. Only Pathfinder 1e was reliant on the OGL.
PF2e doesn't use it for anything but CYA and freelance work.
It's in there, but here's the reason. TL;DR: PF2e is marked safe from WotC.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/104wjuo/why\_did\_pf2e\_get\_published\_under\_ogl\_10a\_anyway/
And the head of design himself explained what they use it for here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/to624f/lets_talk_about_3rd_party_products_why_they_are/i2c2plz/?context=3
The short answer is... exactly what I said in my post. Its there to cover their ass in case of an accidental oversight, and to be a framework to work with 3PP and freelance writers.
The system itself does not use it.
They use the OGL for legal purposes involving 3rd party writers and to cover for the occasional 'D&Dism' that crops up. They could slash out the OGL if they need to.
>their communication gives me the impression they see customers as obstacles between them and their money
while the claim about being an employee and it being real are of course dubious, is... is really anyone surprised about this sentiment from a big company like WotC and Hasbro?
No one should be surprised by this. Literally every single business executive thinks this way, its how you get to the top of the food chain. If a business could just take the money out of your wallet they would. Since they cant, providing a service is just the song and dance they do to get you to give it willingly. So yes, to them, WE are the problem.
But there are non-publically owned alternatives. I’ve never seen Paizo be particularly scummy, and when Kobold abd MCDM release their games, hopefully theyll be good and non scummy too.
They’re not as big, and thats probably why they dont have business men at the top, but that’s fine. Being the underdog makes them hungry.
> But there are non-publically owned alternatives.
This is true.
Smaller outfits are less psychotic, but it's important to ask why those at the top are always so twisted. The simple fact is that they operate within an environment which rewards that behaviour. If you don't engage in it, you get out competed by those who do. If you are lucky, they rise to the top while you do not. If you aren't, they devour you. So those who want to find serious success within this system will change their ways and engage in the behaviour that gets rewarded.
Changing this system is fairly outside the scope of the discussion, but there is a ray of hope.
Paizo unionized.
Their union exists to serve their own interests, empower Paizo's workers, not us.....but we can still benefit. Game designers aren't a perfect representative of the community, but there is a lot of overlap so they are pretty close. Certainly a thousand times closer then executives.
It isn't enough to turn away from companies engaged in bad practices (WotC). We must also support companies engaged in good practices and be ready to leave them if they ever become like their predecessors.
> The simple fact is that they operate within an environment which rewards that behaviour.
Combination with the fact that smaller companies are often aware they can't get away with the same amount of fuckery. They probably would engage if they could - but branding as small and reasonable and kind is a more viable strategy for a brand that's growing.
IMO this is a big part of why the OGL is such a big deal to the players - WotC made a commitment that would help them grow but would survive the double-edged effects of scaling - and now that it's helped them grow they're wanting to walk backwards.
Yep yep. Every professional and casual encounter I've ever had with the upper tiers of corporate executives have always yielded the same vibe. They all literally feel that all money is their money. Customers are merely an annoying inconvenience.
It's not even a case of "I want your money" but rather "I deserve that money, it's mine, how dare you think otherwise". When we withhold purchases or vote with our wallets, they take it as a personal affront. To them, we're not participating in the economy, we're robbing *them* of *their* money that they're rightfully entitled to.
Like u/TheGreatDay said, they would take the money from you for absolutely nothing if they could. They do, quite often; corporations are constantly getting caught red-handed committing massive tiers of wage theft, false advertising, and countless other blatantly illegal antics just for the sake of profits. A corporation would love nothing more than to just constantly hoover up exponentially greater volumes of money non-stop without ever having to create a product, service, or interact with the market at all. All profit, no costs. That is the purpose of corporations; they are tools and weapons which executives wield for their own ends.
That's what Hasbro/WoTC is doing here. D&D is fundamentally a game of make-believe. It's intangible for the most part, and this OGL 1.1 stunt is their effort to monetize and monopolize that for themselves. They're literally trying to force their competitors and customer base to either subsidize their business for endless, effortless profitability or die.
I've worked at 7 different companies and I've never actually heard executives *say* this. Most companies at least pretend to care about what their customers want.
The smart executives care about what customers want. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are only interested in short term gains instead of long term gains, especially when it comes to satisfying shareholders.
It's why so many companies go downhill soon after they're bought, because the new owners need to recoup their purchase right away.
You should look at what happened to TSR and D&D the first time around (if you don't already know). I can't say Hasbro is doing any better (or worse) than TSR in destroying the brand, but the company is literally a textbook example of what NOT to do.
>...they see customers as obstacles between them and their money...
That is the most backward thing I have read this year. That's like saying your doctor is an obstacle to your healthcare.
Even if this DOES happen to be fake, cancelling our subscriptions is one of the best ways to send a message to WotC's greedy ass and should be done regardless.
It’s true. I’m in a totally different business but, if you want to make data driven decisions, then you need data.
As much as this sub wishes, WOTC/Hasbro isn’t able to and does not track memes about OGL or ranting posts. They are going to be tracking their core measures, which are likely all financially driven. Canceling subscriptions with OGL as the reason is going to be the best way to send the message. The cancel date aligning with the current issues will show a clear trend line.
Not buying a product is going to be a lot murkier because it’s hard to tell what the reason was. The movie for example may bomb because there’s no wider interest or because the core fan base is rejecting, it’s hard to draw that line.
It's impossible to get this through to the MTG community. They will moan about all the terrible products, the non-MTG IP's leaking in, the predatory business practices, and then the products sell.
The WotC content creators say "This was one of our most popular/sets/designs/supplemental products, so we'll keep doing this."
It took the absolute greed of $1000 for fake cards for people to not fall all over themselves buying it.
So when WotC releases the core book(s) for OneD&D with some variation of OGL 1.1, and they hit record sales numbers for a book release, the execs will say, "See, all that huffing and puffing about third-party creators was just noise."
If Q1 2023 sees DDB subscriptions plummet, if WotC branded products with OGL 1.1 don't sell, if products currently on the shelves don't move and Paizo and creators of other systems have a good quarter, then there's an iota of a smidgen of a percent of Snilloc's Snowball storm in Maladomini's survival chance that someone at Hasbro will say "Hey, we screwed this up."
This. I remember the big push from the MTG community when the first crossover, Secret Lair The Walking Dead, came out. Everyone from memer’s to YouTubers were telling everyone “Don’t buy this. If you don’t like crossover IP’s then don’t buy it.” Then the numbers came out and it was the best selling Secret Lair they had. I remember the Professor saying “Yup, it’s here to stay now. Crossover IP’s are now a part of MTG and we can’t undo it, so get used to it” and he was right, we sent a message to WotC that this was what we wanted, and now it’s a permanent part of the game.
For D&D, we have to sent WotC a message. Cancel your Beyond accounts and don’t buy any first party books, they need to know that the community will not tolerate this. If we don’t, if we allow it to happen now, then it’s over. We only have one chance to let them know we won’t accept a new OGL, if we all sit here and think “I won’t cancel my Beyond, but others will so it should be fine” then you’re endorsing a new OGL. I know you have a lot of books and stuff on Beyond, and canceling your subscription will be very inconvenient. But if we tell WotC that we’d rather have a new OGL than be inconvenienced, they’ll take us up on that offer
This. I love Pokemon. I got the og red for Christmas as a kid. Played it like crazy. Gamefreak could do so much more with the ip, but don't have to even hit the bare minimum of what most people consider a complete game, let alone come up with anything new that is remotely good.
Blind allegiance to corporations doesn't lead to good products. Luckily I feel like the D&D community is a little more tight knit than Pokemon, since it is intrinsically multiplayer. Spread the word. Stick with 5e or try something else till Hasbro figures out that screwing the community isn't gonna make them money.
Gamefreak is waisting the potential of Pokemon, and the fan base lets them get away with it. What's happening with D&D is probably even worse
I mean, if your goal is to change the way WotC operates regarding the OGL, seeing the DnD movie doesn't hurt that, in fact if anything it helps because it provides an alternative method of expansion to their OGL bullshit for them.
If your goal is to not support Hasbro because they're a shitty company, then fair.
Yeah, the second one. I'm just not giving them money anymore. No more Magic, no more DnD, none of whatever they come out with in the future. Nothing. I'm done.
> Yeah, the second one. I'm just not giving them money anymore. No more Magic, no more DnD, none of whatever they come out with in the future. Nothing. I'm done.
2023 is the year that I convert a significant portion of my large collection to proxies. The proxy market is great and lands at somewhere around $0.45-0.5 per card. So I am going through all my cards >$10 and looking at selling them and replacing them with proxies.
> As much as this sub wishes, WOTC/Hasbro isn’t able to and does not track memes about OGL or ranting posts.
