The Business: Wizards Is Making The Move To Lock The Network Down

Pat got some serious inside info.

What Pat did not do is provide critical context.

Daggerheart selling out?

No, not that it didn't sell out. What is missing is this question's answer: "Out of a print run of how many?"

1000? That's NOTHING.

100 million? That's SOMETHING!

It's the former.

And then there's the REAL money: Exclusivity on Beyond.

As Pat said, Wizards of the Coast is locking the Network into the Walled Garden; Beyond has the critical mass of adoption already, and the Normie audience does not go out of their way for anything- if it is at all inconvient, they're out. This is why Daggerheart is not a threat; the masses are in the Walled Garden because Beyond is free, easy, and far more convenient than any other alternative. Remember: Diamond is dead, so Retail is now withering on the vine because guess who distributed most of the not-D&D stuff to Retail stores. Soon it'll be Amazon, Beyond, and DriveThru- and most people will only use the biggest option (Amazon and Beyond).

You can't win against the owner of such a supremely dominant Network Effect from the outside. You have to fight from within it.

Lots of people who still think otherwise are going to find this out the hard way. I warned you; you didn't listen, so now you're here. The collapse is going to go from ignorable to obvious over the next year or so, and crowdfunding will not be able to fill the gaps.

The Business: Reactions To Being Told The Tech Writing Sucks Are Disappointing

The Beast follows up his Goodman Games video.

Beast here talks about a lot of reactions that are boggling to anyone that gets the point of competent technical writing.

The sole justification of buying any supplementary Tabletop product is to be able to use it at the table, which means you need to be able to find the information you're looking for at a glance. They are not coffee table status-striver products to be displayed, maybe read; they are to be USED.

Yet too many comments betrays that this is what they actually do and thus the comments are Revealed Preferences in action. No, morons, supplements do not need evocative language. That's what you need for writing fiction, not a supplementary product for a tabletop adventure game. You also do not need persuasive language either; you are reading a user manual, not an argument for or against a position. You need cold, clean, concise commentary on how to use the widget at that moment- no more, no less.

TLDR:

from Imgflip Meme Generator

Disappointing. Learn to use the right tool for the job; games are a Technical Writing medium, novels are Narrative Writing, and articles are Persuasive Writing. You lot routinely mistake Form for Function and then wonder why you fuck up so often.

The Culture: Cancel Mob Claws At Corps Of Discovery

Jon Del Arroz covered this yesterday.

The article is at Fandom Pulse here.

It's all blah-blah Commie bullshit that's really just this.

All the moralizing with their presumption of authority is really just signalling for Fellow Travelers to activate and swarm the target, but it looks like this ain't working so well these days. Their omnibus package is sold out on Amazon.

You can find Corps of Discover and other games by this company at Amazon here.

The Culture: Tabletop Commies Have No Chill

Jon Del Arroz covered a banned game about Maduro being snatched.

While this can be worked around, the problem is that DriveThru is the #2 place to get Tabletop stuff. (#1 being Amazon, of course.) They have Network Effects working in their favor, and their Fellow Travelers are embedded at Subscribestar, Patreon, and Itch. (Unsure about Substack, but suspected nonetheless.) Get too high profile before you have the might to protect it and you're fucked.

That means that you need to learn how to play the Attention Game to beat this handicap; you must learn how to market, how to advertise, and how to retain.

Assuming, of course, that you're doing this for commercial reasons.

The Business: Trench Crusade's A Scam

Arch, following up from Janovich, on Trench Crusade pulling a fuckover job that GDubs would never do.

Shit like this is why TC will not surpass or replace either Fantasy or 40K. At this point it will struggle to compete with BattleTech.

Calling out the YouTube shills for boosting these Commies is just and proper. Arch and Janovich remains undefeated; Pat's looking kinda suspect right now.

The Culture: When They Confess That I Am Right About All Of It

Listen to this. They confess everything I've said.

They confessed to the primacy of Network Effects.

They confessed to the primacy of Rules.

They confessed to the primacy of Procedure being how Play is experienced.

They confessed to the primacy of the Revealed Preference of Rules As Written as soon as serious stakes are perceived to be on the table.

Congrats Djkhlaed GIFfrom Congrats GIFs

SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP!

Everything else is insanity pretending to come up with justification for Cargo Cult norms regarding Conventional Play. They confessed to the data supporting my position. They confessed to Revealed Preferences supporting my position. They confessed across the board, and they carried on as if nothing happened.

They don't want to go to the conclusion because they earn their living, in whole or in part, from the delusion.

The conclusion is this: Just. Play. D&D. Everything else is delusional to varying degrees in commercial terms. (Non-commercial? Different story, largely due to not needing to make money or feed the ego of collectors who only--at best--read and never play.)

I am so glad that things are going to force these delusional people to quit.

The Culture: No, Wizards Ain't Going To Change Anytime Soon

Pundit talks about WOTC's recent personnel changes for The Only Game That Matters.

TLDR: Don't expect WOTC to stop sucking anytime soon. Too many Molech Cultists fighting with Mammon Mobsters.

That doesn't mean that WOTC doesn't dominate and rule. That's sorted, permanently, in WOTC's favor; yes, the D&D Network Effect is that strong.

What needs to be done is to pivot towards competing within the Network Effect. You can't beat D&D. You can beat Current Edition if you use Past Editions to do it.

Because the hobbyist audience at-large is still Normie-adjacent, that means they still think and act like Normies; Normies rely on Brands and Networks to discern value, so that's why Temu D&D (all you OSR clones) doesn't get the draw that the real thing does.

Within the Brand you can compete, but you can't use the old Endless Product Slop model. You have to compete on Service and Connection to win; you have to teach people how to play the Real Game, not the Cargo Cult Just So fake game you think you know (but you don't).

The Bros get this. That's why they focused on AD&D1e, and still do. Some are also drawing connections to Chainmail/OD&D to show continuity from the origins of the hobby in order to fully comprehend the flow of the game, and realizing that indeed AD&D1e is fully capable in just the three core rulebooks of replicating what Chainmail and OD&D put down first and then proceding to a perfected form.

The Clubhouse is the model that provides a service (secure locations, vetted membership) and connection (fellow hobbyists, not randos and clout-chasing poseurs).

All we need to complete the arrangement is to secure independent access to the materials required for play perpetually, and that's now possible.