Wizards of the Coast needs to change or give up Dungeons & Dragons.

I hit a point today when I remembered how much I love D&D, but I’m not so much a fan of its parent companies. So far this month they haven’t managed to cheese off the entire fanbase, but they are doing some stuff that annoys this blogger.

I’ve seen three of my friends on social media (namely X Twitter) receive free copies of the newly rereleased Deck of Many Things. Is WotC so desperate for good reviews? Are they so desperate at to send Twitch Streamers and YouTubers these $99.99 If they’re giving so many of these decks away, what does that say about the actual value of the product?

Disclaimer: Statements expressed in this article are strictly my opinion. If you disagree or have a different opinion, that’s okay. I’m not an expert on everything. I’m not always right. I’m just writing from my experience as I know it. Your mileage may vary.

WotC seems to be desperately trying to cash in on the FOMO.

I see social media posts like, “Look what came in the mail,” and “I can’t wait to use this on my players.”

I think it’s extremely crass on WotC’s part. They’re selling these decks for basically $100, but they give these things away like they’re candy at a parade. Meanwhile, Ollie’s has books on the shelf from just a few short months ago. (Bigby’s Glory of the Giants.)

Not to mention we heard all this crying from WotC about how the printing on the cards in their big fancy box were messed up and had to be reprinted. Yet some YouTubers and other recipients of free merch seemed to have Decks of Many Things that were intact and undamaged. Hmmm. Europeans seemed to have gotten decks free of printing errors. Hmm again.

I’d say we’re not really missing out on anything. There’s no FOMO without the Fear. And we’re not Missing Out on a darn thing. WotC is apparently desperate enough to try to bribe the fans for better exposure or good reviews. (Hey, WotC- where’s mine? LOL!) If the product is still meh,  they can put a pretty bow on it and hype it all they want. It’s not going to save a mediocre, overpriced deck of cards and an okay sourcebook (based on reviews I’ve heard.)

The Deck of Many Things isn’t even a new concept.

It’s been around since Greyhawk supplement in 1975. With all the love and respect for Makenzie De Armas (truthfully,) she did not invent the Deck. Mr. Gygax came up with that, not that our friend Jeremy Crawford would acknowledge it. See, Crawford mistakenly said there is no canon before 2000 when WotC took over D&D. Ironically, 5E creators keep going back to pilfer from B/X through 2nd Ed AD&D. I don’t think anyone in that office knows what the word “canon” means from the way they’re behaving.

Other people have invented other decks since. The RPGA once released a runic d20 that represented an in game artifact. Entire RPGs have been based on tarot decks. The Deck of Many Things isn’t new, y’all.

This is NOT a jab at De Armas or any other Content Creators.

I watch so many of y’all on YouTube it’s ridiculous. I won’t name anyone specific, but I watch a lot of your content if it’s out there. I even the interviews with De Armas and Crawford done by Todd Kenreck that are pure PR pieces. I love TTRPG YouTube almost as much as I love blogging.

My beef here is with Wizards of the freakin Coast. It’s called consistency, guys. If your product is really as rare and valuable as to charge $100 for it, treat it as such. Let’s not see it in a discount bargain bin three months from now.

Handing The Deck out to YouTubers and Twitch streamers to show them how much they are valued doesn’t work. It shows the rest of us that execs think good reviews can be bought and sold with some cheap tchotchke just makes WotC look shallow. WotC, how dumb do you think your fans really are?

I’m sure this pattern of shallow behavior will continue in 2024.

It’s really sad to me that the company in charge of D&D is doing such a bad job representing themselves and the brand going into the 50th anniversary of the game. Perhaps it really has just become a money grab like Monopoly or My Little Pony. Maybe it is just all about the Intellectual Property for the stuffed suits at the top and D&D is just another video game to them. Maybe if they’d actually take some time and learn Magic: the Gathering and D&D, they’d have some vague idea of how to market them to the proper audience instead of handing it off to a bunch of YouTubers and Twitch streamers.

I’m sure, sadly, that the stroking of Hasbro/WotC’s ego over the receipt of free merch will continue as well. I’ve seen dozen Deck of Many Things unboxing videos on YouTube over the course of two days. (Kinda makes me want to barf.) I’m sure the shilling of whatever WotC/D&D Studios shoves under people’s noses will continue well into the new edition. I sincerely hope people realize that they’re being used. That is some narcissistic, toxic behavior that I just can’t stand by and watch without saying something.

Final thoughts for now.

It’s been a year since the Great Open Game License Debacle of 2023. (Yes, I’m still calling it for what it was.) It’s disgusting how quickly people have forgotten that the destruction of the OGL  would have put hundreds, possibly thousands of people out of work. Even some of the most vocal Content Creators have gone back to shilling for WotC/D&D Studios as if nothing happened. I wish they’d realize it’s not worth hyping up a company that clearly thinks very little of its fans and Third Party Content Creators.

My humble request of anyone on YouTube or Twitch showing off their shiny (free) WotC swag is- stop giving them free press. If you get free merch from WotC, send them a Thank You email that will probably get ignored like all of the email I sent them. Stop showing the ill gotten gain off on social media and the various broadcast channels and instead focus on the smaller Third Party creators that do so much for us and ask so little.

Talk about the smaller companies that produce cool TTRPG products from adventures to dice towers. Please talk about games that aren’t D&D. Please, tell us about how cool that session of an indie game went. Show us a review of a Kickstarter game that needs some love.

You know where I am on social media and elsewhere if you want to discuss this or curse me out. Whichever is fine at this point. I just want people to embrace that which brings them joy, even if it’s serving a corporate agenda. Just make sure you’re actually having fun with the darn thing, whatever it is.

Thanks for being here. I appreciate you. Back to gaming and creature creations tomorrow.