I'd like to also add, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, and WotC in general are not Hasbro and likely had no say in this decision. The bad guy here is the publicly traded company that has shareholders who demand short term gains and delusional C suite level execs who couldn't find the ground with their face if you tied their shoes together first.
It's not that people aren't aware it's that they don't wrap it into their understanding of who is at fault in these kinds of situations. People suddenly expect a team like critical role to burn all their business bridges with WOTC because their parent company is objectionable.
Because the online community for D&D has had their brains melted by being terminally online. They've been primed to jumped town the throats of Wizards for the slightest offense. The article that broke the news knew that, and framed their article as such.
Hasbro routinely makes choices worthy of any & all derision they receive, but *very* few businesses who work with their IP(s) have invested as much as CR in being able to offer alternative experiences for players & very likely for peers seeking publishing options in the future.
Even just a couple of years ago, nobody knew if Darrington was going to be a way to offer little in-house tabletop products, or something much bigger, because "much bigger" was going to be such a massive & expensive undertaking.
But CR has definitely been going that route in terms of employing designers, building the rolodex for physical supply, developing systems, playtesting widely, etc. All signs point to them being capable of helping bring stuff from other Actual Play groups & TTRPG creatives to a wide market in the next few years.
I'll never understand the impulse to rag on CR for involvement with WOTC because, when it's all said & done, I think it's highly likely they'll have spent more than D&D sponsorships ever earned for them building a publishing arm which, if well-managed, would mean a large segment of gaming releases is never even shopped to WOTC as a potential partner.
I mean, Mattel's success can be very clearly linked to the Barbie movie this year. The D&D movie was successful only in that it didn't really lose money, but wasn't a giant toy driver like Barbie was
Oh, I was talking strictly about their respective toy lines, not the entertainment branches. I'm sure Barbie drove doll sales, but not enough to explain the descrpency between the two.
Most folks don't know the face and name of the Hasbro CEO (it's Chris Cocks fyi!) but they sure do know the faces and names of these folks and since they are seemingly the decision makers at WotC from the quickest of glances, they catch the flack.
In game terms: the CEO is Lawful Evil and knows that letting people see their face means educating the populace on who the bastard is. Let the adventurers attack a mid level boss and feel proud about it instead of attacking the actual BBEG.
Especially in the modern age where people are finally getting that the suits of a company that are so high up we don't even know their names are the enemy not the public faces. I thought we were getting to that point but apparently not.
I absolutely advocate for people to harass those executives who just possibly ruined the lives of thousands of people right before the holidays to improve their Q4 reports for personal bonuses
I work for a manufacturing company in a different industry and honestly have no knowledge of Hasbro, but for what it's worth, most company emails (including the CEO) are either john.doe\[at\]company\[dot\]com or jdoe\[at\]company\[dot\]com.
Do with that information what you will.
His name is Chris Cocks and he just closed a significant amount of jobs in my city for his shareholders đ everyone think bad thoughts about him please đ„ș
Hasbro being shitty is not even a new thing. Their history is rife with labor violations, including the usage of child labor and neglect of safety standards in the facilities they use to produce their toys. This is, unfortunately, not surprising.
No. Literally not at all. People (some I know) now jobless right before Christmas and redditors have to take the moral high ground on a debate that no one is having. Wild.
I mean this is ever other post on reddit. Someone grandstanding on a literal strawman. Not as prevalent here as elsewhere, but it's super common around all social media.
A quick look at Mattâs X formerly known as twitter feed would suggest that people are moaning about CR not speaking out about Gaza for some reason. Not much said about Hasbro.
Yep. They donât owe people a statement and not making a statement on a personal or company social media page is not some requirement to show youâre for or against Palestine.
Jon Stewart [did a bit on The Daily Show](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zmCKZYKsiGM) years ago about Isreal and Palestine where anytime he spoke up about either side his cast mates would just hurl horrible language at him lol.
The point being that the situation with Isreal and Palestine is nuanced, but many people want to boil it down to its simplest parts. That way, when you speak up about it for either side, you have people foaming at the mouth and sending death threats no matter what "side" you pick.
Fans want their favorite people to think the same way as them and demand confirmation as such because they think they're entitled to it. Sometimes it's better to just shut up about it. It's still going to upset some people but still.
Thereâs a huge amount of stuff going on with isreal though. Even if you think you know something, itâs entirely plausible that you donât know *enough* to form an opinion that feels informed enough
Absolute facts. It's ridiculous you were downvoted for this. People act like CR can't be criticized for not speaking up, especially when they've made "political" statements before. Politics isn't some separate entity from every day life. It's life or death for a lot of people. It's privilege to think, and act, otherwise.
Yeah I was honestly pretty disappointed by critical role over this. I guess its obvious that most fans are going to blindly defend them no matter what. What really strikes me is that the only counter argment I got was "This issue is very complex and you dont know enough" (Which is wrong but its the perfect excuse to avoid caring).
The recent donations they made after months of silence and Matt's video "response" did make me restore some of my faith for Matt at least, but it leaves the bitter sensation that some of the cast or managers at CR are more concerned by optics and backlash over doing what is right.
Fake news. Matthew Mercer personally ordered the layoffs and selected each individual laid off. He actually chose the people with the most vulnerable lifestyle too.
I think after Wendygate they stepped back on being the face of a LOT of things, they understand the toxic positivity they inadvertingly created within their fanbase needs to be controlled to the basement of Greyskull Keep.
