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How to Survive a Digital D&D Future

by Mike on 5 August 2024

Hasbro may be hurling D&D towards a digital future but we already have everything we need to enjoy this game for the rest of our lives.

Hasbro is super-excited for a digital D&D future. They're tired of selling us, as Penny Arcade perfectly describes, a single hamburger we can share with our friends every week for thirty years. Hasbro wants subscription revenue from every player every month – not just the single purchase of a book you can keep, share, and use for the rest of your life.

Hasbro doesn't want to sell you D&D. They want you to pay rent.

Chris Cocks, Hasbro's president and former president of Wizards of the Coast, is pushing hard for a digital future. He already said they're running experiments with artificial intelligence saying "D&D has 50 years of content that we can mine". The new head of Wizards of the Coast, the subsidiary of Hasbro in charge of D&D, is a former Blizzard executive who replaced a former Amazon and Microsoft executive. They posted a new D&D product architect job with a clear focus on digital gaming and a new "monetization designer" which is as close to "professional enshittifier" as I've heard of in a job description.

So yeah, Hasbro is really excited to charge monthly fees and microtransactions for D&D and ensure you never stop paying for it.

But I have good news for you. It doesn't matter.

Here are four reasons why:

The three D&D core books are the only D&D books that really matter and they're going to be physical books.
With rulesets released into the Creative Commons, anyone can build digital tools, adventures, supplements, and even entire RPGs – all fully compatible with D&D.
We have 50 years of previous versions of D&D we can play, multiple competing and compatible 5e variants from other publishers, and hundreds of other RPGs we can enjoy.
We have several independent digital platforms we can use to run our games online.

Let's look at these reasons one at a time in case the list alone doesn't convince you.

The D&D Core Books are Physical and They're All That Matters

We know the D&D 2024 core books are going to be physical. People already have the D&D 2024 Player's Handbook in hand and the Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual are coming out in the next six months. Once we purchase them, they're ours forever. These books aren't hobbled products that require some monthly subscription to keep using. You can whip up a character on a piece of paper in 30 minutes and play for a couple of years.

The core D&D books vastly outsell other D&D books. Once we have the core books, we don't need anything else. Big crunchy character option books like Xanathar's Guide to Everything and Tashas's Cauldron of Everything are popular and change the game in fundamental ways, but they're not necessary. Other publishers also publish crunchy character books. WOTC doesn't have a monopoly on 5e character options.

Once the physical core books are out, it doesn't matter if WOTC tries to digitize the rest of D&D. We have our books. They can't take them away.

Multiple Open Licenses Exist for 5e

The 5e ruleset, the core rules of D&D 5th edition, exists under multiple system resource documents released under Creative Commons licenses including the 5.1 SRD by Wizards of the Coast and the fully-independent Level Up Advanced 5e System Reference Document by EN World Publishing.

In May 2024, WOTC promised to release the core rules of D&D 2024 into a new 5.2 SRD at the end of February 2025. This new system reference document would open the updated D&D 2024 rules to other publishers who can fill in any gaps left behind as WOTC focuses on digital gaming.

These licenses mean people can make alternative character builders, VTTs with integrated rulesets, new character option books, new compatible supplements, and entire compatible RPGs. The only limitation is what people are willing to produce and whether they can get customers to support it. WOTC isn't in the way.

We Already Own D&D and Other Fantastic RPGs

I own six older versions of D&D, all of which people still play in one form or another. My friend Chris is running a 2nd Edition D&D game in Dark Sun and my friend Rob is running a 1st edition game.

There are millions of copies of the 2014 D&D Player's Handbook out there and ways to legally purchase all previous versions of D&D. These older versions of D&D brought the same fun to the table we enjoy today and all are still fully playable. It doesn't matter if WOTC wants to stop selling us a 30 year hamburger. We already have a stack of them.

Outside of D&D we have Tales of the Valiant and Level Up Advanced 5e offering excellent fully-compatible updates to 2014 D&D. Shadowdark took 5e and stripped it down to the old-school feel of D&D from the 70s and 80s. There are tons of other excellent RPGs out there that aren't 5e-based like Dragonbane, Shadow of the Weird Wizard, 13th Age, Knave and others.

We have plenty of other systems to try. WOTC is trying to build a moat in the middle of an ocean.

You Can Play D&D on Several Digital Platforms

Hasbro is super-excited to get you to pay for D&D on D&D Beyond but it's not the only online platform to run RPGs. WOTC plans to release 2024 D&D on Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, and Roll20 as well. The 5e compatible Tales of the Valiant is available on those platforms, Shard Tabletop, and Herolab as well. EN World Publishing is building a free character builder for Level Up Advanced 5e. You don't even really need online rulesets anyway. You can play D&D online using physical books, real dice, communication platforms like Discord, and rules-independent VTTs like Owlbear Rodeo. 5e's open licenses means anyone can build better tools to support online play and don't need anyone's permission to do so. WOTC isn't in the way.

It Only Matters to You And Your Group

Regardless of what Hasbro wants to do with D&D, the game itself is just you and a few friends sitting at a table (virtually or physically) to play. Whether you're playing D&D or another RPG, it only matters to you and your group. If six people anywhere in the world are playing a particular RPG, that RPG is still alive.

Finding good reliable players for RPGs is hard – likely the hardest part of this hobby. It's hard to find reliable players. It can also be hard to convince those players to step away from the most popular RPG to play one they've never heard of.

But if your group trusts you, if they enjoy the stories you share, talk to them about trying other systems once in a while. It can take some work but WOTC's not in the way. Getting great players to your table regularly who are open to trying other systems isn't easy but we can get there.

And, of course, we can always play D&D. We can use our physical books and a resilient stack of software to play D&D however we want and no one can stop us.

We can't change Hasbro's direction towards a digital rent-focused D&D. Like Penny Arcade says, we're not rattling sabers, we're rattling those little plastic swords used to hold sandwiches together.

We can strengthen our own hold on the hobby. More than almost any other form of entertainment, the RPG hobby is incredibly resilient to the types of moat-building Hasbro attempts as they move to their digital D&D future.

The real future of RPGs is ours.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Last week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on Why Open RPG Licenses Matter to GMs and The Forgotten God – Shadowdark Gloaming Session 38 Lazy GM Prep.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video:

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers:

Players Suspicious of Potentially Betraying NPCs

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

Give character-focused options for downtime activities. Alert them before the session begins so they can think of what they want to do.
Ask players to talk about what new features they got when they level up.
Mix multiple random encounters together.
Use a table-less oracle die for distance, attitude, morale, weather severity, and more. The lower the number, the less extreme.
Draw quick maps on paper or dry-erase boards or mats to help players understand the situation.
Add backgrounds and details to quest-giving NPCs like names, intentions, etc.
Write down notes during the game to keep track of important information for your next session's prep – NPC names, where the game ended, and other details to help you prepare the next session.