The Business: Can The Only Game That Matters Be A Billion-Dollar Brand?

Last Wednesday, Roll For Combat again asks the question.

TLDR: Not as it is now.

The irony is that Wizards Of The Coast knows what it would take to make it happen, flubbed that transition once, but because there is no competition within the niche WOTC recovered and are going to try again. The idea is simple, and the tech is now present to allow for it: bot-controlled (agentic AI) players to fill out a table. As we already having them running household appliances, directly contacting each other, and other such functionality playing The Only Game That Matters (and communicating with others doing so) is not impossible- and given the success of Claude Code, it is now probable.

You better believe that conversation's going on in Seattle.

For that matter, agentic online Magic players are also possible and have been for a while.

The route out of the current rut is to remove the friction that requiring other human players to play imposes. For any tabletop game, having bots play other characters and/or run the game is no longer impossible or improbable; it's now probable, and increasingly doable. For WOTC, that is well within their capabilies now that Claude Code exists if senior management gives the go-ahead and clears the way for implementation within Beyond.

The test case would be to implement agentic players for Magic. They look like players, act like players, have unique decks, etc. because, for all intents and purposes, they ARE players.

If someone really wanted to test it, be outside the company and build that agent; get it an account and let it go to work playing the game. Document the process. Keep at it (if starting now) until end of Q2 this year in September; present in Q3, and propose making agentic D&D players in Q4 in Beyond for implementation in 2027.

This is such an obvious move that I will be disappointed if it doesn't happen.

Yes, it is that obvious- so obvious that your typical MBA bro can see it, and they aren't known for being particularly cunning, bright, or competent.

Do that--remove that friction--and you make D&D into a billion-dollar brand by 2030 because human players can now play when they want, how they want, for as long as they want, and they can do so from anywhere via Beyond. It is that friction that is keeping Normies from mass adoption, and anyone wanting billion-dollar brand status must have all the Normiebux, so yeet that friction and grab that bag.

This is how Conventional Play can endure, but only WOTC can do it. Everyone else cannot; they will collapse, go non-commercial, or admit defeat and reform back to being a Real Game.

The Business: Nixxiom Demonstrates Why Network Effects Rule All

In the wake of Ashes of Creation's collapse, we get several takes. Nix gets it: Network Effects trumps all.

Josh Stryfe Hayes explained this (again, in the MMO context) previously.

And, as Preach showed, Blizzard gets that the Network Effect is real- and they seek to capture that utility within its own brand bubble.

Tabletop works the same way.

This is Network Effects in action. This is how and why There Is No Alternative to The Only Game That Matters.

All the folks who quit WOW inevitably return to it; Preach did, Zepla (FF14's Bunny Queen) returned, I quit and came back, everyone does this. The same is true of D&D, and like Blizzard, Wizards of the Coast captures its own disaffected by making older editions legally available thus severely inhibiting attempts to use them to compete from within its own Network Effect. (Not that they don't try; also, private WOW servers exist- same concept, different media.)

The reality is that, due to the very nature of the medium, it is inevitable that it collapses on the dominant Network Effect. What already exists within Roblox comes for ALL of them in due course: one dominant player, within which users generate what they want with the tools at hand.

With a proper game, that's not a problem. That's not the case with most crap on the shelves.

Stop wasting your time and money. Just Play D&D.

The Culture: Visualizing The Old Material Better & Making New Stuff Fit

Thanks to Grok, illustrating 1st Edition in forms most people have no qualms with is easier than ever. Your Playable Races, for example.

That's arranged by height: Halfling, Gnome, Dwarf, Elf, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Human.

Displacer Beast took some work, but this is what I've gotten so far.

Grok works off natural language, for the most part, but it is still lacking comprehension of archaic or highly-specialized words and phrases. "Horney" is one of them, which is why the Displacer Beast took several iterations as I had to find substitute words or phrasing to get the desired effect.

Grok also works off weights; earlier elements get more weight, so you need to put the important stuff up front. This includes any art style parameters. The reason I get Le Animu Images is because I state "1990s OVA Style (Record of Lodoss War + early Berserk Golden Age)" up front; with a Stylize weight on the back end ("--stylize 350") to further refine the range. Sometimes I get something like Lodoss, sometimes like Berserk, and sometimes like other stuff (e.g. Yu Yu Hakusho, Vampire Hunter D).

