Link: https://aftermath.site/magic-the-gathering-dungeons-and-dragons-duel-masters-cwa-union/

https://archive.ph/Vu8c1

Magic just seems like an interactive advert at this point for IPs to purchase “air time”

YSK: D&D books' MSRP is $50. Look at one sometime. I'm not saying buy it, I'm not saying flip through and admire the art (though it's awesome). Look at the freakin' cost.

While technically you can get playing with the Starter Set (or whatever it's called, there are a couple of them) and that's like $30 and includes dice and a character screen, the Players Handbook is the rule book. The game master, called the DM or Dungeon Master, needs that plus the Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual — $150 of rule books.

(Worth noting that Amazon sells them for WAY less. Not shilling for them, but just cutting off the potential of "just buy them at Amazon" comments. It's beside the point.)

Point is... they can afford to pay people fairly.

My brain read that a couple times as the teams from those corps are unionizing and that's magical. 😅

TBF, most OGs I know refuse to pay again (ad nauseum) for the physical library they've cherished for decades. As a result, the vast majority of D&D publications are online for free —so, having physical copies already makes it legal to make digital versions. Just sayin'.

Don't pay to play.

FWIW, the books used to have a blurb on the flyleaf that stated, (and I'm paraphrasing) that the rules therein were being offered to us all after rigorous playtesting by experts, but that they should in no way dictate or restrict your game itself.

That died w/ 3.5, IIRC.

it's wild because every now and again they'll do an incredible in-universe set like Reality Fracture and it'll sell well, after a couple of high profile UB flops like the Spiderman set and TMNT set, and yet they'll turn around and be like "welp unfortunately we have to cut out more in-universe sets for ads."

I'm just waiting for the year where no in-universe sets release at all. Considering we're already at the point where there are more ad sets than real sets, I'm betting it's within the next five years.

I had to stop playing officially because of the UB sets. It’s so irritating for some of those cards to be must played to compete. It wouldn’t bug me as much if they were just all reprints of an already existing card but there are too many unique cards in the sets and just way too many releases to even bother. Especially when it’s just for playing a billboard, yugioh at least pops out useful stuff a few times a year without all the extra IP stuff piled on (at least as badly)