i'm here, i'm queer, and i'm hungry for dice

i'm ember, dnd player and dice goblin. this is my ttrpg/dice/elder scrolls sometimes sideblog!

[spacetravels]

if we’re talking ttrpg alternatives cuz of wotc bs i’m never ever going to stop recommending the kids on bikes family

kids on bikes setting is very 1980s kids investigating strange town things (think stranger things! et!!) and is such an easy to learn system and creates such wonderful storytelling opportunities. it’s my favorite rpg to run (i have a lot abt my kob campaign here lol) and i think is one of the best ttrpgs i have ever, ever played. you can play with super fun tropes like the nerdy kid or jock or popular kid and the prepared adventures are great!!

& teens in space and kids on brooms follow p much the same structure but w their own twists to fit the settings :] they’re great games!!

if you’re a d20 fan you’ll recognize kids on brooms is the system that misfits & magic uses, and if you want live action play of kids on bikes i cannot recommend kollok 1991 enough !!

like yanno if u want MORE options frm what a lot of ppl share

(also in a similar vein will plug tales from the loop, an alternative nuclear scandinavian set in the 80s-90s with the pcs also being kids/teens, with beautiful art from simon stålenhag!!)

[volchonika]

lava dice.

[bethanythebogwitch]

Dungeons and Dragons losing ground to Pathfinder and upcoming systems like Daggerheart and the ORC is actually a good thing for D&D players. D&D and especially 5e being the overwhelmingly dominant game in the TTRPG world has let WOTC get away with releasing increasingly low quality books (compare Volo’s to Monsters of the Multiverse for an example) with poorer quality control (Hadozee fiasco), awful treatment of employees, and trying to change the OGL to artificially create a monopoly. Having real competition will force them to raise standards and treat their employees and fans better because now we have other options that aren’t obscure. This is already starting to happen with how many people jumped ship to Pathfinder during the OGL fiasco. Releasing higher quality content is something we need and giving actual competition is hopefully the way to force them (though I’m not at all confident the execs are smart enough to realize that). Similarly, they’ll have to start treating employees better when their options aren’t “WOTC or obscurity”.

Will WOTC start treating fans better or will they continue to slip into the VTT microtransaction hell they falsely think we want? We will see. But business people know money and getting real competition is the best way to get through to them.

[transfagrified-in-the-void]

Here is a free pdf of the players handbook

Here is a free pdf of xanathars guide to everything

Here is a free pdf to monsters manual

Here is a free pdf to tashas cauldron of everything

Here is a free pdf to dungeon master’s guide

Here is a free pdf to volo’s guide to monsters

Here is a free pdf of mordenkainen’s tomb of foes

For all your dnd purposes

[gumi-megpoidd]

Here’s a site that has literally every official (and most UA) dnd stuff

including the books and campaigns

and you can add homebrew

[transfagrified-in-the-void]

Hey rb this!!!

[ahamkaracature]

Guys don’t share this kinda thing people may use it to get access to the dnd source books for free instead of paying for them. This is extremely dangerous for the flawless company that wizards of the coast is.

[filibusterfrog]

hybrids <3

[filibusterfrog]

more mixed ancestries

[tumblhurgoyf]

Can you explain for my friend why wotc actions after the leak are bad?

This is gonna be a bit lengthy but first I want to establish a timeline. Note the only real info we have is from the Youtuber in question, so it's not unreasonable that some of this is wrong, either intentionally or just because this guy likewise doesn't know all of what happened.

A Youtuber with about 5000 subscribers, oldschoolmtg, ordered booster boxes of March of the Machine.

2. The person he ordered them from mistakenly gave him boxes of March of the Machine: Aftermath.

3. oldschoolmtg cracked the Aftermath packs and posted videos of that online. It does sound like he was aware of difference between MOM and MOM Aftermath before he posted the videos. He said he doesn't believe the person who sold them was aware as that person isn't really into Magic (I personally know a store like this--the owner is really into Warhammer but does Magic stuff too because it pays bills).

4. Wizards says they tried to contact him but couldn't reach him. As far as I know we have no context for how they tried to contact him, how many attempts they made, or how long they waited before hiring the Pinkertons to shake him down.

5. I believe Sunday April 25 in the morning the Pinkertons showed up at this guy's house to recover "stolen" product. They threatened jail time and the Youtuber refers to them as "law men" in his video so I'm not sure if he misunderstands their role or if they misrepresented themselves.

