The Dungeons & Dragons DISASTER Just Got Worse 

Who doesn't want a Frodo skin? Me. Who doesn't want to wield Anduril? Me. I'm not playing in Middle Earth. I don't want those. Even if I was playing in Middle Earth, I'm not playing Frodo. Frodo's tale is written. I want to write my own tale.

The irony is that all the tenets which made BG3 successful are polar opposite to tenets which Hasbro corporate has been leaning on for the past 5 years. They want that BG3 money but aren't willing to do the things necessary to make it happen. BG3 focused on patience and quality... Hasbro wants to eject whatever sludge will make their next quarterly number. BG3 is going back to polish and optimize their product. Hasbro tech is notoriously unpolished and buggy. You might as well ask a fish to turn into a bird before Hasbro could replicate an inch of Larian's success.

The possibility of WOTC turning D&D into Fortnite is honestly terrifying.

I totally get that everything in Baulder's Gate 3 belongs to WoTC, but to give them ANY credit for the earnings which belong rightly to Larian Studios, is laughable.

I think it's important to note a few extra things you missed or didn't touch on. Firstly Hasbro notably didn't have faith in BG3 (various sources have come out to speak on this) and didn't see it as anything more than another junk game they'd commissioned (see: Forgotten Realms: Dark Alliance failure). Secondly, Hasbro speaking about the "multi-media future" doesn't factor in tv/film as part of that, seeing how they recently closed their film studio, dismissed the success of their recent summer blockbuster as "A fun experiment", and actively rejected Joe Mangianello's filmed pilot for a D&D television series. They have no interest in anything other than online/digital/micro-transactions.

What irks me so much is what Hasbro got out of this. Instead of understanding that BG3 was a massive success due to it being a quality product created with time and care, they instead got that "clearly people want more digital DnD content". Like JFC when will these corporations learn that almost any product made with time and care will be more profitable than pumping out random garbage that vaguely imitates a previous successful product.

F- the digital money-sucking machine, I'm gonna play on my table in my house till I die. They will not ruin it for me unless they start sending the Game Gestapo to my door to take away my stuff.

Hasbro specializes in entertainment products. In any economic downturn, entertainment you PAY for is the first thing you can do without. For all that they're contributing to the train going off the rails, that train was doomed anyway.

The success of BG3 comes from its quality and all that, not because "it's dnd", there are plenty of dnd-like games that have been failures, what people want is quality games, not just digital dnd content.

I love how they make it sound like they had something to do with Baldurs Gate 3 😂 like, they just sold them the rights to the IP. Larian did everything.

Whenever I hear anything about DnD it makes me really happy that I mostly play Pathfinder and don't have to worry about this

Even before this whole drama with Hasbro, I moved on to Panthfinder. I felt cooler then and I feel even cooler now 🤍 peace and love RPG freaks!

Speaking of "adult toys"; you'll be delighted to hear that your channel is the only one that I've had ads for "adult toy advent calendars" on so far.

If Hasbro tanks and WOTC ceases to exist the game of D&D will continue regardless...The game exist in several forms, several editions etc.

Imagine if WoTC actually managed to make a loss.

This disaster seems to be getting worse and worse while these vids get better and better

I imagine whenever Dungeons and Discourse talk about anything during her normal day shes like "The parking disaster at the grocery store has gotten worse." Or "Robert's personal fashion sense disaster has gotten worse." 🙃

So basically... Hasbro is transforming M:tG and d&d into LEGO: a product that survives almost entirely on co-branding and nostalgia for 3rd party IP. This report didn't reveal anything critically new... we've known since January that the end of traditional tabletop d&d is coming in the next couple years. The rest of the tabletop hobby will rise from d&d's ashes.

I'd like to thank WOTC for their role as salesmen of the year for numerous other companies. You made it a great year for Paizo, Frog God, and my personal favorite.. Troll Lord Games. Keep it up WOTC, Keep it up. People will eventually learn you can D&D without you, and do it better.

My grandmother joked with the unknown guy she found in the morning in her kitchen, "I see you met our dog, he is called wolf." Wolf was actually a wolf/dog mix that looked 100% wolf. Wolf was keeping said unknown man company and was having a conversation of low growls with him while he pressed himself into a corner of the kitchen.