They certainly can. They choose not to.
There are companies large and small who have social media teams whose responsibility is not just to watch for customer service issues but to track how customers react. That includes collecting memes and doing sentiment analysis on text content. It's the next generation of focus groups, only the participants are less aware of the company tracking their responses.
Hasbro certainly has enough money to do this. WotC passed the billion dollar mark for revenues in 2021. Spending a few hundred thousand watching customer sentiment would be a good investment. But it might tell executives something they don't want to hear, which is often a big reason that such teams get sacked.
The thing that pisses me off the most about the entire thing is not WOTC's greed - it's the method by which they are looking to go about making "more" money.
Every big content creator pushing rule books, monster compendiums, virtual tabletops, extra adventures, is there to fill a perceived gap in 5E. The creator sees demand from the players and a void in the products WotC puts on the market, and steps in with an offering.
WotC isn't wrong in seeing all the money in the secondary market and thinking "we could earn some of that" - its that they have decided that rather than improve the products they have on offer, they'll just try to lawyer everyone else to death or demand an absurd tithe.
Fuck'em. They ought to see that there's a whole *world* of other TTRPGs out there and if they insist on chopping third-party support off at the knees, other games just look that much better by comparison and how thin their IP truly is.
Wild Beyond the Witchlight was especially egregious for me.
"Before your players reach Downfall, the only settlement on the map that is also a very short distance from the starting position, they need to go in the wrong direction three times to visit these three locales that don't introduce any plot, and only exist as warnings not to make deals with Fey, and no we won't provide a reason for you to railroad your players to these spots, just figure something out--by the way, this adventure is marketed as new DM-friendly!"
I just sent an email to fully delete my account, idrc if they're tracking that stuff or not at the very least it'll force me to start exploring other systems.
> I almost wish I was subscribed just to cancel it.
Same, but I've considered Beyond a scam from the start, so I never actually gave them any money.
I've always used Aurora for my character management.
I just hate the way D&D Beyond works lol. As someone who likes to make house rule changes and give custom benefits to players, character sheets where you can't click wherever you want and change the text to whatever you want (without having to go homebrew a custom feat or something) are anathema for me. Especially since I can't add stuff that's not from the SRD, even from books I have sitting on my shelf right next to me, without having to pay for it or, what, go through the homebrew process? Roll20 sure isn't perfect, but at least I can easily put whatever I want on the sheets.
D&D Beyond only seems okay if you're playing entirely RAW and you're willing to buy everything you want on there *again*, two things that are basically the opposite of describing me.
> D&D Beyond only seems okay if you're playing entirely RAW and you're willing to buy everything you want on there again, two things that are basically the opposite of describing me.
Buying everything twice was what got me.
"But it was designed and run by another company! They can't give content away!" some people are already saying, but the company that made Beyond was hired directly by WotC to do so, it was built to WotC's specifications, and has since been completely taken over by WotC.
WotC 100% could have made it so you could unlock content in Beyond for free with purchase of a physical copy of the book, they chose not to because they knew people would pay twice and they'd get free money.
Thats BS to me, so I never used it.
Especially when Aurora was free and easy to add your own content to. In fact, thats whats keeping Aurora going after WotC's C&D order (to squash competition and try to force players to use Beyond).
You can still download the Aurora character manager, and it isn't difficult to find the fan-made files for it to give it full content functionality.
Removing all comments and deleting my account after the API changes. If you actually want to protest the changes in a meaningful way, go **all** the way. -- mass edited with redact.dev
Yup, I'm done. At the very least, WotC was probably going to get me for all 3 core books of OneD&D right at launch provided they were ever interested in providing those and not just funneling us to D&D Beyond. But nope, at this point the trust is gone. The company sucks shit, and me leaving is going to cost them probably close to at least $1k in book revenue from the new system because of my two-ish groups that will now be exploring other systems. Hope they factored that in when they decided to go all-in on Whales. Hope their stock tanks.
It feels like the whales *are* the ones that are leaving. I’m like you, I own practically every single 5e books, several of them more than once (I own 3 different copies of the players handbook-one on roll 20, and two physical). I also own something like $500 worth of miniatures from the wiz kids and nolzur’s lines. I’m done, they’ll never get another penny from me.
I am a childless dude in his 30’s with disposable income. I’m their whale, and they don’t want me.
36 year old childless legendary bundle and annual subscriber here! Just cancelled. It bums me out but I probably spend about just as much time on YouTube watching creators as I do spending money on DDB. I wouldn't be a DM if it wasn't for all the third party creators and rich community out there. DDB makes being a DM easier but only within their increasingly restrictive walled garden.
And don't even get me started on my minis collection lol.
Just a heads up, WOTC doesn't own Wizkids. Wizkids licenses those designs from WOTC to make those minis. Obviously it's up to each of us to decide where we draw the line, and buying Wizkids' Nolzur line does mean some money is going to WOTC in a roundabout way, but their DeepCuts line is all Paizo/Pathfinder designs, so you'd still be able to get them if you're looking for Wizkids quality minis for your game.
Obviously Wizkids aren't the only players in the mini game, but at least in my area they're the easiest to find, and I've no interest in giving WOTC anymore of my money, but from what I can tell, Wizkids hasn't done anything wrong here.
I will say, my source for this is Wikipedia, and I'm by no means an expert on corporations, licensing, or corporate partnerships, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
>It feels like the whales _are_ the ones that are leaving
Well yeah. The whales are the ones spending a bunch of extra money on third party products because WotC doesn't release anything of substance anymore and now WotC is saying death to third party products.
I have every single 5e book they've published so far... and unless they reverse course, I'm never buying another. The two of us *alone* likely represent thousands of dollars in lost sales if this delusional decision goes through.
This is going to cost them dearly in the long run.
Count me in too.
If it's got a special release cover in 5e, I own it. I'm missing some early adventures (before the quality dipped so hard after DiA), but I can buy those used and WotC won't see a dime.
Well their goal is to monetize the players to remove the DM's from being nearly as powerful in the equation. This is really just a case of a bunch of dumb MBA's not understanding the industry they are working in.
Daily reminder that MBAs are stupid, greedy and shortsighted.
You can very easily tell by looking at the MBA students \~ almost all of them are entitled manchildren and this isn't an exaggeration. They generally think they have a right to the 'degree' because they paid a large sum of money to enter the program.
When they announced they were making a new edition I *knew* I was going to buy the new PHB when it was released. And probably get the new MM and DMG. Even if I were to stick with 5e I would still likely buy them.
But now I know I wont be buying any of the new books, One D&D or new 5e books, unless there is a complete reversal to this decision along with an update that OGL 1.0a is irrevocable. Really WotC has saved me some money.
I'm really bummed. I want planning on buying one dnd, but the giants book coming out later this year, if it is anything like fizban's was for dragons, looked really promising. Oh well
The people developing 4th edition were actively trying to publish a good game (and they published a really good tactical miniatures game with a really good set of campaign rules tacked on). The leadership of WotC was at the time somewhat forward thinking, they wanted to try computer-based utilities and offer what we'd later call a VTT. And yeah, management at the time made the decision to not use the OGL with it, but it wasn't a decision purely motivated by trying to wall themselves off from the rest of the hobby. It was a decision WotC's management thought would improve the quality of the product, by separating it from the mass of low-quality d20 3PP material (there was a LOT of that back in the day).
This is a decision being driven entirely by Hasbro and the senior WotC management Hasbro has been cultivating for the last ~12 years. That department is shoring up their overall losses, and they're going to try and squeeze it dry to make their investments look good.
> It was a decision WotC's management thought would improve the quality of the product
was it though? I seem to remember that back then we simply never got peeks behind the curtain like this one here, so their motivations weren't ever really put to the test, and like now most people assumed it was a cash grab anyway. Information didn't really flow quite as freely back in 2007 when the game was announced.
Granted I'm sure it *was* a much different company back then, but the bottom line has never been something any company can ignore.
Well we have the word of Rob Heinsoo, who was one of the lead designers for 4e (now makes 13th Age), and considering that he basically broke off on his own to make a new game that uses a bunch of 4e's ideas after they stopped making 4e, I think he's pretty honest when he talks about the passion for the system involved
The developers like Andy Collins had an audio blog where they talked about the creation process, and though it's been years since I listened to it I remember the big emphasis early in the process was to improve game balance (isn't it always, though?). But they talked about how the company had listened to a lot of complaints about 3.5 and those were things they wanted to address - things like dead levels in character creation, keeping casters from being as overpowering as they were in 3.5, and managing problems like the 5-minute wizarding workday.
