Dungeons & Dragons Publisher Denies Selling Game To Chinese Firm: Here’s What To Know [was: Hasbro Seeks to Sell IP “DND” and Has Had Preliminary Contact with Tencent]

Everything people are scared Tencent might do to D&D has already been done by Hasbro: the MMORPG conversion (4th edition), canning all the staff (happens every few years, and to Magic too), adding DLC (just take a look at the current official app), walling off the garden (three tries on that one: once with 4th, once recently with the OGL stuff, and once with the limitations on animations in map applications), even the movie.

D&D the rules system has been a corpse for years, that the designers managed to make 5th into a passable game is a miracle. Play Pathfinder, Blades in the Dark, Call of Cthulhu, Savage Worlds, Fate, Vampire, GURPS, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Dread, Worlds Without Number, Mothership, Numenera, Mork Borg, Everyone is John, any of the dozen variations on those games, or one of the hundreds of other options not yet listed. They pretty much all run as well if not better than D&D.

Headline was so confusing because I never see it stylized like that. It's always D&D or DnD, never DND - that's 'Do Not Disturb'.

I just wish that Larian Studios would buy it. They could save their licensing fees for BG3 and could keep DnD community driven. Would also make it much easier for them to introduce new game mechanics into future games and pull those changes back into DnD.

Edit: I just read that tencent owns 30% shares of Larian which is kind of a bummer. Still would be much better with Larian directly, because tencent doesnt have a majority say then.

Everything about that is absolute cancer.

Everyone's favorite TTRPG going world stage corporate. Fucking yay....

Definitely gonna get enshittified

We should petition the government to invalidate the copyright on D&D and send it to the public domain.

yo fuck hasbro this is why critical role branched out

Fucking tencent?

Well they can’t handle it any worse

Hot take: the government should take D&D and give its rights to a non-profit to be managed for the benefit of the community and its employees.

Well, it seems the news was fake, originating from a Chinese news site. Both Wizard of the Coast and Larian (cited as the intermediary between Hasbro and Tencent) denied any interest in selling the brand.

Here's the article

Just asking, is there some sort of "Open Source DND"?

If tencent buys DnD I am quitting, full stop.

I struggle to think of a buyer that would be worse for the players than Tencent.

On the bright side, Hasbro's last big D&D blunder prodded the community into developing alternative gaming systems and licenses, so I think we'll be in good shape to carry on without the brand if this happens.

Happy 50th Anniversary, D&D!

China buying up everything

Roll for a wisdom save.

Damn, imagine if Larian took over... Also I didn't know they're Tencent's lol

Is that how this kind of thing usually works?

Fire all of the talent that made the brand great and THEN sell the brand?

Wait, I guess it makes sense. Fire everyone, sell to another company, then that company can try to rehire at a reduced salary.