If my wife's grumblings while she's playing Magic online is anything to go by, the crossover content doesn't seem to be balanced. But who cares when you have the one ring, right /s

The way I look at it is no matter how much corporate evil hasbro tries to pump into their properties like D&D, they can’t stop me from enjoying what I have and the positive memories made surrounding the franchises I have.

I am personally amazed by the number of different faces you manage to make to express each and every Hasbro Catastrophe you cover, in your thumbnails : D Gets me every time x’D Great vid!

Thing they are missing is - if we wanted to play a videogame with friends, we can just go and play any of the thousands of games out there. TTRPG's in this day and age are almost a reaction against that.

Not only Larian took their time to make bg3, but : 1) they don't belong to Hasbro nor anybody but their founder (with a minority stake for Tencent), meaning Hasbro has no leverage to force Larian to do anything, nor any way to do an hostile takeover (which could ends up with mass resignation anyway). And we can suppose Swen is swimming in cash anyway. 2) BG3 is based at a minimum on the huge work done on D:OS et D:OS2. By that count, for another studio to make a good bg4 from scratch, it would more likely take 10 years. The only other studios specialized in that genre of games are Owlcat Games, but with the sanctions against Russia that's a problem and Obsidian, which are not only already busy with Avowed but are a subsidiary of Microsoft, which means even more complicated negotiations and less money for Hasbro An alternative could be to negociate with Larian to license the Divinity engine to WoTC for a huge pile of money.

TBH, what immediately killed my enthusiasm for using the official digital TTRPG stuff, is even the 5.0 stuff in the DMG and PHB was split up and paywalled. For example, Warlocks. Individual pacts were sold seperately from the DMG/PHB. Easier to just pirate it all and use fantasygrounds, or roll20. Friggin corpos man.

All I can say is there are so many options for RPGs out there many even arguably even better. Like shadowrun, earthdawn, world of darkness, call of Cthulhu, Gurps, ect

One week it’s joking about clock towers, the next it dead naming X and talking about C Suite genitals. Ruthless.

The American psycho reference in the add was delicious.

If Hasbro wants to make money, the first thing they need to do is stop the bleeding. I.e. break contract with unprofitable brands, the biggest being Disney, they order tons of toys that never sell and since hasbro only makes money off of sales via shifty Disney licensing contracts they lose money every time. Then take your profitable brands like dnd and make very high quality, super exclusive, limited edition products that the wales gobble up like candy

I've been playing D&D a lot in the past. We started very classic with the predefined books. At some time we got more into doing our own adventures. Since the group in most cases didn't really care for the prepared stuff or battle strategies, the adventures at some point only consisted of some ideas, some patterns and maybe some generic maps and npcs. We over time got rid of many of the rules because they hindered our story flow (no one really cares about, whether you can bring that sword along or not) and implemented rotating masters. At some point there were some character sheets forgotten or lost, we noticed going without also worked. The last thing to go was the dices which at this point we still used to settle disputes. After this simply the better idea won with a little bit of reason behind to keep it an enjoyable experience for all. All steps of this way were fun and I wouldn't miss them. Two of the best adventures I played at this time just each consisted of one idea. One was - that the group was cursed at some time (which we didn't know) and until one of us does one single good deed things get worse. That was all the preparation. Took the group more than 4 hours ;) The other one was that each party member could see the good and evil in themselves, how to get rid of this skill or how to exploit this. Long story short: At least for us it was about collaborative story telling. Sure - Hasbro needs to earn money. But if they forget about the players very basic needs - they also won't do this.

BG3 had 6 years of development and almost 3 years of full-priced "Early Access". Oh, and it has half the features that Neverwinter Nights had at release - a game 20 years older. So... yeah, not anywhere near as good as people like to hype it up to be.

I had mentioned this several times since earlier this year. It's all part of the plan. Drop or get dropped by your distributer. Raise price of books. Do less work in books. Offer digital stuff for players on D&D Beyond cheaper than the books. Oh no print books don't work no one is buying, double down on microtransactions. Hire Pinkertons to finish laying the last few bricks in your walled garden. Enforce how people can play. Salute and shout Hail Zynga!

