University Honors

The Codex of Curses is an application of consumer research into the field of TabletopRoleplaying Games (Tabletop RPGs) to demonstrate the importance of a Brand within theindustry and how Hasbro’s recent business decisions have damaged their Brand. The result isthat Hasbro must now spend more resources on promoting and regaining the trust of theirconsumers, who have sought out competitor’s products in protest and have reducedHasbro/Wizard of the Coast’s competitiveness. From the sale of my own product (a rulessupplement for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons which provides character creation options forplayers), I noticed the main issue inhibiting sales was the lack of reputation which detersconsumers from purchasing as many consumers are risk averse when purchasing RPG products.Hasbro’s damage to their brand means that they have lost notoriety and will thus face thedifficulties and costs I faced when selling my own product.The company that owns Wizards of the Coast (who produces 5th Edition Dungeons andDragons, 5e DnD), Hasbro, has within the past 4 years been the subject of several controversiesregarding their management of Wizards of the Coast and how they treat their employees andconsumers. To put it briefly, Hasbro has: sent Pinkertons (a private security company who usesintimidation, threats of detention, arrest, fines and jail to force compliance and who is famous forusing these methods on union workers) to threaten a consumer who accidently received Magic:The Gathering content early, stated that they have forbidden the use of A.I for their productswhile utilizing A.I art several times since the statement each time denying and gaslightingconsumers before backpedaling and issuing an ineffective apology.

The event that inspired my capstone is when Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast attempted torevoke their Open Games License (OGL) for Dungeons and Dragons in order to acquireconsumer created works and to sell those works under the pretense of having created itthemselves. The OGL is what allows consumers to create content for the game they love and wasexplicitly and legally defined as unalterable and irrevocable. Hasbro faced massive consumerbacklash and after several months of claiming they did no such thing, that they could if theywanted to, and if they did then it is a good thing, relented and released the OGL into CreativeCommons which is another legal license that very similar to Public Domain but for TabletopRPGS.These actions have severely damaged Hasbro's brand image, which my project details, isthe key factor in determining how well a Tabletop RPG product sells. After detailing thecontroversies that damaged Hasbro's brand, my project shows what issues this will cause futureHasbro products to face, and finally recommends actions for Hasbro to take to recover theirbrand within the Tabletop RPG industry.