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Hey Goblins, Brandon here. If you enjoy what we do and you'd like to help supporters create more, then the best way to support us is to head over to patreon.com. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Goblins and Growlers podcast. I'm Josh Maltby at Black Cloak DM on Discord and Blue Sky. I'm Brandon Dingus at Way of Brandalore Instagram and probably other places. Josh, how's it going? Pretty good, pretty good. Tired, busy,
but otherwise good. Yourself? Oh, I'm great. I'm sick as a dog, but I'm fantastic, so if that might sound gravelly today, that's why. I'm very, very excited to finally get into today's topic, but I know we've got a couple of news items to cover first. Yeah, just real quick for anybody who might be new to the podcast in any way, shape, or form. If you like tabletop role-playing game type of stuff, and perhaps you're looking for an actual play that has a lot of history and
has been around for several years, I think five years this month, check out Quid Pro Role. That is the 5e currently-ish actual play that we've been running for many years. Find it on your podcatcher of choice, Quid Pro Role. So now that we've got that plug out of the way, we can jump into talking about several things that have been just popping up in the last couple of weeks since
the last time we recorded. Now, we talked a couple of months ago about... I can't remember if we even actually did this for a recording or if it was just you and I talking about it, but I was looking at that third quarter results from Hasbro, and it was basically talking about how Watsi was buoying the entire company because all their consumer products were tanking,
and their entertainment division was tanking. It's really interesting. When I was at PAX, it was interesting to have some conversations with some of the third-party publishers talking about this because they're the third-party folks. They would always talk about everything that happened at the beginning of the year with the SRD and the license and everything. They'd be like, oh, yeah, and they being Watsi and Dungeons and Dragons, they're like,
oh, yeah, and now you can see they're really hurting. Their revenues are going down and everything like that. I had to correct a couple of people. I was like, what? I had to be a well actually guy. I was like, well, actually, Watsi and D&D and Magic are basically the only things keeping that company going. That's not entirely surprising because the reception for Baldur's Gate 3 has been the warmest I've seen for a video game in a very long time.
Oh, yeah. You got to figure that Baldur's Gate 3 has a lot to do with some of these numbers because the way it's grouped together is like Wizards of the Coast is lumped in with digital gaming, which is separate from entertainment. Anyway, we learned a week or so ago, a couple of weeks ago, that Hasbro was going to be doing about 1100 layoffs. And as somebody who's been laid off in the past, I feel it necessary to say this, that it's a horrible experience and you never want
to see anybody lose their job or anything like that. But it is something that if you zoom out and look at it, it's interesting to sort of get an idea of what's going on with the company. So these layoffs were happening, which was not surprising when the announcement came out that it was going to happen, because like we said, in October, when the Q3 results came out, there were problems at Hasbro. There were a lot of problems. And D&D and Magic were the only
things keeping it afloat. So everybody expected that the layoffs were going to happen to not WOTC people. Well, it turns out, I think Dan Dillon was the first one to tweet about it. That's at least the first one that I saw tweeting that he was laid off, I think maybe like a week ago, the other day or something like that. Dan Dillon, he's a game designer. He's been with WOTC for five years. They poached him, I believe, from Cobalt Press. I think he did a lot of great
work over at Cobalt Press, and he's been involved in a lot of high profile stuff at WOTC. So seeing somebody like him laid off was kind of surprising, honestly. I wouldn't be surprised if someone like him gets scooped back up by Cobalt Press, with Cobalt Press building some new initiatives and trying to build a lot of new content right now. Oh, yeah. And I mean, there's a little bit that I can sort of say to all that,
where are all these people going? What are their attitudes and everything like that? Um, but just, you know, the initial reactions are just like, well, wait a minute, like, what what's going on here? Because WOTC was what was keeping it afloat. So why are they laying off all these people? Well, I recall seeing the news that they were going to do 1100 layoffs
before starting to see the posts about, hey, I was just laid off from WOTC. And I remember when I saw the news, I was like, oh, well, that's probably going to be exclusively out of like, the divisions that are really doing poorly. Like I imagined WOTC and Magic the Gathering are going to stay like, nice, nice and chunky. And then everything else is going to shrink down because they're not making any money. And then I start seeing the tweets come out where it's like,
yeah, I've been laid off. I've also been laid off. I've also been laid off. And it's like, whoa. Yeah. Yeah. Well, all right. So I've got I've got for anybody watching on YouTube, I've got the Q3 results up. I'll actually. Oh, yeah. Profit and loss sheets. Let's get real, y'all. Yeah. Let me take those down for just a hot second and flip over to flip over to something else, because I found I was I was going around over the last couple of days trying to find a
really solid list of the folks that were that were laid off. And the Hasbro CEO, Chris Crocks, had the typical I'm a CEO laying people off statement. You know, while we're confident in the future of Hasbro, the current environment demands that we do more, even if these choices are some of the hardest we have to make. I know this news is especially difficult during the holiday season. No sugarcoating how hard this is, et cetera, et cetera, said, you know,
by somebody who gets to keep his job and. Going through the list, it's like Dan Dillon, I saw a name on here of somebody because because I was just trying to find the most comprehensive list I could. There are probably there probably. In fact, I know for sure. I know 100 percent positively that there's at least one name on this list that I'm looking at right now who was not laid off and I'm not going to share the list. But I think it's just kind of a cryptic
statement that that person made. Yeah. But these lists are all out there. You can find them all over the place. Amy Dallin, who is a D&D Beyond producer and host. I think I've seen them on some things. Let's see. Let's see the D&D art manager. There's a talent manager, a game designer, David McDarby, who I've not heard of, but he was a game designer on the magic side of things. There was like a director of D&D Beyond software engineer, technical producer,
community manager, more art directors. Chris Lindsey, who created DM's Guild, according to this, was let go of their licensing and publishing manager. And then Mike Merles, which is another name that is interesting for a lot of people, probably for a lot of reasons, because for anybody who doesn't know, like Mike Merles
has become sort of a target because of behavior. It was like a person in the playtesting community that he, I'm trying to figure out the best way to say this, because like facilitated, allowed, he was aware of things that this guy was doing and like disclose names of victims publicly and everything. A lot of not great stuff that he was doing. He was previously like senior management on D&D. He was involved in a lot of stuff, like a lot of stuff that you know.
