Last week and I still just don’t care.

Yeah. Wake me up when the new Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook drops in September, assuming it stays on schedule. It can have all the AI generated art they want. It can have AI generated writing for all it matters. If I spend even one dollar on it, I’ve spent too much.

That’s my opinion, though. I’ve gotten burned out on all the drama for the sake of publicity coming out of that particular part of the hobby. Meanwhile, we all sit here and miss most of the real conspiracies in the TTRPG hobby. Meanwhile, the Reptilian Overlords at Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast get away with telling us all what to think because we’ve become so desensitized to their nonsense.

Disclaimer: Statements expressed in this article are strictly my opinion. If you disagree or have a different opinion, that’s okay. I’m not an expert on everything. I’m not always right. I’m just writing from my experience as I know it. Your mileage may vary.

Worse, Hasbro/WotC have managed to spin doctor and confuse the public so many times, we just let them do whatever they want to the consumers because we’ve stopped questioning it. They were always going to go through with a new iteration of the new (Formerly Open) Game License. We always know they were going to go to mostly AI art, AI Dungeon Masters, and AI writers. Somewhere in there we were all run through the misinformation/disinformation cycle so many times all the credible sources were discredited, and the shills became believable.

But hey, don’t take my word for it.

Scan initiated…

Wait and see what happens. I’m just a small time blogger down here waving red flags where supposedly no cause for alarm existed. Every lie they told, every social media operative they turned, every YouTube shill they paid- those were all correct. No cause for alarm. All TableTop game companies will slowly be bought out or destroyed until the hobby is just a few of us who had the crowds turned against us. Okay, I’m being somewhat facetious, and I don’t want to sound like I’m being overly negative and dramatic again.

Seriously, I always urge everyone to use their own discernment when various TTRPG related news stories come out. The AI art debate gets more difficult to discern the truth on every day. I think the day is rapidly approaching when we won’t be able to tell if a few layers, the color, or the rough sketch were all or in part done by AI. Not to mention someday an artist is going to confess to using AI after it passes all of the “experts” and Cylon detectors. (*I know what I said there.)

My apathy toward WotC and all the D&D shenanigans has grown considerably.

New Dungeon Master’s Guide cover art looks pretty cool. I like Venger and Warduke. What does the content look like? We don’t know yet. Okay, supposedly Matt Mercer and Deborah Ann Woll consulted on it. Great for them. It doesn’t necessarily mean the book will be worth a crap.

It’s sad, but I still just don’t care. In the time since The Great D&D Open Game License Debacle of January 2023, I’ve seen three or four fantasy games land on my desk that I like a heck of a lot more than anything made by WotC. That’s not to mention the handful of TTRPG companies I’ve had incredibly positive interactions with. We won’t get into the dozens of successful revisions and Kickstarter projects that launched between January of 2023 and now. Not to mention all of the stuff due to happen between now and 2025.

I’ve got so many cool games on my shelf that have everything to do with being awesome TTRPGs and nothing to do with public relations drama, politics, or any other major detractors. My list of favorite games that I want to support has gone from a half dozen in 2023 to almost triple that in 2024.

You know whose games I am very excited about?

Free League Publishing, that’s who. I’m loving Dragonbane all to pieces. I hear good things about all of their other products and I’m anxious to dig into many of them. Into the Odd, Tales from the Loop, Electric Bastionland, and Things from the Flood all look incredible.

Dragonbane has the most impressive, boxed set of core rules I’ve seen in decades. I haven’t been this blown away by a TTRPG boxed set in ages. There are a few wargames that come close, though. TTRPG companies gave up on boxed sets here in the States ages ago. Some jazz about them being too expensive to produce or some such.

European board games are so much better produced with quality components, solid rules, and neat art all packed in one box than those in the United States. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised when Sweden managed to put a better TTRPG on the market. Their PR Wizard even seems genuinely more interested in the game’s success. What more could you ask for? #LoveFriaLigan

Let the new/not-new D&D come and go.

I’ll come back to the subject of the “Forever Edition” of D&D and all its hype (nonsense.) Maybe a miracle will happen, and Saint Gary Gygax will rise from the dead in AI form as seen in the National Enquirer by then. Maybe an AI candidate with self-nomination and win the US election by a landslide of mysterious write in ballots. We’ll see what happens.

I’ll also come back to all of the various Free League titles and other games that I predict are going to just keep getting better and better every week. I’m going to continue mentioning all of these great games as I get a chance to go over them. Meanwhile, I’m working on unofficially writing for various OGL products that have nothing to do with WotC. Maybe our AI planetary leaders will make me an official ambassador to Zeta Reticuli by then, too. Who knows?

Thank you for being here today with me. I appreciate you. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy.