That Metal Thread Hasbro issues & the future of DnD

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That's true, although I've seen enough creators go "unoffically I don't give a fuck" on the issue to think that's as much of a factor. Publishers, especially big ones, tend to be less lenient.
 
Black Leaf said:
There's a difference between individual investors and the corporation as a structure. The latter is pretty much inarguably soulless for the same reason any legal entity is. Any corporation that isn't a non-profit has the primary purpose of making a profit and the secondary purpose of protecting its owners from full liability. That's not an ethical good/evil question (or if it is it's way out of the scope of this forum because it's socio-political). It simply is. Without those two things the corporation would have no need to exist.

I'd agree that some investors make investment decisions on grounds other than sheer profit. I think you shift too far in the other direction by almost implying that altrustic investment is a major motivation. The most ethical investor wants to see their shares go up, not down.

Also, in the case of WoTC specifically, about 11% of the shareholders are individual shareholders. 53% are institutional. I have trouble believing that the primary focus of The Capital Group isn't in fact profit, whatever the views of individual employees.

And when profit is in conflict with other issues like the social good, the former will almost always win out.

I doubt very much that most investors care about things like "is it better for the hobby of gaming if D&D is less dominant" and why should they?
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One thing that I think gets left out of these discussions is the difference between short and long term profit. There's nothing that says a company has to maximize short term profit over all things. The thing most often quoted is a fiduciary duty to look out for investor interests. That's primarily about makign sure the officers arent doing something to enrich themselves at the obvious expense of the investors. They can totally say we're rebuilding now and not going to burn the future to get more money today. Capital Group wants a profit. Now if Capital Group is a firm that turns over shares a lot they are going to be more short term focused. Someone like Berkshire Hathaway is not interested in short term. They want to see a company well run that understands it's niche and is going to turn over profits over the long haul accepting some years will be bad and others good.

If a company doesnt care about social good it's largely because its customers havent cared. This is changing rapidly and the companies are changing to match it.
 
AsenRG said:
...I might get into D&D if you get to make the 6.0:thumbsup:!


What is a reverse lifepath? Do you start from a character and find out what motivated him to get a given score or what:grin:?

Also, the idea that business executives care about who the products themselves contradicts what I know quite a bit...

Speaking as a worldbuilding angle, do you think that executives are people like all the rest of us, just with more options?
Or do you think, like me, that they're people who actually have less options? Because they get more money, but then they also have greater expenses - whether for security or for funding the "keeping up with the Joneses" is irrelevant, though I remember reading a research that suggested the latter, years ago - so they are still struggling to get ahead. But the problem is, the places that would pay them more become fewer and fewer the higher they climb:shade:.
I guess that would make a near-future world run by me somewhat different from one run by Bunch Bunch :tongue:! Though maybe we should shift that to a separate thread - something like "how do you portray business executives in an RPG".
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like us with more options. whenever I hear someone say a 200K plus person couldn't afford to miss a paycheck I suspect they are comparing an apple to an orange. I suspect the question asked was "At your current spend how long could you live before you ran out of savings?" That might be short. The thing is they have lots of options of what to cut. Gardner? Gone. Housekeeper? Gone. Dinner out most meals? gone. etc
 
Baulderstone said:
Disney has gutted its stock value by following that plan with Star Wars and Marvel.
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Stock value is an interesting selection for measuring a company's success, given that it's the kind of thing that has a tendency to fluctuate according to numerous metrics, including rumours and just... how much it's being traded recently to generate demand for it. It's an easy thing for people to come up with their own speculations as to why the line goes up or down.

If a person was going for something a bit more concrete they'd probably have to account for stuff like why Multiverse of Madness is probably nobody's favourite Marvel movie and it still made almost a billion dollars.

Oh hey, Pfizer's stock value was lower a month ago than it was six months ago (and is higher now than it was a month ago but not as high as it was six months ago), I guess they must have destroyed their brand by assuming more people wanted medicine than they did as well.
 
Isator Levi said:
Stock value is an interesting selection for measuring a company's success, given that it's the kind of thing that has a tendency to fluctuate according to numerous metrics, including rumours and just... how much it's being traded recently to generate demand for it. It's an easy thing for people to come up with their own speculations as to why the line goes up or down.

If a person was going for something a bit more concrete they'd probably have to account for stuff like why Multiverse of Madness is probably nobody's favourite Marvel movie and it still made almost a billion dollars.