And it's interesting because if you look, I think you can even see it just on his Wikipedia page, like roles that he was in and then roles that he was moved to. It's very clear that he was being managed out of any sort of prominent responsibilities at the company before this happened. I think in his last position, I think in the last position he was in, which was actually over on the Magic Gathering side, where he was essentially a full-time consultant for
like game design and stuff over there. Except when Larian was first starting up their Baldur's Gate design, Mike Merles was one of their primary contacts on making sure that it feels like Dungeons and Dragons. And that game is incredibly successful and it has his fingerprints on it, for better and for worse. Yeah. All I'm saying is like, as somebody who's worked as a manager at various levels, like you can see when somebody is being managed out of responsibility and managed
out of the business. That's fair. That's fair. And it's possible, it's possible, I will say, that he opted for that a little bit because he was public enemy number one a little bit there for the various things he was involved in that were not great. Yes. And anybody curious can look these things up and they're very easy to find. You can literally google Mike Merles
controversy and find a lot of things. That is my favorite thing to do. Like, if there's ever somebody who I'm unsure of, like whether to mention them or reach out to them to see if they want to talk to us or anything like that, I will google that person's name and controversy and hope that I don't get any results. Or at the very least, the results you get are like, Oh, it's rumored that they didn't tip at a restaurant one time. And you're like,
that's fine. That's fine. But, but yeah, we're like, probably get away with that. But, you know, people like Dan Dillon and, and for better or worse, people like Mike Merles, they're going to get snapped up by somebody who wants to do something. It's, oh yeah, it's like when, when the Amazon and Google and, and Facebook layoffs were happening like a year ago and you immediately saw HR and talent acquisition departments, just like rubbing their hands
together. And like other, I was working at, I was working at a tech company at the time. And we got a lot of memos that was like, Hey, hey, we need to, we're going to start doing some, doing some head hunting on these, on these former Googlers and, and Amazon and, and Facebook meta people. So, so yeah, like I wouldn't be surprised if Dan Dillon goes back. I believe it was Cobalt press, right? That sounds right. Yeah. Either they're a piezo. I don't have it right in front
of me. But I wouldn't be surprised if he gets picked back up there. It's just, it's, I mean, it's really wild, but anyway, anyway. So, so there's that. And what I was, the point I was trying to make when I had the Q3 results up is at the end of Q3, Watsi was behind on its year to date profit comparison by like 12 million, right? So year to date 2022, it was like 434 million.
And then year to date 2023, 422 million. So there's a, there's a difference there. And I looking at that and like third quarter performance and everything, I think, I think two things. And just, just from like looking at the numbers and, you know, being a person who's been laid off and being a person who's had to lay people off. I think part of it was, okay, well there, while they're still making a crazy profit, they're not beating year over year.
Now, granted this is like, they probably will make that up with holiday sales, but then again, this doesn't factor in holiday sales from 2022 either. So it's probably still going to be ending the year at, with a deficit from year over year, even though it's still like a crazy, ridiculous adjusted operating profit. So I think that's probably part of it. I think Hasbro was like, you got to find some fat to trim because it's not like you're just.
raking in way more money than you did last year, so there was probably a little bit of give and take there, and then there was probably a little bit of, um, we got to spread the pain around a little bit too, like we can't, we can't just have you all totally protected. The thing that surprises me about this a little bit is that in talking to folks in the industry, gaming as an industry has been down this year just across the board. It's not like it's just Wizards of the Coast. It's not
like it's just Hasbro. Everybody has been hurting a little bit this year. Being down 12 mil sounds like a lot, but when you compare it to the 434 that they made last year, and it's 422 now, I mean, that's, that's not that much. Yeah, and if, I mean, if you look at the revenues too, like, um, just strictly revenue, uh, last year at this point it was like, uh, 986 million,
and then this year it's like almost 1.1 billion, uh, on, on the revenue. Right. Um, so like, there's, that means there's probably like a lot of extra cost in there as well, like probably from development costs or something like that. It just like marketing, like marketing costs, probably
Baldur's Gate 3 marketing costs are part of that. That could be. Yeah. As much as I want to celebrate, um, the fact that smaller publishers are going to be able to scoop up some of this amazing talent that Wizards of the Coast has just set aside, kind of haphazardly, I can't help but feel like this is a really bonehead, knee-jerk, it's as if they're expecting projection-wise that, like, oh, we're just going to keep losing money if we keep this headcount, and it's like,
I don't know that that's true. Like, you had one down year. I mean, and it's not, like, it's not true. That's the thing. It's all about, it's all about just, like, quarter-to-quarter management of what the number looks like, you know? If they had made $435 million year-to-date, 2023, like, we probably would have seen far less laid off at WOTC than we did. And, like,
we don't even have a total number of the people that were laid off there. It could be as few as, you know, a couple dozen or something like that, which in the scheme of 1,100 isn't a whole lot, but that doesn't mean anything to the person who lost their job. So I totally get that. No. No. And I, and again, like, I, my heart goes out to the folks who got laid off right
before the holiday season. That, that's brutal. That sucks. I really hope that, and I know this isn't frequently the case, but I really hope that there was some kind of severance package, just something to cushion the blow a little bit. Oh, I'm sure there was, with Hasbro. But I just, this whole thing to me screams knee-jerk reaction to red line go down.