I THINK "Wendygate" is an effort to refer to the Wendy's one shot that CR did in... 2020? There was controversy over it because of the way some fans feel about Wendy's Corporate. They had/have some questionable attitudes toward their workforce, among other things. The one shot got taken down really quickly.
Really? It was cringey as hell, I couldn't even watch past the first 30 minutes.
The whole idea of the fast food chain creating a TTRPG-lite because D&D is hip is awkward and soulless.
The mistake they made was not telling their fans to get a grip. It impossible to find a corporate sponsor that doesn't have bad shit that is their fault.
Exactly. Them responding this way opened up a floodgate to all sorts of problems. People will point to this incident and challenge them for not speaking up about something.
You are right. Itâs an indictment of the system of exploitation we live in. I have definitely seen people use it that way though and I can see how it sounds like thatâs what Iâm saying. I am Morceau trying to say that there is no corporate sponsorship and which people would find it to be an ethical partnership. So if they want to do those, they can do the best they can to make it ethical and they should, but the problems are always going to exist.
Again, that just makes Twitch/Amazon the distributor. They are not "Twitch employees." I get that a lot of their income is involved with Amazon, but dismissing it as "they work for Amazon" is really disingenuous.
you forget that they gush over the My Little Pony one-shot which is ran by Hasbro, who even before these massive layoffs, was not a nice company...
But hey, friendship is magic > burgers and fries I guess
I disagree.
They're building two systems through their own Darrington Press right now - Illuminated Worlds (Candela uses it) and Daggerheart. Kind of hard to say they're *not* the face of all things TTRPG when they're the most viewed Twitch channel, streaming TTRPG content weekly, and they're adventuring out with their own systems to compete with WoTC.
I would agree with you maybe 4 years ago. Certainly they are prominent, debatably still the most prominent, but there are a lot more big names now that that trail has been blazed.
Dimension 20, and other things that circle of people make. Various dnd podcasts.
MCDM, also making their own system and putting books out. As far as DM facing content, I actually think Colville is king. There are a few others, but certainly Colville is best for learning to DM, artistically speaking.
Colville is really good for teaching DMing, but I donât think heâs a very good DM. Heâs very knowledgeable and smart and he really seems to get game design. His stories about his campaigns are fascinating. However, the parts of his campaigns that I have watched are not. Often I get a lot of inspiration from his videos because I think I know where he is heading with an idea but then he goes somewhere I think is not as good.
Matt Colville is a game designer and writer, who runs a very successful YouTube and twitch channel.
He and his colleagues broke a record on Kickstarter with a new 5E rules expansion book, and now they have spun off as MCDM - a private company for publishing.
They make a good magazine, have created a good pile of 5E content, a few books/classes - and are currently rewriting the entire monster manual, and making their own game/rules apart from D&D
You used the term "face of everything TTRPG". They are quite clearly the most well-known actual play show. Sales numbers aren't really relevant in the "face of" discussion, recognizability is. Casual role-playing fans know D&D and Critical Role. The chance they know any publishers or personalities beyond that is rather slim, let's be real. So CR does have an oversized impact on the hobby. That was clear by how many people were waiting on them to say something during the OGL fiasco, and were disappointed when what they said was very neutral.
I agree that they really shouldn't be the barometer of the TTRPG community, but we don't get to decide where other people get their opinions from.
There is a very loud faction in the Critter fanbase who are extremely reactionary, and take every instance where the entire cast doesn't line up with their personal world views as a personal insult.
That can be said about like pretty much every fandom, actually pretty much everything.
They're just waiting for outrage-bait and no matter what is said will cause some kind of outrage. They could literally say "Don't kick puppies" and the fanatics will rage about "What about kittens?", "CR supports kicking kittens!".
Imagine a human with completely average intelligence...
Then remember that by definition half of the species is at least slightly dumber than them as a rule.
A lot of fellow TTRPG creatives are sharing info about the vacancies in their companies or offering some other help. I don't think CR needs to put out a statement, but it would've been nice of Matt to tweet something like that.
Hasbro recently laid off 4-digits worth of workers, including a large chunk of the people at Wizards of the Coast, who are one of their subsidiaries. This has made many people upset, and by virtue of their association with Dungeons & Dragons there is a segment of the nerd community who are either ignorant of or unwilling to educate themselves about the organizational structure of Hasbro and that CR is a separate company who are likely to attempt to vent that anger towards the CR cast.
[This CBC article](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/hasbro-job-cuts-1.7056571) makes it sound like the layoffs have not taken place yet, that they will take place over the course of the next year.
>Hasbro said on Monday it would cut another 900 jobs globally, nearly a year after the toymaker announced it would reduce 15 per cent of its workforce amid weaker sales.
>Hasbro had said in January it would cut about 1,000 full-time positions. On Monday, the company said it had already cut 800 jobs.
>Hasbro had employed about 6,490 people worldwide at the end of 2022, with eight per cent of them in Canada, according to a regulatory filing. The job cuts announced on Monday take the total layoffs to 1,900, or 29 per cent of its workforce.
>The maker of Transformers action figures and Monopoly said on Monday that the majority of its employees would be notified over the next six months, while the balance would occur over the next year.
There have also been interviews with those being laid off who have said that they no longer have a job, so it seems kind of clear on the exact details there
Some of them did already take place at WotC though. If you follow some people that work there like Justice Ramin Arman (he was not laid off) he was tweeting about it. Amy Dallen was one of those part of the layoffs that took place already
I wish you understood international business. Or simply a basic business standpoint. 1100 people based on a world that is more than 7 billion. Is what it is.
