Official OGL Discussion Thread [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Forum Staff

2023-01-18, 01:43 PM

As many of you are aware, a document from Wizards of the Coast (WotC) regarding the future of the Open Game License (OGL) has met with a strong reaction from the gaming community. Independent of the One D&D discussion, which has been and continues to be a valid topic, this proposed change has sparked passionate debate.

The discussion surrounding the OGL has proven to be complicated, with previous comments already dipping past what is allowed on these boards. The Playground is (at least for some) an important place to have gaming conversations, and whether this issue is a fundamental one or a fleeting one, it does seem important to posters here. Like any thread, however, this is bound by the Forum Rules. The Forum Staff have discussed this at length, and we would like to point out the following topics should be avoided:

1) Legal Advice and Opinion (even speculative and theoretical)
2) Real World Politics including discussion of government actions, laws, and regulations, such as copyright and other intellectual property rights
3) Insulting Hasbro/WotC or its employees, some of whom do post or lurk here
4) Insulting others based on their opinions on this issue

Overall, we expect (and will require) a high level of civility in this thread. Expect it to be moderated tightly in hopes that it can be kept in-bounds and peaceful.

It may be that some aspects of this issue simply cannot be discussed here. While we acknowledge that that is probably limiting and even frustrating, the limits on topics and manner of discussion here are fundamental to the forum. A forum to discuss religious reactions to gaming or legal issues faced by content creators would be valuable, but we have broadly prohibited those topics here. There are many other outlets for exploring the legal issues involved, expressing one's rage, insulting or attacking others, and other reactions that aren't permitted here.

We hope this thread can be a space that allows for a meaningful discussion of the ramifications of this new landscape while also following our Forum Rules.

Atranen

2023-01-18, 01:47 PM

Snowbluff

2023-01-18, 01:57 PM

Thanks to the forum staff for creating this thread. There has been a new statement put out by WoTC within the hour, here:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1428-a-working-conversation-about-the-open-game-license

Pretty exciting that there's something to work off of here.

To be clear, I do not believe the 1.0a will remain as is. Looking what has been said about it and what WotC wants to accomplish with it (they would have no way to enforce a morality clause with older extant and functioning licenses existing), there does need to be an update.

Royalties and license back were my main burning issues, and it sounded like both were getting dropped, according to the last statement. License back seemed like a weird inclusion, but apparently is simply not unusual for a platform like DM's Guild or Youtube. It is a bit strange to apply it to a game system rather than a specific platform, however.

OldTrees1

2023-01-18, 02:02 PM

Thanks to the forum staff for creating this thread. There has been a new statement put out by WoTC within the hour, here:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1428-a-working-conversation-about-the-open-game-license

Thanks to the forum staff! This is a topic I feel a need to talk about and few places that I can.

This new statement has 2 major issues for me:
1) They continue to push for deauthorizing the 1.0a OGL. That is a dealbreaker for me. I have skipped editions before based on taste, but deleting an open license that was intended, presented, and trusted to be perpetual and irrevocable is not acceptable.
2) They lied in this statement and even I noticed the lie. They are still pretending 1.1 was a "draft" despite it being sent out as part of contracts (allegedly). If I catch you lying to me, I won't trust you. Stop lying.

If they want a new OGL, then let the 1.0a OGL continue to exist and have the new OGL grant access to more. Maybe all 5.5+ SRDs use the 1.1 OGL. That is fine.

Sparky McDibben

2023-01-18, 02:04 PM

Well, the good news is that we have an actual apology, and a process to move forward on. Looking forward to a constructive dialogue.

Atranen

2023-01-18, 02:05 PM

Pretty exciting that there's something to work off of here.

To be clear, I do not believe the 1.0a will remain as is. Looking what has been said about it and what WotC wants to accomplish with it (they would have no way to enforce a morality clause with older extant and functioning licenses existing), there does need to be an update.

Royalties and license back were my main burning issues, and it sounded like both were getting dropped, according to the last statement. License back seemed like a weird inclusion, but apparently is simply not unusual for a platform like DM's Guild or Youtube. It is a bit strange to apply it to a game system rather than a specific platform, however.

It's a much better statement than they put out previously. It remains to be seen what exactly the new version looks like, and I'll withhold final judgement until I see that. But if they manage to propose something that gives them what they want without adversely affecting third parties, I could see myself continuing to buy from the company.

If they want a new OGL, then let the 1.0a OGL continue to exist and have the new OGL grant access to more. Maybe all 5.5+ SRDs use the 1.1 OGL. That is fine.

This is a simple and easy way for them to give me what I want.

OldTrees1

2023-01-18, 02:06 PM

I am worried the survey will require a D&D beyond account and they will use the upswing in accounts (due to people deleting their accounts previously) to ignore feedback given in the survey.

Brookshw

2023-01-18, 02:08 PM

Thanks to the forum staff for creating this thread. There has been a new statement put out by WoTC within the hour, here:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1428-a-working-conversation-about-the-open-game-license

Thanks for sharing. A good start I think. I'll continue to wait for at least the next draft before formulating an opinion. Kinda irked they seem to want to do the public comments through DDB, but, whatever, can't say I'm surprised.

Psyren

2023-01-18, 02:11 PM

Thanks very much to the mods for creating this space!!

The wording of the statement makes it clear to me they plan to move forward with deauthorizing 1.0a. I'm not against this (depending on how they do it and what that ultimately means for existing works, anyway) - rather my primary concern is the provisions they will put into 2.0, especially the means for keeping it updated going forward. 30 days of notice for unilateral modification just did not cut it.

They addressed my remaining two "bright red lines" from the prior leak - the royalty, and the licenseback/ownership clause - so the modification clause is the only item of concern I personally have left.

Thanks for sharing. A good start I think. I'll continue to wait for at least the next draft before formulating an opinion. Kinda irked they seem to want to do the public comments through DDB, but, whatever, can't say I'm surprised.

It's a bit shrewd when you think about it. They will almost certainly get some reactivations this way, maybe even a resub or two. If nothing else, it will provide the most staunch protesting creator voices some covering fire - "I reactivated my account so I can make all our voices heard! I did it for YOU!"

And, as I said during the UA survey topics, it will likely also protect their feedback process from being influenced by botnets, sockpuppets and the like. That's going to be 100x more imperative here, since this survey will relate directly to their business rather than just the game.

Oramac

2023-01-18, 02:20 PM

Thanks very much to the mods for creating this space!!

The wording of the statement makes it clear to me they plan to move forward with deauthorizing 1.0a. I'm not against this (depending on how they do it and what that ultimately means for existing works, anyway) - rather my primary concern is the provisions they will put into 2.0, especially the means for keeping it updated going forward. 30 days of notice for unilateral modification just did not cut it.

They addressed my remaining two "bright red lines" from the prior leak - the royalty, and the licenseback/ownership clause - so the modification clause is the only item of concern I personally have left.

I tend to agree. Much as I don't want them to deauth 1.0a, it certainly seems they're going in that direction.

The royalty and licenseback clauses were my other two big issues as well. But until we see the actual [against-the-rules] terminology of the official non-"draft" license, I'm not holding my breath.

It's a bit shrewd when you think about it. They will almost certainly get some reactivations this way, maybe even a resub or two. If nothing else, it will provide the most staunch protesting creator voices some covering fire - "I reactivated my account so I can make all our voices heard! I did it for YOU!"

And, as I said during the UA survey topics, it will likely also protect their feedback process from being influenced by botnets, sockpuppets and the like. That's going to be 100x more imperative here, since this survey will relate directly to their business rather than just the game.

Also true. I was in the process of deleting my DDB account when this happened. I've since decided not to delete it so that I can offer feedback in the OGL Playtest.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-18, 02:21 PM

I will hold my opinion until I see the actual document.

If their new license was just basically 1.0a++ (add in a few "hey, we can't be sued if you do something dumb and get sued" clauses, make it clear that WotC is not associated with any BS you publish, clean up the language a bit), I'd be fine with a deauth/forced upgrade to the new license.

But I highly doubt that that will be the case. Instead, I expect they're going to try to prevent (as much as possible) a forking of the game and "encourage" everyone now publishing 5.0 material to move over to OneD&D.

But I've been wrong before. So I'm holding off on anything.

I did deactivate my subscription, but I didn't remove my account entirely. So I can still comment on the survey regardless.

Oramac

2023-01-18, 02:26 PM

Instead, I expect they're going to try to prevent (as much as possible) a forking of the game and "encourage" everyone now publishing 5.0 material to move over to OneD&D.

I expect this as well. The really funny thing is, the simplest and surest way to make sure (almost) everyone starts writing for OneD&D is to do nothing at all. Just let 1.0a stand as-is. But of course, they can't just do nothing.

skyth

2023-01-18, 02:28 PM

Oramac

2023-01-18, 02:30 PM

I'm still not sure they can deauthorize the 1.0a. There is nothing in the 1.0a agreement that allows them to deauthorize the agreement unless I missed something. Granted, fighting this would require a significant amount of resources to get a legal ruling saying so.

Can't really discuss that per forum rules. Suffice it to say that, as I understand it, it is possible for them to deauth it.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-18, 02:31 PM

I expect this as well. The really funny thing is, the simplest and surest way to make sure (almost) everyone starts writing for OneD&D is to do nothing at all. Just let 1.0a stand as-is. But of course, they can't just do nothing.

Agreed. Put out a must have product and demand will follow. Try to get clever with legal maneuvers and you can burn your bridge and kill that golden goose good.

da newt

2023-01-18, 02:34 PM

Thanks for a place to discuss this. I wouldn't have thought to look for it outside of the D&D sections of the forum. Maybe an announcement there to point folks here would be helpful.

FrancisBean

2023-01-18, 03:05 PM

Thanks for a place to discuss this. I wouldn't have thought to look for it outside of the D&D sections of the forum. Maybe an announcement there to point folks here would be helpful.

My suggestion would be for an admin to re-open the old threads to add a pointer to here, then close them down again. It's a lot of footwork, but I think it's worthwhile in this case. Of course, I don't have to do that footwork....

Psyren

2023-01-18, 03:16 PM

I expect this as well. The really funny thing is, the simplest and surest way to make sure (almost) everyone starts writing for OneD&D is to do nothing at all. Just let 1.0a stand as-is. But of course, they can't just do nothing.

The thing is, doing nothing doesn't address either of their "core goals" as laid out in the press release. Per Kyle, these are: "protecting and cultivating an inclusive play environment, and limiting the OGL to TTRPGs."

The former gets into things like the NuTSR stuff we can't talk about here, so I'll skip that.

Focusing on the latter, that's perhaps the biggest gap in 1.0a that they'll want to close - right now, the kinds of products that can be made using 1.0a are vague at best; which is how you end up with companies like Owlcat making tens of millions of dollars without WotC seeing a thin dime, even when WotC laid the groundwork. That is only going to increase as these alternative D&D-derived experiences grow in popularity and visibility.

And keep in mind too that whatever version of the OGL they end up going with, even if they back off completely and stick with 1.0a, their company's name will be part of the license's language. I can understand Wizards of the Coast wanting some measure of control over which books are allowed to include the words "Wizards of the Coast" between their covers.

thethird

2023-01-18, 03:32 PM

Personally I play on derivatives of 3.5, so that means that for me the ogl 1.0a is important. Most products I am excited lately are updates to pathfinder 1st edition, that definitely uses the srd. So to me, personally, revoking or deauthorizing the ogl 1.0a has a negative impact. I can easily understand if the publishers I follow want to move on to greener pastures.

For my part I feel that this has been handled really really poorly. And I don't feel confident that this will improve.

As to the other points I don't think it's a good idea to just be happy the conceded them. If the ogl 1.0a was alive and well those other points wouldn't be necessary. And if they defacto gain now the capacity to revoke/deauthorize versions now then down the line there is nothing ensuring they won't keep doing that. I personally feel that that's important. And how a precendet is set here will impact us down the line.

Oramac

2023-01-18, 03:44 PM

The thing is, doing nothing doesn't address either of their "core goals" as laid out in the press release. Per Kyle, these are: "protecting and cultivating an inclusive play environment, and limiting the OGL to TTRPGs."

snip

And keep in mind too that whatever version of the OGL they end up going with, even if they back off completely and stick with 1.0a, their company's name will be part of the license's language. I can understand Wizards of the Coast wanting some measure of control over which books are allowed to include the words "Wizards of the Coast" between their covers.

Yea, that's a fair point. And I do get it. Were it my company I'd feel the same way. But really, it would be as easy as updating 1.0a to explicitly denote approved media (and specifying what exactly is covered by "static"), thereby banning all other media. Of course, this would still make a lot of people mad, but it's probably the least-bad middle ground.

As to the other point, yea, not gonna touch that.

Idkwhatmyscreen

2023-01-18, 04:25 PM

johnbragg

2023-01-18, 04:31 PM

2) They lied in this statement and even I noticed the lie. They are still pretending 1.1 was a "draft" despite it being sent out as part of contracts (allegedly). If I catch you lying to me, I won't trust you. Stop lying.

This is something that has started bugging me. 1.1, or the draft OGL, did not take legal effect (except maybe through Kickstarter?). I think that makes it a draft. They didn't mean for it to be a draft, but since they have to revise and/or start over, it becomes a draft retroactively.

And, what else are we supposed to call the leaked .......document? proposed contract?

You call it 1.1, but there's no assurance at all that Wizards will follow that numbering convention--they might call whatever they release on Friday "OGL 1.1, Draft Edition."

Psyren

2023-01-18, 04:53 PM

Whether they "lied" about it being a draft or not depends a lot on the meaning of the term "draft" in this context, and that can't really be discussed here as it's a legal term.

catagent101

2023-01-18, 05:01 PM

This bit stands out to me:

Your OGL 1.0a content. Nothing will impact any content you have published under OGL 1.0a. That will always be licensed under OGL 1.0a.

Published. Still looks like they're gonna try to deauthorize 1.0a and send any unpublished works to the scrap heap. Like they said last announcement, just less clearly this time.

FrancisBean

2023-01-18, 05:13 PM

Published. Still looks like they're gonna try to deauthorize 1.0a and send any unpublished works to the scrap heap. Like they said last announcement, just less clearly this time.

I've been trying to figure out how that applies to reprintings of stuff already published. Fortunately for me, I have several contract attorneys in the family, so I'm not concerned about the pesky forum rules. :smallbiggrin:

Kane0

2023-01-18, 05:19 PM

If that statement is to be believed, happy to see some items being walked back. Will be interested to see how this plays out over the next few weeks.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-18, 05:30 PM

This bit stands out to me:

Published. Still looks like they're gonna try to deauthorize 1.0a and send any unpublished works to the scrap heap. Like they said last announcement, just less clearly this time.

Yeah. And this, for me[1], has always been the sticky point. Ok, one of the sticky points[2]. A forced revocation of 1.0a effective immediately (as opposed to effective on works for OneD&D or the like) is, to me, completely unacceptable. Because while I have no interest in OneD&D (for entirely content-based reasons), I would still like to "publish" (even at the "post on the internet for free" level) works for 5e. And having to update to a possibly-unconscionable (for all the other sticky reasons) license is a non-starter.

Plus the obvious anti-competitive, death-to-Paizo (who I'm not the biggest fan of, to be clear) reasons that make it a jerk move IMO.

[1] as someone who has no intent to commercially publish but does extensive homebrew that gets posted and thus falls afoul of various related issues.
[2] not fond of a bunch of the other provisions, some of which they've said they're walking back.

AceOfFools

2023-01-18, 05:31 PM

It I think it's fair to say most of the damage has been done already. Even if wotc leaves the ogl 1.0a alone for the time being, the fact that they were at any point looking to kill it makes it risky to use going forward.

Furthermore, while we don't have ogl 2.0 yet, if it gives wotc the ability to modify the license, then it doesn't really matter what they take out, as they could always add it back in later. (Especially if said updates are forced and non-optional)

This is the thing for me. Given what WotC has already attempted to do, and Hasbro’s stated position that the brand is undermonitized, there is no reason to trust them and every reason to distrust them.

FrancisBean

2023-01-18, 05:52 PM

It I think it's fair to say most of the damage has been done already. Even if wotc leaves the ogl 1.0a alone for the time being, the fact that they were at any point looking to kill it makes it risky to use going forward.

Furthermore, while we don't have ogl 2.0 yet, if it gives wotc the ability to modify the license, then it doesn't really matter what they take out, as they could always add it back in later. (Especially if said updates are forced and non-optional)

Really, all they need to do to regain a lot of that is to add the one magic word: irrevocable. Release 1.0(b) with that one modification and no others and I'd be willing to cut them a lot of slack on whatever they do going forward.

Psyren

2023-01-18, 05:55 PM

This bit stands out to me:

Published. Still looks like they're gonna try to deauthorize 1.0a and send any unpublished works to the scrap heap. Like they said last announcement, just less clearly this time.

Given their stated "core goal" of limiting the OGL to Tabletop RPGs, this is wholly understandable. If they leave 1.0a intact and publish OGL 2.0 as a separate, parallel thing, someone could still decide to ignore the latter and just go make a new video game etc. using the former, even one worth millions - just like Owlcat did.

Yeah. And this, for me[1], has always been the sticky point. Ok, one of the sticky points[2]. A forced revocation of 1.0a effective immediately (as opposed to effective on works for OneD&D or the like) is, to me, completely unacceptable. Because while I have no interest in OneD&D (for entirely content-based reasons), I would still like to "publish" (even at the "post on the internet for free" level) works for 5e. And having to update to a possibly-unconscionable (for all the other sticky reasons) license is a non-starter.

Plus the obvious anti-competitive, death-to-Paizo (who I'm not the biggest fan of, to be clear) reasons that make it a jerk move IMO.

[1] as someone who has no intent to commercially publish but does extensive homebrew that gets posted and thus falls afoul of various related issues.
[2] not fond of a bunch of the other provisions, some of which they've said they're walking back.

1) We'll have to wait to see the new version to know for sure - but I'd be very surprised if you're unable to use it to publish 5e homebrew even if you want to ignore 1DnD completely.

2) The new version is highly unlikely to kill Paizo either, especially not with the royalty and licenseback pieces removed. (It's moot once they switch gears to ORC anyway.)

Really, all they need to do to regain a lot of that is to add the one magic word: irrevocable. Release 1.0(b) with that one modification and no others and I'd be willing to cut them a lot of slack on whatever they do going forward.

