WOOHOO another Shen comic! That dude makes a ton of great comics.
here’s the source for this one.
there’s also Live With Yourself which is mostly run by his associate David Catman, but still a fun read.
Thanks for the source, here are the RSS feeds:
Thanks for the new response pic, Shen Comix! <3 (top-right panel)
What did Wizards of the Coast do?
Something like wanting to change the D&D licensing so that they can share in any profits made by 3rd parties, anyone making user content, adventures, etc.
The key part was they made it retroactive just like unity did. Essentially meant you needed to both pay wizards and also they could use any of your content without paying you. They wanted to kill Pathfinder.
Something similar to Unity, a draft version OGL 1.1 was leaked and had a lot of bullshit in it. companies that utilized the OGL to publish stuff related to dnd would have to pay a subscription of 25% if they made more than $750k per year, the right for wotc to utilize anything created on the OGL for any purpose, a ban on virtual recreations of dnd, and removing the ability to publish on the previous OGL version.
It ended with Hasbro completely backing down and Paizo starting the process to create a decentralized license called ORC that served the same purpose of OGL 1, with more control for creative companies
Don’t forget Hasbro also sent the actual Pinkerton company after a MTG content creator
Edit: And keep in mind that everyone and their dog who based their livelihood on dnd diversified their portfolio. People are making new games, publishing different types of content, playing other games, etc. WOTC and Hasbro have killed people’s trust in them.
When WotC finally backed down and dual-licensed the SRD OGL 1.0a and Creative Commons, I decided to end my boycott. They were cooperating with the community’s demands. (Finally.)
And then they sent the Pinkertons after one of their MTG customers.
So, fuck Hasbro. (Hasbro owns WotC.) I’m not giving them another dime. I DM a 5e game, but I’m not purchasing anything 5e again.
I have less investment in the Unity situation, but fuck those assholes too.
I highly recommend Pathfinder 2e if you want something else. I think the action system is a lot of fun and gives ample room for roleplaying. Having played both, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to 5e
Can’t agree with this more.
Our longtime TTRPG group just started a PF2E campaign and it’s been a whole lot of fun!
There are so many options available to you - everything feels really fresh and new, while still being familiar. The action economy especially feels so much better compared to 5e.
Do you happen to know any way to find an online game to join? There was a whole discord for d&beyond so I’m wondering if you knew of anything similar for P2e?
There’s a Pathfinder2e discord, as well as one called Cayden’s Keg - I believe both of them have rooms where you can find people to play with!
I played Pathfinder (1e) before I played Dnd 5e. It’s more complicated, but even then it was the better system. From what I’ve seen of 2e it’s even better. 5e is easier for new players and has name recognition though. I hope more people switch to Pathfinder evenentually. They deserve it far more.
The action system is definitely way better. It’s simultaneously simpler and more flexible. No confusion about whether something is an action vs bonus action (and how movement ties in). You just have multiple action units and abilities have a written number of action units they use (and some are variable).
I also like how Pathfinder approaches levels. Proficiency bonuses add your character level in, so higher level characters feel much more powerful at what they’re supposed to be good at.
And critical success/failure is neat. You need 10 over/under DC to have a crit success/failure respectively, but nat 20/1 moves you up a class. If you’re 10 over DC, a nat 1 becomes a normal success. Plus many abilities have modifiers on crits success/fail.
I just don’t know why you would forgive a corporate entity, especially one that already tried to fuck you over, on some promise they’ll never do it again?
ORC all the way
My thought process for deciding to end my boycott (before doubling back down on my boycott) was that the point of a boycott was to get a company to change its behavior. They changed their behavior and continuing to punish them would eliminate any reason they had to continue to cooperate with the community.
Roughly speaking, every company is evil. But there are companies I boycott and companies I don’t. The difference is (and I don’t think this is an unreasonable way to think of it) that some boycotts have a chance of making a difference and some don’t. (And even if changing behavior isn’t likely, putting a company out of business or reducing it to perpetual irrelevance can be a very positive difference.)
The OGL1.1 boycott did make a positive difference. 5e is safer than it was before. ORC is a thing. The better-licensed Pathfinder 2e got a huge bump in popularity.
In short, I guess I feel justified in having ended (and reestablished) my boycott. That said, while I was decided not to boycott any more, I didn’t actually buy anything from or otherwise patronize Hasbro. So in practice, I have been boycotting consistently since the OGL1.1 BS went down.
I guess I find it weird to ‘reward’ a company for just doing what they should be doing anyway, if anything their reward is they don’t continue to lose customers, rather than get the old ones to return. Companies never have your best interests at heart, and in my view forgiving them is just putting yourself in that vulnerable position to be abused again later down the line.
I understand your reasoning though, and I’m happy you stuck by your principles.
WotC “just” fucked over their free advertising via their open license. Unity fucked over their entire client base and poisoned any future trust they try to establish with future clients. It’s like the CEO saw WotC and just went “Hold my golden parachute”.
Not to mention that hasbro got BTFOd so fucking hard that not only did they reverse course on OGL 2.0, they turned it into an ironclad open license for creators to do whatever the hell they wanted forever AND threw a ton of monsters and game mechanics into creative fucking commons. Granted, the damage is done and paizo had to print like the wind to keep up with demand for pathfinder books, but that’s a proper backtrack.
So if unity is truly following their footsteps, all they gotta do is make the base tier absolutely free forever and also pay the devs for every install.
Hasbro’s problem was confusing the Excel sheet with reality because the management doesn’t have a single clue about the product. Once the Excel sheet was modified to be closer to reality by including some representation of the user base’s trust, they worked with their new reality to maximize the long term profits.
Unity, on the other hand, adopted the contempt for their own customers philosophy from EA, which requires them to have an adversarial relationship with them. Riccitiello probably can’t even sleep properly at night knowing that his customers aren’t basically working for him.