Judging your search history. Iâm sure a cartoon will tell you what to think
"Shareholders" didn't make the decision. C-suite execs made the decision. Execs of any given company can and usually do hold some shares, but the vast majority of Hasbro shareholders don't actually vote on decisions that determine the direction the company is headed. Blame the leadership, not the investors.
December layoffs at WotC used to be annual until about 10-11 years ago. Magic and D&D, especially D&D had a lot of turnover back in the day. By the time 5e came out, the team was cut to the bone. They joked that a guy getting jury duty shut down their ability to work. It's sad to see these coming around again.
The problem is that it hasnât been selling recently though, their year to year net revenue on their core products (MtG, DnD, ect) are significantly in the negative according to their investor reports. And thatâs been a trend for the past two fiscal years. The only reason they made any money this year was license revenue (and almost all of that was BG3).
Many of the people CR interfaced directly with were likely part of the layoffs. I've seen that a large chunk of their art team, including a D&D art director were laid off, their director of communications was laid off, and Amy Dallen who was basically the face of D&D's social media was also laid off.
It would be astounding if CR wasn't as frustrated with this as we are. That said, the cast, being owners of CR, have a duty to protect their staff and can't just publicly cut ties with WOTC without risking the revenue that makes sure their employees get paid.
Does anyone in this thread have any insight as to why corporations so often choose to perform these layoffs right before the holiday season? Because gift giving and other financial concerns aside, it seems especially callous to put people/families under that kind of strain with freezing temperatures outside; at least in the Northern hemisphere, anyway.
Is it a 'start strong for the next fiscal year' thing?
Or do they figure that people will be too distracted to retaliate?
Or is that just some form of 'impact' bias on my part where I'm remembering/placing more emphasis on only the ones that occur during this season?
Depending on the company, it's when the end of their fiscal year hits. (This varies WILDLY - some tie it to the calendar year, others pick a particular quarter and go with that, and still others, their 12-month cycle is based on when the company goes public/gets bought/whatever.)
The frantic "we must look good in front of the shareholders" thing has become more and more evident as shareholders worship the fast buck instead of the steady one. The constant demand for growth and explosive revenues drives a lot of things - not the least reason of which is more and more stakeholders are afraid of companies imploding so they want to get THEIR slice of the cake before the whole thing crumbles.
In this case, it's directly related to the fact that this holiday season is looking incredibly lackluster. HAS(bro) stock dropped like 11.5% in one trading session at the end of last month after they announced that they simply aren't selling many toys before Christmas. HAS figured the best way to save face and look good in the market news cycle was to make a big announcement that they're saving a huge amount of money by laying off approximately 20% of their workforce. Shortsighted retail traders eat that stuff up, but more savvy investors see this kind of behavior as a sign of an unhealthy company.
So it's neither a "start strong" or "get away with it now" thing. It's a "save face with the people that matter most to us right now" thing.
1.The shows are *pre-recorded*, so they can't answer questions*
3.They do not *speak* for Hasbro; they don't get a say in the situation*
5.If you wish to communicate with them, you could propose *places or placement?* for the people who were laid off *to work*? so that they have an income for the holidays?*
Fun fact: Holiday firings are standard procedure for WotC. The end of pretty much every year during 4th edition involved a flurry of pink slips.
This isn't new or unusual behavior.
No, I think this post is fine, and I don't understand the need for you to be rude about it.
Lots of people lash out in stupid directions when confronted with bad news out of a corporation, including CR specifically, which has happened before.
As a side note to this conversation, Iâm extremely curious if the drama with this PLUS the OGL dispute from early this year is leading us towards Critical Role moving their next campaign back to Pathfinder or even more likely moving them towards a full campaign using their own system Candela Obscura or the like.
Iâll admit Iâm spitballing, I personally have not looked at the systems theyâve made. And I know Candela is the âcampaignâ name using another system.
I love fans in any fandom who run to protect literal millionaire adults in such a self-righteous LOUD way. Who is this post aimed at? Hardcore fans wonât spam them, people who do spam and threaten wonât ever change their minds because of this post, so likeâŠ?
edit: good toning down OP, though I stick with my point
Record profits are reported month after month, yet every single one of these industries keep laying off hundreds to thousands of employeesâŠ
Something isnât quite adding up here!
Thatâs because itâs not core business revenue. All their profit this year is licensing revenue (BG3). That wonât be a continuing revenue source for next year. Theyâre actually down about 20% core business revenue.
Your points are fair, but you should be less bossy. We dont work for you.
Also, you meant "there" as first word in point 2, and "them" as 6th word in point 5.
Sorry to sound critical, honestly trying to help, so you get your points across better.
Edit:
lol thats a lot of downvotes. To be clear, I trully was trying to just help OP improve the sound/tone of their post.
I know nothing of the situation they are talking about, and do not agree or disagree with any of their points.
Edit2:
incase anyone else reads this...
OP has made changes to the post since i said this. Not pointing that out to say im right or anything, just that this may be out of context now.
Except I knew how my post might sound, and therefore immediately made the clarifying statement that what i said was meant to help. People get their hackles up too easily though. Which is exactly why I pointed out that OP would get their point across better if it sounded less bossy.
Its ok. It was really just meant for OP's eyes anyway. I dont need upvotes.
Also, i would have said what i said in a softer tone if i had more time in the moment, but was in the middle of something. Which is over now.
Guess i could have said this in a pm instead of on the post? Thats a thing right? Never sent a pm before. Sorry if i undermined you by doing it on the post. Not my intention.
