OGL 1.1 Coming 2023 [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

PhoenixPhyre

2022-12-21, 02:31 PM

Apparently that's something they've already been doing - the big ones that do things like calculations anyway.

Something more lightweight, like Owlbear Rodeo - a glorified dice roller + map engine - might not need to license anything either.

The VTTs, yes. At least the existing ones. And I don't really have that much of an issue there, as this was already a very grey area, unless they decide to start flexing their muscle when those licenses need to be renewed/re-upped for OneD&D. I mean...they have the right to deny it on any terms they want. But I can think badly of them if they do get pushy.

The non-VTT apps...that's a different story. I use any number of helper apps as a DM, including tools I wrote (to format stat blocks, manage content, run encounters, etc). They include the SRD content, because otherwise they're useless. And now each and every one of those will have to (to support OneD&D) go get a custom license. Which is entirely discretionary on WotC's part--they're within their rights to just say "no, we're only supporting D&D Beyond for such needs." Which would be annoying, because D&D Beyond's toolset (as a DM and someone who prolifically homebrews DM-side content) is painfully bad. Like...horrible. Horrific. Borderline unusable. Roughly an order of magnitude more work to do anything meaningful there than my existing tools.

It's just one more reason for me to completely ignore OneD&D, as I don't expect them to make any backward-facing re-license decisions that would affect existing 5e content. It's also a reason to not buy/use any 5e content published after this goes live, because that will be under the OGL 1.1.

Edit: and (pending the details of the actual license), this would hit even a "PDF with formulas" or "self-maintaining Excel character sheet". Because those aren't static printed/electronic content. Heck, depending on the actual details, it would hit any fillable PDF character sheet. Because the PDF isn't static until actually printed. Even if it didn't do any calculations for you. But especially if it had anything like dropdowns or calculations. I think that last thing is a bit of a stretch and probably won't be forbidden, but it's covered by the text of the announcement.

Psyren

2022-12-21, 02:37 PM

I don't use any mobile apps other than DnDBeyond myself, but I can understand the concern.

Hopefully Avrae (the Discord bot that can connect to DDB) will keep working at least.

PhoenixPhyre

2022-12-21, 02:42 PM

I don't use any mobile apps other than DnDBeyond myself, but I can understand the concern.

Hopefully Avrae (the Discord bot that can connect to DDB) will keep working at least.

I'm guessing those bots (and the various integrations with VTTs) will be hit with Cease and Desists (or licensing demands) fairly early on. They're blatantly in violation of the licenses as they stand. Most of them depend on content scraping, which is...questionable in many cases.

I expect that D&D Beyond will publish an API that will be the one blessed access point for any integrations, and integrations will have to (at least) register and (possibly) pay for access.

To be fair--this particular issue (scraping/integration with D&D Beyond) is something that I feel much less annoyed by than the more general issue. Because the existing ones are walking really close to, if not over, both legal and moral lines. And as a developer, I much prefer people using established APIs that cleanly handle things than try to inspect the inner details of my data structures.

Edit: and it's not just mobile apps. Things like the tools that give lists of spells? Verboten. Anything that does random encounters (even just using SRD material)? Nope. Random treasure generation? Nope. Those are all locked out explicitly by the new terms.

Psyren

2022-12-21, 02:55 PM

I'm guessing those bots (and the various integrations with VTTs) will be hit with Cease and Desists (or licensing demands) fairly early on. They're blatantly in violation of the licenses as they stand. Most of them depend on content scraping, which is...questionable in many cases

I expect that D&D Beyond will publish an API that will be the one blessed access point for any integrations, and integrations will have to (at least) register and (possibly) pay for access.

To be fair--this particular issue (scraping/integration with D&D Beyond) is something that I feel much less annoyed by than the more general issue. Because the existing ones are walking really close to, if not over, both legal and moral lines. And as a developer, I much prefer people using established APIs that cleanly handle things than try to inspect the inner details of my data structures.

IIRC Avrae's primary author is Andrew Zhu from the DnDBeyond team, so I'm not too worried.

Edit: and it's not just mobile apps. Things like the tools that give lists of spells? Verboten. Anything that does random encounters (even just using SRD material)? Nope. Random treasure generation? Nope. Those are all locked out explicitly by the new terms.

If you say so. I'm content to wait and see.

PhoenixPhyre

2022-12-21, 03:03 PM

IIRC Avrae's primary author is Andrew Zhu from the DnDBeyond team, so I'm not too worried.

If you say so. I'm content to wait and see.

In that case, I'm not worried about that particular integration failing.

This won't affect me unless they decide to try to re-license existing material, which I doubt they'll do. But only because I have no plan to use anything covered by this new license.

Oramac

2022-12-21, 03:15 PM

Overall I'm pleasantly surprised by this. I have a couple quibbles, but they really can't be answered until we actually see OGL1.1 come 2023.

First, this part... (my emphasis added)

If you’re making commercial content, relatively little is going to change for most creators. For most of you who are selling custom content, here are the new things you’ll need to do:

1. Accept the license terms and let us know what you’re offering for sale
2. Report OGL-related revenue annually (if you make more than $50,000 in a year)
3. Include a Creator Product badge on your work

License terms aren't surprising. That was pretty much a given. My concern is what the license terms actually are. They could be fine, or they could be stiflingly restrictive. We just won't know until we see the OGL1.1 after it releases.

Also...

The non-VTT apps...that's a different story. I use any number of helper apps as a DM, including tools I wrote (to format stat blocks, manage content, run encounters, etc). They include the SRD content, because otherwise they're useless. And now each and every one of those will have to (to support OneD&D) go get a custom license. Which is entirely discretionary on WotC's part--they're within their rights to just say "no, we're only supporting D&D Beyond for such needs." Which would be annoying, because D&D Beyond's toolset (as a DM and someone who prolifically homebrews DM-side content) is painfully bad. Like...horrible. Horrific. Borderline unusable. Roughly an order of magnitude more work to do anything meaningful there than my existing tools.

I agree with this completely. I use a 3rd party character sheet app on my phone, then hand-type a fillable PDF so I can have a one page character sheet (front and back). DDB sheets are four pages! Even if I throw away the crap I don't need, it's still three pages. Which is horribly inefficient.

On top of that, PhoenixPhyre is right: DDB is itself painful to use. Hopefully those 300+ devs they hired can make it better. Only time will tell.

skyth

2022-12-21, 03:22 PM

Considering that the VTT I've used is Maptools and I've coded the thing myself for my own campaigns, I'm not too worried. Granted, this might make sharing Maptools frameworks difficult. Then again, it's only for my own group's use (And I only do 5E in person anyways.).

PhoenixPhyre

2022-12-21, 03:27 PM

I agree with this completely. I use a 3rd party character sheet app on my phone, then hand-type a fillable PDF so I can have a one page character sheet (front and back). DDB sheets are four pages! Even if I throw away the crap I don't need, it's still three pages. Which is horribly inefficient.

On top of that, PhoenixPhyre is right: DDB is itself painful to use. Hopefully those 300+ devs they hired can make it better. Only time will tell.

The DM tools range from even horribly worse (the encounter builder, which is really the only DM tool they have and is in beta and has been for years and is...woefully insufficient and klunky; the homebrew creation tool is beyond stupid and doesn't actually allow a lot of common things like custom base classes) to non-existent. Want to generate a random encounter? Nope. Random treasure set? Nope. Etc.

Oramac

2022-12-21, 03:33 PM

The DM tools range from even horribly worse (the encounter builder, which is really the only DM tool they have and is in beta and has been for years and is...woefully insufficient and klunky; the homebrew creation tool is beyond stupid and doesn't actually allow a lot of common things like custom base classes) to non-existent. Want to generate a random encounter? Nope. Random treasure set? Nope. Etc.

Absolutely! And on top of that, despite buying the book at my FLGS, I can't use it on DDB unless I buy it again. Sure, I can buy the book/digital bundle, but I can't get that from my FLGS (at least, not that I've yet seen).

On top of all that, I can't access anything both digitally AND offline. Sure, I can use the books offline, but I don't want to carry around 100+ pounds of books all the time. I can access DDB (yuck) online, but I don't always have access or ability to get online. I can, however, carry around a small USB stick with all my paid-for content in digital format that I can access both digitally and offline.

skyth

2022-12-21, 03:34 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2022-12-21, 03:40 PM

I use the encounter builder/tracker all the time. I find it pretty useful though it could be improved. (adding enemies mid-encounter is hard. Should be able to just add in the templates like when you build the encounter.)

It's extremely annoying to build stuff on the fly, the search capabilities are bad, and the encounter tracker itself only has the most rudimentary tools.

I'd say it's an MVP (minimum viable product). It's a beta. And has been since...well...a long time ago (several years).

Psyren

2022-12-21, 03:46 PM

Absolutely! And on top of that, despite buying the book at my FLGS, I can't use it on DDB unless I buy it again. Sure, I can buy the book/digital bundle, but I can't get that from my FLGS (at least, not that I've yet seen).

Physical/digital bundles are pretty new; I think Dragonlance was the first title they did that with. Your FLGS will likely gladly preorder that version for you if asked, mine do.

On top of all that, I can't access anything both digitally AND offline. Sure, I can use the books offline, but I don't want to carry around 100+ pounds of books all the time. I can access DDB (yuck) online, but I don't always have access or ability to get online. I can, however, carry around a small USB stick with all my paid-for content in digital format that I can access both digitally and offline.

You can access your books offline on DnDBeyond easily; all you need is storage space on your phone/tablet. You can even use the search function while offline, and it will return results from any products you've downloaded.

skyth

2022-12-21, 03:49 PM

It's extremely annoying to build stuff on the fly, the search capabilities are bad, and the encounter tracker itself only has the most rudimentary tools.

I'd say it's an MVP (minimum viable product). It's a beta. And has been since...well...a long time ago (several years).

I dunno, I find it easy to build/run stuff on the fly using the encounter generator. Granted, I have a pretty good idea of what I want before I go searching.

Now, randomly adding in a custom monster that I haven't created yet - That'd be rough, but I don't do that even though I use tons of custom monsters (Usually effectively giving monsters class levels/abilities).

The method to create custom monsters is a little annoying but I can't think of a good way to do it any easier and still be as flexible (Other than maybe having a wizard to add in/modify abilities/attacks rather than having to manually type them in).

Are the tools perfect? Nope. Like I mentioned before, the add-in new participants mid-combat needs some work. But they work well enough to make my life as a DM a lot easier.

Oramac

2022-12-21, 03:52 PM

Physical/digital bundles are pretty new; I think Dragonlance was the first title they did that with. Your FLGS will likely gladly preorder that version for you if asked, mine do.

Probably true. I'll have to ask them about it. Of course...

You can access your books offline on DnDBeyond easily; all you need is storage space on your phone/tablet. You can even use the search function while offline, and it will return results from any products you've downloaded.

That all assumes I use DDB. And that I use a phone/tablet. I don't. My phone (wait for it) makes phone calls. Occasionally sends a text message. I don't even have facebook on it. I don't own a tablet. I do all of this stuff on a real, actual laptop or desktop. (Shocking, I know)

And, see above about how awful DDB is to use. Certainly it's possible, but it's prohibitively difficult.

Psyren

2022-12-21, 03:57 PM

Probably true. I'll have to ask them about it. Of course...

That all assumes I use DDB. And that I use a phone/tablet. I don't. My phone (wait for it) makes phone calls. Occasionally sends a text message. I don't even have facebook on it. I don't own a tablet. I do all of this stuff on a real, actual laptop or desktop. (Shocking, I know)

And, see above about how awful DDB is to use. Certainly it's possible, but it's prohibitively difficult.

I was responding to this sentence specifically:

I can access DDB (yuck) online, but I don't always have access or ability to get online.

Explaining basically that DDB content doesn't require online connectivity to access, so long as you enable the offline versions ahead of when you'll need them.

Brookshw

2022-12-21, 04:01 PM

Apparently that's something they've already been doing - the big ones that do things like calculations anyway.

Something more lightweight, like Owlbear Rodeo - a glorified dice roller + map engine - might not need to license anything either.

Yeah, but if they're re-using any WoTC assets (tokens, whatever) then you're gonna hit anissue, and this will put a burden on those sites to monitor user content, safe harbor provisions only do so much. I wouldn't call it "VTT friendly", but its workable.

Psyren

2022-12-21, 04:05 PM

Yeah, but if they're re-using any WoTC assets (tokens, whatever) then you're gonna hit anissue, and this will put a burden on those sites to monitor user content, safe harbor provisions only do so much. I wouldn't call it "VTT friendly", but its workable.

A tool/engine like Owlbear Rodeo would be fine, it doesn't host anything. All content (tokens, maps, images etc) you use with it need to be hosted on your own device, and are lost the moment you close your browser.

Foundry and Roll20 meanwhile are almost certainly among the set with "custom licenses."

Brookshw

2022-12-21, 04:10 PM

A tool/engine like Owlbear Rodeo would be fine, it doesn't host anything. All content (tokens, maps, images etc) you use with it need to be hosted on your own device, and are lost the moment you close your browser.

Foundry and Roll20 meanwhile are almost certainly among the set with "custom licenses."

I don't know the particulars of that engine, but if its recreating WoTC assets in any capacity, then there's still an issue, even if it doesn't store them locally.

Oramac

2022-12-21, 04:16 PM

Explaining basically that DDB content doesn't require online connectivity to access, so long as you enable the offline versions ahead of when you'll need them.

On the specific device in question, I assume? So I can't browse it offline using my desktop, then switch to my laptop, then go to my player's house and use his laptop, all without connecting them to the internet or each other at any time (other than the first initial download)? Because I could do that with a USB and PDFs. That's what I'm going for.

Psyren

2022-12-21, 04:20 PM

On the specific device in question, I assume? So I can't browse it offline using my desktop, then switch to my laptop, then go to my player's house and use his laptop, all without connecting them to the internet or each other at any time (other than the first initial download)? Because I could do that with a USB and PDFs. That's what I'm going for.

Content you offline is device-specific, but you can simply do so on each device you own, there's no restrictions. It works pretty much like offlining episodes of your favorite show on Netflix, or offlining specific games on Steam.

Oramac

2022-12-21, 04:31 PM

Content you offline is device-specific, but you can simply do so on each device you own, there's no restrictions. It works pretty much like offlining episodes of your favorite show on Netflix, or offlining specific games on Steam.

Workable, but still really annoying. I'd rather just have an offline copy I can move between devices, than to have to download per device. Just because everything under the sun can be connected, doesn't mean it should be. (yes, I'm the guy opposed to all the IoT crap too, but that's for another thread)

EggKookoo

2022-12-21, 04:39 PM

Content you offline is device-specific, but you can simply do so on each device you own, there's no restrictions. It works pretty much like offlining episodes of your favorite show on Netflix, or offlining specific games on Steam.

Granted, you don't typically need to update and sync shows, aside from jumping to the point where you left off. It's a little different when you add a magic item to your PC.

Psyren

2022-12-21, 05:15 PM

Workable, but still really annoying. I'd rather just have an offline copy I can move between devices, than to have to download per device. Just because everything under the sun can be connected, doesn't mean it should be. (yes, I'm the guy opposed to all the IoT crap too, but that's for another thread)

I'm directionally opposed to IoT too, it's a security nightmare even when all your devices are utilizing a major firmware provider like Amazon or Samsung - and if they aren't, you're often better off disabling all smart connectivity entirely. But DDB doesn't have those issues, it's purely an Android/iOS/browser app.

Granted, you don't typically need to update and sync shows, aside from jumping to the point where you left off. It's a little different when you add a magic item to your PC.

Actually, you do need to reconnect periodically with all three of the things I mentioned. The interval of offline time might vary, but it's usually long enough to cover multiple sessions if you need it to.

Oramac

2022-12-21, 05:20 PM

I'm directionally opposed to IoT too, it's a security nightmare even when all your devices are utilizing a major firmware provider like Amazon or Samsung - and if they aren't, you're often better off disabling all smart connectivity entirely.

True. Not my best analogy.

But DDB doesn't have those issues, it's purely an Android/iOS/browser app.

Actually, you do need to reconnect periodically with all three of the things I mentioned. The interval of offline time might vary, but it's usually long enough to cover multiple sessions if you need it to.

I shouldn't have to reconnect periodically though. I bought the book. It's my book. I shouldn't have to connect to some website to keep using the thing I paid for. I have this same issue with Steam, Tesla, you name it.

I really don't want to do it, but it might be worth just dropping $100 to buy two copies of every book, and then chop one up to create my own damned PDF.

Psyren

2022-12-21, 05:28 PM

True. Not my best analogy.

I shouldn't have to reconnect periodically though. I bought the book. It's my book. I shouldn't have to connect to some website to keep using the thing I paid for. I have this same issue with Steam, Tesla, you name it.

I really don't want to do it, but it might be worth just dropping $100 to buy two copies of every book, and then chop one up to create my own damned PDF.

Welllll... if you bought it through DDB, you did not, in fact, buy the book. You bought a license.

And I can sympathize with disliking that state of affairs - but I'll take it over not being able to access my books online at all, which is what we had before. (Legally anyway)

Oramac

2022-12-21, 05:36 PM

Welllll... if you bought it through DDB, you did not, in fact, buy the book. You bought a license.

A valid point, as if we needed another reason to not use DDB.

And I can sympathize with disliking that state of affairs - but I'll take it over not being able to access my books online at all, which is what we had before. (Legally anyway)

Guess I'll just have to stick with dead trees and custom PDFs.

animorte

2022-12-21, 06:17 PM

I don't know the particulars of that engine, but if its recreating WoTC assets in any capacity, then there's still an issue, even if it doesn't store them locally.
I agree that it’s rather annoying, the adjustment and all, but it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to have a full color-code/shape system to account for various status effects, what-have-you. Even leave them blank and let the players standardize whatever shape/color applies to various things on an organized chart. Just make the chart (and relevant moving of said tokens) and let players fill in the rest. (But don’t mind me, I’ve never used VTT or any assisted-playing sources except maybe a dice-roller).

Guess I'll just have to stick with dead trees and custom PDFs.
That’s what I’ve already accepted.

PhoenixPhyre

2022-12-21, 06:42 PM

At this time, according to Foundry VTT's developer, they do not have the necessary agreement in place. So unless that changes (which they're working on), Foundry will be locked out of OneD&D. I'm told (but haven't verified myself) that only Roll20 and FantasyGrounds have VTT licenses. And even those need to be renewed periodically, which renewal is 100% at WotC's discretion.

Source: https://discord.com/channels/170995199584108546/670336046164213761/1055198582149496872

Quote:

[2:02 PM]Atropos: We've been actively monitoring this situation and we're going to be proactively working on a path forward that will cover our use case and allow us to support One D&D. We are not, however, in a position to do so already under the terms of today's post. There is work to do.

Psyren

2022-12-21, 06:43 PM

I don't know the particulars of that engine, but if its recreating WoTC assets in any capacity, then there's still an issue, even if it doesn't store them locally.

What "WotC assets" would those be? The word "wizard?" A jpeg that you can move around on top of another jpeg?

At this time, according to Foundry VTT's developer, they do not have the necessary agreement in place. So unless that changes (which they're working on), Foundry will be locked out of OneD&D. I'm told (but haven't verified myself) that only Roll20 and FantasyGrounds have VTT licenses. And even those need to be renewed periodically, which renewal is 100% at WotC's discretion.

Source: https://discord.com/channels/170995199584108546/670336046164213761/1055198582149496872

Quote:

Interesting. Does that mean their DnDBeyond Importer (https://foundryvtt.com/packages/ddb-importer) was unsanctioned? Well, at least they have time to figure that out now.

Atranen

2022-12-21, 08:15 PM

I shouldn't have to reconnect periodically though. I bought the book. It's my book. I shouldn't have to connect to some website to keep using the thing I paid for. I have this same issue with Steam, Tesla, you name it.

I really don't want to do it, but it might be worth just dropping $100 to buy two copies of every book, and then chop one up to create my own damned PDF.

Yeah, gating access to content like this would be a hard pass from me. If I buy it, I should be able to use it when and where I want. If they do it, I'll have to ask to what extent I want to continue with the brand.

Dork_Forge

2022-12-21, 08:34 PM

Well, not a fan of this. They're making it harder to digitally support One D&D now that they'll have their own VTT, and will likely be double dipping on charging said VTTs.

Afterall, WotC already get a chunk when someone like Roll20 sells a WotC product, they're just a vendor in that sense, but now they'll also have to negotiate their own deals instead of the OGL. Assuming that falls to R20, not the individual publishers wanting to use R20.

Either way, just having to negotiate and report financials is going to massively increase the time and money cost of normal operations for publishers.

Between this change to the OGL and the fact that WotC now owns D&D Beyond, it makes me wonder how close they are to messing with competition laws in the US?

Brookshw

2022-12-21, 09:26 PM

What "WotC assets" would those be? The word "wizard?" A jpeg that you can move around on top of another jpeg?

A jpeg of WoTC content would qualify, yes. Savvy users should be able to avoid the issue with minimal effort

Psyren

2022-12-21, 10:24 PM

A jpeg of WoTC content would qualify, yes. Savvy users should be able to avoid the issue with minimal effort

Yes, obviously a jpeg of a page of a WotC sourcebook would be verboten. But a jpeg of a dragon? Of a barbarian? Of a map even?

Witty Username

2022-12-21, 10:33 PM

Yes, obviously a jpeg of a page of a WotC sourcebook would be verboten. But a jpeg of a dragon? Of a barbarian? Of a map even?

That would depend if it is WOTC art, or Art from an outside source:
-Halfling from a fantasy artist, fine
-Halfling from the race section of the PHB, no, also why?

Brookshw

2022-12-21, 10:50 PM

Yes, obviously a jpeg of a page of a WotC sourcebook would be verboten. But a jpeg of a dragon? Of a barbarian? Of a map even?

Witty Username is correct, is those images are from WoTC content there are potent issues. I feel like you know this :smallconfused:

Psyren

2022-12-21, 10:51 PM

That would depend if it is WOTC art, or Art from an outside source:
-Halfling from a fantasy artist, fine
-Halfling from the race section of the PHB, no, also why?

Bold is correct. There are halflings everywhere, including Creative Commons, so why? Owlbear Rodeo will be fine.

Witty Username is correct, is those images are from WoTC content there are potent issues. I feel like you know this :smallconfused:

See above :smallconfused:

Brookshw

2022-12-21, 11:01 PM

Bold is correct. There are halflings everywhere, including Creative Commons, so why? Owlbear Rodeo will be fine.

See above :smallconfused:

Well, yeah, things (rightfully) under a CC license aren't going to be a problem, those aren't WoTC assets. It's kind of a two fold issue, (1) users need to savvy enough to use appropriate content, and (2) OR needs to be careful about what people use, safe harbor provisions aren't always enough (assuming OR is somehow profiting off people using it a'la ad fee, etc., I don't know anything about them so can't really comment); the latter matter can be problematic for little guys as it diverts resources.

animewatcha

2022-12-21, 11:22 PM

Dork_Forge

2022-12-21, 11:27 PM

How would things fall if a developer/content creator followed after GIANTITP's order of the stick. Create content and post it online for free, but have like a patreon / cofi (or whatever it is called) / subscibestar or whatever for 1 dollar or so a month with 'nearly no privileges'.

I don't think that would hold up under court scrutiny, since the crowdfunding is supporting you, and the thing you're doing is producing that content.

At the very least it would be a risky move that might bite the publisher later.

Dr.Samurai

2022-12-21, 11:28 PM

So, this stuff is over my head mostly but... it seems intuitive to me that in chasing more monetization and bringing DDB and their own VTT into the fold, that this would inevitably harm 3rd party support for the games.

However in reading the article, it seems rather generous and that they want 3rd party creators to continue creating content. Which is great, but again I don't really understand the stuff well enough.

