#one dnd

[vexwerewolf]

The thing is, D&D is not a game.

I know that sounds insane, but hear me out: D&D is not a game, it is a games console. You don't actually "play D&D." You play "Dragon Heist" or "Tomb of Annihilation" or "Ghosts of Saltmarsh" or "your GM's homebrew campaign" or "the plot of Critical Role Season 1 reconstructed from memory" on D&D.

For quite a long while now - possibly literal decades - D&D hasn't even been the best games console, but it's been "the one everyone knows about" and "the one my friends have" and in fact it's "the one whose name is almost synonymous with the entire medium of TTRPGs," like how "Nintendo" or "Playstation" could just mean "games console" to people who didn't understand games consoles. They might not have heard of a "tabletop roleplaying game," but most people have heard of "Dungeons & Dragons."

For this extended metaphor, D&D is Nintendo back in the 90s, or Playstation in the 2000s. Sometimes you say "oh let's go to my house and play Nintendo" or "c'mon dude I wanna play Playstation" but you're not actually playing Nintendo or Playstation, you're playing Resident Evil or Super Mario Bros or Jurassic Park or Metal Gear Solid or whatever on a Nintendo or a Playstation.

Now, this metaphor is going to get even more tortured, but remember how when the PS2 and the original X-Box came out, they used a standardised DVD format, but the Nintendo console in that generation, the Gamecube, used discs but they were this proprietary tiny little disc format that they had control over? That essentially meant that it was really difficult to make third party titles for the Gamecube that did literally anything that Nintendo didn't want them to do, and also essentially gave Nintendo an even greater ability to skim money off the top of any sales?

So that must've seemed like a smart business decision in their heads. But the PS2 and the X-Box used DVDs. This was a standardized format which gave Microsoft and Sony way less control over who made games for their consoles, but that actually turned out to be a good thing for gaming, because it meant that the breadth of games that you could play on their consoles was massively increased even if some of them were games Microsoft and Sony didn't really approve of. (Also it's worth nothing that the PS2 and the X-Box could just play DVDs, which meant if your household was on a budget, you didn't need a separate DVD player - your games console could do it for you! This was actually a huge selling point!)

What Wizards are currently trying to do now is kinda-sorta the equivalent of Sony suddenly announcing that the PS5 will only accept a proprietary cartridge format they hold the patent on, will control the content of and charge money for the construction of. This possibly seems like it could be a moneymaker in your head because you hold market dominance (apparently the PS5 has 30 million units shipped compared to X-Box Series X 20 million units) and so many people make games for your console, but what it actually means is game devs and publishers will abandon your product. If it takes so much more work, the scope of what they're allowed to do is so much more limited and they're going to make less money off of it, they just won't bother. They'll go make games for the X-Box or PC instead.

To use another computer metaphor, D&D is Windows - it might not be the best system but it's the system most people are familiar with and so it gets the most stuff made for it, but there's is an upper limit on the bullshit people will take before they decide fuck it and get an Apple or learn how Linux works.

TTRPG systems are a weird product because you're not selling people a game, you're selling people a method to play a game. All the actual games are created by the community - even prewritten campaigns needs to be executed via a game master. Trying to skim money off the community will mean they'll eventually give up on you.

[brewerssupplies]

Why did no one tell me there's a bard subclass in the new handbook that lets you do the macarena at someone until they die?

[cocoshomebrew]

PDF available to free members of my Patreon!

[leidensygdom]

So, it seems like WOTC hired an AI artist for their latest book (Glory of the Giants). The "artist" (in their social media) openly advertises themself as an AI "artist".

I guess the whole OGL mess and sending the Pinkertons wasn't enough, they had to reach a new low. Fantastic timing, gotta say, all while GenCon (the biggest TTRPG con) is currently ongoing.

[dnd-homebrew5e]

WE. FUCKING. WON.

They will not be moving forward with the new OGL. It will remain as is and will be irrevocable. Thank you to everyone that made their voices heard and made sure they understood we would not compromise. Victory is ours!

[crowcaws]

The more I think about the mixed races change in onednd, the angrier I get. Finally I can escape to a fantasy world where mixed people are forced to pick a side and are treated like an inconvenient nuance! Nothing like real life!

[fightingchancestudio]

Have any of you switched to the new players handbook? Are you going to pre-order the new dungeon masters guide?

[cryptid-peanut]

I'm excited to release my first 5.24 compatible homebrew. I think I'm gonna go through my previous catalogue and update it for 5.24 so be sure to look for that. Play as a living star with complicated identity with Heaven's Tears!

[lostinludens]

There are a lot of crazy things happening right now with developing information about Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro, and the future of Dungeons & Dragons. If you are confused about ONE DND or what is the OGL (open game license) and why it's so important to pay attention to what is being done to it I highly recommend watching the video below.