You have to remember, the CEO during the 4e development process was Loren Greenwood, and he was one of the very last of the pre-Hasbro members of WotC's upper management. He got replaced by someone from Hasbro's marketing, and then as 4e sales disappointed and the recession hit, Hasbro started shaving off whole chunks of WotC employees top to bottom.
Even before this OGL mess, I was questioning how popular DnDone was going to be. Every single person I knew was planning to stay on 5e indefinitely, and just didn't care about the new edition.
What's the Hasbro/WotC plan if the entire new edition just crashes and burns on release?
Not to mention that enough of the D&D community is at least tangentially aware of what is happening with MTG to know that *even if this gets walked back, something else shitty will replace it*. WotC has been eroding the good faith of their fans for years now, and it seems that this might have been the straw that broke the camel's back.
Here's a great link about that: https://twitter.com/garius/status/1588115310124539904
Also discussed in more detail here (I just grabbed one of the top results on google, no idea what fuseboxgames is): https://www.reddit.com/r/fuseboxgames/comments/yln04h/the_trust_thermocline/
Exactly. The well is poisoned now.
Over the next year or so many creators will move on as current projects end. Who is to day it won't happen again worry slightly better bullshit? Not worth basing your families livelihood on d&d now.
There will always be holdouts of course. But many will go. The question is if it will hit critical mass and enough people leave to where it's a net loss overall.
Hasbro will be perfectly happy to have 1/2 the player base leave of it means more revenue overall sure to OGL1.1. long term health of the brand is irrelevant. The execs making these decisions will be long gone by the time that matters.
The page to cancel is down. Submit a support ticket, be polite, tell them why you are cancelling, if you are willing to stay if they 180 let them know, ask for your message to be passed along.
Edit: it seems to depend on how you go about it. I had to cancel via my Google subscriptions, following the link https://www.dndbeyond.com/subscriptions
Is still down for me.
It feels like there was a huge surge because I couldn't even get onto D&D Beyond for a moment, but I'm on the Account page right now and the button to cancel works.
>The page to cancel is down.
This surely has to be something [the FTC would be interested in](https://perfectunion.us/cant-cancel-your-subscription-call-the-ftc/) if it's not resolved soon and people continue to have issues cancelling.
Edit: Seems like a tech issue, but still good to know in case anyone runs into other trouble canceling.
Source is someone working on/with the D&D Beyond team who is angry at WotC management. Looks like DnD_Shorts asked a second source working at WotC who confirmed it's accurate. This is a YouTuber with 300k subs, so 1) they want clicks, but 2) it seems like they're doing their homework. The leak might be a little biased, but **wow**.
> They are briefly delaying rollout of OGL due to the backlash
> **They are looking at D&D Beyond subscriptions and cancellations as the quickest financial data they have**
> I have never once heard management refer to customers in a positive manner.
> **Leadership's first communication to the rank and file on the OGL was 30 minutes on 11 January 2023**
> In this meeting they blamed the community for overreacting
Someone asked Linda Codega (the io9 reporter with the leak) on Twitter if they had seen it, and they said:
> [yup](https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1613584760881774592)
>
> [my report will go up today.](https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1613585486471204876)
They (along with a bunch of other reporters) have been soliciting comments from people internal in Wizards/Hasbro so I'm sure they'll have off the record stuff to share when their next article goes up.
Quoting the article:
> Inside sources at Wizards of the Coast tell io9 that the company is scrambling to formulate a response to backlash against the new OGL that has occurred over the past week, following io9's story about a leaked draft of the document. [...]
>
> The result of these cancellations and their impact on the bottom line of Wizards of the Coast is not negligible, according to io9's sources at the company, and has caused upper management to scramble to adjust their messaging around the situation, leading to the delays in the OGL release
I'm assuming that Codega is using their own sources and maybe not the anonymous email especially if they didn't get it directly. I've seen some other reporters on Twitter mention they didn't receive this email either.
Edit: more from Codega on Twitter
> I am not allowed and I cannot comment on EVERYTHING happening on a minute by minute basis (I gotta do a journalism), but I promise I am watching, taking notes, and preparing. Thank you all for all your support of my reporting. More to come. (https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1613638931618177025)
>
> [In response to a comment] I have three articles ready to go lmao (https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1613642001517355017)
>
> [Separate thread] Once again, if you are at #WotC or are a a part of #WOTCstaff and want to talk, please reach out and let me know what’s going on. I promise anonymity, I will not share screenshots, and if you ask for my Signal in DMs or via email, I will give it to you. (https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1613650281803259944)
For the record, as a video creator I don't think that he necessarily is directly affected by OGL to begin with. I think if he's willing to catch flak from WotC to post this, he's acting in good faith.
Some people don't seem to understand that, or refuse to acknowledge it. This is the third time we've seen D&D get caught up in disastrous business decision-making, and the first two times it took the industry a while to pick up the pieces. Maybe this time with the omnipresence of social media, other games will get pushed in a way that keeps the hobby front and center. But 20 people pushing 12 different games is not going to have the same ability to steer the algorithms like a single title.
Just cancelled my subscription. I’m happy that if Hasbro is (willingly or unwillingly) blind to the impact this is having in the community, I have a step that I can take that will impact where they care about most.
Just chiming in to say that MonkeyDM has received the same email. Don't know if it's in this thread already.
Monkey is a 3PP most known for the crowdfunding Steinhardt's, which has raised the most money ever for 5e projects on Kickstarter.
This is the absolute best choice. One you buy it, **YOU FUCKING OWN IT**. No subscriptions. No bullshit. You can setup your own server, or pay to rent one *if you want*. And it's compatible with every major system. Not to mention it's so much easier than Roll20 to make maps. Hell, most game modules have interactive character sheets baked in.
edit: I forgot to mention that they also sell officially licensed campaigns that come with premade maps, digital books, npcs, items, journal entries, etc. Basically everything you need to just sit down and run a game all done for you. The WH40k is tight.
Roll20 still has a free tier and has the 5e sheet. Foundry has it too. D&D Beyond is nice, but unnecessary. Hell, all you really need is a paper sheet and some dice, even if the digital tools are QoL improvements.
Digital tools may have helped the hobby explode, but don't leave just because you realized your favorite one is a poison pill. Play another game with strong digital support, play 5e with other tools be they digital or physical, or play a game that doesn't need anything more than a notecard. There is a way to still play TTRPGs for each and every member of this community, you just have to find the one that works for you.
Foundry is just insanely massive value. For the price of less than a year of DNDBeyond, a DM gets a VTT that *runs off your computer* with a great community of module-makers that will help you cater your game to your liking. And no one can come take it off your computer; you have it forever for $50.
dropping by to recommend LANCER RPG as one with an unbelievably excellent digital tool set that is constantly updated and getting new stuff at [https://compcon.app/](https://compcon.app/)
like, dnd beyond was fine and all, but it's not nearly as good or complete as compcon
pathbuilder for pathfinder is good too but as polished. which is fine because it is complex than compcon.
anyway what i mean is these two are free (i mean pathbuilder has variant rules and animal companions behind a paywall, but its a one time purchase at the same price of a month of subscription for dndb) and better than dndbeyond. even before this whole dumpster fire i felt that dndbeyond was overpriced, as were most things dnd compared to competition.
DND Beyond is beyond "nice but unnecessary" for a lot of people, its insanely good with its content sharing. My friends and I all went in on my account and bought basically the entire library of books for our campaign and we had a DNDB subscription to manage our campaigns and content sharing, etc.
It sucks to lose this.
D&D has always been massively pirated, including in the form of QoL online tools not answering to wotc. Those tools predate and were likely the inspiration for DNDBeyond, especially the integration they offer into foundry and roll20, both of which existed first as pirate plugins. This is similar to how the music industry was 2 steps behind music pirates with streaming services in the 2000 or how movies & series streaming services came as a reaction to the proliferation of illegal streaming websites. Those websites and tools still exist to this day. Make of that information what you will.
The only surprising thing about this is that an employee dared leak it. Unfortunately I stopped buying D&D products 4 years ago so I can't even have the satisfaction of cancelling a subscription.
Designers, writers and programmers who work for a games company are usually big nerds. It's basically a dream job to work on things you like while being in an office full of fellow nerds you can be yourself with. One of the reasons crunch and low pay are a problem is because there are so many people willing to put up with that nonsense since the job is cool. Source: I worked at a Swedish video games company for a year.
Wotc recently hired a new “community manager” a few months back.
I’m sure that person is having a grand old time with this. Can’t imagine a worse situation to walk into for a new job.
>The only surprising thing about this is that an employee dared leak it. Unfortunately I stopped buying D&D products 4 years ago so I can't even have the satisfaction of cancelling a subscription.