This doesn't address either of their stated core goals though.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-18, 06:00 PM

1) We'll have to wait to see the new version to know for sure - but I'd be very surprised if you're unable to use it to publish 5e homebrew even if you want to ignore 1DnD completely.

2) The new version is highly unlikely to kill Paizo either, especially not with the royalty and licenseback pieces removed. (It's moot once they switch gears to ORC anyway.)

1. Their stated goals of not forking the userbase demand this to be true. If they didn't want to stop all 5e (and before) work, they'd have said as much, instead of intentionally and very deliberately avoiding that pointed question.

2. If they do actually disallow any further work without accepting the new license AND the new license has any kind of oversight, Paizo will, in my opinion, find it difficult to continue publishing anything for PF1e or PF2e (the latter only until they can expurgate the old license dependence entirely, the former is utterly dependent on it in core ways). Because "let my biggest competitor have full editorial oversight over my products and strip me of my license/business model at a whim" is not a sustainable position.

And if they have to spend 3-6 months developing a new license and scrubbing everything before they can publish anything new or even revised versions...yeah. That's bad news from a business perspective. At least IMO.

Brookshw

2023-01-18, 06:06 PM

It's a bit shrewd when you think about it. They will almost certainly get some reactivations this way, maybe even a resub or two. If nothing else, it will provide the most staunch protesting creator voices some covering fire - "I reactivated my account so I can make all our voices heard! I did it for YOU!"

And, as I said during the UA survey topics, it will likely also protect their feedback process from being influenced by botnets, sockpuppets and the like. That's going to be 100x more imperative here, since this survey will relate directly to their business rather than just the game.

Absolutely fair points (well, I'm chuckling at the 'I did it for YOU' bit, but otherwise).

Kinda old ground I don't want to retread, but just to provide the counterpoints (and acknowledging in the circumstances WotC has all the more reason to use DDB), it does limit the scope of feedback they'll receive while, to an extent, artificially pump their active user numbers.

Anyway, just irks me, but not surprising or without defensible rationale.

FrancisBean

2023-01-18, 06:08 PM

Really, all they need to do to regain a lot of that is to add the one magic word: irrevocable. Release 1.0(b) with that one modification and no others and I'd be willing to cut them a lot of slack on whatever they do going forward.This doesn't address either of their stated core goals though.

Agreed. I didn't say it would address their concerns, I said that's what would regain my own trust.

Tanarii

2023-01-18, 06:10 PM

Lord Raziere

2023-01-18, 06:12 PM

This is the thing for me. Given what WotC has already attempted to do, and Hasbro’s stated position that the brand is undermonitized, there is no reason to trust them and every reason to distrust them.

This pretty much.

None of this is a big shocker to me, they want to make all the money and can't be satisfied with only some of the money. Some corporate suit came in was like "only 1/6 of our customer base is buying stuff!? and we're allowing free stuff to be used by other companies!? we need to monetize this NOW!" not knowing how the ttrpg environment works and only looking at immediate gains with customers being an obstacle to getting those gains.

Don't trust WotC, they just want to bleed people dry.

Segev

2023-01-18, 06:21 PM

From what I've been hearing and reading, there's zero need to "Deauthorize" v. 1.0(a) for a "morality clause."

This is hearsay, for me, though, so I could be wrong.

Regardless, I don't buy for a second that that's an actual concern. If the brand ID was so easily taken over by actual immoral and evil third party products, WotC would be all about catering to those immoralities because they'd see dollar signs there. They're using this as a cover.

There is no justifiable reason to try to "deauthorize" v. 1.0(a). It was never intended to be deauthorized, and its language doesn't support doing so. They're calling it "deauthorization," in fact, because they know they can't actually revoke the OGL, so they're trying to rewrite it so that it "technically" doesn't exist.

And it's a terrible business decision.

Any of their real and legitimate goals to monetize D&D better could be achieved without touching the ability to publish 3.0, 3.5, PF1, PF2, and 5e third party material exactly as they have been published for the last many years.

Atranen

2023-01-18, 06:22 PM

Any indication they intend to deauthorize 1.0(a) means the revolt will continue. Because that means they can't be trusted to manage the Open license.

The only thing they can do to maybe prevent the inevitable market share loss and stock value loss they're going to be facing is to stop trying to do that. But even that is unlikely to stop the shift already underway by other publishers, and regain their already lost DMs and players as buyers of their products.

I think that damage is already done. Even if they walked back completely, I expect everyone would move to ORC going forward. If they wanted to regain my trust with respect to open gaming, they need to switch to ORC.

I'm certain they won't, and that's their right. And it's our right as customers to not support companies that treat us poorly.

Brookshw

2023-01-18, 06:25 PM

Don't trust WotC, they just want to bleed people dry.

Admittedly I'm hard pressed to think of a for profit company, at least any major one, which couldn't be described the same way. Even when they seem to be acting 'nice', it's usually in a way that drives their bottom line.

NichG

2023-01-18, 06:26 PM

Anything tabletop RPG related that I've written or will write, I think I'll just put a 'released into the public domain' on, even if I intend to sell it. I think that's probably the best way to communicate 'I really do want other people to be able to use this, without fear that I'll try to extract royalties, control usage, revoke rights, quibble the details, etc later on'.

johnbragg

2023-01-18, 06:33 PM

The Glyphstone

2023-01-18, 06:35 PM

At least according to the latest alleged/verified WotC leak, the survey is a smokescreen anyways:

https://twitter.com/DnD_Shorts/status/1615806825198194708

Snowbluff

2023-01-18, 06:38 PM

At least according to the latest alleged/verified WotC leak, the survey is a smokescreen anyways:

https://twitter.com/DnD_Shorts/status/1615806825198194708

According to a former employee, the surveys are read (https://twitter.com/DarkestCrows/status/1615840618701545472?t=ZyUgVukLrHC_W8KwktLMdQ&s=19).

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-18, 06:39 PM

At least according to the latest alleged/verified WotC leak, the survey is a smokescreen anyways:

https://twitter.com/DnD_Shorts/status/1615806825198194708

I will note that there are fairly standard product-research reasons why the detailed feedback on similar surveys is mostly a smokescreen. That isn't something unusual, surprising, or malicious.

Tactically, that means that the only lever anyone has is the numerical rankings. Which basically means all questions should be answered with either minimum or maximum values--if there are any doubts about a question, if you're not entirely enthusiastic, tank the rating. Anything in the middle will just get averaged to a mess and ignored.

Psyren

2023-01-18, 06:40 PM

1. Their stated goals of not forking the userbase demand this to be true. If they didn't want to stop all 5e (and before) work, they'd have said as much, instead of intentionally and very deliberately avoiding that pointed question.

I'm still confused by this - any new OGL/SRD would have to be compatible with 5e, because 1DnD itself is being designed to be compatible with 5e - but I'm content to drop it until we have actual draft language to mull over in a couple of days.

2. If they do actually disallow any further work without accepting the new license AND the new license has any kind of oversight, Paizo will, in my opinion, find it difficult to continue publishing anything for PF1e or PF2e (the latter only until they can expurgate the old license dependence entirely, the former is utterly dependent on it in core ways). Because "let my biggest competitor have full editorial oversight over my products and strip me of my license/business model at a whim" is not a sustainable position.

That's a fair point, but I don't think the positions are irreconcilable. Again, we'll need the draft to be sure, but they might end up being a lot more specific about the circumstances with which they can terminate someone's use of the license beyond "at a whim." That's probably feedback we can give in the survey. (Personally, I'm fine with WotC having the right to determine who doesn't get to use their license, but it's a point I'm willing to budge on.)

Regardless, it's likely to be a moot point anyway - Paizo is already committing to ditching any WotC license in the near future, at least for their core product (they might still decide to release some converted modules under 2.0 or something). I think they're a big enough name now within the RPG space to not need to come back to the OGL for exposure.

This pretty much.

None of this is a big shocker to me, they want to make all the money and can't be satisfied with only some of the money. Some corporate suit came in was like "only 1/6 of our customer base is buying stuff!? and we're allowing free stuff to be used by other companies!? we need to monetize this NOW!" not knowing how the ttrpg environment works and only looking at immediate gains with customers being an obstacle to getting those gains.

Don't trust WotC, they just want to bleed people dry.

If it were truly just "the ttrpg environment" I'd agree with you, this would be akin to blood from a stone. The problem is that 1.0a itself is shockingly vague in terms of how and where it can be used, and is already starting to be used outside of TTRPGs. Maybe only 1/6 of tabletop D&D players actually buy books, but a vastly higher percentage of the CRPG audience paid for those products. And the variety and profitability of D&D-adjacent experiences outside of sitting around a table and rolling dice are only going to grow, and in ways that the original framers couldn't possibly have foreseen 23 years ago.

According to a former employee, the surveys are read (https://twitter.com/DarkestCrows/status/1615840618701545472?t=ZyUgVukLrHC_W8KwktLMdQ&s=19).

I agree completely with this response to DnD_Shorts. The vitriol out in those other communities is beginning to reach a fever pitch.

Atranen

2023-01-18, 06:52 PM

I'm still confused by this - any new OGL/SRD would have to be compatible with 5e, because 1DnD itself is being designed to be compatible with 5e - but I'm content to drop it until we have actual draft language to mull over in a couple of days.

But even if OneD&D is compatible with 5e, they won't want people publishing for 5e under the OGL, they want them publishing for OneD&D under the new license. Their goal is for no one to be able to publish 5e or OneD&D compatible content without accepting the new license.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-18, 06:59 PM

But even if OneD&D is compatible with 5e, they won't want people publishing for 5e under the OGL, they want them publishing for OneD&D under the new license. Their goal is for no one to be able to publish 5e or OneD&D compatible content without accepting the new license.

Exactly. And ideally, to not publish any new 5e material at all once OneD&D comes out.

And @Psyren--their claims of compatibility are...well...eyah. It's almost certainly going to be compatible in the way that versions of Xcode are compatible. Ie "everything's changed and moved around and a lot of things don't exist any more or do other radically different things." AKA not compatible.

You should not expect anything to work directly or to be able to smoothly play a 5e character in OneD&D or vice versa. You might be able to run a 5e module in a OneD&D game...if you convert monsters to the new versions.

Specifically, they absolutely don't want to end up with a forked playerbase like happened with 4e. Which is exactly why they want to force everyone to move to a new license and not publish anything new for 5e, because if they can, and OneD&D isn't absolutely perfect, then people will continue publishing 5e material and the forking is inevitable.

Edit: and PF1e is irreducibly coupled to the 3e SRD materials and cannot be relicensed without a complete rework. And they're still publishing (and republishing new editions of) PF1e material. A full revocation of the 1.0a SRD, coupled with an unacceptable 1.1/2.0 license, means that any further PF1e material (or revisions to existing material) is absolutely off the table. And there's going to need to be some work to transition PF2e away entirely (although it's closer), which (in this bad case) necessitate a hard stop on publishing any PF2e material until both the ORC is done AND they've completely scrubbed off the old material to their lawyers' satisfaction.

Brookshw

2023-01-18, 06:59 PM

Saintheart

2023-01-18, 07:01 PM

Hi. I’m Kyle Brink, the Executive Producer on D&D. It’s my team that makes the game we all play.

D&D has been a huge part of my life long before I worked at Wizards and will be for a long time after I’m done.

How do you do, fellow kids?

So they finally took some advice from their communications department and tried to put an actual human's face on the message, thinking that it'll make people softer and less likely to criticise a named NPC. And even better 'I PLaY ThE SaMe GAme YoU Do!'

Too bad this presumed person is also not taking personal responsibility for the writing, plan, and wording of OGL 1.1, so it looks and feels fake. And the rest of the message is in good old "We" speak, so most of the impact of having someone real's name at the top is lost.

Also, "and will be for a long time after I'm done." Low-key announcing a suggestion you're going to be fired or resign is funny as hell, but an odd thing to put in a 'we screwed up, please be quiet now' message.

My mission, and that of the entire D&D team, is to help bring everyone the creative joy and lifelong friendships that D&D has given us.

Marketing. They want you to think of them in association with your best gaming experiences, which were usually a result of the DM you had and the other players around the table. Not D&D.

These past days and weeks have been incredibly tough for everyone. As players, fans, and stewards of the game, we can’t–and we won’t–let things continue like this.

Still doing 'hello fellow kids', trying to pretend like they're part of the actual consumer community. Even if you and the guy at the game store both play Monopoly, his interests are not aligned to yours. And it's dishonest to try and suggest that they are. Especially coming from a massive corporation which has chosen to, at least momentarily, show one of its faces.

I am here today to talk about a path forward.

Did you write this thing assuming people would turn up to listen to it, or that it was going to be read? You aren't here, the website isn't a physical place for crying out loud.

First, though, let me start with an apology. We are sorry. We got it wrong.

Somebody's been reading the ENworld threads about how Patreon handled their great marketing boo-boo. Still fake and phony, because when "we" apologise, nobody does. Either apologise on behalf of the whole team, or apologise because you were personally responsible, or have everyone who wants to apologise signing the letter. "We ... are sorry. We ... got it wrong. We ... are Venom."

Our language and requirements in the draft OGL were disruptive to creators and not in support of our core goals of protecting and cultivating an inclusive play environment and limiting the OGL to TTRPGs.

Then why did you choose that language? Well, we don't have to explain our motives to you, fellow kids.

And it wasn't a "draft" OGL. Draft OGLs don't go to Kickstarter and end up with a discount on royalty rates through that platform, this is just lying.

Also, a core goal of restricting the OGL to TTRPGs is inconsistent with their MissionTM to bring everyone creative joy and lifelong friendships.

Then we compounded things by being silent for too long. We hurt fans and creators, when more frequent and clear communications could have prevented so much of this.

And note the attempt to reframe the conversation: the problem wasn't an abysmally bad attempt to pull the legal rug out from underneath an entire creative industry, it was just a communication problem! We used two syllable words when we should've used 'ughs' and 'orc'! We didn't communicate every five minutes!

Starting now, we’re going to do this a better way: more open and transparent, with our entire community of creators. With the time to iterate, to get feedback, to improve.

'More' open and transparent. Not open and transparent. And this is designed to set you up so you'll accept an OGL 1.0b, c, d, e, f and onward ... it's not more restrictive, it's more iterative! And you got your chance to provide feedback! And we will improve it ... for us. Not you.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s how we do it for the game itself.

(Shudder)

So let’s do it that way for the OGL, too.

We’ll listen to you, and then we will share with you what we’ve heard, much like we do in our Unearthed Arcana and One D&D playtests. This will be a robust conversation before we release any future version of the OGL.

We will listen to your protests. We will tell you what you protested about. And then we will flat out tell you we're not changing anything.

Here’s what to expect.

Aside from continuing leaks from a few remaining patriots.

On or before Friday, January 20th, we’ll share new proposed OGL documentation for your review and feedback, much as we do with playtest materials.
After you review the proposed OGL, you will be able to fill out a quick survey–much like Unearthed Arcana playtest feedback surveys. It will ask you specific questions about the document and include open form fields to share any other feedback you have.
The survey will remain open for at least two weeks, and we’ll give you advance notice before it closes so that everyone who wants to participate can complete the survey. Then we will compile, analyze, react to, and present back what we heard from you.

Again: no promise to change anything in it based on feedback. Oh, I know: "you can't expect a corporation to agree to THAAT!" I think by definition we're not in expected territory any more, and any PR consultant they got to write this thing should've told them to say something along those lines.

Finally, you deserve some stability and clarity. We are committed to giving creators both input into, and room to prepare for, any update to the OGL.

We're changing it. Get used to it. We're not going to let you continue publishing new stuff for 5e and 3e that is better than the corporate gruel we turn out for DBox One.

Also, there’s a ton of stuff that isn’t going to be affected by an OGL update. So today, right now, we’ll lay out all the areas that this conversation won’t touch.

Let's lay out all the irrelevant stuff so your brain doesn't think about the relevant parts, fellow kids.

Any changes to the OGL will have no impact on at least these creative efforts:

Your video content. Whether you are a commentator, streamer, podcaster, liveplay cast member, or other video creator on platforms like YouTube and Twitch and TikTok, you have always been covered by the Wizards Fan Content Policy. The OGL doesn’t (and won’t) touch any of this.
Your accessories for your owned content. No changes to the OGL will affect your ability to sell minis, novels, apparel, dice, and other items related to your creations, characters, and worlds.
Non-published works, for instance contracted services. You use the OGL if you want to publish your works that reference fifth edition content through the SRD. That means commissioned work, paid DM services, consulting, and so on aren’t affected by the OGL.
VTT content. Any updates to the OGL will still allow any creator to publish content on VTTs and will still allow VTT publishers to use OGL content on their platform.
DMs Guild content. The content you release on DMs Guild is published under a Community Content Agreement with Dungeon Masters Guild. This is not changing.
Your OGL 1.0a content. Nothing will impact any content you have published under OGL 1.0a. That will always be licensed under OGL 1.0a.

Past tense: published. But you won't be able to make any new adventures for 3e or 5e. "BuT yOU HAve A HUNdred YEArs WoRTH oF StUFF To RuN aND PLay." What if I don't want to run that stuff? Also, too bad if you're a 3PP publisher who uses the OGL for their own current systems that aren't clearly cases of delving into smelly cellars and killing big flappy lizard things with bad halitosis, and you kinda want to continue releasing your own products. Those publishers are now all dead, or at least under threat of being sued if Lizards is seriously going to run its "deauthorize the past" argument.

Your revenue. There will be no royalty or financial reporting requirements.

But five bucks says you'll still have to notify Lizards of your publications, so they get a chance to look at it without having to buy it off DriveThruRPG.

Your ownership of your content. You will continue to own your content with no license-back requirements.

You just won't own any future products.

That’s all from me for now. You will hear again from us on or before Friday as described above, and we look forward to the conversation.

EEssh. Could you make it sound like something other than a ransomware demand, fellas? Also, make up your mind: are we hearing from Mr Brink again on Friday, or is the great Royal We going to be addressing the peanut gallery once more?

Rynjin

2023-01-18, 07:04 PM

Atranen

2023-01-18, 07:11 PM

Easy, right? Make D&D1 only available under 2.0, make it an improvement in the same way 3.5e improved on 3.0e, everyone will be incentivized to switch, anyone who doesn't will be left behind and die from natural causes.

