NFTs Are Coming to Ruin D&D

 NFTs Are Coming to Ruin D&D

Patrick Comer first tweeted about tabletop roleplaying games in October 2021. "Who are hands down the best DND character illustrators out there?" he inquired. He only received one response.

That same month, an unassuming Twitter account, @gripnr, was launched. Gripnr is described in its bio as "a Web3 company building 5e TTRPG on-chain."

If you're perplexed by this, you're not alone.

Gripnr is a startup being built by Revelry, a startup studio based in New Orleans. Gripnr is led by Brent McCrossen, a managing director at Revelry, and Patrick Comer, president and head of product. That product, which no one outside the company has seen yet, is a digital platform designed to allow fans of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons to roleplay using NFTs representing Player Characters (NFT-PCs), and then save the details of their gameplay adventures on the blockchain, increasing the NFT's complexity and value. This is known as a "play-to-progress" system.

If you're still perplexed? Join the group.

"This adds nothing to the gameplay experience," says James Introcaso, a game designer who has worked on official D&D products. "A blockchain is not a game mechanic or campaign setting that encourages a player to interact with the game in a specific way."

Teos Abadia, a D&D writer and podcaster, is less enthusiastic about the concept. "Gripnr suggests a horrible self-centered and self-enriching concept that is diametrically opposed to the group collaboration and sense of mutual giving that makes the RPG hobby so unique," he says.

What exactly is Gripnr, and how does it (ostensibly) work?

Gripnr, a reference to the Norse mythological gleipnir chain, is a Web3 tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) project currently in development led by Comer, four handpicked tech supporters, and one tabletop RPG writer.

The company is currently preparing its game content, which will be primarily written by Gripnr's lead game designer Stephen Radney-MacFarland, a TTRPG veteran who has written for D&D and Paizo's Pathfinder. His work will include lore and maps for a fantasy world known as "The Glimmering."

Gripnr intends to generate 10,000 random D&D player characters (PCs), assign a "rarity" to certain aspects of each (such as ancestry and class), and mint them as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, once this is completed. Each NFT will include character stats as well as a randomly generated portrait of the PC designed by Gripnr's lead artist Justin Kamerer. Weapons and equipment will be represented by additional NFTs.

Gripnr will then create a system for tracking game progress on the Polygon blockchain. Players will log into the system and embark on an adventure with the help of a Gripnr-certified Game Master. Following the conclusion of each game session, the results will be logged on-chain, putting data back onto each NFT via a new contract protocol that allows a single NFT to become a long record of the character's progression. Gripnr will distribute the cryptocurrency OPAL as in-game capital to GMs and players. Any loot, weapons, or items obtained in-game will be minted as new sellable NFTs on OpenSea, a well-known NFT marketplace.

Gripnr claims that as PCs level up in-game, their associated NFTs will become more valuable, and when they are re-sold, the owner and any creatives who contributed to the associated portrait will receive a cut of the sale price. According to Comer, this could imply that up to ten people could potentially receive money from each sale, but he cannot provide percentages that each creative might receive.

Unfortunately, writing data to a blockchain isn't as simple as scribbling hit points in pencil on an old paper character sheet. Every time a user wants to perform a function on the Polygon blockchain, such as changing the character level on an NFT-PC, they must pay a gas fee, a small fee that helps fund the computational resources needed to make the change. This means that on the Gripnr protocol, players will have to pay two gas fees per game. Gripnr claims that by using Polygon rather than another, more popular blockchain server system, such as Ethereum, it will be able to keep fees low (more on this later).

To play on the Gripnr protocol, players must not only purchase a Gripnr NFT-PC, but also buy (or earn) OPAL to pay for a game session or purchase digital goods such as items and adventures. Those purchases will aid in the operation of the technology firm.

To summarize, players will purchase a pre-generated D&D character, use it in pre-generated adventures, level it up on the blockchain, and then sell it. It appears to be easy money, doesn't it? You'll be compensated for playing your favorite game.

Unless you live in The Glimmering and not in the real world.

Why Gripnr (most likely) will not work.

Comer emphasized Gripnr's potential to distribute capital value to everyone at the table and behind the scenes in an interview with io9. According to Comer, this is one of its "core purposes." However, their plan to make Gripnr and its NFT-PCs valuable beyond a limited-edition release is riddled with flaws and is based on an as-yet unreal Gripnr community.