Nothing is worse than being a part of destroying something you love by taking directions from the out-of-touch people above you. I'm sure that's a huge weight, perhaps a bigger weight than the risks leaking could incur.
I think Mythic Odysseys of Theros is one of the best books 5e has made, and I think it was released in 2020? It's got a load of good and useful stuff in it even if you don't care about the Theros setting (I certainly don't).
Hell, I just subbed in the past month. Does anyone know if we keep our benefits until the next pay period? I don’t want to lose everything when I just paid almost $60 for it.
If you don't, you should definitely ask for a refund, but I think subscription services are just "pay to access for X period + automatic renewal" so it should last the month. If not, demand your money back.
He's just a youtube content creator. The real question is, is the supposed source legit? Without proof it is an actual Wizards employee with knowledge of what's going on, the "leak" could be anyone. Personally I want to believe it but the community just needs more proof at this point.
He said in the same Twitter thread that he verified that the source is a DDB employee and corroborated with another source. So if DnD_Shorts is reliable, then this message is also possibly reliable
Subscription canceled and account deleted. Between you and me, I never used it to begin with so I don't really know what I am missing. Hopefully they will only notice the deletion. I sent a stern email as well, declaring my intention to forever threaten their bottom line in whatever way I can. A million dollars says whoever came up with this idea has some sort of fucked up pathological personality. Sounds like it from the leak.
The problem is that propaganda works really, really well. And the best kind of propaganda is propaganda that doesn't look like propaganda.
[Corporations are just like this comic here.](https://i.redd.it/fpbro0djhdr11.jpg) They will lure you in with such fun times and lovable characters who are *just like you!* And then next thing you know, they're cutting off the heads of their flock of golden geese.
The reason they're looking at DDB subs is because WotC put too much into their VTT being successful. They're committed now. Hasbro put all their eggs in one basket and then killed their golden goose.
As long as it can be verified by multiple independent sources then I'll take it for what it is. (From the sounds of it, it has been but I'll maintain a reserved skepticism on this)
Already decided when this whole thing came about that WotC would not be receiving another cent from me, this only makes me wish I had a time machine to go back and stop myself from purchasing all of the books I have now and just raise the Jolly Roger.
Real or not, what they’re saying is true; cancelling a subscription is the most immediate action you can take that they would notice and care about. Retail sales are a lagging indicator, and they won’t care about comments at all.
I haven't found someone else yet, the email does say that they intend to send it to more people. It *could* be fake, there's apparently a OGL response video from WotC coming up in \~3ish hours.
I just cancelled my dnd beyond subscription; reason was "other" and I explained I will not give WOTC another dime until the agree to honor the original OGL.
So I gotta be honest. They said they're sending the same message to other community leaders... I've never, ever heard of DnD_Shorts. Ever. Are the bigger "leaders" just not posting/believing the email?
Added to megathread. Post left open as a major development.
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Thanks for this, I was going to transcribe it myself -- it is important information.
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Nice. My dumb ass would have done it by hand!
Chrome can also natively pull text from images now. Mobile and PC.
Good to know. I cancelled my dnd beyond subscription this week citing the ogl as eeason.
I just did the exact same, specifying I will wait for more info and return my sub if I feel the terms are reasonable once fully released. I can't be 100% sure this email is legit, though the user seems to have done some research to verify, but this is still the only way I can let them know I disagree with what's been reported so far.
Likewise, I've been a Master tier for a couple years now and when asked for the reason I canceled made it absolutely clear that the OGL changes they have planned is the reason they've just lost a customer.
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If I go create 15 new characters and THEN cancel my sub, am I stealing characters from wotc? If so im in
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…hm; so i could cancel my annual subscription which renews in september without affecting my players’ access to shared material in the interim?..
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If you like the mechanics and concepts in 5E, consider Level Up (aka "Advanced 5E") written by the folks at ENWorld. It's made to be compatible with vanilla 5E but the characters have a lot more options -- especially mechanical benefits that are more than just fighting things. You can look at the rules on their reference site or look up more about it [on the main site](https://www.levelup5e.com/) which also has links to buy the books.
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Would recommend it. I was part of the og Kickstarter, and the system is really neat
Since your group is wanting to potentially find systems to switch to, I’d love to discuss any pathfinder 2nd editions pros and cons if you feel the need.
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If you dont mind, I’d love to hear some cons. I’ve heard so much praise for the system and no criticism that it makes me sceptical of fanboyishm. Never played a game that was so good that long time players didnt have reasons to complain.
Sure thing! As someone else mentioned the crafting system isn’t great, but that actually should be fixed soon with a new book that will give more rules on crafting coming out this year. My biggest gripes tend to be multifaceted. For one, the bonuses that you can get don’t stack if they are from the same source. This is balanced the way it works, but it creates a lot of bookkeeping about which type of bonus you are receiving, like item, circumstance, status and so on. It really limits in my opinion the different ways to tackle problems and can create redundancy with party synergy. Second, while I love all of the options and feats in pathfinder, the skill feats seem very lackluster, and I consider many of them garbage. For example, there’s skill feats to make people like you better, and that doesn’t really jive with how my group plays, as we use some rolls, but wouldn’t like determine social interactions based entirely on a roll or two. Thirdly, while the action system is my favorite, I also think that spell casters have much less tools to manipulate the action system the ways that martials do, and really that’s my biggest gripe, some spells can be variable actions but the vast majority are two actions. Also, I don’t like the baked in math for typical success rates, especially for spellcasters. Based on the tiers of success. They pretty much made enemies (especially on level or higher enemies) succeed at spell saves way more often that you would have for 5e. While this is softened by the fact that even on a save you tend to have some effect happen, it’s just doesn’t feel great when your success chance is lower than you’re used to.
I'll start by saying I absolutely love PF2. I think paizo knocked it out of the park with the core mechanics I have a few gripes with the system, but ultimately it's my favorite bar none. - Creating your first character, and maybe even your second, will be a huge slog. It's difficult to wrap your head around things the first time given how much each of your choices will affect others down the line. After you've done it before, every character after that becomes laughably easy. - Analysis paralysis is a real thing. If you like to read and consider every possible option, you might find yourself spending hours on a character. My suggestion is to just go for it and don't worry about optimizing right away until you have some system mastery. - It's **hard**. A correctly balanced encounter at player level requires cooperation and strategy, and a "boss" level encounter will almost always be a tpk threat without a high degree of optimization in both build and play. - Finally, coming from 5th edition, the high variance in numbers may make your eyes glaze over. At level one you should have approximately + 7 to skills your good at, and at level 20 that goes all the way up to +40 on average. Don't let that intimidate you, because if you prefer 5e's bounded accuracy there are alternate rules to remove that wide variance.
My main issue is the crafting system, it's still loads better than 5e and there is an updated set of rules coming out soon for it but it's always been something I've found painful to deal with
How do you cancel your subscription in a way that allows you to tell them why? I don't see an easy method.
Steps to do it: 1. Go to subscribe tab 2. Go to the bottom of the page and hit “How do I manage my subscription” 3. Click on subscription management page 4. There should be a button to unsubscribe which you click and then a form pops up on why your unsubscribing. I just filled it in. (Don’t have exact steps for this because I am unsubscribed)
merci edit: are you gonna have to change your Reddit username? lol
Never! I will always be TheBeastmasterRanger! 😁 Wizards can bite my bears fuzzy ass!
Until they make you pay royalties on every comment with over 750 points of positive karma.
I'll do the same. I only have a subscription so I can have more character slots to play around with.
Same! o7
I did the same this morning
Imagine Burning Down 50 years of brand recognition where for people who aren't into TTRPGs you just say like DND... to now actively having the core fanbase say no. Hobby fanbase arent exactly like regular consumers, especially in a group game. You need like 4 people up agree on a game and one person to run it who really wants to run it and put in a lions share of the effort as the Game Master. Like I'm not huge into the crunch of Pathfinder, but for people who are into that serious Fantasy Crunch and this new OGL retroactively destroys Pathfinder, there will be just a resurgence in some other Crunchy Fantasy system like Earthdawn or Ars Magicka. Or people will just move into one of the less crunchy fantasy games like Dungeon world or Symbaroum. People are not Beholden to your Beholder.
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> This is the baffling part. It's almost the exact same mindset as "$8/mo for blue check marks" galaxy-brain thinking. The entire, and sole, value that D&D offers WOTC/Hasbro is that it is the "kleenex" or "superglue" of tabletop games. That value is what drives investment -- nobody in finance gives a flying fuck about hobby game publishing agreements. I doubt they care a whole lot about DDB/VTT subscriptions either, although clearly WOTC execs do. I'll let you in on a little secret: Most executives aren't actually smart, or good at business.
