It’s been a long month on my end and in general.

Originally I was going to talk about Mekton Z from R Talsorian Games. I am so far behind on reviews it’s not even funny at this point, so I didn’t feel great about talking about this older game instead of doing a review for something current. We’ll get there eventually.

It’s been a bumpy couple of weeks for some people in the TTRPG hobby and community. At least 30 people were let go from Wizards of the Coast who built Project Sigil. The D&D Virtual TableTop was supposed to revolutionize the way the game is played and now it’s done for. It’s a perk of the Master subscription tier on D&D Beyond. Hasbro/WotC shelved the project last week.

I can’t say I totally blame WotC for what they did, but I didn’t have this one on my bingo card for this year. Delays? Sure. But outright dropped and skinned down to a skeleton crew? Never would have imagined that.

For the record, I absolutely do not blame anyone who got fired for this mess. In my opinion this was caused by the Reptilian Overlords at Hasbro and the clueless computer game twits running WotC at the moment. The higher ups wanted a video game with D&D IP on it. Gamers and developers wanted an actual VTT. Somewhere in there it went heavy on microtransactions like the kind we get in Fortnite.

All the fancy team meetings and perfeshional decision-making apparently grew a massive disconnect from the leadership and the actual game development. Having been canned from a Fortune 500 company myself, I can say it’s easy to do. Then they threw the devs under the bus when their project wasn’t making massive heaps of money right now.

I have no idea how Hasbro/WotC plan to recoup the millions of dollars lost on Project Sigil. No sympathy for them from me on that one. I think D&D might have been doomed to become a distant sideline clear back in late 2022 when they announced the new/not-new edition. Several debacles and incidents later we get 2024-25 D&D in the state that it’s in.

Tinfoil Hat time.

I hope fans and the analog D&D developers weren’t putting a lot of stock in the future products lined up for 2025-2026. I have a feeling, from my vast knowledge of T$R and D&D history, that we’re headed for a massive product drop-off. I would bet we’re going to see setting shelved or moved to strictly digital. They know they can still make some of their money back on D&D Beyond and even DM’s Guild. It would not be surprising to see Forgotten Realms and/or Greyhawk get pushed back or even cancelled.

I think the D&D staff has an uphill struggle ahead to even get recognized by the Reptilian Overlords at Hasbro and the “leadership” at Wizards of the Coast. If they can prove an idea will make money, they might have a shot at getting it printed. If it looks like it might lose money, maybe the art can be salvaged for Magic: the Gathering cards.

The C-suite wants a video game. They want something that can turn over a pile of money right away. They want D&D to turn into World of Warcraft or some other crazy popular online game with lots of cosmetic loot. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks can claim he plays D&D all day, but he sure doesn’t act like it. For a guy that came from Wizards of the Coast before he moved up the ladder, he sure seems clueless about D&D.

My best guess is D&D will be reduced to a boxed basic set in 2027 and will sell much like Monopoly, Clue, or any other boardgame IP that Hasbro is basically done with except for the name. At the rate things are going we’re more likely to see retro D&D lunch boxes before we see another Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything style book or a second Monster Manual. We should be happy if they don’t just go to putting up a few modules online every year that expand off of the Beginners boxed set.

One thing I think is certain is that if WotC can’t flip big bucks on it, the project is probably going to an early grave at this point. Print books? Forget it. Those things cost too much to print and are mostly just for nostalgia buffs as far as the Overlords are concerned. I think they still see the fans of the game as an obstacle to overcome to make more money.

What would I do if I were in charge of D&D?

What do we, as fans, want to see happen going forward with the game? I love Dungeons & Dragons. (Yes, even 4E.) The 2024-25 edition is still not on my shelves and not likely to be any time soon. D&D is becoming a lot like Warhammer 40,000. Only instead of a pile of rulebooks, minis, paint and terrain running several hundred dollars, D&D has three core rulebooks that run about $60 each plus another pile of money for the digital copies. Then you can accessorize all day from there.

The barrier to entry needs to be lowered even farther. As it stands right now, one can barely make a character the old fashioned way on paper. Physical character sheets can stretch on for pages. For what? So we have to jump onto D&D Beyond or some other website just to generate and keep track of our character. Sorry, WotC, but that’s a big NO from me. Wizards of the Coast doesn’t learn from successful TTRPGs such as Fabula Ultima, ICRPG, Shadowdark, or Dragonbane. (WotC thinks they don’t have any significant competition, not even Pathfinder.)

The answer to the whole problem is so simple no corporate team meeting or Hasbro Reptilian Overlord could conceive of it. Go back to doing what worked ten, twenty, or even thirty years ago. That doesn’t mean copying and pasting it. Prior editions of the game faced this same exact problem.

Focus on building the game, and by default the brand, back up from its roots. Send the writers to conventions to run games and staff panels. Set up a booth at every convention that will have you. Start by talking to the fans again in a real setting, not some corporate board room.

Let the creatives at WotC actually be creative. No more generative AI. (See, told you they won’t do it.) Drop all the digital art b.s. and hire real people to do the D&D art again. No, there won’t be a big, pretty coffee table art book print on every page. We want real D&D again, not this phoned in AI art version.

Thinner, more concise books would go a long way. Get rid of the bloat, subclasses, funky species… How do I say it?  Look at Shadowdark. Call it a new edition. D&D Streamlined edition. Make three 226 page hardcover books, released within months of one another, each at under $50. Digital copy free with physical purchase. Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Focus on quality content over form. Playtest with physical groups a lot. Listen to what people are saying in person about the game.

Then, and this is so amazing it will never happen, make an all new campaign world for D&D. No more Recycled Realms. No more Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Spelljammer or Planescape. Focus the core books on “generic” fantasy. Encourage Dungeon Masters build their own settings again. Make D&D about the awesome fantasy adventure experience again!

Get rid of the Beginner’s Box that looks like some artsy fartsy nightmare. Go back to calling it “Basic D&D.” Give it all the information to make a viable character all the way through 5th Level in each of the core classes and six basic species. Give new DMs their own guidebook  and a beginning adventure that walks them through how to run the game. By the time they’re done it should look like Dragonbane’s boxed set or the way D&D used to look back in the day. It’s sort of the AD&D 2E roadmap without calling it “Advanced.”

We’ll never see it from Hasbro/WotC. I’m still a D&D fan as opposed to someone sitting on a team or committee in a corporate boardroom in Renton or wherever they are now. Just put one guy who cares in charge of the whole project and let him do his job. No funky public relations nonsense and NO social media shenanigans!!! No politics. Just quality products at a realistically affordable price again. 

Why is this so hard for WotC to figure out? Greed if I had to put one word on the problem. They’ve forgotten their roots. They’ve forgotten how to be a game company again. I think the design staff have forgotten how to be gamers. Don’t get me started on their leadership.

Thank you for coming to my Fred Talk. It’s been fun. More of my shenanigans tomorrow. It’s a crazy weekend coming for me and my family. More updates as things progress.

Thank you for being here today with me. I appreciate you. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy.