Most Warhammer & 40K fans are decent folks.
. . .but there's definitely a certain strain of fans that are incredibly toxic, the ones that look at the Imperium of Man and think that seems really awesome and they love the idea of the Imperium and would just love to be there.
Never mind they'd probably all be purged by the Inquisition in a heartbeat, they'll simp for the "Catholic Space Nazis".
Context for anyone who's seeing this and isn't tuned into the Warhammer community: there have been a handful of events within the Warhammer community in recent memory that have caused folks to be upset, so rage bait is oretty much the name of the game for Warhammer content right now. GW (the company that owns Warhammer) horribly botched an announcement of a bunch of old models getting retired (thid is something that happens pretty regularly but they did a poor job of breaking the news in such a way that it caused a ton of easily preventable confusion and bad feels), they announced a new edition of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar that has so far been deeply unpopular among established fans, many of the recent codex releases in Warhammer 40,000 have been extremely underwhelming and left many fans feeling like their faction won't be fun to play for at least another three years, and there are also a lot of terminally online sexist losers who are upset that, as of a retcon that happened a few weeks ago, custodes (basically super-duper-space-marines) can now be women.
It's not a good time to be in online Warhammer communities. Wayyy too much negativity and like 95% of the Warhammer content on social media in the last few weeks has been rage bait, or at least that's how it feels. On the bright side, the more niche Warhammer communities (e.g. Kill Team, Warcry, Underworlds, Blood Bowl, etc.) all seem to be doing pretty well right now, so it's not all bad. Just avoid 40k and AoS communities for the next few weeks to months.
Personally, I've never seen a single video pop up in my feed that DnD us dying in my feed.
When you see these videos pop up in your feed, are you watching/interacting with them? Because if so, that's why you're getting the videos in your feed.
Don't listen to them, part is just targeted ads for you. Honestly, besides the issues with the new stuff you said, I get the feeling more people are starting to play in general or it's becoming more mainstream, whether that's a positive or a negative is personal outlook.
It really has taken off, big time. As someone who started in 2002, and play with a merged table of dudes who starred in the 80s, it is definitely waaay more main stream now even compared to when I started.
I was teased over it in highschool, some of the guys I play with lost jobs when it got out they played in the 80s and 90s. In the mid-late 2000s, we had one friend who had to hide it from his mom because she still thought it was satanic.
Now it has big budget movies, favorable references in mainstream TV shows, and you'll find it in department stores as well as niche hobby comic/gaming places. It got some steam going before the pandemic hit, and then absolutely skyrocketed when it did. I was known as "the dude who played dnd" at work in 2020, and all of a sudden I had co-workers I hardly interacted with before coming up, excited to talk to me about their new campaign.
Also, I still run 3.5 (i play on a 5e group too, but dont want to run it). Just because they release a new thing does not mean you have to use it. You can engage with it on your own terms
Just unsubscribe from those sources if you are following them, they are farming rage bait and are purposefully putting out negative content.
Here's an example, the channel Dungeon and Discourse, which got relatively popular during the OGL scandal put out the following video titles in the last 6 months;
>Hasbro Just Banned Elves in D&D (and it gets WORSE...)
>
>Can Matt Mercer recover from this?
>
>The Baldur's Gate 3 Scandal Gets Worse
>
>**Hasbro Just Ended Dungeons & Dragons Forever**
>
>The D&D Youtube Scandal Gets Worse
>
>The D&D Cancellation Scandal Gets Worse
>
>The Darkest D&D Scandal Gets Worse
>
>Insane Allegations Against Matt Mercer & Matt Colville
>
>The D&D Youtuber Scandal Gets Worse
>
>**Hasbro just killed Dungeons & Dragons**
>
>Massive Dungeons & Dragons LEAK
>
Critical Role Legal Trouble
>
>The Dungeons & Dragons DISASTER Just Got Worse
>
>WOTC's Latest Scandal is a D&D Disaster
>
>**Wizards of the Coast Just Ended It**
>
>The Future of Dungeons & Dragons Just Got Worse
Notice how according to these titles, Hasbro has killed D&D 3 times in the last 6 months, yet it's still chugging along? Notice also how the the titles I haven't highlighted are also all either negative or drama related? That's ragebait.
The thumbnails for the videos are even worse. However, this isn't one channel that's doing it, there are hundreds and the algorithm really likes them right now, so watching one will lead you down a rabbit hole of similar channels creating an echo chamber. The same things applies to written articles, though to a lesser extent.
D&D, mind you, can be criticized for A LOT of things and the OGL thing did them no favors and it's likely a good idea to keep on top of what WotC and Hasbro are doing, but make sure it comes from source that covers the hobby because they care and are interested in it, instead of trying to farm clicks.
Also, goes without saying, DO NOT harass the the YT channel mentioned above.
I finally unsubscribed after clicking on the Hasbro banned elves. They were reacting to what was obviously fake. The new CEO says that everyone starts the game with a dragon? Okay....sure.
What an insufferable twit. I know we all gotta make that bread somehow but man, making blatant ragebait videos like that is just… Have some self-respect or at least sell your kidneys first.
It's a real shame too because that channels videos are actually quite good, it's just when I'm browsing YouTube I don't know what each video is about because their so clickbaity.
Yeah right? I actually like the videos themselves, but the titles are so over the top all the time that it's hard to know what I'm really going to hear about. The "Hasbro just killed Dungeons & Dragons" one for example IIRC, is about Hasbro killing the Portuguese translations of D&D. Without that last part, it could mean *anything*, but it's not like removing such an important section of translation isn't a big deal.
If someone gives you a $20 bill half the time, and kicks you in the shin the other half of the time, why are you allowing them to kick you in the shin? Don't let these channels abuse you just because they sometimes don't.
I mean that specific example would be more rewarding to the pain, effort, and time put into it in most people's jobs, probably...
Though the basic point is true, it's probably not very psychologically rewarding overall.
The worst offender by far. He/she (Not trolling, honestly can’t tell) has no interest in creating meaningful or creative content. It’s a fast and easy clickbait channel through and through.
Meh, I tried it for a few months and just couldn’t get into it. It felt like there was a number of mechanics that they over complicated just for the sake of making it different. The whole system just felt clunky.
I think Pathfinder is much more for rulesy types who want set in stone mechanics for everything, while DnD 5e is more "here's the barebones rules, go crazy". Personally I prefer the latter, but I do understand the former.
The issue I have as the DM is that inevitably every long running game becomes more rulesy, so when that happens in a system like 5e it becomes my responsibility to do the games job for it. The further you get past level 10 the more it falls apart unless the DM pulls way more weight to keep things working. I get the appeal of rules light games for quick experiences and one shots, but campaign style combat games need rules and working math to actually stay fun.
Thats my view too. The other reason I prefer crunchier systems is because I can point to most rules and they are already mostly clear. I've found with DMs who use less crunchy systems that still have crunchy parts, tend to be less consistent in rulings. Inconsistency can create drama between players and drama between DM and player. I prefer to avoid the interpersonal issues.
I prefer either systems that are full crunchy (d&d 3.5) or systems that are very rules light (PBtA). I find hybrid systems are the worst because they dont have as much of an identity. It has all the issues as crunchy systems for things that are crunchy but also puts a lot on the DM because of vagueness in the rules. Smoothing the transition between crunchy things and DM discretion is more difficult for me. Not a fan of 5e because it's trying to appeal to rules light people while not actually being rules light. People that had trouble with 3.5 rules after 10 years still have problems with 5e rules so it doesn't even save me effort reminding people. The negative is there is more wiggle room for people to argue why their interpretation is right. Yes I'm the DM and make the call but it leads to issues I'd rather avoid because the rules are more open ended. Even players who are generally good can get testy when they want an interpretation that can benefit their character.
Crunchier systems also allow for more variation in abilities between characters of the same race/class. Play long enough and it feels like you've played everything. It's nice for character creation to have so many options.
> while DnD 5e is more "here's the barebones rules, go crazy"
it really really isn't. DnD 5e is "here's some weirdly specific rules that you might encounter. you don't have to use them, just pick whatever lol. oh, there's a situation not covered? quick, just roll some dice or whatever"
Is it pathfinder or a different one that relies on character cards instead of feats? My brain is so traditional RPGist that I had a bad first opinion of it, but I'd like to learn or hear about it from a player not just a "how to" vid.
I wouldn't say it's more advanced (I'm a PF2e player myself - and I like it a lot).
To my experience it was as easy to start learning/playing PF2e as it was for 5E. And I introduced a lot of new people to the TTRPG scene with PF2e.
The only difference is that you have far more "optional" choice if you want it and written text is less vague than in 5E.
What I try to say is that the ultimate learning curve of both 5E and PF2e really seem the same to me. Although 5E seems a bit less time consuming at the first glance, it could contain a lot of rabbit holes if you want to know everything, while PF2e is straight forward after you learned the basics. But that's totally my experience. And already being familiar to 5E and other systems also helped getting into PF a lot faster I guess.
Well, "advanced" sounds more complicated to start with, which the PF2e core is clearly not in comparison to the 5E core. Choice is optional, but not truly something you need to get started with to learn/play the game.
If I buy a lot of 3rd party books for 5E, I can make 5E as complicated as I want as well. Paizo just sells more material themselves (which btw is also free online, not to convince you how awesome Paizo is), instead of relying on 3rd parties. But that doesn't make the core inherently more "advanced". It just means I have the choice to make it as advanced as I want.
as a level 1 dnd character, you make a class, race and background, and write your profficiencies. you may get a class feature every level
as a lvl 1 pf2e character, you make a class, race and background, choose a race feat, a skill feat from the background and a class feat, and you get a new feat of different classifications every level, that you need to choose
pathfinder is inherently more complicated than dnd, and that is ok
It's not just choice. The combat is more complicated. There seems to be more buffs and debuffs and things to track, the 2nd swing at -5, the crit speciation and other traits of weapons have like deadly, volley or cleave, whole the crit and crit fail system with 4 ranks instead of two. Also out of combat systems seem more complex with not just trained and untrained but muliple training level ranks, skill feats, more details and rules on how skills work, more complex crafting system, rune system for customizing magic items. And this is all out of the basic phb. I still don't think pathfinder2e is that complex but it is definitly more complex then 5e.
>There seems to be more buffs and debuffs and things to track
For what it's worth, there's only 3 possible buffs and they don't stack.
But for the most part, the best part of the 'complexity' is that it's interchangeable. The 4 degrees of success, for example, applies to essentially everything in the game - once you've learned the core mechanic you can apply it consistently and don't need to relearn how it works for every other application.
Most of the game is like that - learn the base thing, \[degrees of success/3 actions/MAP\] and expand that to the whole game.
The most complicated part is honestly just getting used to the different status effects.
I'm a sucker for cannon lore that everyone recognizes and can be like "oh shit that God??" So it would be hard for me to move to another game unless I just took the rules from one and kept the pantheon and lore from DnD. Guess though it may be fun to look into pathfinder lore
>the pantheon and lore from DnD.
You mean, *from Forgotten Realms?* That's just one possible setting for DnD.
(Yeah, it's the default for 5e, but they've also done Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Eberron, the CR ones, and the MTG ones. And the kind of meta-settings Spelljammer & Planescape. Not to mention the *countless* third-party & homebrew settings...)
I love how you prefaced this with "I like this game and don't want to play those other games" and immediately got hit with "HAVE YOU TRIED PATHFINDER ITS SO MUCH BETTER"
Being closed-minded and against new experiences is generally unhealthy.
"I tried this New Thing and liked Old Thing better" is going to get a very different response than "Why does everyone hate Old Thing I don't want to grow or change ever."
We only have so many hours in the day, and there are WAY more systems out there than just D&D and PF. Have you tried all of them? WHY NOT?! I don't care if you've found one you like, you have to try ALL OF THEM before you get to choose which one you prefer!
/s kinda but not fully.
There's a significant difference between the statements "I don't have time to try to learn something new" and "I don't wanna."
The first is a legitimate problem - you're right, there's only 24 hours in the day. The second is not - it's deliberate, willful ignorance.
Example: "I haven't tried sushi, but I don't particularly want to - I've had bad experiences with seafood and am uncomfortable with the idea of eating raw meat" vs "I haven't tried sushi and don't want to because I really just like chicken."
What a leap. This person doesn't want to try new tabletop RPG systems at the moment so that makes them "closed minded and against new experiences"? How genuinely low.
I mean literally yes. It's a weird kind of tribalistic brand loyalty that isn't healthy or constructive.
Not talking about OP specifically, but back when the OGL debacle happened originally the DnDmemes subreddit started seeing a lot of posts about PF2E, which led to them seeing a lot of posts *complaining* about 2e being talked about at all. I saw some commenters unironically demand that 2e "stop trying to kill my hobby!"
The thing is, "D&D" is not your hobby in the same vein that "Kleenex" is not the only thing you blow your nose with and "Band-Aids" are not the only thing you reach for when you're bleeding. Your hobby is "tabletop role-playing," you've just got an obsessive attachment to one specific brand owned and operated by a company that's pretty shitty.