You would think. At least the response in this community suggests OneD&D will not be better received than 5e. With knowledge of the VTT, I wonder how many of their changes are to make VTT integration more simple, rather than for game design purposes.

Lucas Yew

2023-01-18, 07:20 PM

Simply put, the current WotC and Ha$bro are just as bad morally as the old T$R. The company sizes arguably makes them MUCH worse and threatening, too...

johnbragg

2023-01-18, 07:20 PM

Easy, right? Make D&D1 only available under 2.0, make it an improvement in the same way 3.5e improved on 3.0e, everyone will be incentivized to switch, anyone who doesn't will be left behind and die from natural causes.

I'm not sure that 3.5 was a dramatic improvement over 3.0. There was just so much goodwill after 3rd edition came out, that we were willing to buy whole new sets of books 3 years later. (And no botched marketing campaign insulting longtime players that hurt 4th edition).

Six months ago, I think we all figured we'd buy the OneD&D books sooner or later, without really expecting a massive improvement in anything, comparable to the d20 mechanic and universe of customization in 3rd edition or advantage, concentration spells, subclasses and the rest in 5th edition.

Now, there's very little inclination to just hand WOTC money out of loyalty

Psyren

2023-01-18, 07:20 PM

You would think. At least the response in this community suggests OneD&D will not be better received than 5e.

I don't see the support for that conclusion. The survey results so far have shown the vast majority of proposed changes have been well-received, minus a few stragglers like the Crit Rule and the 1.0 Dragonborn/Ardling.

And heck, even if you're right and most communities end up preferring 5e, I expect they'll still be lifting 1DnD's good ideas for their 5e games for years to come, including things like feats at 1st level and the TWF changes.

I don't see this as a "problem". Not for the consumers anyway, and we're who matter. Wizards has zero right (legally or morally) to control "D&D-adjacent" experiences. They do not, and cannot own the basic gameplay concepts of a tabletop RPG.

I won't comment on what WotC's rights (legal or moral) might or might not be. But the simple fact is that 1.0a is just not as clear about what it covers and what it doesn't as it could be.

But even if OneD&D is compatible with 5e, they won't want people publishing for 5e under the OGL, they want them publishing for OneD&D under the new license. Their goal is for no one to be able to publish 5e or OneD&D compatible content without accepting the new license.

Right - so... do that?

I mean, back when it had the licenseback and other bad things I could understand that being a dealbreaker, but that's why they're improving it. And while we'll need the final wording to know for sure, I really don't see how you won't be able to use it to make 5e-compatible content, or even 3e for that matter. Once released, it will be an authorized version of the OGL, just like 1.0a is now.

Snowbluff

2023-01-18, 07:43 PM

I agree completely with this response to DnD_Shorts. The vitriol out in those other communities is beginning to reach a fever pitch.

Well for what it's worth DnD_Shorts did retract the offending tweet and offer an explanation (https://twitter.com/DnD_Shorts/status/1615854768575979521). I'm not sure what to say at this point. The 5 month old hoax post about 30 dollar DDB subs sounded super silly to post, but at the same time at least he's being transparent? :smallsigh:

Brookshw

2023-01-18, 07:54 PM

You would think. At least the response in this community suggests OneD&D will not be better received than 5e. With knowledge of the VTT, I wonder how many of their changes are to make VTT integration more simple, rather than for game design purposes.

I'm not so sure about that, a lot of people seemed pretty happy with certain design directions which started with Tasha's and have continued through the playtest material. I won't be surprised to see more Shinnies(TM) added as it continues.

I'm not sure that 3.5 was a dramatic improvement over 3.0. There was just so much goodwill after 3rd edition came out, that we were willing to buy whole new sets of books 3 years later. (And no botched marketing campaign insulting longtime players that hurt 4th edition).

Six months ago, I think we all figured we'd buy the OneD&D books sooner or later, without really expecting a massive improvement in anything, comparable to the d20 mechanic and universe of customization in 3rd edition or advantage, concentration spells, subclasses and the rest in 5th edition.

Now, there's very little inclination to just hand WOTC money out of loyalty

Dramatic? Maybe not, but enough of a difference there was stuff to be excited about. Offhand, I recall reading the Ranger and Monk updates and being glad they were improved upon; it doesn't need to be an avalanche, people will look at a light snowfall and say "that's pretty".

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-18, 07:55 PM

If they try to deauthorize 1.0a, I will buy nothing until it is reinstated, as I think it creates problems for systems that did not borrow from DnD, though I think 3.x borrowed from those systems. What happens to something like anti-Paladin's Mini-six project, for example? The way the OGL has been used as a means of publishing their own OGC creates tremendous problems and it is frankly dishonest. That is a deal breaker when it comes to any WOTC TTRPG content that would be published in the future.

Most of the rest, we'll see. Provided that the terms various VTTs receive are comparable, fees are reasonable, etc, we'll see.

Psyren

2023-01-18, 08:06 PM

Well for what it's worth DnD_Shorts did retract the offending tweet and offer an explanation (https://twitter.com/DnD_Shorts/status/1615854768575979521). I'm not sure what to say at this point. The 5 month old hoax post about 30 dollar DDB subs sounded super silly to post, but at the same time at least he's being transparent? :smallsigh:

It's irresponsible at best. And the misinformation already sparked its own thread here, which thankfully got locked before it could start to spiral.

Brookshw

2023-01-18, 08:13 PM

It's irresponsible at best. And the misinformation already sparked its own thread here, which thankfully got locked before it could start to spiral.

Concur, considering counterinfo was relayed via Twitter, it not like it would have been hard to have at least attempted to get the other side's story, like, what you'd expect from a journalistic endeavor....

Kane0

2023-01-18, 08:22 PM

Simply put, the current WotC and Ha$bro are just as bad morally as the old T$R. The company sizes arguably makes them MUCH worse and threatening, too...
Corporations do not operate under morals, because they aren't people. They operate under law, money, copyright, intellectual property and other things we can't discuss here.

Well for what it's worth DnD_Shorts did retract the offending tweet and offer an explanation (https://twitter.com/DnD_Shorts/status/1615854768575979521). I'm not sure what to say at this point. The 5 month old hoax post about 30 dollar DDB subs sounded super silly to post, but at the same time at least he's being transparent? :smallsigh:

Kudos to him for this sign of integrity.

Dr.Samurai

2023-01-18, 08:48 PM

I'll echo something I said in the thread that got locked re "WotC doesn't read the surveys". Many of us are primed to believe bad news about WotC because we're angry right now. As with any situation, there are people willing and able to take advantage of that. So read everything with a grain of salt. I'm not in any way a fan of how WotC is handling this, but I'm not going to buy any allegations that come out hook line and sinker.

Of note, WotC had just come out and said they were going to treat the changes to the OGL as UA content, and get our feedback through surveys. Suddenly we get a leak that they don't read the surveys and don't care about our opinions.

As usual, tread carefully. Some of this stuff will be real. But seems to me some staffer at WotC wants us all to write the company off. Many people already have, and if you do, that's fine. Just make sure it's for real reasons.

EDIT: Not sure if this was shared but here's a twitter thread (https://twitter.com/DnDBeyond/status/1615879300414062593?s=20&t=fQ_7T_iI63MNb48-n7_cEg) from DDB concerning misinformation.

Tanarii

2023-01-18, 08:50 PM

Psyren

2023-01-18, 09:04 PM

I think that damage is already done. Even if they walked back completely, I expect everyone would move to ORC going forward. If they wanted to regain my trust with respect to open gaming, they need to switch to ORC.

I'm certain they won't, and that's their right. And it's our right as customers to not support companies that treat us poorly.

If ORC is successful enough then they might, otherwise they have no reason to.

I'll echo something I said in the thread that got locked re "WotC doesn't read the surveys". Many of us are primed to believe bad news about WotC because we're angry right now. As with any situation, there are people willing and able to take advantage of that. So read everything with a grain of salt. I'm not in any way a fan of how WotC is handling this, but I'm not going to buy any allegations that come out hook line and sinker.

Of note, WotC had just come out and said they were going to treat the changes to the OGL as UA content, and get our feedback through surveys. Suddenly we get a leak that they don't read the surveys and don't care about our opinions.

As usual, tread carefully. Some of this stuff will be real. But seems to me some staffer at WotC wants us all to write the company off. Many people already have, and if you do, that's fine. Just make sure it's for real reasons.

EDIT: Not sure if this was shared but here's a twitter thread (https://twitter.com/DnDBeyond/status/1615879300414062593?s=20&t=fQ_7T_iI63MNb48-n7_cEg) from DDB concerning misinformation.

Thanks for the official link! Deep breaths everyone, we'll make it through.

Lemmy

2023-01-18, 09:44 PM

Well, as long as they keep pushing the idea that the 1.0 can be "deauthorized" (which definitely goes against its spirit, even if it can be rules-lawyer'd in a court of law, and I'm not sure it can), I'm definitely not supporting anything D&D-related that WotC puts out.

The OGL is the only thing that kept D&D alive all these years. Stranger Things, Critical Role and the pandemic brought a lot of fad-players, but as expected, they left pretty quickly (as seen by the huge decrease in WotC revenue last year).

Stranger Things won't last forever, and CR now has all the incentive in the world to drop D&D and use their own material. Neither of those shows is watched because of D&D, au contraire, people tried D&D because of those shows (and then dropped it a couple years later)... There's no incentive for the producers of those shows to continue to use D&D unless WotC gives them VERY favorable terms.

Well... Long-term, I really don't see this going well for D&D, WotC and Hasbro.

Idkwhatmyscreen

2023-01-18, 09:52 PM

Well... Long-term, I really don't see this going well for D&D, WotC and Hasbro.

Yep, it's a right proper mess they have gotten themselves into. Heck at this point it may even be too late to prevent a forking. I imagine a decent number of players and content creators are turned off of One dnd at this point by spite alone. Certainly, if the Orc pans out.

At the very least, it's going to be super interesting to see what they end up putting out for the first public "playtest" of the new OGL.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-18, 09:56 PM

Yep, it's a right proper mess they have gotten themselves into. Heck at this point it may even be too late to prevent a forking. I imagine a decent number of players and content creators are turned off of One dnd at this point by spite alone. Certainly, if the Orc pans out.

At the very least, it's going to be super interesting to see what they end up putting out for the first public "playtest" of the new OGL.

Yeah. Kobold Press has posted a followup to their Project Black Flag saying "yeah, it's still on." So I'm fairly sure they're not going to be going to great strides to publish OneD&D material. Or even likely much more 5e material, depending on how the playtest of PBF goes.

Psyren

2023-01-18, 10:06 PM

The OGL is the only thing that kept D&D alive all these years. Stranger Things, Critical Role and the pandemic brought a lot of fad-players, but as expected, they left pretty quickly (as seen by the huge decrease in WotC revenue last year).

Stranger Things won't last forever, and CR now has all the incentive in the world to drop D&D and use their own material. Neither of those shows is watched because of D&D, au contraire, people tried D&D because of those shows (and then dropped it a couple years later)... There's no incentive for the producers of those shows to continue to use D&D unless WotC gives them VERY favorable terms.

Ehhh... even in the depths of 4e's struggles, D&D was the 2nd-most popular TTRPG in the world. That might have seemed like being on life support compared to 3.5, but I can assure you it was not. And it will survive just fine in a post-Stranger Things and even a post-Critical Role world too, especially since OneD&D is not trying to upend the whole apple cart (read: the ruleset) the way 4e did.

And even if they fail to revoke 1.0a and someone "forks" 5e - or they succeed and someone finds a way to do that later on anyway using ORC - I still maintain that OneD&D will be both close enough and high-profile enough that many tables, even most, will pick up the player-facing material to put into their 5.1e games.

Rynjin

2023-01-18, 10:14 PM

Psyren

2023-01-18, 10:19 PM

I, for one, look forward to the clownfiesta when White Wolf sees their opportunity to be top dog and sells the rights to a Vampire the Masquerade tv series to Amazon or some **** and suddenly becomes the most popular RPG in the world.

Until people actually play it :smallwink:

I mean, it could happen, but judging by their most recent attempt to capture a general audience (https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/vampire-the-masquerade---swansong) they have a bit of an uphill climb.

Rynjin

2023-01-18, 10:23 PM

Until people actually play it :smallwink:

Kek. I don't ENTIRELY disagree, but I'll say WoD is still one of my favorite games to THINK about playing, which may be enough to at least let a show do well lol.

I mean, it could happen, but judging by their most recent attempt to capture a general audience (https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/vampire-the-masquerade---swansong) they have a bit of an uphill climb.

To be fair, I don't think that was a really "swing for the fences" kind of game, just a little fillery game to tide people over until the main event. Bloodlines 2 will be the really big test of whether VtM can still capture minds. It...doesn't look promising at this stage, but Cyberpunk 2077 plus Edgerunners showed that there can be massive crossover appeal between video game fans, anime fans, and tabletop fans if a property is done well enough.

(Side note, the user reviews seem a little...suspect. I'm not normally one to call out "review bombs", but it's a little weird that half the reviews are either in Russian or complaining about SJWs.)

P. G. Macer

2023-01-18, 10:46 PM

I’m late, but a hearty thank you to the forum staff for providing us with this environment to discuss the OGL issue provided we stay within the bounds of the forum rules.

I’ll admit I fell for the not-reading-surveys misinformation for the few hours it ran rampant, but in my case it was more due to conceding the logistical difficulty rather than anger at WotC (though that definitely clouded my judgment, I don’t think it was the deciding factor that fooled me), simply because WotC probably received tens of thousands of survey responses even prior to the One D&D play testings, so I thought they may ignore it just because it isn’t feasible to cover all of them. I’m not a statistics guy, so I wonder what sort of sampling method they use, if any, to determine which responses show up on the screens of the survey recorders.

On the whole, though, I think my time with D&D may be coming to an end, for the breach of consumer trust reasons mentioned upthread. I’ve been looking more into Pathfinder 2e, and while a certain maxim about consumer ethics that I won’t repeat here comes to mind when choosing where to send my dollars, I feel more confident for the time being about supporting Paizo than Wizards—yes, I’m aware the former also has its skeletons in its closet, but the earlier maxim is apt here, so I’m trying to make the best of an admittedly not-ideal situation. I also find PF2e interesting as a system in its own right, of course.
I also will continue to support 13th Age as it gears up for its second edition, and am still trying to find a Scion 2e game, but games in those systems are hard to find IME.
Furthermore, I won’t be quitting my current D&D 5e games, primarily due to not wanting to break social contracts, but this also gives WotC some time to get their act together and possibly turn things around, though I’m not holding my breath on that second point.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-18, 10:57 PM

I've been thinking about something in last week's non-apology statement.

"not major corporations to use for their own commercial and promotional purpose."

Most commentators have read this as being complete lies, or as talking about Paizo and the other 3rd party publishers. I wonder if they're worried about much bigger fish--the trillion-dollar tech giants.

I don't think decisions at WOTC are being driven by TTRPG people. I think they're being driven by Hasbro/ Wall STreet people. We think about D&D as a game, they see it as a "brand." An undermonetized brand, but a brand.

I don't think the revenues of the entire non-WOTC TTRPG industry mean much at all to WOTC's grand strategy. I think they want to "monetize the brand", probably though some sort of pay-to-play, pay-to-win, recurring revenue type system.

Say Wizards is developing OneD&D and D&DBeyond as something more like a MMORPG than a discord chat. AI DMs, etc etc. Yes Pathfinder put out a video game. So what, there are tons of video games, only Pathfinder geeks and hardcore video gamers are going to even know about a Wrath of the Righteous CRPG.

But if Amazon or Facebook/Meta or Alphabet /Google or Microsoft /Activision rolls out a clone of whatever Wizards is trying to do with OneD&D and D&DBeyond, using the OGL, they have the resources to blow WOTC out of the water.

Of course, if they were so inclined, any of the trillion-dollar tech companies could just do that anyway, running some other game engine that isn't d20 based.

But if I'm WOTC, if I'm any billion-dollar company frankly, I'm worried about how the trillion-dollar tech giants might eat my lunch 5 years down the road.

Interesting theory, mine is a bit different. The OGL didn't build the industry, it moved other systems to the fringes, but there were thriving non-DnD systems Long before WOTC. Due to the OGL, even game worlds that were established as something other than D20 had either an ancillary product to translate the game to D20 or they replaced/mothballed their in-house system. Other companies who produced spectacular products, unfortunately weren't run by people who were good at business, and went under.

If you didn't use some of those competing systems, if you never played a scifi TTRPG in the mid to late 80s, likely you would think the entire industry was built around D20 from the brginning, which just isn't true. As I noted, much of the skill system and really the BAB system looks like it was adapted from competitors, and abandoned much of the mechanical guts of TSRs version. (This being an issue I have with reneging on the OGL, too much of 3.X's approach to ability/skills system appears to me to be borrowed from approaches taken by WEG and FASA, that it seems difficult to suggest it is actually theirs rather than something they modified from a common core of assumptions in non-TSR games. What 3.X seems to do is adapt a class based advancement system on top of the mechanics of a skills based, roll over system adding something I hadn't seen elsewhere called feats). And it's not the only case, alternity seems like it did the sake thing with components of mechwarrior.

If you hadn't been involved in the hobby during that period, or if all you played was DnD, I could understand how one might believe it is all coming from WOTC. It is factually wrong, but I understand it. Still the fact that OGL 1.0a has inserted D20 mechanics into so much of the ecosystem, it makes revoking it a problem.

Zuras

2023-01-18, 11:07 PM

I’m personally done with WotC where D&D Beyond, VTTs and any dynamic electronic media are concerned. I get too attached to the stuff I create to worry about suddenly losing access to it unless I fork over more money because I didn’t read the fine print in a click through license.

I’m going to keep playing 5e because it’s a fun system, I already own the books, and it’s easy to find a group at my FLGS. If Wizards keeps supporting stores and acting like they remember it’s a partnership, they might win me back, but if they turn their backs on brick and mortar retail in quest of digital lucre, I’ll probably be playing or running whatever the store community goes for as a replacement.

I play D&D mostly to get away from a computer, though, so I’m unlikely to be their target audience. Which seems dumb to me, since I’ve spent tons of money on their products, but that gets back to the core stupidity of the entire project to me.

