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Is the D&D Monopoly Finally Broken? (Extended) (Patreon)

Published:
2024-05-04 21:19:53
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

PDM reacts to Bob World Builder and DnD Shorts videos that mention him. Thanks to Bob and Will for their originals. PDM may be slow to respond to DMs this weekend because spent all Saturday tutoring his AP students for their upcoming Language & Composition Exam. Yes, he's a real teacher and yes, he teaches on Saturday. Thanks for your patience!

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Is the D&D Monopoly Broken

Comments

Bagel-Man

Excited to watch PDM!

MrGunn

Dear Professor: Oh dear, another click-bait industry news video. Out of the last eight videos, only two were not industry news videos, that is a mere 25% dedicated to GM advice, crafting, or game reviews, I am not loving this ratio. Yes, Bob's survey results were interesting, and I did like seeing the Pareto rule on full display, but did we really learn anything we were not expecting? Note, I took both Wizbro's and Bob's survey, and I am a hater and I am gonna keep on hating, Wizbros is treff. As to DM Shorts, I got no faith in that dude, his popularity is totally suspect IMHO. How does he get so many views, his content is not very good at all, I posit he pays for views. Personally, I have no interest in Matt Colville's Dumb Mechanics RPG aka D&D 4e or Matt Mercer's over complicated Garbage Fart, these are going to miss the mark for sure. I am also in complete agreement, finish the game, then do the Kickstarter. In closing, I am really missing the pre-monetization days when the content was about GMing advice, crafting, game design, and other useful game related topics, totally changed my perspective and why I became a patron. Lately, I am not seeing the content I signed up for, instead it has been all about chasing a Youtube algorithm, I am hoping we get back on track soon. Regards, MrGunn

Scott

PDM wishing people the best but keeping it real!

MrGunn
>>137088111

Another victory lap for our favorite dough boy, Bagle-Man!

Karl

If anyone wants the long version of this comment, lemme know. I’m a MASSIVE fan of your stuff, PDM. After giving up the hobby as a high schooler, I came back in 2017 to find the bloated mess that 5e could be, rules-as-written. But your early videos tipped me off that I can read something, critically think as to what is good and acceptable, and make my own “homebrew” game, while calling it “D and D” and selling my table that we are playing it. And that right there — your six-year “curriculum vitae,” if you will — has conclusively shown the the monopoly is in fact broken. Not just broken - it’s already dust. And you did it.

SpeakingBeast

I know they're not going to miss my money, but as a player since '92, I have no interest in this upcoming edition, so I will not be buying any of the books. I have too many already, and there are more systems (some still on the way) I'd like to try out, including Deathbringer, Shadowdark, Warhammer: The Old World RPG, DC20, and Pathfinder 2E Remastered.

Firstspear

I can't speak to MCDM or Daggerheart - but like you - wish them the best. I do like to pull in some business knowledge from time to time (PDM - you would have been great in business). On the survey results - I'm market research/consumer insights professional, and I agree with your net takeaways from your analysis. Yes, the sampling might be skewed to people with very strong opinions, but a 70%+ bottom two box reading is really concerning. That is not good at all. On the WotC relaunch - Yeah, that concept is spoken about as 'share of voice' - they WILL take the oxygen out of the room and bombard people with ads/content. Awareness levels are already high for DnD, and they will probably keep that momentum. I have no interest in the new edition - it's already solid. I'm waiting for a little game called Deathbringer (and hoping we get a metal embossed cover option)

MrGunn
>>137097088

@Karl To be fair, D&D 5e codified some great concepts; ascending armor class and advantage / disadvantage, and it got me back into the hobby. However, the rules are poorly laid out, they have far too many classes and sub-classes (13 classes and 120+ sub-classes,B/X had four and playable class races), 5e is way over powered, everyone has magic, and I really don’t like feats or skills. However, no matter how popular 5e is with players, it relies too much on rules over rulings, and the number of classes and magic options makes the game difficult for novice GM’s. Streamlined rules that rely on rulings over rules is my preference these days. If I want to play a complex tactical game, I will dust off my Squad Leader rules. In closing, thanks for sharing your thoughts,

Scott Spears

More games keeps pressure on WOTC to make its games better.

