Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

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ESG initiatives giving cheap or even free money to cover the losses of these projects.
No, they don't. This is an internet myth spread by people who don't know what investment firms do. Blackrock isn't a charity and doesn't write grants to for-profit corporations to cover their losses. Your company's ESG score affects whether or not your company's stocks will get rolled into the mutual funds that Blackrock uses to mange retirees' accounts and the interest rates its securities lending arm will charge you when you issue bonds.

You can't cover operating losses by selling bonds, as it's mathematically impossible (your bond liability will by definition be greater than the loss you're covering). You can't do it by issuing stock, either; using capital raises to cover operating losses is illegal.
 
Nobody's got a market report showing that the TAM of wokies is billions of dollars and concluding, "You know, if we just go hard at gay prom, we win." There just aren't that many politically-motivated buyers. It isn't about the politics themselves, in the broad consumer marketplace maybe half a percent buy stuff based on the perceived politics of it. If you want to make the big bux, you have to appeal to normies.
That's why "go woke, go broke" or however you want to word it became a meme. You got the extremely vocal extreme minority of people screeching about shit, and then when all of the woke crap shows up, and eventually takes over the hobby/product/whatever sales plummet. And of course this isn't because everyone is a nazi like the idiots will screech about, they're just not interested in the bullshit especially in their escapism. A normie isn't going to give a shit if there's a pride flag on a castle in a game, or that the king and queen of the neighboring kingdom are two cat men. They give a shit when it overtakes everything to the point of having daily nonsense shoved into their face that they engaged with something like D&D in the first place to be able to get away from for a couple hours a week. It's the same with videogames.

And of course all of the people doing the screeching about all of the nazis and needing representation, don't show up to buy the shit they promoted or even if they do it's not enough to make a difference in their favor because of how few of those people actually exist even if they want to pretend otherwise.

WotC already knows what appeals to normies. It's just the 2014 release of D&D 5e. The problem is, breaking sales records with adventures about killing dragon goddesses and stopping demon invasions doesn't tickle the political sensibilities of the aging twink who makes the real decisions, Jeremy Crawford.
Fortunately Crawford is gone(he's working on Daggerheart now with Perkins) and even though the new guy in charge has been meeting with writers and shit people actually like, it'll still take years to get the crap out of the product(they've clearly still got these people there after that gay art of the Beholder using its evil powers to make a village gay). They'll likely never be fully eliminated either due to where WotC is located.

Well, there's a little deeper than that. ESG initiatives giving cheap or even free money to cover the losses of these projects. As well as the not completely false idea that consoomers will buy shit with sugar on top if you put the correct logo on it.
ESG doesn't do that as The Ugly One pointed out. What does do that is various organizations and government grants being handed out to these people, and that's how we got bullshit videogames like Dustborn or that moron at Square Enix that got fired and was running a "lobbying group" that turned out to just be a self enrichment scam for hosting parties. This same dumb shit happens with marketing companies as well, the tranny with Bud Light would be an example of convincing a corporation to throw tons of money at them only to destroy an entire brand in the process. Jaguar would be another, people claim the company fell apart because of that stupid ad campaign, it didn't(they had already cancelled vehicle production and had no cars to sell, which is why their sales figures cratered with the new pink and blue car bullshit not being due for a couple of years). Gillette the disposable razor company even had this happen before covid, where some stupid marketing firm convinced them that posting woke ads calling out "male toxicity" would be a success and damn near killed that brand within a week. All of that happened because the normies got pissed off, while the marketing companies got to rake in tons of cash for themselves to then spend on dumb shit perpetuating the idea that this tiny fraction of a percent of the population matters.

The main difference between normie products like shitty beer, shitty indian cars, shitty disposable razors, etc. is that those products relied on a marketplace full of normal people. As big as a lot of the markets are for various nerd products(tabletop rpgs, war games, video games, etc.) the people who influence companies to do that shit can get away with it at a smaller scale for longer because they'll invite their tag along friends to join them and can actually inflate their numbers artificially relative to the existing consumer base that's willing to openly discuss the product or brand itself.
 
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Which deserved more (or less) distribution and time in the sun?
 