Having dabbled with licensed IP here's a quick peak behind the curtain: The biggest success of companies like Hasbro is due to licensing and not actual production/distribution. What this means is that they are much more happy to sell you the rights to use their brand and take a cut of the profit, versus do any of the work themselves. It's low risk and high reward - if the movie or the game doesnt take off then they get a paycheck anyway, albeit smaller than they planned for. Case in point, Hasbro owns both GI Joe and Transformers but Wizards isn't making or distributing an RPG based on the simple fact that Hasbro wouldnt get paid up front (and Transformers, due to the films, is one if the highest grossing brands in history, Magic/D&D are not close) I would bet money the reason it Hasbro didnt care it took 6 years is that Larian took divinity 2 profit and paid wizards for use of the license, versus it being a pure revenue split. I'm even more convinced this is the case because it was published BY LARIAN versus it being published by Hasbro or Wizards. So when Cox says the future is digital he is basically saying Larian's success proves the brand is successful in the digital space (ignore the movie) and that they can demand more when it comes to subsequent licensing agreements with other partners. Any investment in local digital product is great but that's still crumbs compared to what hasbro makes with a successful licensing deal off a game or movie.

I have to laugh at the stupidity of people. D&D will not "end." Worst thing that would happen? D&D would be sold to someone else.

Let this brand go everybody. There's so many better TTRPGs on the market.

Hilarious and insightful as always. :)

BG3 was good not because it's a DnD game, but because Larian developed it. No other developers out there could show it the same level of love and care that they have

12:07 This, this is my 40 years of gaming. My very soul.

I thought there would have been an adam and eve sponsorship at the spot where you said you wanted to talk about adult toys

Always appreciate your take on things! It's truly sad what Hasbro/Wizards is doing to squeeze every last penny out of people. I wish we had more cohesion from the Magic end of things to stand up to them. It takes Wizards going completely off the rails with the Reserved List and selling people 4 packs of boosters for $1000 before anyone will do anything. Me personally, I'm just enjoying playing other card games. I wonder if some DnD players will do the same?

I don't get why so many people think they need Hasbro's cooperation to do tabletop role playing. Seriously, the fun is cooperative storytelling, not playing bit parts in a story told by others. They can pump out accessories and lore and supplements you don't need or want at a fever pitch, and so what? Most of the fun is cooperatively developing the same kind of material they're trying to sell you - where each campaign is based on the history of previous campaigns, not based on popular merch that a million other campaigns are based on. If Hasbro produces crap, you can have more fun literally rolling your own tabletop rules.

"The Okhrana" 😄 I love Discourse's off the wall references. Regarding the release of D&D6e; MCDM is starting a crowdfunding campaign for their new heroic fantasy rpg in December of this year.

Why are you still on twitter, a Hate platform? Did you know celebrities, scientists, philosophers and artists have left? You can google the list. Gets bigger every day. Be brave, take the plunge and stop indirectly supporting racism, sexism and all of humanities worst traits. Love your vids, as always.

Woohoo, you flashed my book (Highlander) and one I helped with (Pacific Rim) Thanks!

My best guess why they want to get rid of the OGL: 5E will never die as a result of the OGL releases. And that's a huge risk for One DnD and their virtual table top. AD&D 2nd really sucked in comparison to 5E (sorry guys), but it still has many hardcore fans. Fans that probably never played 5E or at least did not buy much. And since One DnD will be a rather small step in comparison... and not necessarily an upgrade, we will probably still see more 5E players than One DnD players in five or ten years.

Larian Studios would never push out a game quickly that doesn’t meet their quality standards. Which is the main reason why Sven told big corpos looking to buy his studio to piss off

My first edition books play the same now as they did in 1983, and my home rules are as good as anything WotC could come up with.

10:14, I'm sorry, there're TTRPG's for Highlander and Pacific Rim?!

My heart just dropped about the "multimedia universe" nonsense. This is what happened with Dragon Age and Mass Effect, and it ripped Bioware - one of the world's most premier game developers and my person favorite - completely apart. I know this won't affect Larian Studios directly, but we'll see.

Wotc needs players, players don't need wotc

D & D is dead. Long live D & D!

Since WOTC and Hasbro are both publicly traded company a shareholder meeting at WOTC could force the company to split from Hasbro if it seems like Hasbro is only being kept afloat by WOTC and it is to the detriment of WOTC itself.