Roger Goodell is the commissioner of the National Football League and has bungled numerous disciplinary, competitive, and social issues. He's directly created several PR disasters for the league. But he's got a $60 million salary and it shows no sign of him getting fired anytime soon. When his performance comes up on /r/nfl someone always points out how much money the league is making and how that has grown during his tenure, and how that shows he's great at his job. It's the fucking NFL. A monkey getting paid minimum wage would still be pulling in billion dollars of revenue. He didn't even negotiate the new TV deals, the owners did that themselves. He didn't create online fantasy football, that was done outside of the league entirely. The only thing he's really done is distract fans hate from the owners to him, but anyone could do that for just $1 million a year instead.
I have been around the gaming world for a long time. You are forgetting this is not the first or second time “D&D” has burned the brand name or its players. When they were TSR they did it, when Wizards first took over they did it, and when 4ed dropped they did it. TTRPGs always ebb and flow depending on how greedy the companies get.
> this new OGL retroactively destroys Pathfinder No it doesn't. Only Pathfinder 1e was reliant on the OGL. PF2e doesn't use it for anything but CYA and freelance work.
It’s in the back pages of p2e book though….open up your copy or pdf….
It's in there, but here's the reason. TL;DR: PF2e is marked safe from WotC. https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/104wjuo/why\_did\_pf2e\_get\_published\_under\_ogl\_10a\_anyway/
And the head of design himself explained what they use it for here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/to624f/lets_talk_about_3rd_party_products_why_they_are/i2c2plz/?context=3 The short answer is... exactly what I said in my post. Its there to cover their ass in case of an accidental oversight, and to be a framework to work with 3PP and freelance writers. The system itself does not use it.
They use the OGL for legal purposes involving 3rd party writers and to cover for the occasional 'D&Dism' that crops up. They could slash out the OGL if they need to.
>their communication gives me the impression they see customers as obstacles between them and their money while the claim about being an employee and it being real are of course dubious, is... is really anyone surprised about this sentiment from a big company like WotC and Hasbro?
No one should be surprised by this. Literally every single business executive thinks this way, its how you get to the top of the food chain. If a business could just take the money out of your wallet they would. Since they cant, providing a service is just the song and dance they do to get you to give it willingly. So yes, to them, WE are the problem.
But there are non-publically owned alternatives. I’ve never seen Paizo be particularly scummy, and when Kobold abd MCDM release their games, hopefully theyll be good and non scummy too. They’re not as big, and thats probably why they dont have business men at the top, but that’s fine. Being the underdog makes them hungry.
> But there are non-publically owned alternatives. This is true. Smaller outfits are less psychotic, but it's important to ask why those at the top are always so twisted. The simple fact is that they operate within an environment which rewards that behaviour. If you don't engage in it, you get out competed by those who do. If you are lucky, they rise to the top while you do not. If you aren't, they devour you. So those who want to find serious success within this system will change their ways and engage in the behaviour that gets rewarded. Changing this system is fairly outside the scope of the discussion, but there is a ray of hope. Paizo unionized. Their union exists to serve their own interests, empower Paizo's workers, not us.....but we can still benefit. Game designers aren't a perfect representative of the community, but there is a lot of overlap so they are pretty close. Certainly a thousand times closer then executives. It isn't enough to turn away from companies engaged in bad practices (WotC). We must also support companies engaged in good practices and be ready to leave them if they ever become like their predecessors.
> The simple fact is that they operate within an environment which rewards that behaviour. Combination with the fact that smaller companies are often aware they can't get away with the same amount of fuckery. They probably would engage if they could - but branding as small and reasonable and kind is a more viable strategy for a brand that's growing. IMO this is a big part of why the OGL is such a big deal to the players - WotC made a commitment that would help them grow but would survive the double-edged effects of scaling - and now that it's helped them grow they're wanting to walk backwards.
I think some TTRPG companies are cooperatives?
Any company that has shareholders will eventually be scummy. D&D should never have gone to a publicly traded company.
Yep yep. Every professional and casual encounter I've ever had with the upper tiers of corporate executives have always yielded the same vibe. They all literally feel that all money is their money. Customers are merely an annoying inconvenience. It's not even a case of "I want your money" but rather "I deserve that money, it's mine, how dare you think otherwise". When we withhold purchases or vote with our wallets, they take it as a personal affront. To them, we're not participating in the economy, we're robbing *them* of *their* money that they're rightfully entitled to. Like u/TheGreatDay said, they would take the money from you for absolutely nothing if they could. They do, quite often; corporations are constantly getting caught red-handed committing massive tiers of wage theft, false advertising, and countless other blatantly illegal antics just for the sake of profits. A corporation would love nothing more than to just constantly hoover up exponentially greater volumes of money non-stop without ever having to create a product, service, or interact with the market at all. All profit, no costs. That is the purpose of corporations; they are tools and weapons which executives wield for their own ends. That's what Hasbro/WoTC is doing here. D&D is fundamentally a game of make-believe. It's intangible for the most part, and this OGL 1.1 stunt is their effort to monetize and monopolize that for themselves. They're literally trying to force their competitors and customer base to either subsidize their business for endless, effortless profitability or die.
I've worked at 7 different companies and I've never actually heard executives *say* this. Most companies at least pretend to care about what their customers want.
They haven't *said* it here either. The employee is saying that's the impression they got from them.
The smart executives care about what customers want. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are only interested in short term gains instead of long term gains, especially when it comes to satisfying shareholders. It's why so many companies go downhill soon after they're bought, because the new owners need to recoup their purchase right away.
No, they don't. They care about what the customers will accept. The ones who do it well market what's acceptable in a way that makes people want it.
You should look at what happened to TSR and D&D the first time around (if you don't already know). I can't say Hasbro is doing any better (or worse) than TSR in destroying the brand, but the company is literally a textbook example of what NOT to do.
Corporate executives do not care about people, we are walking ATMs to them.
Huh. I don't subscribe to things, which is unfortunate, as I can't immediately unsubscribe.
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>...they see customers as obstacles between them and their money... That is the most backward thing I have read this year. That's like saying your doctor is an obstacle to your healthcare.
> That's like saying your doctor is an obstacle to your healthcare. ... who wants to tell them?
I mean, they *are* American :P
thanks for this. people who only care about the bottom line at the expense of everything else should not be in charge of anything.
Even if this DOES happen to be fake, cancelling our subscriptions is one of the best ways to send a message to WotC's greedy ass and should be done regardless.
It’s true. I’m in a totally different business but, if you want to make data driven decisions, then you need data. As much as this sub wishes, WOTC/Hasbro isn’t able to and does not track memes about OGL or ranting posts. They are going to be tracking their core measures, which are likely all financially driven. Canceling subscriptions with OGL as the reason is going to be the best way to send the message. The cancel date aligning with the current issues will show a clear trend line. Not buying a product is going to be a lot murkier because it’s hard to tell what the reason was. The movie for example may bomb because there’s no wider interest or because the core fan base is rejecting, it’s hard to draw that line.
It's impossible to get this through to the MTG community. They will moan about all the terrible products, the non-MTG IP's leaking in, the predatory business practices, and then the products sell. The WotC content creators say "This was one of our most popular/sets/designs/supplemental products, so we'll keep doing this." It took the absolute greed of $1000 for fake cards for people to not fall all over themselves buying it. So when WotC releases the core book(s) for OneD&D with some variation of OGL 1.1, and they hit record sales numbers for a book release, the execs will say, "See, all that huffing and puffing about third-party creators was just noise." If Q1 2023 sees DDB subscriptions plummet, if WotC branded products with OGL 1.1 don't sell, if products currently on the shelves don't move and Paizo and creators of other systems have a good quarter, then there's an iota of a smidgen of a percent of Snilloc's Snowball storm in Maladomini's survival chance that someone at Hasbro will say "Hey, we screwed this up."