The main issue here is that Gripnr is essentially creating character sheets and recording the time difference between the beginning and end of a session. There is no reason to use the Gripnr protocol other than to increase the value of your investment, which means that players will not be playing Dungeons & Dragons for fun, but rather Gripnr to earn real-world money. Gripnr is developing a monetarily-incentivized gameplay system that will require both GMs and players to invest both time and crypto-capital in NFT-PCs, with the hope that any single player's NFT-PC will appreciate with gameplay and over time.

Gripnr claims that it can expand its Dungeons & Dragons-based NFT scheme using the Open-Gaming License (OGL). The Open Game License (OGL) is a set of conditions granted by D&D's publisher, Hasbro-owned Wizards of the Coast, to encourage independent game developers to create and sell their own content based on the fifth edition rules for Dungeons & Dragons. However, the OGL only allows for specific elements and mechanics of the D&D system, not the entire game, and Gripnr has stated that it will "provide better options for 5e play," which players have been "clamoring" for. Gripnr does not specify what these options are or what they intend to include to make 5e "better."

"We do not tolerate third-party misappropriation of our valuable intellectual property and will take appropriate action when necessary," a Wizards of the Coast spokesperson told io9 via email.

While there isn't much information available about what Gripnr is working on, the company does provide a loose, phase-based roadmap on their Discord server, which is also publicly available at the bottom of The Glimmering's information page:

Gripnr intends to reveal their protocol at the end of 2022, during Phase 5 of their development, but only after minting 10,000 NFTs and releasing them this spring in both an exclusive presale (Phase 2) and a public reveal (Phase 3). (Phase 3). Gripnr will not actually launch its play platform until Phase 6, which means that investors may have to wait months before seeing a return on their investment through gameplay.

This means that individual community investors will be asked to put a significant amount of money into the Gripnr treasury long before Gripnr plans to deliver on-chain gameplay. Gripnr's mission revolves around the promised protocol, and without it, all you have is a pre-generated D&D character. Or the sword of a D&D character. The initial investment is so far in advance of the promised deliverable that it's not difficult to imagine the community never seeing it at all.

Lars Doucet, a blockchain-focused game developer, told io9 that "blockchain games always want to be user-generated content games, whether they recognize it or not." However, rather than the expectation of capital gain, the user-generated value of D&D is in playing the game itself, in having an adventure with your friends. According to Doucet, this is what Gripnr is really competing against: The ability to play Dungeons & Dragons on any other platform, including at the kitchen table. And Gripnr gives players plenty of time to get bored with just owning an NFT when there are virtual tabletop services like Roll20 and Astral available right now.

The issue with many of these blockchain-based games, according to Doucet, is that they are "play to earn" models rather than "play and earn" models. When you play to earn, you are playing with the primary goal of obtaining a valuable item (in this case, NFTs), rather than playing for the sake of playing and receiving items as a bonus for your time. Gripnr is "digging the hole and filling it back in again" because it is leading its mission with the goal of a higher payout versus the initial buy-in, he says. The model prioritizes Gripnr over gaming.

Another significant issue that Gripnr is dealing with is how to prevent fraud. In a scenario in which a D&D character's successes increase its real-world monetary value, there's an incentive for players and game masters to abuse gameplay—or even just fake a game, inputting values onto the NFT without actually playing—to artificially inflate the value of their NFT-PCs.

Comer is aware of the problem and apologizes. He doesn't know exactly how to prevent fraud yet, but he has a lot of ideas that are currently "being playtested."

Andreas Walters, an IT systems analyst and award-winning tabletop game designer, told io9 that "despite using a 'trustless blockchain' to record events and make payouts, this all relies on both inputs and outputs from human actors, and when money is involved (if any money is made at all), you create a system waiting to be exploited."

This is especially true for Gripnr, which will rely on the GM's character sheet inputs without any automation or virtual tabletop software to confirm basic data points such as dice rolls. Gripnr proposes establishing a system of checks and balances, with Gripnr-certified GMs at the center, who will record their games using a third-party system like Twitch or Zoom, allowing other Gripnr GMs to review and audit the proceedings. However, according to Comer, the system is still in the works.

Another method Gripnr says it could use to prevent fraud is to have each game's GM offer one of their own NFTs as collateral, which will be held by the company until the game receives a positive review. If it is determined that the GM cheated, the staked token will be "burned," or removed from blockchain circulation.