TaiLiu

2022-12-22, 12:16 AM

Has it? I was under the impression that the 3.0, 4.0 (such as it is), and 5.0 OLGs were independent. This seems like it's modifying the 5.0 OGL.
Do you know where to find the 3e and 5e OGLs? I think I've managed to find the latest version but can't seem to find previous versions.

Psyren

2022-12-22, 01:00 AM

Well, yeah, things (rightfully) under a CC license aren't going to be a problem, those aren't WoTC assets. It's kind of a two fold issue, (1) users need to savvy enough to use appropriate content, and (2) OR needs to be careful about what people use, safe harbor provisions aren't always enough (assuming OR is somehow profiting off people using it a'la ad fee, etc., I don't know anything about them so can't really comment); the latter matter can be problematic for little guys as it diverts resources.

I don't see Owlbear Rodeo as being problematic based on what I read. If you do, that's fine, we'll have to wait and see, but I see no point in continuing to speculate.

Do you know where to find the 3e and 5e OGLs? I think I've managed to find the latest version but can't seem to find previous versions.

The 3.5 one is on d20srd. No idea about 3.0.

Envyus

2022-12-22, 05:11 AM

Well, not a fan of this. They're making it harder to digitally support One D&D now that they'll have their own VTT, and will likely be double dipping on charging

I heavily heavily doubt this. The VTT is almost certainly going to integrated with Beyond, so purchases on Beyond Unlock stuff on the VTT.

I don't see how this doesn't go to court at some point. The terms of the OGL are supposed to be irrevocable.
I feel like people missed that OGL 1.0 still exists. The terms are very clear that if an update is made you choose the version used.

OldTrees1

2022-12-22, 05:36 AM

I feel like people missed that OGL 1.0 still exists. The terms are very clear that if an update is made you choose the version used.

Thank you for highlighting this. I think that means WotC is only able to restrict material they print in 2023+. So early 5E can be built upon using OGL 1.0 despite late 5E/1D&D requiring OGL 1.1.

Dork_Forge

2022-12-22, 06:19 AM

I heavily heavily doubt this. The VTT is almost certainly going to integrated with Beyond, so purchases on Beyond Unlock stuff on the VTT.

I didn't mean buying twice, I meant taking a cut of the purchase and then applying royalties past the $750k threshold as well.

Oramac

2022-12-22, 11:05 AM

Do you know where to find the 3e and 5e OGLs? I think I've managed to find the latest version but can't seem to find previous versions.

For 5e, the WOTC webpage is here (https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document), and the direct link to the PDF is here (https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SRD-OGL_V5.1.pdf).

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So after sleeping on this, the more I think about it, the less I like it. I'm going to go over the whole doc here with some thoughts.

We love the interest and passion the community has for D&D. We love D&D, too. So, when we see the D&D community concerned by rumors and misunderstandings, we want to clear the air and share the facts with you, even if it’s a bit earlier than our original plan. You all matter to us, and we want to provide transparency on how D&D will continue supporting third-party creators.

So first things first: I'm quite happy they posted this at all. It tells us they ARE actually hearing the community. Whether or not they're listening remains to be seen, but at least our voices are being heard. This is good news.

1. Will One D&D include an SRD/be covered by an OGL?

Yes. First, we’re designing One D&D with fifth edition backwards compatibility, so all existing creator content that is compatible with fifth edition will also be compatible with One D&D. Second, we will update the SRD for One D&D as we complete its development—development that is informed by the results of playtests that we’re conducting with hundreds of thousands of D&D players now.

So good news/bad news here. Good news is that they've confirmed there will, in fact, be an OGL/SRD. Bad news is, as we've already seen, the claims of backwards compatibility are flimsy at best. They also mention updating the SRD/OGL during development. This seems to imply there may be a "playtest" of sorts for the OGL released as an Unearthed Arcana. This would likely be good, since we, the community, would be able to offer our thoughts on it prior to implementation.

2. Will the OGL terms change?

Yes. We will release version 1.1 of the OGL in early 2023.

The OGL needs an update to ensure that it keeps doing what it was intended to do—allow the D&D community’s independent creators to build and play and grow the game we all love—without allowing things like third-parties to mint D&D NFTs and large businesses to exploit our intellectual property.

Not good. The original 5e OGL is just referred to as "the OGL". The fact they're putting numbers on this one (i.e. OGL1.1) indicates to me that they are planning for a future OGL1.2, or 1.3, and so on. I get that they want to limit NFTs and whatnot, so updating the OGL to include things like that as they happen makes sense. But it also means that all creator content must ALSO be updated for each new version of the OGL, if for no other reason than to declare their compliance. That's a ton of potential work for 3pp creators, and imo is not a good sign.

First, we’re making sure that OGL 1.1 is clear about what it covers and what it doesn’t. OGL 1.1 makes clear it only covers material created for use in or as TTRPGs, and those materials are only ever permitted as printed media or static electronic files (like epubs and PDFs). Other types of content, like videos and video games, are only possible through the Wizards of the Coast Fan Content Policy or a custom agreement with us. To clarify: Outside of printed media and static electronic files, the OGL doesn’t cover it.

Will this affect the D&D content and services players use today? It shouldn’t. The top VTT platforms already have custom agreements with Wizards to do what they do. D&D merchandise, like minis and novels, were never intended to be part of the OGL and OGL 1.1 won’t change that. Creators wishing to leverage D&D for those forms of expression will need, as they always have needed, custom agreements between us.

As has been pointed out already, there's some ambiguity in the wording about "static electronic files". That will need clarification for sure. I don't know that the 5eOGL ever covered video games or videos anyway, but at least they're clear about OGL1.1 not covering them, for better or for worse.

I don't know enough about the mini or VTT issue to really comment on it, but it doesn't seem too different than it stands currently.

Second, we’re updating the OGL to offer different terms to creators who choose to make free, share-alike content and creators who want to sell their products.

What does this mean for you as a creator? If you’re making share-alike content, very little is going to change from what you’re already used to.

Ok, so if we're making content to give away for free, in theory at least, nothing changes. Cool. I have no issue there.

If you’re making commercial content, relatively little is going to change for most creators. For most of you who are selling custom content, here are the new things you’ll need to do:

Oh buddy. Now we're getting to the juicy stuff. I'm going to quote these individually.

1. Accept the license terms and let us know what you’re offering for sale

There are major problems here. First, accepting terms is not "open license". It's a contract. Plain and simple. Second, on top of that, the word "and" in there is incredibly important. We must accept the terms AND tell them what content we're offering. Which means when we inevitably want to offer more or different content, we need to sign another new contract.

Next, how will this be implemented and enforced? I think we all know it'll be enforced via legal action, so how is it implemented? I think it's safe to say it won't just be a disclaimer on the product we sell. There will be an online form to fill out and sign (they even say so later in the doc). Again, this is becoming a binding contract, not an open license.

2. Report OGL-related revenue annually (if you make more than $50,000 in a year)

Again, there's multiple problems here. First, the fact that we have to report revenue at all is an issue, but putting that aside for a moment, it specifically says "revenue", not "profit". So let's say (for example) I make content and report revenue of, say, $55,000, but I spend $50,000 on art, writing, editing, playtesting, etc. Ok, I've made a profit of $5,000. Cool. But I don't report profit. I report revenue. So WOTC sees me "make" $55,000 and decides they want a piece of the pie. Who knows how big that piece will be, but we can be pretty sure it'll be a percentage of revenue (since that's what they asked for). Even if they only ask for 1%, that would be $500, or 10% of profits.

And that all assumes that I actually make a profit. For me personally, I've already accepted the fact that I'll be thousands of dollars in the hole to publish my campaign setting, but under this new OGL1.1, I'll have to report revenue, meaning I will potentially be even further in the hole. (this all assumes they want to take a cut, but why ask for the info if they don't want to take a cut?)

3. Include a Creator Product badge on your work

Honestly, this is the least concerning part. You already have to do this on DMsGuild, so it's not really new.

The bigger concern is whether or not the OGL1.1 contract will force creators to relinquish the rights to their own work, as on DMsGuild. If so, imo, the entire thing is garbage and a complete farce.

When we roll out OGL 1.1, we will also provide explanatory videos, FAQs, and a web portal for registration to make navigating these requirements as easy and intuitive as possible. We’ll also have help available to creators to navigate the new process.

Oh boy. The mere fact that they anticipate needing videos, FAQs, and people to "help creators navigate the process" is a massive red flag. And that's on top of the explicit statement that there will be a "web portal for registration". Again, this isn't an open license. It's a contract.

For the fewer than 20 creators worldwide who make more than $750,000 in income in a year, we will add a royalty starting in 2024. So, even for the creators making significant money selling D&D supplements and games, no royalties will be due for 2023 and all revenue below $750,000 in future years will be royalty-free.

Another red flag. There's already a good chance that the OGL1.1 will have a version 1.2, 1.3, and so on. It's possible (I would say probable; damn near guaranteed) that the $750,000 number will be drastically reduced in 2025 and after.

Bottom line: The OGL is not going away. You will still be able to create new D&D content, publish it anywhere, and game with your friends and followers in all the ways that make this game and community so great. The thousands of creators publishing across Kickstarter, DMsGuild, and more are a critical part of the D&D experience, and we will continue to support and encourage them to do that through One D&D and beyond.

My emphasis added. The verbiage here is interesting. We already know that they're doing this for One D&D, so that's not surprising, but they used the lowercase "beyond", not "DnD Beyond. This would seem to indicate that they may be developing a platform other than DDB for all of this to happen in. OTOH, it could just be a statement that they want to continue this process into the future.

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There's a lot to unpack here, but I have to say, I've changed my mind. Where yesterday I thought this was a net positive, after thinking on it I feel that it is overall a net negative for the D&D community.

ProsecutorGodot

2022-12-22, 12:00 PM

There's a lot to unpack here, but I have to say, I've changed my mind. Where yesterday I thought this was a net positive, after thinking on it I feel that it is overall a net negative for the D&D community.

I'm struggling to see how your opinion could change so drastically, you've got to be creating content with the intent to sell it and making a substantial amount of revenue from it to even be put under any of the hard stipulations.

I doubt very much that there's a majority of people making 50k+ a year making DND Content, let alone that incredible 750k sum. Your assumptions that there will be further updates to make this a less generous number are pretty unwarranted.

For the general user, very little changes. For the majority of homebrew creators, very little changes. The changes that will be impactful are to the large 3rd party creators who have had great success in releasing content through crowdfunding. I'd be surprised if these changes stopped them from producing the content they wanted to, which means that unless it does, this doesn't impact the consumers of that content much either.

I'd say it's more of a neutral move. I won't give them points as "positive" for keeping much the same but it's hardly a "mostly negative" skew either if only the very top percentages of creators (who typically already deal directly with WotC in some aspect anyway) are the only ones seeing significant impact. My opinion could change as well, but not literally overnight with nothing but speculation to back it.

Oramac

2022-12-22, 12:33 PM

I'm struggling to see how your opinion could change so drastically, you've got to be creating content with the intent to sell it and making a substantial amount of revenue from it to even be put under any of the hard stipulations.

We come back to that word "and" again. A very powerful word in legal terms (any lawyers out there I'm certain can back this up).

Yes, I will make content with intent to sell, but that "and" should be "or". I, personally, won't be held to the $50k revenue amount, but I will still be held to all other parts of the contract.

I doubt very much that there's a majority of people making 50k+ a year making DND Content, let alone that incredible 750k sum. Your assumptions that there will be further updates to make this a less generous number are pretty unwarranted.

Ok, yes. They are assumptions. But let's look at what we know:

- Hasbro execs believe the brand is "severely under-monetized"
- Hasbro/WOTC has sent OGL related emails to major publishers which require an NDA to even sit at the table
- The WOTC statement specifically states that they will be iterating on the OGL "during the development process" (i.e. it will change during development)
- The OGL1.1 statement calls out specific dollar amount break points for revenue/income, but gives no information on how those amounts were chosen
- The OGL1.1 statement specifically states that royalties will be required for a specified dollar amount or higher, when OneD&D launches (again with no information on how those amounts were chosen)

So what do we know? We know the OGL1.1 will change, and we know that WOTC wants to make more money from the brand.

It is an assumption, but it's a pretty reasonable one given what we know.

For the general user, very little changes. For the majority of homebrew creators, very little changes. The changes that will be impactful are to the large 3rd party creators who have had great success in releasing content through crowdfunding. I'd be surprised if these changes stopped them from producing the content they wanted to, which means that unless it does, this doesn't impact the consumers of that content much either.

There's too many question marks to really say for sure. How is ownership handled post-OGL1.1? Is it the same as DMsGuild, where I give up ownership as soon as I post it regardless of income/revenue? Or does ownership rely on these (seemingly) arbitrary revenue/income breakpoints? Or will creators retain ownership regardless? We just don't know, and we need to.

I'd say it's more of a neutral move. I won't give them points as "positive" for keeping much the same but it's hardly a "mostly negative" skew either if only the very top percentages of creators (who typically already deal directly with WotC in some aspect anyway) are the only ones seeing significant impact. My opinion could change as well, but not literally overnight with nothing but speculation to back it.

Neutral is fair. And again, yes, this is speculation. But again, given what we do know, it's fairly reasonable speculation.

EggKookoo

2022-12-22, 05:09 PM

I don't know if this has come up, but I wonder how this new attitude toward monetization and IP will play out for YouTube channels that showcase people sitting around a table playing D&D and drawing (in some cases significant) ad revenue money. I know Critical Role has a custom deal, but it's also in their best interest to see free competition stamped out.

Maybe such channels will just stick to people playing 5e and avoiding any 1D&D stuff.

Envyus

2022-12-22, 05:12 PM

We come back to that word "and" again. A very powerful word in legal terms (any lawyers out there I'm certain can back this up).

Yes, I will make content with intent to sell, but that "and" should be "or". I, personally, won't be held to the $50k revenue amount, but I will still be held to all other parts of the contract.

Ok, yes. They are assumptions. But let's look at what we know:

- Hasbro execs believe the brand is "severely under-monetized"

Yes the brand, more merchandise, toys, games and tv stuff.

For 5e, the WOTC webpage is here (https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document), and the direct link to the PDF is here (https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SRD-OGL_V5.1.pdf).

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There's a lot to unpack here, but I have to say, I've changed my mind. Where yesterday I thought this was a net positive, after thinking on it I feel that it is overall a net negative for the D&D community.
Ok I will nip most of your concerns in the bud cause the OGL does not work the way you are concerned about.

Content does not have to be updated. No updates to the OGL can retroactively apply.
If Wizards makes a 1.2 update people can ignore it and just use the 1.1 or 1.0 versions as you can choose which version of the OGL to use.

For example if they made a 1.2 that’s only difference is that you start paying royalties at 500k then it would not mean anything. Companies making more than that could just use the 1.1 version instead.

OldTrees1

2022-12-22, 06:49 PM

Content does not have to be updated. No updates to the OGL can retroactively apply.
If Wizards makes a 1.2 update people can ignore it and just use the 1.1 or 1.0 versions as you can choose which version of the OGL to use.

For example if they made a 1.2 that’s only difference is that you start paying royalties at 500k then it would not mean anything. Companies making more than that could just use the 1.1 version instead.

You sound like you understand these open licenses better than I do. WotC clearly thinks the 1.1 OGL will apply to something. In your estimation, what can be made using the 1.0 OGL and what would require using the 1.1 OGL? Would a similar limitation be applicable if a 1.2 OGL were made in 2025?

Without getting into the legalese, I was assuming it was similar to opensource software licenses where content released under 1.0 OGL could be built upon using the 1.0 OGL but content released under the 1.1 OGL might require also using the 1.1 OGL. Is my understanding close?

Envyus

2022-12-22, 06:59 PM

AmberVael

2022-12-22, 07:02 PM

You sound like you understand these open licenses better than I do. WotC clearly thinks the 1.1 OGL will apply to something. In your estimation, what can be made using the 1.0 OGL and what would require using the 1.1 OGL? Would a similar limitation be applicable if a 1.2 OGL were made in 2025?

Without getting into the legalese, I was assuming it was similar to opensource software licenses where content released under 1.0 OGL could be built upon using the 1.0 OGL but content released under the 1.1 OGL might require also using the 1.1 OGL. Is my understanding close?

So as it happens, I'm a person who has written a lot of third-party content, and worked with the license.
I was going to answer this myself, but while poking around for some specific details, I stumbled on WotC's answer to this question from ages and ages ago. So I'll let their answer stand for itself.

Q: Can't Wizards of the Coast change the License in a way that I wouldn't like?

A: Yes, it could. However, the License already defines what will happen to content that has been previously distributed using an earlier version, in Section 9. As a result, even if Wizards made a change you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there's no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway.

Envyus

2022-12-22, 07:08 PM

So as it happens, I'm a person who has written a lot of third-party content, and worked with the license.
I was going to answer this myself, but while poking around for some specific details, I stumbled on *WotC's* answer to this question from ages and ages ago. So I'll let their answer stand for itself.

That one quote is why all the doom and fear mongering about the OGL was utterly pointless.

KorvinStarmast

2022-12-22, 07:16 PM

If you make more than $50k annually on your OGL product you'll be required to let WotC know how much you make in order to stay in compliance. If you make more than $750k annually they're going to hit you with royalties. This inentivizes clever bookkeeping. :smallwink:

I expect that D&D Beyond will publish an API that will be the one blessed access point for any integrations, and integrations will have to (at least) register and (possibly) pay for access. Not gonna bet against.

IIRC Avrae's primary author is Andrew Zhu from the DnDBeyond team, so I'm not too worried. Unless then can him.

On top of that, PhoenixPhyre is right: DDB is itself painful to use. Hopefully those 300+ devs they hired can make it better. Only time will tell. I'll add one more vote for DDB is painful to use.
On top of all that, I can't access anything both digitally AND offline. Yeah, the double jeopardy thing is kind of annoying.

Foundry and Roll20 meanwhile are almost certainly among the set with "custom licenses." They have incentive to get on board this train, yes.

Between this change to the OGL and the fact that WotC now owns D&D Beyond, it makes me wonder how close they are to messing with competition laws in the US? Not a big enough fish yet on this IP.

AmberVael

2022-12-22, 07:55 PM

That one quote is why all the doom and fear mongering about the OGL was utterly pointless.

Mmmm, it's not "the sky is falling" but I don't think it's good news. It shows an interest that runs a bit contrary to the ideals of the OGL, which a community now rests on. I've seen devs who are wary or unhappy even if they can still use old licenses, and not for no reason.

Last time they started messing with the OGL formula it helped spawn Paizo, who is now a notable competitor. This is not as drastic as back then, and I doubt we'll ever see another Paizo situation... but I'd expect some changes in third-party publisher operations. Maybe some experiments with different licenses or system neutral content? Dunno. Not big steps though, at least not yet.

Psyren

2022-12-22, 08:09 PM

I'd say they're less worried about making the next Paizo than they are about making sure they get a piece of the pie if they do. That royalty rule looks to be net new, and would ensure that if another publishing company makes it big off their license, they can at least get a cut of the action this time. Frankly, I think that's eminently fair - if you make upwards of 3/4 of a million dollars by piggybacking on D&D's notoriety in some way, you owe them some portion of the proceeds.

Unless then can him.

While it's certainly possible they could shut down any means by which an API can connect with DnDBeyond, I find it exceedingly unlikely. Such connectivity only encourages people to purchase more content through the platform.

PhoenixPhyre

2022-12-22, 08:26 PM

While it's certainly possible they could shut down any means by which an API can connect with DnDBeyond, I find it exceedingly unlikely. Such connectivity only encourages people to purchase more content through the platform.

I expect them to do 2 things.

1. Lock down the API more. Make the site more resistant to scraping. Note--this is relative, not absolute. They can't lock it down entirely. But they can make it darn inconvenient to scrape it unless you have an API key.
2. Provide an explicit API for "partners" to pull data. But require signup/license agreements/payment/etc.

Personally, I don't oppose either of these in the abstract. They're just good practice, especially for any site that deals with valuable IP. Depending on the details, however...there are ways they could do that that would be obnoxious.

EggKookoo

2022-12-22, 09:47 PM

I'd say they're less worried about making the next Paizo than they are about making sure they get a piece of the pie if they do. That royalty rule looks to be net new, and would ensure that if another publishing company makes it big off their license, they can at least get a cut of the action this time. Frankly, I think that's eminently fair - if you make upwards of 3/4 of a million dollars by piggybacking on D&D's notoriety in some way, you owe them some portion of the proceeds.

I mean... You don't owe them anything. If you were using something that was theirs, they'd sell it to you. The OGL is not much more than smoke & mirrors designed to make you think they have more ownership than they do.

Did they pay the Tolkien estate a royalty for using elves and dwarves?

animorte

2022-12-22, 09:54 PM

Did they pay the Tolkien estate a royalty for using elves and dwarves?
Isn’t that exactly the same as asking Disney if they had to pay royalties to Hans Christian Andersen?

Envyus

2022-12-22, 10:03 PM

Dwarves and Elves are mythical creatures.

Envyus

2022-12-22, 10:05 PM

Mmmm, it's not "the sky is falling" but I don't think it's good news. It shows an interest that runs a bit contrary to the ideals of the OGL, which a community now rests on. I've seen devs who are wary or unhappy even if they can still use old licenses, and not for no reason.

Last time they started messing with the OGL formula it helped spawn Paizo, who is now a notable competitor. This is not as drastic as back then, and I doubt we'll ever see another Paizo situation... but I'd expect some changes in third-party publisher operations. Maybe some experiments with different licenses or system neutral content? Dunno. Not big steps though, at least not yet.

It doesn’t matter the OGL can’t be revoked is the point.

Psyren

2022-12-22, 10:17 PM

I mean... You don't owe them anything. If you were using something that was theirs, they'd sell it to you. The OGL is not much more than smoke & mirrors designed to make you think they have more ownership than they do.

So you honestly think Pathfinder would have gotten as famous as it did even if it wasn't based on D&D 3.5?

That genie is out of the bottle now, and Paizo reaped the benefits, but there's no reason WotC should simply lie back and let the next Paizo do the same. If you're able to make a million dollars or more off D&D's back, a royalty is a reasonable expectation.

Did they pay the Tolkien estate a royalty for using elves and dwarves?

You know Tolkien didn't invent elves and dwarves right?

EggKookoo

2022-12-22, 10:26 PM

So you honestly think Pathfinder would have gotten as famous as it did even if it wasn't based on D&D 3.5?

Paizo capitalized on WotC making a big mistake. It won't happen again unless WotC makes a similar mistake.

That genie is out of the bottle now, and Paizo reaped the benefits, but there's no reason WotC should simply lie back and let the next Paizo do the same. If you're able to make a million dollars or more off D&D's back, a royalty is a reasonable expectation.

You could 100% make a D&D clone without needing to use the OGL. The only thing WotC owns is their setting and mythology stuff. They own next to nothing about the actual game itself, aside from the copyright on the actual text.

The only thing WotC could do about it is take you to court in the hopes of bankrupting you.

You know Tolkien didn't invent elves and dwarves right?

And WotC didn't invent dice + math = fun.

Brookshw

2022-12-22, 11:19 PM

That one quote is why all the doom and fear mongering about the OGL was utterly pointless.

Otoh, all they have to do is restrict new content to whatever is the most current OGL at the time of it's release, either prior content will need to update and be subject to it, or it'll be indirectly frozen out.

That said, they do have a fine line to walk, they still have their "all roads lead to D&D" philosophy, i.e., the strategic goal which lead to the OGL in the first place.

Psyren

2022-12-22, 11:28 PM

Paizo capitalized on WotC making a big mistake. It won't happen again unless WotC makes a similar mistake.

Paizo making a successful product isn't the issue. The issue is that the degree of success they enjoyed was outsized relative to the cost of developing their own system, a cost that was greatly reduced due to the foundation laid by WotC themselves, such as the massive install base of 3.5 users, communities, infrastructure etc. It's almost identical to the mistake Blizzard made that led to the MOBA genre, particularly League of Legends. I don't think needing to pay a royalty would have kept League from raking in billions of dollars either.