6. After getting the cards, the Pinkerton agents provided a phone number to a person at Wizards for oldschoolmtg to call. He said this person was apologetic and cordial and said they don't believe anything was stolen but they needed the product so they could figure out how this happened to prevent it in the future. oldschoolmtg also says they said they'd send him some product to compensate for the cards the Pinkertons just took from him.

7. oldschoolmtg removed the Youtube videos of him opening the Aftermath packs. They also asked him to ask everyone else to take those vids down, claiming some sort of copyright infringement.

That's all the info I'm aware of, mostly just straight from the person who experienced this.

So why is this wrong?

First, MOM Aftermath is an embargoed product. Which means Wizards ships it out to retailers (be they big box store or LGS or online space or whatever) under a contract that they won't sell it before a certain date and time. oldschoolmtg believes the person he purchased from simply mixed up the two sets because of the similar names. He says he purchased the product and according to his recollection of the phone call, the rep at Wizards likewise didn't think he had stolen it.

That's important because the embargo agreement is between retailers and Wizards. oldschoolmtg had no contractual obligation with regard to the embargoed product. It leads me to believe the Pinkertons were involved because they'd willingly insinuate the product was stolen and oldschoolmtg had committed a crime when in actuality there was no grounds to take any legal action against the man. There was no grounds to get a warrant to search for the product. He had committed no crime. He bought Magic cards from a guy who sells Magic cards. The only actual recourse Wizards would have had if the cards weren't stolen was to pursue the guy who sold them for breaking the embargo.

The only theft that actually occurred was when the Pinkertons raided this guy's home to take cards he purchased.

That's my take given what info we know. The Youtube videos aren't actually relevant in a meaningful way--that's just how Wizards found out.

But it's actually even worse. It would have been shitty to seek out a warrant or just sic lawyers on him. Of course I don't think they had grounds for it, so instead they went extrajudicial instead. That is they took a course of action that didn't involve courts.

For those who don't know, the Pinkertons started in 1850 and operated largely as violent strikebreakers. They're still helping break strikes today. They've been hired by Amazon and Starbucks within the last three years to spy on unionization efforts. Their history is bloody and murderous. No exaggeration. Their response to workers striking and unionizing in the past has been to beat them and shoot them.

I think you can put two and two together here. What does it say for a billion dollar multinational company to send these violent thugs to the private home of a small a guy operating a small Youtube channel?

It's a threat to this guy and anybody else; if you leak our cards we will find where you live and we will come after you. Specific use of the Pinkertons is part of this intentional message. There are other security firms without the history and notoriety. And while any such action would be just as disturbing, I doubt using almost any other agency would have had quite the effect as hiring Pinkertons.

tl;dr Based on what we know it's unlikely this guy did anything actually wrong or unlawful and Wizards sent agents from a firm with a violent and notorious history to his home in an act of intimidation

[malapertmarquess]

Hyperspecific poll: D&D/TTRPG edition

I've GMed in more than 1 system

I prefer martial classes to spellcasters

I like to name characters with a pattern (e.g. after rock musicians)

I've used the same character in more than one campaign

I've played with the same group for longer than 7 years

There are more than 500 dice in my house

One of my characters has been in a romantic relationship with another PC

I've been a victim of a TPK

More than one of these

None of these/I'm nosy and want to see answers

Voting ended onApr 23, 2023

[wizardpotions]

i love the non TTRPG players preconceptions that DND is a game about power fantasies and being cool and magical or something. explaining to my dad that in DND i am playing a guy who looks like this, on purpose

[dr-dogmeat]

Check out my other stuff on IG: Havocshoard

A rainbow set I made a few years back. Still obsessed with them, tbh.

[all-the-dice-puns-are-taken]

dice IDs under the cut

left to right from ordered picture:

a set available from bryce's dice online that seems to be exclusive but is unnamed

hd dice blend yellow/rose red/white

chessex marble oxi-copper/white

chessex lustrous slate/white

hd dice pearl black/gold, reinked silver

[thatonenewdungeonmaster]

[hyperbali]

Absolutely incredible work, lads

[thatfantasybroad]

Ok so was this

A genuine, calamitous fuck-up

A calculated peace offering to keep people playing 5E at all cost

A disgruntled employee who found a way to absolutely fuck WOTC with full plausible deniability

[leidensygdom]

So, what is the OGL and why are DnD creators thoroughly screwed?