I don't think, yeah, I don't think, I don't think it's a knee-jerk reaction to red line go down. I think it's a calculated reaction to red line go down. But it's like red line go down over a quarter, right? Like, admittedly, it's their year-to-date, but this is the first quarter they're reporting losses, if I recall correctly.
But like, if you look at the top one, if you look at the quarterly comparisons on there, the adjusted operating profit for Wizards of the Coast and digital gaming doubled from Q3 of 2022. In 2022, it was 102 million. And in 2023, it was like 203 million. This is my thing. This doesn't make sense. Yeah. To me, as a non-red line watching person. Like the revenues, the quarter comparative revenues were like 303 million versus 423 million.
It's really interesting. And the super interesting thing is just looking at how bad off their entertainment division is. It's like, it's struggling so much, which makes me wonder, like, why did you launch that like free ad-supported television channel that has like four shows on it that nobody asked for? Like, I know it's like they just launched that like a month ago. And I know that it's ad-supported, but like things cost money.
Like they had to put together some really simple sets. They have to pay for Matthew Lillard to run his show. They have to pay for that cooking show. But they should have. And I think you mentioned this in the notes. They should have just done YouTube channels and sponsored them. Yeah. Now, like you could maybe make an argument that like with everything going on with YouTube ad blocking, like maybe like a large corporation might be hesitant to do ad monetization on there.
But like, I have to imagine that the percentage of people on YouTube who use ad blockers is minimal compared to just sort of the broad audience that's on there. We're also talking about hosting costs as part of your setup and the servers that operate all of that sort of support and tech. That's expensive. I know for a fact that's expensive. I work with that gear every day.
Yeah. And like, I have to like, I am just, I don't know this, but it just makes sense to me that that is in the wheelhouse of their entertainment division rather than Watsi and digital gaming. Right. But the entertainment division, like in Q3 2022, lost like 29 million. And then in Q3 2023, lost 468 million in just operating profit. Now that they were able to, like in the adjusted operating profit, they were able to claw it back a little bit. And they, and it was like 6 million versus 8 million
in terms of profit rather than, rather than loss. But there's gotta be like a lot of depreciation and capital costs and stuff in there to get you to that number. It's like, yeah, yeah. But, but for, for like year over year though, for like year to date, 2023 entertainment has lost about $15 million. And they were, and you know, that's, that's after the adjustment. Right.
And then year to date last year, they had about a $50 million profit in entertainment. So the last year in Hasbro's entertainment division has not been bright. No. Yeah. So it's just, it's just really interesting. Cause I, again, like I feel like, I feel like the, the minimal loss that well, not, and not even a loss, the, the, the minimal year over year loss that they were looking at for year to date coupled with having to spread
the pain around is why we were seeing the, the, those layoffs there. But it's still kind of shocking when like, oh, when like a Dylan gets laid off like that and like for better or worse, it's also kind of shocking to see Mike Murrells laid off because it looked like they had sort of been willing to just manage him into a less prominent position and keep him around despite all the, like all the allegations and controversy and everything. Yeah. I just. It's interesting.
I don't know. It's such an odd position to take, but it is my sincere hope that all of those folks make it out of this moving into smaller publishers where, I don't know, maybe the, the schedule is probably going to be a little bit more hectic, but the work they do is a little bit more fun for them. It's a little bit less of the, I'm just one cog inside this 10,000 pound machine. Yeah. I mean, Dan Dillon wasn't a cog in the machine.
I mean, I'm more, I mean, for the like lower tier talent that got laid off. Like, cause I'm not worried about Dan Dillon. I don't, I don't think Dan Dillon was struggling financially before getting laid off and is now like out on the streets, begging for begging for spare change like that. I'll create a character for you for a quarter. I suspect his salary was high enough that he's good for a bit. Yeah. And he will also be in high demand. Well, and I'm, I'm, I'm sure he's going to be fine. Yeah.
And if I recall, he's located in the Northwest anyway. So like it, it's not going to be hard to find somebody else that wants to hire him. I am more concerned out of, out of the 1,100 people that apparently got laid off. I mean, we've only enlisted like what, 13, 14 names, something like that. So that's, that's nothing that is the tiniest drop in that bucket. And that's, I don't know, as a ton of folks.
And I just hope those folks are able to find something in the industry to keep doing what they enjoy doing. Yeah. I would encourage everybody as I always do to read Chris Croc's, the Hasbro CEO's like full email on the layoffs. Because it's, you know, if you've ever been in that position before, like getting laid off, you know how these things are. If you've ever been the person who is left behind after other people are laid off, you know how these things are.
I always encourage people to read these things just to sort of like get a vibe for it. So check it out. But did you go ahead? Did you call him Chris Crocs? Yeah. Chris Croc. His name is Chris Cox. Oh, sorry. He might wear Chris Crocs. Yeah, yeah. And listen to Go To Cross. So I was looking, I was looking, I was looking at Chris while I was saying it. And I just saw the R in there. And that's where that was coming from. So anyways.
I don't feel too bad for mispronouncing his name since he got to keep his job. There is a bit of that. Yeah, there is. Yeah, that will salve the insult that he feels. Penny Arcade released a comic recently where they have a meme version of Chris Cox show up at their door. And he's like, yeah, now that I've laid everybody else off, it's Wizard of the Coast. I'm thinking, what does one wizard need with a whole coast? What do you think about Wizard of this hole I just found?
Apprentice of the private beach. Yeah. And, you know, like one of the people who was laid off was like one of the art, like one of the D&D art managers. And they they were like, well, it wasn't they tell me it didn't have anything to do with performance. My position was eliminated. I'm just gutted. Can't even utter a snarky quip or a lighthearted anecdote. It's just miserable.