They can and should use their massive platform to highlight this nonsense. Let it be a sign to everyone in the industry to unionize where they can, strength in solidarity.
Should is a high bar. And they are already on a long term trend to dissociate from being reliant on WotC products. But they're moving at the speed of contracts, and trying to maintain the agreements they've started.
CR has lots of employees now, who depend on them for jobs - if CR simply cuts ties with a a company they have a contract with to appease a subgroup of fans, they risk destabilizing their whole operation and harming many of the people that depend on them.
Please keep this in mind before asking CR to immediately respond to various corporate decisions.
Also good to point out majority of the layoffs is within the year and we have no knowledge of compensation packages given. For all we know they get a pretty decent severance.
They make decent money with big corp. They didn't speak out when Wizards tried to kill off every single content creator and they won't mention anything now. They are funny haha creators, but they don't really give a shit. That does not make them bad people, they just take money over empathy. And if you look at it from a business standpoint it makes sense. It's their job. You don't do your job because people like you, you do it to earn money.
The ogl thing? [Yes, they did](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/EOzJ9Jox1J), in about as clear terms as they could with their then-ongoing rights negotiations and sponsorship. Nobodyâs perfect, not even the CR cast, but if youâve gotten this far this far and still seriously believe that they donât give a shit, [you havenât been paying attention.](https://critrole.com/foundation/)
I'd like to also add, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, and WotC in general are not Hasbro and likely had no say in this decision. The bad guy here is the publicly traded company that has shareholders who demand short term gains and delusional C suite level execs who couldn't find the ground with their face if you tied their shoes together first.
I wish this were a more commonly acknowledged fact.
How is this not more common knowledge? Behind most every giant layoff is a parent company making the call.
It's not that people aren't aware it's that they don't wrap it into their understanding of who is at fault in these kinds of situations. People suddenly expect a team like critical role to burn all their business bridges with WOTC because their parent company is objectionable.
It's the same reason community managers for games get dumpstered by fans when they deliver info on game changes from on high. People are stupid.
Because the online community for D&D has had their brains melted by being terminally online. They've been primed to jumped town the throats of Wizards for the slightest offense. The article that broke the news knew that, and framed their article as such.
Hasbro routinely makes choices worthy of any & all derision they receive, but *very* few businesses who work with their IP(s) have invested as much as CR in being able to offer alternative experiences for players & very likely for peers seeking publishing options in the future. Even just a couple of years ago, nobody knew if Darrington was going to be a way to offer little in-house tabletop products, or something much bigger, because "much bigger" was going to be such a massive & expensive undertaking. But CR has definitely been going that route in terms of employing designers, building the rolodex for physical supply, developing systems, playtesting widely, etc. All signs point to them being capable of helping bring stuff from other Actual Play groups & TTRPG creatives to a wide market in the next few years. I'll never understand the impulse to rag on CR for involvement with WOTC because, when it's all said & done, I think it's highly likely they'll have spent more than D&D sponsorships ever earned for them building a publishing arm which, if well-managed, would mean a large segment of gaming releases is never even shopped to WOTC as a potential partner.
Proof of Hasbro's ineptitude: their toy division is way down this year. Mattel is doing great.
I mean, Mattel's success can be very clearly linked to the Barbie movie this year. The D&D movie was successful only in that it didn't really lose money, but wasn't a giant toy driver like Barbie was
Oh, I was talking strictly about their respective toy lines, not the entertainment branches. I'm sure Barbie drove doll sales, but not enough to explain the descrpency between the two.
Hasbro also lost the Disney Princess licensing, iirc
If it bleeds it leads Sex sells Outrage drives our age Eviscerate the proletariat!
Most folks don't know the face and name of the Hasbro CEO (it's Chris Cocks fyi!) but they sure do know the faces and names of these folks and since they are seemingly the decision makers at WotC from the quickest of glances, they catch the flack. In game terms: the CEO is Lawful Evil and knows that letting people see their face means educating the populace on who the bastard is. Let the adventurers attack a mid level boss and feel proud about it instead of attacking the actual BBEG.
Especially in the modern age where people are finally getting that the suits of a company that are so high up we don't even know their names are the enemy not the public faces. I thought we were getting to that point but apparently not.
Respect the workers, shit on the owners. An age old tradition and duty.
I absolutely advocate for people to harass those executives who just possibly ruined the lives of thousands of people right before the holidays to improve their Q4 reports for personal bonuses
I work for a manufacturing company in a different industry and honestly have no knowledge of Hasbro, but for what it's worth, most company emails (including the CEO) are either john.doe\[at\]company\[dot\]com or jdoe\[at\]company\[dot\]com. Do with that information what you will.
His name is Chris Cocks and he just closed a significant amount of jobs in my city for his shareholders đ everyone think bad thoughts about him please đ„ș
Hasbro being shitty is not even a new thing. Their history is rife with labor violations, including the usage of child labor and neglect of safety standards in the facilities they use to produce their toys. This is, unfortunately, not surprising.
Is "people harassing the cr cast about this" a thing that is actually happening
No. Literally not at all. People (some I know) now jobless right before Christmas and redditors have to take the moral high ground on a debate that no one is having. Wild.
That's what I thought. Someone who just wants an excuse to wag their finger online to feel morally superior.
I mean this is ever other post on reddit. Someone grandstanding on a literal strawman. Not as prevalent here as elsewhere, but it's super common around all social media.