He gives a great breakdown of what has happened, what information we currently have, and possibly what this mess can lead to. Truly, the future of the DND community is at stake, with so many creators at risk AND any system or content even partially related to DND (such as Pathfinder) is also in the crossfire. So many people are talking about the crazy legalities of it all, and it's a lot and complicated and we just don't have all the info because it just isn't out there yet. So, if you care about DND, about TTRPGS, about communities and people who enjoy a thing being able to continue to enjoy it, watch this video.

[digital-meat]

summary of 5.5e / 6e / dndone

[aqours]

so i think the 2024 dungeon master guide is actually. kind of goated which in turn makes it all the more tragic that hasbro created it

[foldingfittedsheets]

So my tiefling bard Orion is a One DnD build where they made bards prepared casters because that’s obviously better in every way. The only downside was that I got the Arcane Spell list but only certain types of magic like illusion, divination, transmutation. But not the powerful wizardy blow stuff up spells.

So I had to go through and diligently check the school of magic on each spell and I made a document called Spells I Can Cast. And then I went and cross referenced that against the bard spell list that included supplementary material and then my DM went through and took some of those bard specific spells away because they were the wrong school of magic.

And the new way they did Magical Secrets is that you just pick one of the three spell lists and have access to the entire list. Every day I get to prepare two spells from a different list. I picked Arcane because we have a cleric and Druid so I didn’t need Divine or Primal spells.

So this morning I went through and supplemented the rest of the Arcane Spell list into my document but now I have to cross reference supplemental bard and wizard spells into it. And because I’ve never played a wizard I’m gonna read through all those spells and annotate ones I think will be useful.

[brewerssupplies]

Most see winter as a difficult time of harsh cold, survival, and darkness, druids of this circle see it otherwise. They see the beauty and light that winter has to offer. This is my 3rd entry into the druid circles based around seasons, the next and final one to come being the Circle of Spring. I hope you enjoy!

[Homebrewery]

[Drive]

[i-am-venomancer]

I am straight up not having a good time

[leidensygdom]

Paizo has made an official statement about the OGL 1.1:

We believe, as we always have, that open gaming makes games better, improves profitability for all involved, and enriches the community of gamers who participate in this amazing hobby. And so we invite gamers from around the world to join us as we begin the next great chapter of open gaming with the release of a new open, perpetual, and irrevocable Open RPG Creative License (ORC).

The new Open RPG Creative License will be built system agnostic for independent game publishers under the legal guidance of Azora Law, an intellectual property law firm that represents Paizo and several other game publishers. Paizo will pay for this legal work. We invite game publishers worldwide to join us in support of this system-agnostic license that allows all games to provide their own unique open rules reference documents that open up their individual game systems to the world. To join the effort and provide feedback on the drafts of this license, please sign up by using this form.

In addition to Paizo, Kobold Press, Chaosium, Green Ronin, Legendary Games, Rogue Genius Games, and a growing list of publishers have already agreed to participate in the Open RPG Creative License, and in the coming days we hope and expect to add substantially to this group.

This is massive news! Paizo has assured that their usage of the OGL for PF2 was optional, and meant to help third party content creators more than being something they relied on for their own system.

Now, they will be creating the ORC, which will be a successor to the OGL which many third party content creators will be able to benefit from. They will be taking measures to ensure the ORC won’t belong to any company, so this doesn’t repeat itself, and covering the legal costs of getting it coming to fruition. Which is massive news in these times.

A lot of third party content creators and smaller TTRPGs have already expressed their support to this new ORC already.

Amidst these news, I’d like to remind what has WOTC been doing currently instead:

DnD Beyond suddenly saw their option to unsuscribe disappear, which they blamed on servers. (Trust me: I have coded pages, and it’s not something that just casually can disappear because of server saturation)

A recurrent stream from DnD Beyond was cancelled. They claimed it is unrelated to the OGL news

WOTC has once again delayed a proper official statement about the OGL, and has been holding off from confirming it.

People have been ending their subscription for DnDBeyond as a form of protest, as it’s the metric WOTC is currently using to measure the impact of the new OGL.

Overall, employees have reported that the situation at WOTC right now is a massive mess, as the new OGL was not supposed to be leaked (contrary to what people had theorized). 

Keep pushing WOTC to revoke the OGL, of course. If all these changes have been happening, it’s thanks to the reunited effort from the community and creators to fight against it.

(As always, reblogs for awareness are appreciated!)

[fandomlobster]

Me making a new reference for my disguise self abusing goolock every time I have a chance to put him in a campaign. I've got a good feeling this time around, trust me [delusional]