Oh hey, Pfizer's stock value was lower a month ago than it was six months ago (and is higher now than it was a month ago but not as high as it was six months ago), I guess they must have destroyed their brand by assuming more people wanted medicine than they did as well.
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Yeah there's things completely unrelated to how the company is run that change a stocks valuation drastically. Right now is risky so the multiple people are willing to pay for a dollar of earnings has dropped drastically across the board. Nothing changed about the company but how comfortable investors are with future earning of the world has dropped so they aren't willing to risk overpaying for anything.
Interest rates rising means safer(US Bonds etc) alternatives to stocks look much more attractive than a year ago. Company didn't mismanage but investors are more risk averse.
 
Black Leaf said:
I think the problem now is that the third string games have almost no visability at all. Hell, even the second tier stuff like WoD struggles to get attention.

It's the bitter irony of the modern market. We have a wider variety of RPGs available then ever before, but D&D is also more dominant than ever before.

It's why I don't agree with the argument that D&D doing well has a positive effect on the rest of the hobby. I don't think it does much harm either, but D&D is by this point a separate hobby to RPGs. Same as the rise of Warhammer 40k didn't lead to any kind of boom for miniature wargaming in general
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Preach it...but beware the flamewar:thumbsup:.

Telok said:
Edit: sorry, didn't see this before.

Yeah, thats basically it. For use in games where you have meaningful backgrounds but a few players who are habituated to generating anonomyous nameless orphan murder-hobo cardboard cutout characters. Plus probably useful for GMs to flesh out NPCs quickly.
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Oh, OK, that's an use I hadn't thought about - but it makes total sense now:grin:!
 
Necrozius said:
Competitive e-sport D&D is next. Mark my words. Legions of non-players donning their favorite character’s logo (and painting their faces in their main colors). Tik toks of tiefling and half-orc cosplay babes. Merchandising!!!!
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Tongue placed firmly in cheek with tears in one's eyes. Many an unpleasant truth made through jest. :cry:

(Though I think cosplaying hit its own cul-de-sac in the cancelation wars. We'll see if they can bring sanctioned sexy back ever again... (hah! literally a double entendre, auto-antonym with 'sanctioned' and 'literally' as a coup de grâce ribbon! triple word score! :grin: ))
 
Isator Levi said:
If a person was going for something a bit more concrete they'd probably have to account for stuff like why Multiverse of Madness is probably nobody's favourite Marvel movie and it still made almost a billion dollars.
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qNacz3P.gif
 
There are two things that contributed to the bubble forming.

First, is that stuff like critical role and stranger things encouraged people to try the hobby.
Second, the pandemic and the prevalence of VTT gave people the opportunity to do something social when little social interaction was available.

There are two long term results here.
a. The stigma of the nerd is dying.
b. The pandemic is over and some people who turned to RPGs due to being unable to attend their regular hobbies are probably going to play much less or even at all.

The bubble was artificial. And I think that wizards failed in turning more of them into diehard fans.
 
I don't know if that was ever gonna happen though. A lot of people peel off of RPGs. Many people I used ro play with no longer play.
 
Bunch said:
Well they fit the social aspect in well. Guilds aren't the same as sitting around a table with your friends but it can still be awesome (like some forums....)
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This is true, but I think anytime people are sitting in front of a computer/tablet, or even have their phones (so always I guess), there is temptation and opportunity for attention to wander.
 
Bunch said:
It's a hard hobby. It requires multiple hours of commitment on a semi regular basis. Unlike sports watching if your friends don't show there is no game.
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This is one of the reasons Beer and Pretzels RPGs are a great idea to have on hand IMO. When not enough people show, they are good for a quick on the fly session. If no one shows of course, that is different.
 
Shipyard Locked said:
qNacz3P.gif
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Sure, but an audience that will go en masse out of habit and then kind of grumble about it afterwards is still an audience that exists, and considering Wakanda Forever's numbers has not appreciably declined.

Still, it was mostly a funny assertion to me considering that I'm a great enthusiast for The Owl House. Could have done with some of that Disney overestimating audience size energy there as well. I would have even settled for Disney estimating the size of its audience with actual accuracy.

I get a bit tickled by the reports of how the recently released special doing numbers was a bit of an embarrassment, although I also take them with a grain of salt. I'm not inclined to take such information at face value just because it appeals to my biases.
 
BedrockBrendan said:
If no one shows of course, that is different.
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That’s when you do this:

www.rpgpub.com

Fellow Gamers, Do you play with yourself?

In the solo gaming sense, what you do while reading your fanfic is entirely your business. The Me, Myself and Die videos and the GME brought the concept to my attention and I've been considering giving it a try so I was wondering who had any experience with it, what their experiences were and if...
www.rpgpub.com www.rpgpub.com
 
I'll just say that as someone who is involved in a different very nerdy hobby, that compared to 10 years ago, more of them regularly discuss tabletop rpgs and also more of them are likely to have played something other than D&D.