Everytime I get your videos recommended on my front page it's just wizards making worse and worse decisions lol. Keep up the news work and thank you!

A little focus on quality would do wonders. If the VTT is good. I'll use it. If the paid features add value and aren't just cheap cash grabs or basic features that should be on a free version, I'll pay for them. If they released quality books I was interested in, I'd buy them. The book for deck of many things sounds interesting, but not worth the price. I haven't got spell jammer, but I've heard that it's also very lack luster. I honestly just want a book with a lot of content in it. No settings, no adventures, just player options, magic items, monsters, stuff I will actually use in my homebrew setting. I've spent a LOT of money on third party content for just that. Content. WotC could get that money from me instead of their books were worth the price.

I'm new-ish to the DND conversation, but have played DND for about 4 years with the same group. Three out of the four of us are conservative/libertarian leaning and I can say without a doubt DND's liberal leaning's get made fun of a lot by us. I personally won't consume anything DND outside of the general rules (costs me nothing) because of their highly bigoted and hateful positions towards anyone not highly integrated in their group think... also the fact that they are hilariously unaware of their rigid collectivism. I'm not here to complain, I don't care... at all... I simply watched a video and am responding as to *one* reason I think DND has been struggling. There is a quote that goes something like this, "should you live long enough to see yourself become the villain of your own story." When people in this case, trans, bi, gay liberal democrat" create an echo chamber so tightly monitored that anyone who physically or verbal does not sound or look like them is openly attacked, ridicule, mocked ect... then that group becomes like a Sun under massive gravitational pressures that inevitably squeeze anyone and anything that does not fit out like radiation. The reason the quote holds so much truth is due to the inevitability of process. Individuals do it to themselves, family units do it, groups... states, countries.... Even rocks and water does it. So it seems to me that DND like many companies and the LGTBQ nonsense did it to themselves. They self segregated and openly and freely attacked anyone not identical to them, they became the inevitable bad guys of their own story. They are often less funny, hateful, self centered and willing to express it with anger. Because DND became infected with bigots (even Critical Role) who would now and then push their politics and bigotries to the front pushed away 2 of the players in my group. They liked the overall story but would always comment how idiotically liberal they could be. For the record none of us are Republican or Trumpers... So there it is... my prospective of why DND has had a hard time as of recent is due to the inevitable process of collectivism VS individualism. You can't have one without the other and when unbalanced we see a correction that can't be avoided. The individuals who were pushed out will create a new collective and the process starts anew.

STOP CARING! There are so many superior alternatives to D&D now.

This sounds exactly like the tactics Microsoft is pulling off with Minecraft bedrock versus Minecraft Java.

Yes, WotC, keep on using that TSR playbook. Can't wait for the later chapters.

The worst just got worsesingly worst

I hate how many people went back to wotc and hasbro, especially youtubers who were all like burn it down, then went oh a free wotc trip and now there bigger shill sell outs then kevin smith, im still boycotting wotc/hasbro and will continue to hold strong

I'm not sure why more people don't move over to Pathfinder. Wizards wants to milk you for every dollar your worth. Go with another company that will treat you better, not change the game just for money, and has a cheaper price point. Wizards can't stop other Role Playing systems. I am doing the same with Magic by trying to find another game that treats me and my money with respect. People are getting kicked in the nuts, and then asking for seconds.

The issue with stockholders wanting a rise in profit quarter after quarter dates back to at least the 1980s, if you go back much further than that many stockholders valued long term stability and constant if slow growth over repeated high pressure short period growth. In short the get rich quick guys pushed out those who just wanted a solid stable long term investments.

Me: *looks at what is currently going on at Epic Games firing their former Creative Director and 1000 employees and declaring the "future of Fortnite" is going to be "as a digital platform" instead of a video game* Me: *looks at Games Workshop killing all goodwill from their own Warhammer 40K gamer fandom in one corporate decision* Me: * looks at Hasbro/WotC deliberately driving the D&D train off the same cliff* Just where do they _find_ all those gredy clowns to turn into corporate executives?

It's wild how Habro/WotC manage to screw up the Tabletop RPG part of D&D which was the core experience of D&D for decades. And this at a time when, from a gamer's perspective, the past 2 years have been an all-time high for D&D fans, with TTRPG D&D streams becoming part of the online mainstream, the success of _The Legend of Vox Machina_ animated series, the _Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves_ movie being an amazing surprise hit with likeable characters, fun story and great pacing (after the previous three D&D movies that were stinkers), and the _Baldur's Gate 3_ video game being a huge success.