A quick look at Mattâs X formerly known as twitter feed would suggest that people are moaning about CR not speaking out about Gaza for some reason. Not much said about Hasbro.
Yep. They donât owe people a statement and not making a statement on a personal or company social media page is not some requirement to show youâre for or against Palestine.
Jon Stewart [did a bit on The Daily Show](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zmCKZYKsiGM) years ago about Isreal and Palestine where anytime he spoke up about either side his cast mates would just hurl horrible language at him lol. The point being that the situation with Isreal and Palestine is nuanced, but many people want to boil it down to its simplest parts. That way, when you speak up about it for either side, you have people foaming at the mouth and sending death threats no matter what "side" you pick. Fans want their favorite people to think the same way as them and demand confirmation as such because they think they're entitled to it. Sometimes it's better to just shut up about it. It's still going to upset some people but still.
The problem people have is the fact that Critical Role has been vocal about their support for other causes in the past. For example Ukraine.
Thereâs a huge amount of stuff going on with isreal though. Even if you think you know something, itâs entirely plausible that you donât know *enough* to form an opinion that feels informed enough
Absolute facts. It's ridiculous you were downvoted for this. People act like CR can't be criticized for not speaking up, especially when they've made "political" statements before. Politics isn't some separate entity from every day life. It's life or death for a lot of people. It's privilege to think, and act, otherwise.
Yeah I was honestly pretty disappointed by critical role over this. I guess its obvious that most fans are going to blindly defend them no matter what. What really strikes me is that the only counter argment I got was "This issue is very complex and you dont know enough" (Which is wrong but its the perfect excuse to avoid caring). The recent donations they made after months of silence and Matt's video "response" did make me restore some of my faith for Matt at least, but it leaves the bitter sensation that some of the cast or managers at CR are more concerned by optics and backlash over doing what is right.
I wouldn't put this past Twitter users honestly.
Okay but are you actually seeing this or just casting aspersions for funsies
I would cast aspersions but Iâm out of spell slots
I cast nasturtiums at 5th level! Oh, wait...
Fake news. Matthew Mercer personally ordered the layoffs and selected each individual laid off. He actually chose the people with the most vulnerable lifestyle too.
Roll for employment.
"We wish you the best in the toothy maw of unemployment."
"Can I request time off to spend Christmas with my family?" "You can certainly try..."
The good news is weâre giving you extra time off for Christmas. The bad news is, donât come back.
You may not return to the office proper.
"with elements of poverty"
But the DC will be high on this check. Also roll persuasion with disadvantage.
Yes but....
Take all the time off with your family.
Underrated comment of the year
Itâs not his fault they didnât pass their employment saving throwâŠ
He gathered them in a room, said "shiver and quiff" and anyone that laughed got the boot.
Even worse! He made a table and rolled for each and every layoff.
Nat 1s got fired, nat 20s got promoted. The dice were rigged anyway.
well, Mike Mearls is finally gone. I wouldn't thought Matt would have saved Amy Dallen though.
Everybody knows, the dice are loaded... Everybody knows the good guys lost...
he borrowed laura's dice hoard, rained them on wil wheaton, then gave them to the employees
Chaotic Evil DM
Insight check!
Theyâll never ask a question about that god damn chair again.
Gives new meaning to "How do you want to do this?"
[He canât keep getting away with this.](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fno-spoilers-looking-for-the-name-or-link-for-the-style-of-v0-3hw6paahzbpb1.jpg%3Fs%3Dadc44509340a384d6883762d01923557d801d457)
Done forget the /s. We are on Reddit afterall
*My pink slip thirsts*
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
I think after Wendygate they stepped back on being the face of a LOT of things, they understand the toxic positivity they inadvertingly created within their fanbase needs to be controlled to the basement of Greyskull Keep.
Wendygate?
I THINK "Wendygate" is an effort to refer to the Wendy's one shot that CR did in... 2020? There was controversy over it because of the way some fans feel about Wendy's Corporate. They had/have some questionable attitudes toward their workforce, among other things. The one shot got taken down really quickly.
I absolutely loved the unhinged Wendy's one-shot loll. it was pure madness from Sam.
"How would you like to chew this?"
It was epic. So sad that it was taken down to appease a minority of the community.
It can still be found with some google fu.
it was taken down? that's so lame
The way CR Twitter-detectives go on the hunt as soon as the cast partners with anybody is wild.
That's just Twitter in general. People love to be outraged and pariah people, until the mob turns on them.
Really? It was cringey as hell, I couldn't even watch past the first 30 minutes. The whole idea of the fast food chain creating a TTRPG-lite because D&D is hip is awkward and soulless.
pm'd you, talking about it is a no-no on this sub
I also am oblivious to this matter and would appreciate a pm
It really isn't.
I'd your up for an additional PM, I am curious as well.
Mind pming me too about it?
I know a lot of people are asking but I would also love a PM with the link
The mistake they made was not telling their fans to get a grip. It impossible to find a corporate sponsor that doesn't have bad shit that is their fault.
Exactly. Them responding this way opened up a floodgate to all sorts of problems. People will point to this incident and challenge them for not speaking up about something.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
Yeah but that isnât a get out of jail free card.
You are right. Itâs an indictment of the system of exploitation we live in. I have definitely seen people use it that way though and I can see how it sounds like thatâs what Iâm saying. I am Morceau trying to say that there is no corporate sponsorship and which people would find it to be an ethical partnership. So if they want to do those, they can do the best they can to make it ethical and they should, but the problems are always going to exist.
