Company Shenanigans

A Question of Right, Wrong, and Ethical Behaviors.

Oh Wizards of the Coast wants you.

It’s true. They’ve said so themselves.

Now, followed up, I urge everyone excited about this to exercise caution because, right on the heels of that…

This is from the website itself. I’m not saying that this is part of the Creative Commons agreement they can’t touch, but what I am saying is that, during the OGL, something like this was among the speculations made by critics, including myself. Anything you create for D&D or homebrew on D&D Beyond, WoTC does now retain the rights to any and all of your work and you have zero recourse. Also, you waive any claims to your rights. You can even take this to court…and you’ll lose. Combine this with the AI that Chris Cocks claims they’ll use to “mine 50 years of D&D Content.”

Then there is Monte Cook Games.

Monte Cook Games has just lost the support of the RPG Elite channel due largely to how out of pocket they’ve been getting lately. More here:

Really hang with what Servant of Shiloh is saying. My dude’s been pimping Cypher System and other games by MCG …until lately.

Keep in mind, MCG’s constant dive into politics and attacking people who take objection to the inclusion of the Safety Tools, X-Cards and nonsensical items they seem intent on shoehorning into their games. As much as I love Old Gods of Appalachia as a podcast, I know for a fact Steve Schell and his crew do engage in identity politics in many of the BTS interviews and conversations that have come up that people who didn’t want to get the jab should just “go live on another planet.” So it’s not surprising. I catch the podcast episodes and leave the rest. Teaming with Monte Cook Games wasn’t the surprise, it was the fact that Shanna Germaine was the lead designer. We know what she loves and where she comes from so no doubt she was going to shoehorn in all the rules for the erotica she writes so it’s “safe” for everyone. I’ve never purchased anything from Monte Cook Games and won’t until they reverse course. Like many of us with WoTC, Servant of Shiloh gave MCG plenty of time and decided to end things amicably.

There was another game Servant of Shiloh recommended called Modern Age and, at one point, Green Ronin was having a fire sale on that game. I bought three of those books on the cheap. Never got a tracking number, never got notification that it shipped, it literally just showed up on my door a couple weeks later. For Servant…well, let me let him tell you about that.

Keep in mind this was a couple years ago and there was this video. I bought the game based on the strength of his recommendation.

Mine came in and I was flipping through these books thinking they were pretty awesome and then this dropped. I didn’t feel bad about getting my books or keeping them but have they made an appearance in any of my media? No. Here’s a good reason why…

So now that you’ve seen examples of companies just going heywire. I’m going to end this entire missive on a company doing things right.

Enter Troll Lord Games. I know, big surprise, right? Why do I keep talking up Troll Lord Games?

They sent out a missive that talked about how the tariff situation would affect you and me. In short, they won’t. All of TLG’s games are printed and assembled right here in the U.S. but you already know that. That means no tariffs on anything if you’re ordering here in the U.S. They also give a 50% discount to service members in our armed forces for life.

There’s something else you should know. While it’s true that TLG doesn’t have the market share of D&D or Pathfinder, I think Castles & Crusades, Amazing Adventures, Victorious, etc are about to start eating some lunches.

In their most recent announcement (in the past few days) they’ve announced that they make their own softcovers through their own printing facility. It’s a smaller operation and they do outsource some printing to other U.S.-based printing companies and they quality test samples from every batch before shipping them out. Now that’s pretty good. They also have open transparency about how they handle waste and environmental factors…without being asked.

Here’s where we get into the meat and potatoes of this meal and, boy is it a hearty and robust feast of a meal…

Going Forward & the Exciting News:

To this end, TLG is committed to expanding our print shop operations. This week, on the 14^th of April, 2025, at about 12:30 pm, I drove up to Lowes to meet my real estate agent and give him a check, a deposit on acreage here in central Arkansas that TLG has just purchased. The plan is to greatly expand our printing ability.

That acreage will be home to our new manufacturing facility . . . “The Factory” as I’m going to call it. The plan is to build, over the next six months, a 4,000 square foot print facility and warehouse. To that end:

· We are negotiating for larger printing equipment, which should double the output we get from our current equipment.

· Bringing back hard case game master screen manufacturing.

· Expanding our warehousing capability threefold in order to order larger quantities of paper, reducing cost.

· Create a ready-made platform to help publishers get their books printed in the Factory or their products shifted to other printers who can manage it.

· Create a space to experiment with new manufacturing.

With luck and a whole lot of hard work we’ll make The Factory operational before the end of the Summer. If we can make this work, and there are many a slip between cup and lip, trust that we’ll have plenty of room to expand and maybe, just maybe, we are going to tackle this m----- f------ dice problem.

This is just one section of the entire statement released by TLG which you can read the entire thing here.

I keep talking up TLG because they’re a company that values their work and work that you put in for their game, they ship fast and provide tracking. Their games are just that, games and they’re not only willing to step up but they’re willing to lead those of us creating games, to make those games here in the U.S. They’re willing to provide creators with printers here in the U.S. for boxes, books, etc. It’s a company doing things right. Also, they have an open gaming license which you can read yourself. At present, Dueling Dragon Games produced Wilderkind for C&C and it brings the Chronicles of Aeres universe into Castles & Crusades and any 5th Edition stuff you might have, there’s a seven-page conversion guide that will breathe new life into your other supplements for D&D that will work just fine for C&C. No need to get rid of books, and you’re only switching over to a simpler system which won’t bog things down and is more friendly to homebrewing. With TLG, whatever game you buy, it’s your table, your rules, truly.

If you’re looking for a company that’s truly neutral on the alignment chart here and doing really well, then why not give TLG a try? You can even do so for free. No kidding. I’ll link to each of the free books you can download today to get started.

Thanks for reading.

C&C PHB

Monsters & Treasure

Amazing Adventures

Amazing Adventures: Manual of Monsters