So Larian's success is going to come back and haunt us in a bad way because of the greed machine. Just remember kids, they can never really take D&D away so long as we have our own imaginations.

If D&D was ever going to die off, then really now is the time. There's so many good systems out there, so much variety. Tabletop has never been healthier.

10:57 Nope. It also covers 3e, Pathfinder, Starfinder, Mutants and Masterminds... And those were the bits the necessitated ORC

D&D Digital Gaming. Any person buying into that is a sucker. You will end up paying every year for a subscription. All of your characters and campaign records will be in the cloud. Only available if you again continue to pay for yearly subscriptions. D&D is made to be played with physical books, papers, mats, figurines, etc. Having a downloaded character sheet or such related accessories is perfect. Only if it was downloaded. Nothing in the cloud. Unless you like having to pay a ransom fee very year.

The idiotic dream of infinite growth is so...something. Delusional? It seems to lead to a lot of unsustainable practices in modern business.

40% in the year that honor amongst thieves and BG3 launched aren't some big accomplishment.

Ultimately, either Hasbro fails and sells off WotC to someone else (yay), they succeed (yay), or they screw up DnD so badly that Pathfinder takes its place (yay).

Grognard here, and a former marketer too. The WoTC cross-marketing makes me sick. Those other franchises ARE cool, I even own a couple Dr Who cards but honestly, what imagination is required in that sort of fan-boy card-flopping? Iron Crown published the best Tolkien RPG decades ago and the trade caters to digit-OCD twitchers, IMNSHO. They need to work on gameplay mechanics and make some money cross-marketing actual play streaming and products, because, hey its a game of imagination and I'm seeing good ideas from Mercer and others that can liven up the game, just as all the OGL partners do. If they want to cut the OGL partners out they better become more open to new settings and scenarios and do some actual work writing those. Cards can be fine if used for imagination and player story involvement, but if its just a another numbers game, that's not very D&D.

I hope WoTC looks at the absolute failure that was D&D Dark Alliance and realizes that they can't just slap a D&D coat of paint onto any video game for it to succeed, and (more importantly) their games have to _actually be well made_ to make money. I am absolutely not against more D&D video games and other such things, even if they're not all made up to the standards of Baldur's Gate 3. What I *am* against is shovelware made by a toy company that doesn't know video games trying to turn a quick buck. And uh, crunch culture. I am very much against crunch culture. Crunch bad don't crunch devs for money.

What’s great is since the OGL we have had videos detailing the demise of WoTC and D&D from you. BG3s release caused a huge increase and digital sales this year are up 120m. Still waiting on that ultimate demise

they had a VTT in alpha like years ago, Hasbro really shit the bed. Now BG3 is a better VTT and i bet people out there will make it easy to download mod packs for cheap and wipe the floor with Hasbro's "this temple altar needs to be purchased for $2."

Shouldn't I NOT support you to continue your existential dread?

Fuck hasbro, all my homies using Pen and paper for dnd!

Discrourse, as a spokesperson for the Ekster product, would you be able to explain to us what "space grade aluminium" means?

I for one, look forward to WotC and Hasbro falling flat on their faces as they misunderstand what made them bank this year, and put out inferior imitations at an accelerated pace.

Gosh, Hasbro can't make money selling Star Wars toys? I'm shocked, seems like a money printer.

Don't know why everybody tells that Hasbro stock is at an all time low. It isn't. It dropped a lot in recent years but is 50% over 10 years ago.

You should be canceled... Not because of the doomsaying with WotC. They deserve that. But because of THOSE PUNS! I just can't even. :P

Table top role playing is exactly that. Table Top. Face to face. For many, its a singular social output - not just a game. I know that in recent years it has become a celebrity "thing" and actually quite fashionable. But prior to that it was your one time to shine, without shame or guilt, and have fun with friends. Yes... PC games like BGIII do have their place - but they do not - and can never - replace the experience of sitting at a table with your friends and actually playing. And honestly - if you really want to enjoy it - download an old copy for free - anything recent is garbage anyway.

Damn good video! Thanks YT for recommend!