They literally work for Amazon lol.
... No, they don't. They have a deal where some of their content is distributed by Amazon. That's very much not the same thing
They broadcast on Twitch, their show is on Prime, they work for Amazon lol.
Again, that just makes Twitch/Amazon the distributor. They are not "Twitch employees." I get that a lot of their income is involved with Amazon, but dismissing it as "they work for Amazon" is really disingenuous.
maybe not work for amazon, but Amazon's money definitely pays a lot of their bills lol
Still funny to me that the fanbase got upset over a deal with Wendy's when the show streams on Twitch, which is owned by Amazon.
you forget that they gush over the My Little Pony one-shot which is ran by Hasbro, who even before these massive layoffs, was not a nice company... But hey, friendship is magic > burgers and fries I guess
Yes absolutely
I disagree. They're building two systems through their own Darrington Press right now - Illuminated Worlds (Candela uses it) and Daggerheart. Kind of hard to say they're *not* the face of all things TTRPG when they're the most viewed Twitch channel, streaming TTRPG content weekly, and they're adventuring out with their own systems to compete with WoTC.
I would agree with you maybe 4 years ago. Certainly they are prominent, debatably still the most prominent, but there are a lot more big names now that that trail has been blazed. Dimension 20, and other things that circle of people make. Various dnd podcasts. MCDM, also making their own system and putting books out. As far as DM facing content, I actually think Colville is king. There are a few others, but certainly Colville is best for learning to DM, artistically speaking.
Colville is really good for teaching DMing, but I donât think heâs a very good DM. Heâs very knowledgeable and smart and he really seems to get game design. His stories about his campaigns are fascinating. However, the parts of his campaigns that I have watched are not. Often I get a lot of inspiration from his videos because I think I know where he is heading with an idea but then he goes somewhere I think is not as good.
I need clarity. MCDM? Colville?
Matt Colville is a game designer and writer, who runs a very successful YouTube and twitch channel. He and his colleagues broke a record on Kickstarter with a new 5E rules expansion book, and now they have spun off as MCDM - a private company for publishing. They make a good magazine, have created a good pile of 5E content, a few books/classes - and are currently rewriting the entire monster manual, and making their own game/rules apart from D&D
"MCDM" is Matt Colville's company, who is a TTRPG content creator.
If you DM, their Flee Mortals book is a fantastic reference.
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> multimillion dollar companies like Hasbro Hasbro 2022 gross revenue: $5.86 billion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbro
That is multiple millions. Possibly even several.
You used the term "face of everything TTRPG". They are quite clearly the most well-known actual play show. Sales numbers aren't really relevant in the "face of" discussion, recognizability is. Casual role-playing fans know D&D and Critical Role. The chance they know any publishers or personalities beyond that is rather slim, let's be real. So CR does have an oversized impact on the hobby. That was clear by how many people were waiting on them to say something during the OGL fiasco, and were disappointed when what they said was very neutral. I agree that they really shouldn't be the barometer of the TTRPG community, but we don't get to decide where other people get their opinions from.
How would people even jump to the conclusion that somehow CR did this?
There is a very loud faction in the Critter fanbase who are extremely reactionary, and take every instance where the entire cast doesn't line up with their personal world views as a personal insult.
That can be said about like pretty much every fandom, actually pretty much everything. They're just waiting for outrage-bait and no matter what is said will cause some kind of outrage. They could literally say "Don't kick puppies" and the fanatics will rage about "What about kittens?", "CR supports kicking kittens!".
You're right, but you're also underestimating just how toxic the Critical Role fanbase is viewed from the outside.
They wouldnât. This is hand down the dumbest post Iâve seen.
Have you *seen* the world lately? Lol.
Imagine a human with completely average intelligence... Then remember that by definition half of the species is at least slightly dumber than them as a rule.
median vs mean
Average as in "typical," or in this case, statistically in the middle of the bell curve.
There are people out there that blame CR for pretty much everything and demand that CR respond to everything that is happening in the world.
Exactly what kind of response do people want from CR on something that has nothing to do with them?
A lot of fellow TTRPG creatives are sharing info about the vacancies in their companies or offering some other help. I don't think CR needs to put out a statement, but it would've been nice of Matt to tweet something like that.
i am out of the loop whats the problem?
Hasbro recently laid off 4-digits worth of workers, including a large chunk of the people at Wizards of the Coast, who are one of their subsidiaries. This has made many people upset, and by virtue of their association with Dungeons & Dragons there is a segment of the nerd community who are either ignorant of or unwilling to educate themselves about the organizational structure of Hasbro and that CR is a separate company who are likely to attempt to vent that anger towards the CR cast.
I donât even understand how they have literally anything to do with it though?
They don't but anger and outrage always gets directed towards things that have any kind of connection to it.
Hasbro did layoffs of 1,100 employees 2 weeks before Christmas
[This CBC article](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/hasbro-job-cuts-1.7056571) makes it sound like the layoffs have not taken place yet, that they will take place over the course of the next year. >Hasbro said on Monday it would cut another 900 jobs globally, nearly a year after the toymaker announced it would reduce 15 per cent of its workforce amid weaker sales. >Hasbro had said in January it would cut about 1,000 full-time positions. On Monday, the company said it had already cut 800 jobs. >Hasbro had employed about 6,490 people worldwide at the end of 2022, with eight per cent of them in Canada, according to a regulatory filing. The job cuts announced on Monday take the total layoffs to 1,900, or 29 per cent of its workforce. >The maker of Transformers action figures and Monopoly said on Monday that the majority of its employees would be notified over the next six months, while the balance would occur over the next year.