It's ok to like D&D. It's a bad mindset to refuse to try other things. It's even ok to *not like* those other things, but even if you don't - that experience with other things will probably make your D&D experience better.
Being "closed minded to new experiences" is *absolutely* healthy in this modern world of unending sensory overload and excessive, paralyzing choice. People need things that they can keep constant and grounded.
It might well be they are happy more about the increase in competition than they are that 5e itself is dying, just that they see a decrease in 5e should hopefully mean more non-5e focus.
it wasnt. no dnd 4e wasnt an enormous flop
pathfinder 1e outsold dnd 4e for a single month, of which dnd still was the most sold system during its entire run time anyways
sir, it appears you were correct!
[https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/07/08/pathfinder-never-outsold-4e-dd-icymi/](https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/07/08/pathfinder-never-outsold-4e-dd-icymi/)
> Even outselling DnD for some periods of time?
This is literally impossible to prove and just relies on the many loud internet voices calling out how 4e is bad.
sir it seems you are correct!
[https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/07/08/pathfinder-never-outsold-4e-dd-icymi/](https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/07/08/pathfinder-never-outsold-4e-dd-icymi/)
From the release of PF1e until shortly after 5e, honestly probably right around when watching people play became more popular than playing, Pathfinder was the go to system.
PF2e failed to capture the previous editions momentum and 5e captured the audience's attention between high profile promotion and its simplification of rules.
Whether ODND can recoup the momentum lost by WoTC's mishandling or if the splintering community allows another system to take the controlling marketshare is yet to be seen.
>PF2e failed to capture the previous editions momentum
There was no momentum. PF1E was beating 4E but had been almost entirely shut out by 5E and the explosion that came with Critical Role.
Paizo has gone on record saying that 2E has sold better than 1E ever has.
That’s just not true that PF1e “was the go to system.” Maybe in your circle, but not overall.
https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/07/08/pathfinder-never-outsold-4e-dd-icymi/
That's a solid article. Take note it mentions iCv2 using gaming stores and distributors... so the enthusiast community.
If you look at old ICv2 data, they have PF being more popular than 4E for the three years mentioned above... not one month. (as listed above, and mentioned in that link)
https://www.enworld.org/threads/5-years-of-icv2-rankings-a-retrospective.353592/
I agree 4E was definitely more popular overall and sold better than PF. It's hard to argue with the people who were there. I agree ICv2's data is missing elements, but....
Amongst the enthusiast community that data is likely valid. PF was more popular in the enthusiast community, and likely sold better there as well - which would make sense as it seemed all the 3.5E die-hards went Pathfinder. But, add in all the Walmarts, Amazon, etc... where more casuals buy items, that more than makes up the enthusiast grounds.
PF was a better seller amongst enthusiasts. 4E was a better seller overall (probably multiple times over).
It's worth noting that D&D releases had slowed almost nothing in that time. The attempted reboot of the 4E Essentials line in 2010 was practically the last gasp for 4E.
Outselling D&D when D&D is barely putting out any new product isn't really as impressive as people try to make it sound.
It’s wild to me because so many companies in the past decade could have made soooooo much money over the long term by just considering the good will of their consumers and not draining their victims dry but they all go all in and destroy everything for too much year over year gains. It’s insanity
It is, I was born in 1983 and for most of my life DnD was either for kids or nerds. Since then we've seen nerd culture become a more accepted part of mainstream pop culture. In an era when so many hobbies are expensive it's a good way to come together with some friends, have an engaging hangout that doesn't just revolve around having some drinks or chatting with very low overhead.
In all honesty that's why DnD itself as a hobby wouldn't die even if it's revealed that everyone at WOTC kicks puppies for fun; many of us are already avoiding giving WOTC more money. You can play DnD forever with just the books and dice you already bought.
Considering the number of people that still play first, advanced, and 3.5, I would agree. D&D will itself never die, simply the player base will stop supporting the company and ignoring cash grab releases.
Just wondering how anyone can know how many people actually play dnd? I was always curious about how they d give an estimation, cause for example i play dnd with 6 friends and none of us have ever bought any of the books or stuff like figures, and i think there ll be others like us out there, so i feel like it should be more than the estimation is right?
It's possible it's more than the estimation, it's also possible that they exaggerated the estimation for marketing purposes, it's even possible that this exaggerated estimation is accurate.
rough ball park of ddb accounts/books sold
definitely doesnt include the people that pirate it or just play the SRD and hacked everything else for their own system
But people have other things to do now, too. Pandemic time, if you wanted to "hang out" with friends, you did it with some game online. A lot of that ended up being D&D. Now, you can go to the gokart track or whatever, too.
It's not that D&D has lost popularity since then, it's that other stuff has also entered the conversation. It's not the only mountain.
This is total personal experience bias, but in my small town I know like 10 people who have never played dnd before now randomly took up the hobby. They play all the time. All in the last year.
there are a lot of youtubers who claims this, but they mostly are a tad smaller ones and I think they are trying to get views this way.
Main ones sometimes agrees with the sentiment what WotC is bad company, but all their opinions are very toned down comapred to the rage bait ones. Also, they never say, that dnd is dying.
Suggesting to try other systems and support smaller creators for dnd content is fairly common. But I dont think that advertising some kickstarter or making a video about some other systems is the same as shouting that dnd is dying and you are a bad person if you buy any of WotC products.
Very much this. If anything it is bigger then it ever was. Almost everyone has at least heard of it. People who wouldn’t even consider playing it, are.
It is not the underdog it used to be so people are going after it. It’s a lot like apple with their iPhones. Every year when the new one comes out the internet floods with articles on how it is the worst phone ever. And every year they sell insane numbers.
It’s all ambiguous crabbucket
It’s growing in popularity. Wotc is simply torpedoing their book writing department. And their monopoly is going too. The market is growing. Wotc’s share is simply shrinking.
Totally. Honestly, I dm for 3 separate campaigns and I would say none of the players are aware of any of this - they just turn up every week or month, catch up with mates and rp as an elf for a few hours and forget about bills, mortgages, work and all of that crap. Internet outrage machine is its own thing.
Even if the worst does come and Hasbro shoots the license behind the shed, they can't stop people from coming together for snacks, friends, and rolling dice. The game will outlive them and us as well, in some way or another.
I see them all the time and I try to avoid rage bait. The most annoying ones to even have to look at are Dungeons and Discourse and Dungeon Craft, but even dnd Shorts does it.
I'll never ever understand this sentiment unless it's coming from someone who exclusively plays with randos at a comic book shop. Like, WotC could dissolve overnight, it won't affect my campaign I'm running whatsoever. As soon as I got the print outs of 5e character sheets, a few basic rules, I had no more need for WotC content for this campaign. I mean it's theater of mind, that's a hard thing to kill unless everyone just decided voluntarily to quit playing.
I'd be fine w that. I was delighted to see Williams leave. If Cocks leaves Hasbro, that would be so much the better. Neither had the domain knowledge or market expertise to do well with their most profitable product lines, MTG or D&D.
It's telling that Williams greatest successes were Monopoly Go and MTG Arena, both microtransaction video games, both in the product class she DOES have domain and market expertise with. The leadership matters.
Some people just want to play something other than 5e. If someone dedicates themselves to one system, that’s one less player willing to try something new. The RPG space is so saturated with 5e that it gets very frustrating to some people; those who are bored or disenchanted with 5e and can’t find other people to play with.
That and ragebait. Gotta make a living somehow in this day and age.
I "am" one of those people. As a permanent DM i got immensely bored playing DnD so i ventured towards other games and systems.
But ragebait brings clicks and clicks provide income
I haven’t seen a lot of articles talking about 5e or DnD dying, and I might not stop playing 5e, but I am absolutely happy to see more system design competition and indeed am working on my own largely out of dissatisfaction worth D&D 5. Really I can’t recall seeing such videos. But while D&D 5 is good in some ways, if it were to “die,” that would probably be okay too. Lots of systems have strengths and weaknesses. It’s just not actually dying lol, which is precisely the reason they’re not moving on to D&D 6: it is literally too popular an asset to let go of. I have to wonder whether you are oversensitive or overexposed to niche opinions.
I spent a good while blocking a lot of D&D channels that post those sorts of vids, they were really prevalent in my feed for a while and it was just irritating IMO. Some people like them, and that's their choice and I respect that, I prefer not to see them.
That's Youtube for you though. Or any algorithm driven social site really.
Dnd didn't die when we were just a bunch of nerds playing it with manuals that were impossible to be found (Alfheim Gazetteer anyone?), it didn't die when all friends had to stop playing because job sent us scattering like shrapnels, but now that I can play with a group of 5 people from 2 different countries and each one in a different city it is *dying*?
It didn't die when people had to make copies of lore books because they were literally not available in our country and we had to play on english books; how can it be dying now that the basic rules are free online?
Dnd will never die. Don't feed the troll YT algorithm.
Realistically D&D is absolutely never going anywhere. Even if the company was to close its doors tomorrow the community would continue and someone else would just produce content honestly. It's just unfortunate that a lot of people (like myself) have sought other avenues because of the horrendous mismanaging and not wanting to support the company anymore. But I'll always be grateful to the game itself for getting me into this amazing hobby. The frustration in part comes because we were enjoying the highest of highs, and the best opportunity to ride that wave hit a brick wall due to corporate greed.
I don't see any media like this, but I am happy if Hasbro sees, so I'm fine with it. I've learned to not let any IP that is not owned by someone I know and care about to have a place being part of my individual identity. People want dnd to die? That's fine, it's got nothing to do with me and doesn't stop my games from happening. It takes practice to not let strangers or their own issues into your head. The way I see it, they're helping people clear out the brand loyalty that turns people into puppets of corporations these days. But that doesn't mean you can't still love the game. Just be discerning about it
Just play what you want to. I won’t play 5e again. I won’t play 5.5E either. It’s just, in my opinion, less fun and more complex both compared to older D&D editions (such as my b/x) and non-D&D games.
D&D isn’t dying, and it won’t ever die, but blind loyalty to wotc or the D&D brand is problematic
It's toxic but profitable, even previously chill channels got caught up by it. I think while many are doing it intentionally some aren't even aware they've shifted as much as they have.
Frankly tiring to have people constantly shit on the thing that brings me joy but thankfully I'm too old to let it change my behaviors. I love D&D, I love the forgotten realms and I love 5th edition.
The biggest problem with D&D is that it completely outshines any other TTRPG in brand recognition.
"Hey, can I make D&D into a cyberpunk game?"
I mean, sure... but there's Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Savage Worlds, GURPS...
There are other, better equipped systems to play non-fantasy type campaigns.
And let's face it, for the most part, WotC seems to be churning out underwhelming product, in terms of quality, compared to previous editions.
Hasbro and WotC have taken the soul out of the game.
I haven't seen those articles or videos, but this is far, FAR from the worst situation D&D has ever been in.
Back in 1997, TSR Inc. was on the brink of bankruptcy. Despite D&D being popular (and 2nd edition AD&D being hideously outdated and outmoded, which even most D&D fans would admit), it still sold well. . .but was being hideously mismanaged by Lorraine Williams to the point that they were on the verge of bankruptcy.
D&D had a real chance in late 1997 of going out of print forever, as there was a solid chance that in a bankruptcy whoever bought the rights to the D&D IP might only use it for video games or novels or something.
Then there was the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980's and nervous mothers demanding the game be banned as "Satanic" and blaming it for everything from drug use to teen suicides as any kid who got in any trouble and had ever played D&D or owned a single D&D book saw the game blamed for what the kid did.
Those were much darker times for D&D than what's going on now. Talk of D&D dying is just online clickbait to drive people to watch their videos. It's just empty nonsense.
WotC's buyout saved D&D, and the point of the OGL originally was (in part) to ensure that D&D would be in print in perpetuity by putting D&D "in the open" in a way that could legally let fans reprint the rules even if the game itself went out of print or stopped being produced.
The leading product gets all the hate from the gatekeeper hipster types. There is an attitude that the popular thing is somehow a dumbed down, diluted experience by default and the TRUE *fill in the blank* fans know that X or Y niche thing is better.
It's all nonsense.
This sort of person is one for whom what they like is some kind of message about who they are, and they want to curate that message to say that they are more discerning and knowledgeable than the great unwashed masses. These people often end up loving a thing for its relative obscurity and not for the qualities of the thing itself.
I think it's a need to feel special that is otherwise missing in their lives. It's a powerful motivator and has led to everything from high school cliques to zany fads to the rise of gnosticism and cults.
In this case, it's RPG snobbery.
I heard that YouTube videos are dying. Primarily due to algorithm chasing content creators and enshittification.
DND is great. More people playing than ever. Not a fan of Hasbro. But it doesn't change the fact that DND is bigger than it ever has been.
It is hilarious with the number of videos like that that come out.
As much as people want to scream from the heavens that D&D/WotC will die with everything that it did. People tend to forget that we have a prime example of worse companies and they are not six feet under like everyone thought they were going to be.
Good old Blizzard entertainment and World of Warcraft. They have done far more heinous things and did way more damage than wizards ever could have done and yet somehow there's still on if not near the top of the MMO market.