Why do you need aggressive and dramatic moves to improve the profitability of your second most profitable product line? Why focus on this at all when you could be preparing for an influx of new potential customers showing up to get into D&D at the local game store or online? If D&D is under-monetized why are you breaking legal agreements and enraging the community instead of making an updated D&D cartoon or otherwise leveraging the parts of your IP that don’t require a DM interface?

da newt

2023-01-18, 11:14 PM

According to the Kyle Brink Linked-In account he describes himself this way:
Product development executive with demonstrated success in games, digital advertising, media, monetization and e-commerce on mobile, web, PC and console. Effective in startups as well as enterprise-scale organizations, able to move from one mode to the next as required. Straightforward, adaptable, and professional.

With past experience like:
Owner of game development framework for NCSOFT West, giving teams and executives the two-way transparency and accountability they need to work efficiently, build trust, achieve quality, and identify risks early. Responsible for ensuring all teams and executives know what to deliver and what to expect.

He was the director of Studio Operations at WotC Feb 2021 to July 2022 when he got bumped to Executive Producer of D&D.

Can anyone translate that jibberish into something meaningful in plain language?

Brookshw

2023-01-18, 11:28 PM

Lemmy

2023-01-18, 11:40 PM

Ehhh... even in the depths of 4e's struggles, D&D was the 2nd-most popular TTRPG in the world. That might have seemed like being on life support compared to 3.5, but I can assure you it was not. And it will survive just fine in a post-Stranger Things and even a post-Critical Role world too, especially since OneD&D is not trying to upend the whole apple cart (read: the ruleset) the way 4e did.

And even if they fail to revoke 1.0a and someone "forks" 5e - or they succeed and someone finds a way to do that later on anyway using ORC - I still maintain that OneD&D will be both close enough and high-profile enough that many tables, even most, will pick up the player-facing material to put into their 5.1e games.
Of course the product with world-wide brand recognition and backing from a billion dollar corporation will survive... But that doesn't mean this move won't do precisely the opposite of what it was intended to do: make WotC more money.

TTRPGs are a pretty small niche in entertainment, even if that didn't seem to be the case for a couple years... And that probably isn't gonna change any time soon. And this move isn't gonna bring any more players to their side.

D&D has more value to them as a multi-media brand, but no one needs the OGL or anything else from WotC to make their fantasy video-games, movies and TV shows unless they want to add a "Official D&D product" sticker on it... And seeing the latest D&D video-games, that doesn't have half the appeal Hasbro/WotC thinks it does.

Sparky McDibben

2023-01-18, 11:54 PM

I, for one, look forward to the clownfiesta when White Wolf sees their opportunity to be top dog and sells the rights to a Vampire the Masquerade tv series to Amazon or some **** and suddenly becomes the most popular RPG in the world.

Wasn't that called Underworld :smalltongue:

Off topic, but I love thinking about the World of Darkness, with its broody goth vampires, weird magic(k), and soccer hooligan werewolves. Underworld is one of my favorite terrible-but-fun movies.

Psyren

2023-01-18, 11:58 PM

(Side note, the user reviews seem a little...suspect. I'm not normally one to call out "review bombs", but it's a little weird that half the reviews are either in Russian or complaining about SJWs.)

Oh don't worry, I prefer reviewer scores most of the time for this exact reason - but 66% critical is still... not great if the goal is to try and get non-fans on board.

According to the Kyle Brink Linked-In account he describes himself this way:
Product development executive with demonstrated success in games, digital advertising, media, monetization and e-commerce on mobile, web, PC and console. Effective in startups as well as enterprise-scale organizations, able to move from one mode to the next as required. Straightforward, adaptable, and professional.

With past experience like:
Owner of game development framework for NCSOFT West, giving teams and executives the two-way transparency and accountability they need to work efficiently, build trust, achieve quality, and identify risks early. Responsible for ensuring all teams and executives know what to deliver and what to expect.

He was the director of Studio Operations at WotC Feb 2021 to July 2022 when he got bumped to Executive Producer of D&D.

Can anyone translate that jibberish into something meaningful in plain language?

He's a VP who worked on multiple projects, at least some of which were software.

I’m going to keep playing 5e because it’s a fun system, I already own the books, and it’s easy to find a group at my FLGS. If Wizards keeps supporting stores and acting like they remember it’s a partnership, they might win me back, but if they turn their backs on brick and mortar retail in quest of digital lucre, I’ll probably be playing or running whatever the store community goes for as a replacement.

I haven't seen anything indicating they'll turn their backs on FLGS. If anything, they're competing with them less now, by putting DDB codes into the new physical books (and thus not forcing their customers to choose one or the other.)

Of course the product with world-wide brand recognition and backing from a billion dollar corporation will survive... But that doesn't mean this move won't do precisely the opposite of what it was intended to do: make WotC more money.

TTRPGs are a pretty small niche in entertainment, even if that didn't seem to be the case for a couple years... And that probably isn't gonna change any time soon. And this move isn't gonna bring any more players to their side.

D&D has more value to them as a multi-media brand, but no one needs the OGL or anything else from WotC to make their fantasy video-games, movies and TV shows unless they want to add a "Official D&D product" sticker on it... And seeing the latest D&D video-games, that doesn't have half the appeal Hasbro/WotC thinks it does.

It (probably) won't make them more money from the TTRPG sphere. But as you yourself mentioned, that is ultimately small potatoes compared to all the other things the OGL might conceivably cover without WotC's explicit permission.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 12:00 AM

Ehhh... even in the depths of 4e's struggles, D&D was the 2nd-most popular TTRPG in the world. That might have seemed like being on life support compared to 3.5, but I can assure you it was not. And it will survive just fine in a post-Stranger Things and even a post-Critical Role world too, especially since OneD&D is not trying to upend the whole apple cart (read: the ruleset) the way 4e did.

And even if they fail to revoke 1.0a and someone "forks" 5e - or they succeed and someone finds a way to do that later on anyway using ORC - I still maintain that OneD&D will be both close enough and high-profile enough that many tables, even most, will pick up the player-facing material to put into their 5.1e games.

True but the hobby has waxed and waned I don't play much, just trying to get back in, but when you are middle-aged with kids underfoot, hobbies take time. I imagine when I end up in a nursing home, I might find a Traveller game or something. DnD and the hobby as a whole has had ups and downs, and we are probably closer to a high than a low all things considered. I suppose if DnD stays up there, popular movie franchise licenses will become the next big fad, draining people from DnD to whatever comes up next. VTT's interest me at the moment because it might be the best way for junkies of old systems to find a game.

5e is interesting for DnD, but I tend to think this new run isn't so much for reasons of required tuneups to the system or the various conspiracy theories I hear, I think they just have run out of customers for the core books, and they would rather do a new edition of the core rules than take risks on splits, which don't always sell as well as core material does.

Mind you, I have never been against fair market value for licensing their system or them making a fair profit, but I'm not sure 6e or 5.1 or whatever it is being called is different enough, or enough of an upgrade to consider buying a new set of rules to be an upgrade, at least not at their rates, and I would never do VTT that only did DnD.

Lucas Yew

2023-01-19, 12:01 AM

NCSoft? Those monsters who contaminated modern South Korea's video game market with an abhorrent Pay to Win + Divide and Rule BM?

That makes it even more fishy, mountains more that is...

Rynjin

2023-01-19, 12:10 AM

Yeah, seeing "NCSoft" was a big lol from me. He shouldn't so proudly put that on his social media if he wants the general public to trust him.

Anymage

2023-01-19, 12:16 AM

Wasn't that called Underworld :smalltongue:

You joke, but they did have their own show (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0115232/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0) too. It was rather mediocre. Meanwhile, at around the same time Buffy was being Buffy and there are lots of little hints that the writers were familiar with V:tM even if they wound up making their own lightly inspired mythology.

D&D has more value to them as a multi-media brand, but no one needs the OGL or anything else from WotC to make their fantasy video-games, movies and TV shows unless they want to add a "Official D&D product" sticker on it... And seeing the latest D&D video-games, that doesn't have half the appeal Hasbro/WotC thinks it does.

I don't think it's possible to predict which spinoff products will do well and which won't, as my above comment hints at. And I do think we should all acknowledge that we're reading a comic written by a guy who's making a living spoofing D&D without any official connections.

I think Hasbro suits are being penny wise and dollar foolish in seeing spinoff media as potential royalties that they're missing out on instead of free advertising. But that's an understandable dumb decision on their part, even if the way they went about it was a less understandable dumb decision.

Mechalich

2023-01-19, 12:22 AM

TTRPGs are a pretty small niche in entertainment, even if that didn't seem to be the case for a couple years... And that probably isn't gonna change any time soon. And this move isn't gonna bring any more players to their side.

D&D has more value to them as a multi-media brand, but no one needs the OGL or anything else from WotC to make their fantasy video-games, movies and TV shows unless they want to add a "Official D&D product" sticker on it... And seeing the latest D&D video-games, that doesn't have half the appeal Hasbro/WotC thinks it does.

This is very important. TTRPGs have never been huge money-makers in their own right. However, for various reasons that are able to serve as the foundations for substantially larger enterprises such as video games, novels, and TV/movie adaptations. In many ways the greatest value of TTRPGs is to serve as a laboratory of ideas that can be tested on a small scale among hardcore fans to determine whether or not they might have mass-market validity and then switched across genre for monetization purposes. The Owlcat Games adaptations of PF adventure paths are a very good recent example of how this can work.

WotC seems to believe that the OGL has enabled a vast array of other players to obtain 'laboratory-space' to gestate ideas within nerd culture and that as a consequence they are losing out of the back end. The problem, when it comes to the adaptability and monetization of ideas developed within the TTRPG space, the OGL governs basically nothing but mechanics, and mechanics are the least important part of any given ideas utility when derived from tabletop. If anything, overly strict fidelity to tabletop mores, which is found in the Owlcat PF adaptations, is a negative. The d20 system is the least valuable part of D&D. The settings, characters, and artistic renderings, all of which WotC has always retained, are what matters. Doubly so given that almost every proper noun in the OGL, whether it's a class name, a monster name, or a spell name is in the public domain. This is pretty typical for RPGs. Someone mentioned Underworld above, a franchise that represents a test case in how little of VtMs content could ever be considered exclusive.

Instead of trying to close others out of the TTRPG idea space, WotC should have either pushed into the space themselves in a big way such as by imitating Paizo by spewing out setting content and/or relaunching the moribund novel line, or they should use their purchasing power to trawl the space and co-opt good/monetizable ideas in the same way Hollywood has long done with the literary space.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 12:30 AM

NCSoft? Those monsters who contaminated modern South Korea's video game market with an abhorrent Pay to Win + Divide and Rule BM?

That makes it even more fishy, mountains more that is...

Yeah, seeing "NCSoft" was a big lol from me. He shouldn't so proudly put that on his social media if he wants the general public to trust him.

I would. They have the... 5th? 4th? ... most popular MMO on the planet right now (and 2nd most popular localized from an eastern market), i.e. Guild Wars 2, which contrary to most Korean MMOs remains beloved in the west. They've made some high profile missteps too (City of Heroes, lol) - but then, so have Square-Enix and Blizzard, and I'd list those too.

...not Konami though :smallyuk:

Mind you, I have never been against fair market value for licensing their system or them making a fair profit, but I'm not sure 6e or 5.1 or whatever it is being called is different enough, or enough of an upgrade to consider buying a new set of rules to be an upgrade, at least not at their rates, and I would never do VTT that only did DnD.

I think there's a lot of potential for a dedicated D&D VTT that is very focused and very easy to use to be successful. I first brought this up over in the rumors thread, but the folks behind the Arkenforge VTT concluded that, at the time of purchase by WotC, DnD Beyond already had about 80% of what it needed to be a functional VTT. (https://arkenforge.com/dd-beyond-purchase-a-vtts-perspective/) It's little wonder that they're choosing graphics and integration to be their differentiators.

If anything, overly strict fidelity to tabletop mores, which is found in the Owlcat PF adaptations, is a negative. The d20 system is the least valuable part of D&D.

I don't know that I agree with this at all. I mean yes, strictly speaking you don't need the OGL, SRD, or anything like it in order to make a CRPG. But the moment your say "digital D&D!" or "digital Pathfinder!" or "like Baldur's Gate/NWN/ToEE!" you get a ton of free publicity aimed directly at your target audience. Because let's face it, everyone is looking for the next Baldur's Gate, D&D or not, and the outlets know it.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 01:03 AM

I think there's a lot of potential for a dedicated D&D VTT that is very focused and very easy to use to be successful. I first brought this up over in the rumors thread, but the folks behind the Arkenforge VTT concluded that, at the time of purchase by WotC, DnD Beyond already had about 80% of what it needed to be a functional VTT. (https://arkenforge.com/dd-beyond-purchase-a-vtts-perspective/) It's little wonder that they're choosing graphics and integration to be their differentiators
Maybe, as I noted we are probably closer to a high point than a low point in the popularity of DnD, Hasbro had 72% of its revenue from WOTC-that is a huge gamble for a company of Hasbros size on such a fickle thing.

If a player can play DnD and only DnD on his VTT, and another one gives him options for several dozen other systems, which one is he going to choose? Of course many of us consider DnD to be one of the lower quality offerings. Of course, Paizo, Green Ronin etc are not going to want their stuff on WOTCs hardware after this, and well things may happen if other VTTs are locked out . . . . As I said, best bet, sell plug ins to all the VTTs out there for 5.1e, instead of taking the system risk. As for DDB, most people seem to think it's tool selection is subpar, I'm not speaking from experience, I'm not on it, and if they revoke OGL 1.0a I won't be on it.

As to Baldur's gate and others, personally when I saw Ad&D I thought that it might be something like Wizardry or Bards tale, being D&D was a negative not a positive in my mind. So that argument may not be as solid as you think. Not being DnD related certainly didn't hurt those properties in the day, nor I'd it hurt dragon's age or a few other non-DnD properties. That is, I really son's think the DnD name does a great deal for marketing a videogame except to those already doing TTRPGS. The real value of those properties is the reverse, the only thing that got me to try the D20 Star Wars was KOTOR, as I consider it inferior to its predecessor. Likely CRPGs benefit less from their connections to TTRPGs than TTRPGs benefit from CRPGs.

thethird

2023-01-19, 02:41 AM

If it were truly just "the ttrpg environment" I'd agree with you, this would be akin to blood from a stone. The problem is that 1.0a itself is shockingly vague in terms of how and where it can be used, and is already starting to be used outside of TTRPGs. Maybe only 1/6 of tabletop D&D players actually buy books, but a vastly higher percentage of the CRPG audience paid for those products. And the variety and profitability of D&D-adjacent experiences outside of sitting around a table and rolling dice are only going to grow, and in ways that the original framers couldn't possibly have foreseen 23 years ago.

Which was explicitly intentional. That's not a good point against it.

Also, note that the OGL license doesn't deal with the D&D brand. There was the D20 license (a separate one) that dealt with the D20 brand (but that stopped). The OGL license allows someone to reference things published under the OGL such as the SRD but doesn't allow someone to include excluded information such as D&D. One can skirt it by claiming compatibility with you know what most played tabletop game on their 5th edition, but that's not saying D&D.

The D&D brand is solely in control of wizards of the coast. No change to the OGL is necessary to protect it as the OGL already protects it.

I don't know that I agree with this at all. I mean yes, strictly speaking you don't need the OGL, SRD, or anything like it in order to make a CRPG. But the moment your say "digital D&D!" or "digital Pathfinder!" or "like Baldur's Gate/NWN/ToEE!" you get a ton of free publicity aimed directly at your target audience. Because let's face it, everyone is looking for the next Baldur's Gate, D&D or not, and the outlets know it.

Nothing is keeping you from saying that something is like another thing if it is like another thing. You can make brown frizzly sugary drinks no problem. You can even say they taste like coca cola.

Lemmy

2023-01-19, 02:55 AM

It (probably) won't make them more money from the TTRPG sphere. But as you yourself mentioned, that is ultimately small potatoes compared to all the other things the OGL might conceivably cover without WotC's explicit permission.
Those things weren't really influenced by the OGL anyway, so the point is moot. Even the video-games inspired by D&D mechanics are VERY different from D&D. WotC doesn't own attack rolls, class levels, random encounters, 1-20 RNG or anything like that.

I dare say that Baldur's Gate and NWN are better known to most consumers as just Baldur's Gate and NWN than as a part of the D&D brand.

All the new OGL does is scare off people from buying stuff in the one area where the OGL actually matters.

Anymage

2023-01-19, 04:03 AM

Also, note that the OGL license doesn't deal with the D&D brand. There was the D20 license (a separate one) that dealt with the D20 brand (but that stopped). The OGL license allows someone to reference things published under the OGL such as the SRD but doesn't allow someone to include excluded information such as D&D. One can skirt it by claiming compatibility with you know what most played tabletop game on their 5th edition, but that's not saying D&D.

The D&D brand is solely in control of wizards of the coast. No change to the OGL is necessary to protect it as the OGL already protects it.

It would be very hard to look at OotS and not think D&D, despite the fact that the comic has overall been really good about sticking to the SRD and other safe areas. You have someone making his livelihood off of D&D inspired fiction, and WotC doesn't see a penny of that.

SRD 1.1 did have the feel of a dumb money grab that's too busy looking at such things as lost revenue streams that it misses how they're free advertising. But it's very possible to make a fiction that looks a lot like D&D based just on the SRD. And to the degree that WotC wants to make D&D a broader brand it does make sense to want to get out ahead of any SRD-based cheap knockoffs.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 04:17 AM

Which was explicitly intentional.

On the contrary; the license is very far from explicit about what it was intended to cover. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be in this morass to begin with.

The D&D brand is solely in control of wizards of the coast. No change to the OGL is necessary to protect it as the OGL already protects it.

The "brand" is not necessarily all they own/control in this situation, nor all that they might benefit from trying to protect.

Nothing is keeping you from saying that something is like another thing if it is like another thing. You can make brown frizzly sugary drinks no problem. You can even say they taste like coca cola.

Did Coca-Cola make an Open Formula License I'm unaware of?

Those things weren't really influenced by the OGL anyway, so the point is moot. Even the video-games inspired by D&D mechanics are VERY different from D&D. WotC doesn't own attack rolls, class levels, random encounters, 1-20 RNG or anything like that.

I dare say that Baldur's Gate and NWN are better known to most consumers as just Baldur's Gate and NWN than as a part of the D&D brand.