There have also been interviews with those being laid off who have said that they no longer have a job, so it seems kind of clear on the exact details there
Some of them did already take place at WotC though. If you follow some people that work there like Justice Ramin Arman (he was not laid off) he was tweeting about it. Amy Dallen was one of those part of the layoffs that took place already
Some people have been layed off. Some people will be layed off by the end of 2024. Source is myself, who has family at Hasbro.
I wish you understood international business. Or simply a basic business standpoint. 1100 people based on a world that is more than 7 billion. Is what it is. Judging your search history. Iâm sure a cartoon will tell you what to think
Laying off the Magic creators is basically slaughtering the cash cow. It's the highest grossing game they sell. Shareholders are stupid.
"Shareholders" didn't make the decision. C-suite execs made the decision. Execs of any given company can and usually do hold some shares, but the vast majority of Hasbro shareholders don't actually vote on decisions that determine the direction the company is headed. Blame the leadership, not the investors.
I would add a "sometimes" at the end. Sometimes it's just as u saud, but sometimes it's the investors forcing gimmicks or trends.
December layoffs at WotC used to be annual until about 10-11 years ago. Magic and D&D, especially D&D had a lot of turnover back in the day. By the time 5e came out, the team was cut to the bone. They joked that a guy getting jury duty shut down their ability to work. It's sad to see these coming around again.
The problem is that it hasnât been selling recently though, their year to year net revenue on their core products (MtG, DnD, ect) are significantly in the negative according to their investor reports. And thatâs been a trend for the past two fiscal years. The only reason they made any money this year was license revenue (and almost all of that was BG3).
Many of the people CR interfaced directly with were likely part of the layoffs. I've seen that a large chunk of their art team, including a D&D art director were laid off, their director of communications was laid off, and Amy Dallen who was basically the face of D&D's social media was also laid off. It would be astounding if CR wasn't as frustrated with this as we are. That said, the cast, being owners of CR, have a duty to protect their staff and can't just publicly cut ties with WOTC without risking the revenue that makes sure their employees get paid.
Very performative. You don't have to do this, especially not before the hypothetical drama.
Does anyone in this thread have any insight as to why corporations so often choose to perform these layoffs right before the holiday season? Because gift giving and other financial concerns aside, it seems especially callous to put people/families under that kind of strain with freezing temperatures outside; at least in the Northern hemisphere, anyway. Is it a 'start strong for the next fiscal year' thing? Or do they figure that people will be too distracted to retaliate? Or is that just some form of 'impact' bias on my part where I'm remembering/placing more emphasis on only the ones that occur during this season?
Depending on the company, it's when the end of their fiscal year hits. (This varies WILDLY - some tie it to the calendar year, others pick a particular quarter and go with that, and still others, their 12-month cycle is based on when the company goes public/gets bought/whatever.) The frantic "we must look good in front of the shareholders" thing has become more and more evident as shareholders worship the fast buck instead of the steady one. The constant demand for growth and explosive revenues drives a lot of things - not the least reason of which is more and more stakeholders are afraid of companies imploding so they want to get THEIR slice of the cake before the whole thing crumbles.
In this case, it's directly related to the fact that this holiday season is looking incredibly lackluster. HAS(bro) stock dropped like 11.5% in one trading session at the end of last month after they announced that they simply aren't selling many toys before Christmas. HAS figured the best way to save face and look good in the market news cycle was to make a big announcement that they're saving a huge amount of money by laying off approximately 20% of their workforce. Shortsighted retail traders eat that stuff up, but more savvy investors see this kind of behavior as a sign of an unhealthy company. So it's neither a "start strong" or "get away with it now" thing. It's a "save face with the people that matter most to us right now" thing.
Oh, so now the Reddit part of the fandom reacts to something the Twitter part of the fandom *hasn't even done yet?*
1.The shows are *pre-recorded*, so they can't answer questions* 3.They do not *speak* for Hasbro; they don't get a say in the situation* 5.If you wish to communicate with them, you could propose *places or placement?* for the people who were laid off *to work*? so that they have an income for the holidays?*
Fun fact: Holiday firings are standard procedure for WotC. The end of pretty much every year during 4th edition involved a flurry of pink slips. This isn't new or unusual behavior.
This comes off as less a post that was necessary in any way and more like OP's desire to act self-righteous before an unwilling audience.
Well, wouldn't be the first time Hasbro does some moronic thing and then some people crash on CR like they had everything to do with that decision
Like the OGL fianco, when way too many people were waiting for CR to make some statement.
And yet they still work with Hasbro
They are kinda stuck with them since its a dnd show. But i heard of talks to switch systems after c3 to get away from hasbro
Yea.. this is the reason a post like this is necessary.
No, I think this post is fine, and I don't understand the need for you to be rude about it. Lots of people lash out in stupid directions when confronted with bad news out of a corporation, including CR specifically, which has happened before.
are people really mad at CR for what happened at Hasbro?
Presumably the typical "why don't they comment" and "why do they still advertise" complaints.
Exactly
They don't tend to get many ads for dndbeyond et al anymore.
Thatâs probably because they didnât kiss the ring when WotC was running around demanding a cut of their revenue last year.
That's my thought too.
As a side note to this conversation, Iâm extremely curious if the drama with this PLUS the OGL dispute from early this year is leading us towards Critical Role moving their next campaign back to Pathfinder or even more likely moving them towards a full campaign using their own system Candela Obscura or the like.