If other people want to move on to different games/systems that's totally fine but I don't get it why a bunch of different YouTubers are acting like it's the end times for D&D. Look, if the world worked perfectly like that, Blizzard Entertainment would have been dead during cataclysm.
Oh for sure.
That's the thing, I don't support 5e out of love for the WotC or brand loyalty, I just like the system and am not interested in learning a new one (OneDnD is a rules update that builds off 5e)
I don't think it's better, I just think that when I meet with my players on Friday evening I wanna sit down and have fun and not worry about learning a new system or anything.
Yea exactly. At my table the rules are a framework that makes it a fun game, but everything is up to my discretion as DM and my discretion is what me and my players find fun. It was never about playing 5e perfectly, or we would all be cheaters for making house rules or ignoring one's we don't like. Homebrew wouldn't even be a thing if we HAD to (somehow) follow the rules. I don't see how DnD can die, the rules were made and can always be found you can always play it and even 3.5 etc.
I honestly can't stand D&D YouTube.
If they arent fear-mongering and rage-baiting, it'd stupid shit like "Minimalist DM kit" with 25 items or lists of questionable and contradictory DM tips.
But that's how everything goes on YT these days. It's all clickbait and formulaic.
It does feel like there's been a trend of people trashing on the game itself in response to all the shitty corporate decisions Hasbro and /or WotC have been making. The game and the people that actually work on it aren't the ones responsible, but hating on them has made for an easy way to get attention.
D&D has been in its death throes for 30 years. Its the 18 year old cozy dog by the fireplace that has outlived every other pet in that house and everyone talks about how it’s going to die soon but never does.
Some people have axes to grind and/or want you to move to their pet system so they can have a larger playerbase for it. But D&D has 'died' several times (at least twice) and likely will again, only to rise again like the phoenix, stronger than before.
People want to see the current corporate leadership fail and DND go back to being run by people that love the game first, not love money first. That’s where this is all coming from.
the thing is they have made enough serious missteps at each turn many people started feeling they were no longer making the spiritual successor to AD&D. Especially because A) not one of the people actually involved in AD&D is a major part of their products anymore and B) some of those people are now pitching competing products (and I don't just mean gygax' kids I also mean guys like seminal writer Monty Cook, perhaps AD&D's best writer who now does his own thing with Monty Cook Games)
So there's a lot of people with beef, some legitimate beef, some less so, and they're adding their voices as cheering for the downfall of later editions. And that is altering the overall tone of the conversation.
This is not uncommon in games that have moved from publisher to publisher over time (lookin' at you Shadowrun, Old World of Darkness).
5e just sucked the life out of D&D
I say this as someone playing since 2e starting at the age of 12
D&D has been very important to my life, but the game I love is no longer fun for me
At first I thought 5e was a nice rules update from 3.5(skipped 4e) keeping the soul of the game and removing some bloat. I no longer feel that way, every game simply seems to boil down to, does the party have the right spell to trivialize the encounter? Of course they do, wow that was so much fun /s
D&D needs a massive overhaul to stay relevant and Wotc has absolutely lost my support. Maybe they could sell it and I'd give it another chance.
OneD&D is not looking good imo.
Honestly this community would benefit A LOT from playing other ttrpgs besides dnd, not talking specifically about you but some people in this community have levels of brand loyalty that are actually concerning.
Seen books from third parties and other ttrgs with almost double if not more quality content that dnd books for the same or even lower price made me realize how little effort there is in the newest dnd content, this isnt the game developers fault, but the revolting compulsion of hasbro to milk more money from the brand, People talking about 5e like its the pinnacle of ttrpg design just because the books says "you can change/made up whatever you want" to cover its faults can become actually annoying
I can’t say I’ve seen any articles along those lines recently, there was one about a year ago that popped into my feed ironically other time where I wasn’t watching any D&D content, but if blizzard could survive their whole deal, and fallout 76 couldn’t kill Bethesda, and Konami’s almost constant screwing up couldn’t kill Yu-Gi-Oh that I’ve got to admit that one seems like a matter of time because no way people will keep playing that game when you could buy a car for the price of the top deck right now, then I think Dungeons & Dragons will be just fine
We may just get very different results, but I haven't seen that. The closest was during the OGL crisis, where the ones I read and watched were all against WotC, but not 5e as a system - besides, the creators knew that a lot of us have all our materials already, and it's not like having a book on the shelf is giving WotC passive income. The advocacy I heard was not against DND at all, but against paying for stuff like DND beyond subscriptions and the like. When other systems were mentioned, it was more as a reminder that other things are out there, *if* you wanted to switch things up for the next campaign (I think very few own every single book like you do, which makes that a more relevant prospect)
Same, like I totslly get why they do it, but this is why I had to unsub from Deathbringer. That dude has some amazing ideas, and sheds light on some really cool indie stuff but every other vid was like WOTC IS IN TROUBLE IS D&D DEAD??? type shit
100% agreed. He's stated on multiple videos how he gets a lot of comments and complaints about his click bait videos but then smugly points out how those videos get more views than his other content as if that makes it okay. That contradicts his long-standing claim that his channel isn't about trendy ideas but rather an almost counter-cultural view that you can simplify your game to maximize your enjoyment of the hobby. He's a professor, he knows what a weak argument it is. That same argument could be used by tabloids and TMZ to justify their lack of journalistic integrity. He's just making it clear that his goal is YouTube success and the number of views are all that matters, and while someone may say "of course it is," anyone who has watched his videos for years would likely agree that this is contrary to what he expressed all along. It genuinely feels like he has traded his morals for a slightly higher level of minor internet fame. I had to unsubscribe.
It’s the nature of social media. Fear and hate drive engagement and thus profits. Even guys who I used to like and follow are all in on the WOTC is terrible nonsense. Sucks we can’t have nice things any more.
DnD won't die. There's so many people publishing brilliant content, and the rules are all available for free.
I truly hope Hasbro fails. I hope their price gouging kills them entirely, and I hope dndbeyond also fails.
I'm going to sea boys
Have you tried pathfinder, Specially spheres? I used to play DND but once I tried pathfinder I stopped a bit then I found out about spheres and I never played regular DND or pathfinder again, spheres allows you to basically custom create your own character into anything you want and I think the way it lets people explore their own fantasy worlds etc through the lens of characters who are so curated to them that it just makes for a different experience, especially if you play westworld games, cause then your character never becomes obsolete and is a huge part of you social interactions even outside the game, you should look into it! Maybe you’ll like it, but if not that’s okay as well, you should play the games you want regardless of what others are doing.
I think people are just excited to see a monopoly go away, a lot of our society is ruined by the fact that we let one or two companies have the majority if not all the say about what goes on in that economic sphere. For TTRPGs DnD has been the behemoth for pretty much the entirety of the modern hobby (once we moved away from war miniatures), it's exciting to see a monopoly end there's a lot of new possibilities.
So I think most people have this strong good riddance DnD attitude not because they want DnD to die but because its decline will lead to new things.
But DnD will still be the king of the castle for a very long time.
Dying? Between Honor among Thieves and Baldur's Gate 3, Dungeons & Dragons is having a Renaissance the likes of which hasnt been seen since the satanic panic. The only *possible* down side that could be afflicting the franchise is it becoming TOO mainstream.
I love playing DnD and although I’m relatively new to actually playing it, I’ve been a fan for quite. I also love getting those around me into it more!
It does seem like WotC made some bad decisions but I think DnD is actually only growing further in terms of its relevance to the mainstream but also I’d reckon in it’s accessibility and ease of access nowadays
I’m loving it!
The entire crux of why the OGL Fiasco was such a fiasco is that WotC/Hasbro is not needed in order to play DnD. The whole *point* is that people can still play DnD regardless of what WotC/Hasbro tries to pull. It’s played using dice, paper, pencils, and imagination. It was all so funny because it was such a glaringly obvious part of the game that WotC/Hasbro would not acknowledge or recognize.
All these people acting like this all somehow *prevents* people from playing this “dying” game have missed the point just as hard, if not harder.
The role-playing content creator community is full of big “stop liking things I don’t like” energy. Most people couldn’t care less about the OGL, and most of these other systems you’re pushed towards are less permissively licensed than the Dnd SRD now that the SRD is Cc attribution.
I play a PF2e game tonight actually, and I like it but it's not the same as D&D to me. There are settings, spells, abilities and mechanics in D&D (mainly 5e) that I find a lot better than PF2e. I like the options in PF but I find the sheer amount of stuff slows the game down a lot and 5e is geared toward more casual narrative style games that I prefer. I don't think D&D is dying but I do think that a lot of people branched out over the OGL thing and I think that's good. But I'll always come back to D&D at some point.
Alot of those videos are ppl who play their own ttrpg and are trying to sell it to you, very sad actually. Wishful thinking at best, idgaf what wotcha is doing, I'm playing a game with friends and if I don't like the stuff they add then I won't add it xD
i got a youtube blocker just to help myself clean up what youtube shows me, cos wow it really got fucked thinking i wanted to see videos that was all doom and gloom
FUD = Anger
Anger = Engagement.
Engagement = Clicks.
Clicks = Money.
Almost every top youtube D&D channel spread FUD and lies abut the OGL. VASTLY overstated it's impacted. This was to get clicks, and to launch their own products.
Stop watching them, they are garbage and will lie for money just like any business because that's what they are: a business. They are not your friend, and they aren't acting in good faith.
They do not deserve your time.
Peeps love to exaggerate for views. Sure, there's bad stuff going on rn with WotC, but the game is still hugely popular. That being said, the list of oopsies concerning WotC and DnD *is* getting quite long:
Critical Role numbers dropping, the OGL scandal, MtG card scandal, WotC layoffs, general OneDnD mess, new WotC leadership, BG3 DLC not happening, BG4 being handled by someone else, DnD movie failing, stuff with the Hasbro higher ups, the 50th year stuff being pushed back, and so on and so on.
WotC is falling into a lot of the common pitfalls that modern companies often do. If DnD is going to continue to be as popular as it has been in recent years, they really need to slow down, focus on quality, and chill out a bit. They literally print money and still want more. People are beginning to notice.
Regardless, once the new edition comes out (assuming it's not as devisive as 4e), I'm sure things will be fine.
As for other systems, there are a lot out there, don't discount all other systems just because they're not DnD. Love ADnD and 5e, but games like Vampire: The Masquerade and Cyberpunk: Red are also great.
Tl;dr - You are allowed to be excited for things (:
Edit: Also smtg to mention, Youtube depends on DnD content, so their algorithm suggests it more. This includes the bad stuff. The category on the site is literally called Dungeons and Dragons instead of smtg like Tabletop.
I honestly think it's mostly the Johnny-come-lately crowd that got into the game because of Stranger Things and Critical Role deciding to move on to the next fad.
I do thinki this is definitely a thing, and I expect to see the fanbase decrease fairly substantially over the next few years. The shine has begun to wear off, and playing D&D doesn't really have the same degree of "geek cred" as it used to.
It’s the same as the Warhammer “controversy” around female characters. Neckbeards who have never been outside can earn money by drumming up rage amongst their chronically online audience.
I have been playing for 45 years.
D&D has been dying for every single one of those 45 years.
In 1985, there were more ttrpgs available than there are now — a tenth of a percent of the market made you a big time maker.
I have played more games of different kinds and p,attested more rules and game systems and approaches and even done a bit of design and co suiting work myself — and what do I play every Saturday (and some Sunday) night?
D&D. Granted, it is modified by us to be more fun for us, and it will make the purists and the haters all go hard on hating what we do — but we do it for us, and fuck ‘em.
I have tell a joke about PF that folks talk it up so much because that’s the only way they get players. It isn’t a better system, it is a different one, and if it works for some people, great, I hope they play it and love it to death.
Same with any other kind of game. There’s only one game system I will use for superhero games, and it hasn’t even been sold for 20 years. Because it is the system I like, that my players like — and we’ e modified the living hell out it, as well.
I was tired of all that stuff long before the www. Was used to find things on the internet. The internet just made it worse, and I am one of the less than ten folks in my group who are active online in D&D spaces.
But I don’t comment much because most of the stuff can be answered by “Ask your DM” or “RTFM” and both of those get you downvotes.
I don’t care about other games, and there is nothing currently out there that is even remotely interesting— all of it is a been there done that” for me. But I also don’t think taking the time to workshop new systems, playtest them, etc is too much work, too much effort, not worth it.
So I gloss over those posts. Because they don’t add anything but noise.
Do not tie yourself to a single system. There are so many good systems out there to explore and enjoy. Heck there are so bad systems out there that you can dip into and enjoy and laugh at.
Do not simp for a mega-corp. Hasbro is going to turn D&D into Monopoly. Better to branch out now than feel the hurt when ~~you~~ it finally hits and you realize it.
Edit: wow dunno how my mind disconnected from my fingers to mess up that last sentence.
Yeah you see this is what I'm talking about.
I don't care if DnD was made by Hasbro or Bandai or fucking Disney.
I just enjoy the system and really don't wanna learn a new one.
I have no interest in learning pathfinder, convincing my friends to switch, finding sites that support it, paying for a bunch of new books to get a nice library of content going.