And, you know, that leads me into the next thing I was going to talk about is like there apparently has been another kerfuffle going on about AI art in Dungeons and Dragons books. I don't I've seen the post that you're talking about. I don't buy it. I don't like until I start seeing something come out of it. That seems now, admittedly, admittedly, they have caught their artists before trying to use AI art, but they told that artist to stop it and that they wouldn't use any of that work.
It seems unlikely to me that they would 180 on that stance in less than a year. Yeah. And that was glory of the Giants releasing. I know. And I think I think it was all like, from what I understand, from what I've been able to piece together on this, it was all just a lot of confusion because I noticed that like yesterday, I think, when I saw that like the D&D Facebook page reposted their AI policy and just there was no context for why they were posting it.
They were just like, hey, like, I think they literally said, like, hey, just putting this back out there, just, you know, reaffirming our commitment to this. No AI, no AI, no AI. And apparently, and I'm getting sort of into the realm of gossip here, but apparently what it was is like tied up with all these layoffs.
Some folks saw a job posting for an artist on the Watsi site, and it said stuff like they were seeing language in there like refine and modify illustrative artwork for print and digital media through retouching, color correction, adjusting ink density, resizing, cropping, generating clipping paths and hand brushing spot plate marks. Use your digital retouching wizardry to extend cropped characters and adjust visual elements due to legal and art direction requirements.
And I'm pretty sure extend cropped characters is what was throwing a lot of people off on there because people were reading that and thinking that it was like a GPT slash mid journey slash insert your AI here like art job. But no, that's just like, that's all stuff that you do that you've done that people have done in graphic design jobs since the 50s.
Well, so that there was a huge, huge supposition that was made, which was, well, didn't they just lay off a literally ludicrous number of artists? So if they don't have any artists still in the studio, who's like, what art are these people going to be editing? Contract art. First of all, first of all, D&D has always, as has Magic the Gathering, always run on contract art almost to the team. Like their in-house artists don't draw that much stuff for their work. It is mostly contract artists.
And then the artists they hire are retouchers. Yeah, it's so much cheaper to use contracted work for that kind of stuff. But on top of that, they have a library of art that they own that they use for a wide variety of things.
The odds of them, again, the odds of them being like, we're going to do a complete 180 on saying, not only are we going to stop shipping these books because they might have AI art in them, but we're going to get mad at this guy who put it there and tell him that he can't do that anymore.
and tell our other artists that they need to not do that to do a 180 on that from glory of the giants releasing to now I know their legal team would be like why are you setting fire to the building yeah there's no like if any artist gets caught doing this for them again like that person will probably never work in in that part of the industry ever again because like you could I was willing like you know whenever you're at sort of these singularity points with technology and
society like it's very easy to give people sort of the benefit of the doubt and give them a pass like the first guy who used some AI art for inspiration or uh or you know stuff like that it's like well okay they didn't have a policy in place and everybody's judgment is a little different on these kind of things so like right clearly artists are the ones you would expect to get the most pushback from for stuff like that but this guy is an artist and he's doing it so
it's really hard to like it's really hard for me personally to vilify him for like trying it out if he's sort of experimenting with the technology because I've always been sort of an early adopter for things but but again they had no policy then so like there was nothing stopping him from doing it the guy that everybody was getting mad at for putting AI art in glory of the giants I saw what he used the AI for he wasn't having something like dolly it like create an image out of nothing
and then he sells that as his art what he was doing was drawing 90 of a piece and then having the AI generate details for it and if watsi wants to be like hey you know what that's still over the line if the public opinion still wants to be like hey you know what that's over the line that's fine but I feel like it's important to contextualize that because this is more of a gray area than anyone I recall being part of the conversation was highlighted because
everybody wanted to be like down with AI art stop stealing other artists work to create your work and then sell it that's completely unethical I don't I you can use template brushes to make art and sell that is this so different from that I don't know that it is I think it is but I don't want to get into that discussion today we can we can have that conversation another time but that's just a like an at a glance where I'm at with that specific situation
and there's nothing to indicate that watsi is hiring people to retouch AI art that's literally people looking at a job posting and then being like how dare they and it's like what yeah it sounds like a lot of people were just like jumping without looking and I mean they're mad about the layoffs and they want something to justify all of that anger above and beyond how sad people getting laid off is oh yeah and I'll tell you something too is when I was
doing a little bit of research to find like a list of names and try to get a little more detail on stuff like I stumbled on several like forums threads about the layoffs and some of like they were people were posting furiously today as I was refreshing and stuff like I checked it this morning before I started work and then I refreshed it like at the end of the day and there were like multiple more pages on the forum and everything but it's it's everybody just sort of railing
against the fact that like this shouldn't have to happen etc etc etc and like and like you know like capitalist society you know that's it is what it is like in in business these things happen and everybody was just sort of mad that in business these things happen and so I think it was just sort of an uh an unfocused rage and and this AI such this situation uh this misunderstanding was a convenient target for that rage that wasn't going to really engender anybody
pushing back and being like now let's look at the other side of this uh and but that's because there was no other side of it because it was a completely fabricated controversy to begin well fabricated it's a bad word because that makes it sound like they were lying it was a complete the the controversy the the manufactured controversy was the result of a complete misunderstanding on the part of the angry people yeah yeah I think that's I think that's fair
I understand how those sorts of things occur that doesn't make them not annoying right right stop it I get it and also also like any discussion about layoffs I come to with a particular uh percentage of cynicism having been through it before and it's just kind of like old hat yeah I mean I'm working in the newspaper industry I've been fired a couple of times I've only been laid off once and the one time I was laid off it was right after the company merged
with another company I had an electrical contractor once years ago who would always tell me that he was fired more times than davy crockett's rifle which is a lovely turn of phrase that I hope never to be able to use I hope that he has not been fired that many times from the job you had hired him to do it's a long story that I don't want to get into suffice it to say he was cheap and I was poor so oh no yeah this was like
