It's not about the Game.

To start things off, a quick personal note:

I haven’t written anything in a while because I have had to make some tough personal decisions that require time and distance to adjust to. When I started writing my scifi to expand the short snippets I have had wandering around my files for years, I really intended to keep going, maybe even writing several times a week. Then something happened. Anyway, moving on.

For those of you that keep up with the news of the hobby, you probably know to what I am referring. Wizards of the Coast recently released what people have been suspecting for years, news that they are officially making Dungeons & Dragons into a micro-transaction content machine. From the reporting I have seen they are changing the DnD Beyond service to section off paid for content to only those that have paid for it. So when a DM pays for the material they want, they can no longer share it with their table of players.

We have seen this happening all over various different industries, beginning with horse armor way back with Bethesda, and slowly creeping into every element of our lives, including fancy cars charging monthly subscriptions to access the heated seats within those cars (BMW). I don’t know about anyone else, but I am tired of all this shit. If the model makes sense, whatever, but DnD has had a particular model for years. Make good stuff, sell good stuff, continue. And yes, it really is that simple.

Sure, expanding to make movies or shows or be affiliated with content creators and live streaming shows and whatnot is helpful to get the word out, but the executives, the suits, the worthless people getting “business degrees” to learn how to treat people like disposable resources, keep making decisions that are baffling.

At this point the scandals are numerous, and there are plenty of other game companies that are not only treating their staff and communities well, but they are just focusing on making good products to try and capture that very simple loop I mentioned above: make good stuff, sell good stuff, continue. So, it’s not about the game, I love the game (even some of the stuff they did in 5.5e), and I am so glad they finally admitted that yes, it is 5.5e!

But until something serious happens, I am not going to keep giving the people there chances. I recently started hearing that WotC representatives started reaching out to the Gygax family, making appearances at Cons, and were trying to appear as if they were going to retreat to the good ol’ days (yes they weren’t perfect) and correct their course on DnD. I was starting to hope. And I feel like a damn fool.

I know what I am going to do. Boycott. Is that a threat? Absolutely fucking not. I am one small creator with no audience or reach or influence (I’m definitely not an influencer), and I had very little content out there anyway. I haven’t sold a lot of my 5e content, and I honestly wasn’t sure if I ever would, and that’s okay.

But, until the company, the “managerial professionals” pull their head out of their ass or are altogether replaced, I will not be purchasing any more DnD products. And to really show my absolute fury with this business decision, I am extending that to anything 5e/5.5e related, such as products based on the SRD and OGL. I was most recently making some content for Shadowdark, but I just don’t want to touch it anymore.

Is that fair? I am honestly not sure. But a boycott is only as good as the effect that it has, as the lesson that it teaches. I don’t want to hurt independent and smaller creators, but I also don’t want to encourage anyone to affiliate or bring any more positive attention to the name. I want the name to disappear. I want the company to realize that they have made one too many blunders. I want the community to turn on them and for them to realize that they cannot continue doing business like this, especially with the BS they have been dumping into Magic: the Gathering. I don’t even play that game and eww.

Let me make this perfectly clear: do whatever you want. If you want to keep playing and buying 5.5e, that’s all you baby, I will not yuck your yum. I am making this choice for me and me alone. I just want to talk about it because I think it needs to be said, that a line needs to be set. It’s bad enough that our society seems to be running straight down the path of corporate abuse whenever and wherever we can (over here in the USA that is), and I don’t want to support any of it.

So do whatever you want, I will only judge you a little.

In my recent experiments with Daggerheart I was quite intrigued, and wanted to explore more. The latest games I was running were Shadowdark, but I think I am going to switch over to Daggerheart. I have also been reading Traveller in my free time, and I would love to run that, but Daggerheart is something I think I may be able to design for. I already have an idea.

When I was running a playtest of my own game, I designed an interesting setting, even though it wasn’t appropriate for my mechanics and play style. But I think it will work really well with Daggerheart.

I recently lost my regular game and have only been a player in an Adventurer’s League weekly game, and since I am boycotting, I am going to try and build a new table or join one where I can play in Daggerheart, since I have only played it to date. But if I can build a table, I want to run Daggerheart, and maybe even start building and running the content I am thinking of.

So, in conclusion, I apologize for my absence, and I am so very grateful for those of you who have been following me on this journey. And for those of you who have recently joined us, because I have been seeing some steady additions, which is weird. I find it weird.

If you want to hear about the Daggerheart content let me know, but I think I have some good ideas for the future. Stick around and we will discover them together.