Yes, this means that if I wanted something more like Frank Frazetta, Brian Snoddy, or Alan Lee, I could get it easily. I don't; I want the Lodoss style because that's broadly appealing to most current, former, and (especially) prospective players today.

Like it or not, far too many people run off vibes; change the art style, change the trade dress, and you change the vibe- and the vibe attracts the audience you want. What keeps them is the experience of play coupled with the ease of playing: rules and Network Effects.

Which means that consistent addition of new stuff to play with is easy to present. Take the Daevites from the SCP Wiki. First I got a consistent description, and then I fed it through Grok. Behold.

I'll be writing Daevites up for AD&D1e later this month and publishing them at the Clubhouse.

It is now that easy for one man to generate and publish playable content. There is no need for people to consume Endless Product Slop anymore.

The Culture: Fanfic Mentality In Tabletop Is Why There's So Much Slop No One Needs

Grifting Beast shills Crap You Don't Need.

This is what happens when you let whiners like the Professor get the idea that they can just make their own shit--that same Fanfiction mentality applied to Tabletop--instead of insisting upon them bucking up and mastering the Real Game as it is or punting them out of the hobby entirely.

This is all about the exact same problem that wrecked mainstream fiction publishing: the prioritizing of the emotional comfort and satisfaction of the player (reader, really; most of these folks don't play) over the pursuit of proficiency and mastery of the game in order to defeat the challenge presented by it.

Naturally it has all the usual problems: not a complete product (needs Endless Product Slop to provide a complete product), not The Game That Matters so its explotation of the Network Effect is nil (so no, you can't just find a group anywhere at any time), not piss-easy to play (unlike the Real Game; Beyond is a killer app for a reason), and otherwise far more friction than its worth to bother.

The value proposition isn't there. No one needs this, and the fact that it took begging on Kickstarter to make this happen shows that sweet fuck-all wanted this; this is going to sit on a shelf, unused, as a Status Marker like so many other such wastes of wood pulp.

Stick to the Real Game. You'll actually play that. Then resist the urge to hack it up like Karens trooning out their kids for clout; accept the Real Game for what it is, learn it, master it, defeat the challenge it presents- the very mindset and habit that leads to success in real life, and always has.

The Culture: The Soup Aisle Calls For You, Professor

The Professor whines like a bitch.

It is as BDubs has said.

Those with no original thoughts about #dnd very much dislike the #BROSR
What a shame. #WinningSecrets https://t.co/QBrdX73VUp

— RubiconDubs (@Bdubs1776) February 1, 2026

Or, as Nerdcognito says, "They don't really play."

"I don't like that. Change it." is exactly the same thing that Locusts do to Fandoms and Hobbies, and has the same effects. The Professor, and every other whining bitch, needs to be rebuked--bitchslapped--when they talk out of turn like that. The game is not about YOU, Professor.

This is Main Character Syndrome as it actually manifests. Rather than engage with the game as it is, working with it, learning it, mastering it, and overcoming it--what men are supposed to do--this womanly, narcissistic, dysfunctional behavior demands that IT conforms to HIM.

Get fucked.

You play the game as it is, or you don't play at all. Do. Something. Else.

The game is a complete and finished machine and not a bucket of LEGO to fuck around with. Cats are not dogs. Hammers are not wrenches. Shotguns are not hatchets. D&D is a wargame, not a Theater Kid playroom, and neither wars nor games go your way 100% of the time.

It's not about "having fun" (i.e. a consequence-free Power Fantasy). It's about winning against the odds, especially when the Fog of War is thicker than soup.

This is Real D&D. The Professor is a poseur, and thus is cast into the Soup Aisle.

The Business: Ashes of Creation's Implosion Shows Network Effects In Action

Over the weekend, Ashes of Creation--the long-developing ArcheAge style MMORPG--collapsed. Lots of videos dropped about it, but only Josh's matters.

This will start unraveling over the rest of this week and information gets checked and either confirmed or denied.