Even if all of this cheating is resolved, Gripnr will still have to deal with the speculative nature of the NFT market. Like other NFT startups, the company claims that NFTs enable artists to earn "real money" for their work. However, in the few cases where this is true, most artists have made money by running their own minting process rather than using a third-party company, especially when that company stitched together random pieces of art to create 10,000 "unique" NFTs in a randomly generative minting process.

Teos Abadia sees this massive minting as a problem for artists rather than a solution. Companies "trading NFTs always claim to be for fair payment," he says, "but my artist friends are all suffering because NFT companies are stealing their artwork." If we want character or magical item art, we can commission an artist and the money will go directly to the artist, without a Gripnr middleman taking a cut. Gaming organizations already hire artists to create custom artwork for their parties."

The value of Gripnr's tokens, like most claims about income in the NFT market, is entirely speculative. Unless and until those 10,000 NFTs are bought and sold by people who believe they are an investment whose value–not just its in-game complexity–will increase over time, they will be worthless.

Those people may or may not exist. Gripnr's community is currently small; as of Wednesday, April 6, the company's Twitter account had less than 500 followers, and their Discord channel had half that number. Who's going to buy with such a massive drop in NFTs planned? Where will the new buyers come from?

Comer admits that many people will buy Gripnr NFTs as collectors rather than players, but he promises that there will be a "ratio" to balance out these different buyers. But, if Gripnr's goal is to foster community, anonymous rarity snipers are unlikely to make people feel like they're a part of a close-knit gaming community. Gripnr needs to keep these core players happy, or else they won't have anyone to play on their protocol, and there will be no way for any NFT-PC to earn value rather than accrue speculative value.

"In some ways... community is capital," one Discord user said. Gripnr takes this literally.

Gripnr intends to centralize power within its own protocols, despite the fact that crypto is supposed to decentralize power. It requires players on its platform in order to generate value through on-chain gameplay. It will release Gripnr-exclusive adventures, Gripnr-approved Dungeon Masters, and the value of the NFT-PCs will exist solely because of its technology. Gripnr's value is based on centralization, which undermines the mission of the Web3 technology it seeks to bring to the TTRPG space.

Besides, the point of D&D is to save the world, not to destroy it. Energy-intensive blockchain servers have been linked to increases in carbon dioxide pollution and electronic waste; cryptocurrency in general is a significant and growing contributor to global climate change.

Comer defended himself on Twitter, claiming that the Polygon blockchain "uses 99.5 percent less energy than others." However, according to economist and writer Alex de Vries, the 99.5 percent figure "only measures the impact on servers Polygon owns, so it's meaningless as a measure of impact, as Polygon actually runs part of its protocols on the Ethereum blockchain." De Vries told io9 that he "conservatively" estimated Polygon's carbon footprint on February 3 alone through Etherium's network at 1,598,215 kilograms, or about 1875 tons per day. The average American home emits 48 tons of CO2 per year, according to the University of Michigan. "This cannot simply be ignored," says de Vries.

And Gripnr is not a "once in a lifetime" project. Every adventure and gameplay outcome adds data to the chain, which consumes more energy. The company also intends to produce more NFT-PCs in the future; the 10,000 NFTs could be doubled or tripled over the next few years.

"At a time when we should be focusing globally on reducing emissions, NFTs and blockchain are deeply problematic," says Abadia, an environmental health and safety consultant by day. "D&D is incredible with a pencil and paper." We don't have to harm the environment in order to have fun."

Why Gripnr's (real-world) characters are important.

Patrick Comer, Gripnr's president and head of product, is one of the company's most important figures. He was perfectly pleasant, generous with his time, and eager to answer questions during a call with io9. He is not a con artist, he is not looking to make a quick buck, and he clearly, clearly enjoys Dungeons & Dragons. However, he comes across as naive: A puppy with Web3 access, millions in his bank account, and no experience in game design.

On Twitter, Comer is a staunch supporter of Gripnr. Comer, however, is not particularly active in any online tabletop role-playing game community aside from promoting his own company. According to his bio on the Gripnr Discord, he's been a D&D player his entire life, but only in private games. He has no game credits, has never appeared as "Patrick Comer" in any public game play, and (far less important, but still telling) he has never tweeted about TTRPGs prior to 2021.

Other members of Gripnr's corporate leadership, with the exception of its lead game designer–CEO Brent McCrossen, creative director Kyle Mortensen, Chief Community Consultant Jacqueline Rosales, and CTO Luke Ledet–have no public ties to the TTRPG world. According to Comer, Mortensen and Rosales are not gamers at all.

