Building Bhakashal - Corporate D&D and the Hobby

I got into TTRPGS, specifically first edition AD&D, in 1984. At the time the only books we had were the core three, PBH, MM and DMG, and to be honest, none of us read the majority of the DMG outside of the treasure and combat sections. It took a few years to digest the DMG!

We incorporated materials from Dragon when we found them, and bought modules. That kept us going for a while, but in short order most of us were creating our own worlds, most often hopelessly obvious rip-offs of established worlds from sci-fi, comics and fantasy, but our own “takes” nonetheless.

I loved that time, we played constantly, and the only limit was our imagination.

Recently, Hasbro announced that they were “under monetizing” D&D and planned to do something about that. What they are going to do is not something I’m privy to, perhaps it’s microtransactions on their online services, perhaps novelizations, or something else with the IP. 

Honestly, I have no idea.

This has made a lot of people very sad. I see it on Twitter, old fogeys like myself looking at D&D through rose colored glasses and seeing the game they grew up with, the game that unlocked so much of their imagination, the game that gave them hours and hours of sheer joy through adventure, THAT game, being discussed like any other corporate, branded product.

I hate to be the one to say this, but Hasbro is just doing what’s been done to D&D quite literally for decades, they are monetizing it. This might seem to be new, or unusual, but I’ve been aware of this since around the early 90’s. I came to realize it as I bowed out of AD&D after the transition to 2nd edition. At the time I preferred 1st edition, but I did see the point to the transition. 1st edition was VERY opaque to the newcomer, the editing was terrible, and it was written with the unspoken assumption that players were familiar with both wargaming and earlier (pre 1st-Ed) editions of the game. As someone who was familiar with neither, and someone who liked 1e AD&D, I turned my back on the corporate version of the game and kept my version alive.

I watched as D&D was cleaned up and expanded in 2nd edition, and wow did they expand it. Even at the time I was dubious about many of the expansions, and I realized the primary purpose of those expansions was to make more money for the company, but I figured that there was something there for everyone. Maybe I didn’t want the complete book of ninjas, but hey, someone might…

Then came 3rd edition, after which I stopped paying attention, 4th came out, and then most recently 5th. The only reason I even knew about 5th was that my son heard about it from friends at school. 

In addition to 5th, the emergence of “actual plays” and streamed games was something that changed the game. Love it or hate it, Critical Role changed the way the game was perceived, and brought a whole new generation of gamers to the often virtual table. When you watch many of these streamed games it’s hard not to notice that they are not the same thing as getting together with your friends and tossing dice in the basement. They are often slick, produced and far more focused on the voice acting and role-playing. Not that old-school D&D didn’t have voices and role-playing, every group had its magical mix of min-maxers, theater kids and wargamers, but the streamed game has made the focus on “acting the role” and “playing the story” more prominent. 

And it has led to the game becoming more popular than ever. And that has led us to a crossroads of sorts. The game has always made money for someone, and there has always been a desire to monetize it, the current levels of popularity, fueled by it’s social-media darling status through shows like Critical Role, has led to the potential for even more profit.

And this is what gets us to today, to that quote about the game being under-monetized. I GUARANTEE you that sort of thing was being said in boardrooms in the 80’s and 90’s as well, that SOMEONE was pointing out that MORE COULD BE DONE to make money off of D&D. We did get Gygax going to Hollywood, Saturday morning cartoons, the potential was certainly there.

With all this in mind, I have a suggestion to make to all of the old-schoolers out there, and any new players who are not liking the direction of the current owners of the D&D IP.

You don’t need them, you never did. I may need to wait for an official sequel to my favorite video game, or my favorite board game, but I don't need to wait or rely upon anyone to make my D&D for me.

If you are worried about running out of material, you won’t. I’ve been running games off and on for almost 40 years, I’ve never run the well dry. If you play any of the standard OSR compatible games you have a universe of materials, some free, some you have to buy, to access, with more being made every day. 

If you don’t have money for this hobby, you are still good. Once you have the introductory materials, and there are any number of free OSR games that mimic D&D well enough, you can do the rest on your own. I can’t stress this enough, you need ABSOLUTELY NOTHING other than the initial books/materials, and you can get legal versions of these for free in a number of different places. It will, of course, require you to do the work yourself, but if finances are an issue, you can still play this game forever. 

If you are worried about inspiration, perhaps you think you won’t be able to come up with stuff on your own, you are still good to go. Comics, television, movies, fantasy novels, there is a virtually ENDLESS well of source material to draw from. If you are willing to cross genres and reskin materials there is even more. 

If you are worried about getting people to play whatever Frankenstein’s monster version of D&D you come up with, “as everyone is playing 5th”, you are still good. Yes, “everyone” is playing 5th, but I’ve run a business running (1st Edition Advanced) D&D for the last three years and had no problem getting people to sign up.Yes, at first there are questions, but once you roll dice NO ONE CARES. The players can run 5th at home if they like (and some do) but at the table, edition doesn’t really matter. The big dirty secret of D&D is that the referee is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than the system. People who like your game like it because YOU are running it, not because it’s any particular edition. If you don’t believe me, play a session of your favorite game with a lousy ref, LOL.

If you are upset about the lore changes to the game, get over it. Lore changes, removing race, changing wording, those things have ZERO impact on your game. You can do whatever you want at your table, it’s always been that way. If you are really upset that Drow aren’t evil anymore, then perhaps you are too immersed in the culture wars to see the forest for the trees. Feel free to be mad about what the libtards are doing, if you want to fuel your rage with D&D lore changes I can’t stop you, but then it’s not really about the game and you might want to think about that. 

But the big takeaway here is that, as opposed to almost any other game or activity that you can name, any and all changes that WotC makes to the game have ZERO impact on your ability to run D&D games for you and your friends. I know this is the case as I’ve been doing it for decades, and there is MORE material around for me to do it now than there has ever been.

Let WotC have the IP and run it into the ground. Watch as terrible movies are made, and they squeeze every single penny they can out of the IP. Watch the brand become a lifestyle brand, watch as people walk around in D&D themed merchandise. Watch as streamed D&D displays a version of the game you barely recognize. Watch as people insist you need custom dice, dice towers and all other varieties of gadget to play the game “properly”. Watch as WotC struggles to produce a version of the game that won’t offend anyone, and watch as their new audience skewers them for every single change they make as “not enough” (because once they accepted the premise that in-game objects can signify out-of-game objects, the game was doomed to endless cycles of “not enough”).

Let them have it all. 

Because you can play without them, play EXACTLY the version of D&D you want, none of their changes impact this. None of their monetization impacts this. You can still play D&D as you like and continue to support the phenomenal independent gaming community that continues to put out amazing, creative and fun materials decade after decade. WotC is not a part of this and need not ever be. I know this as I’ve been outside of official branded D&D for most of my life, and our games have been AWESOME.

You don’t need them.

You never did.

Game on.