Tumblr has not been doing a great job at talking about this, but:

With OneDnD, Wizards of the Coast has decided to update the Open Game License (OGL). Said license is what allowed people to create homebrew DnD content and sell it, and even larger companies to use certain sorts of content. Pathfinder, for example, is built on said OGL. This also allows streamers and artists to exist and benefit from said content.

With OneDnD (sometimes called “dnd 6e”), WOTC wants to create a much more restrictive OGL, which will, amongst other things:

Make WOTC take a cut for any DnD-related work (according to Kickstarter, a whole 25% of the benefits)

Let WOTC cancel any project related to DnD up to their discretion

Let WOTC take ANY content made based on their system, and re-sell it without crediting you, or giving you a single cent

And most importantly, revoke the old OGL, which will harm any company or game system that used it as a base, such as Pathfinder. And it means they GET ownership over any homebrew content you may have done for 5e in the past!

It’s important to note that OGLs are supposedly irrevocable. They were planning to use it for OneDnD initially, but they want to apply it retroactively to 5e, somehow. Which is illegal, but lawyers have mentioned there’s a chance they may get away with it given the wording.

This means that anything you make based on DnD (A homebrew item? A character drawing? Even music, according to them?), can get taken and used as they deem appropiate.

These news come from a leak of the OGL, which have been confirmed by multiple reputable sources (including Kickstarter, which has confirmed that WOTC already talked with them about this), and was planned to be released next week.

So, what can we do?

Speak against it. Share the word. Reblog this post. Let people know. Tumblr hasn’t been talking much about this matter, but it’s VERY important to let people know about what is WOTC bringing. 

Boycott them. Do not buy their products. Do not buy games with their IP. Do not watch their movie. CANCEL your DnD Beyond subscription. (Btw, they ARE planning to release more subscription services too!). They do not care about the community, but they care about the money. Make sure to speak through it. 

And maybe consider other TTRPG systems for the time being, Pathfinder’s Paizo has been much nicer to the community, their workers are unionized and are far more healthy overall

[durnesque-esque]

[Image ID: screenshot of a Reddit post by ThenightGaunt with the following text:

A civil call-in campaign is a good way to let WotC know you are unhappy about the OGL situation.

One D&D

I’ve been saying this a lot on other posts, and following someone’s suggestion, I think that it should have it’s own post.

If you are angry about the OGL changes being made by Wizards of the Coast, there is something you can actually do. Call them.

Yes boycotts work, but they take time. As long as the new OGL 1.1 has not been officially released yet, WotC still has an opportunity to not go through with this, and publicly laugh it off as a case of “people overreact on social media sometimes don’t they?” However, forum posts and emails are often ignored. But phone calls aren’t.

So Call Wizards of the Coast.

I recommend calling their office’s official number and leaving a polite and simple message like:

“I am a paying customer and have played D&D for X number of years now and I would like to say that I am very unhappy about the news of your company’s plan to destroy the original OGL. If you go through with that I plan to stop buying or recommending your products. Thank you.”

Nothing toxic or offensive please. Just express your displeasure about their move to eliminate the OLG 1.0.

If enough people do that, they will take note. Older CEOs ignore emails and being told “the forum was flooded”, but they sit up and freak out when they hear “our call center has been flooded with calls about this.”

Polite but assertive call-in campaigns are very effective.

Wizards of the Coast’s phone number is [phone].

Also, check the day of the week, they’re probably not open on weekends.

And all else fails Hasbro investor relations department 401 and then 431 and then 8697.

As has been pointed out on another post, there is also a feedback option on the WotC website. https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonsAndDragons/comments/1068y3e/quickly_and_easily_voice_your_displeasure_about/

/. End Image ID]

The redditor also added this:

If that doesn’t work, their 800 support line 324 is also a useful option 6496.

Also, check the day of the week, they’re probably not open on weekends.

And all else fails Hasbro investor relations department 401 and then 431 and then 8697.

As has been pointed out on another post, there is also a feedback option on the WotC website. https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonsAndDragons/comments/1068y3e/quickly_and_easily_voice_your_displeasure_about/

See the post here.

[kritdice]

Hi, I'm new here. I bring an offering 🖤

[cat-cosplay]

Gelatinous Cube Cat Bed

[canonkiller]

i am a contributing member of ttrpg groups and i am having so much fun

[dicemaps]

“It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. I love democracy…” #dnd #memes #tabletop #ttrpg