WotC already knows what appeals to normies. It's just the 2014 release of D&D 5e. The problem is, breaking sales records with adventures about killing dragon goddesses and stopping demon invasions doesn't tickle the political sensibilities of the aging twink who makes the real decisions, Jeremy Crawford.
Chris Cocks encouraged a lot of what you see with D&D 2024. The entire angle of inclusivity’s one to try to appeal to as many demographics as possible in order to get people interested in buying their products. Is it a sound idea or strategy? No, it’s not and normies tend to ignore most of it. It’s the same thing with magic: they shoehorn so much tokenism and push for gay shit.

Normies don’t care if you add a black transvestite NPC, they just want to play the game. They don’t care as much about the gay baker dwarves or mexican orcs because all that matters is getting to sit at a table to play with their friends. A lot of these people didn’t give a shit until they saw the kids in stranger things playing and using grenadier miniatures. They weren’t around for when the game wasn’t just an iteration of marvel avengers, but that’s what they want.
 
No, they don't. This is an internet myth spread by people who don't know what investment firms do. Blackrock isn't a charity and doesn't write grants to for-profit corporations to cover their losses. Your company's ESG score affects whether or not your company's stocks will get rolled into the mutual funds that Blackrock uses to mange retirees' accounts and the interest rates its securities lending arm will charge you when you issue bonds.

You can't cover operating losses by selling bonds, as it's mathematically impossible (your bond liability will by definition be greater than the loss you're covering). You can't do it by issuing stock, either; using capital raises to cover operating losses is illegal.
You are both right and wrong.
You are correct, Blackrock doesn't just hand out free Fags & Troons dollars in blank checks.

But what they DO do has virtually the same result - by using ESG in the decision to hold or dump a stock, a non-performing or under-performing company will have its stock price artificially inflated or propped because blackrock will hold a large number of shares even when the company's performance is shit. This keeps the company executives from having to answer to the board because its all blackrock stooges, and the nonstooges are happy with the extra vps.

This propped-up stock price translates in to cheap bonds (the repayment kicked down the road until they force everyone to accept trannies, faggots, and eating the bugs) backed by share value, and easier ability to raise funds from other sources (again, due to higher share value), as well as the ability to raise funds by selling or leveraging stake in the company

They also sometimes use governmental pull to push for loans/grants/taxbreaks.

But again, all this is secondary to exective freedom due to Blackrock seeing a company hemorrhage money but fellate globohomo and saying "All looks good, vote to retain the CEO and give them a 25% raise".

Blackrock et al perpetuate this because once a company is overvalued due to blackrock or similar holding the shares, they can threaten management with "Make everyone gay, or we dump your stock and investors wil revolt"
 
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Dice Scum is going into part 2 of Synibarr with the extensive and batshit character creation rules. Remember, this is the game where you have like a one in a million chance to start as a literal god. Enjoy the insanity!
 
Which deserved more (or less) distribution and time in the sun?
Greyhawk 79 bro here. Though I wasn't in that first year cohort, being too young at the time. Mid-80s.

FR 87 too. Although I never ran it, I played it a few times. Not surprised they're the top two or that Wiggers of the Coast haven't subsequently come even close to meeting much less exceeding the first year sales of both these classics.
 
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Another (Radiant Citadel) was wakanda where the writers try (and fail) to justify their black communist utopia and write various safeguards to prevent it being steamrolled by players.
I seriously hope that you're joking but know that you're not. I've steered clear of anything post 3.5 so Im in a self imposed blissfully ignorant bubble.
Seeing this makes me want to read through it for the lulz though. If anything i could shoehorn it in somewhere damn well knowing that my little murder hobos will steamroll it.
 
I seriously hope that you're joking but know that you're not. I've steered clear of anything post 3.5 so Im in a self imposed blissfully ignorant bubble.
Seeing this makes me want to read through it for the lulz though. If anything i could shoehorn it in somewhere damn well knowing that my little murder hobos will steamroll it.
There's some good stuff from 4e that's getting reappraised. The default setting in particular. Can't say I disagree.


As for Radient Citidel. I'm not. Someone who has read it would be better to inform you (don't know if there's a dice scum about it, there might be).

The citidel has no army or police (I guess ACAB was big at the time) so to stop the PC from wrecking it with force they have some kind of infinity plus 1 force field that the council has to unanimously agree to turn on. Of course, this means all the PCs have to do it kidnap one of the council (any will do) and the city if fucked. There's a section of the book dedicated to this.

The Radiant Citadel's location within the Deep Ethereal makes it difficult to assault. It keeps no standing army, but its council for defense has contingency plans it frequently refines based on intelligence from the Court of Whispers.