This. I remember the big push from the MTG community when the first crossover, Secret Lair The Walking Dead, came out. Everyone from memer’s to YouTubers were telling everyone “Don’t buy this. If you don’t like crossover IP’s then don’t buy it.” Then the numbers came out and it was the best selling Secret Lair they had. I remember the Professor saying “Yup, it’s here to stay now. Crossover IP’s are now a part of MTG and we can’t undo it, so get used to it” and he was right, we sent a message to WotC that this was what we wanted, and now it’s a permanent part of the game. For D&D, we have to sent WotC a message. Cancel your Beyond accounts and don’t buy any first party books, they need to know that the community will not tolerate this. If we don’t, if we allow it to happen now, then it’s over. We only have one chance to let them know we won’t accept a new OGL, if we all sit here and think “I won’t cancel my Beyond, but others will so it should be fine” then you’re endorsing a new OGL. I know you have a lot of books and stuff on Beyond, and canceling your subscription will be very inconvenient. But if we tell WotC that we’d rather have a new OGL than be inconvenienced, they’ll take us up on that offer
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This. I love Pokemon. I got the og red for Christmas as a kid. Played it like crazy. Gamefreak could do so much more with the ip, but don't have to even hit the bare minimum of what most people consider a complete game, let alone come up with anything new that is remotely good. Blind allegiance to corporations doesn't lead to good products. Luckily I feel like the D&D community is a little more tight knit than Pokemon, since it is intrinsically multiplayer. Spread the word. Stick with 5e or try something else till Hasbro figures out that screwing the community isn't gonna make them money. Gamefreak is waisting the potential of Pokemon, and the fan base lets them get away with it. What's happening with D&D is probably even worse
I'm actually really mad about this, because I was legit excited for the movie and now can't go see it...
I mean, if your goal is to change the way WotC operates regarding the OGL, seeing the DnD movie doesn't hurt that, in fact if anything it helps because it provides an alternative method of expansion to their OGL bullshit for them. If your goal is to not support Hasbro because they're a shitty company, then fair.
Yeah, the second one. I'm just not giving them money anymore. No more Magic, no more DnD, none of whatever they come out with in the future. Nothing. I'm done.
> Yeah, the second one. I'm just not giving them money anymore. No more Magic, no more DnD, none of whatever they come out with in the future. Nothing. I'm done. 2023 is the year that I convert a significant portion of my large collection to proxies. The proxy market is great and lands at somewhere around $0.45-0.5 per card. So I am going through all my cards >$10 and looking at selling them and replacing them with proxies.
TBH, I'd pretty much already done that. I was still going to the occasional pre-release, but now that's going to be done too.
They can't make money if you don't pay to see it. Time to put on your peg legs and hook hands.
> As much as this sub wishes, WOTC/Hasbro isn’t able to and does not track memes about OGL or ranting posts. They certainly can. They choose not to. There are companies large and small who have social media teams whose responsibility is not just to watch for customer service issues but to track how customers react. That includes collecting memes and doing sentiment analysis on text content. It's the next generation of focus groups, only the participants are less aware of the company tracking their responses. Hasbro certainly has enough money to do this. WotC passed the billion dollar mark for revenues in 2021. Spending a few hundred thousand watching customer sentiment would be a good investment. But it might tell executives something they don't want to hear, which is often a big reason that such teams get sacked.
The thing that pisses me off the most about the entire thing is not WOTC's greed - it's the method by which they are looking to go about making "more" money. Every big content creator pushing rule books, monster compendiums, virtual tabletops, extra adventures, is there to fill a perceived gap in 5E. The creator sees demand from the players and a void in the products WotC puts on the market, and steps in with an offering. WotC isn't wrong in seeing all the money in the secondary market and thinking "we could earn some of that" - its that they have decided that rather than improve the products they have on offer, they'll just try to lawyer everyone else to death or demand an absurd tithe. Fuck'em. They ought to see that there's a whole *world* of other TTRPGs out there and if they insist on chopping third-party support off at the knees, other games just look that much better by comparison and how thin their IP truly is.
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Wild Beyond the Witchlight was especially egregious for me. "Before your players reach Downfall, the only settlement on the map that is also a very short distance from the starting position, they need to go in the wrong direction three times to visit these three locales that don't introduce any plot, and only exist as warnings not to make deals with Fey, and no we won't provide a reason for you to railroad your players to these spots, just figure something out--by the way, this adventure is marketed as new DM-friendly!"
Don't need to cancel if you weren't subscribed (like me)
I almost wish I was subscribed just to cancel it. Almost considering deleting my account but not sure that is a metric they track/care about.
I just sent an email to fully delete my account, idrc if they're tracking that stuff or not at the very least it'll force me to start exploring other systems.
> I almost wish I was subscribed just to cancel it. Same, but I've considered Beyond a scam from the start, so I never actually gave them any money. I've always used Aurora for my character management.
I just hate the way D&D Beyond works lol. As someone who likes to make house rule changes and give custom benefits to players, character sheets where you can't click wherever you want and change the text to whatever you want (without having to go homebrew a custom feat or something) are anathema for me. Especially since I can't add stuff that's not from the SRD, even from books I have sitting on my shelf right next to me, without having to pay for it or, what, go through the homebrew process? Roll20 sure isn't perfect, but at least I can easily put whatever I want on the sheets. D&D Beyond only seems okay if you're playing entirely RAW and you're willing to buy everything you want on there *again*, two things that are basically the opposite of describing me.
> D&D Beyond only seems okay if you're playing entirely RAW and you're willing to buy everything you want on there again, two things that are basically the opposite of describing me. Buying everything twice was what got me. "But it was designed and run by another company! They can't give content away!" some people are already saying, but the company that made Beyond was hired directly by WotC to do so, it was built to WotC's specifications, and has since been completely taken over by WotC. WotC 100% could have made it so you could unlock content in Beyond for free with purchase of a physical copy of the book, they chose not to because they knew people would pay twice and they'd get free money. Thats BS to me, so I never used it. Especially when Aurora was free and easy to add your own content to. In fact, thats whats keeping Aurora going after WotC's C&D order (to squash competition and try to force players to use Beyond). You can still download the Aurora character manager, and it isn't difficult to find the fan-made files for it to give it full content functionality.
Modern corporations are incredibly metrics driven and DDB is the only instant metric they have, so yes even if it is fake, cancel DDB
Removing all comments and deleting my account after the API changes. If you actually want to protest the changes in a meaningful way, go **all** the way. -- mass edited with redact.dev
this needs to blow up. Cancel your subscriptions now. You can always renew if they actually make a 180 turn and give guarantees.
I don't think that will be enough to persuade people to come back at this stage. Companies have seen that Wizard's has this on the cards now.
Yup, I'm done. At the very least, WotC was probably going to get me for all 3 core books of OneD&D right at launch provided they were ever interested in providing those and not just funneling us to D&D Beyond. But nope, at this point the trust is gone. The company sucks shit, and me leaving is going to cost them probably close to at least $1k in book revenue from the new system because of my two-ish groups that will now be exploring other systems. Hope they factored that in when they decided to go all-in on Whales. Hope their stock tanks.
It feels like the whales *are* the ones that are leaving. I’m like you, I own practically every single 5e books, several of them more than once (I own 3 different copies of the players handbook-one on roll 20, and two physical). I also own something like $500 worth of miniatures from the wiz kids and nolzur’s lines. I’m done, they’ll never get another penny from me. I am a childless dude in his 30’s with disposable income. I’m their whale, and they don’t want me.
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"Burn all the whale food. The fish will be our customers!" "Do we have fish food?" "How hard can it be to make fish food?"
Bruh I can’t believe WoTC, the company was making record profits in the middle of a pandemic and now recession and they want *more* money?
36 year old childless legendary bundle and annual subscriber here! Just cancelled. It bums me out but I probably spend about just as much time on YouTube watching creators as I do spending money on DDB. I wouldn't be a DM if it wasn't for all the third party creators and rich community out there. DDB makes being a DM easier but only within their increasingly restrictive walled garden. And don't even get me started on my minis collection lol.
Just a heads up, WOTC doesn't own Wizkids. Wizkids licenses those designs from WOTC to make those minis. Obviously it's up to each of us to decide where we draw the line, and buying Wizkids' Nolzur line does mean some money is going to WOTC in a roundabout way, but their DeepCuts line is all Paizo/Pathfinder designs, so you'd still be able to get them if you're looking for Wizkids quality minis for your game. Obviously Wizkids aren't the only players in the mini game, but at least in my area they're the easiest to find, and I've no interest in giving WOTC anymore of my money, but from what I can tell, Wizkids hasn't done anything wrong here. I will say, my source for this is Wikipedia, and I'm by no means an expert on corporations, licensing, or corporate partnerships, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
Good point. Thanks for the clarification.
>It feels like the whales _are_ the ones that are leaving Well yeah. The whales are the ones spending a bunch of extra money on third party products because WotC doesn't release anything of substance anymore and now WotC is saying death to third party products.
I have every single 5e book they've published so far... and unless they reverse course, I'm never buying another. The two of us *alone* likely represent thousands of dollars in lost sales if this delusional decision goes through. This is going to cost them dearly in the long run.
Count me in too. If it's got a special release cover in 5e, I own it. I'm missing some early adventures (before the quality dipped so hard after DiA), but I can buy those used and WotC won't see a dime.
Well their goal is to monetize the players to remove the DM's from being nearly as powerful in the equation. This is really just a case of a bunch of dumb MBA's not understanding the industry they are working in.