All the new OGL does is scare off people from buying stuff in the one area where the OGL actually matters.

Not different enough; The Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous CRPGs were explicitly released under the OGL, or at the very least stated to be. Whether Deep Silver and Owlcat ultimately needed to use it in order to safely lift/translate the PF1/3.5 tabletop mechanics to their CRPG is a legal question we can't answer here - but what we can say for a fact, is that they clearly felt the OGL to be enough of a shield to try, without needing to approach WotC for a special license of their own first. And they made (https://presse.plaion.com/en-US/PATHFINDER-KINGMAKER-HITS-ONE-MILLION-COPIES-SOLD) considerable bank (https://www.gameindustry.com/news-industry-happenings/pathfinder-wrath-of-the-righteous-rpg-quickly-becomes-pc-best-seller/) doing so - which, if nothing else, would have encouraged additional AAA publishers and developers to try their hand at OGL-fueled CRPGs.

TL;DR - I think it's eminently reasonable for WotC to say "hey, this license we created was supposed to help out the next Green Ronin or Kobold Press, not the next Deep Silver or Electronic Arts. Let's change it to make that clear."

thethird

2023-01-19, 04:17 AM

It would be very hard to look at OotS and not think D&D, despite the fact that the comic has overall been really good about sticking to the SRD and other safe areas. You have someone making his livelihood off of D&D inspired fiction, and WotC doesn't see a penny of that.

SRD 1.1 did have the feel of a dumb money grab that's too busy looking at such things as lost revenue streams that it misses how they're free advertising. But it's very possible to make a fiction that looks a lot like D&D based just on the SRD. And to the degree that WotC wants to make D&D a broader brand it does make sense to want to get out ahead of any SRD-based cheap knockoffs.

Why is that a bug and not a feature? I am sure many people found the OotS funny and were like, wait you are telling me there is a game that's like the OotS? Or some people were like, damn I want to play D&D but my friends are scared of it, maybe if I share with them these comic strips... That makes new players to D&D and that pennies to WotC as more people play. The more people that play the better the game is. The boards are full of people playing D&D. Are we paying them to play on the pbp games? No. Do we pay them to get the books and we end getting the books through playing? Most likely.

On the contrary; the license is very far from explicit about what it was intended to cover. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be in this morass to begin with.

I meant it's intentionally not specified because they couldn't anticipate things 20 something years down the line and wanted to explicitly left it open. There was a FAQ about using the OGL in software and was clearly stated that it was okay and intentional, so this isn't like they did it before computer software was a thing. For that matter the OGL is based on open software licenses. They expected people to use it and evolve it's use.

For example did they expect people streaming their games? No. Certainly not. Not that it matters much because no one streaming is showing the OGL.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 04:39 AM

I meant it's intentionally not specified because they couldn't anticipate things 20 something years down the line and wanted to explicitly left it open. There was a FAQ about using the OGL in software and was clearly stated that it was okay and intentional, so this isn't like they did it before computer software was a thing. For that matter the OGL is based on open software licenses. They expected people to use it and evolve it's use.

For example did they expect people streaming their games? No. Certainly not. Not that it matters much because no one streaming is showing the OGL.

1) I don't understand how "they couldn't anticipate things 20 something years down the line" is somehow an acceptable justification for the original drafters of the OGL to want to leave it alone, but not for the current stewards to want to make changes.

2) "FAQ" is about as useful to the license as it is to a pure RAW discussion, which is to say not much. And while I won't attempt to do so here, try comparing OGL 1.0a to any open software license worth its salt like the GNU GPL 3.0 and then tell me those are on remotely similar footing.

3) Streaming D&D is Fan Content Policy, an entirely separate kettle of fish from the OGL (and explicitly reaffirmed to be such by Kyle's statement today.)

thethird

2023-01-19, 04:42 AM

1) I don't understand how "they couldn't anticipate things 20 something years down the line" is somehow an acceptable justification for the original drafters of the OGL to want to leave it alone, but not for the current stewards to want to make changes.

2) "FAQ" is about as useful to the license as it is to a pure RAW discussion, which is to say not much. And while I won't attempt to do so here, try comparing OGL 1.0a to any open software license worth its salt like the GNU GPL 3.0 and then tell me those are on remotely similar footing.

3) Streaming D&D is Fan Content Policy, an entirely separate kettle of fish from the OGL (and explicitly reaffirmed to be such by Kyle's statement today.)

The current stewards can (and should) make updates (or make new licenses as they did with the GSL during 4e), they can't make changes (to the OGL 1.0a as it's written).

Theoboldi

2023-01-19, 05:29 AM

If I wasn't already mostly moving away from D&D in my roleplaying simply because it stopped being interesting to me, I think what's going on right now would be souring me on it enough to do so anyways.

Even with all the misinformation that got reported against them tuned out, Wizards has completely lost any trust I had in their intentions for their product and the hobby. Their apology means very little to me since it came only after their plans had to be leaked, and even if it was genuine there is no guarantee that they can't just roll back any of their promises at any time. Benefit of the doubt is not what I'm willing to give to the group who holds all the cards, and gains a ton of benefit from lying.

Plus their previous statements did that whole spiel about wanting to 'stop discriminatory language' with their new legal document as if this whole thing was well-intentioned and not clearly an effort to make more profit. Just from the viewpoint of somebody who has faced discrimination, it makes me feel used. Heck, it makes me feel used as someone who was not even involved in any of this.

Whether or not they continue doing well I don't particularly care about. But I am too put off from the game to do more with it for a good long while.

Brookshw

2023-01-19, 08:07 AM

Of course the product with world-wide brand recognition and backing from a billion dollar corporation will survive... But that doesn't mean this move won't do precisely the opposite of what it was intended to do: make WotC more money.

Sure, but that's their decision to make, no? I mean, I get that there's a certain amount of "who moved my cheese"-ism and feelings of bad faith going on, and a certain air of WoTC punching down which is never popular (punching up or sideways, pretty accepted). But if they want to take the hit to their good will on this, well, power too them I guess. It's not like its a brand that's had a consistent design team since day 1, its hard to feel a sense a loyalty to something when there's a certain lack of continuity (even the settings have taken hits).

Personally I'm thrilled to see ORC coming out of this, and consider it the best possible outcome (hopefully anyway, we'll see what they come out with, some of the teams involved I think are terrific, others I have no interest in).

Lemmy

2023-01-19, 08:22 AM

Not different enough; The Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous CRPGs were explicitly released under the OGL, or at the very least stated to be. Whether Deep Silver and Owlcat ultimately needed to use it in order to safely lift/translate the PF1/3.5 tabletop mechanics to their CRPG is a legal question we can't answer here - but what we can say for a fact, is that they clearly felt the OGL to be enough of a shield to try, without needing to approach WotC for a special license of their own first. And they made (https://presse.plaion.com/en-US/PATHFINDER-KINGMAKER-HITS-ONE-MILLION-COPIES-SOLD) considerable bank (https://www.gameindustry.com/news-industry-happenings/pathfinder-wrath-of-the-righteous-rpg-quickly-becomes-pc-best-seller/) doing so - which, if nothing else, would have encouraged additional AAA publishers and developers to try their hand at OGL-fueled CRPGs.

TL;DR - I think it's eminently reasonable for WotC to say "hey, this license we created was supposed to help out the next Green Ronin or Kobold Press, not the next Deep Silver or Electronic Arts. Let's change it to make that clear."
Those games used the OGL because they are basically 1-to-1 adaptations of PF games (just like DDO tries to be with D&D). They use all the same names for all the same mechanics... And even then, it's debatable if it really needed the OGL in the first place. Starfinder and Pathfinder 2nd edition didn't really need the OGL, but were still
released under it, for convenience.

No one needs the OGL to use D&D's mechanics. You don't need WotC's permission to release a product compatible with D&D. And they are not entitled to one cent from you even if you do. WotC do not and cannot own game mechanics.

The main value the OGL had was being able to slap a "compatible with D&D" on your marketing material and, more importantly, providing to creators the confidence and security that the giant soulless corporation wouldn't try to come after them to get a cut of their money... Because unfortunately, even if they are wrong, it's really easy for a billion dollar corporation to push others around. They don't even have to win the case... Just stall long enough until the other side runs out of money. Now that confidence is gone. That's the greatest harm this whole debacle caused...

Sure, but that's their decision to make, no? I mean, I get that there's a certain amount of "who moved my cheese"-ism and feelings of bad faith going on, and a certain air of WoTC punching down which is never popular (punching up or sideways, pretty accepted). But if they want to take the hit to their good will on this, well, power too them I guess. It's not like its a brand that's had a consistent design team since day 1, its hard to feel a sense a loyalty to something when there's a certain lack of continuity (even the settings have taken hits).

Personally I'm thrilled to see ORC coming out of this, and consider it the best possible outcome (hopefully anyway, we'll see what they come out with, some of the teams involved I think are terrific, others I have no interest in).
Well, yeah, they are indeed free to release their products under whatever licence they want... Doesn't make the new OGL any less of a **** move.

And whether or not they are free to revoke/deauthorize the OGL 1.0 is debatable. I'd say "no". And that's definitely the original intention, as said multiple times by the very creator of the OGL. But billion dollar corporations are known to get away with things that they shouldn't get away with... So even if WotC is wrong, what are small content creators to do if the evil giant knocks on the door?

Rynjin

2023-01-19, 09:04 AM

Did Coca-Cola make an Open Formula License I'm unaware of?

Coca-Cola is actually an extremely good example of why WotC doing what they're doing is ultimately pointless and shockingly dumb.

The Coca-Cola formula is a closely guarded secret. Like, I'm pretty sure Coke has more precautions in place to protect the secret Coca-Cola formula from being discovered than the US government puts into protecting nuclear launch codes.

That is because you can't effectively, legally, protect a recipe. You can protect an "expression" of a recipe (like a cookbook; this is why so many cookbooks and food blogs have little anecdotes and whatnot in them to add to the "literary expression" that's required), but not the actual ingredients etc. itself.

What you CAN do, however, is keep it as a "trade secret". If the recipe is unknown except to those that sign an NDA not to share said recipe, the recipe is effectively protected by law, so long as said recipe is never shared openly to the public (or oopsie toodles shared to someone not under an agreement to keep it a secret, who then does so).

On top of that, you CAN protect the concept of a brand, like Coca-Cola, which becomes associated with said recipe even though some people have unofficially reverse engineered the Coke recipe and you can technically make it at home; you just can't sell it as Coca-Cola. Of course what you CAN do is use an Open Source Cola (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_cola) recipe to make your own Psy-Cola or whatever, which tastes identical to Coke, and sell it if you want.

And here-in lies the rub. Game mechanics are a lot like recipes. The only way that Wizards would effectively be able to "protect" them is by keeping them a trade secret. Which would mean never releasing the game to the public. Which is a bit counterintuitive to trying to sell rulebooks.

They can trademark the D&D brand, certain terminology...but at the end of the day, even with the OGL 1.1, even with ANYTHING they try to do, there is literally nothing stopping another company from making a game which functions 100% identically to D&D, down to the last fiddly little mechanic, switching some names around so "Proficiency modifiers" become "Universal Bonuses" or whatever, and releasing it to the public.

If they really wanted to make more money off the D&D brand in specifically the tabletop arena, what they would have done is start licensing out the setting(s) to other RPG publishers. Because the setting, ultimately, is what people care about when it comes to D&D. People don't think D&D and go "Wow, golly! I sure do love how the game has ten base classes and optional Feats!" they go "I wanna play D&D because it's the one I've been hearing about".

D&D, long ago, became almost a generic name for TRPGs, or at least d20 systems. Kinda like Coke. You go and try to order a Coke somewhere, at least in my neck of the woods, they'll often ask "what kind?". Because "Coke" just means "soda". Similarly, they were in such a good spot. "D&D" means "RPG". When it's time for our weekly Pathfinder game, we don't typically say "It's time for Pathfinder", it's "It's time for D&D".

That's the thing they needed to leverage, and they're blowing it.

Brookshw

2023-01-19, 09:13 AM

And whether or not they are free to revoke/deauthorize the OGL 1.0 is debatable. I'd say "no". And that's definitely the original intention, as said multiple times by the very creator of the OGL. But billion dollar corporations are known to get away with things that they shouldn't get away with... So even if WotC is wrong, what are small content creators to do if the evil giant knocks on the door?

Not gonna touch this one with a 10 foot pole.

Snowbluff

2023-01-19, 10:01 AM

Brookshw

2023-01-19, 10:16 AM

thethird

2023-01-19, 10:16 AM

Batcathat

2023-01-19, 10:31 AM

thethird

2023-01-19, 10:35 AM

While I have no idea if that's the case here, it's certainly possible to start negotiations before every detail of something is worked out. In my experience, things can frequently keep changing right up until the parties involved actually sign everything.

In my experience if that's the case you don't post it in twitter. But again, that's anecdotal experience. To me the fact that kickstarter confirms it (who is from outside the chamber of resonance), and some people I trust in the community confirm it, then that makes me believe it's likely true. But that's my belief/opinion.

warty goblin

2023-01-19, 10:46 AM

To be fair, I don't think anyone can provide evidence. That said to me, the fact that Kickstarter came out and said hey this is real we negotiated down from 25% to 20% is evidence. Unless you want to assume that Kickstarter negotiates on drafts. Which I guess they could...

To each their own.

I mean you kind of have to negotiate on a draft, because the negotiations impact what is in the final non-draft version.

I see no contradiction in what was leaked being a draft and also being "real" in the sense of representative of what Wizards wanted to accomplish with the OGL revisions. The fact that they went to the bother of setting up NDAs, negotiating rates with Kickstarter and all the rest shows it wasn't an internal document they had legal write up as an exercise or thought experiment. It wasn't necessarily complete or the final text they were going to implement, bit it was the path they wanted to pursue. Given their very carefully worded non-retractions, it still seems like the path they want go take.

The thing is, at this point, I think they've already killed the golden goose. Even if they completely abandon their changes (which they won't) no third party publisher is going g back to any form of the OGL. Until a month ago there was no reason to ever not use it so long as your game touched d20 type mechanics at all, because everything used it, and doing so cost absolutely nothing. Now, given the upcoming availability of other, better licenses, why would you?

Worse (from Wizards POV), the existence of such licenses means that we could very well see a number of distinct rules ecosystems, all of which are easier and more open to publish under than official D&D. They could very well in some cases be almost directly compatible with D&D, or so easy to port between that a trained monkey can do it on the fly. So sure D&D has monks or whatever, but a hypothetical Caverns and Carnivores has, um, medative masters who use Qi energy to attack with a volley of strikes.

Seems to me that a whole lot of people would rather release stuff for C&C rather than D&D. That way there's almost no legal jeopardy, and your product line isn't one Twitter mob away from getting literally canceled. Or release the same basic content (theme and art and ideas) under multiple opem rule sets.

Zuras

2023-01-19, 10:53 AM

I have no idea if Hasbro can technically de-authorize/revoke the OGL 1.0a, but if they can, it’s almost worse. If the legal answer is “LoL, nothing matters, written agreements with megacorporations are like contracts with Fey creatures written in a language you don’t understand” what is the point of even having rules?

Any answer to that question seems inherently political and beyond the scope of this forum, but I would suggest that anyone who characterizes the people upset enough by the OGL issue to boycott Hasbro as “taking their ball and going home” or similar metaphors is misreading the situation, given the implication of childishness.

OldTrees1

2023-01-19, 11:05 AM

While I'm here, does anyone have any evidence that 1.1 leaks weren't of a draft? The Gizmodo article insinuate that it's a draft. The copy I saw was full of missing/bracketed bits.

Not that the deal wasn't bad out the gate, but I don't think the narrative of "WotC is lying about this being a draft" is coming from any facts.

Allegedly the 1.1 OGL was sent out attached to some contracts (with NDAs) sent out to some 3rd party publishers. Allegedly some of those 3rd party publishers leaked that information.

Those allegations are coming from the same 2nd hand sources that would have access to 3rd party publishers and provided other advanced information that was later verified.

This is the evidence. It is not proof, but it is evidence that is more likely to exist in a world where it happened than in a world where it didn't happen. According to Bayesian Probability this evidence should decrease the credibility of WotC's claims that it was merely a draft (WotC implying colloquially that it was never attached to any contracts sent for signatures).

Given my priors about trusting people I didn't know online (next to nothing) vs trusting WotC (low), and evidence that has shifted those priors for specific sources and specific topics, I do trust these allegations. There is no proof yet, but I do believe the OGL 1.1 was sent out attached to contracts.

I believe the most likely reality is the one where the OGL 1.1 was sent out as part of contracts (for 3PP to sign) and WotC is using the word "draft" as PR to do disaster recovery. "Draft" might even be the technically correct word in some way, but it is still being used for a deception check.

da newt

2023-01-19, 11:16 AM

What does 'the director of Studio Operations at WotC' job entail? Do they have an in house studio dept? Do they produce all the WotC videos?

OldTrees1

2023-01-19, 11:17 AM

What does 'the director of Studio Operations at WotC' job entail? Do they have an in house studio dept? Do they produce all the WotC videos?

https://gamejobs.co/Director-of-Studio-Operations-at-Wizards-of-the-Coast-591

I don't know what it means, but here is it from WotC's HR's mouth

Oramac

2023-01-19, 11:35 AM

https://gamejobs.co/Director-of-Studio-Operations-at-Wizards-of-the-Coast-591

I don't know what it means, but here is it from WotC's HR's mouth

I can't touch on all of that without breaking the rules, but as I understand it, most of it is basically just a lead for their DDB and other digital presence. The word "digital" is used like candy, which tells me they're far less concerned with table top (i.e. non-digital) leadership.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 11:37 AM

The current stewards can (and should) make updates (or make new licenses as they did with the GSL during 4e), they can't make changes (to the OGL 1.0a as it's written).

And whether or not they are free to revoke/deauthorize the OGL 1.0 is debatable. I'd say "no".

This is the crux of the issue, but is not a debate we can have here.

Personally I'm thrilled to see ORC coming out of this, and consider it the best possible outcome (hopefully anyway, we'll see what they come out with, some of the teams involved I think are terrific, others I have no interest in).

Indeed and frankly, something like ORC was always going to happen or gain visibility, this just sped up the timetable.