gosh like 15 16 17 years ago so yeah it's it's been a while I will not I will not name the man because my contact list keeps getting ported over from phone to phone he's actually still I actually still have his number on my phone oh my god but don't call that number I will never call that number again oh my lord unless it's to complain about him um but we can get to the we can get to the main the main event here are we ready yeah we can make disco dragon really
really excited uh by talking about uh tales of the valiant slash black flag slash the orc license okay all right complete disclosure I don't have a lot to say about the orc license in of itself every time I've looked at it it seems fine I haven't seen anything particularly troubling but that's that's if I recall correctly a paizo product where black flag is supposed to be working off the orc license right and creating something completely independent from watsi something that
doesn't rely on them at all because those darn wizards and their darn coasts are not to be trusted anymore not after the ogl shenanigans at the beginning of the year the ogl shenanigans of 12 months ago yeah yeah except except because wizards of the coast went creative commons with 5e kobold press with black flag is like I mean we don't have to give up 5e we could in fact just take the entire 5e srd and copy paste and then change a few things yeah josh and I were
getting ready to record this and we were just chatting and touching baseline on some of this stuff and he says uh oh you know have you like how much have you been able to read of the the black flag uh document and I was like well you know I've I've read through it and he says oh so you've done a really detailed read of it and everything I said well no I haven't done a detailed read I've you know I've read through it and then I stopped and I was like oh well you know I guess you could say
that I have done a detailed read of it because many times I have read the 5e player's handbook so I know I know exactly what is in this document um I am so mad about this yeah I like on the first page attribution this work includes material taken from the system reference document 5.1 uh srd 5.1 by wizards of the coast llc uh it should read this work is mostly material taken from the system reference document the spell list is the same the class list is the same
the condition list is the same the how you take a turn is the same like it's it's just 5e with a couple of extra things the only thing I can give them credit for and this frankly is a very low bar is that instead of just using the 5e srd monster annual they added some kobold press monsters to that yeah yeah I you know there's there's there's several different ways to look at this um you know the first is the first is you know 5e gets put into creative commons um it's probably to your
benefit to publish a version of that you know if you're a gaming company somebody in fact approached us about publishing a version of the 5e srd and I was like I really like I personally was like I don't feel like that's the best use of my time uh because I would have to take the document and reformat it and do all kinds of stuff and at the end of the day we would be left with the 5e srd with a goblins and growlers logo on the front of it and I just you can already get it for
free uh you can print it out of the library for like three to five cents a page depending on where you're at yeah exactly exactly and I I think to really talk about this I have to go back to what I was saying in like march and april um after after watsi did their big about face and uh and you know let's you know let's call it what it is like they didn't magnanimously put 5e into the creative commons they did it because they were kind of like shoved into a corner because
rightfully companies like kobold press and paizo were standing up and saying like okay like yeah we're gonna cover this like we're gonna we're gonna take care of this so like they didn't have a choice right um and and I thought it was kind of a game of chicken at the time uh and then uh you know watsi lost that game of chicken and I was very surprised that you know all these other companies these are the third-party publishers that had risen up in uh that you know four or
five week period to be like we're going to make an alternative system like just kept on it like I fully expected some of them to like most of them to be like well you know now that they've committed uh the 5e srd irrevocably into creative commons like this is the outcome we wanted this keeps 5e in a place where people can access it forever uh even if you don't want to move on to like the next iteration of dnd that they're going to be releasing in 2024 um but they just kept
going and it just I think I said I think I said it at the time I'd have to go back and listen to like everything that we've done this year and I don't even think I said it like on a recording but it's just like it just seems like a big waste of time to have to have a big you know no pun intended like flagship product like this that brings very little in the way of originality to the hobby like okay let's let's give it the benefit of the doubt and say this is very different
from uh 5e right let's just let's say for the sake of argument uh which is I I want to be very clear what I'm saying now is a lie uh let's say for the sake of argument that the mechanics and everything at the setting in in this book was like the the kind of setting it portrays just like generic fantasy was totally different from anything that was in 5e right like it's just it's still the same kind of game right it's not giving me anything new like it's still setting you up to play just
sort of a generic fantasy game even if all the mechanics were different like if you're going to do something like this you really need to bring something original to it and having and and renaming inspiration as luck and creating a few more rules around it ain't that um you know using elements of your pre-existing bestiary in in this that that ain't that like you need to bring something different to me for it and like I really would love for somebody to explain to me how this
is not just sort of like they backed themselves into a corner saying they were going to do this and then watsi did what nobody expected they were going to do and put 5e into creative commons and they're like well I guess we got to do this like I guess we I guess we got to go ahead and put this thing out because they because they were already because they were already planning that uh that kickstarter is what it was right like this is why I'm so frustrated is and here's here's the thing
is we've just been talking about black flag to this point right so the srd for cobalt presses systems their kickstarter is for tales of the valiant and I I pulled up their web page to just like reading through their web page a little while ago just really steamed me up because oh really you didn't tell me about this earlier we are writing tales of valiant now this is directly off the page tales of the valiant.com you might have seen some of our place test documents it's a
work in progress when it's done it will be based on the new black flag role-playing rules if you're just joining us the black flag role-playing rules will be a complete distilled system document permanently available to everyone well yeah it's 5e srd which is creative comments yeah if you scroll down a little bit it's what happened to project black flag well amid the noise and explosions in the ttrpg business in january 2023 kobold press decided to make a completely free