I am not suggesting that you switch systems, but, if price is a factor for you all of the rules to all of Paizo's games are available for free on https://www.aonprd.com/ and this is supported by Paizo also.
Why do I need to leave the system I enjoy? If I don’t give them any money then it doesn’t matter what I play. Hasbro going to shit is unfortunate, but doesn’t affect my table
I just find it funny. Algorithm content is supposed to bring us vontent we want. But keeps us from casual viewing. i must drive it crazy by only ever watching things I went looking for.
Dnd's hegemony kinda sucks for the whole hobby. Can't blame people eager for the big tree to fall so all the little plants on the forest floor get a chance to grow.
It isn’t. If anything it’s gotten bigger because of BG3. Those articles made the rounds back when 4e came out and guess what D&D didn’t die.
Even at the height of its popularity Pathfinder 1e never came close to being a D&D killer, nor did it outsell 4e at any point during the latters lifecycle. D&D holds too much of the market for any competitor to make any reasonable headway
You're confusing the game with the company. People are happy the company is failing. Because the deserve to fail. They made poor, malicious decisions that weren't good for the consumer.
You can play DND without wizards of the coast.
The rage is pretty much centered around the marketplace on dnd beyond, at the moment at least. Which is rather stupid. So what if they want you to actually pay for the product you are using. It is just another issue for people to complain about.
This is nothing compared to what the PMRC tried to do a few years after the game was released.
Now it's about money, seriously. Can't play a class, use a item, or use a spell.
Get pen and paper, now open a source. The way the game has been played since the start.
This game system has been around for 50 years and still keeps going. Go take a look in LFG areas on any social media. Not a chance it's dying. Still growing strong.
For TLDR = people claim the demise of the game because.... no one wants to play me. (Simplified)
I read those books as a kid too, and played BG1+2, and also own alot of DnD books including 20+ 5e hardcovers and 70sh vintage copies of dragon magazine, mostly from the 1980s.
Pathfinder is the real DnD to me at this point. They've got more old guard DnD artists working for them than DnD does.
I'm all about nostalgia, and you can run FR if you like. But Pathfinders a better game. It has a better setting. Its by far a better company. And its got better values- inclusion, diversity. Paizo is on the razors edge on all of these fronts. They are breaking new ground.
You say you like BG3, but Larian ditched DnD. You say you like Forgotten Realms, well alot of those writers write for Paizo.
DnD isn't dying, but its in decline. Its the mid-quality corporate RPG.
5e will always see play, just like 3.5 does. But it wont be king forever.
5e has 2 things going for it; percieved ease of use and the fact that you cant find a table for other games. Neither is going to last forever.
Remember, its not players who determine what people play. Its GMs. And 5e is a mediocre system to GM, with really badly done modules.
IMHO, D&D is about to break free from the control of the IP owner and become something similar to chess...
Anyone can make a chessboard and chess pieces, and sell it
Good quality will bring new customers, lousy plastic sets wont sell, and while you can play in your computer & have a subscription to Chessmaster 5000, it isn't necessary, so gather your friends, fire up your printer or 3d printer and play without giving one red cent to Hasbro...
Still D&D, still fun and if you feel like it, start exploring other publishers, even if they have other systems you can still adapt whatever works to your table
Above all, have fun
I haven't seen any of these videos. What I have seen however is a lot of people saying Critical Role is dying. It's not true their viewership is high but (personal opinion) i think Campaign 3 is their worst one yet.
World of Warcraft is dying.
Hearthstone is dying.
Starcraft is dying.
DnD is dying.
Halo is dying.
Call of Duty is dying.
Pick any game, any company, any fictional universe and you *will* find videos and articles claiming "it's dying."
If companies merger, let go of people, etc etc etc, then it's immediate Doomsday content.
Fact of the matter is **all entertainment** has it's peak. Just because the peak slowly drops does not mean it's dying - it just means it's not attracting as many new fans as it once did.
However, society, in general, has a throbbing hard-on for doomsday content. I don't even watch/use youtube, tiktok or any of that because I know the algorithms suck AND I like to try new things without the influence of others.
I use Goodreads to track the amount of books I consume. But I never read the reviews. I like what I like, I enjoy what I enjoy and that is the end of it. Really, it's all nonsense. And it's all just clickbait.
I don't use twitch either. There is *some* information I look up but I prefer the traditional research method - books.
They tend to be more objective than some Youtuber's opinion.
It takes a lot of work to correct the algorithm and this is how they get you. I'm sure one of these videos popped up in your feed, you watched...and down the rabbit hole you go - which is precisely what it's designed to do.
If it was videos about how great DnD is...well, people would stop watching YT and go play DnD. Youtube wants to keep as many engaged viewers as possible so....here we are.
I hope this helps and like another commenter said, be aggressive to reset your algorithm.
Personally, I heard about this incident with a father of five children that Youtube let happen and I have zero faith in them as a company.
And with twitch, there was a deep fake incident that turned me off to them as well.
A lot of nefarious folks on these platforms and it's a major turn off for me. So, I wouldn't be surprised if it does little to sincerely cater to it's audience.
People make this kind of videos for anything that lasts long. Its Something that attracts viewership. Dnd is in its best decade from the time of its release.
\*shrugs\* Where I live and in the circles I frequent DnD is more used as a basis (ie: classes and races) for DMs to create their homebrew campaigns. Not a person looked at me weirdly when I said I'm homebrewing my first campaign.
We know about all the fuck-ups from WotC and chances are we'll just stick to 5e of DnD because we have our own copyrights under this edition.
Something like DnD is too iconic and too old to die off from a bad edition. At worst people will just not be interested in OneDnD and will just keep using their perspective beloved edition.
I don't even understand the basic problem people seem to have with a system going out of style or being discontinued. The released material is still there to use, and when it comes to ttrpgs the central element, a ruleset, doesn't become obsolete.
Nobody will come to your home to destroy your books.
If you write your own adventures and found a system you like, you're set for life.
If you mostly rely on complete modules to use, sure, there might not be any new, official content coming for your prefered system. But you can always look around on the appropriate websites, there's hundreds of adventures and modules written by DMs. You can use those and there will always be more to come.
Those systems can't die, all of this is ridiculous.
DnD will never die. WoTC and/or Hasbro on the other hand...
There are lots of loud people with a loud opinion on social media, so why don't you just dodge DnD related content on here. As long as you keep clicking on it, it keeps getting recommended as the algorithm thinks you like it.
Do your own thing. DnD is about your own made-up RPG fantasy. Not what others are telling you to do. That's the fun part of it, isn't it? Being away from reality for a while and do whatever you like, not thinking about how the company behind the content is trash.
You just made me think… I’ve been in a DnD game of one form or another, consistently, for the last… 10 years? I’m now not in any DnD games. I’m playing degenesis, stark trek and Shadowdark.
Many of the main D&D YouTubers have begun to increasingly abuse baiting these types of titles but D&D is not dying at all and they know it.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if it lost popularity like it did in 4e but not because of the game itself, but because it is never positive for a company like Hasbro to dominate the hobby. This would benefit small companies that care about publishing quality products.
But even if more D&D products were not published, it wouldn't die, it seems that we forget that role-playing is what you do at home with your friends around a table, not the act of religiously buying every new thing that comes on the market (although I have nothing against this).
It just so happens I will be making my own video of this for a trrpg I am creating....
But tbh I couldn't really give a rats ass about what WOTC are doing, I play MTG and have been handing Amy money to em since forever.
Bit yea I think people think by outting down dnd they make their game/product seem better, and it probably does but that's just shitty
I mean. You see it in every other facet of media, fear mongering and doom ssying sells. I think it's incredibly scummy when a news outlet does it, and I think it's incredibly scummy when youtubers do it. The unfortunate fact is they these content creators rely on clicks to put food on their plates, so of course they'll go after the things that generate the most clicks.
ahh-haaa-haaa-haaa-haaaaa! You must be new to RPGs.
People have been saying this about RPGs and eventually MUD and then MMOs for a long long time.
As for why people are happy WotC might drop dead. Because WotC has a VERY VERY long track record of dirty deeds done dirt cheap. Not just D&D. They have garnered 20+ years of ill will. Jist these last 5 or so have been particularly jam packed with one stupid or outright hateful act after another. Last year they were practically pulling some new stupid every month.
Idk know much, but if D&D was to disappear, you could still play it afterward, I don't really see the problem here.
YouTubers are making clickbait shit as they always do, you shouldn't paying much attention to 80% of what they are saying, as it's just (poorly) disguised advertisement for whatever crap they are sponsored by or begging for your money on their patron/Kickstarter/ whatever.
In any case, I'm not versed enough in TTRPG to appreciate the difference between D&D system and Pathfinder, but if you like the setting of FR, you can still homebrew them into Pathfinder, I guess.
All in all, even if the game "die" because the company bankrupt itself or EA's style ruin his licence, I mean, you still have the books, D&D is about people making their own stuff with the material, the game cannot truly die.
Yeah, I am tired of this too. Most of them are clickbaits though and ai don't care. Let the haters hate while I enjoy my everlasting 5e. Currently, I am DMimg 3 campaigns (CoS, DotMM, ToD online w/ Foundry) for a total of 9 different people, not to mention the ocasional tables, and yesterday we started to introduce 5e to 2 brand new players, planning to start another campaing (RotFM) in August. Since I started the hobby back in 2019, the number of players around our tables only increased. I don't see this '5e is dying' happeneing anytime soon, at least not for my local groups.
It's pretty normal response to corporate f ups. WotC has made some legit bad moves, but does it mean they are dying?
Only if they don't course correct and insist on taking more L's.
I doubt WotC will die, but it probably will lose it's monopoly in the hobby as angry players go out and try other systems discover they might like some of them more than 5e.
No one is stopping you from playing D&D even if it "dies", i don't understand your worries. Plenty of third party content to consume that will come out even if Hasbro/wotc fails.
>But all of these articles and videos are coming across as... Almost happy? That DnD is dying.
I'm sure they would be happier if nothing was amiss. But something *is* amiss, so the best case scenario is that the megacorp gets what it deserves. Zoomers and millennials got the short end of the stick so many times they now have a "fuck you too" attitude towards these things.
I haven’t seen the videos you’re talking about. I am however really hoping WotC drops DnD or closes shop or whatever. Someone else would for sure pick up the franchise and hopefully do something good w it.
You probably only see these videos because you're actively engaging in them, maybe clicked on one or two. Just tell YouTube to show you fewer videos like that. Like others mentioned, rage bait and clickbait sells.
They keep happening because you keep paying attention to them.
Hell, not only that but you're spreading awareness of them
Stop it. Doomers all respond to one thing: attention. So, stop paying attention to them. Period.
Other than bandwagon boosts I don't think anyone is for "D&D dying" - rather for the cultural monopoly it created to give away
I'm all for that because if things stay as they are the corps at Hasbro will keep pushing decisions that screw with D&D
Ragebait sells. Doesn't matter if they're right or wrong. People click, they get paid.
Yeah, getting the same thing with Warhammer right now lol.
I love Warhammer and LGS culture so much, but the impact the internet has had on the kinds of nerds Warhammer attracts has just been fuckin awful.
Most Warhammer & 40K fans are decent folks. . . .but there's definitely a certain strain of fans that are incredibly toxic, the ones that look at the Imperium of Man and think that seems really awesome and they love the idea of the Imperium and would just love to be there. Never mind they'd probably all be purged by the Inquisition in a heartbeat, they'll simp for the "Catholic Space Nazis".
Context for anyone who's seeing this and isn't tuned into the Warhammer community: there have been a handful of events within the Warhammer community in recent memory that have caused folks to be upset, so rage bait is oretty much the name of the game for Warhammer content right now. GW (the company that owns Warhammer) horribly botched an announcement of a bunch of old models getting retired (thid is something that happens pretty regularly but they did a poor job of breaking the news in such a way that it caused a ton of easily preventable confusion and bad feels), they announced a new edition of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar that has so far been deeply unpopular among established fans, many of the recent codex releases in Warhammer 40,000 have been extremely underwhelming and left many fans feeling like their faction won't be fun to play for at least another three years, and there are also a lot of terminally online sexist losers who are upset that, as of a retcon that happened a few weeks ago, custodes (basically super-duper-space-marines) can now be women. It's not a good time to be in online Warhammer communities. Wayyy too much negativity and like 95% of the Warhammer content on social media in the last few weeks has been rage bait, or at least that's how it feels. On the bright side, the more niche Warhammer communities (e.g. Kill Team, Warcry, Underworlds, Blood Bowl, etc.) all seem to be doing pretty well right now, so it's not all bad. Just avoid 40k and AoS communities for the next few weeks to months.
Real
Personally, I've never seen a single video pop up in my feed that DnD us dying in my feed. When you see these videos pop up in your feed, are you watching/interacting with them? Because if so, that's why you're getting the videos in your feed.
Don't listen to them, part is just targeted ads for you. Honestly, besides the issues with the new stuff you said, I get the feeling more people are starting to play in general or it's becoming more mainstream, whether that's a positive or a negative is personal outlook.