Those games used the OGL because they are basically 1-to-1 adaptations of PF games (just like DDO tries to be with D&D). They use all the same names for all the same mechanics... And even then, it's debatable if it really needed the OGL in the first place. Starfinder and Pathfinder 2nd edition didn't really need the OGL, but were still
released under it, for convenience.

Whether they needed it or not is irrelevant. They benefited from it. They were able to openly say things like "FULL PATHFINDER EXPERIENCE" in their marketing. Their trailers were able to include stylistic camera shots of zooming past miniatures and dice on a table straight into the OGL-based Pathfinder rulebooks where the pages quite literally came to life. In short, they made it very clear to the target audience of this game what they were getting - a digital translation of a tabletop game that was based on WotC's OGL, NOT a generic CRPG.

No one needs the OGL to use D&D's mechanics. You don't need WotC's permission to release a product compatible with D&D. And they are not entitled to one cent from you even if you do. WotC do not and cannot own game mechanics.

All I will say on this point is that the extent of people's understanding of this particular mantra has not been tested in court in a TTRPG context. Whether it will prevail or not is outside the scope of this forum in multiple respects.

The main value the OGL had was being able to slap a "compatible with D&D" on your marketing material and, more importantly, providing to creators the confidence and security that the giant soulless corporation wouldn't try to come after them to get a cut of their money... Because unfortunately, even if they are wrong, it's really easy for a billion dollar corporation to push others around. They don't even have to win the case... Just stall long enough until the other side runs out of money. Now that confidence is gone. That's the greatest harm this whole debacle caused...

You do realize Deep Silver is itself a subsidiary of a billion dollar corporation (THQ Nordic)? Why is it so unreasonable for one billion dollar corporation to not want to inadvertently subsidize another? And even if that was Dancey's full intent, it's a dumb intent from a business standpoint.

While I'm here, does anyone have any evidence that 1.1 leaks weren't of a draft? The Gizmodo article insinuate that it's a draft. The copy I saw was full of missing/bracketed bits.

Not that the deal wasn't bad out the gate, but I don't think the narrative of "WotC is lying about this being a draft" is coming from any facts.

I think the meaning of "draft" in this context is important. Every contract is a draft until it's signed. In other words, WotC/Kyle are being "technically correct (the best kind of correct.)"And that is all I can say on that topic.

OldTrees1

2023-01-19, 11:59 AM

What does 'the director of Studio Operations at WotC' job entail? Do they have an in house studio dept? Do they produce all the WotC videos?

I can't touch on all of that without breaking the rules, but as I understand it, most of it is basically just a lead for their DDB and other digital presence. The word "digital" is used like candy, which tells me they're far less concerned with table top (i.e. non-digital) leadership.

I think Oramac is on the money here.

My personal estimation is they are just the messenger in this situation and their job is largely unrelated to the OGL decisions. As always we should be polite and respectful to messengers (generally we should be polite and respectful to everyone). The days of shooting the messenger are long gone.

Atranen

2023-01-19, 12:39 PM

I don't see the support for that conclusion. The survey results so far have shown the vast majority of proposed changes have been well-received, minus a few stragglers like the Crit Rule and the 1.0 Dragonborn/Ardling.

And heck, even if you're right and most communities end up preferring 5e, I expect they'll still be lifting 1DnD's good ideas for their 5e games for years to come, including things like feats at 1st level and the TWF changes.

I said specifically in this community. I suspect the changes will be well received enough that many people move to OneD&D, and poorly received enough that others do not, and go somewhere like Kobold press.

Right - so... do that?

I mean, back when it had the licenseback and other bad things I could understand that being a dealbreaker, but that's why they're improving it. And while we'll need the final wording to know for sure, I really don't see how you won't be able to use it to make 5e-compatible content, or even 3e for that matter. Once released, it will be an authorized version of the OGL, just like 1.0a is now.

Publish under the new OGL? This just illustrates my point--WoTC feels they cannot let anyone use the old OGL, and cannot let anyone publish material for 5e using the old OGL. They need to control this market, because what they're offering with OneD&D is not good enough to compete on its own.

If ORC is successful enough then they might, otherwise they have no reason to.

WoTC has been clear that an open license does not fit their needs. They will not use ORC.

Yeah. Kobold Press has posted a followup to their Project Black Flag saying "yeah, it's still on." So I'm fairly sure they're not going to be going to great strides to publish OneD&D material. Or even likely much more 5e material, depending on how the playtest of PBF goes.

And happy to see it. It will be nice to have supported alternatives.

Joe the Rat

2023-01-19, 12:41 PM

Coca-Cola is actually an extremely good example of why WotC doing what they're doing is ultimately pointless and shockingly dumb.

<snip>

D&D, long ago, became almost a generic name for TRPGs, or at least d20 systems. Kinda like Coke. You go and try to order a Coke somewhere, at least in my neck of the woods, they'll often ask "what kind?". Because "Coke" just means "soda". Similarly, they were in such a good spot. "D&D" means "RPG". When it's time for our weekly Pathfinder game, we don't typically say "It's time for Pathfinder", it's "It's time for D&D".

That's the thing they needed to leverage, and they're blowing it.The Coca-Cola analogies are crazily applicable, particularly in terms of history and position.

I live in a part of the country where "Coke" is the word for "any fizzy sweetened water, plus colors." Having that sort of common usage is a huge boon. You blow it, someone is going to take that branding space, or your name being the generic name for a thing will be an odd footnote in the history of language.

The other thing to note for Coca-Cola is nostalgia - they've been around forever, you have happy memories about it (so marketing wants you to think), it's branded out the wazoo, freaking murals and santas and polar bears and grandma and just whatever you can throw at the world and make it stick in your brain as a happy thought associated with the best-selling, second-best tasting mass-produced nut juice. That nostalgia game? D&D. You leverage the hell out of that. side products, official accessories, shirts, product placement, oh, maybe some sort of primary media engagement.

And you don't actively try to screw over your adjacencies and irritate your fans and blow your reputation with your consumer base.

This little legalese blow-up? Hasbro totally New Coke'd it up. Again. Given the reactionary nature of interweb discourse, this is going to New Coke it up for everything with two D's and an ampersand attached, whether or not Hasbro is in charge of it.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 12:43 PM

Whether they needed it or not is irrelevant. They benefited from it. They were able to openly say things like "FULL PATHFINDER EXPERIENCE" in their marketing. Their trailers were able to include stylistic camera shots of zooming past miniatures and dice on a table straight into the OGL-based Pathfinder rulebooks where the pages quite literally came to life.

Here is where I disagree with you. Yes, they advertised it to Pathfinder (not DnD) players, and I expect that limited its demographic more than helped it, since a lot of CRPG players are uninterested in, or find TTRPGs distasteful. I did not buy Kingmaker, I did not buy it BECAUSE it was a Pathfinder product. And as I noted a lot of companies post the OGL 1.0a, not because they are using WOTC's content, (and as I have noted the question remains, have they paid holders of copyrights to older systems whose systems DnD was similar too?), but because it's a means of protection from frivolous suits, which is a good thing.

I think the meaning of "draft" in this context is important. Every contract is a draft until it's signed. In other words, WotC/Kyle are being "technically correct (the best kind of correct.)"And that is all I can say on that topic. Even outside of law, when I turn in a paper on something Plantinga or Nietsche wrote, it is still a "draft" it is a final draft to be sure, but a "draft" nonetheless.

As I said I understand the seller's remorse, I wish I had held onto the GE I bought at 10, but I did never the less issue the sale. The OGL chased competition out of the TTRPG market, it seems to be bad faith to claim that, once the competing systems have been mothballed they can now change the rules the industry has played by for 23 years. As I said, best thing that will happen from all of this will be fewer games using WOTC's mechanics and more competition, it may take a few years to get there, but I will be more interested in what their competitors produce either way

Segev

2023-01-19, 12:46 PM

If they really wanted to make more money off the D&D brand in specifically the tabletop arena, what they would have done is start licensing out the setting(s) to other RPG publishers. Because the setting, ultimately, is what people care about when it comes to D&D. People don't think D&D and go "Wow, golly! I sure do love how the game has ten base classes and optional Feats!" they go "I wanna play D&D because it's the one I've been hearing about".

These are very good points. Licensing their settings and NPCs to third parties in licenses other than the OGL would be quite doable, and I'm pretty sure the people behind things like Savage Worlds and Powered By The Apocalypse would at least be interested, depending on what the costs were. D&D is so dominant that it would be something they could leverage for very favorable royalties, since accessing the "well-known settings" would be a big "in" for other systems. And still wouldn't seriously threaten WotC's market share.

Idkwhatmyscreen

2023-01-19, 12:58 PM

These are very good points. Licensing their settings and NPCs to third parties in licenses other than the OGL would be quite doable, and I'm pretty sure the people behind things like Savage Worlds and Powered By The Apocalypse would at least be interested, depending on what the costs were. D&D is so dominant that it would be something they could leverage for very favorable royalties, since accessing the "well-known settings" would be a big "in" for other systems. And still wouldn't seriously threaten WotC's market share.

Or imagine a Call of Cthulhu adventure set in the forgotten realms, where you play as villages being attacked by a mindflair or similar DnD BBEG

Psyren

2023-01-19, 01:07 PM

I said specifically in this community. I suspect the changes will be well received enough that many people move to OneD&D, and poorly received enough that others do not, and go somewhere like Kobold press.

"Some portion of the base will like the changes and some portion won't" is certainly a safe bet, if on the banal side.

Publish under the new OGL? This just illustrates my point--WoTC feels they cannot let anyone use the old OGL, and cannot let anyone publish material for 5e using the old OGL. They need to control this market, because what they're offering with OneD&D is not good enough to compete on its own.

Yes, publish for 5e under the new OGL is exactly what I'm suggesting.

WoTC has been clear that an open license does not fit their needs. They will not use ORC.

If it makes the most business sense for them to do so - say, no 3PP wants to use their OGL ever - then they might. I truly don't think that will happen, but there's a nonzero chance.

Here is where I disagree with you. Yes, they advertised it to Pathfinder (not DnD) players, and I expect that limited its demographic more than helped it, since a lot of CRPG players are uninterested in, or find TTRPGs distasteful. I did not buy Kingmaker, I did not buy it BECAUSE it was a Pathfinder product. And as I noted a lot of companies post the OGL 1.0a, not because they are using WOTC's content, (and as I have noted the question remains, have they paid holders of copyrights to older systems whose systems DnD was similar too?), but because it's a means of protection from frivolous suits, which is a good thing.

I strongly disagree that such positioning hurt it or "limited its demographic." Quite the opposite. Because that clear differentiator of being not just a CRPG, but a D&D-like CRPG similar to Baldur's Gate or NWN (which routinely make Greatest RPG of All Time lists) got them a nearly unquanitifiable amount of free publicity. At the time that Kingmaker was announced, people were craving that very experience. You even had major outlets like IGN (https://www.ign.com/articles/2017/06/09/pathfinder-kingmaker-could-scratch-your-dd-rpg-itch) straight up giving them free advertising and directly making all the D&D parallels they couldn't make themselves due to the OGL, on their behalf. ("Oh, we didn't call it a D&D game, IGN and PCGamer did! wink wink, lol.")

And the results of that are plain for everyone to see - Kingmaker sold over a million of copies and put Owlcat on the map. The belief that basing it on the OGL and getting as close to "D&D game" in their marketing as they could get, did not benefit them, is just not borne out by reality.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 01:12 PM

I strongly disagree that such positioning hurt it or "limited its demographic." Quite the opposite. Because that clear differentiator of being not just a CRPG, but a D&D-like CRPG similar to Baldur's Gate or NWN (which routinely make Greatest RPG of All Time lists) got them a nearly unquanitifiable amount of free publicity. At the time that Kingmaker was announced, people were craving that very experience. You even had major outlets like IGN (https://www.ign.com/articles/2017/06/09/pathfinder-kingmaker-could-scratch-your-dd-rpg-itch) straight up giving them free advertising and directly making all the D&D parallels they couldn't make themselves due to the OGL, on their behalf. ("Oh, we didn't call it a D&D game, IGN and PCGamer did! wink wink, lol.")

And the results of that are plain for everyone to see - Kingmaker sold over a million of copies and put Owlcat on the map. The belief that basing it on the OGL and getting as close to "D&D game" in their marketing as they could get, did not benefit them, is just not borne out by reality.

But as I noted a number of DnD "like" games have been very good sellers, been compared to Baldurs gate without claiming to be DnD. I saw DnD comparisons to dragons age (also why I did not buy dragons age), which isn't DnD. I have seen Planescape compared to non-DnD properties. As I would suggest, Balfurs gate probably benefited TTRPGs more than DnD helped mske Baldur's gate successful, a lot of BG fans have never played AD&D. That is, DnD might have been good for BG n the very short term, in the long term, it was a good game, so even if you aren't a DnD fan, you will enjoy it.

DnD is popular, but that popularity likely will wane, we are closer to a high than a low.

KorvinStarmast

2023-01-19, 01:15 PM

None of this is a big shocker to me, they want to make all the money and can't be satisfied with only some of the money. Some corporate suit came in was like "only 1/6 of our customer base is buying stuff!? and we're allowing free stuff to be used by other companies!? we need to monetize this NOW!" not knowing how the ttrpg environment works and only looking at immediate gains with customers being an obstacle to getting those gains. It is not too hard to imagine how that meeting went.

"not major corporations to use for their own commercial and promotional purpose." -- snip --
I wonder if they're worried about much bigger fish--the trillion-dollar tech giants. -- snip--
I think they're being driven by Hasbro/ Wall STreet people. We think about D&D as a game, they see it as a "brand." An undermonetized brand, but a brand. --snip--
But if I'm WOTC, if I'm any billion-dollar company frankly, I'm worried about how the trillion-dollar tech giants might eat my lunch 5 years down the road. How it impacts indies / 3PP would be collateral damage.

You should not expect anything to work directly or to be able to smoothly play a 5e character in OneD&D or vice versa. You might be able to run a 5e module in a OneD&D game...if you convert monsters to the new versions...Specifically, they absolutely don't want to end up with a forked playerbase like happened with 4e. Which is exactly why they want to force everyone to move to a new license and not publish anything new for 5e, because if they can, and OneD&D isn't absolutely perfect, then people will continue publishing 5e material and the forking is inevitable. As I am sure you can imagine, I substituted in a term that fork is sometimes used as a mask for, for my own amusement. :smallsmile:

The OGL is the only thing that kept D&D alive all these years. Stranger Things, Critical Role and the pandemic brought a lot of fad-players, but as expected, they left pretty quickly (as seen by the huge decrease in WotC revenue last year). I had not realized that the fad player migration was the cause. I suspected that it was bloat, and thing that WotC has run into and that TSR ran into. (And maybe a bit of market saturation).

Stranger Things won't last forever, and CR now has all the incentive in the world to drop D&D and use their own material. Neither of those shows is watched because of D&D, au contraire, people tried D&D because of those shows (and then dropped it a couple years later)...There's no incentive for the producers of those shows to continue to use D&D unless WotC gives them VERY favorable terms. I think you are right.

there were thriving non-DnD systems Long before WOTC. Indeed.

I believe the most likely reality is the one where the OGL 1.1 was sent out as part of contracts (for 3PP to sign) and WotC is using the word "draft" as PR to do disaster recovery. "Draft" might even be the technically correct word in some way, but it is still being used for a deception check. Given what I have learned over the years about how contracts and business work, hard not to agree with this estimate.

The days of shooting the messenger are long gone. Wait, what? This isn't Sparta? (https://youtu.be/0GDkTnEO8Gs) :smalleek:

Hasbro totally New Coke'd it up. Again. Well I remember those taste tests ... :smallyuk:

Xihirli

2023-01-19, 01:29 PM

You do realize Deep Silver is itself a subsidiary of a billion dollar corporation (THQ Nordic)? Why is it so unreasonable for one billion dollar corporation to not want to inadvertently subsidize another? And even if that was Dancey's full intent, it's a dumb intent from a business standpoint.

Ehhh I don't know, specifically the two editions of D&D on the OGL are the biggest ones and I'm inclined to agree with the idea that D&D is where it's at because they've marketed the OGL to 3pp well enough to become synonymous with gaming. Sure, some of the people who use the OGL will benefit from it more than planned, but I think the OG OGL not including any text that implies "we want you to have success off of the OGL but not too much WOULD have made it a harder sell to the many people who came forward to make products that didn't enrich WOTC directly, but did solidify their brand.

The OGL overall was a hugely successful business move, and going line-by-line determining which parts would and wouldn't be included with added foresight... like there's a difference when arguing intent between "obviously you INTENDED it to not be revokable when you wrote 'perpetual'" and "obviously we INTENDED to include a royalty clause in case the beneficiaries of the license do too well."

Like one is an argument rooted in the good faith of the contract and the direct word of the people who wrote it where the other is "well OBVIOUSLY we meant to include an entirely absent clause to keep other games from doing too well, we just forgot to and have never mentioned it for 20 years."

Atranen

2023-01-19, 01:43 PM

"Some portion of the base will like the changes and some portion won't" is certainly a safe bet, if on the banal side.

Do you have a more specific statement to offer? My point is that a number of people, e.g. in this community, have expressed displeasure with OneD&D, to the extent that we shouldn't expect everyone to switch to it out of love for its mechanics.

Yes, publish for 5e under the new OGL is exactly what I'm suggesting.

Of course they can. But the fact that they have to shows OneD&D isn't offering as much as coercing.

If it makes the most business sense for them to do so - say, no 3PP wants to use their OGL ever - then they might. I truly don't think that will happen, but there's a nonzero chance.

"There's a nonzero chance" is certainly a safe bet, if on the banal side :smalltongue:

I could believe them doing it at some point--say, 5+ years--in the future. But they won't until their walled garden approach is shown to be a failure. I've remarked more in the D&DBeyond thread, but I expect it to be a success (for them).

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 01:47 PM

So when it comes to being marketwd as being "like Baldur's gate," I'd say that has less to do with being TSR or WOTC's materials and far more to do with 1. A fantasy setting with 2 an engine that looks and feels like the infinity engIne, at least from a videogamer's perspective.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 01:49 PM

But as I noted a number of DnD "like" games have been very good sellers, been compared to Baldurs gate without claiming to be DnD. I saw DnD comparisons to dragons age (also why I did not buy dragons age), which isn't DnD. I have seen Planescape compared to non-DnD properties. As I would suggest, Balfurs gate probably benefited TTRPGs more than DnD helped mske Baldur's gate successful, a lot of BG fans have never played AD&D. That is, DnD might have been good for BG n the very short term, in the long term, it was a good game, so even if you aren't a DnD fan, you will enjoy it.