All of this fails to persuade the TTRPG community that Gripnr is the right organization to design an on-chain TTRPG protocol.

Possum Creek Games' Jay Dragon has spent the last four years developing games and building a massive following in the indie gaming scene. Possum Creek, the award-winning publisher of games such as Wanderhome and Sleepaway, was recently named one of Fast Company's "top ten most innovative gaming companies." Dragon, on the other hand, told io9 that "Gripnr is total garbage in the worst way."

"It's so obviously the result of someone attempting to combine every single nerdy thing they can think of with their new shiny Web3 scam toy in an attempt to find some way to make money," Dragon explained. "On the game design side, it both fails to justify itself and spends time inventing new problems that it then fails to solve, which genuinely stinks to see in an era of true innovation and growth in TTRPGs."

Without any real ties to the business of creating and distributing TTRPGs, the Gripnr team appears to be carpetbaggers, attempting to make money by infiltrating a community and introducing a scheme that will benefit only a few people, including, of course, themselves. Comer confirmed that, as is customary at other tech startups, everyone who works for the company will receive Gripnr NFTs: "You get an NFT!" he said, imitating Oprah's famous gestures. You've been given an NFT!"

Gripnr claims to be "designing in the open," but has provided few details about how their games will function. According to the company, "100% of mint revenue will be placed in the Gripnr treasury," and "all funds will be used to continue to build the company, the protocol, and the world." However, it does not provide specifics, and the company has declined to say where the money will be spent, whether it will go to artists, software support, or even gas fees.

Another of Gripnr's stated goals–to provide a path to blockchain success for underserved creators–is not listed as a priority until Phase 8 of the current plan. Furthermore, the company's current leadership (five men and one woman, all white) reflects poorly on the company's desire to commit to diversity. Both Comer and McCrossen are based in New Orleans, a city where people of color make up 77 percent of the population.

Gripnr is unmistakably Comer's creation. He's the one in charge of the project. However, he is so close to this project that he may be blind to its flaws. When io9 raised some of the issues described here with him, he listened, but seemed to interpret the criticism as puzzles to be solved rather than a list of fundamental problems. For the time being, he appears to be focusing solely on pushing Gripnr through playtesting, hoping that with enough meetings and fixes, everything will fall into place.

This is poor gaming, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

One of the most fundamental issues with Gripnr is that it is simply bad game design. Gripnr is fundamentally changing how players are expected to interact with the rules of the game by developing a protocol to prioritize real-world capital gains. Gripnr the game is more than just D&D with a blockchain layer.

Gripnr requires the development of new software to simulate character sheets, which can be easily created on paper, in word processing software such as Google Docs, or in any number of digital toolboxes, including the officially-licensed D&D Beyond. Gripnr's product already exists in many different forms, for many different games, on many different systems, including old-fashioned print-and-play gaming. The "problems" that Gripnr is attempting to solve—problems that Gripnr refers to as "fundamental opportunities"—are to provide players with the ability to "prove" their successes through blockchain verification and to bring monetary value to the table through NFTs. However, these are not issues that players are clamoring for to be addressed.

"I participate in programs at stores, conventions, and home groups," Abadia explains. "I disagree that these are the problems that players are attempting to solve." These appear to me to be schemes designed to manipulate financial valuation for the benefit of Gripnr's personal enrichment, rather than a genuine desire to create a viable offering that contributes to the game. I've never had to certify my character's level... and it's not [worth] my time to play with anyone who wouldn't trust me."

Gripnr's first "fundamental opportunity," blockchain verification, falls short because there is no actual certification of achievement from Wizards of the Coast or any other authority, only a line on an NFT receipt. Whatever authority Gripnr hopes to bestow on their NFTs is flimsy because they rely on trust-based human inputs, human review, and human understandings of a tabletop roleplaying game that is, at its core, about improvisation.

The second "fundamental opportunity," providing tangible value to players, is problematic because the value of TTRPGs is found in the experience rather than the things. Players value their favorite character not because it possesses a rare sword; they value it because of the story of how they obtained the sword and how they will use it to create more great stories in the future. D&D is supposed to be enjoyable, not profitable.

Some of the best game nights come from "the way we form memories, and the stories build upon themselves in our heads," according to Aiden Moher, an author and gamer who is writing a book about Japanese RPGs that will be released later this year. "What could be better than reminiscing about that epic battle with a gold dragon last summer?" I don't need or want an immutable record of each turn; I want the shared memories of my table mates and me. It makes no difference whether those memories are detailed or completely accurate. It's about the emotions and personal connections that are present at the time."