open 5e compatible rpg that gamers could use and under which they could publish forever we called this audacious new thing project black flag yeah and then they couldn't copyright or trademark black flag so that's why they had to call it something else and that right exactly and they come back and they're like well what we're doing now we've copyrighted tales the valiant you can buy those books for and it's like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa
hold on yeah you haven't built anything on top of 5e's srd to justify having a different gaming system yeah so excuse me yeah well i mean like this is also from their website it's uh it's like we had already create committed to creating our own game when the fifth edition system reference document 5.1 was released in the creative commons so they had already planned the kickstarter uh after that it was clear that we could build on the foundation that so many people already
know and love and and then it goes on like while its roots are familiar the tales of the valiant rpg brings new realms of adventure to the table explore the new mechanist class uh like the kobold and beast skin character lineages and hundreds of other new options in the form of talent spells and monsters like i'm sure there is new stuff in the in the paid versions of this right in the 65 each books because that's what their kickstarter is offering for pre-order
is a a player's guide and monster vault two hardcover gifts set with slip case for 130 yeah exactly exactly are you effing kidding me and let's not kid ourselves when they talk about something like oh the new mechanist class like you put a coat of paint on the artificer like call it whatever like even even if like there are some mechanical differences there i mean that's what it is it's it's just it's an artificer and like i feel i feel really like
first i want to just like lampshade really quickly like i feel really weird like ragging on this so much because it almost feels like i'm sort of implicitly defending watsi and that's not the case watsi is like a force of nature and it doesn't need it doesn't need anybody to defend it right like it just it it is it like i like watsi is like i am the one who is called i am it is forever um dungeons and dragons is a household name yeah you can walk into just about any
household and say the words dungeons and dragons yeah and even if all they say is oh that thing from stranger things oh that thing from big bang theory that counts yeah it still counts you know what nowadays would be a very appropriate name for dungeons and dragons 5e the generic universal role-playing system because that's i mean that's basically that's basically what it is it's the template that all this other stuff is being based on you know a little bit yeah cobalt press i love
you you produce very very good content they do this was on this was unnecessary i realized that the train was already out of the station when they put it in creative commons but it's just not like i feel like the only reason to buy tales of the valiant is because you're somebody who just doesn't like watsi on principle you want to have uh dnd 5e books that don't say dnd on the cover right yeah that's right that's a little bit how i feel about this as well and that's part of why
i'm so irritable about it is that they took advantage of the literal firestorm that dnd had built up at the beginning of the year trying to revoke the ogl and they were like you know what like we're gonna like yo ho my pirate kin like we're gonna rise up and we're gonna build something not so different from when paizo released pathfinder 1e we're going to take some of the principles of their gaming system and we're going to build something different we're going to build
something new it's going to be ours and we're going to share it with the world and it's going to be beautiful and it's going to be great and then watsi's like ah what if we create a comments 5e and kobold press is like well i guess we don't have to do our thing now excuse me excuse me yeah like you can't drum up all this support and be like we'll charge into the furious fray and uh you know paizo leading the way with their orc license that we'll be a part of and etc etc
and then be like well it's it's basically 5e like it's not quite but it's basically 5e yeah for all intents and purposes this is what it is um you know i've said i've said this a lot in the past it's like i really appreciate when people take big swings on creative projects yeah whether they're good or whether they're bad whether they're successful or whether they're complete failures i always appreciate somebody who was willing to step up and be like this is
the thing we're doing and we're doing it with the full heart and our complete and total commitment and that is not what kobold press did here uh they said where they made a lot of noise like that's what they were going to do and then they said we are going to take their thing and call it our thing and then get you to pay money for our set of books which if you boil everything else away like strip away all the duplicate mechanics duplicate spells
um things like that you're basically ending up with a supplement book for for your 5e stuff right which kobold press was already producing yeah they were already producing some books this is just a bigger supplement book and like believe me i know how much like the man i sound when i say this but it's like you're not gonna dethrone watsi it's not gonna happen like i would this certainly no like i would have i would have been so much more receptive to this if you had created
something truly original and put out there and and like we all know why they didn't they didn't because they're trying to hang on to the same market that they've been going for for the last forever which is you know 5e players because it is essentially the generic universal role-playing system these days um who who want to get you know extra stuff you know um they're not trying to break new ground they're not looking for a blue ocean of customers or anything like that
they just want to be able to sell the same thing to customers and i've been avoiding saying this but it just i if i had to completely distill my feelings for project black flag now where it stands now in in late december of 2023 it's cynicism yeah well here's the thing here's the thing we have an example of a company that said we don't like what wizards of the coast is doing and we're going to take what they built we're going to build something better and then at the
point that the ogl is falling apart we're going to rip them out entirely we're going to do our own thing and that's paizo and admittedly paizo has a bit of a head start on kobold press with this because paizo did pathfinder 1e what like that was when fourth edition came out so it was like 2014 i think no no no fifth edition came out in 2014 so it would have oh my god yeah like i want to say some somewhere between 05 and 09 i never played 4e so i i don't know i went straight
from second edition to fifth edition so i never played three or three five and um you know like paizo was absolutely brilliant though in in the way they just sort of suckered wizards of the coast back in the day 2007 okay when 4e came out so you were you were right in the net in the ballpark okay what kobold is doing is essentially what paizo did but it's not an analogous thing right it's not an analogous thing because what paizo did was like
oh hey um we're gonna keep doing this this way like the the three 3.5e way uh because we know a lot of you don't like 4e and then they also had had run that fantastic scam on watsi of getting the license to publish dungeon and dragon magazines and then and then when watsi realized what was going on they revoked the they didn't renew the license but paizo still had that massive email list that they could use to announce pathfinder to people and convert their subscriptions into
like adventure paths and things like that that was a massive literally that is the definition of master stroke you can keep paying us the same money you have been paying us and keep receiving content from our writers which you've shown you like all you have to do is check this box and hit i accept yeah like oh beautiful master class and strategy don't get me wrong i'm not saying that i think kobold press should have tried to pull exactly what paizo has pulled