You could 100% make a D&D clone without needing to use the OGL. The only thing WotC owns is their setting and mythology stuff. They own next to nothing about the actual game itself, aside from the copyright on the actual text.

The only thing WotC could do about it is take you to court in the hopes of bankrupting you.

I'm aware that one can't copyright game mechanics. But the way they are presented is another matter. I won't go further down this road though given the board rules on legal discussions.

And WotC didn't invent dice + math = fun.

I never said they did :smallconfused:

EggKookoo

2022-12-23, 06:28 AM

Paizo making a successful product isn't the issue. The issue is that the degree of success they enjoyed was outsized relative to the cost of developing their own system, a cost that was greatly reduced due to the foundation laid by WotC themselves, such as the massive install base of 3.5 users, communities, infrastructure etc. It's almost identical to the mistake Blizzard made that led to the MOBA genre, particularly League of Legends. I don't think needing to pay a royalty would have kept League from raking in billions of dollars either.

Everything is built on the shoulders of those that came before them. It's not random happenstance that original D&D was designed to appeal to fans of LotR and other pulp fantasy stories and series. You could say D&D enjoyed a degree of success that was outsized relative to the cost of developing their own genre (I mean we all know about the AD&D1 hobbits and Cthulhu Mythos, right?).

I'm aware that one can't copyright game mechanics. But the way they are presented is another matter. I won't go further down this road though given the board rules on legal discussions.

I don't know if this is a legal discussion but the simple truth is WotC did not invent and does not own the basic game mechanics that D&D uses. I guess you could argue TSR had some ownership of OD&D's original rules, but really only the specific forms they were expressed -- i.e. the actual tables in the books. Really no different than WotC now. The mathematical logic behind the rules is not able to be owned, and existed well before Gary Gygax was born. WotC's 3.0 (and by extension 5.0) rules are as much a product of existing game trends as anything else these days.

The OGL allows you to, I believe, use some of WotC's presentation for certain things. But that just makes it easy to produce material. Pathfinder could have been created with no fundamental change in how the game plays or feels if Paizo rewrote or otherwise repackaged those things to make them their own. I don't think people liked Pathfinder because certain passages in their rulebook had verbatim copy out of the Monster Manual or something. They liked it because the underlying principles were familiar -- specifically the things WotC can't and does not own.

Pathfinder's success came because they made a system that was not D&D but close enough that D&D players could jump over if they weren't happy with the new 4e system. Had it come out five years earlier (or possibly five years later) it would be a footnote. They used the OGL because it allowed them to move fast and nail that timing, but it wasn't in and of itself a major component in why the game was successful.

Psyren

2022-12-23, 07:26 AM

Everything is built on the shoulders of those that came before them. It's not random happenstance that original D&D was designed to appeal to fans of LotR and other pulp fantasy stories and series. You could say D&D enjoyed a degree of success that was outsized relative to the cost of developing their own genre (I mean we all know about the AD&D1 hobbits and Cthulhu Mythos, right?).

If it were that simple then D&D wouldn't have been the groundbreaking form of game that it ended up being. D&D creating an entire new genre of game that had never existed before, is not comparable to Pathfinder just being a spinoff within that genre. And I say that as a huge fan of PF(1).

The OGL allows you to, I believe, use some of WotC's presentation for certain things. But that just makes it easy to produce material.
...
They used the OGL because it allowed them to move fast and nail that timing, but it wasn't in and of itself a major component in why the game was successful.

These things in and of themselves carry considerable value; they each mean one less hurdle that PF had to worry about when absorbing 3.5's disaffected audience / install base. I'm not saying it's impossible that they would have succeeded if they had been forced to start PF from scratch, but their chances of failure would certainly have been higher. At the end of the day we'll never know what that alternate universe would have looked like, so we may have to agree to disagree.

EggKookoo

2022-12-23, 07:57 AM

If it were that simple then D&D wouldn't have been the groundbreaking form of game that it ended up being. D&D creating an entire new genre of game that had never existed before, is not comparable to Pathfinder just being a spinoff within that genre. And I say that as a huge fan of PF(1).

What did WotC have to do with TSR's accomplishments back in the 1970s? The OGL is a WotC invention. It, too, just piggybacked off the legacy of the original game. Don't act like it was the source of that legacy.

And don't conflate it with legal ownership. WotC bought its way into D&D. I don't mean this as any form of criticism. But the idea that 3rd party developers have some kind of cultural obligation to WotC is silly. Developers might have an obligation to TSR, or really Gygax and Arneson, but they're long since out of the picture. And the truth is, not even D&D can claim any kind of real cultural ownership over TTRPGs. Out among the normies, sure, "tabletop roleplaying" is synonymous with "dungeons & dragons" but among the core of actual players we're all well aware that there are other great games out there that have made significant contributions to the art. A lot of what D&D current is today is a result of many of those contributions. And the majority of the market for 3rd party developers are the core enthusiasts, not the "oh, right, I saw that game on Stranger Things" players.

WotC's D&D is special the way Disney is -- mainly due to size.

Oramac

2022-12-23, 10:07 AM

Yes the brand, more merchandise, toys, games and tv stuff.

Ok I will nip most of your concerns in the bud cause the OGL does not work the way you are concerned about.

Content does not have to be updated. No updates to the OGL can retroactively apply.
If Wizards makes a 1.2 update people can ignore it and just use the 1.1 or 1.0 versions as you can choose which version of the OGL to use.

For example if they made a 1.2 that’s only difference is that you start paying royalties at 500k then it would not mean anything. Companies making more than that could just use the 1.1 version instead.

The OGL 1.1 will apply to the New SRD for One D&D. So people who want to use that to make One D&D products will have to use the new OGL with it. Those who want to stick to 5e products can use the original one. A 1.2 is worthless unless their is a big rules update they want to use with it.

I imagine there will be a further incentive to use the new OGL closer to release. Like being able to directly sell your products on D&D Beyond.

So as it happens, I'm a person who has written a lot of third-party content, and worked with the license.
I was going to answer this myself, but while poking around for some specific details, I stumbled on WotC's answer to this question from ages and ages ago. So I'll let their answer stand for itself.

That one quote is why all the doom and fear mongering about the OGL was utterly pointless.

The above all assume that OGL1.1 will have a Section 9 like the current OGL.

I'll say it again, given what we know, it's not a stretch to say that WOTC is likely to remove or significantly rewrite whatever OGL1.1's version of Section 9 is.

Otoh, all they have to do is restrict new content to whatever is the most current OGL at the time of it's release, either prior content will need to update and be subject to it, or it'll be indirectly frozen out.

That said, they do have a fine line to walk, they still have their "all roads lead to D&D" philosophy, i.e., the strategic goal which lead to the OGL in the first place.

Exactly.

The simple fact is, until WOTC shows us the actual OGL1.1, we just don't know. Call it what you want, but it is a legitimate concern.

Envyus

2022-12-23, 12:57 PM

The above all assume that OGL1.1 will have a Section 9 like the current OGL.

I'll say it again, given what we know, it's not a stretch to say that WOTC is likely to remove or significantly rewrite whatever OGL1.1's version of Section 9 is.

Exactly.

The simple fact is, until WOTC shows us the actual OGL1.1, we just don't know. Call it what you want, but it is a legitimate concern.

That doesn’t matter. Whatever 1.1 says has no effect on 1.0 and section 9 and it can’t be revoked.

Oramac

2022-12-23, 01:14 PM

That doesn’t matter. Whatever 1.1 says has no effect on 1.0 and section 9 and it can’t be revoked.

It doesn't matter for 1.0, that is true. But it absolutely matters for 1.1 and everything that comes after it, which is the whole point.

Psyren

2022-12-23, 01:36 PM

What did WotC have to do with TSR's accomplishments back in the 1970s? The OGL is a WotC invention. It, too, just piggybacked off the legacy of the original game. Don't act like it was the source of that legacy.

And don't conflate it with legal ownership. WotC bought its way into D&D. I don't mean this as any form of criticism. But the idea that 3rd party developers have some kind of cultural obligation to WotC is silly. Developers might have an obligation to TSR, or really Gygax and Arneson, but they're long since out of the picture. And the truth is, not even D&D can claim any kind of real cultural ownership over TTRPGs. Out among the normies, sure, "tabletop roleplaying" is synonymous with "dungeons & dragons" but among the core of actual players we're all well aware that there are other great games out there that have made significant contributions to the art. A lot of what D&D current is today is a result of many of those contributions. And the majority of the market for 3rd party developers are the core enthusiasts, not the "oh, right, I saw that game on Stranger Things" players.

WotC's D&D is special the way Disney is -- mainly due to size.

I'm not arguing that WotC is owed "cultural ownership" of anything, nor that D&D is synonymous with TTRPGs. I'm arguing that if someone makes millions of dollars off the foundation WotC designers created that they wouldn't have been able to make otherwise, a royalty is not an unreasonable ask. 90% of the indie creators on DMsGuild and Kickstarter will fall below such a lofty threshold and be completely unaffected. And for those who want to gamble that an older version of the OGL without this stipulation will give them similar reach, they have the right to try that.

EggKookoo

2022-12-23, 02:16 PM

I'm arguing that if someone makes millions of dollars off the foundation WotC designers created that they wouldn't have been able to make otherwise, a royalty is not an unreasonable ask.

Sure. What's that foundation again? It's not the OGL itself, that's just the permission slip.

Is it the brand and audience of D&D? WotC didn't create that. They bought a financially dying TSR just so they could pick up its existing brand and audience. It was considered highly valuable before WotC came along.

Is it the d20 system itself? While WotC certainly created a brand around their mechanic, they certainly didn't create the basic principles its based on. But okay, we can credit WotC for unifying D&D into a central mechanic. They finally caught up in 2000 what the state of the art had been at for almost a decade by then. Go WotC!

Is it the creative setting and overall theming and fantastic appeal of settings like FR (and Eberron and DS and so on)? Great! Those are cool. But they're also exactly the thing a clone wouldn't be taking. Any D&D clone would have to work up its own setting and mythology.

Remember, I'm talking about making a game that's explicitly not D&D, but compatible with it, like Pathfinder.

And even if we're talking about making something you want to sell as D&D compatible, the only thing the OGL gets you is the ability to brand it as such. And the only reason that exists is so WotC can make money off of core books that people will need to buy to use your content. Oh, and to help them squeeze the market by filling it with "d20" products, which in and of itself has massive value by keeping competitors out.

They already get a lot of value out of the mechanism.

Psyren

2022-12-23, 03:00 PM

Is it the brand and audience of D&D? WotC didn't create that. They bought a financially dying TSR just so they could pick up its existing brand and audience. It was considered highly valuable before WotC came along.

And if they hadnt done so, there might be no D&D at all. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, but it does to me. So again, agree to disagree.

EggKookoo

2022-12-23, 03:12 PM

And if they hadnt done so, there might be no D&D at all. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, but it does to me. So again, agree to disagree.

I don't know how much it matters to me. I like playing 5e now, so I guess in retrospect I'm happy they saved the game. At the time I was occasionally playing in a 2e game but AFAIK that DM is still running his 2e campaign today, so I guess it wouldn't have had much impact.

What I do think is if WotC had never gone the route of the OGL, the tabletop market would be smaller today but also probably more diversified (less dominated by D&D). But I guess we can never know.

Psyren

2022-12-23, 04:10 PM

I don't know how much it matters to me. I like playing 5e now, so I guess in retrospect I'm happy they saved the game. At the time I was occasionally playing in a 2e game but AFAIK that DM is still running his 2e campaign today, so I guess it wouldn't have had much impact.

What I do think is if WotC had never gone the route of the OGL, the tabletop market would be smaller today but also probably more diversified (less dominated by D&D). But I guess we can never know.

There's plenty of diversity in the market today. You might not have the easiest time getting your group to try things that aren't D&D, but it's possible, and time tends to ameliorate that particular hurdle. Meanwhile having a clear market leader has also proven to be a strong onramp for the hobby as a whole, and that benefits everyone.

TaiLiu

2022-12-24, 12:46 AM

The 3.5 one is on d20srd. No idea about 3.0.

For 5e, the WOTC webpage is here (https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document), and the direct link to the PDF is here (https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SRD-OGL_V5.1.pdf).
Gotcha, thank you!

There's plenty of diversity in the market today. You might not have the easiest time getting your group to try things that aren't D&D, but it's possible, and time tends to ameliorate that particular hurdle. Meanwhile having a clear market leader has also proven to be a strong onramp for the hobby as a whole, and that benefits everyone.
I guess I disagree here. I think it's been somewhat disadvantageous for a single game (and more importantly, a single company) to have so much influence. D&D 5e is mechanically heavy in a way that I think makes it difficult for many players to easily grasp and therefore join the hobby. I've played with players who've played for some years but still have trouble with 5e's basics. But you may be right: I suppose it's impossible to know how counterfactual histories would've turned out.

Just to Browse

2022-12-24, 12:47 AM

Thoughts about the "O"GL announcement have been bouncing around in my head recently and I needed to get them out.

I am honestly quite bothered by the announcement. It answered very few of my questions and opened up a lot more. If anyone follows Justin Alexander, most of my concerns echo his. My concerns come from 3 places:

1. The Name: Just reading the description, this is not open! The existence of royalty payments and behind-closed-doors negotiations are antithetical to the concept of open licenses like Creative Commons. I'm not all that surprised to see a non-open license try to co-opt the word "open"; it's good marketing! The last time WotC dropped the OGL for a more restrictive license (D&D 4e), their game bombed, so it makes a lot of sense for them to try and pull this maneuver. But this is simply not an "open" license in the way the word has been used for most of the digital era, and Hasbro's choice to call a restricted license "open" feels like a really horrible omen.

For this reason, I am going to pettily refer to their new policy as "O"GL for the rest of this comment.

2. Behind Closed Doors: Speaking of doing stuff behind closed doors, my heart sank when I saw that the OGL applied only to static assets.

What's worse: WotC stated that other uses (VTTs being cited here in particular) required "custom agreements". I don't know about you all, but I use software for playing D&D, both VTTs and character builders. And I know that none of the software that I personally use is currently covered under these "custom agreements", which means the fate of my VTT and my favorite character sheet are up in the air. With "O"GL 1.1, WotC is entirely in their legal authority to prevent my favorite VTT (Foundry) from operating at all. Like Hasbro lawyers might not like that Foundry sells permanent licenses, and they could just refuse to cut a deal unless Foundry moves to a subscription product or stops supporting 1D&D.

Even worse: There's a solid chance I will never know the deals here, because "custom agreements" can include NDAs. I won't get to know if Hasbro demands a 1% cut of Foundry licenses, or some insane monthly payment, or whatever else.

3. Unilateral Control: Starting with a sleight sidebar: Currently if you publish content on DMsGuild, you have to sign a contract with WotC which gives the company an intense amount of control. You can't run Kickstarters and your content can't be associated with Patreon, you need to follow certain content guidelines, and WotC has unilateral rights to take your content off their digital shelf at any time. While I have many issues with DMsGuild, some of this I understand: WotC is operating as a publisher in this respect, and they should have publisher-level control over your content.

With the "O"GL 1.1, there's too much uncertainty. WotC has told us "very little is going to change", but also clearly states that commercial 1D&D products will require accepting the "O"GL 1.1. The license may restrict the type of content you can publish, in which case you either stop using 1D&D content or you need to walk around those restrictions. The license may include a poison pill clause in which prevents you from using non-whitelisted intellectual property. The license may include a revocability clause which allows Hasbro to change the terms at any time. Since we don't know what the "O"GL 1.1 will contain, I can't say for certain that any of these are required. But if WotC requires you to register with them and accept their license before using their content, any of these could happen and creators will suffer.

----------

Some common counterarguments I've seen on the internet:

It might happen, but it might not. To be clear, "O"GL 1.1 is not out yet. Particularly when it comes to concern #3, we don't know the specifics of the license and the exact ways it will hurt creators (if any). Heck, even if certain clauses show up in a license, WotC might not exercise those clauses unless a product becomes especially popular. For the latter example, DMsGuild bans you from posting your homebrew setting using 5e rules. There are still products in the store that do so, but they're all small potatoes.

But my anger over the "O"GL isn't because I know certain things will be in it, it's that I have to worry at all! A great way to avoid this is to promise that your new OGL will be irrevocable, include no IP restrictions, and provide transparent pricing for all products. Ya know, like the 3rd and 5th edition OGLs.

WotC deserves this. We're going to have to agree to disagree here. I can be convinced that WotC has earned some degree of royalties for supporting the edition, but there's a hell of a lot more to "O"GL 1.1 than royalties. Also, I'm not on board with this opinion at all until WotC tells us exactly what the royalty is, and whether it applies to top-line income (e.g. a $750k KS) or bottom-line income (e.g. pulling in $750k in profit).

You (or your favorite VTT / character builder) can stick to OGL 1.0! Sure, but this hits a wall if my friends want to play 1D&D because the races are more fun and spiritual weapon is balanced or whatever. Again, my anger here is over the fact that I need to make these choices at all! Just let me play my game, dammit.

Game mechanics can't be copyrighted anyways. Well, sort of, maybe? That's untested legal ground, and there are almost certainly going to be nuances here that skilled lawyers and judges will need to figure out. But for those nuances to get figured out, someone has to go to court. And that someone will almost certainly spend a fortune on legal fees while they face off against Hasbro's lawyers. I don't want to be that someone. I don't want this for my <10-person team at Foundry either. All the assurances in the world from Internet Legal Experts(tm) mean very little at the end of the day.

Hasbro won't do that, you're overreacting. Justin Alexander recently put it best (https://twitter.com/hexcrawl/status/1605649033610960896?cxt=HHwWgIClpb_StMgsAAAA):
You have no idea who the next CEO of Hasbro will be.
Six months ago, Hasbro would "never" abandon the current OGL. They'd learned their lesson from 4E, after all.
Hasbro HAS done that.
I still remember 3.0 => 3.5 transition. I still remember 4th edition and the GSL. I don't think I'm jaded for noticing that Hasbro exhibits a certain kind of behavior when D&D starts to do well. For now, I can only hope that the "O"GL 1.1 is as minimally-damaging to 1D&D as possible.

Envyus

2022-12-24, 01:02 AM

1. The Name: Just reading the description, this is not open! The existence of royalty payments and behind-closed-doors negotiations are antithetical to the concept of open licenses like Creative Commons.

Ok going to nip this. The OGL and Creative Commons are unrelated as the OGL predates it.

Just to Browse

2022-12-24, 01:34 AM

Raven777

2022-12-24, 02:17 AM

You might not have the easiest time getting your group to try things that aren't D&D [...].

Two weeks ago before the holidays I tricked three never-played-before coworkers into a one shot of We Be Goblins telling them it's D&D. Don't tell them! :smallwink:

ProsecutorGodot

2022-12-24, 02:25 AM

The OGL 1.0 does indeed precede CC, but that's not the point I was trying to make when I complained about the name. The various Creative Commons licenses and OGL 1.0 are actually open, and I won't put petty quotes around the "O" when describing OGL 1.0. But when I talk about the new impending "O"GL for 1D&D, I'm gonna decorate that "O" like a christmas tree.

EDIT: An example for clarity: Imagine if, in a horrible twist of fate, a corporation somehow took over the Creative Commons non-profit and said "we're publishing our work under the new CC-BY-SA 5.0, which requires that you pay us money to use our content". (ridiculous example, I know).

In this scenario, I would not consider this an open license. I would also refer to the org as Creative "Commons" and the license as C"C"-BY-SA as my way of fighting back against The Man.

I'm not sure how it doesn't qualify as "open". There isn't yet an explicit limitation on the content, the only change we can assume is that the "accepting" of the terms to make a sale is going to involve a slight bit more paperwork, likely just to WotC can better track what the content actually is. It's important to note that they don't say "we must accept/approve what you're selling". With the information we have, it appears all you have to do is to give them a description of your product and you can carry on as previously.

Because here's the thing - there's already a termination clause (several, considering that failing to comply with any of the terms can terminate the license), and it already requires you to "agree". Currently if you use the content, you've agreed to the terms. If you are made aware of having violated the terms and fail to comply within 30 days, your access to the license is terminated.

The only thing changing in the aspect of "accepting" the terms is that it's now an official notification rather than an implicit one dictated by your copy of the terms attached to the product. Then end result is the same with regards to your access to the content - once you've accepted, you have complete access and permission to use the content. This also only applies to commercial content, there's little to no reason to expect that a creator who doesn't plan to commercialize the content has to give any notice of what its for are do anything beyond what the preexisting terms entail.

To put it even more simply - with all we know now, both OGL 1.0a and OGL 1.1 can only terminate your license if you fail to agree and comply with the terms. They begin with the acceptance of the terms and can only end if you knowingly violate the terms.

That said, I will acknowledge that in a worst case scenario this could be done to establish a grounds for revoking access to the agreement beyond its existing termination clause or forcing a "behind closed doors" deal to maintain compliance, it could even be true that the requested description of your product will be an approvale process, which would indeed not be an open license. We don't currently have reason to suspect they'll do such a thing beyond wild speculation though, so assuming that they're going to act in bad faith in the future is its own sort of bad faith interpretation. If indeed we do end up in a place where WotC does make intentional movements to be "open" rather than open as you say, I'll be right next to you in lambasting them, I'm just not lining up months in advance for something that might not happen.

Brookshw

2022-12-24, 09:31 AM

Ok going to nip this. The OGL and Creative Commons are unrelated as the OGL predates it.

To expand upon this, CC and OGL aren't really a great comparison; there are a wide variety of CC licenses available that provide very differing rights, such as whether you can use the content commercially or not, whether you can create derivatives of it or not, and so on. Some are close to the OGL, some are very far apart.

And since I'm here, a few people mentioned content previously released under the OGL is safe/fine. This isn't completely true; they're safe to the extent WoTC leaves the license in place (and there's currently ever indication they are), however, the OGL is just a contract which WoTC can revoke at any time. In the unlikely event they do, people who relied on it generally have 3 options: (1) hang their heads and sign; (2) sue for specific performance and seek to get the license reinstated, either in general or for their particular use; and (3) sue for reliance damages.

As to (3), as of 2018 the average copyright litigator wouldn't take a case with less than $60k in dispute, and, though would actually be a contract and not copyright dispute, it's likely the amount is dispute won't be significant enough to entice one to take it up unless you're paying an hourly rate, potentially shelling out hefty legal fees and still losing. For any commercial product, unless it's highly successful, seems like the best you're really going to hope for is a pyrrhic victory (unless you got the court to award attorney fees).

Envyus

2022-12-24, 12:54 PM

And since I'm here, a few people mentioned content previously released under the OGL is safe/fine. This isn't completely true; they're safe to the extent WoTC leaves the license in place (and there's currently ever indication they are), however, the OGL is just a contract which WoTC can revoke at any time.

This isn’t true. The OGL is explicitly unrevokable. If they could revoke it, they would have done so during 4e, were it was directly creating a large competitor.

Just to Browse

2022-12-24, 01:24 PM

RE: both licenses can be terminated
I don't think any of my comments mention the termination clause? If so, it was by accident, and whatever I said should be about revocability.

RE: No limitations yet
I view the "we haven't seen the restrictions yet" in the same way as the "might" argument from my original post. Like I said, my anger is over the fact that I need to worry about these impending restrictions at all! WotC could very easily have assuaged those worries, but they did not, and that gives me flashbacks to 2008.

Back when 4th edition was coming out, I distinctly remember WotC telling us that it wouldn't have an OGL, and that it would be limited in ways you didn't have to worry about, that it would support 3rd-party creators and promote open gaming. Then the GSL came out, and it contained both a poison pill and a revocability clause. Back in 07~08, I remember twiddling me thumbs and confidently telling all the haters, "Hey dude, chill out. You don't even know if the license will be that bad!" And then it was bad! It was worse than bad! And the only reason we got anything reversed (the poison pill clause) was because of a massive online backlash.