One particularly troubling aspect of Gripnr's game design is the structures intended to protect the community from "bad actors," or people who fix a game to make more money. Gripnr intends to have GMs monitor games to ensure that no one is playing to (pardon the pun) game the system, despite the fact that gaming the system to earn money is precisely the goal that Gripnr has established within their protocols. Their games will exist solely for the purpose of making money, and when players are actively working to create a product, core D&D gameplay incentives are removed from the table.

So, what is the demonstrable capital value in having your character collapse in fear and panic rather than mindlessly attacking a monster? What happens when a GM wants to give a particularly powerful item to a rogue with the knowledge that they will abuse it for fun? What if they give it to a paladin in the hopes of creating narrative tension among a swarm of chaotic players? What about going off the deep end? Are you going to the moon? Are you going to meet God? What happens when a GM wants to deviate from the script and have some fun?

Gripnr is over-engineering a game that, as one of its fundamental tenets, allows you to throw away the rulebook and do whatever you want. Gripnr encourages railroading by limiting outcomes and enforcing limited character gain. Fun is permitted in The Glimmering, but only on Gripnr's terms, in Gripnr's system, and according to Gripnr's protocols.

Comer admits that he can't expressly limit the GM's ability to adapt the story to the characters, but he does say that any game will have "limits to the loot people will get." This is still a limitation that limits the GM's ability to ensure that the game prioritizes the players.

Regardless of the level of oversight, the review process will force GMs to railroad their games for fear of having their NFT burned or being expelled from a community in which they have invested real money. Regardless of talent, these GMs will be little better than video game narrators who invite people to act out their interactions but force them into predetermined outcomes.

D&D is based on the concept of teamwork. It's purposefully designed to encourage players to collaborate. Adding monetary value to their interactions risks creating an out-of-character conflict of interest within the game. Will another character's killing blow raise their level rather than mine, making their character more valuable on OpenSea? Will my character be more valuable than my neighbor's if I find something first? While some of this conflict is already present in the game, it is strictly limited to the characters and not the players. After all, all gold in D&D is fictitious.

"When the most 'optimal' action to increase the character's value is one that impacts other people's experience of the game, but consideration over whether it would be harmful to the other players or characters isn't factored in," says Kienna Shaw, a game designer and Ennie-winning co-creator of the TTRPG safety toolkit. "Ultimately, a game should be fun and safe for everyone at the table, and this competitive, self-focused style of play does not support that."

Personal investment is also an issue. Normally, if a D&D player feels that they are not being treated fairly, they are not required to return to the game and only lose the time spent. The sunk cost is minimal. However, if a Gripnr player believes they are not being treated fairly, they risk losing much more. Some may feel compelled to continue playing D&D even if they aren't having fun because they need to get their money's worth, or they need to level up their character to a certain level before cashing out. The blurring of the line between real-world and fictional harm fundamentally undermines the game's design.

Gripnr is also based on the assumption that people who play D&D will want to buy a pre-made character to play in the game, ignoring the complexities of in-game mechanical character development. How many players use a pre-made character in their games after the first few sessions of learning? In most D&D games, players make specific and thoughtful advancements to their character in order to reach an endgame that makes sense within the context of the story.

Again, Gripnr appears to be oblivious to the play culture they hope to exploit. The problem is that their much larger goal—to provide an entry point for TTRPG community on-chain gaming—ignores the backlash that other communities, including the TTRPG community, have already issued against blockchain projects.

Gripnr is not a trailblazer in the TTRPG industry; rather, it is a side project attempting to capitalize on a hobby by developing a centralized protocol of diminishing returns on investments that will only appreciate with non-sustainable, continuous buy-in from new investors, all while contributing to the planet's demise. In favor of capital exchange, it devalues the very reason people play games—to have fun. Finally, the very structure of Gripnr resembles a D&D pyramid scheme.

When Comer spoke with i09, he was most excited and joyful when he described how he teaches his children to play Dungeons & Dragons. When his eldest turned a significant age, she threw a D&D party and led an adventure for her friends. "And you know what monster they ran into?" he grinned, proud of his child: "A baby gelatinous cube!" "How adorable is that?"

"That's what I like about D&D," he explained, "the ability to be creative with it." The ability to throw anything out there and play a game with your friends."

I don't think he understands the irony.