From what's been revealed: Private Equity bought the studio, goat-fucked the former owner and his team, fired everyone in the US, and will relocate to India (because that's what "overseas" means) to do whatever with it (what "finish" means). In practice, this is dead; divest--economically, socially, emotionally--now.

The Steam release was a surprise for the team; they were not told until the last minute. That's the red flag for insiders.

AoC is Kill.

Network Effects spare no one. This is all due to two things: (a) having to compete with World of Warcraft, and (b) developing a game contrary to the Revealed Preferences of the MMORPG Player Network.

AoC did not compete with WOW of 2004. AoC has to compete with WOW as it is here and now. That's a very big wall to climb, and AoC could not climb it. No Kickstarter game, nor any more conventional alternative (e.g. New World, Throne & Liberty), can compete with World of Warcraft now. It has attained the same position in MMORPGs that Dungeons & Dragons has in Tabletop, Magic: The Gathering has in CCGs, and Warhammer in wargaming. These properties reached a point of absolute, utter and PERMANENT dominance in their niches where competition from without their Network Effect is no longer possible AT ALL.

Instead, each of these are now Eternal Kings of their niches such that they are the Kleenex or Xerox of that space. They do not compete with others within their niche; they compete with comparables in other niches (i.e. all of them compete with Fortnite, Roblox, etc.). They have a Containment Option, an Also-Ran to act as Controlled Opposition that keeps players who need a break within the network by shunting them into a Designated Containment Zone.

(Periodic wiping included, though that tends to run on Sith Succession Principles.)

The MMO scene really has room for THREE: WOW (which has its own sub-retention structures within its model), FF14 (faltering hard at the moment; they screwed up bad with Dawntrail thanks to Death Cult sabotage), and Guild Wars 2. Tabletop really only has one--D&D--and only the various clones (including Palladium) is as close as it gets to a Containment Option; all other niches are so small compared to Fantastic Adventure that even the D&D analogs are only known if they have videogame adaptations of note. The lawsuit over Magic will not kill Magic as the King of CCGs- too many users exist now and there is no alternative.

There is no way to compete and win from without. There is also no way to compete and win from a lesser position. You must wield a superior Network Effect to crush a Network Effect.

There is only D&D. There is only WOW. There is only Magic. There is only Warhammer. There is only Windows (sorry Linux and Mac guys; if you really were superior, you'd be the top Network Effect by now). That's where the money is, that's where the users--especially the Normies and their money--are, and that's where the Social Proof lies. You ain't neo-patroning your way out of that like you might with music, books, or comics (and even then you're outside the Normiesphere so you have no cultural impact, so you don't move the needle). EVERYTHING ELSE EITHER CEASES OPERATIONS OR GOES NON-COMMERCIAL.

This is what justifies the Clubhouse as being superiot to the Basement or the Retail Shop for hobbyist organizing; the former is atomized and easily broken by life events and the childish stupidities this hobby is so notorious for that there's a comic about it (Knights of the Dinner Table), and Diamond just killed the latter. Cons are a no-go for all but a few, by percentage. Clubhouses, on the other hands, are a local social institution by and for hobbyists that are non-commercial in nature- and Clubhouses are where the hobby will survive and thrive, not the corporate Walled Gardens, again due to superior Network Effects.

The Business: Hasbro Gets Sued By Shareholders

Pat reports what we want for G-Dubs next.

This is some Mammon Mob fuckery, but it exists because of the damage that the Death Cult did.

I fully expect this suit to fix nothing. There will be a settlement, no blame will be taken, some chairs get shuffled, and--at best--the Death Cultists get purged while the Mammon Mobsters remain and entrench. There just isn't any external party, or collection of parties, other than (maybe) Games Workshop able to apply the leverage required to get any changes worth a damn.

The end result is that Conventional Play just loses differently. The collapse can't be stopped; WOTC can't be killed from inside, and it's going to take more than a shareholder lawsuit against Hasbro to kill it from without, so The Only Game That Matters (and its Network Effect) ain't going anywhere. Get in the Walled Garden, or seek admission to the Clubhouse. Otherwise all you're going to do is quit by 2030 because Conventional Play won't be able to justify itself; those left will lose to superior media that does Conventional Play better.