I'm stocking up on hardcovers for the biggest settings in 5e. Once I'm done (Planescape and Everron left) I will have nothing to do with WoTC anymore.

Great video, and that American Psycho bit was brilliant... maybe a bit too brilliant. Wizards about to find out what happens if they don't pay their mercenaries! Digital is easy to copy, index, iterate, distribute. Feels bad when a business model butts heads with those advantages, even if it's the only way to stay in business. Companies like Steam and GOG seem have figured out how to lean into their advantages, maybe wazzards will get there too some day.

Meanwhile Paizo just released their new core rulebook revisions in actual book format and they are not slowing down. Actual table top role playing is far from dead.

The Pathfinder community will happily welcome any and all 5e refugees.

The bubble's popped and they don't even know it. People make their own 5e content now, their own tools, no need to pay hasbro for anything. The license is fine if they want to dish it out a bit more (which has no guarantee, BG3 was great but lets not forget the Dark Alliance flop) but D&D itself is on the down swing, those that wanted to get in it have done so and other games are swooping in to take the (still) small market share. Even Critical Role is moving away and into making and publishing their own games and content

It’s not the end. They’re busy promoting new books already in the works.

Sitting back with my old TSR books planning out my two 2nd edition online games.... Looks up, "Hey kids!!! Turn that noise down! That isn't d&d."

Am I the only one who finds the close parallel between "One D&D" and "Ein Volk" disgusting? Did they think at all when they invented that title? I guess they kinda crapped the bed back in the 3.5e days so it can't be "5.5e" but seriously...

bad bet, the digital dnd thing doesn't appeal to anyone. with a bit of luck they drive the company off a cliff and lose all their IP licenses

I love that Troll Lord Games has been allowed to reprint some of the old Gary Gygax content. I'm really looking forward to D&D content not coming from WotC.

They sold the ttrpg licenses for JI Joe, Power rangers, and Transformers to another company when they have their own ttrpg company.

Im scared of Hasbro moving all of Renegade Game Studios' licensed games over to WOTC's studio. Renegade is doing great things with Power Rangers, GI JOE and Transformers and the company is full of great people from the history of the Gaming and TCG Industry. I cringe at the thought of Wizards "WOTC"ing it all up with agendas and politics and greed.

I will forever find it funny how Hasbro has kinda has only the core of their brands from the 80s making the most money, Marvel Legends and Star Wars makes money but it has slipped in comparison to Transformers getting back on track and GI Joe is back with MLP also being a brand they can make bank with but have on the backburner right now. BG3 has shown the success for Wizards but is a double edged sword for Hasbro, the digital side of D&D can easily be fucked due to Divinity Original Sin 2 having mod tools, a sign that Larian will support their game's community and one for BG3 could easily spell out the doom for the digital tabletop as DM mode will likely be modded in and people who want to get into D&D could just play BG3 alone, with friends, or with a full table by this margin of idea. Magic is a card game, card games have more so gone digital in recent years for the factor of play and with magic those who play is where they make money but once its out of stores, brand growth will also slow as it will no longer be known as easily: Yugioh and Pokemon are examples that show the media beyond the game itself for reason to stay in stores: its because of the factor of legacy with their animes all the same as their cards, a legacy that allows for them to grow, unlike MTG who would likely shrink in full digital in focus unless they keep universes beyond for Magic. The OGL scandal likely screwed over the One D&D original plan, the future of digital D&D likely means D&D will be stuck in a loop of stagnation and at some point will fizzle out, akin to some of the setting expansions from the AD&D days like Dark Sun, at some point the wick for the candle will extinguish itself and Wizards may have to close their doors in a decade or two if this plan goes forward. Ultimately I believe Hasbro has enough in their pocket to subjegate their debt if that were to occur as the toy side of the company has learned Transformers is their only mainstay that makes enough to keep forever and they can cycle their other brands at disposal beside it to try and feed in a resurgence, perhaps using the 2030s as a platform to try and revive some of their visionary stuff again , just likely not going back to the plan that The Hub was where they tried to bring Mask back through Transformers.

Still not seeing why what they want or try to do with D&D matters if you just play Pathfinder instead and always actively discourage adherence to D&D for ethical reasons.

Only you can bring a smile along with bad news ! ! ! 😃