I get not wanting to line up with me to be mad about this now, but I hope you see where I'm coming from. I'm not going to wait around this time for WotC to drop GSL Part 2: We're Pretending Its Open Now to start complaining.

RE: Creative Commons
I clearly wrote that original bit badly because we've got some misunderstandings. I'll try to be a little more verbose about what my point #1 above is and is not about:

Stuff I'm not claiming:
I'm not claiming that the CC non-profit is actually a license.
I'm not claiming that the OGL 1.0 has the same terms as any license created by the CC non-profit
I'm not claiming that the OGL 1.0 has similar terms to any license created by the CC non-profit (even if one of them does have similar terms, I'm not making this claim!)
I'm not claiming that any license created by the CC non-profit came before OGL 1.0
I'm not claiming that any license from any organization came before OGL 1.0.
Stuff I am claiming, following this line of logic:
There exist a set of licenses called open licenses (https://www.yearofopen.org/what-are-open-licenses/). They deserve the word "open", because they are open. They are generally transparent and don't require you to report what you're selling to anyone.
This usage of the term "open" is not niche. As an example, I'm pointing to the many licenses maintained by the CC non-profit, which is 2 decades old now. The CC non-profit is used an example to demonstrate what the word "open" means in the context of "open license", because it is widespread and has contributed significantly to our societal understanding of the term "open license".
Obligatory, again: CC is not a license itself. The licenses maintained by the CC non-profit are not a definitive list of licenses. The licenses maintained by the CC non-profit are not the first open licenses. The licenses maintained by the CC non-profit are not necessarily identical or similar to OGL 1.0. The licenses under the CC serve exclusively as an example of what "open license" has meant for the last 20+ years.
OGL 1.0 is an open license.
"O"GL 1.1 calls itself an "open" license, but even the limited details revealed so far demonstrate that it is not.
Point #5 makes me angry :smallmad:
To be clear: if you think the closed-door agreement for dynamic content and the reporting still qualify as open, then you do you. I disagree very strongly, but I'm not going to change your mind.

If you think my view of the situation is catastrophizing or that I'm jaded, I hear you on this too. If you agree with most of this but think I should be a little less dramatic, that's also cool. I'm not gonna show up at anyone's house with a gallon of burning oil screaming "DOWN WITH THE CLOSED LICENSE LOVER". I don't expect to win over this thread and make everyone doom about the "O"GL, especially because I don't know who here lived through the GSL in '08. All I'm hoping is that at least one person reads my comments and comes away a tiny bit more wary of Hasbro's policies.

ProsecutorGodot

2022-12-24, 01:55 PM

RE: both licenses can be terminated
I don't think any of my comments mention the termination clause? If so, it was by accident, and whatever I said should be about revocability.
It's because of your claims about being "open". The man who coined the term and created the OGL set definitions on what he believe constitutes an "open license"

The Open Gaming Foundation believes that a license must provide for two important features in order to be an Open Game license.

1. The license must allow game rules and materials that use game rules to be freely copied, modified and distributed.
2. The license must ensure that material distributed using the license cannot have those permissions restricted in the future.

The first requirement precludes an Open Gaming License from placing any limitation on the licensed content beyond those necessary to enforce the terms of the license itself. This prohibition includes a restriction against commercial distribution, a requirement for review or approval, the payment of a fee of any kind to a 3rd party, or any other term that would seek to limit the free use of the licensed material.

The second requirement means that the license must have a mechanism to ensure that the rights it grants cannot be taken away, either by the original contributor of the material, of the copyright holder of the license text itself, by an action taken on behalf of a 3rd party, or any other process.
So far, OGL 1.1 does none of these things. To be perfectly clear, we don't yet know if this requirement of notice will have any impact on your access to the license. None of the changes we're aware of as of yet revoke anyones right to use the content for any arbitrary reason, the only way your right to use the license can be revoked is through its own termination clause.

That means it is an open license, at least by the criteria its original creator set. This could change if indeed the requirement to tell WotC what your product is could result in losing access to the license, but we don't know that yet.

If you think my view of the situation is catastrophizing or that I'm jaded, I hear you on this too. If you agree with most of this but think I should be a little less dramatic, that's also cool. I'm not gonna show up at anyone's house with a gallon of burning oil screaming "DOWN WITH THE CLOSED LICENSE LOVER". I don't expect to win over this thread and make everyone doom about the "O"GL, especially because I don't know who here lived through the GSL in '08. All I'm hoping is that at least one person reads my comments and comes away a tiny bit more wary of Hasbro's policies.

All I'm saying is that doing wild accusatory speculation ahead of time is completely unproductive. You could very well be right, this could be the worst thing to happen to D&D since the prior GSL, but you seem to be attributing a lot of blame to as of yet unspecified terms base on evidence that could be interpreted both ways.

"The GSL was bad, history could repeat itself with OGL 1.1" has exactly as much evidential weight as "The GSL was bad, WotC wouldn't make that mistake again". They're both assumptions.

Until we know the exact terms, not enough has changed to suggest they're trying to trick people or market the license as open for good press optics. We can start pointing fingers directly when we know the exact terms, not when we've been given non-specific generalizations of the updates. You're right, it could be bad. It could also be just fine.

And for what its worth, I agree that skepticism is warranted and healthy, I just don't think building exaggerated conclusions based on an incomplete knowledge falls under "healthy skepticism".

Just to Browse

2022-12-24, 02:23 PM

RE: Open = what Dancey wrote
This is why I specifically used CC licenses as my example. I think that the original definition from the OGF is inadequate, and it does not match the modern understanding of what an "open license" is. However, if you personally believe that an "open license" is anything that conforms to Dancey's guidelines from ~2000, then: "I disagree very strongly, but I'm not going to change your mind."

These are just assumptions. It could be fine
Covered already:

[My] anger over the "O"GL isn't because I know certain things will be in it, it's that I have to worry at all! A great way to avoid this is to promise that your new OGL will be irrevocable, include no IP restrictions, and provide transparent pricing for all products. Ya know, like the 3rd and 5th edition OGLs.

Psyren

2022-12-24, 02:46 PM

Even worse: There's a solid chance I will never know the deals here, because "custom agreements" can include NDAs. I won't get to know if Hasbro demands a 1% cut of Foundry licenses, or some insane monthly payment, or whatever else.

If you want to know the ins and outs of Foundry's business dealings, you may want to see if they're hiring. Beyond that, whatever provisions may be in their custom agreements that we're not privy to from the outside, we'll know one thing for certain - if they accept them, it's because they see more benefit to doing so than not. '

While personally I would prefer a more general "VTT license" whose terms are more transparent to us, I can understand them not wanting to spend time working on such a thing before their own VTT even exists. For better or worse, the competition has a huge head start, and they'll always have one key advantage that DDB doesn't - support for non-D&D systems.

ProsecutorGodot

2022-12-24, 02:56 PM

These are just assumptions. It could be fine

[My] anger over the "O"GL isn't because I know certain things will be in it, it's that I have to worry at all! A great way to avoid this is to (1)promise that your new OGL will be irrevocable, (2)include no IP restrictions, and (2)provide transparent pricing for all products. Ya know, like the 3rd and 5th edition OGLs.
Covered already:
1)The OGL is irrevocable, we have no reason to believe that section 9 is being removed or changed because they can't. That's why when they wanted to be more restrictive, they had to change to GSL. "OGL" is not just a marketing term here, they're also beholden to the terms of the licensing agreement, to continue to use OGL means they can't limit your access to a previous version.

2)Not sure what you mean by this, explain? Does this have to do with the "Product Identity" section of the OGL? I can only assume it does, since those cover Trademarks, which there are already restrictions on. If you mean copyright, we have no indications yet that copyright holdings will change.

3)I don't know what you mean by this either, OGL 1.0a doesn't cover any pricing other than mentioning your free access to the content and we've yet to be given an indication that "use" of the license will cost anything. With regards to the royalties, they were fairly transparent about the thresholds you had to meet to be subject to the costs. I'll withhold judgement on whether I think these royalties are fair in price for when we know the numbers, but I do think the number they set before you were subject to such payments is fair, it's unlikely to affect 99.9% of the userbase.

While personally I would prefer a more general "VTT license" whose terms are more transparent to us, I can understand them not wanting to spend time working on such a thing before their own VTT even exists. For better or worse, the competition has a huge head start, and they'll always have one key advantage that DDB doesn't - support for non-D&D systems.
Yes, Foundry as it exists now can't be terminated from using OGL 1.0a into perpetuity. They can continue to use their current license and all it would do is prevent them from using licensing exclusive to OGL 1.1. There's no reason to believe they'll disappear as a result of these changes.

Just to Browse

2022-12-24, 03:12 PM

(1) covers "O"GL 1.1, which has not yet been confirmed to be irrevocable, (2) is about poison pills, (3) OGL 1.0 does have pricing, in that it provides a "perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive licenset". In contrast "O"GL 1.1 is going to be explicit in requiring its "custom agreements".

Foundry can use OGL 1.0
Covered already:

You (or your favorite VTT / character builder) can stick to OGL 1.0! Sure, but this hits a wall if my friends want to play 1D&D because the races are more fun and spiritual weapon is balanced or whatever. Again, my anger here is over the fact that I need to make these choices at all! Just let me play my game, dammit.

We don't know if Foundry will be barred
Also covered already. The "might" argument applies here as well.

Brookshw

2022-12-24, 03:34 PM

This isnÂ’t true. The OGL is explicitly unrevokable. If they could revoke it, they would have done so during 4e, were it was directly creating a large competitor.

Non-exclusive licenses which do not expressly state they're irrevocable are interpreted to be revocable at will in most US jurisdictions. Looking at Section 4, I see the standard NERF language, but no mention of the license being irrevocable; were this irrevocable, then licensing standards overwhelmingly would place the term in that Section. Further, for the tests of irrevocability utilized in most jurisdictions, not a single element appears to be satisfied. Really, it's very clever draftsmanship by their counsel.

Mind you, I'm not saying they would want to revoke it (they very strategically launched it to much success), just that they can from a legal perspective; are you honestly surprised they built in a clever failsafe should they ever need it?

If you want to discuss the legal points further, I'm happy to, but would rather take it to PMs.

Snowbluff

2022-12-24, 05:57 PM

That one quote is why all the doom and fear mongering about the OGL was utterly pointless.

I mean, I would say it was pointless on the basis of being fearmongering alone. People went out of their way to frame an announcement for a specific audience in the worst way possible. It's pretty obvious it was pretty dumb to begin with, but then people are still choosing to frame it for ragebaiting anyway. Suffice it to say, WotC can't win with that crowd, and despite OGL having messed them up in the past the company are still intent on moving forward with one for their new edition.

Simply put, these are not the actions of a company trying to monopolize virtual tabletop gaming, as we've been told.

Daphne

2022-12-25, 09:10 AM

EggKookoo

2022-12-25, 09:30 AM

The more "fearmongering" and "screaming" the better. WotC already stated they are still working on the new OGL, it's better for the community to express their grievances before everything is written down.

Right, WotC isn't some disenfranchised subset of society that is struggling for fair treatment or recognition. It's a for-profit company that wants what's in your wallet. It's not fearmongering, it's consumer advocacy.

PhoenixPhyre

2022-12-25, 11:46 AM

Right, WotC isn't some disenfranchised subset of society that is struggling for fair treatment or recognition. It's a for-profit company that wants what's in your wallet. It's not fearmongering, it's consumer advocacy.

And specifically, it's the biggest company in the industry, owned by an even larger company. Both of whom (Hasbro and WotC) are known for predatory monetization (cf M:tG which has been doing it for years).

Snowbluff

2022-12-25, 12:41 PM

Yes, MtG is in a terrible state and I don't like the direction of ODD and feel its conception is more monetarily driven than any other edition, but you are wrapping back into the same thinking of the people who said there wouldn't be an OGL to begin with, that all interaction with VTT will be shut down, and microtransactions will rule tabletop gaming somehow. Given how unlikely and outright impossible for this to affect how most people distribute the content at their tables, I'm not sure how this is any exercise in anything other than self harm. I'm fine discussing legitimate complaints, but not with suppositions that are entirely made up and lacking in evidence. WotC's literally wrote that they don't mean to fundamentally change their relationship with VTTs or 3PP, but I've seen people take that as "everything will change."

And it's not affecting anything either. The 5e update was going to happen regardless, especially considering how different the gaming space was when it was first rendered and there being a new edition coming out. Suffice it to say, I am frustrated with the state of the discussion and its lack of verisimilitude.

Frogreaver

2022-12-26, 10:08 AM

Non-exclusive licenses which do not expressly state they're irrevocable are interpreted to be revocable at will in most US jurisdictions. Looking at Section 4, I see the standard NERF language, but no mention of the license being irrevocable; were this irrevocable, then licensing standards overwhelmingly would place the term in that Section. Further, for the tests of irrevocability utilized in most jurisdictions, not a single element appears to be satisfied. Really, it's very clever draftsmanship by their counsel.

Mind you, I'm not saying they would want to revoke it (they very strategically launched it to much success), just that they can from a legal perspective; are you honestly surprised they built in a clever failsafe should they ever need it?

If you want to discuss the legal points further, I'm happy to, but would rather take it to PMs.

You left out one important detail. Non-exclusive licenses with unspecified durations that are silent on revocability are generally revocable at will.

However, non-exclusive licenses which specify a duration but are silent on revocability are generally non-revocable within that duration.

The OGL 1.0a explicitly states:

4. Grant and Consideration: In consideration for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors grant You a perpetual worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.

Clearly, the OGL 1.0a specifies the duration.

*Note that revoke and terminate in regard to a license granted convey the same meaning. Section 13 explicitly states how the license can be terminated, aka revoked. It terminates/revokes only by failure to comply with it's terms.

Sparky McDibben

2022-12-26, 01:31 PM

Just gonna leave these here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXhFbDp1kX4 (OGL conversation starts 6:52)

https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/48760/roleplaying-games/open-gaming-license-a-brief-history

https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/48761/roleplaying-games/open-gaming-license-a-brief-history-part-2

Sure seems like a bunch of publishers are really worried about this. And I tend to like these folks' contributions to the community more than Wizards' contributions to the community.

Dragonus45

2022-12-26, 02:05 PM

The guy who writes over at The Alexandrian in particular has a lot of history and experience in the industry and is well worth listening too. He knows what he is talking about.

Brookshw

2022-12-26, 02:45 PM

You left out one important detail. Non-exclusive licenses with unspecified durations that are silent on revocability are generally revocable at will.

However, non-exclusive licenses which specify a duration but are silent on revocability are generally non-revocable within that duration.

The OGL 1.0a explicitly states:

4. Grant and Consideration: In consideration for agreeing to use this License, the Contributors grant You a perpetual worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license with the exact terms of this License to Use, the Open Game Content.

Clearly, the OGL 1.0a specifies the duration.

*Note that revoke and terminate in regard to a license granted convey the same meaning. Section 13 explicitly states how the license can be terminated, aka revoked. It terminates/revokes only by failure to comply with it's terms.

I considered that, however, "perpetuity" has generally not been found to be exclusive of revocability, many people have found to their surprise and discomfort that a perpetual contract could still be revoked without invoking a termination clause. It's not an accident that best practices in license drafting use "irrevocable" along with "perpetuity".

The termination clause is a better argument, I agree, Expressio unius est exclusio alterius, basically. Otoh, unless we're talking about a fed contract, that principle isn't always upheld; considered against the rest of the elements for an irrevocability test, well, its an argument, but I still wouldn't put a ton of faith in it carrying the day (if you're willing to foot the bill to fight it out and can find an attorney to take the case that is).

ProsecutorGodot

2022-12-26, 04:09 PM

The guy who writes over at The Alexandrian in particular has a lot of history and experience in the industry and is well worth listening too. He knows what he is talking about.

And he ends the article as such:

Any or all of this, of course, might still change. And what the final form of this 1.1 license will be is something we can really only speculate about. Will it have one or more poison pills? Will it give Hasbro the right to make unilateral changes to the license or otherwise be revocable?

As we look back over the history of the Open Gaming License, it seems as if we’re in a period of time quite similar to 2008: New leadership has taken control of Wizards. They have a new edition coming out. Corporate leadership is calling for increased monetization of the D&D property. After hemming and hawing, Wizards has been forced to make a public statement about the future of the Open Gaming License.

And what we know for certain right now is that their intention is for OneD&D to be less open than 5th Edition.

How MUCH less open it will be is the unanswered question.

Which is a fair and accurate summation without having to resort to blatant speculative doomsaying. The rest of the article is essentially a history of the ogl, which as far as I could tell, didn't cover anything any previous article written didn't already cover.

Sparky McDibben

2022-12-26, 06:27 PM

The rest of the article is essentially a history of the ogl, which as far as I could tell, didn't cover anything any previous article written didn't already cover.

I found it very useful to get a publisher's eye view from someone who's already been through this wringer, and a lot of the context for WotC's decisions in 3.5, 4th, and 5th edition licensing was extremely helpful. I'd recommend that Mike Shea video, though, because he is much more worried than the Alexandrian is.

ToranIronfinder

2022-12-26, 10:55 PM

My 2 cents, the issue will come down to whether reporting is related to revenue or profits. If what is intended is 50k in revenue for reporting and 750k for royalties, that will have a significantly greater impact on 3rd party producers than if it is profits/earnings, it will raise costs to producers, which will get passed on to consumers.

But, if WOTCs goes too far, say requiring someone to turn over IP, as happens to publishers on the DM Guild, well, that limits what you will be willing to publish. Content creators might instead publish that new campaign setting using variations on another system with a better OGL, say OpenD6 or the OSR systems; and those systems could become more significant competition, especially if they attract better talent than WOTCs more restrictive approach presnets. So WOTC will likely have reasons not to push things too far.

Just to Browse

2022-12-26, 11:47 PM

Justin's articles hit it on the head IMO. "O"GL 1.1 is certainly less open, and WotC's choice not to confirm things like poison pills / revocability mean that there are lots of unanswered questions about how bad it will actually be. Very reminiscent of 2008.

Dragonus45

2022-12-27, 09:30 AM

And he ends the article as such:

Which is a fair and accurate summation without having to resort to blatant speculative doomsaying. The rest of the article is essentially a history of the ogl, which as far as I could tell, didn't cover anything any previous article written didn't already cover.

Considering how many new people have entered the hobby in the past 5 years or so I think a comprehensive history on WotC/Hasbro and their inability to keep from shooting the golden goose is the past important context for their recent announcement they plan to start starving the goose to see how little it needs to eat before it starves, and I haven't found anything else as comprehensive as that article out there going over the history of things.

Oramac

2022-12-27, 09:34 AM

But, if WOTCs goes too far, say requiring someone to turn over IP, as happens to publishers on the DM Guild, well, that limits what you will be willing to publish. Content creators might instead publish that new campaign setting using variations on another system with a better OGL, say OpenD6 or the OSR systems; and those systems could become more significant competition, especially if they attract better talent than WOTCs more restrictive approach presnets. So WOTC will likely have reasons not to push things too far.

Yup. At this point, I'm writing my material under the 5e OGL v1.0, and ignoring OneD&D entirely. I sincerely hope the OGL1.1 will actually be open, but until I see it I can't justify writing any kind of OneD&D content.

...lots of unanswered questions...Very reminiscent of 2008.

This is what I've been saying the whole time. Everything they're doing now is eerily similar to their actions in 2008, and there are just too many unanswered questions to have any kind of certainty.

Lemmy

2023-01-05, 03:13 PM

Psyren

2023-01-05, 03:54 PM

The more I learn about the new "O"GL 1.1, the worse it sounds... And it sounds terrible already.

It was clear that WotC moneytization practices would get even more predatory when the new person in charge claimed that "D&D is undermonetized"... And given her background, I'm sure she was thinking of somehow adding micro-transactions to D&D... But the new "O"GL 1.1 so far seems to be even worse than that!

Just another reason to never again give a single cent to WotC.

D&D already has microtransactions, that ship has sailed. Check any book on DDB, you can buy stuff from them piecemeal (as well as cosmetics etc.)

Right, WotC isn't some disenfranchised subset of society that is struggling for fair treatment or recognition. It's a for-profit company that wants what's in your wallet. It's not fearmongering, it's consumer advocacy.

I'm all for consumer advocacy... but based on facts, not wild mass guessing and rumor. Otherwise the legitimate concerns and truly helpful suggestions just get drowned out.

EggKookoo

2023-01-05, 03:57 PM

I'm all for consumer advocacy... but based on facts, not wild mass guessing and rumor. Otherwise the legitimate concerns and truly helpful suggestions just get drowned out.

At the same time, corporations will take advantage of complacency. I know this first hand, both from the corporation side and the consumer side. It does no harm to be pre-emptive. You'll just have to voice your helpful suggestions more loudly.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-05, 04:02 PM

At the same time, corporations will take advantage of complacency. I know this first hand, both from the corporation side and the consumer side. It does no harm to be pre-emptive. You'll just have to voice your helpful suggestions more loudly.

Yeah. Waiting until it's a done deal means you've given up any chance to change things. Voicing concerns up front early can (but doesn't always) allow you to influence events.

Jervis

2023-01-05, 04:06 PM

Yeah. Waiting until it's a done deal means you've given up any chance to change things. Voicing concerns up front early can (but doesn't always) allow you to influence events.

This basically. People complaining about fear mongering confuse me here. Exploding at a leak is a good thing, it lets the company know they’re being stupid before they actually let the genie out of the bottle. But daddy WotC is in fact a small indie company that can do no wrong and deserves a cut of anything and everything that rolls a d20 so people defend it as if they had a personal stake in the issue.

Psyren

2023-01-05, 04:35 PM

Yeah. Waiting until it's a done deal means you've given up any chance to change things. Voicing concerns up front early can (but doesn't always) allow you to influence events.

I don't mind voicing a concern before something is released - but some of the responses are treating the thing as though it has been, or reacting based on "well, this random guy on the internet who has a totally legitimate anonymous source said..." It makes separating fact from fiction nearly impossible.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-05, 04:38 PM

I don't mind voicing a concern before something is released - but some of the responses are treating the thing as though it has been, or reacting based on "well, this random guy on the internet who has a totally legitimate anonymous source said..." It makes separating fact from fiction nearly impossible.

Only if you ignore all the hedging and context. I, at least, was very careful to say "assuming this is true..." many many many times.

However, it's consistent with things they've said they wanted to do. It's consistent with all sorts of things that corporations do regularly. It's the sort of trick that has happened any number of times--Microsoft was notorious for Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, which relied on exactly this sort of "pretend it's open, then cut everyone's legs out" trick.

So it's plausible. And even plausibility is cause for concern when the results are, as the would be assuming the leak was correct, beyond-worst-case.

EggKookoo

2023-01-05, 04:45 PM

Psyren

2023-01-05, 04:48 PM

Only if you ignore all the hedging and context. I, at least, was very careful to say "assuming this is true..." many many many times.

I know, I wasn't referring to you (nor indeed was I referring exclusively to this forum, even.)

However, it's consistent with things they've said they wanted to do. It's consistent with all sorts of things that corporations do regularly. It's the sort of trick that has happened any number of times--Microsoft was notorious for Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, which relied on exactly this sort of "pretend it's open, then cut everyone's legs out" trick

So it's plausible. And even plausibility is cause for concern when the results are, as the would be assuming the leak was correct, beyond-worst-case.

I think they've been fairly transparent so far. They specifically mentioned the royalty and reporting requirements ahead of the "leak", specifically mentioned updating terms to exclude non-gaming products and NFTs, and specifically mentioned that the Fan Content Policy would still exist to protect things like Critical Role. All of that is factual information that I have no issues with.

Do I want more detail, and could that detail change my mind and put me in the trenches alongside a number of folks, absolutely - but so far, I haven't seen anything to really sharpen my pitchfork about. That's all I'm saying really.