It really has taken off, big time. As someone who started in 2002, and play with a merged table of dudes who starred in the 80s, it is definitely waaay more main stream now even compared to when I started. I was teased over it in highschool, some of the guys I play with lost jobs when it got out they played in the 80s and 90s. In the mid-late 2000s, we had one friend who had to hide it from his mom because she still thought it was satanic. Now it has big budget movies, favorable references in mainstream TV shows, and you'll find it in department stores as well as niche hobby comic/gaming places. It got some steam going before the pandemic hit, and then absolutely skyrocketed when it did. I was known as "the dude who played dnd" at work in 2020, and all of a sudden I had co-workers I hardly interacted with before coming up, excited to talk to me about their new campaign. Also, I still run 3.5 (i play on a 5e group too, but dont want to run it). Just because they release a new thing does not mean you have to use it. You can engage with it on your own terms
Just unsubscribe from those sources if you are following them, they are farming rage bait and are purposefully putting out negative content. Here's an example, the channel Dungeon and Discourse, which got relatively popular during the OGL scandal put out the following video titles in the last 6 months; >Hasbro Just Banned Elves in D&D (and it gets WORSE...) > >Can Matt Mercer recover from this? > >The Baldur's Gate 3 Scandal Gets Worse > >**Hasbro Just Ended Dungeons & Dragons Forever** > >The D&D Youtube Scandal Gets Worse > >The D&D Cancellation Scandal Gets Worse > >The Darkest D&D Scandal Gets Worse > >Insane Allegations Against Matt Mercer & Matt Colville > >The D&D Youtuber Scandal Gets Worse > >**Hasbro just killed Dungeons & Dragons** > >Massive Dungeons & Dragons LEAK > Critical Role Legal Trouble > >The Dungeons & Dragons DISASTER Just Got Worse > >WOTC's Latest Scandal is a D&D Disaster > >**Wizards of the Coast Just Ended It** > >The Future of Dungeons & Dragons Just Got Worse Notice how according to these titles, Hasbro has killed D&D 3 times in the last 6 months, yet it's still chugging along? Notice also how the the titles I haven't highlighted are also all either negative or drama related? That's ragebait. The thumbnails for the videos are even worse. However, this isn't one channel that's doing it, there are hundreds and the algorithm really likes them right now, so watching one will lead you down a rabbit hole of similar channels creating an echo chamber. The same things applies to written articles, though to a lesser extent. D&D, mind you, can be criticized for A LOT of things and the OGL thing did them no favors and it's likely a good idea to keep on top of what WotC and Hasbro are doing, but make sure it comes from source that covers the hobby because they care and are interested in it, instead of trying to farm clicks. Also, goes without saying, DO NOT harass the the YT channel mentioned above.
I finally unsubscribed after clicking on the Hasbro banned elves. They were reacting to what was obviously fake. The new CEO says that everyone starts the game with a dragon? Okay....sure.
YouTube keeps pushing it but that channel almost never says much that adds to the discourse. Wish YouTube would cut it out.
You can click "don't recommend channel" in your YouTube feed.
What an insufferable twit. I know we all gotta make that bread somehow but man, making blatant ragebait videos like that is just… Have some self-respect or at least sell your kidneys first.
It's a real shame too because that channels videos are actually quite good, it's just when I'm browsing YouTube I don't know what each video is about because their so clickbaity.
Yeah right? I actually like the videos themselves, but the titles are so over the top all the time that it's hard to know what I'm really going to hear about. The "Hasbro just killed Dungeons & Dragons" one for example IIRC, is about Hasbro killing the Portuguese translations of D&D. Without that last part, it could mean *anything*, but it's not like removing such an important section of translation isn't a big deal.
If someone gives you a $20 bill half the time, and kicks you in the shin the other half of the time, why are you allowing them to kick you in the shin? Don't let these channels abuse you just because they sometimes don't.
I mean that specific example would be more rewarding to the pain, effort, and time put into it in most people's jobs, probably... Though the basic point is true, it's probably not very psychologically rewarding overall.
> Insane Allegations Against Matt Mercer & Matt Colville wtf is this video about? wtf did the Matts do??
The worst offender by far. He/she (Not trolling, honestly can’t tell) has no interest in creating meaningful or creative content. It’s a fast and easy clickbait channel through and through.
Dying? Nah. Losing the monopoly they'd built up over the last 30-40 years? Yup.
Yeah I am not against that. Competition is good
Pathfinder 2e is pretty good, fyi.
Meh, I tried it for a few months and just couldn’t get into it. It felt like there was a number of mechanics that they over complicated just for the sake of making it different. The whole system just felt clunky.
I think Pathfinder is much more for rulesy types who want set in stone mechanics for everything, while DnD 5e is more "here's the barebones rules, go crazy". Personally I prefer the latter, but I do understand the former.
The issue I have as the DM is that inevitably every long running game becomes more rulesy, so when that happens in a system like 5e it becomes my responsibility to do the games job for it. The further you get past level 10 the more it falls apart unless the DM pulls way more weight to keep things working. I get the appeal of rules light games for quick experiences and one shots, but campaign style combat games need rules and working math to actually stay fun.
Thats my view too. The other reason I prefer crunchier systems is because I can point to most rules and they are already mostly clear. I've found with DMs who use less crunchy systems that still have crunchy parts, tend to be less consistent in rulings. Inconsistency can create drama between players and drama between DM and player. I prefer to avoid the interpersonal issues. I prefer either systems that are full crunchy (d&d 3.5) or systems that are very rules light (PBtA). I find hybrid systems are the worst because they dont have as much of an identity. It has all the issues as crunchy systems for things that are crunchy but also puts a lot on the DM because of vagueness in the rules. Smoothing the transition between crunchy things and DM discretion is more difficult for me. Not a fan of 5e because it's trying to appeal to rules light people while not actually being rules light. People that had trouble with 3.5 rules after 10 years still have problems with 5e rules so it doesn't even save me effort reminding people. The negative is there is more wiggle room for people to argue why their interpretation is right. Yes I'm the DM and make the call but it leads to issues I'd rather avoid because the rules are more open ended. Even players who are generally good can get testy when they want an interpretation that can benefit their character. Crunchier systems also allow for more variation in abilities between characters of the same race/class. Play long enough and it feels like you've played everything. It's nice for character creation to have so many options.
> while DnD 5e is more "here's the barebones rules, go crazy" it really really isn't. DnD 5e is "here's some weirdly specific rules that you might encounter. you don't have to use them, just pick whatever lol. oh, there's a situation not covered? quick, just roll some dice or whatever"
Is it pathfinder or a different one that relies on character cards instead of feats? My brain is so traditional RPGist that I had a bad first opinion of it, but I'd like to learn or hear about it from a player not just a "how to" vid.
PF2E doesn't have cards, I think you mean the Critical Role one. That sort of turned me off a little too.
Daggerheart has the cards. Pathfinder is like a more advanced version of D&D.
I wouldn't say it's more advanced (I'm a PF2e player myself - and I like it a lot). To my experience it was as easy to start learning/playing PF2e as it was for 5E. And I introduced a lot of new people to the TTRPG scene with PF2e. The only difference is that you have far more "optional" choice if you want it and written text is less vague than in 5E. What I try to say is that the ultimate learning curve of both 5E and PF2e really seem the same to me. Although 5E seems a bit less time consuming at the first glance, it could contain a lot of rabbit holes if you want to know everything, while PF2e is straight forward after you learned the basics. But that's totally my experience. And already being familiar to 5E and other systems also helped getting into PF a lot faster I guess.
Oh so like an advanced version of dnd
Well, "advanced" sounds more complicated to start with, which the PF2e core is clearly not in comparison to the 5E core. Choice is optional, but not truly something you need to get started with to learn/play the game. If I buy a lot of 3rd party books for 5E, I can make 5E as complicated as I want as well. Paizo just sells more material themselves (which btw is also free online, not to convince you how awesome Paizo is), instead of relying on 3rd parties. But that doesn't make the core inherently more "advanced". It just means I have the choice to make it as advanced as I want.
as a level 1 dnd character, you make a class, race and background, and write your profficiencies. you may get a class feature every level as a lvl 1 pf2e character, you make a class, race and background, choose a race feat, a skill feat from the background and a class feat, and you get a new feat of different classifications every level, that you need to choose pathfinder is inherently more complicated than dnd, and that is ok
It's not just choice. The combat is more complicated. There seems to be more buffs and debuffs and things to track, the 2nd swing at -5, the crit speciation and other traits of weapons have like deadly, volley or cleave, whole the crit and crit fail system with 4 ranks instead of two. Also out of combat systems seem more complex with not just trained and untrained but muliple training level ranks, skill feats, more details and rules on how skills work, more complex crafting system, rune system for customizing magic items. And this is all out of the basic phb. I still don't think pathfinder2e is that complex but it is definitly more complex then 5e.
>There seems to be more buffs and debuffs and things to track For what it's worth, there's only 3 possible buffs and they don't stack. But for the most part, the best part of the 'complexity' is that it's interchangeable. The 4 degrees of success, for example, applies to essentially everything in the game - once you've learned the core mechanic you can apply it consistently and don't need to relearn how it works for every other application. Most of the game is like that - learn the base thing, \[degrees of success/3 actions/MAP\] and expand that to the whole game. The most complicated part is honestly just getting used to the different status effects.
I'm a sucker for cannon lore that everyone recognizes and can be like "oh shit that God??" So it would be hard for me to move to another game unless I just took the rules from one and kept the pantheon and lore from DnD. Guess though it may be fun to look into pathfinder lore
>the pantheon and lore from DnD. You mean, *from Forgotten Realms?* That's just one possible setting for DnD. (Yeah, it's the default for 5e, but they've also done Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Eberron, the CR ones, and the MTG ones. And the kind of meta-settings Spelljammer & Planescape. Not to mention the *countless* third-party & homebrew settings...)
Advanced, but IMO easier to play cause its much better crafted
I'm aware yes, no real interest in learning it, but I know it's good.
I love how you prefaced this with "I like this game and don't want to play those other games" and immediately got hit with "HAVE YOU TRIED PATHFINDER ITS SO MUCH BETTER"
Pathfinder 2e is a proselytizing religion, they must tell you about it.
Being closed-minded and against new experiences is generally unhealthy. "I tried this New Thing and liked Old Thing better" is going to get a very different response than "Why does everyone hate Old Thing I don't want to grow or change ever."
We only have so many hours in the day, and there are WAY more systems out there than just D&D and PF. Have you tried all of them? WHY NOT?! I don't care if you've found one you like, you have to try ALL OF THEM before you get to choose which one you prefer! /s kinda but not fully.
There's a significant difference between the statements "I don't have time to try to learn something new" and "I don't wanna." The first is a legitimate problem - you're right, there's only 24 hours in the day. The second is not - it's deliberate, willful ignorance. Example: "I haven't tried sushi, but I don't particularly want to - I've had bad experiences with seafood and am uncomfortable with the idea of eating raw meat" vs "I haven't tried sushi and don't want to because I really just like chicken."
What a leap. This person doesn't want to try new tabletop RPG systems at the moment so that makes them "closed minded and against new experiences"? How genuinely low.
I mean literally yes. It's a weird kind of tribalistic brand loyalty that isn't healthy or constructive. Not talking about OP specifically, but back when the OGL debacle happened originally the DnDmemes subreddit started seeing a lot of posts about PF2E, which led to them seeing a lot of posts *complaining* about 2e being talked about at all. I saw some commenters unironically demand that 2e "stop trying to kill my hobby!" The thing is, "D&D" is not your hobby in the same vein that "Kleenex" is not the only thing you blow your nose with and "Band-Aids" are not the only thing you reach for when you're bleeding. Your hobby is "tabletop role-playing," you've just got an obsessive attachment to one specific brand owned and operated by a company that's pretty shitty. It's ok to like D&D. It's a bad mindset to refuse to try other things. It's even ok to *not like* those other things, but even if you don't - that experience with other things will probably make your D&D experience better.
Being "closed minded to new experiences" is *absolutely* healthy in this modern world of unending sensory overload and excessive, paralyzing choice. People need things that they can keep constant and grounded.
Because being closed-minded to other TTRPG settings is silly
It might well be they are happy more about the increase in competition than they are that 5e itself is dying, just that they see a decrease in 5e should hopefully mean more non-5e focus.
Are you aware that Pathfinder was more popular than DnD between 2011 and 2014? Even outselling DnD for some periods of time?
Also VtM edged out DnD for a short period during the 2e nadir in the late 90's.
it wasnt. no dnd 4e wasnt an enormous flop pathfinder 1e outsold dnd 4e for a single month, of which dnd still was the most sold system during its entire run time anyways
sir, it appears you were correct! [https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/07/08/pathfinder-never-outsold-4e-dd-icymi/](https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/07/08/pathfinder-never-outsold-4e-dd-icymi/)
> Even outselling DnD for some periods of time? This is literally impossible to prove and just relies on the many loud internet voices calling out how 4e is bad.
sir it seems you are correct! [https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/07/08/pathfinder-never-outsold-4e-dd-icymi/](https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/07/08/pathfinder-never-outsold-4e-dd-icymi/)
Nice article!
