OGL One Year Later: Is D&D Stronger Than Ever Now?

Josh was under the weather, so we were lucky enough to snag Noted TTRPG Attorney Noah Downs, Esq., to come and talk about and offer his on-the-ground perspective about the tumultuous last 12 months in Dungeons & Dragons and the tabletop gaming space overall. Do you think Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro has recovered from the PR nightmare that was the Open Gaming License controversy? I'd argue that even with last month's layoffs, D&D is far stronger now and better positioned to thrive than it was this time last year. Check below for all the topics we discussed.

• The OGL Controversy One Year Later
  • Despite the body blow to the company, is Wizards of the Coast actually *better off* now than they were a year ago?
• WotC juking everyone with Creative Commons
  • D&D's 5.1 SRD going into Creative Commons wasn't at the top of anyone's list of probabilities when everything with OGL started.
• Third Parties’ Plans Foiled
  • Third-party publishers clearly planned for a different outcome when they started announcing their upcoming D&D alternatives. But, once WotC went with Creative Commons, it seems like they scrambled to still move forward without losing face even though their original motivation was less and less relevant.
• One D&D (Can we even call it that anymore)?
  • Call it One D&D, call it 6.0. Whatever it is, it's coming, and it remains to be seen if it's going to be "iterative" like was originally announced or an entirely new ruleset. You would think that releasing the 5.1 SRD into Creative Commons would incentivize them to release a whole new ruleset.
• Wasn’t there a D&D movie?
  • Yes, and it bombed. We talk about why.
• WotC’s Book Price Bloat
  • Sure there's inflation and things generally cost more, but what extra value are you getting for the additional cost of these books?
• Planescape returns… is it worth it?
  • Rerelease, remix, or return to get your money back? Does the new 5E Planescape justify its existence?
• Ernie Gygax and Justin La Nasa’s NuTSR files Chapter 7
  • Uninclusive company with a racist and transphobic product continues to have problems and files for bankruptcy after <blank>ing around and finding out.
• Weird D&D channel
  • What's the deal with that D&D free ad-supported television channel? Who asked for this? More importantly, who's paying for it?
• AI’s influence on content creation
  • AI has 100% affected every corner of content creation in the last year and WotC wasn't safe, either. We talk about the real AI art scandal and the smaller, made-up one that came at the end of the year.

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OBLIGATORY 'FORGOTTEN PATHS' PLUG

Also, I have to promote "Forgotten Paths," or Noah will hunt me down and end me chillingly and mysteriously. So anyway, check out "Forgotten Paths!

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