A Terrible Situation

It is funny with the horrible move by the Unity game engine; everyone I see online is comparing it to Wizards of the Coast and the proposed OGL changes in early 2023. This was the first thing that popped into many people's minds,  so much it trended on X/Twitter.

They are trying to WoTC us!

When your company name becomes an Enron-like verb, it is time to pack it up. You have lost the goodwill of not only the community but a good part of the entire world. This is why I feel a leadership change at all levels (WoTC and Hasbro) is needed to move forward because it will be unfair to the new people to burden them with the old mistakes. We will never be able to move forward, and it will keep getting brought up. They need to go for the health of the game and hobby.

Ethics matter.

They do.

5E the WoTC game, is dead to me; and Baldur's Gate 3 owns the goodwill and idea space for the 5E game. To many people, BG3 is D&D to them, and that is all D&D will ever be. The game is so good it killed the VTT before it was even released, if not now, in the future when the next BG3-like RPG is released. 

And remember, BG3 will be modded and stay around for a long time. Skyrim comes to mind, and we are in for a long (and fun) road with just this game.

Very few games or VTTs will ever live up to that masterpiece.

I have this relationship with the game where I have many books- very few of them WoTC - mostly by 3rd party publishers I support. I play Level Up Advanced 5E since the game supports all the pillars of play and the math is tight. It is the best clean-room version of 5E out there, and I am more excited about this than Tales of the Valiant (at the moment).

I played a little with 5E sci-fi, but like Starfinder, it wasn't working for me. Cool art, but art is art, and it isn't genre support. 5E sci-fi is something you play only to compare it to better sci-fi games in the OSR. I still like Esper Genesis, there are a lot of cool ideas, but I wish it used the A5E rules instead of the old 5E.

So I see WoTC coming up again and I thought it was something they did. Here we go again.

I was surprised when it wasn't.

And saddened when this was the first association people made.

It is hard to be a 5E fan right now.

I get by and support 3rd party publishers. They need communities and love more at this time.

Otherwise, I feel my interest in 5E slipping away. The negativity alone ruins it for me. I tell myself, there are more positive and friendly communities I can be a part of and matter.