EggKookoo

2023-01-05, 05:25 PM

I think they've been fairly transparent so far. They specifically mentioned the royalty and reporting requirements ahead of the "leak", specifically mentioned updating terms to exclude non-gaming products and NFTs, and specifically mentioned that the Fan Content Policy would still exist to protect things like Critical Role. All of that is factual information that I have no issues with.

I want to know if they think OGL 1.1 supplants OGL 1. Based on what they've said, no, it doesn't. But why not come out and openly say that, if that's the case? It impacts a huge number of peoples' lives.

Jervis

2023-01-05, 06:03 PM

Only if you ignore all the hedging and context. I, at least, was very careful to say "assuming this is true..." many many many times.

However, it's consistent with things they've said they wanted to do. It's consistent with all sorts of things that corporations do regularly. It's the sort of trick that has happened any number of times--Microsoft was notorious for Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, which relied on exactly this sort of "pretend it's open, then cut everyone's legs out" trick.

So it's plausible. And even plausibility is cause for concern when the results are, as the would be assuming the leak was correct, beyond-worst-case.

This so much.

I think they've been fairly transparent so far. They specifically mentioned the royalty and reporting requirements ahead of the "leak", specifically mentioned updating terms to exclude non-gaming products and NFTs, and specifically mentioned that the Fan Content Policy would still exist to protect things like Critical Role. All of that is factual information that I have no issues with.

Do I want more detail, and could that detail change my mind and put me in the trenches alongside a number of folks, absolutely - but so far, I haven't seen anything to really sharpen my pitchfork about. That's all I'm saying really.

Here’s the thing, royalties aren’t even the worst of this assuming it’s true. The part about granting WotC a free license to do whatever they want with “””O”””GL content is. That effectively means they can do whatever the heck they want with what you make even though you supposedly still “own” it. It’s the DMs guild’s terrible license extended to everyone. Outrage is only a good thing at this point because it has a chance of changing something as apposed to waiting patiently for it to come into effect and then trying to get them to walk it back. It’s also extremely in character given what we’ve heard about their new lifestyle brand monetization moving forward.

Oh and it goes without saying that their new OGL also kneecaps people who release content dynamically such as through a wiki and doesn’t cover video content, and of course VTTs that aren’t one of the big boys WotC is playing nice with are getting lit on fire as well. Yeah the fan content policy covers videos to a degree but their fan content policy is notoriously bad anyway.

Psyren

2023-01-05, 06:13 PM

Outrage is only a good thing at this point because it has a chance of changing something as apposed to waiting patiently for it to come into effect and then trying to get them to walk it back.

I think outrage being the default reaction to everything 1DnD-related will make it hard to take the community seriously when it counts. But I've said my peace on that side of things.

Oh and it goes without saying that their new OGL also kneecaps people who release content dynamically such as through a wiki and doesn’t cover video content, and of course VTTs that aren’t one of the big boys WotC is playing nice with are getting lit on fire as well. Yeah the fan content policy covers videos to a degree but their fan content policy is notoriously bad anyway.

It depends on the wiki. Something lore focused like Forgotten Realms Wiki is likely fan content. If you tried to make a wiki like Archives of Nethys that copies all the mechanics verbatim though you'd likely get a takedown notice.

And the "bad" fan content policy seems to be working fine for thousands of creators to make a living off their hobby right now, so I don't buy that one.

Jervis

2023-01-05, 06:26 PM

It depends on the wiki. Something lore focused like Forgotten Realms Wiki is likely fan content. If you tried to make a wiki like Archives of Nethys that copies all the mechanics verbatim though you'd likely get a takedown notice.

And the "bad" fan content policy seems to be working fine for thousands of creators to make a living off their hobby right now, so I don't buy that one.

I was referring to people who release their own content in a wiki format. The homebrew on dnd wiki is one example but there are a couple other 5e hacks operate entirely of a wiki. The most notable one that comes to mind is a magical cyberpunk I can’t mention for forum reasons but there are others. You can say “they wouldn’t do that” all you want but the fact their policy is worded not to include that is a problem. The main purpose of the OGL is to make people feel comfortable making their own content for the game and this policy change would actively erode that. You need to realize that you are defending something that is objectively worse for the consumer than what has existed previously. Doesn’t matter if you think it’s reasonable, it’s still worse for consumers. That’s why people disagree with you, you’re actively defending a worse deal.

Segev

2023-01-05, 06:32 PM

Yeah, "If you make 3rd party content, we get to use it however we want without so much as an attribution," is going to cause some serious problems. I can understand wanting it in the same way that authors want to avoid reading fanfic because they don't want to be accused of "stealing ideas" from a fanfic of their work, and then being sued for royalties or the like, but the way this sounds like it works, it basically would let WotC take any third party book and put it up on their own web site as a PDF for sale there without having to give anything - even credit - to the third party publisher.

So, for example, if you know there's a cool book by Kobold Press, Mage Hand Press, Paizo, Dreamscarred Press, or any other 3rd party publisher you like, and you see it up for sale on D&D Beyond, it may well be that $0 of that sale goes to the creators. Because WotC has unlimited license to do whatever they want with the content.

Psyren

2023-01-05, 06:36 PM

I was referring to people who release their own content in a wiki format. The homebrew on dnd wiki is one example but there are a couple other 5e hacks operate entirely of a wiki. The most notable one that comes to mind is a magical cyberpunk I can’t mention for forum reasons but there are others. You can say “they wouldn’t do that” all you want but the fact their policy is worded not to include that is a problem. The main purpose of the OGL is to make people feel comfortable making their own content for the game and this policy change would actively erode that. You need to realize that you are defending something that is objectively worse for the consumer than what has existed previously. Doesn’t matter if you think it’s reasonable, it’s still worse for consumers. That’s why people disagree with you, you’re actively defending a worse deal.

Wait, so OGL 1.1 might kill D&DWiki? This deal keeps getting better! :smallbiggrin:

I'll admit that I don't have a comprehensive viewpoint on what counts as "static electronic files" and what doesn't per their previous announcement. Hopefully they'll release a FAQ alongside it that sheds some light. But I can also understand them wanting a license that is future-proofed as opposed to needing to jump through these hoops again with OGL 1.4 when, like, mindscribe technology or something becomes a thing one day and somebody tries to use it to reproduce their entire game for free.

Yeah, "If you make 3rd party content, we get to use it however we want without so much as an attribution," is going to cause some serious problems. I can understand wanting it in the same way that authors want to avoid reading fanfic because they don't want to be accused of "stealing ideas" from a fanfic of their work, and then being sued for royalties or the like, but the way this sounds like it works, it basically would let WotC take any third party book and put it up on their own web site as a PDF for sale there without having to give anything - even credit - to the third party publisher.

So, for example, if you know there's a cool book by Kobold Press, Mage Hand Press, Paizo, Dreamscarred Press, or any other 3rd party publisher you like, and you see it up for sale on D&D Beyond, it may well be that $0 of that sale goes to the creators. Because WotC has unlimited license to do whatever they want with the content.

I assume you're referring to this part of the article:

WotC also gets the right to use any content that licensees create, whether commercial or non-commercial. Although this is couched in language to protect Wizards’ products from infringing on creators’ copyright, the document states that for any content created under the updated OGL, regardless of whether or not it is owned by the creator, Wizards will have a “nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license to use that content for any purpose.”

If they use that language to resell others products and not give them any of the profits, I agree, that's scummy. This is definitely a passage I could see needing an edit if true.

Jervis

2023-01-05, 08:55 PM

Wait, so OGL 1.1 might kill D&DWiki? This deal keeps getting better! :smallbiggrin:

I'll admit that I don't have a comprehensive viewpoint on what counts as "static electronic files" and what doesn't per their previous announcement. Hopefully they'll release a FAQ alongside it that sheds some light. But I can also understand them wanting a license that is future-proofed as opposed to needing to jump through these hoops again with OGL 1.4 when, like, mindscribe technology or something becomes a thing one day and somebody tries to use it to reproduce their entire game for free.

You can already reproduce the game for free effectively and mindscribing isn’t needed for it. You can’t effectively copyright mechanics under US law, not really any way. I could, right now, release a legally distinct 5e with deferent art and proper names changed. Tieflings become half demons, Beholders turn into one eyes squids with the name “Gazers”, etc. at most maybe change a number or two in either direction and slap some weird mechanics on to make it looks different. It takes fewer changes than a average 5e fix homebrew a dm makes to make them work bette rode their table to avoid running afoul of copyright. I could even fire up some ai art and throw some pretty pictures in it. WotC doesn’t hold as much power as they want people to think. What they can do is determine what rules you need to follow to slap “5e compatible” on a product which is a big deal from a marketing standpoint. If this supposed 20 page OGL stands, and I have seen some screenshots of it from various videos and tweets, then WotC has rights to do whatever they want with what you create under it and you need to register the creations with them. That too me is far more egregious than even the anticompetitive rules they put in place to encourage people to use approved VTTs and Kickstarter over other crowdfunding alternatives.

And again you and other defenders have yet to make a point about how this is a good thing for creators. Not to be hostile (at least I try not to be), just a observation about how the changes only benefit WotC even if the negatives have a minimum impact.

ProsecutorGodot

2023-01-05, 09:10 PM

And again you and other defenders have yet to make a single point about how this is a good thing for creators.

You seem to have crossed the streams and crossed over from the more recent thread, so welcome to this one, it's a few weeks old at this point. This is me from a few weeks ago:

I'd say it's more of a neutral move. I won't give them points as "positive" for keeping much the same but it's hardly a "mostly negative" skew either if only the very top percentages of creators (who typically already deal directly with WotC in some aspect anyway) are the only ones seeing significant impact. My opinion could change as well, but not literally overnight with nothing but speculation to back it.
And as far as the general user is concerned, I still believe this. It's not changing much (that we know of) for people who only want to create and publish content for fun or to a small audience of people that are unlikely to make.

And once again, my opinion could change. A lot of the information we've been given in this leak (which I still don't consider to be definitive evidence at the moment) leads me to believe that the large majority of users aren't going to be negatively impacted. Not once have I, at least, claimed this is a huge good thing for everyone.

And to repeat myself again:

If indeed we do end up in a place where WotC does make intentional movements to be "open" rather than open as you say, I'll be right next to you in lambasting them, I'm just not lining up months in advance for something that might not happen.
Which, again, is still how I feel. I'm not calling this the death knell of D&D until we can verify for ourselves that these "credible leaks" are factual.

Psyren

2023-01-05, 09:15 PM

You can already reproduce the game for free effectively and mindscribing isn’t needed for it. You can’t effectively copyright mechanics under US law, not really any way. I could, right now, release a legally distinct 5e with deferent art and proper names changed. Tieflings become half demons, Beholders turn into one eyes squids with the name “Gazers”, etc. at most maybe change a number or two in either direction and slap some weird mechanics on to make it looks different. It takes fewer changes than a average 5e fix homebrew a dm makes to make them work bette rode their table to avoid running afoul of copyright. I could even fire up some ai art and throw some pretty pictures in it. WotC doesn’t hold as much power as they want people to think.

I've never denied you can do all that. But doing that in a legally safe/distinct way is not as easy as simply using the license instead, even with the added provisions. The amount you'd spend on an IP lawyer going over all your stuff with a fine-toothed comb to ensure your Beasts & Bastilles 5e clone is unimpeachable, is likely far more than you would have to pay out in a royalty (especially if you don't make enough to pay a royalty at all.)

What they can do is determine what rules you need to follow to slap “5e compatible” on a product which is a big deal from a marketing standpoint. If this supposed 20 page OGL stands, and I have seen some screenshots of it from various videos and tweets, then WotC has rights to do whatever they want with what you create under it and you need to register the creations with them. That too me is far more egregious than even the anticompetitive rules they put in place to encourage people to use approved VTTs and Kickstarter over other crowdfunding alternatives.

I've said I agree that clause is too far-reaching, if the language we've seen second and thirdhand for that section is accurate. It's one thing if they own a broad license to whatever you publish on their platforms (e.g. putting your free homebrew on D&DBeyond that ends up being similar to something they were about to publish themselves for instance), it's another if they can start selling your monetized PDFs on their site and keep all the profits.

And again you and other defenders have yet to make a single point about how this is a good thing for creators.

1) Just because I'm not diving for the nearest pitchfork doesn't mean I'm a "defender" :smalltongue: There are indeed parts of this draft I oppose. The simple right to restrict the OGL to printed splats and PDFs, and to get a cut if a creator makes 3/4 a million dollars or more off their work, are not among them.

2) It's good for creators because they're getting a massive platform and install base they would not be able to access otherwise, it's that simple. And the added revenue hooks will help ensure we continue to get more D&D for a long time to come, rather than risk it being shuttered again.

Lemmy

2023-01-05, 09:45 PM

D&D already has microtransactions, that ship has sailed. Check any book on DDB, you can buy stuff from them piecemeal (as well as cosmetics etc.)
There's a huge difference between selling microtransactions in a crappy pp that isn't even necessary to run a game and wanting to find a way to make it a much bigger part of the game because "players are undermoneytized".

And if "players are undermoneytized" how do you think they feel about D&D alternatives? WotC trying to push this draconian measures is very consistent with their history... Especially now that money is running short.

As described, right now, the "O"GL 1.1 allows WotC to not only use any material you use for free, forever, without as much as mentioning your name, but also to revoke your licence at any time for any reason... They don't like something you posted on your own personal Twitter account? Too bad! You lose your liscence and now they keep everything you created!!

All of this because instead of offering a good product, they decided to steal from indie content creators who, honestly, have been keeping this hobby alive in spite of WotC policies.

Jervis

2023-01-05, 10:04 PM

1) Just because I'm not diving for the nearest pitchfork doesn't mean I'm a "defender" :smalltongue: There are indeed parts of this draft I oppose. The simple right to restrict the OGL to printed splats and PDFs, and to get a cut if a creator makes 3/4 a million dollars or more off their work, are not among them.

2) It's good for creators because they're getting a massive platform and install base they would not be able to access otherwise, it's that simple. And the added revenue hooks will help ensure we continue to get more D&D for a long time to come, rather than risk it being shuttered again.

Here’s something you need to keep in mind. While I don’t think they could enforce this the way they clearly want too, this wording is targeting current Paizo and Pathfinder 2E/Starfinder. None of those games in their current form can be attributed to WotC in good faith and I suspect the note on the OGL was only included for the sake of a legal safety net that appears to have backfired. Even disregarding that I very much disagree with your thesis that Wizards are owed royalties because someone is making content for their game and certainly disagree with locking it to just PDFs. Ignoring the fact it’s ultimately to their benefit as it keeps people in the “ecosystem” as it where, they don’t offer anything beyond the ability to slap a sticker saying the content is compatible with 5e. For as much as I hate DMs guild they are least let you reference stuff outside the OGL and use some art packs they gave you. Also not to put to fine a point on it but you are, right now, defending them. So, uh, take that as you will.

As for the second point. You haven’t made any good point until now on how this is better than the previous OGL. In fact from a consumer side I’d say it’s objectively worse than what exists. Your only real point is that WotC is getting money to make more dnd; fine the literal biggest player in the industry by a order of magnitude is getting more money by extracting it from smaller creators doing their job (content creation) for them to distract people from their anorexic release schedule. Now they can hang back and produce all the horrid spelljammer tier books they want and milk their loyal fans while not creating anything of substance. See the issue? If they can’t make enough money to keep the ship sailing on their own chances are the ship ain’t good enough to stay on in the first place. If 5E isn’t profitable enough to continue operation then 3rd parties have no reason to stay on board unless they’re like a hypothetical Paizo they trapped into it. Yeah for the moment you have a large fanbase but i’m sure as heck not making anything under this mess of a OGL and I don’t think i’m in the minority here. People like Matt Colvile probably won’t be running 5e kickstarters anymore since his last one would have owed WotC 300k for nothing.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-05, 10:08 PM

As for the second point. You haven’t made any good point until now on how this is better than the previous OGL. In fact from a consumer side I’d say it’s objectively worse than what exists. Your only real point is that WotC is getting money to make more dnd; fine the literal biggest player in the industry by a order of magnitude is getting more money by extracting it from smaller creators doing their job (content creation) for them to distract people from their anorexic release schedule. Now they can hang back and produce all the horrid spelljammer tier books they want and milk their loyal fans while not creating anything of substance. See the issue? If they can’t make enough money to keep the ship sailing on their own chances are the ship ain’t good enough to stay on in the first place. If 5E isn’t profitable enough to continue operation then 3rd parties have no reason to stay on board unless they’re like a hypothetical Paizo they trapped into it. Yeah for the moment you have a large fanbase but i’m sure as heck not making anything under this mess of a OGL and I don’t think i’m in the minority here. People like Matt Colvile probably won’t be running 5e kickstarters anymore since his last one would have owed WotC 300k for nothing.

Agreed. I've seen nothing positive for consumers or creators. Just how it's better for WotC. Which is fine...if you're a WotC employee and your bonus depends on this. But not so fine if you actually care about the game itself or the community of players and creators.

Jervis

2023-01-05, 10:11 PM

Agreed. I've seen nothing positive for consumers or creators. Just how it's better for WotC. Which is fine...if you're a WotC employee and your bonus depends on this. But not so fine if you actually care about the game itself or the community of players and creators.

If they really want royalties I wouldn’t be apposed to some options for selling stuff directly on their VTT, some of this wording would make sense if you released it on their platform but the wording at the moment is something I cannot get behind.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-05, 10:22 PM

If they really want royalties I wouldn’t be apposed to some options for selling stuff directly on their VTT, some of this wording would make sense if you released it on their platform but the wording at the moment is something I cannot get behind.

Royalties on the net? NBD. 25% Royalties on the gross, with "yeah, we can change what the threshold is on a 30 day notice, probably retroactively, so screw you"...not so nice. But honestly, it's the rest of the thing that's super hostile to everyone. Revoking the 1.0(a) OGL? Pure user hostility. Pure anticompetitive behavior[1]. Saying that you have to publish either in physical or static electronic document[2] form? Pure anticompetitive, user-hostile behavior. Reserving the right to do anything they want with your content, forever, screw you, no you can't take this back, no compensation or even credit needed? Pure anticompetitive, user-hostile behavior. Having to explicitly mark every single thing taken from the OGL every time it's used? Pure anticompetitive, user-hostile behavior. That last one will make any 3rd party stuff unreadable if actually followed. "Make a Wisdom*(History*) check* with a DC* of 20. You have disadvantage* if...", where all those asterisks point at a place on the page "this content taken from the OGL".

[1] The kind that, if they were judged to have monopoly power, would be a prime anti-trust action. It's exactly the kind of thing that got Microsoft in trouble in the 90s.
[2] ie PDF. Nothing that can be updated is allowed without an explicit, individually-negotiated (and thus not covered by any safe harbors, default deny, go directly to big fine land, do not pass go) agreement. My campaign wiki? Unless fully scrubbed of anything D&D-specific[3] would not even be able to use the OGL. And if scrubbed, wouldn't need to. But that means removing any mention of 5e spells even by name from any future homebrew. Want to make a spell-caster homebrew? Better not even think about using even the generic spell names as references unless you accept and are bound by the 1.1 OGL.
[3] which is my plan. And I'll probably start looking for other systems that I can jigger into proper compatibility. Which is a total shame.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-05, 10:25 PM

Psyren

2023-01-05, 11:08 PM

Here’s something you need to keep in mind. While I don’t think they could enforce this the way they clearly want too, this wording is targeting current Paizo and Pathfinder 2E/Starfinder. None of those games in their current form can be attributed to WotC in good faith and I suspect the note on the OGL was only included for the sake of a legal safety net that appears to have backfired. Even disregarding that I very much disagree with your thesis that Wizards are owed royalties because someone is making content for their game and certainly disagree with locking it to just PDFs. Ignoring the fact it’s ultimately to their benefit as it keeps people in the “ecosystem” as it where, they don’t offer anything beyond the ability to slap a sticker saying the content is compatible with 5e. For as much as I hate DMs guild they are least let you reference stuff outside the OGL and use some art packs they gave you. Also not to put to fine a point on it but you are, right now, defending them. So, uh, take that as you will.

I can understand how it might seem that way, given that I have a somewhat more measured response than apoplexy - but to reiterate, there are indeed things in this paraphrased summary that I do disagree with as currently presented.

As for the second point. You haven’t made any good point until now on how this is better than the previous OGL. In fact from a consumer side I’d say it’s objectively worse than what exists. Your only real point is that WotC is getting money to make more dnd; fine the literal biggest player in the industry by a order of magnitude is getting more money by extracting it from smaller creators doing their job (content creation) for them to distract people from their anorexic release schedule. Now they can hang back and produce all the horrid spelljammer tier books they want and milk their loyal fans while not creating anything of substance. See the issue? If they can’t make enough money to keep the ship sailing on their own chances are the ship ain’t good enough to stay on in the first place. If 5E isn’t profitable enough to continue operation then 3rd parties have no reason to stay on board unless they’re like a hypothetical Paizo they trapped into it. Yeah for the moment you have a large fanbase but i’m sure as heck not making anything under this mess of a OGL and I don’t think i’m in the minority here. People like Matt Colvile probably won’t be running 5e kickstarters anymore since his last one would have owed WotC 300k for nothing.

250 since it was on Kickstarter - and do you really think Matt Colville would give up on a 2 million dollar payout in this hobby? To do what, write books for Mutants and Masterminds? Fate? GURPS?

I wouldn't be against them reducing the royalty further though.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-05, 11:15 PM

250 since it was on Kickstarter - and do you really think Matt Colville would give up on a 2 million dollar payout in this hobby? To do what, write books for Mutants and Masterminds? Fate? GURPS?

I wouldn't be against them reducing the royalty further though.

It depends on the terms, I assume. Thing is, this new agreement creates incentives (such as say the grant of an irrevocable license to setting information) for creators to move elsewhere. And a 20 to 25 percent royalty is pretty excessive, and will likely lead to smaller producers erring on the side of caution lest their royalties put them in the hole since WOTC is applying this to revenues not profits. That means other systems will get more attention, other competing systems will develop, making it eventually more profitable to ignore WOTC. Which again is why I think the version circulating will be something Hasbros legal department will nix.

Lucas Yew

2023-01-06, 02:39 AM

Wonder how they (WotC & Hasbro) managed to resist making such a move for this long... Maybe they finally managed to overcome their trauma from the GSL fiasco just recently (snort).

Frogreaver

2023-01-06, 09:20 AM

Wonder how they (WotC & Hasbro) managed to resist making such a move for this long... Maybe they finally managed to overcome their trauma from the GSL fiasco just recently (snort).

New execs came from microsoft

stoutstien

2023-01-06, 09:34 AM

New execs came from microsoft

And Amazon before that if I recall. Not exactly a good omen.

Scots Dragon

2023-01-06, 09:42 AM

To do what, write books for Mutants and Masterminds?

Mutants & Masterminds is also under the OGL, so...

This affects basically half the industry.

Serafina

2023-01-06, 10:18 AM

Something just using the OGL should not be affected by this.
Unless WotC tries to contest that game mechanics can be copyrighted, even if they do not share the same expression.

Mutants and Masterminds, for example, may share some game mechanics with the D&D 3.5 era D20 system. But having attributes and skills, and rolling a D20 to which you then add modifiers (one of which is based off an attribute) to hit a target number to succeed, is not at all something you could copyright or trademark. It is quite hard for me to imagine situations in which WotC tries to sue over this and will not get laughed out of court.

Compare and contrast with people making Tetris Clones (https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/defining-tetris-how-courts-judge-gaming-clones/), which has quite firmly established that game mechanics can not be copyrighted, only specific expressions of them.
For TTRPGs, this should be established even more so, since most game mechanics are just a system of mathematical resolution - and you can't copyright math!