The city's primary protection is a powerful ward that can be activated by the Speakers for the Ancestors. When all fifteen are assembled in the council room at the center of the Preserve, by unanimous consent they can erect a diamond sphere that envelops the entire city. The diamond sphere resembles the Auroral Diamond in texture and color and deflects all attacks. Nothing can pass or teleport through it.

If the diamond sphere cannot be erected for any reason, the Radiant Citadel is not helpless. Due to its many mysteries and its magical properties, the city attracts an unusually large number of powerful adventurers and spellcasters. If the citadel is attacked, no fewer than a dozen archmages and twenty mages led by Sholeh rally. If required, Arayat, commander of the Shieldbearers, also mobilizes his Shieldbearer veterans, while the other Speakers for the Ancestors call on the citizenry to bolster the city's defense.

The Auroral Diamond's illumination also provides strong protection. It radiates bright light throughout the city and dim light 1,000 feet beyond the city's borders. This light is akin to sunlight, which many natives of the Ethereal Plane and evil Undead abhor.

And trying to circumvent these safeguards intended to stop the PCs from wrecking it is the most interesting thing about the module. That and little details like how there's a high tax rate the PCs have to pay. Communism and stealing peoples money. Name me a more iconic duo.

While the whole module can be found various places, there's not much of interest.
 
It’s casting a net for the wokeshit consoomers like the ones that respond “I’ll buy two copies” in response to people who say they won’t be buying their shit.
Fun fact: Scientology coerces its members to buy extra copies of its books to inflate their sales. These people in the fandom, if they exist, are completely buck broken. Literally one step away from using Scientology tactics.
 
The main difference between normie products like shitty beer, shitty indian cars, shitty disposable razors, etc. is that those products relied on a marketplace full of normal people. As big as a lot of the markets are for various nerd products(tabletop rpgs, war games, video games, etc.) the people who influence companies to do that shit can get away with it at a smaller scale for longer because they'll invite their tag along friends to join them and can actually inflate their numbers artificially relative to the existing consumer base that's willing to openly discuss the product or brand itself.
 
Enshittification is a problem, but it's a separate issue from trannies trying to fag everything up. Things can become enshittified without becoming some rainbow pride slop-fest, WotC has been trying to do that with D&D for almost 20 years now wanting a VTT/app/marketplace/etc. so they can charge players $2.99 per individual option on their sheet.
 
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Which deserved more (or less) distribution and time in the sun?
I would have liked to see more Maztica and Al-Qadim, because it's still Aber-Toril (so the gods and rules particular to that setting are the same) and so it's easier to introduce to people. "Oh you want to play a Paladin from Waterdeep in the Al-Qadim game? Okay."

Darksun deserved more than it god, but Sword and Sandal fell out of vogue and Grimdark isn't queer-rainbow friendly enough - Darksun will never ever have gay beholders throwing a pride parade in a city, for example.

___

Unrelated to WoTC and D&D, I have to say that the state of Shadowrun gets me so fucking mad, sometimes. SR6 sucks ass and they killed all the SR5 stuff they had planned and the errata to try and beat Cyberpunk:RED and they failed, miserably.
 
Fun fact: Scientology coerces its members to buy extra copies of its books to inflate their sales. These people in the fandom, if they exist, are completely buck broken. Literally one step away from using Scientology tactics.
It’s the same ones who complain about “the chuds” even though they don’t have any interaction with them in any capacity. Numales tilting at the same windmill.
 
Fun fact: Scientology coerces its members to buy extra copies of its books to inflate their sales. These people in the fandom, if they exist, are completely buck broken. Literally one step away from using Scientology tactics.
A major difference is Hubbo actually got his bullshit on the bestsellers list with these tactics. Most of these troons and other gibs recipients who say shit like that don't even buy one copy. Look at the grasp of the woke milieux compared to the classics for AD&D. Hasbro has basically nuked the first year guarantee anything D&D related had since the fucking '70s.
 