DnD is popular, but that popularity likely will wane, we are closer to a high than a low.

I'm sorry but you're just mistaken about this.

Dragon Age was successful because it was developed and produced by, at the time (and possibly even still today, though companies like CDPR and Bethesda and Larian have gained considerable ground since then), the most well-known western RPG maker in the entire industry. Of course it would have gotten noticed by RPG fans whether it used the OGL or not; Bioware didn't need it, and to the extent that they did gain a reputation as great D&D-style RPG-makers, that came from their custom licenses with WotC that allowed them to use famous Forgotten Realms locations/characters/monsters, not the OGL (which explicitly doesn't).

Kingmaker meanwhile was created by a relatively unknown player (Owlcat) with the backing of a AAA billion-dollar publisher that was entering the genre for the first time (Deep Silver was previously known for games like Saints Row and Dead Island, not anything D&D-like.) Being able to wrap their creation in Pathfinder and the OGL was a win for them. And lest you think it was purely the Pathfinder name that got people's attention, I point you to Pathfinder's sole attempt to make a PF computer game that didn't use OGL mechanics - the failed MMO Pathfinder Online from Goblinworks. The moment people heard that game wouldn't play like Pathfinder the tabletop game, and would be more like a WoW or LOTRO clone, it rapidly died on the vine and is in limbo to this day.

TL;DR the OGL allowed two unknowns in the CRPG industry, one of whom has pockets nearly as deep as Hasbro's themselves, to shatter sales records without needing to make any kind of business deal with the IP-holder whose license their work was based on. And that's fine, they didn't do anything illegal. But expecting WotC to see that and say "yep, the OGL is working as intended, no changes needed" is beyond unrealistic. Did they go too far with 1.1, absolutely - but are they wrong for slamming on the brakes from a fiduciary standpoint, absolutely not.

Do you have a more specific statement to offer? My point is that a number of people, e.g. in this community, have expressed displeasure with OneD&D, to the extent that we shouldn't expect everyone to switch to it out of love for its mechanics.

They can't please everyone, nor should they try.

Of course they can. But the fact that they have to shows OneD&D isn't offering as much as coercing.

Yes, and that is their right to do so from where I'm sitting (though we won't know for sure until the courts weigh in, so I'll stop there.)

I could believe them doing it at some point--say, 5+ years--in the future. But they won't until their walled garden approach is shown to be a failure. I've remarked more in the D&DBeyond thread, but I expect it to be a success (for them).

We seem to be aligned.

Atranen

2023-01-19, 01:56 PM

They can't please everyone, nor should they try.

Yes, and that is their right to do so from where I'm sitting (though we won't know for sure until the courts weigh in, so I'll stop there.)

Agreed and agreed; but we disagree about who they ought to please, and (perhaps) whether 'right' implies 'ought'.

It's also their right to stop publishing all D&D material and to say 'hey, we think this is a silly hobby, you should go outside'.

Rynjin

2023-01-19, 01:56 PM

I And lest you think it was purely the Pathfinder name that got people's attention, I point you to Pathfinder's sole attempt to make a PF computer game that didn't use OGL mechanics - the failed MMO Pathfinder Online from Goblinworks. The moment people heard that game wouldn't play like Pathfinder the tabletop game, and would be more like a WoW or LOTRO clone, it rapidly died on the vine and is in limbo to this day.

This is a pretty gross misrepresentation of the issue with Pathfinder Online. That was a problem of mismanagement from top to bottom, one that I think Lisa Stevens learned from when negotiating with Owlcat and Deep Silver to publish Kingmaker for that matter.

Pathfinder Online was marketed poorly (read; not at all) and "lead developed" by a known industry grifter who was just there to make a quick buck at Paizo's expense.

The small audience doesn't actually matter as far as MMO development goes. I've seen games launch with and persist for years if not DECADES with a smaller audience than what backed and tried to Play pathfinder Online (see: Mortal Online as an example). The issue is that the game was never completed, and likely never INTENDED to be completed by Goblinworks; it was just meant to be a moneysink that eventually Paizo wised up about and stopped dumping cash into.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 01:59 PM

I'm sorry but you're just mistaken about this.

Dragon Age was successful because it was developed and produced by, at the time (and possibly even still today, though companies like CDPR and Bethesda and Larian have gained considerable ground since then), the most well-known western RPG maker in the entire industry. Of course it would have gotten noticed by RPG fans whether it used the OGL or not; Bioware didn't need it, and to the extent that they did gain a reputation as great D&D-style RPG-makers, that came from their custom licenses with WotC that allowed them to use famous Forgotten Realms locations/characters/monsters, not the OGL (which explicitly doesn't).

Kingmaker meanwhile was created by a relatively unknown player (Owlcat) with the backing of a AAA billion-dollar publisher that was entering the genre for the first time (Deep Silver was previously known for games like Saints Row and Dead Island, not anything D&D-like.) Being able to wrap their creation in Pathfinder and the OGL was a win for them. And lest you think it was purely the Pathfinder name that got people's attention, I point you to Pathfinder's sole attempt to make a PF computer game that didn't use OGL mechanics - the failed MMO Pathfinder Online from Goblinworks. The moment people heard that game wouldn't play like Pathfinder the tabletop game, and would be more like a WoW or LOTRO clone, it rapidly died on the vine and is in limbo to this day.

Kingmaker, no idea, but as I said, every isometric designed RPG in a fantasy setting gets compared to Baldur's gate in their marketing including non-DnD systems, many of which are successful and have nothing to do with the OGL. The video gamers I know don't really care about DnD or the OGL. But going around in circles and getting boring so . . . . Out on this point, other than to note, most games seem to succeed or fail on their merits, not on the OGL.

As to Pathfinder the people I know who were interested didn't abandon it for this reason, but they again were MMO players who didn't do TTRPGs. Likely if TTRPG players are your base for a videogame, ad was true of that project, your base is too small, DDO has never been a market leader. Also as to timing, MMOs were on the wane during the time oathfinder online was.floated. DnD isn't as big outside in the long term of the TTRPG community as you seem to think.

And even inside, the TTRPG, high fantasy of the DnD variety gets very stale, urban fantasy, which DnD has never done well, may be the next major TTRPG competitors, and scifi games may make a comeback and eat into WOTC again, and D20 doesn't really do these settings well either.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 02:20 PM

Agreed and agreed; but we disagree about who they ought to please, and (perhaps) whether 'right' implies 'ought'.

It's also their right to stop publishing all D&D material and to say 'hey, we think this is a silly hobby, you should go outside'.

They do have that right, and it's not in question (i.e. nobody can force them to make more D&D if they don't want to, or force them to stop making D&D if they do want to) so I have no dispute there. I'm debating the rights that are in question.

This is a pretty gross misrepresentation of the issue with Pathfinder Online. That was a problem of mismanagement from top to bottom, one that I think Lisa Stevens learned from when negotiating with Owlcat and Deep Silver to publish Kingmaker for that matter.

Pathfinder Online was marketed poorly (read; not at all) and "lead developed" by a known industry grifter who was just there to make a quick buck at Paizo's expense.

The small audience doesn't actually matter as far as MMO development goes. I've seen games launch with and persist for years if not DECADES with a smaller audience than what backed and tried to Play pathfinder Online (see: Mortal Online as an example). The issue is that the game was never completed, and likely never INTENDED to be completed by Goblinworks; it was just meant to be a moneysink that eventually Paizo wised up about and stopped dumping cash into.

None of this affects my main point - the Pathfinder name alone is not enough to guarantee success on a video game project. Positioning their game as "the next Baldur's Gate/NWN", even in a wink-nudge-we-didn't-say-that-ourselves manner, was still a clear benefit to them.

Kingmaker, no idea, but as I said, every isometric designed RPG in a fantasy setting gets compared to Baldur's gate in their marketing including non-DnD systems, many of which are successful and have nothing to do with the OGL. The video gamers I know don't really care about DnD or the OGL. But going around in circles and getting boring so . . . . Out on this point, other than to note, most games seem to succeed or fail on their merits, not on the OGL.

They do - but being able to lift not just the mechanics but their very expression wholesale/in large swathes from the SRD was to Owlcat's benefit. It guaranteed free buzz, an easy learning curve for the tabletop crowd, and ultimately, organic word of mouth promotion that a run of the mill isometric CRPG would not have gotten.

Palanan

2023-01-19, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by Rynjin
This is a pretty gross misrepresentation of the issue with Pathfinder Online. That was a problem of mismanagement from top to bottom, one that I think Lisa Stevens learned from when negotiating with Owlcat and Deep Silver to publish Kingmaker for that matter.

…The issue is that the game was never completed, and likely never INTENDED to be completed by Goblinworks; it was just meant to be a moneysink that eventually Paizo wised up about and stopped dumping cash into.

Do you have any more information on all this?

NichG

2023-01-19, 02:36 PM

They do have that right, and it's not in question (i.e. nobody can force them to make more D&D if they don't want to, or force them to stop making D&D if they do want to) so I have no dispute there. I'm debating the rights that are in question.

They can have the right to making D&D as horrible as they might want to. But at the same time, people have the right to collectively decide to punish them for doing so via social means such as collectively moving to other platforms, disparaging the company publically, boycotting their products, actively focusing efforts to compete against WotC's desired goals rather than just doing their own business passively, etc. And to the extent that people have been invited to be stakeholders in D&D via open-ended promises like the OGL - in the sense that they've made business decisions based on those promises - its even entirely reasonable for them to seek to punish WotC for reneging on those promises even when its harmful on the balance to their own immediate interests.

Showing that a community is collectively willing to take some losses in order to punish someone for reneging on promises makes it so that promises - including their spirit - are more likely to be kept in the future, even if there might exist ways to entirely legally break them.

The storm of bad PR and people echoing that is an example of the workings of a mechanism by which small independents can protect themselves from decisions by fiat by larger actors.

Atranen

2023-01-19, 02:45 PM

They do have that right, and it's not in question (i.e. nobody can force them to make more D&D if they don't want to, or force them to stop making D&D if they do want to) so I have no dispute there. I'm debating the rights that are in question.

Yes, and my point is that question is not the important one. Whether or not they have the right to do something is a legal question that we can't (and that I have no desire to) get into. The interesting question in my view is what the consequences of them exercising that right are--as stewards of the game or as people who care about TTRPGs. If their concerns as a corporation go against the concerns a good 'steward of the game' would have, that's something worth worrying about.

And those concerns clearly are opposed. A 'steward of the game' is not worried about someone forking off an old version for their own use. A corporation needs to coerce everyone to adopt the new standard so they can keep selling subscriptions (and books).

It may be the corporation's right to do so. But we need to be clear-sighted about the fact that what they're doing will harm the game, and why.

EDIT: @NichG excellent post, the question is about how we as a community ought to act in response to an organization whose interests do not align with ours.

Unoriginal

2023-01-19, 02:46 PM

But expecting WotC to see that and say "yep, the OGL is working as intended, no changes needed" is beyond unrealistic.

WotC saw that happening and said "yep, the OGL is working as intended, no changes needed" for two decades.

How was it "beyond unrealistic" to have expected them to keep doing what they've been doing for 22 years?

warty goblin

2023-01-19, 03:08 PM

Right. One obvious flaw in the OGL from a corporate point of view is that it makes Wizards compete on quality. It's much better to compete on brand recognition, marketing, and more or less just owning the entire space. Wizards clearly has a dominant position there, which obviously helps for selling D&D 5E. Bit the continued existence of the OGL allows for either another 4th edition/Pathfinder situation, or other cases where they lose market share to similar but better products.

So it makes total sense to me why they want to shut that possibility down. However, I frankly give zero craps about benefitting Hasbro shareholders, and see no reason to carry any water for corporate rentseeking done in their name. From a consumer point of view retracting the OGL is entirely bad, precisely because it positions Wizards to not have to compete on quality, and I'm better served by a competitive marketplace.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-19, 03:14 PM

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 03:14 PM

They do - but being able to lift not just the mechanics but their very expression wholesale/in large swathes from the SRD was to Owlcat's benefit. It guaranteed free buzz, an easy learning curve for the tabletop crowd, and ultimately, organic word of mouth promotion that a run of the mill isometric CRPG would not have gotten.

Considering how much of the industry has always engaged from borrowing, not so sure. TTRPG crowds are a very small component of video game marketing these days, maybe in the 80s, but even then Bards tale and Wizardry were better than a lot of SSI prooducts. The OGL 1.0a is ultimately a move away from frivolous lawsuits. Kind of hard to justify sueing someone for borrowing something like a.mind flayer or a displacer beast, when in point of fact these are things that TSR borrowed and relabled from various literary sources. Borrowing often without attribution has been the entire basis of the industry, including OD&D (as the old Hobbit fiasco demonstrates).

Though this does raise a question on the OGL that I'm not seeing answered though it is regerenced. Should there be a difference in the OGL between pure mechanics and lore? Considering class systems almost always have had lore types of connections? The mechanics of DND is far less unique to WOTC's IP (as they bear similarities to TSRs old competitor's mechanics) than say the Realms.

Rynjin

2023-01-19, 03:16 PM

Do you have any more information on all this?

The source is DEEPEST FORUM LORE spread across both Paizo's own site and the official Goblinworks forums, and hard to find the bits and pieces since they were gathered as they happened, and the Goblinworks forums IIRC no longer exist.

Mostly because Goblinworks itself basically no longer exists? I'm pretty sure Paizo still owns the company name, but literally nobody works there anymore, they laid all of them off.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 03:27 PM

Considering how much of the industry has always engaged from borrowing, not so sure. TTRPG crowds are a very small component of video game marketing these days, maybe in the 80s, but even then Bards tale and Wizardry were better than a lot of SSI prooducts. The OGL 1.0a is ultimately a move away from frivolous lawsuits. Kind of hard to justify sueing someone for borrowing something like a.mind flayer or a displacer beast, when in point of fact these are things that TSR borrowed and relabled from various literary sources. Borrowing often without attribution has been the entire basis of the industry, including OD&D (as the old Hobbit fiasco demonstrates).

Though this does raise a question on the OGL that I'm not seeing answered though it is regerenced. Should there be a difference in the OGL between pure mechanics and lore? Considering class systems almost always have had lore types of connections? The mechanics of DND is far less unique to WOTC's IP (as they bear similarities to TSRs old competitor's mechanics) than say the Realms.

D&D setting lore, mindflayers and beholders are explicitly not covered under any OGL. Even if they left 1.0a alone completely, you could not use it to make a game containing those element.

As for mechanics, again, not getting into that discussion as interpreting exactly where that line is drawn between mechanics and expression will require a legal judgement that we couldn't give here even if the mods allowed it (which they have not.)

people have the right to collectively decide to punish them for doing so via social means such as collectively moving to other platforms, disparaging the company publically, boycotting their products, actively focusing efforts to compete against WotC's desired goals rather than just doing their own business passively, etc.

I never said people didn't.

WotC saw that happening and said "yep, the OGL is working as intended, no changes needed" for two decades.

How was it "beyond unrealistic" to have expected them to keep doing what they've been doing for 22 years?

The Deep Silver thing didn't happen "22 years ago" - it happened in 2018, and then again in 2021. That's a sea change they have every justification to react to, and something that, even if the original framers of the OGL explicitly considered, is not something they did nearly a good enough job of spelling out.

This. Very much this. If WotC thought they had a winning product, they'd not bother with this (because of the obvious backlash potential) and just compete on the merits. But they don't think they can. Or worse, don't even want to try. And that makes me sad, as someone who cares about the space and the game. Monopoly power does not better products make.

I find this logic specious because their concern is not the quality of the tabletop game (which they have said the OGL will remain applicable to), it's subsidizing competitors in other markets like AAA video game publishers. The current OGL is badly written in that respect.

Moreover, it's not even that they don't want anyone making D&D video games. Clearly they do, as Larian's current license to make BG3 proves. They just want to make sure those licenses are fit for purpose rather than using the OGL, which is a very poor tool for licensing software development at the end of the day.

Again - protecting Green Ronin, Dreamscarred Press, Ghostfire Gaming, Kobold Press et al. who make supplements for the tabletop game are one thing. I can get behind that. But protecting THQ Nordic, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Activision-Blizzard and more is a completely different situation.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 03:32 PM

Apologies for double-posting, but I assumed this was important - the new OGL draft 1.2 is live.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1432-starting-the-ogl-playtest

Before you scroll down and grab it, let me give you more details on what's in there:

Protecting D&D's inclusive play experience. As I said above, content more clearly associated with D&D (like the classes, spells, and monsters) is what falls under the OGL. You'll see that OGL 1.2 lets us act when offensive or hurtful content is published using the covered D&D stuff. We want an inclusive, safe play experience for everyone. This is deeply important to us, and OGL 1.0a didn't give us any ability to ensure it.
TTRPGs and VTTs. OGL 1.2 will only apply to TTRPG content, whether published as books, as electronic publications, or on virtual tabletops (VTTs). Nobody needs to wonder or worry if it applies to anything else. It doesn't.
Deauthorizing OGL 1.0a. We know this is a big concern. The Creative Commons license and the open terms of 1.2 are intended to help with that. One key reason why we have to deauthorize: We can't use the protective options in 1.2 if someone can just choose to publish harmful, discriminatory, or illegal content under 1.0a. And again, any content you have already published under OGL 1.0a will still always be licensed under OGL 1.0a.
Very limited license changes allowed. Only two sections can be changed once OGL 1.2 is live: how you cite Wizards in your work and how we can contact each other. We don't know what the future holds or what technologies we will use to communicate with each other, so we thought these two sections needed to be future-proofed.

In short, it's everything I expected.

Rynjin

2023-01-19, 03:33 PM

The thing is, again, all of those companies you mentioned can still do anything they want in the arena of "video games vaguely like a tabletop game" without any issue. In 1.0, and 1.1 for that matter.

The OGL was a CYOA for Paizo, Owlcat, Deep Silver, etc. They didn't actually NEED it to make the game the exact same way it was made, except for a couple of terms that would have needed changing.