because again paizo did this 17 years ago basically um 17 years ago paizo's playing this game and winning at it yeah and watsi can't keep up to save their own skin i'm not saying that kobold press should have done that what i am saying is that instead of going well you know what like screw their stuff we're gonna make our own system and it's and it's gonna have blackjack and hookers um maybe maybe instead kobold press should have gone to paizo and been like hey you
know what we've been doing third-party stuff for a watsi this whole time here they are trying to screw us what if we did third-party stuff for pathfinder instead and we just like linked our brands up like what can you do for us what kind of writing support can you give us etc etc give us some licensing etc etc like they could have spun in a whole different direction and pathfinder could be significantly larger than it already is i don't know something something more than what we're
getting right now which is yeah we were really mad at them in january which is why we decided to take their entire book and put it into our book and then changed like four things so the homework doesn't look the same like yeah what what and i mean that's the thing too like that's the thing too is like they're not even i i guess this is i guess they're at least being intellectually honest about it in that like there's there's absolutely no subterfuge or no pretending that it's not what
it is i guess sure yeah but like you know paizo back then had the um uno reverse card and they played it and kobold was trying to use the same tactics it's it's like using it's like using cavalry in the civil war versus using horse cavalry in world war ii right like it's the same strategy but the but the battlefield has changed so much and it's just not going to work as the oceans are now battlefields yeah as poland found out much to their detriment
so i don't know if that was like the fulsome discussion that we were expecting there but like and i know this sort of precludes any any possible future of of kobold press giving us stuff to review or anything like that but i feel like i feel like i feel like this i feel like if they had it would have been better if they had said you know what we're gonna now that if they had converted their plan and said that okay well now watsi has put the 5esrd into creative
commons like we were planning to do this whole thing but instead let's do this thing and they just created an entirely new setting like paizo did for pathfinder with galarian and they just really leaned into making a unique setting like sort of a like a standard deviation of uniqueness that like eberron was to forgotten realms you know something something that's just different and feels different and have it compatible with the now creative commons 5e because i would tell
people to buy that so there is a little bit of on their kickstarter um they're changing the they're changing the create character creation to be a lineage and heritage system uh talents different talents and backgrounds yeah but you know who else you know who else is doing like lineage and heritage in the next iteration of their product uh yes yes i i don't know like i i i am very very much hoping that i am just reading much too shallow into what i'm being
presented by kobold press because their marketing team just isn't doing a good enough job representing what they're going to be giving us that's my that is my sincere hope because i love kobold press's work i love their stuff they make some amazing creatures especially and you know you know your boy has a soft spot for some fantastic creatures i i want to believe that this will be greater than it sounds like it is but when you present to me your black flag srd and you're like this is going
to be something that they can never get rid of like because it's built on the creative commons license that you can never get rid of what come on yeah yeah i'm gonna check out tales of the valiant in part because that's the whole point of this show right is for us to be looking at what is current in ttrpg stuff and let people know like hey here's what's new about it here's what's different about it here's what's cool about it did it meet with our expectations did it exceed
our expectations i'm going to check it out i'm going to look at it but as it stands right now i am very annoyed i'm very annoyed because i was promised something very different from what i'm seeing tales of the valiant more like tales of the variant I've been sitting on that one for a little while.
Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's really hard for me to say to somebody, especially in this era of, like, just the books costing more and inflation being what it is, be like, yeah, go buy this other thing that's basically the same as the other thing that you can get for free. Right. I mean, all right. So Black Flag SRD is also free, right? So that's, you know, but like, I don't know, at that point, just download both and then take whichever mechanic set you like better.
It's just it's literally just variant rules. It's six to one half dozen of the other. Yeah. I mean, really? Really? But like, if you've already gotten the full suite of five ebooks, and like, let's say you're like, hey, you know what, like, you know, one D&D, like, when that rolls out, I'm just going to kind of stick with what I got, even though they say it'll all be backwards compatible. Like, that's great.
Like you said, like, you're going to stick with playing 5e, like, like probably so many other people on this planet, what like, what possible incentive would you have to buy Tales of the Valiant if it's essentially the same system with just a couple of minor tweaks? Right. And that's, that's where I'm like, you need to show me something more than what you have shown me to justify the fact that you're publishing books based on this system that you keep calling your own and inspired by 5e.
But I've looked at the bones. It's just 5e. Yeah, I have I have more variant rules in my home games than you do in this book of rules that you have published for free. Yeah. I mean, it's just because like, I want to be like, what's your differentiator? Like they had a clear differentiator when they started this, and then that was taken from them.
And it's like, they never were like, Oh, we might need to change up sort of the thrust of how we're marketing this, because they, they have not explained to me why I need to buy this. I had from the beginning, assumed, and apparently made an ass of you and me, that when they said, we're getting away from WOTC, because we're tired of this nonsense, that what they meant was, we're building something that is unique from their stuff.
But with enough of that flavor, that you coming from the one to the other, it's going to be an easy transition, much like Pathfinder 1e was from 3.5. Right. Pathfinder 2e, Paizo was like, yeah, we're just gonna rip out the rest of the D&D stuff, because we don't need it anymore. We've got all our own things. The couple of things we'd held on to, Pathfinder carved out, Pathfinder carved out its own niche.
Yeah. And that's what I thought Kobold Press was doing with these big, bold statements they were making in January. Yeah, like, I can look at it from like a couple of different business perspectives, right?
Because like, from one, from one perspective, it's like, no, of course, it makes sense to keep it as close to 5e as possible, because that's how you get the largest, like you have the largest opportunity to get people to buy your stuff, which makes sense if most of your business model is focused on creating supplementary third party content rather than a competing system, right? So that's thing one, like, that's, that's how it makes sense to do it.