I used to be considered particularly nerdy for being a tabletop RPG fan in that hobby, and now it feels like pretty much the norm. And I don't think that is going to change really.
 
EmperorNorton said:
I'll just say that as someone who is involved in a different very nerdy hobby, that compared to 10 years ago, more of them regularly discuss tabletop rpgs and also more of them are likely to have played something other than D&D.

I used to be considered particularly nerdy for being a tabletop RPG fan in that hobby, and now it feels like pretty much the norm. And I don't think that is going to change really.
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Yeah that's been fascinating. It's interesting to see it's secondary effects. Now that so many younger people play it the folks who used to think it's wierd have changed their view. If you're kids are playing this thing and hey it doesn't involve a video screen then hot damn that's awesome to parents. Same people who would have honestly not been into computers or RPGs or probably more complex board games have had a whole world shift where it's awesome because it gets people away from a screen.
 
I agree with the idea that while this wave of popularity is going to crash, I don't think it's going to reverse the acceptance of RPGs as reasonably normal hobby. Even before this boom, I think most of the stigma was gone. The board game boom had already done a lot of work in making a group of adults getting together to play a game every week into a normal thing again.
 
Baulderstone said:
I agree with the idea that while this wave of popularity is going to crash, I don't think it's going to reverse the acceptance of RPGs as reasonably normal hobby. Even before this boom, I think most of the stigma was gone. The board game boom had already done a lot of work in making a group of adults getting together to play a game every week into a normal thing again.
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I know in the parenting circles getting your kids away from the omnipresent screen is a real plus. And hey there's a book and other real live humans involved!
 
Baulderstone said:
I agree with the idea that while this wave of popularity is going to crash, I don't think it's going to reverse the acceptance of RPGs as reasonably normal hobby. Even before this boom, I think most of the stigma was gone. The board game boom had already done a lot of work in making a group of adults getting together to play a game every week into a normal thing again.
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oh for sure. At worst, saying “I’m a huge D&D youtube fan” around normies will result in bored, albeit polite nods and then a change of subject about the CURRENT thing that Netlix told everyone they should pretend to have always liked.
 
Necrozius said:
Once the Stranger Things fad dies down (and it WILL eventually be replaced by the next shiny thing) so will D&D. It will become less cool to be into that thing. Less pop culture cred to pretend that you always listened to pre-Black Album Metallica and always liked “nerdy” games. Cycles etc
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Forgive my tangent, but Master of Puppets does not deserve to be classed as some obscure nerdy thing only experiencing a temporary popularity thanks to appearing in a TV show. In the US Catalog Albums chart (tracking sales of albums more than 18 months old) it hit number 11 in 2016. The 30th anniversary release of the album reached 8th in the Portuguese album charts; and 28th in Canada. In Dutch public radio's annual vote of the greatest songs ever, the single has made it to the top 100 for five consecutive years.

Netflix may certainly have exposed some culturally-sheltered teenagers to Master of Puppets for the first time, but it was already one of the most famous and popular rock songs ever released.
 
Yeah they had to thread the needle between "hardcore" and "nostalgic". I get that Metallica was successful by that time (1986), but they're not exactly gonna spring Celtic Frost or Kreator on people.



Similarly, I bitched about the kids not playing any game besides D&D, and a member of one of my groups said, "Cut them some slack. It's the midwest."
 
I think Master of Puppets was a good choice for that scene. I was into death, doom and other more extreme metal, but Metallica always got a lot of respect in the metal crowd I hang with. Some people got pissed after the black album came out, but Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets were especially liked. My personal favorite is Ride the Lightning. First song I really learned to play beginning to end was Fade to Black. Even my singer who hated Metallica because he was a Megadeth fan, was happy to sing fade to black.

Also I think it is also a good choice because the rhythm of Master of Puppets is pretty hard to play (the downpicking is pretty insane) so having him choose a difficult song for that scene worked on another level too.
 
Necrozius said:
Once the Stranger Things fad dies down (and it WILL eventually be replaced by the next shiny thing) so will D&D. It will become less cool to be into that thing. Less pop culture cred to pretend that you always listened to pre-Black Album Metallica and always liked “nerdy” games. Cycles etc
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Youtube has definitely changed perceptions of metal I think. Pretty much every song and album is at a person's fingertips if they want to hear it. And it seems like younger people aren't as tied to a particular genre of music. I see a lot of reaction videos from people covering wide ranges of styles, including metal. And metal just seems to be one genre among many, but it doesn't repel people like it used it (they just seem to find the aesthetic curious at times). You can basically see soccer moms, non-metal heads, and vocal coaches reacting to everything from Iron Maiden to Slayer and Death.
 
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