The Business: The Grogs Don't Get Why It's Being Done

Oldfags being unable to think like corpos again.

The problem with Official Game is not Muh DM Support.

The problem, so far as C-Suite is concerned, is the need for Dungeon Masters AT ALL.

It's been over 10 years since Current Edition's launch. D&D Beyond has achieved hegemony on the commercial side of the hobby. Wizards of the Coast knows this, which is why they feel secure shitting all over the Cargo Cult and the Oldfags in the OSR. They don't need the Cult anymore.

From the perspective of C-Suite, DMs are the problem. The solution is to remove the need for DMs entirely. The technology now exists to do that, and Wizards of the Coast (at Hasbro's insistance, driven by shareholder pressure) is working on doing that.

Why? Because there are FAR more players than DMs for Official Edition. Those people are hopelessly yoked to Beyond, so they are not going to leave The Only Network Effect That Exists for Your Dogshit Alternative.

Think like a Corpo. What's your clockblock? DMs. What's easier, getting players you trained by be passive raidloggers to run the game or replace the block with a bot?

Beep-boop, motherfucker. DM Bot is online, and it will be a better DM than the vast majority of shit DMs out there for all the same reasons that Vidya curbstomps the Cargo Cult: doesn't cheat, doesn't do Calvinball, always consistent, always available, and (this is the corpo-friendly killer app) only uses Approved Options and Content.

It will be rolled out first as an aid, then functionality will be added until it can openly shove the shit-tier DMs out of the chair entirely because DM Bot Is Always There.

Revealed Preferences show consistently that users prefer convenience over everything else, which is why WOTC is being told to do this and why it will succeed once implemented. Players want to play the game; DMs are the cockblock. Remove the block, and players play more; players that play more pay more to get more stuff that gives them advantages when they play, and Microtransactions are what Hasbro is pressing WOTC to turn Official Edition into and C-Suite will comply or get replaced with people that will.

Seattle's FIRING You!

This is what it means to be hammered from above by the Corpos. Meanwhile, the Cult and their Six Session Suckouts can't get over themselves so they won't be admitted to the Clubhouse where the Real Game will remain after the Corpos finish doing their job on the Official Edition.

No one wants what the Cargo Cult sells, or they wouldn't be coping so hard over WOTC's pivoting in a manner that solves the Cargo Cult problem from their perspective just as the Bros solved it by restoring what the Cult shoved down the Memory Hole.

They're already dead.

The Culture: "Winning Secrets" Is In The Wild

My physical copies of Winning Secrets and BROZER arrived on Friday last week.

When this becomes available, you should get a copy. This is, along with BROZER and UMBROS, the (at-present) collection of receipts that combine into a remedial teaching manual for what the hobby of Fantasy Adventure Gaming is and how it works.

The Business: WOTC Drones Justify Their Own Extinction

Last Wednesday, Pat cut the following video.

First: This is really about 100 Arena devs vs. Hasbro, not D&D.

Second: LOL.

These wankers have no leverage. Hasbro C-Suite will take this action as justification for liquidating these people, outsourcing/H-1Bing/AI replacing their positions, and then a review will see if the corporate structure needs to be shifted around to secure assets against any future liability threats.

What these people do not comprehend is that they are Hired Guns in positions where they are disposable, expendable, and fungible cogs in a machine. This will result in Hasbro accelerating their plans.

When--not if--this is done, there will be the usual wave of performative outrage before Network Effects do their thing and shut them up because they cannot endure the friction of not being in the scene where it is easiest to play. They will bloviate, and they go right back to giving Hasbro money to continue being viable in competitive play.

Don't think the D&D side of WOTC isn't aware of this. They are.

Hasbro is well aware of the liabilities in WOTC's offices and want to remove them. Some already got punted; the rest will go once the business model revision to rely on bot-generated content and art (and cheap labor otherwise) is complete and--as has been the case for 50 years--those self-possessed poseurs who think they matter will find out fast that all they can do is grift on Kickstarter until that goodwill runs dry.

And, quite frankly, fuck all of them.

The Real Game and thus the Real Hobby, being non-commercial, continues on without any of them unimpeded.

The Culture: The Calvinball Cargo Cult Can't Consider Cascading Consequences

By now you should have noticed the pattern.

These Oldfag Grognards would not be cutting these videos if the #BROSR didn't have any impact on the hobby. They have to do their worst to appropriate the language, do Word Fuckery to it to redefine it back into their Cargo Cult cant, and thus steer the bus back into the Cargo Cult Compound where their Calvinball Cavalcade can do its damage.

Our summary: "This video argues against the modern TTRPG approach of pre-scripting NPC moods and faction motivations, advocating instead for the use of the 2d6 Reaction Roll as a procedural engine for a living, unpredictable sandbox campaign."

This is ripped from B/X, which is the preferred edition of the Oldfags because it enables their Calvinball preferences (and explains why so many OSR toliet rolls are forks of it) and--as is so often the case here--attempts to do their Word Fuckery tricks by isolating something from the Real Game, treat it as a separate issue that miraculously doesn't effect anything else, and then argue that you can just LOLSORANDOM your way out of the problem because Calvinball.