Such games having been published under OGL does not automatically give WotC a claim to them, because the OGL said no such thing. It was essentially two things:

the games giving a nod to using a D20 system, but that does not mean they were legally required to use the OGL
the games also publishing their own stuff under their own license with the same terms as WotCs OGL, which is not impacted by anthing WotC does

Now, you may find an actual test case for Pathfinder 1E since that copies D&D 3.5 quite closely.
I would suspect that the core rules are not copyrightable, and the specific expression (classes, feats, spells, etc.) are not identical enough in practice to cause an issue. They are of course close, but not 1:1 copied (none of the names are really copyrightable).
Note that this isn't at all an issue for PF 2E, which has a very different game mechanical system.

Oramac

2023-01-06, 10:29 AM

Which, again, is still how I feel. I'm not calling this the death knell of D&D until we can verify for ourselves that these "credible leaks" are factual.

I get this, and under other circumstances would probably agree. The problem is, we can't confirm anything is factual until AFTER OGL1.1 releases. And as has been said, at that point it will be even more difficult to get WOTC to backpeddle.

Thus, our only recourse is to create as much noise as possible based on leaks and implications that are likely to be true, in hopes of changing the final version before its release. We're stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Agreed. I've seen nothing positive for consumers or creators. Just how it's better for WotC. Which is fine...if you're a WotC employee and your bonus depends on this. But not so fine if you actually care about the game itself or the community of players and creators.

Agreed. Honestly, there's really only two things in OGL1.1 that I can't get behind: 1) relinquishing ownership of my work, and 2) killing OGL1.0a.

That said, there's already attorneys working (https://twitter.com/DMZacharyPaul/status/1611239198446718976?t=IDI0Zev_uHCT7c-z4RjKUA&s=03) on possible legal action should WOTC truly attempt to kill OGL1.0a. I won't pretend to be an expert (or even a novice) in IP law, but others are, and I certainly hope they can help WOTC see reason.

ProsecutorGodot

2023-01-06, 02:56 PM

I get this, and under other circumstances would probably agree. The problem is, we can't confirm anything is factual until AFTER OGL1.1 releases. And as has been said, at that point it will be even more difficult to get WOTC to backpeddle.

Thus, our only recourse is to create as much noise as possible based on leaks and implications that are likely to be true, in hopes of changing the final version before its release. We're stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Let me clarify, I find there to be a difference between:
"If this is true, this is really bad and would be a terrible decision going forward that could negatively impact the company"
-and-
"This is exactly what I'd expect from "new" WotC and I for one and thrilled to abandon ship, in fact everyone should abandon ship because the signs have been clear since [insert disliked content book here] and this is just the final nail in the coffin for them, they're [I]done"

I'm seeing a significant amount more of complaints along the latter lines, which do nothing but stir up drama because they don't actually criticize any specifics of the decision. To be more clear, I don't have a problem with addressing the speculation as potentially true and criticizing the contents of it with that understanding, I find issue with the apparent accepting of the leaks to be true and skipping the "criticizing its contents" process to go directly to the "criticizing its creators" process.

Psyren

2023-01-06, 05:57 PM

Let me clarify, I find there to be a difference between:
"If this is true, this is really bad and would be a terrible decision going forward that could negatively impact the company"
-and-
"This is exactly what I'd expect from "new" WotC and I for one and thrilled to abandon ship, in fact everyone should abandon ship because the signs have been clear since [insert disliked content book here] and this is just the final nail in the coffin for them, they're [I]done"

I'm seeing a significant amount more of complaints along the latter lines, which do nothing but stir up drama because they don't actually criticize any specifics of the decision. To be more clear, I don't have a problem with addressing the speculation as potentially true and criticizing the contents of it with that understanding, I find issue with the apparent accepting of the leaks to be true and skipping the "criticizing its contents" process to go directly to the "criticizing its creators" process.

Agreed.

And speaking of criticizing its contents, I'll cross-post from the other thread:

Let me be clear - neither am I. I'm in favor of the stuff WotC themselves said would be in it in their own press release. (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1410-ogls-srds-one-d-d) I'm not in favor of all the details found in this "leak."

Stuff I'm in favor of:
- The ability to keep bad actors from using the license
- The ability to arbitrate who counts as a bad actor (which can be challenged if need be)
- The ability to get a cut of the profits for a very successful licensee
- The license being updated to account for new and future technologies
- Sunsetting the old license

Stuff I'm not in favor of:
- Getting a huge chunk of gross revenues before profits
- Getting lopsided irrevocable ownership rights to anything anyone else publishes under the license
- Being able to modify the license unilaterally any way they please with only 30 days notice

I know I might be coming off as wholly charitable to the leaked draft, but I'm not - I'm just trying to present a more nuanced viewpoint than "the whole thing is awful, abandon ship!"

skaddix

2023-01-07, 07:17 AM

I was wondering how Wizards was going to monetize DnD besides One DnD.
The problem with One DnD is the theatre mind.
The plan is to never let another Pathfinder rise, they are going to choke out the competition.

The real issue to me seems to be they can revoke your license then still all your material and publish with it while giving you nothing.

EggKookoo

2023-01-07, 07:55 AM

The plan is to never let another Pathfinder rise, they are going to choke out the competition.

Assuming the deauthorization language is 1) real, 2) survives to the published document*, and 3) isn't laughed out of court if it comes to a case, it will almost certainly be interpreted to mean past content made under OGL 1.0 is safe, but no new content can be made. This means Pathfinder 1 and 2 are safe as-is, and it might even mean Paizo could make an argument that they could continue to release updates to and supplements for them.

It wouldn't be trivial, but they could also make a PF3 that scrubs all specific OGC references and ditches the OGL entirely. There's a risk that WotC could try to bonk them over the head with legal costs in defending themselves, but my gut says Paizo is big enough to weather that.

Regarding a "new Pathfinder," that's a different story. PF worked because Paizo already had a well-known brand (within TTRPG circles, anyway). There are a few existing companies that could try to try it. Chaosium comes to mind. But there's really little benefit in doing so if they're not already bound up in the OGL.

* I wasn't playing TTRPGs at the time, but supposedly the 4e GSL had similar language in its draft that got removed before official release.

Lemmy

2023-01-07, 12:22 PM

They can't legally stop "another Pathfinder" because they can't copyright game rules, AFAIK. They can only stop other companies from saying their product is compatible with D&D.

All that WotC and Hasbro are doing is harming the people keeping their product afloat and destroying whatever little good will the community had left in them (Hasbro/WotC).

Pex

2023-01-07, 02:45 PM

This does make it so that new VTTs that want to support OneD&D have to get a custom license agreement. Which will not come cheap or easy, they never do. And they'll have to jump through numerous hoops including reporting stuff. And getting a license isn't a guarantee--it's an individual negotiation each time. Which means paying for lawyers, likely. At least if you want to be safe.

This also clarifies (which was fuzzy before) that any "helper apps" (including websites) require custom license agreements. Want a custom character sheet app that does anything other than display data entered directly by the user with no validation or logic? Nope unless you can pay for a custom license agreement negotiation. That kills a huge market for apps and effectively says "you want a digital character sheet? You must use (and probably pay for) D&D Beyond." Whereas now you could build digital character sheets that did a lot of the work for you but you had to require the user to build the non-SRD content themself. Now you can't even include something like "a formula to calculate the modifier from the ability score" unless you're relying on fair use (which is a thorny issue). You certainly can't include anything like pre-built species features or class features. Or monsters.

I will refrain from commenting on the effect on current material due to forum rules.

I've heard you cannot copywrite game mechanics. Formulas are equations. You do not need to pay anything to program (Rnd number generator for 1d20) + 7 on a button labeled "To Hit" and (Rnd number generator for 2d6) + 4 on a button labeled "Damage". Monsters are another matter. It's why Beholders and Mind Flayers don't exist in Pathfinder, but you cannot claim ownership on math.

EggKookoo

2023-01-07, 02:56 PM

I've heard you cannot copywrite game mechanics. Formulas are equations. You do not need to pay anything to program (Rnd number generator for 1d20) + 7 on a button labeled "To Hit" and (Rnd number generator for 2d6) + 4 on a button labeled "Damage". Monsters are another matter. It's why Beholders and Mind Flayers don't exist in Pathfinder, but you cannot claim ownership on math.

That is correct, as far as I understand. It comes down to where or not WotC would sue you anyway just to grind you down under court costs. Maybe that's a non-issue if the local state laws prevent that?

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-07, 02:59 PM

That is correct, as far as I understand. It comes down to where or not WotC would sue you anyway just to grind you down under court costs. Maybe that's a non-issue if the local state laws prevent that?

It's not that simple. The precedent here is super slim and fuzzy. And regardless, expression of mechanics can be copyrighted, and the test is similarity, not exactness. Simple rewording is unlikely to cut it in court.

EggKookoo

2023-01-07, 03:03 PM

It's not that simple. The precedent here is super slim and fuzzy. And regardless, expression of mechanics can be copyrighted, and the test is similarity, not exactness. Simple rewording is unlikely to cut it in court.

There are so many games out there with terms and mechanics very similar to D&D, or to what D&D was when they were first published. Who owns "hit points"?

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-07, 03:25 PM

There are so many games out there with terms and mechanics very similar to D&D, or to what D&D was when they were first published. Who owns "hit points"?

That is the problem, any dice rolling for RPG mechanic will be similar to something, in the same ways Monopoly is similar to Trouble. Roll over has been done, roll under has been done, skill based systems and level based systems both have precedent. Want to avoid this by using cards, well Dragonlance did that between 2e and 3e, so did the second marvel RPG. Some of TSR's suits (who seemed to assume all TTRPGs were infringements on their IP) were highly unreasonable on the claims of similarities, after all, what is the distinction between healing potions and medpacs other than fluff? And if you avoid hit points, you use something like D6s health levels (borrowed by wightwolf) and other gaming systems. Someone will need.to creative commons some things for the industry to redevelop with a broader array of systems.

The one thing the OGL did that was really good was it sort of prevented frivolous lawsuits.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-07, 03:29 PM

That is correct, as far as I understand. It comes down to where or not WotC would sue you anyway just to grind you down under court costs. Maybe that's a non-issue if the local state laws prevent that?

I often wonder if TSRs litigiousness led to the adoption of the d20 srd as an industry standard.

EggKookoo

2023-01-07, 03:30 PM

That is the problem, any dice rolling for N RPG mechanic will be similar to something, in the same ways Monopoly is similar to Trouble. Roll over has been done, roll under has been done, skill based systems and level based systems both have precedent. Some of TSR's suits (who seemed to assume all TTRPGs were infringements on their IP) were highly unreasonable on the claims of similarities, after all, what is the distinction between healing potions and medpacs other than fluff? And if you avoid hit points, you use something like D6s health levels (borrowed by wightwolf) and other gaming systems.

The one thing the OGL did that was really good was it sort of prevented frivolous lawsuits.

Right, I'm not saying WotC won't sue over mechanics. I'm saying they don't have a legal leg to stand on. That won't stop them, but it will cost the defendant a lot, and that might be enough to scare smaller developers away. Or the larger among the smaller, as the really small ones won't make enough of a dent in the market to draw WotC's attention. And larger ones (like Paizo) might decide the legal battle is worth it.

I often wonder if TSRs litigiousness led to the adoption of the d20 srd as an industry standard.

That was exactly what led to it.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-07, 03:34 PM

Right, I'm not saying WotC won't sue over mechanics. I'm saying they don't have a legal leg to stand on. That won't stop them, but it will cost the defendant a lot, and that might be enough to scare smaller developers away. Or the larger among the smaller, as the really small ones won't make enough of a dent in the market to draw WotC's attention. And larger ones (like Paizo) might decide the legal battle is worth it.

Yep. My thought is the best inference is thst the intent of OGL 1.1 is probably monopolistic, is the inference enough for courts, no, but it's the best explanation of the right to license of a creator's IP. (It would be onething if it were limited to system mechanical issues, or to settings that explicitly use DnD lore but otherwise . . . )

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-07, 03:37 PM

There are so many games out there with terms and mechanics very similar to D&D, or to what D&D was when they were first published. Who owns "hit points"?

My primary point is that in copyright law there are no clear, unambiguous statements. It's notoriously ill-defined, complex, and fact dependent. And doesn't look at specific exact wording[1], but at the general meaning. The only "safe" areas are either
a) a system that no reasonable person would confuse for D&D
b) following the OGL strictly.

Anything in between is in the "get a specialist lawyer before you even think about it" territory. Because the law is a total mess and the penalties start at murderous and rise from there. Here there be dragons, and nothing as cute and cuddly as an ancient red whose lair has been robbed 3 times this week by people who look and smell exactly like you and who has a toothache from the last adventurer he ate's plate armor. These are legal dragons, and they're nasty.

[1] unlike forum RAW lawyers, it looks at meaning and intent and lots of things outside the exact text. Simply doing a thesaurus search and replace won't cut it. You're probably safe if the only significant similarity is that you use the term hit points for health. But if you have a d20 + modifiers vs TN, class-based system with races and subclasses and backgrounds and feats (no matter how you word these things) and 20 levels, or if your "fighter" class gets "fighting styles" (no matter the wording) at level 2, etc...you're on really shaky ground. And even just having a few of those things puts you into the massive scary grey area.

EggKookoo

2023-01-07, 03:44 PM

My primary point is that in copyright law there are no clear, unambiguous statements. It's notoriously ill-defined, complex, and fact dependent. And doesn't look at specific exact wording[1], but at the general meaning.

I would say the law also relies heavily on precedent. And the precedent is that dozens, if not hundreds, of TTRPGs have been published over the lifetime of D&D that have PCs with HP, a half-dozen or so "statistics" with names like strength, dexterity, intelligence, etc., with class-like groupings of powers and abilities, who fight using pre-industrial weaponry and armor, and sometimes use magic (even if it's called "mana" or whatever), without making use of any license. And throughout all this WotC has declined to sue them or even send a C&D.

I spent the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s playing everything but D&D. Prior art is all over the place.

[1] unlike forum RAW lawyers, it looks at meaning and intent and lots of things outside the exact text. Simply doing a thesaurus search and replace won't cut it. You're probably safe if the only significant similarity is that you use the term hit points for health. But if you have a d20 + modifiers vs TN, class-based system with races and subclasses and backgrounds and feats (no matter how you word these things) and 20 levels, or if your "fighter" class gets "fighting styles" (no matter the wording) at level 2, etc...you're on really shaky ground. And even just having a few of those things puts you into the massive scary grey area.

Again, WotC will sue. And a small company will either settle out of court in some way, or vaporize under the burden of defending themselves. I'm not disputing that.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-07, 03:45 PM

My primary point is that in copyright law there are no clear, unambiguous statements. It's notoriously ill-defined, complex, and fact dependent. And doesn't look at specific exact wording[1], but at the general meaning. The only "safe" areas are either
a) a system that no reasonable person would confuse for D&D
b) following the OGL strictly.

Anything in between is in the "get a specialist lawyer before you even think about it" territory. Because the law is a total mess and the penalties start at murderous and rise from there. Here there be dragons, and nothing as cute and cuddly as an ancient red whose lair has been robbed 3 times this week by people who look and smell exactly like you and who has a toothache from the last adventurer he ate's plate armor. These are legal dragons, and they're nasty.

True, but the problem is one needs to be "no reasonable lawyer would confuse with DnD." Reasonable person and reasonable lawyer (if they exist) are 2 different things. Particularly woth someone who is unfamiliar with other systems. Lawsuits on these things can be raised, not with the hopes of winning, but with the realization that small companies may have problems paying legal costs. The old OGL had the side effect of meaning accidental similarities were covered if you included a copy in the back of your book.

I'd say 3, using an established system that is either open or has a less draconian licensing agreement and was never derived from DnD is a better approach, (still not a lawyer) Savage worlds, OpenD6, GURPS, etc., have a sufficiently long history that I think it would be tougher to sue someone using those systems.

It's also why the OGL 1.0a needs to be protected.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-07, 04:21 PM

True, but the problem is one needs to be "no reasonable lawyer would confuse with DnD." Reasonable person and reasonable lawyer (if they exist) are 2 different things. Particularly woth someone who is unfamiliar with other systems. Lawsuits on these things can be raised, not with the hopes of winning, but with the realization that small companies may have problems paying legal costs. The old OGL had the side effect of meaning accidental similarities were covered if you included a copy in the back of your book.

I'd say 3, using an established system that is either open or has a less draconian licensing agreement and was never derived from DnD is a better approach, (still not a lawyer) Savage worlds, OpenD6, GURPS, etc., have a sufficiently long history that I think it would be tougher to sue someone using those systems.

It's also why the OGL 1.0a needs to be protected.

Sure. You can get away with having a license for some other big system.

@EggKookoo--the only precedent that matters is legal precedent. And there are definitely reliance issues here--I personally, non-legally think there's a fairly strong case to be made that deauthorizing the 1.0a OGL is legally shaky. But the whole "game mechanics can't be copyrighted" meme relies on really only one major case. And that was in a different context, and left exactly what "game mechanics" means extremely fuzzy. Hence my "get a lawyer" statement. The only guarantee that you can really count on is that if you make a system that doesn't fit one of those (3, including the above) safe harbors very clearly and it gets popular...you will get sued. And Hasbro can afford bigger lawyers than you can.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-07, 04:55 PM

I personally, non-legally think there's a fairly strong case to be made that deauthorizing the 1.0a OGL is legally shaky.

OK that made me chuckle.

EggKookoo

2023-01-07, 05:26 PM

@EggKookoo--the only precedent that matters is legal precedent.

Which isn't to say the only actions that form precedent are those that happen in a courtroom. Trademark law, for example, looks at how aggressively a holder will defend its trademark. If you have a registered trademark but another entity uses it unchallenged for a significant amount of time (the exact amount is beyond my understanding and it could vary by location), courts can and have ruled that you failed to defend it and let the other entity continue to use it. This isn't a legal precedent kind of thing but more of a "you knew this was a thing but didn't say anything about it until it profited you" kind of thing.

In my home state, if someone squats on a piece of property I own and it goes on for 20 years without me either kicking them off or making some attempt to explicitly allow them to do it, I can lose the ability to remove them from it. Squatter's rights.

But please understand, I'm not trying to say a small company making a competing TTRPG is safe. Just that WotC's actions will amount to strongarm tactics, not legal ones.

Psyren

2023-01-07, 06:24 PM

Which isn't to say the only actions that form precedent are those that happen in a courtroom. Trademark law, for example, looks at how aggressively a holder will defend its trademark. If you have a registered trademark but another entity uses it unchallenged for a significant amount of time (the exact amount is beyond my understanding and it could vary by location), courts can and have ruled that you failed to defend it and let the other entity continue to use it. This isn't a legal precedent kind of thing but more of a "you knew this was a thing but didn't say anything about it until it profited you" kind of thing.

In my home state, if someone squats on a piece of property I own and it goes on for 20 years without me either kicking them off or making some attempt to explicitly allow them to do it, I can lose the ability to remove them from it. Squatter's rights.

But please understand, I'm not trying to say a small company making a competing TTRPG is safe. Just that WotC's actions will amount to strongarm tactics, not legal ones.

For WotC, it might be worth looking like a bully in the short term (which, let's be frank, people already think of them as anyway) in order to release a more favorable license, than it might be to leave the ond one in place and spend perpetuity fighting NuTSR, NuPaizo, NFTs, TikTok, Foundry and whoever else the more vague 1.0 might be enabling.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-07, 06:59 PM

For WotC, it might be worth looking like a bully in the short term (which, let's be frank, people already think of them as anyway) in order to release a more favorable license, than it might be to leave the ond one in place and spend perpetuity fighting NuTSR, NuPaizo, NFTs, TikTok, Foundry and whoever else the more vague 1.0 might be enabling.

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things does not belong...

Seriously, if you think that killing a competitor to a product they haven't even released yet via shady licensing changes using monopoly marketing power is a good thing...yeah. That's blatant rent-seeking anticompetitive action and the kind of thing that antitrust law is designed to make illegal. Companies are expected to compete on the merits, not by pulling the rug out from other people. And yes, 20 years is an eternity in IP licensing. The reliance interests here are tremendous on many sides.

Is it illegal? Dunno and won't speculate further. Is it absolutely scum-sucking evil behavior that WotC should get made a pariah for? Absolutely yes. It can't even plausibly be phrased as something good for the consumer or the ecosystem. It's actually intentionally destroying the ecosystem on which WotC has relied for short-term gain. If this was a movie, this would be the action of the Lex Luthor figure, the cackling greedy corporate villain that the heroes work to bring down.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-07, 07:13 PM

EggKookoo

2023-01-07, 07:14 PM

Is it absolutely scum-sucking evil behavior that WotC should get made a pariah for? Absolutely yes. It can't even plausibly be phrased as something good for the consumer or the ecosystem. It's actually intentionally destroying the ecosystem on which WotC has relied for short-term gain. If this was a movie, this would be the action of the Lex Luthor figure, the cackling greedy corporate villain that the heroes work to bring down.

I will not debate your profound wisdom at these proceedings.

Psyren

2023-01-07, 07:29 PM

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things does not belong...

Seriously, if you think that killing a competitor to a product they haven't even released yet via shady licensing changes using monopoly marketing power is a good thing...yeah. That's blatant rent-seeking anticompetitive action and the kind of thing that antitrust law is designed to make illegal. Companies are expected to compete on the merits, not by pulling the rug out from other people. And yes, 20 years is an eternity in IP licensing. The reliance interests here are tremendous on many sides.

Is it illegal? Dunno and won't speculate further. Is it absolutely scum-sucking evil behavior that WotC should get made a pariah for? Absolutely yes. It can't even plausibly be phrased as something good for the consumer or the ecosystem. It's actually intentionally destroying the ecosystem on which WotC has relied for short-term gain. If this was a movie, this would be the action of the Lex Luthor figure, the cackling greedy corporate villain that the heroes work to bring down.

Please don't confuse me saying "this might end up being beneficial overall for their bottom line" with "Psyren thinks this is a good thing." I absolutely get that you violently repudiate what they're doing. I don't; tabletop gaming will survive one way or another, and very likely D&D will survive too.

Lemmy

2023-01-07, 07:29 PM

Is it illegal? Dunno and won't speculate further. Is it absolutely scum-sucking evil behavior that WotC should get made a pariah for? Absolutely yes. It can't even plausibly be phrased as something good for the consumer or the ecosystem. It's actually intentionally destroying the ecosystem on which WotC has relied for short-term gain. If this was a movie, this would be the action of the Lex Luthor figure, the cackling greedy corporate villain that the heroes work to bring down.
You're optimized for a Wisdom build, aren't you? :smallbiggrin:

Snowbluff

2023-01-07, 07:29 PM

For WotC, it might be worth looking like a bully in the short term (which, let's be frank, people already think of them as anyway) in order to release a more favorable license, than it might be to leave the ond one in place and spend perpetuity fighting NuTSR, NuPaizo, NFTs, TikTok, Foundry and whoever else the more vague 1.0 might be enabling.

Yeah, there's definitely a cost benefit analysis going on at WotC. I looked up the business with NFT based OGL systems and NuTSR, and I have to say that maintaining the license as is likely impractical for them. They don't benefit from OGL as much as people seem to think. WotC doesn't rely on it, especially given since video games, platforms, and some video producers run on a specific license anyway. It's creating problems for them legally and for their image. You don't get regular articles about how swell the OGL is, but you do whenever a tabletop game is announced with unsavory elements and is associated with them.

I will reiterate that I think the downside is the non-WotC systems taking hits over this, and I think it stands to reason the royalty system could be fixed to preserve them.

Psyren

2023-01-07, 07:31 PM

Yeah, there's definitely a cost benefit analysis going on at WotC. I looked up the business with NFT based OGL systems and NuTSR, and I have to say that maintaining the license as is likely impractical for them. They don't benefit from OGL as much as people seem to think. WotC doesn't rely on it, especially given since video games, platforms, and some video producers run on a specific license anyway. It's creating problems for them legally and for their image. You don't get regular articles about how swell the OGL is, but you do whenever a tabletop game is announced with unsavory elements and is associated with them.

I will reiterate that I think the downside is the non-WotC systems taking hits over this, and I think it stands to reason the royalty system could be fixed to preserve them.