Adam

As to your title, ... never has been a "Monopoly" with D&D. I have many many copies of games from other sources on my shelves to prove it. Warhammer. Tunnels and Trolls. Palladium the of alternatives are endless and as old as Basic D&D. Even more proof ... Pathfinder , OSRIC For Gold and Glory, Old School Essentials, Sword and Sorcery. And trust me the new version of D&D is going to spawn a version that will not go away. Personally, I am still pulling for Steve Jackson's GURPS... and I always will.

Jay

Great video for those with an interest in this sort of news and for feeding the algorithm. Also, you present some good insight regarding this topic. However, If I want news, prefer news that actually matters such as politics, economics, crime, international conflict, the millions of unvetted people who have entered our country, but most importantly things that affect our everyday lives. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate what you are doing here. I actually do as it supports your content on YouTube. I just don’t want this to be the primary source of content you produce. Many gamers such as myself, play games like these as a means of temporarily escaping the challenges of everyday life and of some of the horrible things currently happening in our real world and could care less about WotC or its so-called monopoly of a D20 RPG. I also know they, meaning YouTube, is backing creators into a corner to produce click bait style content so for now I tolerate it yet much like MrGunn above that isn't the content you produced that has had me onboard since the very beginning and your very first video. I hope to see more content I can use at my table or at least bits of it. As a backer of hundreds of products, I also agree that it isn't wise to back the undeveloped ones. That being stated, I predict MCDM and Dagger Heart will not do very well as backers will likely become frustrated if not disappointed with the production timeline and changes that will inevitably take place following its release. This is from someone who supports mainly independent creators and has seen this pattern before. I am, however, looking forward to DC20, Deathbringer, and many other independent games. I'm currently looking at Bob's "Delve" game product and will likely support it if not on principal alone. Bob, much like Dungeon Coach, and PDM strikes me as sincere people who puts a tremendous amount of effort into their products, and I'm convinced you all have genuine aspirations in creating the best products you can. Moreover, you typically come up with good ideas that I want to use at my table. Lastly, I recently backed a game called Outgunned published by Two Little Mice in Italy a few months ago and just received the bundle. The game mechanics move at a quick pace, are innovative, simple, and creative with just enough crunch with various options for more or less detail / crunch depending upon GM/ Player preferences. Their Kickstarter was a tremendous success, and they haven’t lost any momentum. Additional products for various genres are currently under development with an adventure one pending release upon completion in the coming month or so. Pinnacle Entertainment with their Pathfinder for Savage Worlds products has been killing it as well with even more on the way. I know Pinnacle isn’t so much and indie creator, but they do make good products I can use or borrow from. Stay safe and happy gaming everyone.

Daniel Defazio
>>137088230

Check the feed today for "The Faithful Executioner." I say the last Critical Role video was GM advice. It's really about my notebook and prep process, wrapped in a CR wrapper.

Drago Russo

When I started running games which later became me running paid games, I watched all of your videos and the Running the Game series from Matt Colville. I have really tried to use many of the tips and ideas I learned from your videos and the Colville videos. I will watch them from time to time again to remind myself to implement these tips. I am so thankful to you two which of course led me to Sly Flourish and Mastering Dungeons, etc. All of whom I Patreon. Thank you for continuing to help me improve my craft.

Kristen Solindas

Back in the day, when 3e was out for a while, they called these fantasy clones "fantasy heartbreakers", because they didn't really bring much new to the table. The non-D&D games that stood out were wildly different themes, like Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, and the plethora of settings for GURPS. The high fantasy genre was already covered. It baffles me that the biggest selling point to new games is "it's not WotC" and not trying to do something more original. I'm not personally fond of D&D, as I don't like the base concepts of the game like classes, levels, hit points, spell lists, etc., but for the high fantasy genre, it's been the defacto game for 50 years.

MrGunn
>>137221211

@Jay. Great post, and not just b/c of the mention 😉. Once again we see eye to eye. Carry on.

MrGunn
>>137088230

@DungeonCraft Indeed, "The Faithful Executioner", is an excellent video!