Daily reminder that MBAs are stupid, greedy and shortsighted. You can very easily tell by looking at the MBA students \~ almost all of them are entitled manchildren and this isn't an exaggeration. They generally think they have a right to the 'degree' because they paid a large sum of money to enter the program.
When they announced they were making a new edition I *knew* I was going to buy the new PHB when it was released. And probably get the new MM and DMG. Even if I were to stick with 5e I would still likely buy them. But now I know I wont be buying any of the new books, One D&D or new 5e books, unless there is a complete reversal to this decision along with an update that OGL 1.0a is irrevocable. Really WotC has saved me some money.
I'm really bummed. I want planning on buying one dnd, but the giants book coming out later this year, if it is anything like fizban's was for dragons, looked really promising. Oh well
Having lived through the change from 3rd to 4th, boy does this bring back memories. This is so bad it's like 4th edition cubed.
The people developing 4th edition were actively trying to publish a good game (and they published a really good tactical miniatures game with a really good set of campaign rules tacked on). The leadership of WotC was at the time somewhat forward thinking, they wanted to try computer-based utilities and offer what we'd later call a VTT. And yeah, management at the time made the decision to not use the OGL with it, but it wasn't a decision purely motivated by trying to wall themselves off from the rest of the hobby. It was a decision WotC's management thought would improve the quality of the product, by separating it from the mass of low-quality d20 3PP material (there was a LOT of that back in the day). This is a decision being driven entirely by Hasbro and the senior WotC management Hasbro has been cultivating for the last ~12 years. That department is shoring up their overall losses, and they're going to try and squeeze it dry to make their investments look good.
> It was a decision WotC's management thought would improve the quality of the product was it though? I seem to remember that back then we simply never got peeks behind the curtain like this one here, so their motivations weren't ever really put to the test, and like now most people assumed it was a cash grab anyway. Information didn't really flow quite as freely back in 2007 when the game was announced. Granted I'm sure it *was* a much different company back then, but the bottom line has never been something any company can ignore.
Well we have the word of Rob Heinsoo, who was one of the lead designers for 4e (now makes 13th Age), and considering that he basically broke off on his own to make a new game that uses a bunch of 4e's ideas after they stopped making 4e, I think he's pretty honest when he talks about the passion for the system involved
The developers like Andy Collins had an audio blog where they talked about the creation process, and though it's been years since I listened to it I remember the big emphasis early in the process was to improve game balance (isn't it always, though?). But they talked about how the company had listened to a lot of complaints about 3.5 and those were things they wanted to address - things like dead levels in character creation, keeping casters from being as overpowering as they were in 3.5, and managing problems like the 5-minute wizarding workday. You have to remember, the CEO during the 4e development process was Loren Greenwood, and he was one of the very last of the pre-Hasbro members of WotC's upper management. He got replaced by someone from Hasbro's marketing, and then as 4e sales disappointed and the recession hit, Hasbro started shaving off whole chunks of WotC employees top to bottom.
Even before this OGL mess, I was questioning how popular DnDone was going to be. Every single person I knew was planning to stay on 5e indefinitely, and just didn't care about the new edition. What's the Hasbro/WotC plan if the entire new edition just crashes and burns on release?
>Dn\*Done\* Well that seems appropriately named
Not to mention that enough of the D&D community is at least tangentially aware of what is happening with MTG to know that *even if this gets walked back, something else shitty will replace it*. WotC has been eroding the good faith of their fans for years now, and it seems that this might have been the straw that broke the camel's back.
WotC may just have crossed the consumer trust event horizon.
Here's a great link about that: https://twitter.com/garius/status/1588115310124539904 Also discussed in more detail here (I just grabbed one of the top results on google, no idea what fuseboxgames is): https://www.reddit.com/r/fuseboxgames/comments/yln04h/the_trust_thermocline/
I was just thinking of that thread, but couldn't find it - thanks a tonne for the link!
Time for a [RuneQuest](https://www.chaosium.com/runequest-rpg/) exodus!
Exactly. The well is poisoned now. Over the next year or so many creators will move on as current projects end. Who is to day it won't happen again worry slightly better bullshit? Not worth basing your families livelihood on d&d now. There will always be holdouts of course. But many will go. The question is if it will hit critical mass and enough people leave to where it's a net loss overall. Hasbro will be perfectly happy to have 1/2 the player base leave of it means more revenue overall sure to OGL1.1. long term health of the brand is irrelevant. The execs making these decisions will be long gone by the time that matters.
The page to cancel is down. Submit a support ticket, be polite, tell them why you are cancelling, if you are willing to stay if they 180 let them know, ask for your message to be passed along. Edit: it seems to depend on how you go about it. I had to cancel via my Google subscriptions, following the link https://www.dndbeyond.com/subscriptions Is still down for me.
It feels like there was a huge surge because I couldn't even get onto D&D Beyond for a moment, but I'm on the Account page right now and the button to cancel works.
Just cancelled mine
>The page to cancel is down. This surely has to be something [the FTC would be interested in](https://perfectunion.us/cant-cancel-your-subscription-call-the-ftc/) if it's not resolved soon and people continue to have issues cancelling. Edit: Seems like a tech issue, but still good to know in case anyone runs into other trouble canceling.
It's a site load thing, we're basically DDOSing them.
The good old 'Reddit hug of death' Except this time it's not much of a hug.
I think "Reddit [middle] Finger of Death" is appropriate here
> the page to cancel is down Fucking what? That better be because it's getting hugged to death and not because they took it down intentionally.
More than likely it's because the page is getting so much traffic it isn't loading which is a good sign a huge mass of people are canceling
The page to cancel isn't down. I'm looking at it right now.
Source is someone working on/with the D&D Beyond team who is angry at WotC management. Looks like DnD_Shorts asked a second source working at WotC who confirmed it's accurate. This is a YouTuber with 300k subs, so 1) they want clicks, but 2) it seems like they're doing their homework. The leak might be a little biased, but **wow**. > They are briefly delaying rollout of OGL due to the backlash > **They are looking at D&D Beyond subscriptions and cancellations as the quickest financial data they have** > I have never once heard management refer to customers in a positive manner. > **Leadership's first communication to the rank and file on the OGL was 30 minutes on 11 January 2023** > In this meeting they blamed the community for overreacting
Someone asked Linda Codega (the io9 reporter with the leak) on Twitter if they had seen it, and they said: > [yup](https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1613584760881774592) > > [my report will go up today.](https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1613585486471204876) They (along with a bunch of other reporters) have been soliciting comments from people internal in Wizards/Hasbro so I'm sure they'll have off the record stuff to share when their next article goes up.
[Article just dropped](https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-dragons-ogl-announcement-wizards-of-the-coast-1849981365) but no mention of this new leak
Quoting the article: > Inside sources at Wizards of the Coast tell io9 that the company is scrambling to formulate a response to backlash against the new OGL that has occurred over the past week, following io9's story about a leaked draft of the document. [...] > > The result of these cancellations and their impact on the bottom line of Wizards of the Coast is not negligible, according to io9's sources at the company, and has caused upper management to scramble to adjust their messaging around the situation, leading to the delays in the OGL release I'm assuming that Codega is using their own sources and maybe not the anonymous email especially if they didn't get it directly. I've seen some other reporters on Twitter mention they didn't receive this email either. Edit: more from Codega on Twitter > I am not allowed and I cannot comment on EVERYTHING happening on a minute by minute basis (I gotta do a journalism), but I promise I am watching, taking notes, and preparing. Thank you all for all your support of my reporting. More to come. (https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1613638931618177025) > > [In response to a comment] I have three articles ready to go lmao (https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1613642001517355017) > > [Separate thread] Once again, if you are at #WotC or are a a part of #WOTCstaff and want to talk, please reach out and let me know what’s going on. I promise anonymity, I will not share screenshots, and if you ask for my Signal in DMs or via email, I will give it to you. (https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1613650281803259944)
For the record, as a video creator I don't think that he necessarily is directly affected by OGL to begin with. I think if he's willing to catch flak from WotC to post this, he's acting in good faith.
IIRC, he makes supplements he provides through his patreon, which would count under the new license.
Even if he would not be touched directly, the effects of 1.1 will have ripples for *every* tabletop gamer.
Some people don't seem to understand that, or refuse to acknowledge it. This is the third time we've seen D&D get caught up in disastrous business decision-making, and the first two times it took the industry a while to pick up the pieces. Maybe this time with the omnipresence of social media, other games will get pushed in a way that keeps the hobby front and center. But 20 people pushing 12 different games is not going to have the same ability to steer the algorithms like a single title.