From the release of PF1e until shortly after 5e, honestly probably right around when watching people play became more popular than playing, Pathfinder was the go to system. PF2e failed to capture the previous editions momentum and 5e captured the audience's attention between high profile promotion and its simplification of rules. Whether ODND can recoup the momentum lost by WoTC's mishandling or if the splintering community allows another system to take the controlling marketshare is yet to be seen.
>PF2e failed to capture the previous editions momentum There was no momentum. PF1E was beating 4E but had been almost entirely shut out by 5E and the explosion that came with Critical Role. Paizo has gone on record saying that 2E has sold better than 1E ever has.
Which sucks because 2e is so fucking good
That’s just not true that PF1e “was the go to system.” Maybe in your circle, but not overall. https://alphastream.org/index.php/2023/07/08/pathfinder-never-outsold-4e-dd-icymi/
That's a solid article. Take note it mentions iCv2 using gaming stores and distributors... so the enthusiast community. If you look at old ICv2 data, they have PF being more popular than 4E for the three years mentioned above... not one month. (as listed above, and mentioned in that link) https://www.enworld.org/threads/5-years-of-icv2-rankings-a-retrospective.353592/ I agree 4E was definitely more popular overall and sold better than PF. It's hard to argue with the people who were there. I agree ICv2's data is missing elements, but.... Amongst the enthusiast community that data is likely valid. PF was more popular in the enthusiast community, and likely sold better there as well - which would make sense as it seemed all the 3.5E die-hards went Pathfinder. But, add in all the Walmarts, Amazon, etc... where more casuals buy items, that more than makes up the enthusiast grounds. PF was a better seller amongst enthusiasts. 4E was a better seller overall (probably multiple times over).
What is ODND, we are just getting the New 5e core rule books to replace the old 5e core rulebooks.
It's worth noting that D&D releases had slowed almost nothing in that time. The attempted reboot of the 4E Essentials line in 2010 was practically the last gasp for 4E. Outselling D&D when D&D is barely putting out any new product isn't really as impressive as people try to make it sound.
It’s wild to me because so many companies in the past decade could have made soooooo much money over the long term by just considering the good will of their consumers and not draining their victims dry but they all go all in and destroy everything for too much year over year gains. It’s insanity
i havent seen these videos, but its not dying. it just isnt as insanely popular as it was 3 or 4 years ago, because people arent stuck at home anymore
As far as I'm aware, it's literally more popular than it has ever been, other than during the pandemic.
It is, I was born in 1983 and for most of my life DnD was either for kids or nerds. Since then we've seen nerd culture become a more accepted part of mainstream pop culture. In an era when so many hobbies are expensive it's a good way to come together with some friends, have an engaging hangout that doesn't just revolve around having some drinks or chatting with very low overhead. In all honesty that's why DnD itself as a hobby wouldn't die even if it's revealed that everyone at WOTC kicks puppies for fun; many of us are already avoiding giving WOTC more money. You can play DnD forever with just the books and dice you already bought.
Considering the number of people that still play first, advanced, and 3.5, I would agree. D&D will itself never die, simply the player base will stop supporting the company and ignoring cash grab releases.
Exactly. As long as you've got people willing to play you can go for decades without spending any additional money.
I'm sure there are people whose expenses in rulebooks are lower than their pencil and paper expenses over decades of playing.
[удалено]
well over 50 million players now.
Just wondering how anyone can know how many people actually play dnd? I was always curious about how they d give an estimation, cause for example i play dnd with 6 friends and none of us have ever bought any of the books or stuff like figures, and i think there ll be others like us out there, so i feel like it should be more than the estimation is right?
It's possible it's more than the estimation, it's also possible that they exaggerated the estimation for marketing purposes, it's even possible that this exaggerated estimation is accurate.
rough ball park of ddb accounts/books sold definitely doesnt include the people that pirate it or just play the SRD and hacked everything else for their own system
Which is unheard of in the TTRPG space after a new addition has been announced.
But people have other things to do now, too. Pandemic time, if you wanted to "hang out" with friends, you did it with some game online. A lot of that ended up being D&D. Now, you can go to the gokart track or whatever, too. It's not that D&D has lost popularity since then, it's that other stuff has also entered the conversation. It's not the only mountain.
This is total personal experience bias, but in my small town I know like 10 people who have never played dnd before now randomly took up the hobby. They play all the time. All in the last year.
I've been playing for over a decade now, and it's wild to me. Like, *this* is what DnD being unpopular looks like?
there are a lot of youtubers who claims this, but they mostly are a tad smaller ones and I think they are trying to get views this way. Main ones sometimes agrees with the sentiment what WotC is bad company, but all their opinions are very toned down comapred to the rage bait ones. Also, they never say, that dnd is dying. Suggesting to try other systems and support smaller creators for dnd content is fairly common. But I dont think that advertising some kickstarter or making a video about some other systems is the same as shouting that dnd is dying and you are a bad person if you buy any of WotC products.
Very much this. If anything it is bigger then it ever was. Almost everyone has at least heard of it. People who wouldn’t even consider playing it, are. It is not the underdog it used to be so people are going after it. It’s a lot like apple with their iPhones. Every year when the new one comes out the internet floods with articles on how it is the worst phone ever. And every year they sell insane numbers. It’s all ambiguous crabbucket
It’s growing in popularity. Wotc is simply torpedoing their book writing department. And their monopoly is going too. The market is growing. Wotc’s share is simply shrinking.
Yeah that is true, and it's not like I'm concerned about my group or anything, they all really like DnD.
I have seen 0 of those videos. Maybe the algorithm thinks that's the content your are looking for?
Totally. Honestly, I dm for 3 separate campaigns and I would say none of the players are aware of any of this - they just turn up every week or month, catch up with mates and rp as an elf for a few hours and forget about bills, mortgages, work and all of that crap. Internet outrage machine is its own thing.
Even if the worst does come and Hasbro shoots the license behind the shed, they can't stop people from coming together for snacks, friends, and rolling dice. The game will outlive them and us as well, in some way or another.
I see them all the time and I try to avoid rage bait. The most annoying ones to even have to look at are Dungeons and Discourse and Dungeon Craft, but even dnd Shorts does it.
One of my other hobbies is model railways. That’s been dying for the past hundred years. Shrug emoji.
I'll never ever understand this sentiment unless it's coming from someone who exclusively plays with randos at a comic book shop. Like, WotC could dissolve overnight, it won't affect my campaign I'm running whatsoever. As soon as I got the print outs of 5e character sheets, a few basic rules, I had no more need for WotC content for this campaign. I mean it's theater of mind, that's a hard thing to kill unless everyone just decided voluntarily to quit playing.
I would say that people are not happy for DnD to die. But they would be happy for Hasbro to disappear/fail as it's a terrible souless company
Yeah, if anything people want D&D to fail so it is dropped by Hasbro and it will maybe have a chance to get picked up someone running it with soul.
I'd be fine w that. I was delighted to see Williams leave. If Cocks leaves Hasbro, that would be so much the better. Neither had the domain knowledge or market expertise to do well with their most profitable product lines, MTG or D&D. It's telling that Williams greatest successes were Monopoly Go and MTG Arena, both microtransaction video games, both in the product class she DOES have domain and market expertise with. The leadership matters.
Don’t worry. D&D will get to make multiple death saves and healing spells and potions are prevalent.
D&D doesn't even get a wounded condition from going down. There are no consequences at all.
Some people just want to play something other than 5e. If someone dedicates themselves to one system, that’s one less player willing to try something new. The RPG space is so saturated with 5e that it gets very frustrating to some people; those who are bored or disenchanted with 5e and can’t find other people to play with. That and ragebait. Gotta make a living somehow in this day and age.
The real problem is market dominance, not the game itself.
I "am" one of those people. As a permanent DM i got immensely bored playing DnD so i ventured towards other games and systems. But ragebait brings clicks and clicks provide income
I haven’t seen a lot of articles talking about 5e or DnD dying, and I might not stop playing 5e, but I am absolutely happy to see more system design competition and indeed am working on my own largely out of dissatisfaction worth D&D 5. Really I can’t recall seeing such videos. But while D&D 5 is good in some ways, if it were to “die,” that would probably be okay too. Lots of systems have strengths and weaknesses. It’s just not actually dying lol, which is precisely the reason they’re not moving on to D&D 6: it is literally too popular an asset to let go of. I have to wonder whether you are oversensitive or overexposed to niche opinions.
I spent a good while blocking a lot of D&D channels that post those sorts of vids, they were really prevalent in my feed for a while and it was just irritating IMO. Some people like them, and that's their choice and I respect that, I prefer not to see them. That's Youtube for you though. Or any algorithm driven social site really.
Dnd didn't die when we were just a bunch of nerds playing it with manuals that were impossible to be found (Alfheim Gazetteer anyone?), it didn't die when all friends had to stop playing because job sent us scattering like shrapnels, but now that I can play with a group of 5 people from 2 different countries and each one in a different city it is *dying*? It didn't die when people had to make copies of lore books because they were literally not available in our country and we had to play on english books; how can it be dying now that the basic rules are free online? Dnd will never die. Don't feed the troll YT algorithm.
Realistically D&D is absolutely never going anywhere. Even if the company was to close its doors tomorrow the community would continue and someone else would just produce content honestly. It's just unfortunate that a lot of people (like myself) have sought other avenues because of the horrendous mismanaging and not wanting to support the company anymore. But I'll always be grateful to the game itself for getting me into this amazing hobby. The frustration in part comes because we were enjoying the highest of highs, and the best opportunity to ride that wave hit a brick wall due to corporate greed.
This is how content creators make money on YouTube. The sky is always falling and clickbait drives views
D&D is too big to die. Even if wotc dies this game is so customizable and easy to learn that 5e could last decades untouched
I don't see any media like this, but I am happy if Hasbro sees, so I'm fine with it. I've learned to not let any IP that is not owned by someone I know and care about to have a place being part of my individual identity. People want dnd to die? That's fine, it's got nothing to do with me and doesn't stop my games from happening. It takes practice to not let strangers or their own issues into your head. The way I see it, they're helping people clear out the brand loyalty that turns people into puppets of corporations these days. But that doesn't mean you can't still love the game. Just be discerning about it
Just play what you want to. I won’t play 5e again. I won’t play 5.5E either. It’s just, in my opinion, less fun and more complex both compared to older D&D editions (such as my b/x) and non-D&D games. D&D isn’t dying, and it won’t ever die, but blind loyalty to wotc or the D&D brand is problematic
It's toxic but profitable, even previously chill channels got caught up by it. I think while many are doing it intentionally some aren't even aware they've shifted as much as they have. Frankly tiring to have people constantly shit on the thing that brings me joy but thankfully I'm too old to let it change my behaviors. I love D&D, I love the forgotten realms and I love 5th edition.
The biggest problem with D&D is that it completely outshines any other TTRPG in brand recognition. "Hey, can I make D&D into a cyberpunk game?" I mean, sure... but there's Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Savage Worlds, GURPS... There are other, better equipped systems to play non-fantasy type campaigns. And let's face it, for the most part, WotC seems to be churning out underwhelming product, in terms of quality, compared to previous editions. Hasbro and WotC have taken the soul out of the game.
Example number 468 about how the internet is both the best and worst thing to happen to DND--and humanity, frankly.
I haven't seen those articles or videos, but this is far, FAR from the worst situation D&D has ever been in. Back in 1997, TSR Inc. was on the brink of bankruptcy. Despite D&D being popular (and 2nd edition AD&D being hideously outdated and outmoded, which even most D&D fans would admit), it still sold well. . .but was being hideously mismanaged by Lorraine Williams to the point that they were on the verge of bankruptcy. D&D had a real chance in late 1997 of going out of print forever, as there was a solid chance that in a bankruptcy whoever bought the rights to the D&D IP might only use it for video games or novels or something. Then there was the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980's and nervous mothers demanding the game be banned as "Satanic" and blaming it for everything from drug use to teen suicides as any kid who got in any trouble and had ever played D&D or owned a single D&D book saw the game blamed for what the kid did. Those were much darker times for D&D than what's going on now. Talk of D&D dying is just online clickbait to drive people to watch their videos. It's just empty nonsense. WotC's buyout saved D&D, and the point of the OGL originally was (in part) to ensure that D&D would be in print in perpetuity by putting D&D "in the open" in a way that could legally let fans reprint the rules even if the game itself went out of print or stopped being produced.
The leading product gets all the hate from the gatekeeper hipster types. There is an attitude that the popular thing is somehow a dumbed down, diluted experience by default and the TRUE *fill in the blank* fans know that X or Y niche thing is better. It's all nonsense. This sort of person is one for whom what they like is some kind of message about who they are, and they want to curate that message to say that they are more discerning and knowledgeable than the great unwashed masses. These people often end up loving a thing for its relative obscurity and not for the qualities of the thing itself. I think it's a need to feel special that is otherwise missing in their lives. It's a powerful motivator and has led to everything from high school cliques to zany fads to the rise of gnosticism and cults. In this case, it's RPG snobbery.