MrGunn
>>137228030

@Kristen Solindas Oh my, you must be a very young person ;) All of the games you mention came out well before D&D 3e which was released in 2000: Traveller 1977, CoC 1981, and GURPS 1986, CyberPunk 1988, Shadowrun 1989. We were playing something wildly different b/c TSR fiercely protected their IP and we wanted difference. The following Wiki article should interest you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_tabletop_role-playing_games Us grognards were rocking it in the first Golden Age of TTRPGs, the late 1970s and 80s. What 3e did bring with it was the OGL, this is what created the first large scale ecosystem around D&D, and the foundation upon which so many D&D clones were based. Which is why the 2023 Wizbros OGL debacle was such a big deal.

Kristen Solindas
>>137228030

I know this. But I find that games outside of the basic high fantasy genre and d20+x mechanics are the ones that stand out. I mentioned 3e because that's when the original OGL opened up the gates to the massive number of d20 games of the era. I've been an avid gamer since 1984, so no, I'm not young.

MrGunn
>>137228030

@Kristen Solindas Then I completely misunderstood your point. Yes D20 D&D and its clones are the bench mark. However, the games you mentioned came well before 3e, so why did you mention non-D&D games that came out 15 to 20 years before 3e, when d20 Modern, Burning Wheel, FATE, Savage Worlds, and Fiasco, all came out during the 2000's?

Timothy J. Mallory

That's a change in the definition of "Fantasy heartbreaker" then. That term arose in the 90s about games that were literally AD&D with a twist. Self published, generally bad games that usually had a good idea buried somewhere in the AD&D-ness that the designer otherwise stuck with.

Timothy J. Mallory

I don't know anything about Darrington Press, i don't pay any attention to CR. But I find your comments about MCDM to be a bit strange. I don't know if its going to be a good game. I'm not particularly interested in it. But it is strange to act like they don't know what they are doing or are treading some strange path. Matt Colville has worked for a long time in game design, this isn't his first RPG. He's not making a retroclone and he doesn't think he's gonna replace D&D. He's not interested in making content for other peoples' IP any more and he's talked about the difference between the size of the audience for his own IP materials and for D&D materials.

Timothy J. Mallory
>>137313553

I really don't like this "all fantasy games could just be D&D" mindset some folks have. There are a lot of games that are designed to be D&D. Worlds without Number, Castles & Crusades, DCC, etc are built on the bones of D&D mechanically. The OGL was an attempt to make sure that their competitors were making content that fed D&D rather than actually competed with it. I don't get the impression that the MCDM mechanics are much like D&D. I guess flavor wise, it'll be kind of 4e-ish? That's a design space that isn't particularly explored to death.

Timothy J. Mallory
>>137313553

Regarding kickstarter being something you should do once you are finished with the product, that's seems like a philosophical question. The original concept of kickstarter was not just a pre order storefront. It was to fund people to make projects they couldn't otherwise do, not just to sell the project that they already made. I know some folks who vehemently dislike the 'kickstarter as storefront'. I know people who really don't want to back things that aren't coming out right away. For me, I just want to know what the time line is. If someone says "its done and I just need to pay the printers", fine. "If someone says "We need funds to keep our studio in business until we finish it in a year", that's also fine. Obviously, no one likes the "I don't know what I'm doing an dI don't know how long its going to take to finish" is something no one likes. :P

Kristen Solindas
>>137228030

My point is that the games that stand out are the ones that are different from D&D, no matter when they were published. I listed games off the top of my head, ones that just happened to be published before 3e. I was just suggesting the ones we remember and that stand out are not high fantasy d20 games, for the most part (Pathfinder notwithstanding).

MrGunn
>>137228030

@Kristen Solindas Thanks for the clarification, apologies if I was man/youth-splainy. I appreciate you and your contributions to the overall discussion, thank you!

Anthony Johnston
>>137313553

Or not knowing the quality of the end product or even whether you'll eventually get anything for your $. I've backed dozens of kS, and some take yrs,, some under deliver, & a select infamous few never reach the finish line. Backer taking the majority of the risk is where some folks shy away, and I can't fault them.

Timothy J. Mallory
>>137313553

Yes, kickstarter is not a store. People who want a store should use a store. The fact that there is both incompetence and fraud pretty rampant in crowd funding makes it a problematic way to buy things. I just object to the idea that the only legit way to use crowdfunding is the solo hobbyist creator who can do the whole design process on their own dime and then just use kickstarter to sell the final product. Kickstarter is fundamentally like Patreon. I give PDM money because I trust that he'll make content that I am interested in seeing. Sometimes he makes industry news videos instead :D