First: Fucking with ONE part of the machine affects ALL OTHER PARTS. This brings on cascading system failure, which--like Commie governance--justifies yet further Calvinball until you get something that doesn't work without Calvin there to do Calvinball things- including exuding the huckster charisma needed to sucker rubes into going along with it. (This is what leads to Six Session Suckouts, by the way.)

Second: IT IS NOT YOUR JOB TO FIX A BROKEN PRODUCT! If the product you buy does not work when used as instructed, that's on the publisher to fix- not the end user. If the end user does not use the product as directed, that's on the user and not the publisher- the user needs to fix himself (by conforming to the rules as-written), not the product, and the publisher does not need to change the product to conform to the user.

Third: None of these Oldfags have any reading comprehension, and they do not comprehend Second Order (nevermind Third Order) Effects. There is no consideration for what this one change wreaks upon the rest of the machine; they are no different than the sheboons complaining about grocery stores and pharmacies closing in their area after months or years of shoplifting, looting, assaults upon staff, fraud, property damage, and public disturbances. No difference at all in mindset between "I changed this rule, so why does this other thing not work" and "Dey closed da Walmart after the last time da popo shot Deshawyn ova nuffin."

Good thing that Bros blog their receipts, showing how wrong all of this is, and publish collections thereof like Winning Secrets and remedial teaching aides like BROZER, UMBROS, and (soon) BRODUM to shatter that hold on the Narrative and teach people how to play the Real Game.

The Culture: Fuck Game Balance

The Pundit makes an attempt.

What is left out is the thing that ensures that Muh Game Balance gets shot and tossed into a ditch: BRAUNSTEIN.

As I and others among the Bros have found out first-hand, the Real Game--multiple independent actors, operating in conflict, under a Fog of War--guarantees that balances gets tossed into the ditch because competing actors want to win and that requires achieving a power differential in their favor- i.e. to deliberate upend the balance in their favor.

This is, as every last martial artist and military sage ever keeps saying, Fair Fights Are For Suckers.

In a proper campaign, beligerants will only be in a balanced fight when both sides fuck up and fail to cock the table in their favor. This means that sometimes you get curbstomped, and sometimes you do the stomping; in the Real Game, most hostile encounters start and end on the Surprise Round. Those who get it can seize control of the fight, making it theirs to determine how it goes; those who are able to routinely seize control via Surprise will dominate most encounters due to having the capacity to choose when they fight and when they do they go first- and they tend to bring the most.

Then let things happen. So what if shit goes south? That's not the Referee's problem.

The Business: Yes, Blizzard Broke MMOs

In the name of making it easier for the dads on the dev team, Blizzard permanently broke the game and thus the entire product category.

The correct response was to do the following:

1. Make dungeons harder, but make the loot better- both in potency and in acquisition. "Fuck You, Pay Me" always applies. Loot must drop for everyone involved, and be immediately useful; you should always get either an upgrade or (if none are to be had) the gold equivalent. If you put in work, you get paid GUARANTEED.
2. Make certain that all mans of a given role can perform necessary functions. Tanks and healers should not be doing interrupts or crowd control; that's the DPS' job, and fulfilling such utility cannot be a DPS loss or they won't do it. Healers should be situationally aware, not locked on the healthbars; either healing happens while doing utility or DPS work, or they have off-OCDs that light up to be instant nukes after doing enough GCD heals whose net effect is DPS neutral.
3. Mobs should always have something that requires CC on pain of either instant death or loss of control- not just bosses.
4. Bosses should require Tank mitigation to endure being hit at all; against Healers and DPS, squish.
5. Instant spec-change/gear-change upon entrance to the required group role, assuming that you are foolish enough to not hard-lock classes into them in the first place. This is one place where FF14 is correct in its design.
6. Design dungeons to be completable in 10 minutes or less on average. That means cutting bosses to one, and reducing trash to a handful of packs at most. Winged dungeon complexes should be the norm. This is the core problem, not the grouping issue. The reason for pre-DF being a pain was due to the time required; cut it down to something you'd see in a Scenario out of MOP and you'd see participation skyrocket. Going with a winged complex approach means that you can turn one area into three or more distinct dungeons to run, and each run would actually feel like a proper delve and not a reckless roller coaster ride.

In short, increase the friction in the content, reduce the time commitment, and spread around the tools to handle the friction..

The Culture: This Is How You Get Calvinball

Again with the ankle-biting bullshit.

This only persists because of piss-poor reading comprehension coupled with out of control ego issues.

READ THE FUCKING MANUAL! DO WHAT IT SAYS!

This also means knowing what is not said, and through proper reasoning figuring out what Is and Is Not allowed. That's how I broke open the Fighter's unspecified Command Presence ability.

That's not Le Ruling; that's reading the fucking manual and comprehending what is there- something Grogs like this have failed to do for their Muh 40 Years.

Turns out that no, you don't need to "cover the gaps" because the Real Game didn't have any; you just read shit wrong because you're incompetent at reading.

We are done playing Calvinball, OldFags, and that's exactly what you push with this bullshit. Stop thinking that you're smarter than the designers; you're not, and you never were.