It’s the same ones who complain about “the chuds” even though they don’t have any interaction with them in any capacity. Numales tilting at the same windmill.
They're offended by the very existence of us and I wear that as a badge of honor.
A major difference is Hubbo actually got his bullshit on the bestsellers list with these tactics. Most of these troons and other gibs recipients who say shit like that don't even buy one copy. Look at the grasp of the woke milieux compared to the classics for AD&D. Hasbro has basically nuked the first year guarantee anything D&D related had since the fucking '70s.
That's what you get when your company panders to political hobbyists. It's in the name: their hobby is politics. That's it. That is literally all they do when they aren't getting into polycule drama or posting wholesome chungus memes for updoots. It's telling when Scientology was better at manufacturing a false consensus than these keyboard warriors were.
 
Fun fact: Scientology coerces its members to buy extra copies of its books to inflate their sales. These people in the fandom, if they exist, are completely buck broken. Literally one step away from using Scientology tactics.

Hasbro's really doing a bad job if that's their business plan. The FLGS I used to frequent (but stopped after the only full time employee trooned out) had four copies of Radiant Citadel sitting on the shelf for the year or so before I stopped going there. They never seemed to move, even with the eye-grabbing colors on the spine that made them stand out from everything else. In comparison, the 5e Strahd coffin box flew off the shelf even though it was like $100, and even the third party modules sold from time to time.
 
Hasbro's really doing a bad job if that's their business plan. The FLGS I used to frequent (but stopped after the only full time employee trooned out) had four copies of Radiant Citadel sitting on the shelf for the year or so before I stopped going there. They never seemed to move, even with the eye-grabbing colors on the spine that made them stand out from everything else. In comparison, the 5e Strahd coffin box flew off the shelf even though it was like $100, and even the third party modules sold from time to time.
My FLGS went full pride all year during covid. So much so it's more a gay shop that happens to sell Warhammer and gunpla instead of the board games and comic book shop it used to be.

You post got me thinking about why. I had assumed the owner got political brainrot during lockdown, but now I'm wondering if it's because the shit doesn't sell and they're trying desperately to move it. Entire walls dedicated to "trans pride" manga, with gay superman and black spiderman in the window. Meanwhile the stuff that actually sells, the warhammer, gunpla, and card games, don't need that push.

Darksun deserved more
What I find interesting about the chart is that Darksun didn't sell compared to obscure settings and natoriously "bad" settings. The fact that Al Quidim did slightly better than Planescape cements in my mind that planescape is over hyped as much as it is due to Torment, not because of the setting itself.

Forgotten Realms selling more than Planescape, Darksun, and Ravenloft combined is eye opening as well. All I ever hear about Forgotten Realms is how much it sucks.
 
Forgotten Realms selling more than Planescape, Darksun, and Ravenloft combined is eye opening as well. All I ever hear about Forgotten Realms is how much it sucks.
Forgotten Realms sold more because of R.A. Salvatore. Seriously, Drizzt hard carried the Forgotten Realms. There was a reason they put him in in Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 as a cameo and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1 & 2 as a playable character. Then it sold more because after 5e launched, they made it into the default setting. (Well, the Sword Coast. Literally everything else was forgotten.)

The FR that sucks is the 3.5 onwards one. The first Forgotten Realms is a good setting.
I disagree, 3.5 is fine, and is honestly the best edition of D&D published by the corporation that owns the rights to D&D*. It went to shit in the transition to 4th edition where it was deliberately sabotaged by Hasbro because they wanted to kill the setting so they could push Nentir Vale as The Default Setting for 4e. Killed 50% of the gods, had 10% of the surviving gods turn out to be aspects of the other gods, jumped the setting 100 years in the future and killed all ongoing plotines and did a hardreset. The justification is that they wanted to "Make it fit the mechanics of 4th edition" but seeing as how they did literally nothing with Forgotten Realms in 4e, it was a blatant move to murder the setting, and everything they did in 5e was designed to steal the setting from Ed Greenwood.

When Ed Greenwood sold the rights of Maztica / Al-Qadim / Forgotten Realms to TSR, there was a clause that if they didn't uphold their end of the deal (Having him have the final say with regards to his setting, having him write X amount of books, ect) the rights would revert to him. WoTC spent the entire time of 5th Edition making it so that D&D revolves around Forgotten Realms so that if he attempted to sue to get his setting back (sine they broke their end of the contract they inherited from TSR), it would be impossible to seperate from D&D and it couldn't be taken back from them.

Ed Greenwood might be a crazy old hippy but he's not a bad guy, and he didn't deserve to have a corporation shit in his mouth while wearing his values as a Homocapitalist skinsuit.

*The actual best edition of D&D is Pathfinder 1e / 3.75.
 
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