Right. By all means fight tooth and nail against the abusive components of the proposal; I certainly plan to. But if what you're fighting for is leaving the existing OGL entirely unchanged, all I can say to that is good luck.

EggKookoo

2023-01-07, 07:59 PM

Yeah, there's definitely a cost benefit analysis going on at WotC. I looked up the business with NFT based OGL systems and NuTSR, and I have to say that maintaining the license as is likely impractical for them. They don't benefit from OGL as much as people seem to think. WotC doesn't rely on it, especially given since video games, platforms, and some video producers run on a specific license anyway. It's creating problems for them legally and for their image. You don't get regular articles about how swell the OGL is, but you do whenever a tabletop game is announced with unsavory elements and is associated with them.

Maybe. If it were as simple as WotC not wanting to deal with the OGL any more, they could just... not make a 1.1 and put in a clause to sunset 1.0 in, say, 3-5 years. That would give everyone a chance to transition off and there would be none of this blowback.

OGL 1.1 (from what I've read of and about it) strikes me as a way to trap the other players.

Snowbluff

2023-01-07, 08:09 PM

Maybe. If it were as simple as WotC not wanting to deal with the OGL any more, they could just... not make a 1.1 and put in a clause to sunset 1.0 in, say, 3-5 years. That would give everyone a chance to transition off and there would be none of this blowback.

That would facilitate making a 1.1, wouldn't it? I question that you would be able to put in a clause without making a new version. Revoking it outright may be possible without a new version, but altering it without a new version sounds like an oxymoron.

Dropping their own property might be a bit of a problem as well. I've tried to wrap my head around what it would take to divorce themselves entirely from this, but if they just leave it as is wash their hands of it, there would still be NFT games made with their name on it. The journalists would probably start to get external screaming from the WotC PR team after enough times of this happening.

Psyren

2023-01-07, 08:12 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-07, 08:20 PM

There can't be OGL 1.0(a)-compliant NFT games (or any other form of product) with the name Dungeons and Dragons (or any variant that uses directly WotC-owned labeling/branding/naming) on it. Because OGL 1.0(a) expressly denies the right to claim compatibility and requires licensors to not use that name or any of the other trademarks. Those NFT games (if they exist, which I haven't heard of) are either

a) already not compliant, in which case they're already liable
b) already marked as not being WotC-approved. Because you can't be OGL compliant and claim any association with or approval by WotC or its products.

The OGL already protects against reputational damage from anyone who is not maliciously causing harm (ie "journalists" making claims of connection where those claims are explicitly denied) as much as is possible--the new one can't do even that. And WotC is free to publicly disclaim, disavow, and attack anyone doing so as well as those making those kinds of products. There is no non-disparagement clause in that license.

In fact, with the OGL 1.1, you will be able to claim at least tacit approval by WotC for anything you publish because you had to get prior approval/review by them before publication. Which opens them up to even more reputational damage, rather than shielding the company. Sure, you can't (by terms of the license as we know them) claim formal approval in your marketing, but anything that does slip through (and stuff will, you can bet on it) will have the aura of having already been vetted because of the license terms.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-07, 08:26 PM

Psyren

2023-01-07, 08:28 PM

In fact, with the OGL 1.1, you will be able to claim at least tacit approval by WotC for anything you publish because you had to get prior approval/review by them before publication. Which opens them up to even more reputational damage, rather than shielding the company. Sure, you can't (by terms of the license as we know them) claim formal approval in your marketing, but anything that does slip through (and stuff will, you can bet on it) will have the aura of having already been vetted because of the license terms.

The only things you'll be allowed to make, according to their press release, will be print media and static electronic files. There will be no chance of a video game (NFT or otherwise) being published under the new license that can cause any problems, as doing so will already be a violation.

Snowbluff

2023-01-07, 08:39 PM

The only things you'll be allowed to make, according to their press release, will be print media and static electronic files. There will be no chance of a game (NFT or otherwise) being published under the new license that can cause any problems, as doing so will already be a violation.

Yep. And games that causes issues politically can have the license revoked via the morality clause as well. It sounds like anytime something would violate their intent (morally or medium wise), having this reasoning the content of their license would make it that much easier for them legally. It also removes any outward ambiguity whether or not an NFT could be OGL (which could be associate them, I never said it would DnD). It's something that was likely neither anticipated nor intended by the OGL, but the OGL doesn't state that outright.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-07, 09:00 PM

The only things you'll be allowed to make, according to their press release, will be print media and static electronic files. There will be no chance of a video game (NFT or otherwise) being published under the new license that can cause any problems, as doing so will already be a violation.

Yeah. But you can still publish nasty books that slip through.

Psyren

2023-01-07, 09:25 PM

Yeah. But you can still publish nasty books that slip through.

Which is where the proposed morality clause comes into play. Moreover, they'll have a lot more time to scrutinize books and PDFs when that's the only allowed scope, and they don't have to investigate reports of video games, wikis, NFT projects etc etc.

EggKookoo

2023-01-07, 10:04 PM

That would facilitate making a 1.1, wouldn't it? I question that you would be able to put in a clause without making a new version. Revoking it outright may be possible without a new version, but altering it without a new version sounds like an oxymoron.

Sorry, I didn't mean put a clause in a license. I guess I wasn't being precise. I just mean make an announcement that OGL 1.0 will vaporize ("deauthorize") after a reasonable amount of time. Then stick to that, of course.

Psyren

2023-01-07, 10:47 PM

Sorry, I didn't mean put a clause in a license. I guess I wasn't being precise. I just mean make an announcement that OGL 1.0 will vaporize ("deauthorize") after a reasonable amount of time. Then stick to that, of course.

What we're saying it they'll likely need a new license in order to supersede/revoke the old one, or establish a timeline for revoking the old one as you mention. Leaving 1.0 as the latest version along with... I'm not sure, a blog post? A tweet?... probably wouldn't cut it.

Frogreaver

2023-01-08, 01:24 AM

What we're saying it they'll likely need a new license in order to supersede/revoke the old one, or establish a timeline for revoking the old one as you mention. Leaving 1.0 as the latest version along with... I'm not sure, a blog post? A tweet?... probably wouldn't cut it.

IMO, OGL is already dead.

1.1 is dead because ain't no one moving to it (okay this is the internet so someone will but you get the point).
1.0a is dead because it's too risky to use. The risk from potential lawfare is too great. Everyone is going to pivot away from it.

The only solutions are a court case that rules OGL 1.0a can still be used (will take years) or WOTC publishing a 2.0a OGL that mimics the OGL 1.0a in everyway except closes out all the potential loopholes that might allow them to weasel out of it in the future. (which let's face it isn't going to happen).

So for now it's over IMO. There's a hail mary of a chance that someone actually takes it to court and finishes their case before going bankrupt from legal fees.

*One other consideration is that everything we are thinking of solely applies to U.S. law. However, UK law would likely apply in the UK and they may rule OGL 1.0a is still in effect there (also legal fees would be alot cheaper). Other countries may also decide differently. So maybe I should say it's dead for the U.S. IMO, of course.

EggKookoo

2023-01-08, 07:29 AM

Segev

2023-01-08, 10:28 AM

Does OGL 1.0 have a self-deauthorization clause, or otherwise text describing how it can be deauthorized? I haven't seen anything like that. That leads me to believe either 1) OGL 1.0 cannot be deauthorized, since there's no mechanism provided anywhere to do so, or 2) WotC can declare it deauthorized at any time, for any reason, using any process it chooses.

I don't see why we need a new OGL to deauthorize the old one. Can someone enlighten me?

I don't see how you can deauthorize it when it says you can use any authorized version of the license, and WotC authorized it already. With no internal revocation clause for said authorization, it protects itself from de authorization by letting you choose to use any authorized version of the licenSe – including itself – that does not deauthorize that version.

So, if you use v. 1.1, you allow that 1.0(a) is deauthorized by the license you're using. If you use 1.0(a), though, it was authorized and thus is valid as long as that is the license you're using.

Otherwise, Linux could become a non-open operating system, and all derivative versions thereof illegal to use without paying the original license writers royalties and illegal to install without paying for the "updated" license just on the origin tor's say-so about how the license had unilaterally changed to grant them ownership of all Linux-based material and/or nonexclusive rights to use it while denying anyone else the right to use the underlying Linux basis that makes their derivative works functional if they don't pay up and design only what the licence-rewriters want to allow.

Pex

2023-01-08, 11:01 AM

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-08, 11:23 AM

That's why you see lots of "Compatible with the world's most popular role playing game" or similar language on third party products.

Or a generic "5e" mark on it. Because they're not allowed to say it directly under the OGL. Even though if you weren't under license, it's more or less clear that you could, just like generic brands can say "compare to the active ingredient in (competitor)" and use the trademarked name of the competing brand.

EggKookoo

2023-01-08, 12:15 PM

I don't see how you can deauthorize it when it says you can use any authorized version of the license, and WotC authorized it already. With no internal revocation clause for said authorization, it protects itself from de authorization by letting you choose to use any authorized version of the licenSe – including itself – that does not deauthorize that version.

So, if you use v. 1.1, you allow that 1.0(a) is deauthorized by the license you're using. If you use 1.0(a), though, it was authorized and thus is valid as long as that is the license you're using.

This sounds like the supposed language that was in the draft of the 4e SGL, which required you to stop using and basically renounce the OGL if you use it. It didn't pretend to kill the OGL, just that if you used the new thing you we're promising to never use the old thing any more.

If OGL 1.1 is interpreted that way, I think a lot of panic goes away.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-08, 12:22 PM

This sounds like the supposed language that was in the draft of the 4e SGL, which required you to stop using and basically renounce the OGL if you use it. It didn't pretend to kill the OGL, just that if you used the new thing you we're promising to never use the old thing any more.

If OGL 1.1 is interpreted that way, I think a lot of panic goes away.

Yeah. If it's just a ratchet clause, saying that you give up the ability to publish under the 1.0a OGL, it's much less bad imo.

Atranen

2023-01-08, 12:36 PM

This sounds like the supposed language that was in the draft of the 4e SGL, which required you to stop using and basically renounce the OGL if you use it. It didn't pretend to kill the OGL, just that if you used the new thing you we're promising to never use the old thing any more.

If OGL 1.1 is interpreted that way, I think a lot of panic goes away.

Agreed, but I suspect that misses the point; if WoTC came out with that kind of document, it would discourage people from making content for OneD&D and encourage old OGL 1.0 content.

To push people to OneD&D, they need it to 1) use OGL 1.0 or 2) shut down OGL 1.0.

Having a new worse license won't cut it.

Segev

2023-01-08, 12:42 PM

Agreed, but I suspect that misses the point; if WoTC came out with that kind of document, it would discourage people from making content for OneD&D and encourage old OGL 1.0 content.

To push people to OneD&D, they need it to 1) use OGL 1.0 or 2) shut down OGL 1.0.

Having a new worse license won't cut it.

Oh, there is no question that the intent in the reported langue is to shut down 1.0(a) and compel everyone to use 1.1. The problem is that the language of 1.0(a) doesn't allow itself to be negated, and even allows that using it or any other version of the license is always okay.

EggKookoo

2023-01-08, 12:56 PM

Frogreaver

2023-01-08, 01:38 PM

Oh, there is no question that the intent in the reported langue is to shut down 1.0(a) and compel everyone to use 1.1. The problem is that the language of 1.0(a) doesn't allow itself to be negated, and even allows that using it or any other version of the license is always okay.

Section 9 mentions 'version of this License' twice. The first time it's 'any authorized version of this License'. The 2nd it's 'any version of this License'.

Thus, I'd suggest that it's not a clearly terrible legal argument to suggest that authorized here is being included for an important reason and that reason must make sense in light of not needing the word authorized the 2nd time 'version of this License' is used.

My concern is that if authorization is just meaning an OGL version authorized at some point in the past by wizards then clearly the 2nd time 'verison of this License' is used then it should have also had authorized proceed it (or neither case would need it). In some sense the only way using authorized here really makes sense in the first instance and it's exclusion in the other is if it means 'currently authorized' which would give some credit to WOTC's position that they can deauthorize a version.

I am not a lawyer, but I'm not as convinced that WOTC wouldn't have a chance with this kind of an argument.

Segev

2023-01-08, 05:04 PM

Section 9 mentions 'version of this License' twice. The first time it's 'any authorized version of this License'. The 2nd it's 'any version of this License'.

Thus, I'd suggest that it's not a clearly terrible legal argument to suggest that authorized here is being included for an important reason and that reason must make sense in light of not needing the word authorized the 2nd time 'version of this License' is used.

My concern is that if authorization is just meaning an OGL version authorized at some point in the past by wizards then clearly the 2nd time 'verison of this License' is used then it should have also had authorized proceed it (or neither case would need it). In some sense the only way using authorized here really makes sense in the first instance and it's exclusion in the other is if it means 'currently authorized' which would give some credit to WOTC's position that they can deauthorize a version.

I am not a lawyer, but I'm not as convinced that WOTC wouldn't have a chance with this kind of an argument.

I'm pretty sure that "authorized" is there simply to prevent, say, Rich Berlew of Giant in the Playground Games from issuing v. 6.14N7 of the OGL and claiming it was a valid version for himself and anybody else to use. (Not saying he would, just using a figure with enough of a following that obscurity wouldn't be an issue.)

This is bolstered by one of the previous line runners going on the record saying that it was never intended when he was behind things that WotC could, let alone would, "deauthorize" any version of the OGL.

Frogreaver

2023-01-08, 05:58 PM

I'm pretty sure that "authorized" is there simply to prevent, say, Rich Berlew of Giant in the Playground Games from issuing v. 6.14N7 of the OGL and claiming it was a valid version for himself and anybody else to use. (Not saying he would, just using a figure with enough of a following that obscurity wouldn't be an issue.)

This is bolstered by one of the previous line runners going on the record saying that it was never intended when he was behind things that WotC could, let alone would, "deauthorize" any version of the OGL.

Which as my post explains - doesn’t explain why authorized was not used the 2nd time ‘any version of this license’ was used in section 9.

Segev

2023-01-08, 06:33 PM

Which as my post explains - doesn’t explain why authorized was not used the 2nd time ‘any version of this license’ was used in section 9.

Could you provide both instances? I am apparently blind and not seeing the second one.

KorvinStarmast

2023-01-08, 07:59 PM

Please don't confuse me saying "this might end up being beneficial overall for their bottom line" with "Psyren thinks this is a good thing." I absolutely get that you violently repudiate what they're doing. I don't; tabletop gaming will survive one way or another, and very likely D&D will survive too. All that lawful evil needs to prosper is that good men do nothing. (Yes, that's a paraphrase)

Kane0

2023-01-08, 08:00 PM

Sorry ive lost track of the conversation, will this amended OGL indeed be retroactive?

KorvinStarmast

2023-01-08, 08:04 PM

Sorry ive lost track of the conversation, will this amended OGL indeed be retroactive?
That's unclear, as the final has not been widely disseminated.

Psyren

2023-01-08, 09:09 PM

All that lawful evil needs to prosper is that good men do nothing. (Yes, that's a paraphrase)

All the good men here are getting a lot done, I'm sure.

Sorry ive lost track of the conversation, will this amended OGL indeed be retroactive?

They will very likely declare in the next one that all previous versions are no longer authorized. The real test comes when someone decides to use the old one anyway.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-08, 10:14 PM

They will very likely declare in the next one that all previous versions are no longer authorized. The real test comes when someone decides to use the old one anyway.

Class actions suits will come along, and they may not need to use the old one to challenge it. Future lost business on reliance issues, pushing an antitrust suit, requesting the new license to be held from going into action until after lawsuits are settled (giving companies time to complete projects already in progress).

Call the most bombastic cable news journalists on both sides of the aisle with ample comparisons to Enron, Sam Bamkman Fried (aka the what fool wants to do business with those guys strategy)? Dirty, no because it is the truth.

One lawyer suggested publishers in the short term could use PF1 or 2 under 1.0a in the short term because WOTC couldn't go after sublicensees, no idea if that was true. (Also drags Paizo into the fight, where as WOTC might want to take out Troll Lords or a maller player first). Publish translation guides for PF1 or PF2 for your specific setting crunch. If you have to do DnD for whatever reason, do everything with two books. Book 1 is the setting book, book 2 uses codes to the setting book for crunch and stats, only book 2 is OGL, since boom 1 contains no system information, it also lets you follow up with a GURPs or other system book 2 later and discontinue DnD later. That is a temporary move, but use it until a new set of standard systems makes WOTC a minor player in the ecosystem (I hear people saying this can't happen, that Hasbro is too big, I also remember when A&P was too big a grocery chain for anyone to compete, about two years later, they were pretty minor player in that business. Ditto for claims no one could compete with K-Mart or Sears). Other Open systems is the long term strategy here, but if you have a setting translating everything will take longer than PF1 or PF2.

It ain't going to be over so easy, depends on how much you are willing to burn down along the way, because make no mistake, WOTC will bury you if you don't put up a fight and are in the business. Putting you out of business is their goal, even if you aren't doing fantasy gaming.

Frogreaver

2023-01-08, 11:13 PM

Could you provide both instances? I am apparently blind and not seeing the second one.

9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.

animorte

2023-01-08, 11:31 PM

All that lawful evil needs to prosper is that good men do nothing. (Yes, that's a paraphrase)
I've recently written approximately 4 papers on the subject of indifference. I'll not go into any detail on those, but I believe it's safe to say this matter has been addressed with aggressive sagacity.

KorvinStarmast

2023-01-08, 11:53 PM

They will very likely declare in the next one that all previous versions are no longer authorized. The real test comes when someone decides to use the old one anyway. Unless someone challenges them, they get away with it. On behalf of 3P folks who have supported this edition to date, I have a few bucks reserved to donate to the lawsuit that may arise. Didn't get to go to Vegas this year, so that 'gambling money' may get a new home.

I've recently written approximately 4 papers on the subject of indifference. I'll not go into any detail on those, but I believe it's safe to say this matter has been addressed with aggressive sagacity. Any given individual can only undertake so many crusades. There is a finite scope. :smallwink:

Segev

2023-01-08, 11:53 PM

9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.

Sounds like they were dipping their fingers into "yeah, if some idiot releases under an unauthorized version..."

I can see where you're coming from, though. However, the fact that the former VP who was in charge when OGL 1.0(a) was written is saying that there was no intent for there to be an ability to revoke authorization of a version suggests to me that it'll be VERY hard to claim that's something they're allowed to do, what with this being a license WotC unilaterally wrote, and wrote themselves. Meaning it will be interpreted in the least permissive way towards them, as they could write it to say whatever they wanted and cover whatever they wanted it to cover. Trying to say, "Well, we agreed to that before, but the wording HAPPENS to be such that we can pretend we didn't," is going to be a hard sell, I think, to courts.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-08, 11:57 PM

Sounds like they were dipping their fingers into "yeah, if some idiot releases under an unauthorized version..."

I can see where you're coming from, though. However, the fact that the former VP who was in charge when OGL 1.0(a) was written is saying that there was no intent for there to be an ability to revoke authorization of a version suggests to me that it'll be VERY hard to claim that's something they're allowed to do, what with this being a license WotC unilaterally wrote, and wrote themselves. Meaning it will be interpreted in the least permissive way towards them, as they could write it to say whatever they wanted and cover whatever they wanted it to cover. Trying to say, "Well, we agreed to that before, but the wording HAPPENS to be such that we can pretend we didn't," is going to be a hard sell, I think, to courts.

Your fingers (mouth) to WotC's eyes (ears). My hope is that they see it similarly and decide against such a path. But my confidence is low.

KorvinStarmast

2023-01-08, 11:59 PM

But my confidence is low. My confidence is subterranean, since the driver behind this (or at least, my assessment of that) is Hasbro suits. :smalltongue:

Psyren

2023-01-09, 12:02 AM

Class actions suits will come along, and they may not need to use the old one to challenge it. Future lost business on reliance issues, pushing an antitrust suit, requesting the new license to be held from going into action until after lawsuits are settled (giving companies time to complete projects already in progress).

Call the most bombastic cable news journalists on both sides of the aisle with ample comparisons to Enron, Sam Bamkman Fried (aka the what fool wants to do business with those guys strategy)? Dirty, no because it is the truth.

One lawyer suggested publishers in the short term could use PF1 or 2 under 1.0a in the short term because WOTC couldn't go after sublicensees, no idea if that was true. (Also drags Paizo into the fight, where as WOTC might want to take out Troll Lords or a maller player first). Publish translation guides for PF1 or PF2 for your specific setting crunch. If you have to do DnD for whatever reason, do everything with two books. Book 1 is the setting book, book 2 uses codes to the setting book for crunch and stats, only book 2 is OGL, since boom 1 contains no system information, it also lets you follow up with a GURPs or other system book 2 later and discontinue DnD later. That is a temporary move, but use it until a new set of standard systems makes WOTC a minor player in the ecosystem (I hear people saying this can't happen, that Hasbro is too big, I also remember when A&P was too big a grocery chain for anyone to compete, about two years later, they were pretty minor player in that business. Ditto for claims no one could compete with K-Mart or Sears). Other Open systems is the long term strategy here, but if you have a setting translating everything will take longer than PF1 or PF2.

It ain't going to be over so easy, depends on how much you are willing to burn down along the way, because make no mistake, WOTC will bury you if you don't put up a fight and are in the business. Putting you out of business is their goal, even if you aren't doing fantasy gaming.

I won't comment on what strategies might or might not work or be safe to try. Personally I think bringing up SBF/FTX is not likely to help things, given that WotC is already justifying their decision - at least in part - by distancing D&D from NFTs and the like.

I have no illusions about Hasbro being too big to topple from the TTRPG throne. If they release OGL 1.1 as currently leaked, that could happen sooner rather than later.

Frogreaver

2023-01-09, 12:44 AM

Sounds like they were dipping their fingers into "yeah, if some idiot releases under an unauthorized version..."

I think version clearly covers you there. Section 9 notes that only Wizards can make updated versions of the OGL. Anyone else doing so wouldn't actually be making a version of the OGL at all.

Possibly it was added to differentiate between draft versions and authorized versions. That seems more plausible. In this case it would be saying that OGC distributed even under a draft version of the OGL can still be distributed under an actual version of the OGL. Taking this a step further, distributor might typo something in the OGL license. While that would make it an unauthorized version, it seems it would still qualify as a version and thus WOTC would be saying you can update it to an authorized version and still use the content.

That makes alot of sense to me. Thanks!

I can see where you're coming from, though. However, the fact that the former VP who was in charge when OGL 1.0(a) was written is saying that there was no intent for there to be an ability to revoke authorization of a version suggests to me that it'll be VERY hard to claim that's something they're allowed to do, what with this being a license WotC unilaterally wrote, and wrote themselves. Meaning it will be interpreted in the least permissive way towards them, as they could write it to say whatever they wanted and cover whatever they wanted it to cover. Trying to say, "Well, we agreed to that before, but the wording HAPPENS to be such that we can pretend we didn't," is going to be a hard sell, I think, to courts.

If the courts don't rule the contract is ambiguous, then those statements likely never come into play.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-09, 12:56 AM

I won't comment on what strategies might or might not work or be safe to try. Personally I think bringing up SBF/FTX is not likely to help things, given that WotC is already justifying their decision - at least in part - by distancing D&D from NFTs and the like.

Actually it limits other people from doing NFTs, not WOTC itself. But you are being a bit overly literal, I also compared them to enron and they aren't involved in natural gas production.

I have no illusions about Hasbro being too big to topple from the TTRPG throne. If they release OGL 1.1 as currently leaked, that could happen sooner rather than later.

Right, the problem as I noted, and I'm not seeing an answer to is the non-DnD derived systems that use the OGL 1.0a. As so many mechanisms in 3.x through 5e come from non-WOTC systems rather than 1e and 2e, does that protect systems from claims of similarity?

