I am a D&D fan, as you have probably figured out, so I’m horrified to see WOTC fail so spectacularly in its stewardship of D&D.
In 2000 and 2016, WOTC put out open versions of D&D rules under the Open Gaming license, meaning that there were free, good D&D rulesets available for publishers and players to use. This led to a golden age for D&D and RPGs, both financially and creatively, with WOTC raking in money while smaller creators got to share a kind of roleplaying commons. This year, it looks like WOTC is trying to use legally questionable rules-lawyer tricks to kill the OGL, betraying the companies and creators that trusted them to maintain that commons.
I personally believe that D&D, as a mass creative endeavor, transcends intellectual property in a way that other media properties don’t. Star Wars and Marvel movies – and D&D movies! – are stories told to us, and I’m perfectly happy with them in corporate hands. The game of D&D, on the other hand, is a collection of millions of stories told by players. The Open Gaming License may have had flaws, but it acknowledged the right of D&D players to share their stories and creations.
Whether or not WOTC succeeds in destroying the OGL, they’ve done irreparable harm to themselves as trusted stewards of the game. D&D, however, will be fine.
I tuned wizards out in about 2014 and never regretted it. Any one of us could make up an OSR clone from memory. You don’t even need that many reference charts to run a game.
Keep creating. Make them come after every one of us. They can’t stop the signal.