NW Wizards forced into a saving throw: Today So far

Perhaps it emerged from a forest of middle-management cubicles, or worse, the bowels of C-suite offices. Nobody knows for sure. What is known is that someone at Wizards of the Coast summoned nefarious warlocks who speak legalese and practice the dark arts of corporate law. Dabbling with such forces is dangerous, which is what this Washington company just learned as its fans revolted.

This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for January 30, 2023.

Whether or not you play "Dungeons & Dragons," this is a lesson for anyone relying on a fanbase, or merely a customer base — know your product and know your customer. Or if you just want to know why your geeky loved one has been so irate in recent weeks, read on.

"It's a lot of corporate stupidity," said Woody Arnold, an indie comic book publisher and game creator. "The problem they are faced with is they have destroyed the foundation on which their brand was built."

Recent drama surrounding D&D has put indie creators like Arnold in a tough spot, and has prompted fans to pack up everything into their bags of holding and march away, despite the company's attempts to smooth things over.

Wizards of the Coast is based in Renton and produces highly popular games, such as "Dungeons & Dragons" and "Magic: The Gathering." These are social, fantasy based games that have had an immense impact on pop culture. But Wizards is now backtracking and nursing some wounds after a campaign of drama surrounding D&D. The game has had an "open gaming license" (OGL) since 2000. That means fans could take its rules and lore and make their own games and products. Large companies have risen since then, using this OGL. But fans were recently spurred to rebel against the Wizards after a corporate document was leaked. It indicated that Wizards was considering changing its gaming license. The "open" part of it was threatened.

"It's one of those things where people are essentially being told by a giant corporation what they can do with their imaginations; after 23 years of Dungeons and Dragons saying, 'Do what you want,' and now 'Maybe not everything you want,'" Linda Codega told KUOW's Soundside.

Third-party publishers using D&D as a foundation for their own games became worried. Could Wizards come for royalties, no matter how large or small they are? Would Wizards attempt to take control of fan-created content? A rebellion formed across the landscape of D&D. Codega notes that there was a mass unsubscribe movement targeting Dungeons & Dragons Beyond, the game's paid online extension.

"Wizards of the Coast paid attention because the reaction was so swift and so great," Codega said. "If those subscriptions don't come back, it will have a marked impact on their bottom line at the end of the year."

In short, Wizards rolled a 1. That's what the company said when it issued a sort of saving throw apology. Wizards has since stated that it's placing its core aspects in the creative commons for anyone to use. A statement from the company added that it never considered concerns that emerged among fans (it eventually did a fan survey), such as threatening fan-created games. Rather, it says it was attempting to find ways to prevent D&D from being used and published in hateful or discriminatory products. It also wanted to address how the game will exist in online formats, and make a distinction between small creators and large companies.

One such creator is Arnold. After publishing his indie comic "Cybersymbiosis" for years, he decided to expand it into a role-playing game. This got rolled into a Kickstarter that aimed to compile the first editions of his cyber punk comic into a graphic novel, while also producing a few extras, like the game. The plan was to fund the project and have it ready for Emerald City Comic Con in March. The Kickstarter was successful. He was fully funded, which meant he had work to do. But then news of the OGL dropped.

"I have spent the last three years playtesting and developing this game," Arnold said. Playtesting is the process of playing a game, testing it, and making adjustments until it is ready. "I was getting ready to send this to the printer. I was going to have books at Emerald City Comic Con."

Instead, Arnold is spending the weeks leading up to ECCC frantically going through the game's copy to remove anything that could possibly touch D&D and make enough changes to make sure he is in the clear. On one hand, Arnold says the D&D fiasco did him a sort of favor — he's fine-tuning the game into something newer. That's the way I would put it. He describes it with language I probably should not repeat here.

On the other hand, he admits that he was planning on using the D&D aspects as a selling point for his "Cybersimbiosis" game. But goodwill toward the D&D brand has eroded.

"I can no longer sell the game on the basis of goodwill," he said. "Instead, I can sell it on the basis of, 'Here is a way to play something you like, without supporting something evil .... it's not the position I want to be in."

"They've lost the support of their core fanbase. People can go someplace else now. They have handed customers on a silver platter to their competitors."

I would argue that the damage to Dungeons & Dragons is not a total party kill. People are still going to play the game. It will continue to be referenced in everyday life (whether you know it or not). It might not have the constitution or dexterity to hold up in the indie scene, however. At least not for a while. Dyer prediction: New games that would have been easier to play if you have experience with D&D will become less common.

"There are corporate people who don't understand what they're making decisions about," Arnold said. "These people should be playing the games and hanging out with us, and understanding what they're using, and make better decisions."

Read Linda Cotega's extensive reporting on this issue here. And check out Soundside's full story on this here.

AS SEEN ON KUOW

Leyla Farange stands behind the counter at Gyros Place in the food court under Twitter's old offices at Century Square across Fourth Avenue from Westlake Park. With the news about tech companies laying off employees, KUOW's Joshua McNichols wanted to check in on on local businesses around tech offices. But the impact, business owners said, has less significant than he expected. For example, one owner said that Twitter engineers have hardly been in the office over the past couple years, so for a long time, they have not been coming downstairs to get lunch. But restaurants are still hurting in downtown Seattle for other reasons: Remote work and high food prices. (Joshua McNichols / KUOW)

DID YOU KNOW?

"Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" is slated to be released in movie theaters in March. But this is not the first time this iconic tabletop role-playing game has made it onto the screen.

After D&D was first published in 1974, it was converted into a cartoon that ran from 1983-85. In 2000, a D&D movie hit theaters starring Jeremy Irons and Marlon Wayans ... it was a flop. That didn't stop them from making two more films, though these were TV movies, one in 2005, and another in 2012.

Dungeons & Dragons has also evolved into the next level of media. "Adventure Zone," a podcast where two brothers get their dad to play Dungeons & Dragons, reportedly has more than 600,000 regular listeners. Fans also tune into "Critical Role," a web series where voice actors play D&D live. Each episode runs for a few hours.

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