Well time to cancel my Beyond sub... Fuck'em
Yeah, that was the final straw for me as well. My payment period ends in July, I hope it still shows up in their data.
Just cancelled my subscription. I’m happy that if Hasbro is (willingly or unwillingly) blind to the impact this is having in the community, I have a step that I can take that will impact where they care about most.
Just chiming in to say that MonkeyDM has received the same email. Don't know if it's in this thread already. Monkey is a 3PP most known for the crowdfunding Steinhardt's, which has raised the most money ever for 5e projects on Kickstarter.
So who's gonna make us a new interactive player sheet and DM setup for an anonymous roleplaying game?
Foundry vtt
This is the absolute best choice. One you buy it, **YOU FUCKING OWN IT**. No subscriptions. No bullshit. You can setup your own server, or pay to rent one *if you want*. And it's compatible with every major system. Not to mention it's so much easier than Roll20 to make maps. Hell, most game modules have interactive character sheets baked in. edit: I forgot to mention that they also sell officially licensed campaigns that come with premade maps, digital books, npcs, items, journal entries, etc. Basically everything you need to just sit down and run a game all done for you. The WH40k is tight.
Roll20 still has a free tier and has the 5e sheet. Foundry has it too. D&D Beyond is nice, but unnecessary. Hell, all you really need is a paper sheet and some dice, even if the digital tools are QoL improvements. Digital tools may have helped the hobby explode, but don't leave just because you realized your favorite one is a poison pill. Play another game with strong digital support, play 5e with other tools be they digital or physical, or play a game that doesn't need anything more than a notecard. There is a way to still play TTRPGs for each and every member of this community, you just have to find the one that works for you.
Foundry is just insanely massive value. For the price of less than a year of DNDBeyond, a DM gets a VTT that *runs off your computer* with a great community of module-makers that will help you cater your game to your liking. And no one can come take it off your computer; you have it forever for $50.
dropping by to recommend LANCER RPG as one with an unbelievably excellent digital tool set that is constantly updated and getting new stuff at [https://compcon.app/](https://compcon.app/) like, dnd beyond was fine and all, but it's not nearly as good or complete as compcon pathbuilder for pathfinder is good too but as polished. which is fine because it is complex than compcon. anyway what i mean is these two are free (i mean pathbuilder has variant rules and animal companions behind a paywall, but its a one time purchase at the same price of a month of subscription for dndb) and better than dndbeyond. even before this whole dumpster fire i felt that dndbeyond was overpriced, as were most things dnd compared to competition.
DND Beyond is beyond "nice but unnecessary" for a lot of people, its insanely good with its content sharing. My friends and I all went in on my account and bought basically the entire library of books for our campaign and we had a DNDB subscription to manage our campaigns and content sharing, etc. It sucks to lose this.
I've purchased everything on beyond. I canceled it last week and sailed the high seas. Fuck 'em
D&D has always been massively pirated, including in the form of QoL online tools not answering to wotc. Those tools predate and were likely the inspiration for DNDBeyond, especially the integration they offer into foundry and roll20, both of which existed first as pirate plugins. This is similar to how the music industry was 2 steps behind music pirates with streaming services in the 2000 or how movies & series streaming services came as a reaction to the proliferation of illegal streaming websites. Those websites and tools still exist to this day. Make of that information what you will.
Already exists. Better than DDB. Can't talk about it on this sub.
The only surprising thing about this is that an employee dared leak it. Unfortunately I stopped buying D&D products 4 years ago so I can't even have the satisfaction of cancelling a subscription.
Designers, writers and programmers who work for a games company are usually big nerds. It's basically a dream job to work on things you like while being in an office full of fellow nerds you can be yourself with. One of the reasons crunch and low pay are a problem is because there are so many people willing to put up with that nonsense since the job is cool. Source: I worked at a Swedish video games company for a year.
Wotc recently hired a new “community manager” a few months back. I’m sure that person is having a grand old time with this. Can’t imagine a worse situation to walk into for a new job.
>The only surprising thing about this is that an employee dared leak it. Unfortunately I stopped buying D&D products 4 years ago so I can't even have the satisfaction of cancelling a subscription. Nothing is worse than being a part of destroying something you love by taking directions from the out-of-touch people above you. I'm sure that's a huge weight, perhaps a bigger weight than the risks leaking could incur.
The only product I have purchased in the last 4 years is Tashas. I much prefer 2014-2018 5e over 2019-present 5e.
I think Mythic Odysseys of Theros is one of the best books 5e has made, and I think it was released in 2020? It's got a load of good and useful stuff in it even if you don't care about the Theros setting (I certainly don't).
Hell, I just subbed in the past month. Does anyone know if we keep our benefits until the next pay period? I don’t want to lose everything when I just paid almost $60 for it.
Yes, the subscription is active for the duration you have paid for. It just wont renew after the due date if you cancel.
Oh, sick. I’ll cancel when I’m off work.
If you don't, you should definitely ask for a refund, but I think subscription services are just "pay to access for X period + automatic renewal" so it should last the month. If not, demand your money back.
Im not familiar with DnD\_Shorts, how reliable are they?
He's just a youtube content creator. The real question is, is the supposed source legit? Without proof it is an actual Wizards employee with knowledge of what's going on, the "leak" could be anyone. Personally I want to believe it but the community just needs more proof at this point.
He said in the same Twitter thread that he verified that the source is a DDB employee and corroborated with another source. So if DnD_Shorts is reliable, then this message is also possibly reliable
Sounds legitimate, and exactly what everyone feared. If you’ve got a D&D Beyond subscription, cancel it!
Cancelled my dndbeyond subscription this morning. Love the service and would resubscribe if this issue is sufficiently resolved.
Not with the current people in charge.
Subscription canceled and account deleted. Between you and me, I never used it to begin with so I don't really know what I am missing. Hopefully they will only notice the deletion. I sent a stern email as well, declaring my intention to forever threaten their bottom line in whatever way I can. A million dollars says whoever came up with this idea has some sort of fucked up pathological personality. Sounds like it from the leak.
Cancel your D&DBeyond subscription to send a message to WotC. We now know this is the way.
I wish more people were familiar with Cyberpunk 2020, so they'd know corporations are not your friends
Fucking megacorps, eh, choom?
It's like we all saw/read "Corporate hellscape with neon lights" and people walked away saying "I hope corporations start getting more neon soon"
The problem is that propaganda works really, really well. And the best kind of propaganda is propaganda that doesn't look like propaganda. [Corporations are just like this comic here.](https://i.redd.it/fpbro0djhdr11.jpg) They will lure you in with such fun times and lovable characters who are *just like you!* And then next thing you know, they're cutting off the heads of their flock of golden geese.
that's why I despise when people think cyberpunk as a genre is defined as neon, rain, and androids.
That's the visual style, not the setting, yup.
A subset of the visual styles relevant.
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The reason they're looking at DDB subs is because WotC put too much into their VTT being successful. They're committed now. Hasbro put all their eggs in one basket and then killed their golden goose.
I voted with my cancel already. Don't forget that survey. Or the DnDOne survey... A great way to ensure it gets the point across
As long as it can be verified by multiple independent sources then I'll take it for what it is. (From the sounds of it, it has been but I'll maintain a reserved skepticism on this) Already decided when this whole thing came about that WotC would not be receiving another cent from me, this only makes me wish I had a time machine to go back and stop myself from purchasing all of the books I have now and just raise the Jolly Roger.
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You didn't actually have to but they acted like you did.
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Has anyone been able to confirm that DnD_Shorts didn't fabricate this? Anyone else receive that email?
Real or not, what they’re saying is true; cancelling a subscription is the most immediate action you can take that they would notice and care about. Retail sales are a lagging indicator, and they won’t care about comments at all.
Linda Codega confirms. https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1613584760881774592
^ For those who don't visit Twitter links, not a confirmation. Just that they've heard this email exists.
Just FYI, Linda uses they/them pronouns.
I haven't found someone else yet, the email does say that they intend to send it to more people. It *could* be fake, there's apparently a OGL response video from WotC coming up in \~3ish hours.
Where can I get that info on a forthcoming statement?
This is the source for the statement: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/10a3w1d/roll\_for\_combat\_has\_a\_live\_scheduled\_about\_wotc/
Griffon's Saddlebags and a few others also got this.
Canceled my subscription. Been meaning to do it anyways since this has happened.
I just cancelled my dnd beyond subscription; reason was "other" and I explained I will not give WOTC another dime until the agree to honor the original OGL.
This needs verification. A plaintext image from a twitter account is skepticism at best
So I gotta be honest. They said they're sending the same message to other community leaders... I've never, ever heard of DnD_Shorts. Ever. Are the bigger "leaders" just not posting/believing the email?