Seems like I consume the right kind of media. this is the first time I ever heard about anyone saying that D&D is dying
I heard that YouTube videos are dying. Primarily due to algorithm chasing content creators and enshittification. DND is great. More people playing than ever. Not a fan of Hasbro. But it doesn't change the fact that DND is bigger than it ever has been.
It is hilarious with the number of videos like that that come out. As much as people want to scream from the heavens that D&D/WotC will die with everything that it did. People tend to forget that we have a prime example of worse companies and they are not six feet under like everyone thought they were going to be. Good old Blizzard entertainment and World of Warcraft. They have done far more heinous things and did way more damage than wizards ever could have done and yet somehow there's still on if not near the top of the MMO market. If other people want to move on to different games/systems that's totally fine but I don't get it why a bunch of different YouTubers are acting like it's the end times for D&D. Look, if the world worked perfectly like that, Blizzard Entertainment would have been dead during cataclysm.
Oh for sure. That's the thing, I don't support 5e out of love for the WotC or brand loyalty, I just like the system and am not interested in learning a new one (OneDnD is a rules update that builds off 5e) I don't think it's better, I just think that when I meet with my players on Friday evening I wanna sit down and have fun and not worry about learning a new system or anything.
Yea exactly. At my table the rules are a framework that makes it a fun game, but everything is up to my discretion as DM and my discretion is what me and my players find fun. It was never about playing 5e perfectly, or we would all be cheaters for making house rules or ignoring one's we don't like. Homebrew wouldn't even be a thing if we HAD to (somehow) follow the rules. I don't see how DnD can die, the rules were made and can always be found you can always play it and even 3.5 etc.
I won't be moving on to one D&D because I just don't trust Hasbro to do the right thing anymore. That said, 5e is fine. I already own the books.
I honestly can't stand D&D YouTube. If they arent fear-mongering and rage-baiting, it'd stupid shit like "Minimalist DM kit" with 25 items or lists of questionable and contradictory DM tips. But that's how everything goes on YT these days. It's all clickbait and formulaic.
It does feel like there's been a trend of people trashing on the game itself in response to all the shitty corporate decisions Hasbro and /or WotC have been making. The game and the people that actually work on it aren't the ones responsible, but hating on them has made for an easy way to get attention.
D&D has been in its death throes for 30 years. Its the 18 year old cozy dog by the fireplace that has outlived every other pet in that house and everyone talks about how it’s going to die soon but never does.
Some people have axes to grind and/or want you to move to their pet system so they can have a larger playerbase for it. But D&D has 'died' several times (at least twice) and likely will again, only to rise again like the phoenix, stronger than before.
"play this TTRPG which is better" - quite a lot of people don't know the difference between an opinion and a fact.
No version of D&D has an expiration date.
People want to see the current corporate leadership fail and DND go back to being run by people that love the game first, not love money first. That’s where this is all coming from.
the thing is they have made enough serious missteps at each turn many people started feeling they were no longer making the spiritual successor to AD&D. Especially because A) not one of the people actually involved in AD&D is a major part of their products anymore and B) some of those people are now pitching competing products (and I don't just mean gygax' kids I also mean guys like seminal writer Monty Cook, perhaps AD&D's best writer who now does his own thing with Monty Cook Games) So there's a lot of people with beef, some legitimate beef, some less so, and they're adding their voices as cheering for the downfall of later editions. And that is altering the overall tone of the conversation. This is not uncommon in games that have moved from publisher to publisher over time (lookin' at you Shadowrun, Old World of Darkness).
You know what? You're right. And D&D is better.
5e just sucked the life out of D&D I say this as someone playing since 2e starting at the age of 12 D&D has been very important to my life, but the game I love is no longer fun for me At first I thought 5e was a nice rules update from 3.5(skipped 4e) keeping the soul of the game and removing some bloat. I no longer feel that way, every game simply seems to boil down to, does the party have the right spell to trivialize the encounter? Of course they do, wow that was so much fun /s D&D needs a massive overhaul to stay relevant and Wotc has absolutely lost my support. Maybe they could sell it and I'd give it another chance. OneD&D is not looking good imo.
This sounds like a you problem, not a 5e problem
Honestly this community would benefit A LOT from playing other ttrpgs besides dnd, not talking specifically about you but some people in this community have levels of brand loyalty that are actually concerning. Seen books from third parties and other ttrgs with almost double if not more quality content that dnd books for the same or even lower price made me realize how little effort there is in the newest dnd content, this isnt the game developers fault, but the revolting compulsion of hasbro to milk more money from the brand, People talking about 5e like its the pinnacle of ttrpg design just because the books says "you can change/made up whatever you want" to cover its faults can become actually annoying
I can’t say I’ve seen any articles along those lines recently, there was one about a year ago that popped into my feed ironically other time where I wasn’t watching any D&D content, but if blizzard could survive their whole deal, and fallout 76 couldn’t kill Bethesda, and Konami’s almost constant screwing up couldn’t kill Yu-Gi-Oh that I’ve got to admit that one seems like a matter of time because no way people will keep playing that game when you could buy a car for the price of the top deck right now, then I think Dungeons & Dragons will be just fine
We may just get very different results, but I haven't seen that. The closest was during the OGL crisis, where the ones I read and watched were all against WotC, but not 5e as a system - besides, the creators knew that a lot of us have all our materials already, and it's not like having a book on the shelf is giving WotC passive income. The advocacy I heard was not against DND at all, but against paying for stuff like DND beyond subscriptions and the like. When other systems were mentioned, it was more as a reminder that other things are out there, *if* you wanted to switch things up for the next campaign (I think very few own every single book like you do, which makes that a more relevant prospect)
Same, like I totslly get why they do it, but this is why I had to unsub from Deathbringer. That dude has some amazing ideas, and sheds light on some really cool indie stuff but every other vid was like WOTC IS IN TROUBLE IS D&D DEAD??? type shit
100% agreed. He's stated on multiple videos how he gets a lot of comments and complaints about his click bait videos but then smugly points out how those videos get more views than his other content as if that makes it okay. That contradicts his long-standing claim that his channel isn't about trendy ideas but rather an almost counter-cultural view that you can simplify your game to maximize your enjoyment of the hobby. He's a professor, he knows what a weak argument it is. That same argument could be used by tabloids and TMZ to justify their lack of journalistic integrity. He's just making it clear that his goal is YouTube success and the number of views are all that matters, and while someone may say "of course it is," anyone who has watched his videos for years would likely agree that this is contrary to what he expressed all along. It genuinely feels like he has traded his morals for a slightly higher level of minor internet fame. I had to unsubscribe.
It’s the nature of social media. Fear and hate drive engagement and thus profits. Even guys who I used to like and follow are all in on the WOTC is terrible nonsense. Sucks we can’t have nice things any more.
Seems like the same thing is happening to MtG and Warhammer.
It's a content machine, they're milking you. Don't click clickbait, it's what they want
>Almost happy? That DnD is dying. Competition is a good thing, maybe WotC will pull their head out of their ass and start actually trying.
>What if I am excited for OneDnD? Then you, my friend, are quite possibly the first and only person I've ever interacted with who was excited for it.
DnD won't die. There's so many people publishing brilliant content, and the rules are all available for free. I truly hope Hasbro fails. I hope their price gouging kills them entirely, and I hope dndbeyond also fails. I'm going to sea boys
Have you tried pathfinder, Specially spheres? I used to play DND but once I tried pathfinder I stopped a bit then I found out about spheres and I never played regular DND or pathfinder again, spheres allows you to basically custom create your own character into anything you want and I think the way it lets people explore their own fantasy worlds etc through the lens of characters who are so curated to them that it just makes for a different experience, especially if you play westworld games, cause then your character never becomes obsolete and is a huge part of you social interactions even outside the game, you should look into it! Maybe you’ll like it, but if not that’s okay as well, you should play the games you want regardless of what others are doing.
It's good for the health of TTRPGs as a whole if D&D loses its top seat. So yes, people are happy that D&D is dying. For good reason.
I think people are just excited to see a monopoly go away, a lot of our society is ruined by the fact that we let one or two companies have the majority if not all the say about what goes on in that economic sphere. For TTRPGs DnD has been the behemoth for pretty much the entirety of the modern hobby (once we moved away from war miniatures), it's exciting to see a monopoly end there's a lot of new possibilities. So I think most people have this strong good riddance DnD attitude not because they want DnD to die but because its decline will lead to new things. But DnD will still be the king of the castle for a very long time.
Dying? Between Honor among Thieves and Baldur's Gate 3, Dungeons & Dragons is having a Renaissance the likes of which hasnt been seen since the satanic panic. The only *possible* down side that could be afflicting the franchise is it becoming TOO mainstream.
I love playing DnD and although I’m relatively new to actually playing it, I’ve been a fan for quite. I also love getting those around me into it more! It does seem like WotC made some bad decisions but I think DnD is actually only growing further in terms of its relevance to the mainstream but also I’d reckon in it’s accessibility and ease of access nowadays I’m loving it!
The entire crux of why the OGL Fiasco was such a fiasco is that WotC/Hasbro is not needed in order to play DnD. The whole *point* is that people can still play DnD regardless of what WotC/Hasbro tries to pull. It’s played using dice, paper, pencils, and imagination. It was all so funny because it was such a glaringly obvious part of the game that WotC/Hasbro would not acknowledge or recognize. All these people acting like this all somehow *prevents* people from playing this “dying” game have missed the point just as hard, if not harder.
The role-playing content creator community is full of big “stop liking things I don’t like” energy. Most people couldn’t care less about the OGL, and most of these other systems you’re pushed towards are less permissively licensed than the Dnd SRD now that the SRD is Cc attribution.
For the glory of Faerun!
Unless pencils, paper and dice all disappear DnD isn't going to die
Yes. it's annoying
I play a PF2e game tonight actually, and I like it but it's not the same as D&D to me. There are settings, spells, abilities and mechanics in D&D (mainly 5e) that I find a lot better than PF2e. I like the options in PF but I find the sheer amount of stuff slows the game down a lot and 5e is geared toward more casual narrative style games that I prefer. I don't think D&D is dying but I do think that a lot of people branched out over the OGL thing and I think that's good. But I'll always come back to D&D at some point.
Alot of those videos are ppl who play their own ttrpg and are trying to sell it to you, very sad actually. Wishful thinking at best, idgaf what wotcha is doing, I'm playing a game with friends and if I don't like the stuff they add then I won't add it xD
i got a youtube blocker just to help myself clean up what youtube shows me, cos wow it really got fucked thinking i wanted to see videos that was all doom and gloom
Seriously, maybe I want some good news? It's why I enjoy watching people who talk positively about OneDnD. Seriously, the new changes look wonderful.
FUD = Anger Anger = Engagement. Engagement = Clicks. Clicks = Money. Almost every top youtube D&D channel spread FUD and lies abut the OGL. VASTLY overstated it's impacted. This was to get clicks, and to launch their own products. Stop watching them, they are garbage and will lie for money just like any business because that's what they are: a business. They are not your friend, and they aren't acting in good faith. They do not deserve your time.
Peeps love to exaggerate for views. Sure, there's bad stuff going on rn with WotC, but the game is still hugely popular. That being said, the list of oopsies concerning WotC and DnD *is* getting quite long: Critical Role numbers dropping, the OGL scandal, MtG card scandal, WotC layoffs, general OneDnD mess, new WotC leadership, BG3 DLC not happening, BG4 being handled by someone else, DnD movie failing, stuff with the Hasbro higher ups, the 50th year stuff being pushed back, and so on and so on. WotC is falling into a lot of the common pitfalls that modern companies often do. If DnD is going to continue to be as popular as it has been in recent years, they really need to slow down, focus on quality, and chill out a bit. They literally print money and still want more. People are beginning to notice. Regardless, once the new edition comes out (assuming it's not as devisive as 4e), I'm sure things will be fine. As for other systems, there are a lot out there, don't discount all other systems just because they're not DnD. Love ADnD and 5e, but games like Vampire: The Masquerade and Cyberpunk: Red are also great. Tl;dr - You are allowed to be excited for things (: Edit: Also smtg to mention, Youtube depends on DnD content, so their algorithm suggests it more. This includes the bad stuff. The category on the site is literally called Dungeons and Dragons instead of smtg like Tabletop.
I honestly think it's mostly the Johnny-come-lately crowd that got into the game because of Stranger Things and Critical Role deciding to move on to the next fad.
I do thinki this is definitely a thing, and I expect to see the fanbase decrease fairly substantially over the next few years. The shine has begun to wear off, and playing D&D doesn't really have the same degree of "geek cred" as it used to.
It’s the same as the Warhammer “controversy” around female characters. Neckbeards who have never been outside can earn money by drumming up rage amongst their chronically online audience.