But you know, at the same time, like, you got to, like I was saying earlier, like, you've got to give me that reason to buy it. And it being and spite is not enough of a reason for me to spend like $120 130. Okay. Yeah, it's just not it's just not enough. So I don't know. What do you all think? Like, you know, tell us what you think about the whole thing. Like, it's entirely possible that the both of us are just bitter and off base about this and everything.
So I would love it if you could hop on to the discord at bit.ly slash goblin discord, and tell us whether we're right or wrong. There's, you know, and while you're doing Oh, go ahead. It wouldn't be the first time that you and I were both old man shakes fist at cloud about something. Yeah, I just maybe maybe I'm too pragmatic about it. But just like, I just don't see a reason. I just don't see a reason.
Neither do I. And but if you do agree with us, and you want to, you want to have us essentially be your proxy proselytizing to your friends, then you should definitely telephone, telegraph, tell a friend about the goblins of college podcast. Because word of mouth is the best way to grow the audience on the podcast. And as I always say, the best ludicrous album that was ever released. Also feel free on your podcatcher of choice to leave us a five star review.
If you don't want to leave us a five star review, I would prefer that you criticize in private and praise in public. So if you want to leave less than five stars, let us know what we're doing wrong and give us a chance to make it right by you. Just reach out to us and let us know. Also, like we said at the top, quit for a role our sister podcast. Give it a listen. If you if you like that actual play flow. It's a fun time.
We've been doing it for five years, and we're most likely going to keep on doing it. Josh, what am I missing from the usual list of stuff? The one thing you're missing is talking about our monthly newsletter that Brandon creates, which is, it's part of an email list, you sign up, you get one email a month that's got a little bit of TTRPG news in it, a little bit of indie content in it, and a little bit of an update on goblins and growlers stuff in it.
And you can find the link for that at linktree. Let's link tr.ee slash goblins and growlers. And among all of our socials, our big cartel store, all of that kind of stuff. Yeah. And it'll be in the show notes on this, whether you're listening to this on audio or you're watching it on the YouTube channel. Also, tell a friend about the YouTube channel. We're sort of kind of trying to start growing the YouTube channel and sort of a semi serious way.
So, you know, subscribe to it if you haven't already. I promise that at some point we'll have a solid content strategy for it. But for right now, we just want to start landing some people there so we can justify using it to ourselves a little bit more. Come listen to our voices and look at our faces. Josh, did we wish anybody a pleasant holiday since this is coming out on Christmas Day? We did not. It's being released on December 25th. So Merry Christmas to those who celebrate.
We're a little late for Happy Hanukkah for those who celebrate. And we'll throw a Happy Kwanzaa and a Happy Holidays in there as well for those who celebrate things other than the three listed. Just happy. Have a happy holiday season. Hopefully you got to spend some time with loved ones. I know a lot of people say family, but sometimes family aren't loved ones. So we understand that. Have a good time with whoever you have a good time with. Absolutely.
And so we will see you all, I believe, on the 8th of January is when we will be back. And I am. It's so soon. I know. I know. It's very soon. So we'll see you on the 8th of January. I think we've got some ideas what we want to talk about. We have some sort of thoughts about where we want to take the podcast in the year to come. And we'll draw at you on that.
And you know, like, let us let us know what you feel like to about the idea of us trying to do some live stream episodes and some other things like that. The thing that I just realized, given that you said the next episode is going to be on the 8th of January, is that we didn't talk about the cons we're going to be at. Part of our crew will be at Ichiban Con in Concord, North Carolina. That is January the oh Lord. It's the 12th through the 15th or something. Yeah, the 12th through the 14th.
And then a different subset of our crew, Alon, I believe, being the only overlapping member Alon goes to MagFest. Yeah. Alon at Con will be at MagFest January 18th to the 21st. Yeah. Alon has a lot of he has a lot of PTO and he wants to start using it early. So if you're going to be in either of those locations, if you were already planning on going to those cons, great. If you're going to be in those locations, you weren't planning on going to those cons. I think you can still get tickets.
Come see us. Come see us at panels. Say hi. Get a high five. Maybe a hug from those of us that are comfortable with such a thing. Buy a T-shirt. It'd be great to see y'all out there. Yeah. Oh, quick, quick tack on about Ichiban Con. This year Ichiban made the decision because the cons grown so much to span it over two weekends. So we are going to be there on the second weekend. So plan appropriately for that situation.
It's annoying that we're there like the weekend after Bit Brigade because I love me some Bit Brigade. That's because they're great. But the Ichiban crew will include the Horse Girls podcast crew, which should be fun. Should be fun. All right. I got to go recover because I'm still sick. So let's let's call it there. Go get go get some rest and y'all enjoy the rest of your holiday season and we'll see you in January. All right. Everybody have a good one. Bye. Bye y'all.
If you like what you hear, consider subscribing and giving us a review over on Apple podcasts, especially early in the feed subscriptions and reviews are super helpful for bringing new listeners our way. Thank you. What's up, listeners? I'm Noah Downs, the host of Forgotten Paths, a D&D actual play show here on the Maycontain Action Network. Forgotten Paths is your go to source for immersive stories in the form of Dungeons and Dragons adventures.
We've just completed our first thrilling campaign. So you can enjoy a complete story with 61 hour episodes available. It's an amnesia campaign where our heroes start with blank character sheets and have to figure out who they are and what brought them together. As we're gearing up for campaign two, we're keeping you entertained with exciting miniseries releases with amazing guests. So stay tuned for even more adventures to come.
While you're exploring, don't miss out on the other fantastic shows within the Maycontain Action Network, such as Maycontain Action, Goblins and Growlers, Unvaulted and Quid Pro Role. You can find them all linked in the show notes.