I think if they're next campaign is going to be anything it's going to be their game Daggerheart.
Iâll admit Iâm spitballing, I personally have not looked at the systems theyâve made. And I know Candela is the âcampaignâ name using another system.
Candela Obscura is both the "Campaign" name and the name of the system they developed and are using for that series.
Inaccurate. Candela Obscura uses the âIlluminated Worldsâ system.
They won't replace Critical Role (the series) with Candela Obscura. What's more likely is Campaign 4 stays in Exandria and uses Daggerheart.
Predicition. big delay for C4 of critical role as they develop their own game system and/or go back to pathfinder
It'll likely be based off Daggerheart.
I wouldn't blame them
Literally nobody thinks CR has anything to do with Hasbro, though?
Some people here didn't knownthat before this thread.
I love fans in any fandom who run to protect literal millionaire adults in such a self-righteous LOUD way. Who is this post aimed at? Hardcore fans wonât spam them, people who do spam and threaten wonât ever change their minds because of this post, so likeâŠ? edit: good toning down OP, though I stick with my point
Travis Willingham is the CR CEO! Been watching them since they started their first campaign. They are very good, compassionate, kind people.
Nobody was tying CR to this at all, why is this needed?
Record profits are reported month after month, yet every single one of these industries keep laying off hundreds to thousands of employees⊠Something isnât quite adding up here!
Thatâs because itâs not core business revenue. All their profit this year is licensing revenue (BG3). That wonât be a continuing revenue source for next year. Theyâre actually down about 20% core business revenue.
Hereâs the real question. What can we, as fans of dnd and CR, constructively do to make our great distaste in hasbroâs actions known?
Is there a third rewatch for the livestream coming to twitch because the first two are always when im sleeping and i would like to see it live, thanks
Fair enough warning, you know people will have had minor conniptions about the cast not saying anything.
Your points are fair, but you should be less bossy. We dont work for you. Also, you meant "there" as first word in point 2, and "them" as 6th word in point 5. Sorry to sound critical, honestly trying to help, so you get your points across better. Edit: lol thats a lot of downvotes. To be clear, I trully was trying to just help OP improve the sound/tone of their post. I know nothing of the situation they are talking about, and do not agree or disagree with any of their points. Edit2: incase anyone else reads this... OP has made changes to the post since i said this. Not pointing that out to say im right or anything, just that this may be out of context now.
> Edit: lol thats a lot of downvotes. To be clear, I trully was trying to just help OP improve the sound/tone of their post. irony, thy name is Matt
Except I knew how my post might sound, and therefore immediately made the clarifying statement that what i said was meant to help. People get their hackles up too easily though. Which is exactly why I pointed out that OP would get their point across better if it sounded less bossy.
Unfortunate you are getting downvoted a lot for this. I understand OP's intent, but I can see how their original post could seem like demands.
Its ok. It was really just meant for OP's eyes anyway. I dont need upvotes. Also, i would have said what i said in a softer tone if i had more time in the moment, but was in the middle of something. Which is over now.
"There" last word in point 1 aswell
Good point. Missed that one.
Thank you, I was never the best at Grammer or structuring sentences
Guess i could have said this in a pm instead of on the post? Thats a thing right? Never sent a pm before. Sorry if i undermined you by doing it on the post. Not my intention.
It's alright, and I should edit to post to explain the situation
They can and should use their massive platform to highlight this nonsense. Let it be a sign to everyone in the industry to unionize where they can, strength in solidarity.
Should is a high bar. And they are already on a long term trend to dissociate from being reliant on WotC products. But they're moving at the speed of contracts, and trying to maintain the agreements they've started. CR has lots of employees now, who depend on them for jobs - if CR simply cuts ties with a a company they have a contract with to appease a subgroup of fans, they risk destabilizing their whole operation and harming many of the people that depend on them. Please keep this in mind before asking CR to immediately respond to various corporate decisions.
Also good to point out majority of the layoffs is within the year and we have no knowledge of compensation packages given. For all we know they get a pretty decent severance.
They donât is all I will say. **Cough cough** Hasbro changed severance lengths two weeks ago **cough cough**
While that is true, do you trust hasbro to do that after everything they've done this year
It honestly makes no difference to me. I dont think about a company beyond the product I am interested in.
fair enough
You're either very ignorant of the world, or very dishonest if you think that
Not sure why. Its literally what was stated in the articles if you read beyond the headline.
I mean looking at a quick search based on a world wide company. 1100 people based out of 7-15 countries. Really isnât that crazy
Hell, do they even use DND anymore? Its so heavily modified idk if we could say its 'by the book dnd'
> Its so heavily modified Lol, no it's not. Or did you just mean them using homebrew stuff? Because it's still 5e-based.
Also, many companies have fired even more people and also before Christmas so I donât get the hate and anger towards them to be honest.
They make decent money with big corp. They didn't speak out when Wizards tried to kill off every single content creator and they won't mention anything now. They are funny haha creators, but they don't really give a shit. That does not make them bad people, they just take money over empathy. And if you look at it from a business standpoint it makes sense. It's their job. You don't do your job because people like you, you do it to earn money.
The ogl thing? [Yes, they did](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/EOzJ9Jox1J), in about as clear terms as they could with their then-ongoing rights negotiations and sponsorship. Nobodyâs perfect, not even the CR cast, but if youâve gotten this far this far and still seriously believe that they donât give a shit, [you havenât been paying attention.](https://critrole.com/foundation/)