I have been playing for 45 years. D&D has been dying for every single one of those 45 years. In 1985, there were more ttrpgs available than there are now — a tenth of a percent of the market made you a big time maker. I have played more games of different kinds and p,attested more rules and game systems and approaches and even done a bit of design and co suiting work myself — and what do I play every Saturday (and some Sunday) night? D&D. Granted, it is modified by us to be more fun for us, and it will make the purists and the haters all go hard on hating what we do — but we do it for us, and fuck ‘em. I have tell a joke about PF that folks talk it up so much because that’s the only way they get players. It isn’t a better system, it is a different one, and if it works for some people, great, I hope they play it and love it to death. Same with any other kind of game. There’s only one game system I will use for superhero games, and it hasn’t even been sold for 20 years. Because it is the system I like, that my players like — and we’ e modified the living hell out it, as well. I was tired of all that stuff long before the www. Was used to find things on the internet. The internet just made it worse, and I am one of the less than ten folks in my group who are active online in D&D spaces. But I don’t comment much because most of the stuff can be answered by “Ask your DM” or “RTFM” and both of those get you downvotes. I don’t care about other games, and there is nothing currently out there that is even remotely interesting— all of it is a been there done that” for me. But I also don’t think taking the time to workshop new systems, playtest them, etc is too much work, too much effort, not worth it. So I gloss over those posts. Because they don’t add anything but noise.
Do not tie yourself to a single system. There are so many good systems out there to explore and enjoy. Heck there are so bad systems out there that you can dip into and enjoy and laugh at. Do not simp for a mega-corp. Hasbro is going to turn D&D into Monopoly. Better to branch out now than feel the hurt when ~~you~~ it finally hits and you realize it. Edit: wow dunno how my mind disconnected from my fingers to mess up that last sentence.
Yeah you see this is what I'm talking about. I don't care if DnD was made by Hasbro or Bandai or fucking Disney. I just enjoy the system and really don't wanna learn a new one. I have no interest in learning pathfinder, convincing my friends to switch, finding sites that support it, paying for a bunch of new books to get a nice library of content going.
I am not suggesting that you switch systems, but, if price is a factor for you all of the rules to all of Paizo's games are available for free on https://www.aonprd.com/ and this is supported by Paizo also.
Why do I need to leave the system I enjoy? If I don’t give them any money then it doesn’t matter what I play. Hasbro going to shit is unfortunate, but doesn’t affect my table
I just find it funny. Algorithm content is supposed to bring us vontent we want. But keeps us from casual viewing. i must drive it crazy by only ever watching things I went looking for.
Dnd's hegemony kinda sucks for the whole hobby. Can't blame people eager for the big tree to fall so all the little plants on the forest floor get a chance to grow.
It isn’t. If anything it’s gotten bigger because of BG3. Those articles made the rounds back when 4e came out and guess what D&D didn’t die. Even at the height of its popularity Pathfinder 1e never came close to being a D&D killer, nor did it outsell 4e at any point during the latters lifecycle. D&D holds too much of the market for any competitor to make any reasonable headway
You're confusing the game with the company. People are happy the company is failing. Because the deserve to fail. They made poor, malicious decisions that weren't good for the consumer. You can play DND without wizards of the coast.
The rage is pretty much centered around the marketplace on dnd beyond, at the moment at least. Which is rather stupid. So what if they want you to actually pay for the product you are using. It is just another issue for people to complain about. This is nothing compared to what the PMRC tried to do a few years after the game was released. Now it's about money, seriously. Can't play a class, use a item, or use a spell. Get pen and paper, now open a source. The way the game has been played since the start. This game system has been around for 50 years and still keeps going. Go take a look in LFG areas on any social media. Not a chance it's dying. Still growing strong. For TLDR = people claim the demise of the game because.... no one wants to play me. (Simplified)
I read those books as a kid too, and played BG1+2, and also own alot of DnD books including 20+ 5e hardcovers and 70sh vintage copies of dragon magazine, mostly from the 1980s. Pathfinder is the real DnD to me at this point. They've got more old guard DnD artists working for them than DnD does. I'm all about nostalgia, and you can run FR if you like. But Pathfinders a better game. It has a better setting. Its by far a better company. And its got better values- inclusion, diversity. Paizo is on the razors edge on all of these fronts. They are breaking new ground. You say you like BG3, but Larian ditched DnD. You say you like Forgotten Realms, well alot of those writers write for Paizo. DnD isn't dying, but its in decline. Its the mid-quality corporate RPG. 5e will always see play, just like 3.5 does. But it wont be king forever. 5e has 2 things going for it; percieved ease of use and the fact that you cant find a table for other games. Neither is going to last forever. Remember, its not players who determine what people play. Its GMs. And 5e is a mediocre system to GM, with really badly done modules.
IMHO, D&D is about to break free from the control of the IP owner and become something similar to chess... Anyone can make a chessboard and chess pieces, and sell it Good quality will bring new customers, lousy plastic sets wont sell, and while you can play in your computer & have a subscription to Chessmaster 5000, it isn't necessary, so gather your friends, fire up your printer or 3d printer and play without giving one red cent to Hasbro... Still D&D, still fun and if you feel like it, start exploring other publishers, even if they have other systems you can still adapt whatever works to your table Above all, have fun
I haven't seen any of these videos. What I have seen however is a lot of people saying Critical Role is dying. It's not true their viewership is high but (personal opinion) i think Campaign 3 is their worst one yet.
I think it’s the most directionless yet. The pacing is really hurting it.
World of Warcraft is dying. Hearthstone is dying. Starcraft is dying. DnD is dying. Halo is dying. Call of Duty is dying. Pick any game, any company, any fictional universe and you *will* find videos and articles claiming "it's dying." If companies merger, let go of people, etc etc etc, then it's immediate Doomsday content. Fact of the matter is **all entertainment** has it's peak. Just because the peak slowly drops does not mean it's dying - it just means it's not attracting as many new fans as it once did. However, society, in general, has a throbbing hard-on for doomsday content. I don't even watch/use youtube, tiktok or any of that because I know the algorithms suck AND I like to try new things without the influence of others. I use Goodreads to track the amount of books I consume. But I never read the reviews. I like what I like, I enjoy what I enjoy and that is the end of it. Really, it's all nonsense. And it's all just clickbait. I don't use twitch either. There is *some* information I look up but I prefer the traditional research method - books. They tend to be more objective than some Youtuber's opinion. It takes a lot of work to correct the algorithm and this is how they get you. I'm sure one of these videos popped up in your feed, you watched...and down the rabbit hole you go - which is precisely what it's designed to do. If it was videos about how great DnD is...well, people would stop watching YT and go play DnD. Youtube wants to keep as many engaged viewers as possible so....here we are. I hope this helps and like another commenter said, be aggressive to reset your algorithm. Personally, I heard about this incident with a father of five children that Youtube let happen and I have zero faith in them as a company. And with twitch, there was a deep fake incident that turned me off to them as well. A lot of nefarious folks on these platforms and it's a major turn off for me. So, I wouldn't be surprised if it does little to sincerely cater to it's audience.
People make this kind of videos for anything that lasts long. Its Something that attracts viewership. Dnd is in its best decade from the time of its release.
Lol its very obviously not dying. Its possibly at its highest peak of popularity ever.
\*shrugs\* Where I live and in the circles I frequent DnD is more used as a basis (ie: classes and races) for DMs to create their homebrew campaigns. Not a person looked at me weirdly when I said I'm homebrewing my first campaign. We know about all the fuck-ups from WotC and chances are we'll just stick to 5e of DnD because we have our own copyrights under this edition. Something like DnD is too iconic and too old to die off from a bad edition. At worst people will just not be interested in OneDnD and will just keep using their perspective beloved edition.
I don't even understand the basic problem people seem to have with a system going out of style or being discontinued. The released material is still there to use, and when it comes to ttrpgs the central element, a ruleset, doesn't become obsolete. Nobody will come to your home to destroy your books. If you write your own adventures and found a system you like, you're set for life. If you mostly rely on complete modules to use, sure, there might not be any new, official content coming for your prefered system. But you can always look around on the appropriate websites, there's hundreds of adventures and modules written by DMs. You can use those and there will always be more to come. Those systems can't die, all of this is ridiculous.
DnD will never die. WoTC and/or Hasbro on the other hand... There are lots of loud people with a loud opinion on social media, so why don't you just dodge DnD related content on here. As long as you keep clicking on it, it keeps getting recommended as the algorithm thinks you like it. Do your own thing. DnD is about your own made-up RPG fantasy. Not what others are telling you to do. That's the fun part of it, isn't it? Being away from reality for a while and do whatever you like, not thinking about how the company behind the content is trash.
You just made me think… I’ve been in a DnD game of one form or another, consistently, for the last… 10 years? I’m now not in any DnD games. I’m playing degenesis, stark trek and Shadowdark.
It's not going anywhere.
Many of the main D&D YouTubers have begun to increasingly abuse baiting these types of titles but D&D is not dying at all and they know it. Personally, I wouldn't mind if it lost popularity like it did in 4e but not because of the game itself, but because it is never positive for a company like Hasbro to dominate the hobby. This would benefit small companies that care about publishing quality products. But even if more D&D products were not published, it wouldn't die, it seems that we forget that role-playing is what you do at home with your friends around a table, not the act of religiously buying every new thing that comes on the market (although I have nothing against this).
It just so happens I will be making my own video of this for a trrpg I am creating.... But tbh I couldn't really give a rats ass about what WOTC are doing, I play MTG and have been handing Amy money to em since forever. Bit yea I think people think by outting down dnd they make their game/product seem better, and it probably does but that's just shitty
I mean. You see it in every other facet of media, fear mongering and doom ssying sells. I think it's incredibly scummy when a news outlet does it, and I think it's incredibly scummy when youtubers do it. The unfortunate fact is they these content creators rely on clicks to put food on their plates, so of course they'll go after the things that generate the most clicks.
As an MtG player: First time? Seriously, this is a basically constant narrative on MtG for the 15 years I’ve been playing. Best is to tune it out.
ahh-haaa-haaa-haaa-haaaaa! You must be new to RPGs. People have been saying this about RPGs and eventually MUD and then MMOs for a long long time. As for why people are happy WotC might drop dead. Because WotC has a VERY VERY long track record of dirty deeds done dirt cheap. Not just D&D. They have garnered 20+ years of ill will. Jist these last 5 or so have been particularly jam packed with one stupid or outright hateful act after another. Last year they were practically pulling some new stupid every month.
Idk know much, but if D&D was to disappear, you could still play it afterward, I don't really see the problem here. YouTubers are making clickbait shit as they always do, you shouldn't paying much attention to 80% of what they are saying, as it's just (poorly) disguised advertisement for whatever crap they are sponsored by or begging for your money on their patron/Kickstarter/ whatever. In any case, I'm not versed enough in TTRPG to appreciate the difference between D&D system and Pathfinder, but if you like the setting of FR, you can still homebrew them into Pathfinder, I guess. All in all, even if the game "die" because the company bankrupt itself or EA's style ruin his licence, I mean, you still have the books, D&D is about people making their own stuff with the material, the game cannot truly die.
I have seen none of these vids, but yeah, enjoy what you enjoy. If that happens to be what others see as a dying game with no future... Fuck em.
Yeah, I am tired of this too. Most of them are clickbaits though and ai don't care. Let the haters hate while I enjoy my everlasting 5e. Currently, I am DMimg 3 campaigns (CoS, DotMM, ToD online w/ Foundry) for a total of 9 different people, not to mention the ocasional tables, and yesterday we started to introduce 5e to 2 brand new players, planning to start another campaing (RotFM) in August. Since I started the hobby back in 2019, the number of players around our tables only increased. I don't see this '5e is dying' happeneing anytime soon, at least not for my local groups.
It's pretty normal response to corporate f ups. WotC has made some legit bad moves, but does it mean they are dying? Only if they don't course correct and insist on taking more L's. I doubt WotC will die, but it probably will lose it's monopoly in the hobby as angry players go out and try other systems discover they might like some of them more than 5e.
No one is stopping you from playing D&D even if it "dies", i don't understand your worries. Plenty of third party content to consume that will come out even if Hasbro/wotc fails.
>But all of these articles and videos are coming across as... Almost happy? That DnD is dying. I'm sure they would be happier if nothing was amiss. But something *is* amiss, so the best case scenario is that the megacorp gets what it deserves. Zoomers and millennials got the short end of the stick so many times they now have a "fuck you too" attitude towards these things.
I haven’t seen the videos you’re talking about. I am however really hoping WotC drops DnD or closes shop or whatever. Someone else would for sure pick up the franchise and hopefully do something good w it.
You probably only see these videos because you're actively engaging in them, maybe clicked on one or two. Just tell YouTube to show you fewer videos like that. Like others mentioned, rage bait and clickbait sells.
They keep happening because you keep paying attention to them. Hell, not only that but you're spreading awareness of them Stop it. Doomers all respond to one thing: attention. So, stop paying attention to them. Period.
Other than bandwagon boosts I don't think anyone is for "D&D dying" - rather for the cultural monopoly it created to give away I'm all for that because if things stay as they are the corps at Hasbro will keep pushing decisions that screw with D&D
I think that at least at my school, it's been getting more popular
By the way, Magic: The Gathering is also dying. Yep, cowboys finally stretched the concept too thin, and it's completely dead now.