DnD 5e had a license for use that allowed 3rd party companies to make stuff for the game following specific rules, and they did so which of course helped with increasing the popularity of the brand. This license existed due to the backlash from players and 3rd party developers who did not like the 4e licensing which was ridiculously restrictive.
Then WotC/Hasbro decided they wanted more control and put out a draconian revision and also tried to invalidate the existing license using questionable legal logic that wouldn't stand up in court, but would be cost prohibitive for the 3rd party companies to fight in court. This revision also included licensing costs that would drive 3rd party companies out of business. Then they did a revision that tried to make creating a virtual tabletop that could be used with DnD a violation to try and corner the market for WotC's completely non-existent virtual tabletop.
Basically they tried to stop doing the thing they had in place for like a decade to milk an unrealistically high amount of money out of companies that were working with them and tried to force this on extremely short notice. So same thing as reddit and now Unity are doing.
Expect the next version of DnD to be a walled garden again like 4e was and most likely fade out of the public view again.
I dunno, being a man, woman, or black person isn't political. Trans, non-binary, etc is, and normalizing it is political, regardless of if it's right or wrong.
Women and black people getting the right to vote and be treated equally has always been "political" you fucking jackass.
Or one of the many, many people involved with development suggested it because it applied to them or someone they knew and the decision was made to include it out of respect for the people involved.
Eh, I joined knowing full well that I was trading permanent ownership and the risk of losing access if steam failed for the convenience of installing and updating without needing to do every game separately. I wasn't in the habit of trading in games anyway, and if I get an average amount of enjoyment across games then that works out whether I uninstall from steam or throw a box in the trash.
After using it for two decades steam is still the best decision I have made for gaming even of there is still a risk that they could go belly up or remove my games at will with no recourse. The few games I lost access to were online multi-player where the servers shut down, and physicsl media would not have avoided that. On the upside many games that would have lost support over time have always been available to install and run without needing to store physical media, and a combination of sales for lowered prices and a game just being available have made the platform my reliable go to.
Competitors like GoG that offer DRM free versions are another great avenue for people! I even have a couple of games from then, but convenience and consistent reliability has been the reason that I load a game in steam nearly every day even if just for a quick round. Basically the opposite of a hellscape in my experience, but then again I have had mostly reliable internet during that time.
On a side note, I have no idea what steam levels are or whar any of the steam perks stuff is. I just use it for launching games.
I was actually being serious, it does make me want to play.
Can I really fill my ship with smuggled plants? Does shooting backpacks launch people into the air? Looks like Skyrim in space and that sounds pretty fun!
That is just the point where the exponential effects of leveling and introduction of 5e spells that require more DM adjudication are introduced. Together they make coding encounters extremely difficult in tabletop and a complete nightmare to code.
I have no interest in going over level 10 on tabletop as a DM, and can't imagine even trying to write code logic for it.