Frogreaver

2023-01-09, 12:58 AM

Right, the problem as I noted, and I'm not seeing an answer to is the non-DnD derived systems that use the OGL 1.0a. As so many mechanisms in 3.x through 5e rather come from non-WOTC systems does that protect systems from claims of similarity?

The lines for what infringes and what doesn't aren't clearly defined. Would take litigation to paint them and so far the OGL has kept the litigation monster at bay.

Segev

2023-01-09, 01:09 AM

If the court doesn't rule it is ambiguous, our educational systems will have proven to have really failed to impart an understanding of the function of participles. That this strategy is such a surprise, and wasn't recognized by is prima facia evidence it is ambiguous.

"Ambiguous" is generous. This is a stretch, attempting to lawyer something in a faerie bargain sort of way when courts favor actually examining intent where it is knowable. I foresee that VP who's publicly spoken about the intent being called as a witness if this ever actually goes to a trial, and his testimony would sink any efforts to claim this "deauthorization" nonsense is anything but a naked attempt to steal content from people who have, in good faith, done what WotC promised them would earn them access to it.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-09, 01:16 AM

"Ambiguous" is generous. This is a stretch, attempting to lawyer something in a faerie bargain sort of way when courts favor actually examining intent where it is knowable. I foresee that VP who's publicly spoken about the intent being called as a witness if this ever actually goes to a trial, and his testimony would sink any efforts to claim this "deauthorization" nonsense is anything but a naked attempt to steal content from people who have, in good faith, done what WotC promised them would earn them access to it.

I am operating solely on the grammar and solely on what lawyers are describing as a four corners doctrine. That is, in my opinion as an analytical philosopher, a poor approach to interpretation, but I'm noting it in terms of their rules.

Segev

2023-01-09, 01:25 AM

I am operating solely on the grammar and solely on what lawyers are describing as a four corners doctrine. That is, in my opinion as an analytical philosopher, a poor approach to interpretation, but I'm noting it in terms of their rules.

Fair enough. The four-corners doctrine would require us to accept faerie bargain logic.

That said, under that logic, I could choose to develop and release Segev's Selection of Spells (a spell compendium of my own design that is obviously meant for use with 3.5e D&D that doesn't actually exist except for this hypothetical, at least at this time) next year under the OGL v. 1.0(a), because it is only deauthorized if I release it under OGL v. 1.1 (assuming the leaked version stands when that is released). 1.0(a) says that I may choose to use any authorized version. There is zero question that WotC authorized that version. That WotC "deauthorizes" it in v. 1.1 doesn't matter if I am not using v. 1.1. I could even make Segev's Selection of Spells work with "One D&D," presuming its SRD is released under the OGL v. 1.1, because OGL v. 1.0(a) explicitly permits me to use any authorized version of the OGL (which v. 1.0(a) remains as long as I am not publishing under v. 1.1) to publish any material contributed to the OGL under any version of it (and v. 1.1 is a version of it).

I would have to be publishing under OGL v. 1.1 to have OGL v. 1.0(a) be deauthorized by the license version I am using. Since I am not publishing under it, but under 1.0(a), 1.0(a) remains authorized and I may publish using any OGL content released under any version.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-09, 01:25 AM

If the courts don't rule the contract is ambiguous, then those statements likely never come into play.

If the court doesn't rule it is ambiguous, our educational systems will have proven to have really failed to impart an understanding of the function of participles. That this strategy is such a surprise, and wasn't recognized earlier is prima facia evidence it is ambiguous.

Grammatically authorized is a participle it can have the force of an event that happened in the past. In English a past participle covers territory used of an ongoing condition resulting from an event in the past, something which happens in perfect participles in some languages.

If it is an event, the only way to deauthorize it is time travel. If a status, yes deauthorization could be possible. A number of grammatical factors imply the first is better interpretation (even within the four corners as lawyers note), but nothing explicitly or implicitly resolves which of the two possibilities is intended in the document that I have seen. So it is certainly ambiguous within a four corners approach to a document.

Please note this was accidentally deleted earlier when trying to clarify the point.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-09, 01:29 AM

Fair enough. The four-corners doctrine would require us to accept faerie bargain logic.

That said, under that logic, I could choose to develop and release Segev's Selection of Spells (a spell compendium of my own design that is obviously meant for use with 3.5e D&D that doesn't actually exist except for this hypothetical, at least at this time) next year under the OGL v. 1.0(a), because it is only deauthorized if I release it under OGL v. 1.1 (assuming the leaked version stands when that is released). 1.0(a) says that I may choose to use any authorized version. There is zero question that WotC authorized that version. That WotC "deauthorizes" it in v. 1.1 doesn't matter if I am not using v. 1.1. I could even make Segev's Selection of Spells work with "One D&D," presuming its SRD is released under the OGL v. 1.1, because OGL v. 1.0(a) explicitly permits me to use any authorized version of the OGL (which v. 1.0(a) remains as long as I am not publishing under v. 1.1) to publish any material contributed to the OGL under any version of it (and v. 1.1 is a version of it).

I would have to be publishing under OGL v. 1.1 to have OGL v. 1.0(a) be deauthorized by the license version I am using. Since I am not publishing under it, but under 1.0(a), 1.0(a) remains authorized and I may publish using any OGL content released under any version.

I'd talk to a lawyer first. Better to be part of a class action on this one, frankly.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-09, 01:32 AM

The lines for what infringes and what doesn't aren't clearly defined. Would take litigation to paint them and so far the OGL has kept the litigation monster at bay.

Yeah, that is the real think that kept the eco-system going, the OGL prevented the hobbies old habit of litigating everyone Into oblivion.

Arkhios

2023-01-09, 01:48 AM

Read all about it. (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1410-ogls-srds-one-d-d?utm_campaign=D%26D&utm_source=FACEBOOK&utm_medium=social&utm_content=8466604837)

I'll refrain from paraphrasing too much. Quick analysis: The new OGL won't cover VTTs. If you make more than $50k annually on your OGL product you'll be required to let WotC know how much you make in order to stay in compliance. If you make more than $750k annually they're going to hit you with royalties.

Grab the popcorn.

Well, that's roughly 27 times my yearly salary from my current day job, so I can definitely understand the demand for royalties at that point. Making your hobby into a full-paid dayjob at the expense of another company without paying anything* for it seems fishy to say the least. Personally, I'd be glad to pay them royalties from being able to make a living out of it, because in that case your fortune would all be thanks to them, y'know...

*(as in, even a small percentage of profits that is legally and morally due to them)

Psyren

2023-01-09, 02:37 AM

Well, that's roughly 27 times my yearly salary from my current day job, so I can definitely understand the demand for royalties at that point. Making your hobby into a full-paid dayjob at the expense of another company without paying anything* for it seems fishy to say the least. Personally, I'd be glad to pay them royalties from being able to make a living out of it, because in that case your fortune would all be thanks to them, y'know...

*(as in, even a small percentage of profits that is legally and morally due to them)

Agreed, although if the leak is to be believed the royalty is massive and based on gross revenue rather than net profits. One or both of those should be pared down in the final version.

Actually it limits other people from doing NFTs, not WOTC itself. But you are being a bit overly literal, I also compared them to enron and they aren't involved in natural gas production.

I don't think that would help either. For one thing, Enron actually committed fraud, i.e. broke the law.

Right, the problem as I noted, and I'm not seeing an answer to is the non-DnD derived systems that use the OGL 1.0a. As so many mechanisms in 3.x through 5e come from non-WOTC systems rather than 1e and 2e, does that protect systems from claims of similarity?

This is why I think the best course of action will be to push OGL 1.1 to more palatable terms (assuming the leak is accurate) and stick with it.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-09, 03:32 AM

I don't think that would help either. For one thing, Enron actually committed fraud, i.e. broke the law.
Enron committed fraud? That might be a bit strong, at minimum it's debatable. Andy Fastow certainly did, of course Enron was the victim of Fastow's fraud and he then got a sweet heart deal to testify against Skilling and Lay In Lay's case, he was guilty of falling asleep at the switch, and of not doing his due dilligence, fraud and insider trading really should have been kicked out by the judge, the evidence was bad. Skilling, I'm not sure about though if he is guilty of something they should have locked Rebecca Marks up right alongside him. Being civilly and criminally liable aren't the same thing. But the comparison in that case is that the logic they are using on "deauthorize' reminds me very much of the logic underlying Enron accounting--they were in our terms "rules lawyers."

This is why I think the best course of action will be to push OGL 1.1 to more palatable terms (assuming the leak is accurate) and stick with it. I'd say the language at a minimum would need to expressly limit deauthorizarion to WOTC IP (or as I am noting IP that WOTC is claiming that in part has origins in other companies IP without compensating them financially), since WOTC has no business deauthorizing it for anyone else. OGL 1.1 is even worse if used for non-DnD systems as it would make no logical sense to say using the license for D6Space means one must register with WOTC, report one's earnings to WOTC if over 50k, etc. Even if they make no claims on royalties, creating a situation where you are in breach for not giving WOTC information it is not entitled to possess . . . No that doesn't work. But by the letter of the agreement . . . The OGL is in itsnpractical function a creative commons license, even if the provisions aren't specific enough

Speaking of which that is another strange problem, the reporting standard doesn't seem to specify it is limited to income on a project based on WOTC IP. Not sure how lawyers will deal with that for someone who publishes a 5e supplement and a FATE supplement in the same year. What about a settingbook wotj stats for two systems, one not held by WOTC?

The biggest winners either way are IP lawyers.

Zuras

2023-01-09, 03:36 AM

Psyren

2023-01-09, 04:34 AM

Enron committed fraud? That might be a bit strong, at minimum it's debatable.

I stand by what I said, as well as the overarching point that what happened with them is not really comparable to WotC.

I'd say the language at a minimum would need to expressly limit deauthorizarion to WOTC IP (or as I am noting IP that WOTC is claiming that in part has origins in other companies IP without compensating them financially), since WOTC has no business deauthorizing it for anyone else.

Note that when I say "deauthorization" I'm talking about the license itself, not the IP it grants access to. In other words, they would (try to) make it so that the 1.0a still exists, but that its own section 9 no longer applies to it.

OGL 1.1 is even worse if used for non-DnD systems as it would make no logical sense to say using the license for D6Space means one must register with WOTC, report one's earnings to WOTC if over 50k, etc. Even if they make no claims on royalties, creating a situation where you are in breach for not giving WOTC information it is not entitled to possess . . . No that doesn't work.
...
Speaking of which that is another strange problem, the reporting standard doesn't seem to specify it is limited to income on a project based on WOTC IP. Not sure how lawyers will deal with that for someone who publishes a 5e supplement and a FATE supplement in the same year. What about a settingbook wotj stats for two systems, one not held by WOTC?

Per WotC's press release (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1410-ogls-srds-one-d-d), you'll only be required to report "OGL-related revenue." Presumably that means that if there are other parts of your business not related to the OGL, like merch sales, or splats for games that have their own license, you're fine leaving that out.

But by the letter of the agreement . . . The OGL is in itsnpractical function a creative commons license, even if the provisions aren't specific enough

I wouldn't call either OGL a Creative Commons license.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-09, 05:08 AM

Note that when I say "deauthorization" I'm talking about the license itself, not the IP it grants access to. In other words, they would (try to) make it so that the 1.0a still exists, but that its own section 9 no longer applies to it. yes, but the license itself is what everyone is working from when they declare a system to be open. If section 9 no longer applies--which I still does, section 9 is equivalent to the word irrevocable if the participle works as I've noted--then presumably it is the license itself, which means everyone not just WOTC is affected by the OGL, because they are using it.

Per WotC's press release (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1410-ogls-srds-one-d-d), you'll only be required to report "OGL-related revenue." Presumably that means that if there are other parts of your business not related to the OGL, like merch sales, or splats for games that have their own license, you're fine leaving that out. yes but OGL related revenue isn't the same as WOTC related revenue, since it has become the band wagon all open systems have jumped on. So open D6 revenue by a 3pp is OGL1.0a related revenue, but it has nothing to do with WOTC IP.

I wouldn't call either OGL a Creative Commons license. I'm meaning in the way the industry has used the OGL, and the way those in the Open Gaming Federation seem to view it. Other systems that intentionally became open systems used the OGL as the means of doing so, even though they aren't actually using material that was either developed by WOTC or that WOTC borrowed without attribution or presumably remuneration. Certainly the wrong document to use, in hindsight, since WOTC has claimed to be able to nullify it unilaterally but still that is the way it has been treated by its signatories. In other words, they signed the document as a way to say same goes for our OGC. Which means of course that not all the OGC the OGL refers to now belongs to WOTC.

Speaking of which, did 5e borrow anything from other games that were in the OGL 1.0a in its development? If so wouldn't that mean WOTC couldn't use the parts of their system borrowed from other sources on the OGL since it is invalid.

Scots Dragon

2023-01-09, 09:26 AM

Speaking of which, did 5e borrow anything from other games that were in the OGL 1.0a in its development? If so wouldn't that mean WOTC couldn't use the parts of their system borrowed from other sources on the OGL since it is invalid.

Given that the creators of Castles & Crusades have pointed fingers at the ability-score based proficiency system as being pretty strongly inspired by their own prime ability scores system, and having seen both games it absolutely is... yes, actually.

In addition, the use of 'archetypes' early on, replaced later with 'subclasses', was actually heavily inspired by Pathfinder. Similarly they adopted Pathfinder's various increases to hit dice.

EggKookoo

2023-01-09, 09:30 AM

I mean if you want to get nitpicky about it -- and we know lawyers like nitpicky -- chess is a class-based tactical RPG.

Segev

2023-01-09, 09:47 AM

Well, that's roughly 27 times my yearly salary from my current day job, so I can definitely understand the demand for royalties at that point. Making your hobby into a full-paid dayjob at the expense of another company without paying anything* for it seems fishy to say the least. Personally, I'd be glad to pay them royalties from being able to make a living out of it, because in that case your fortune would all be thanks to them, y'know...

*(as in, even a small percentage of profits that is legally and morally due to them)

Does this mean that you feel any company that uses Linux and grosses morehan $750,000/year should have to pay royalties to the originator of Linux, even though the license they use it under says they don't have to?

WotC is essentially trying to call "take-backs." They can do that only in the same sense that a bandit can claim rightful ownership of your grandmother's ring on your wife's finger. Whether they get away with it remains to be seen, but WotC gave the SRD to the OGL. They do not get to take it back, because the OGL was designed explicitly not to allow that. WotC has new management that doesn't like the deal their predecessors made, but that doesn't change that it was made in good faith.

Snowbluff

2023-01-09, 10:15 AM

In addition, the use of 'archetypes' early on, replaced later with 'subclasses', was actually heavily inspired by Pathfinder. Similarly they adopted Pathfinder's various increases to hit dice.

For your elucidation, Alternate Class Features existed in 3rd edition. Spell schools for wizards in existed third edition. Several alternate classes did change hit dice or hit points. I'm not claiming that WotC originated the concept, but Paizo definitely did not originate the concept.

KorvinStarmast

2023-01-09, 10:21 AM

WotC is essentially trying to call "take-backs." They can do that only in the same sense that a bandit can claim rightful ownership of your grandmother's ring on your wife's finger. Whether they get away with it remains to be seen, but WotC gave the SRD to the OGL. They do not get to take it back, because the OGL was designed explicitly not to allow that. WotC has new management that doesn't like the deal their predecessors made, but that doesn't change that it was made in good faith. These are interesting arguments that an attorney may or may not be able to present and get a good result from. I get a feeling that some crowd funding may be generated in the near future to try and get legal help for this line of thinking.

Psyren

2023-01-09, 11:20 AM

Does this mean that you feel any company that uses Linux and grosses morehan $750,000/year should have to pay royalties to the originator of Linux, even though the license they use it under says they don't have to?

Assuming the license you mean is the GNU GPL, that license is irrevocable. But for your broader question, 750k revenue is utter peanuts for an IT enterprise - so no, I wouldn't expect a royalty in that specific case for that specific industry. However, there is a revenue/size threshold beyond which I would expect a company to not be using a free Linux distro, but rather a paid enterprise Linux distro like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the license to which would likely include revenue- or headcount-based payment tiers if not outright royalties. The principle is largely the same - once you've attained a certain degree of success, graduating beyond the free licenses to something that scales its cost with the value you're receiving is to be expected. That concept is not unique to D&D by a long shot.

Segev

2023-01-09, 11:44 AM

Assuming the license you mean is the GNU GPL, that license is irrevocable. But for your broader question, 750k revenue is utter peanuts for an IT enterprise - so no, I wouldn't expect a royalty in that specific case for that specific industry. However, there is a revenue/size threshold beyond which I would expect a company to not be using a free Linux distro, but rather a paid enterprise Linux distro like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the license to which would likely include revenue- or headcount-based payment tiers if not outright royalties. The principle is largely the same - once you've attained a certain degree of success, graduating beyond the free licenses to something that scales its cost with the value you're receiving is to be expected. That concept is not unique to D&D by a long shot.

You are aware that the paid distros offer services and support in return for the pay, right?

What you've been arguing re: WotC and the SRD is that, just by virtue of hitting a certain threshold of revenue, companies morally owe WotC some of their profits, when getting nothing in return that they weren't already getting under the free license.

If a very large company had an internal IT department that was experienced enough to manage their free-license Linux distro, your answer does not indicate that you believe that the GNU GPL should be modified by whoever is running the organization that initially made it (or by its original writer) to insist said large company now owed royalties to said organization.

Heck, those distros like Red Hat are technically third parties. They're more Paizo than WotC in this analogy. So the analogous thing you're saying here is that you'd expect a large enough third party gaming company to be paying PAIZO for support services, not WotC. The actual analog to this attempt by WotC with v. 1.1 would be having Red Hat and all the other paid enterprise Linux distros suddenly having to pay royalties to whoever wrote the new version of the GNU GPL. After all, they didn't "revoke" it. They just "de-authorized" the version that didn't require royalties to be paid to them in the latest update.

Sception

2023-01-09, 11:54 AM

KorvinStarmast

2023-01-09, 12:14 PM

i've been very favorable towards wotc & 6e playtest, but the new ogl as leaked is terrible to the point that it sours me on the whole business. unless we see dramatic walk backs it's finally time for me to find other games to play. And/or buy. It's the "huh, our sales will plummet" issue that it is hoped will get across to Hasbro, but I wonder: maybe there's a critical mass of people who aren't bothered about this aspect and who will keep on consuming.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-09, 12:19 PM

Given that the creators of Castles & Crusades have pointed fingers at the ability-score based proficiency system as being pretty strongly inspired by their own prime ability scores system, and having seen both games it absolutely is... yes, actually.

In addition, the use of 'archetypes' early on, replaced later with 'subclasses', was actually heavily inspired by Pathfinder. Similarly they adopted Pathfinder's various increases to hit dice.

WOTC used Archtypes in RCR star Wars and it included alternate class features, no idea if they did this before or after Paizo but . . .

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-09, 12:43 PM

Honestly, given that all the non-Hasbro participants are outweighed 27-1 at a minimum, the best candidate for bringing a lawsuit is a 110% overly sympathetic plaintiff. If the OGL changes would make accessibility tools forblind or visually impaired players vastly more difficult or expensive, I’d go after that.
Honestly the money point is playing to the grounding. I've met a few people with million dollar ventures...but being farmers that doesn't mean a lot to their income, which also has a lot of debt. For a business, even a corporation that is a sole proprietorship done on the owner's taxes, that isn't a lot of revenue. In fact even if this were the profits depending on the industry, it may not be a lot, because profits provide not only the owner's living but the funds used to expand, pay offndebt incurred by the venture, etc.

Psyren

2023-01-09, 12:46 PM

You are aware that the paid distros offer services and support in return for the pay, right?

What you've been arguing re: WotC and the SRD is that, just by virtue of hitting a certain threshold of revenue, companies morally owe WotC some of their profits, when getting nothing in return that they weren't already getting under the free license.

I'd say "reasonably" moreso than "morally." Meaning WotC including such a requirement in their licenses isn't outlandish compared to other industries, albeit scaled to the much lower revenues and margins of the hobby market.

If a very large company had an internal IT department that was experienced enough to manage their free-license Linux distro, your answer does not indicate that you believe that the GNU GPL should be modified by whoever is running the organization that initially made it (or by its original writer) to insist said large company now owed royalties to said organization.

Heck, those distros like Red Hat are technically third parties. They're more Paizo than WotC in this analogy. So the analogous thing you're saying here is that you'd expect a large enough third party gaming company to be paying PAIZO for support services, not WotC. The actual analog to this attempt by WotC with v. 1.1 would be having Red Hat and all the other paid enterprise Linux distros suddenly having to pay royalties to whoever wrote the new version of the GNU GPL. After all, they didn't "revoke" it. They just "de-authorized" the version that didn't require royalties to be paid to them in the latest update.

That organization that authored/currently maintains the GPL would be the Free Software Foundation, which is a 501c nonprofit. To answer your question - no, I wouldn't expect them to have the same goals or approaches to licensing as a for-profit corporation would, and they definitely don't have the same fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders.

Segev

2023-01-09, 12:53 PM

That organization that authored/currently maintains the GPL would be the Free Software Foundation, which is a 501c nonprofit. To answer your question - no, I wouldn't expect them to have the same goals or approaches to licensing as a for-profit corporation would, and they definitely don't have the same fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders.

What you'd "expect" them to do is irrelevant. They could undergo a shift to a for-profit corporation, transferring whatever rights they have over the GNU GPL to said organization, with the right leadership, motivation, and forms filled out and fees paid.

So, pick your least favorite business mogul, whoever that might be. Let's say he manages to gain control of the Free Software Foundation. Keeping the name and control over the GNU GPL, he does everything necessary to turn it into a for-profit corporation under his control. All legal and such. Would you agree that he has a right to rewrite the GNU GPL to require Red Hat and all other enterprise Linux distributors to pay the "Free Software Foundation" (which is now a for-profit corporation) a royalty for the use of Linux in their distros?

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-09, 12:54 PM

Assuming the license you mean is the GNU GPL, that license is irrevocable. But for your broader question, 750k revenue is utter peanuts for an IT enterprise - so no, I wouldn't expect a royalty in that specific case for that specific industry. However, there is a revenue/size threshold beyond which I would expect a company to not be using a free Linux distro, but rather a paid enterprise Linux distro like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the license to which would likely include revenue- or headcount-based payment tiers if not outright royalties. The principle is largely the same - once you've attained a certain degree of success, graduating beyond the free licenses to something that scales its cost with the value you're receiving is to be expected. That concept is not unique to D&D by a long shot.

True, but that would pertain to 5e, since few subclasses, the least desirable from what I can tell, are in the SRD. Paizo may be something that couldn't be imitated in 6e, from the sounds of it younger players like it, so creating a 5e retro-clone to compete with 6e may not work, the poison pill tactic might work if and only if the deauthorize tactic isn't used, since as someone else pointed out that will create problems for those further downstream since identifying what OGC has been affected would be a nightmare. Some players might do a retroclone in a few years, every iteration creates Grognards, after all, I did D20 star Wars with some elements homebrewed from D6, saga, I wasn't a fan, decent wargame but otherwise not my cup of tea, I won't be doing a Fantasy Flights game, I hated what I saw flipping through a copy in a book store. So if I ever fo Star Wars again (if the bad taste in my mouth from episode 8 ever goes away) it will be D6 using D6Space for rules and my old WEG sourcebooks for stats.

And as I think I'm noting and you haven't answered, it's not like DnD 3.0 was developed without borrowing from other companies IP, if mechanics are included. As far as I can tell skills in RPGs go back to traveller in 1977, though I don't know about Chaosium. Earliest skill system in TSR products I'm aware of was 3 years later in their James Bond product, and it was closer to FASERIP's "talents," if I understand it correctly, which FASERIP was very different mechanically. A certain degree of borrowing is a standard in the industry. Using the name DND compatible or D20 might have marketing assistance, it certainly drove other systems out of the space and maybe they make a comeback, but that I think affects the moral claims in terms of royalties in some cases, say Paizo's PF 2e.