The OGL was always, in many ways, a convenience, not a necessity. Wizards has decided to take away that convenience for essentially no purpose. This ONLY hurts those smaller creators who just wanted to make some 3PP supplements for 3.5, Pathfinder, and 5e. The big boys can just do whatever they want without stepping on Wizards' copyright toes, and they're too big to sue into oblivion. Microsoft, for instance, could eat Hasbro for breakfast and barely burp afterward. EA could tangle and come out on top, even if it would be a PITA for both of them.

Apologies for double-posting, but I assumed this was important - the new OGL draft 1.2 is live.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1432-starting-the-ogl-playtest

rotecting D&D's inclusive play experience. As I said above, content more clearly associated with D&D (like the classes, spells, and monsters) is what falls under the OGL. You'll see that OGL 1.2 lets us act when offensive or hurtful content is published using the covered D&D stuff. We want an inclusive, safe play experience for everyone. This is deeply important to us, and OGL 1.0a didn't give us any ability to ensure it.
TTRPGs and VTTs. OGL 1.2 will only apply to TTRPG content, whether published as books, as electronic publications, or on virtual tabletops (VTTs). Nobody needs to wonder or worry if it applies to anything else. It doesn't.
Deauthorizing OGL 1.0a. We know this is a big concern. The Creative Commons license and the open terms of 1.2 are intended to help with that. One key reason why we have to deauthorize: We can't use the protective options in 1.2 if someone can just choose to publish harmful, discriminatory, or illegal content under 1.0a. And again, any content you have already published under OGL 1.0a will still always be licensed under OGL 1.0a.
Very limited license changes allowed. Only two sections can be changed once OGL 1.2 is live: how you cite Wizards in your work and how we can contact each other. We don't know what the future holds or what technologies we will use to communicate with each other, so we thought these two sections needed to be future-proofed.

In short, it's everything I expected.

"Actually, it's about stopping people from posting content we find harmful and non-inclusive."

Bold move, cotton, let's see how that works out for them.

johnbragg

2023-01-19, 03:40 PM

This. Very much this. If WotC thought they had a winning product, they'd not bother with this (because of the obvious backlash potential) and just compete on the merits. But they don't think they can. Or worse, don't even want to try. And that makes me sad, as someone who cares about the space and the game. Monopoly power does not better products make.

I really think most of us are not looking in the same direction that WOTC / HAsbro is. Most of us are looking at other TTRPGs.

The CEO told the world, D&D is an "undermonetized brand." PAthfinder and Critical Role are small potatoes compared to whatever it is that they're working on to monetize that brand--movies, VTT / MMORPG / CRPG with AI DMs.

I suspect that they are worried about "big companies" benefiting from OGL products in emerging technology spaces. But they're not worried about Pathfinder or a Pathfinder CRPG or Critical Role etc. They're worried -- or they should be -- about Microsoft / Activision, Facebook / Meta, Apple, Google, Amazon.

Notice that after two weeks of bad press, which really isn't anything in the real world (unless losing D&D Beyond subscriptions is a bigger financial hit than I thought), they've retreated on claiming royalties. But they're still moving forward with --- something.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 03:41 PM

The OGL was a CYOA for Paizo, Owlcat, Deep Silver, etc. They didn't actually NEED it to make the game the exact same way it was made, except for a couple of terms that would have needed changing.

Yes. Yes it was. A CYOA for companies that don't need one, and one that saved those companies considerable costs in figuring out where those lines were drawn.

And I get that that doesn't seem like a big deal to you; I'm merely explaining why it (still) matters to WotC. You don't have to agree, but expect them to not budge on the second bullet of my subsequent post.

I suspect that they are worried about "big companies" benefiting from OGL products in emerging technology spaces. But they're not worried about Pathfinder or a Pathfinder CRPG or Critical Role etc. They're worried -- or they should be -- about Microsoft / Activision, Facebook / Meta, Apple, Google, Amazon.

Exactly, they are.

Rynjin

2023-01-19, 03:43 PM

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 03:46 PM

D&D setting lore, mindflayers and beholders are explicitly not covered under any OGL. Even if they left 1.0a alone completely, you could not use it to make a game containing those element.

As for mechanics, again, not getting into that discussion as interpreting exactly where that line is drawn between mechanics and expression will require a legal judgement that we couldn't give here even if the mods allowed it (which they have not.)

Fair in part, particularly the last part but I guess it seems to me the OGL was always a white flag on frivolous law suits, and again, people seem to think DnD is far more original than it actually is. See again TSRs Hobbit fiasco.

KorvinStarmast

2023-01-19, 03:47 PM

Sword Coast Legends came out on Steam, and was released alongside the OotA adventure season I think.
I played it a bit, wasn't bad but also didn't real hit me with a wow factor.
How did it do financially: did it make back its investment?
BG 3 seems to me quite a bit like that product.

Ashtagon

2023-01-19, 03:49 PM

While I'm here, does anyone have any evidence that 1.1 leaks weren't of a draft? The Gizmodo article insinuate that it's a draft. The copy I saw was full of missing/bracketed bits.

On the back of *something*, it was announced that kickstarter had negotiated to only give 20% instead of 25% on any D&D related kickstarters. I doubt companies like that make formal announcements on the back of drafts; it would normally be on the back of a completed negotiation.

reference:
https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/dungeons-dragons-ogl-1-1-leaked-what-mean-d-d-content-creators-and-gamers

Xervous

2023-01-19, 03:50 PM

Submitting to a publicly traded corporate morality police that can find you guilty ex post facto sounds very appropriate for 202X, a pity we don’t have the flying cars though.

BRC

2023-01-19, 03:51 PM

Yes. Yes it was. A CYOA for companies that don't need one, and one that saved those companies considerable costs in figuring out where those lines were drawn.

And I get that that doesn't seem like a big deal to you; I'm merely explaining why it (still) matters to WotC. You don't have to agree, but expect them to not budge on the second bullet of my subsequent post.

Exactly, they are.

I feel like these two points kind of move against eachother

The OGL is a CYOA, an agreement that let's both parties operate without the risk of treading into uncertain legal ground, since without it WOTC would probably be obligated to defend it's copyright even if it looked like they might lose.

There ARE ways to operate as Paizo does without the OGL, but you'd need to expend time and effort making your best legal guess at where the line is. The OGL simplified the whole arrangement.

Which is to say that if Google wanted to release a VTT system with tools that incorporates game mechanics, I don't think any version of the OGL could stop them, since the OGL is something you need to agree to, and google probably has the legal muscle to fight over that line if they want to.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-19, 03:52 PM

Pex

2023-01-19, 03:56 PM

Idkwhatmyscreen

2023-01-19, 03:58 PM

Quick reaction as I'm reading the draft--

Better than I expected, but not as good as I hoped.

Good things:
2. Very limited ability to change it in the future (only notice and attribution).

Bad things:
1. 1.a + 1.c.i is still a huge question mark area. Want to publish your homebrew on an electronic forum in something other than PDF form? Unclear whether that's covered. Depending on how much falls into the CC zone, that may have larger or smaller effects. But likely, if you have a homebrew class that uses spells from the SRD, your options for publication are (a) printed or pdf or (b)VTT module. This kills <various sites I won't mention by name>, which is good, but also has a broad potential for collateral damage.
2. 6f is a huge hole, because they reserve the exclusive and unreviewable right to decide what those very vague terms mean.

See I don't trust any changes they permit, even if they are small I'm scope. I'm sure that there is way to change those sections to make compliance impossible or excessively difficult.

I agree 6f is a non starter as they could always decide that "making too much money" was a violation and as written they would be correct

Also killing 1.0a, while expected, is still bad

Rynjin

2023-01-19, 03:58 PM

A cynical theory I've heard is the original statement was bad on purpose so that when a better new OGL arrives everyone is relieved and looks over the fact upon signing they agree to no longer follow OGL 1.0a which is the real thing WOTC wants.

One of my least favorite things that has come out of this is the overuse of the word "cynical". This is just how businesses works, believing otherwise is naivete.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-19, 04:01 PM

See I don't trust any changes they permit, even if they are small I'm scope. I'm sure that there is way to change those sections to make compliance impossible or excessively difficult.

I agree 6f is a non starter as they could always decide that "making too much money" was a violation and as written they would be correct

Also killing 1.0a, while expected, is still bad

Only the attribution section can really be weaponized, and doing so would be really really obvious (and unlikely IMO).

Killing 1.0a is a foregone conclusion. They'd never have even begun to publish a new OGL unless they thought they could get away with killing 1.0a. Because it basically allows you to ignore this new license entirely.

One unknown for me--what if you don't use anything from the 5.1 SRD (which is not yet published) and only use material from the 5.0 SRD? The license wasn't clear about that.

Snowbluff

2023-01-19, 04:05 PM

A cynical theory I've heard is the original statement was bad on purpose so that when a better new OGL arrives everyone is relieved and looks over the fact upon signing they agree to no longer follow OGL 1.0a which is the real thing WOTC wants.

I've said it elsewhere (Treantmonk's server), but I really would like to think that the community would have learned from the recent misinformation to not lean on unverifiable information.

Segev

2023-01-19, 04:08 PM

The things that the very big companies - Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc. - would want to capitalize on are the IP, if it's the big merchandizing and movie successes that serve to monetize D&D "sufficiently." None of those are made available via the SRD, therefore none are made available via any version of the OGL.

Literally the only reason to revoke 1.0(a) is to prevent another Pathfinder, or to generally shut down third party publishers.

The claimed reason is a flat-out lie they're hoping will let them paint anybody who continues to oppose it as a "bad person" for opposing it, hoping they can shut up opposition to it. But they don't care about that, because there's no need to care about it. Some piddly hate-monger making a hate-spewing work would not make anything but a passing headline that WotC is as capable of disavowing with the existing OGL as they would be with the ability to revoke licensing. REvoking the license achieves nothing useful, PR-wise, that disavowing it wouldn't. And if it were actually popular enough to self-sustain, WotC would be honestly more angry they couldn't tap that for royalties than they are over the hate-spewing. The extreme vagueness of the definition of what constitutes "hateful" is also telling. "We've decided that you calling your highly-popular fuzzy ball PC race 'Fuzites' is a hate speech dog whistle. You must cease publication of your entire work as your license is revoked. The fact that one of your writers said something unflattering about WotC has nothing to do with this, honest."

The only way pushback should stop is if all "deauthorization" language is removed, and there's at least some acknowledgement that they can't actually do that, because you can't revoke a perpetual license, and "deauthorization" is an attempt to do just that.

Brookshw

2023-01-19, 04:10 PM

Apologies for double-posting, but I assumed this was important - the new OGL draft 1.2 is live.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1432-starting-the-ogl-playtest

In short, it's everything I expected.

Thanks for sharing, interesting and decent choice for a CC license (I'm particularly surprised at Sec. 2(a)(4), especially contrasted against Sec. 1(b) of the OGL). Re: Sec. 1(c)(ii), aren't people commissioning or otherwise licensing art to use in their products, not sure if that's intentional or an oversight. Sec. 3....er, wot? I guess... I laughed at 9(b), 9(e), (g) interesting...

Psyren

2023-01-19, 04:11 PM

A cynical theory I've heard is the original statement was bad on purpose so that when a better new OGL arrives everyone is relieved and looks over the fact upon signing they agree to no longer follow OGL 1.0a which is the real thing WOTC wants.

Of course it's what they want. Leaving it intact would not fulfill either of their "core goals."

I think you are drastically overestimating the costs involved. Especially when this would be a one-time cost, after which the OGL becomes less the "speedbump" it currently is and more like a sign saying "keep off the grass".

Remember that two of the key figures at Paizo wrote the damn thing, they know pretty well where the lines are off the top.

Then I look forward to the spate of developers who will make functionally identical games without it. But WotC doesn't have to make things any easier for them. The whole point business-wise is that these other corporations should at least be considering the need to come to WotC for a custom license, not dismissing that avenue ab initio.

Sword Coast Legends came out on Steam, and was released alongside the OotA adventure season I think.
I played it a bit, wasn't bad but also didn't real hit me with a wow factor.
How did it do financially: did it make back its investment?
BG 3 seems to me quite a bit like that product.

Not sure but it's moot in any event - "Sword Coast" is product identity, so that game is definitely a custom license rather than OGL.

1. 1.a + 1.c.i is still a huge question mark area. Want to publish your homebrew on an electronic forum in something other than PDF form? Unclear whether that's covered. Depending on how much falls into the CC zone, that may have larger or smaller effects. But likely, if you have a homebrew class that uses spells from the SRD, your options for publication are (a) printed or pdf or (b)VTT module. This kills <various sites I won't mention by name>, which is good, but also has a broad potential for collateral damage.

Static homebrew files can be published online.

2. 6f is a huge hole, because they reserve the exclusive and unreviewable right to decide what those very vague terms mean.

It kind of has to be? They can't predict what terms will become obscene or hate speech 20 years from now. I'm too smart to give recent examples but they exist.

The things that the very big companies - Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc. - would want to capitalize on are the IP, if it's the big merchandizing and movie successes that serve to monetize D&D "sufficiently." None of those are made available via the SRD, therefore none are made available via any version of the OGL.

Literally the only reason to revoke 1.0(a) is to prevent another Pathfinder, or to generally shut down third party publishers.

This doesn't stop another Pathfinder or 3PP. Pathfinder got its start selling physical books and pdfs, both of which are allowed here. 3PP did as well.

ProsecutorGodot

2023-01-19, 04:13 PM

Only the attribution section can really be weaponized, and doing so would be really really obvious (and unlikely IMO).

Killing 1.0a is a foregone conclusion. They'd never have even begun to publish a new OGL unless they thought they could get away with killing 1.0a. Because it basically allows you to ignore this new license entirely.

One unknown for me--what if you don't use anything from the 5.1 SRD (which is not yet published) and only use material from the 5.0 SRD? The license wasn't clear about that.

Actually the current SRD is 5.1.

My main issue is 9(d) where Wizards has the express right to void the license whenever, for any or no reason.

Idkwhatmyscreen

2023-01-19, 04:19 PM

Only the attribution section can really be weaponized, and doing so would be really really obvious (and unlikely IMO).

It was also unlikely that wotc would try to kill the ogl 1.0a. If wotc truly needs to update the license at any point, they should do so by making a new SDR with a new license and leaving the old license to be obsoleted naturally. People will move to the newest version if it's optional, as long as they don't make a new unreasonable license

Segev

2023-01-19, 04:24 PM

This doesn't stop another Pathfinder or 3PP. Pathfinder got its start selling physical books and pdfs, both of which are allowed here. 3PP did as well.

Right. And Pathfinder - not Google capitalizing on the popularity of a D&D movie - springing up to continue 5.0 when they release "OneD&D" is what they're really out to prevent.

Unfortunately for them, the scrutiny their actions have brought onto the OGL are making it more likely, I think, that more D&D 5e clones will spring up without bothering with a license at all, relying on teh fact that mechanics can't be copyrighted. We'll have to see how they fair in court. Obviously, there will be suits from Hasbro to stop it, and there will be the "drown them in legal bills until they can't seek a ruling anymore" tactic, but if Google really is who they're afraid of.....

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-19, 04:27 PM

Snowbluff

2023-01-19, 04:28 PM

Unfortunately for them, the scrutiny their actions have brought onto the OGL are making it more likely, I think, that more D&D 5e clones will spring up without bothering with a license at all, relying on teh fact that mechanics can't be copyrighted. We'll have to see how they fair in court. Obviously, there will be suits from Hasbro to stop it, and there will be the "drown them in legal bills until they can't seek a ruling anymore" tactic, but if Google really is who they're afraid of.....

... The mechanics are CC BY SA though? Everyone doing that would literally have a license. Even if you don't think mechanics can be copyrighted, I think Wizards has ceded that ground.

ProsecutorGodot

2023-01-19, 04:29 PM

Ah, I'd not realized that about the current SRD.

As to 9(d), my understanding is that that's a bog-standard clause. It only triggers when a part of it is struck down by the courts and reserves the right to either cut that part out and enforce the rest or drop the whole thing (for a rewrite). That sort of clause is everywhere in most contracts so you don't get to defeat the whole thing by finding a hole in one little bit. Or if you can cut out the heart, you can't wear it as a skin-suit.

So long as it doesn't permit Wizards to declare it unenforceable and void the entire license on their own, that sounds reasonable.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 04:34 PM

Right. And Pathfinder - not Google capitalizing on the popularity of a D&D movie - springing up to continue 5.0 when they release "OneD&D" is what they're really out to prevent.

This OGL does apply to SRD 5.1 (the current one). Meaning you can use that to make 5e-specific content as long as you want, under the current ruleset (which includes things like TWF using a bonus action etc. etc.) that are changing in 1DnD.

Unfortunately for them, the scrutiny their actions have brought onto the OGL are making it more likely, I think, that more D&D 5e clones will spring up without bothering with a license at all, relying on teh fact that mechanics can't be copyrighted. We'll have to see how they fair in court. Obviously, there will be suits from Hasbro to stop it, and there will be the "drown them in legal bills until they can't seek a ruling anymore" tactic, but if Google really is who they're afraid of.....

Eh, if something did come up between those two they'd probably just settle. Again though I'm pretty sure that videogames and other interactive experiences are their primary concern, especially given the language in the VTT policy ("at what point does a VTT become a video game?") They're even cracking down on animations and such, which will give their own VTT an edge.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 04:36 PM

Quick reaction as I'm reading the draft--

Better than I expected, but not as good as I hoped.

Good things:
1. Licensing the core mechanics (what that covers is still unknown but judging from the wording won't include spells or most other content such as classes, class features, species, etc) as CC is good. It clarifies that those things aren't protected at all by the OGL and will never be--they're free to use with only minimal restrictions.
2. Very limited ability to change it in the future (only notice and attribution).
3. Lack of any reporting/revenue clauses.
4. Clear "ownership" clauses.
5. A "Creator Product Badge" to indicate "officially OGL products".

Bad things:
1. 1.a + 1.c.i is still a huge question mark area. Want to publish your homebrew on an electronic forum in something other than PDF form? Unclear whether that's covered. Depending on how much falls into the CC zone, that may have larger or smaller effects. But likely, if you have a homebrew class that uses spells from the SRD, your options for publication are (a) printed or pdf or (b)VTT module. This kills <various sites I won't mention by name>, which is good, but also has a broad potential for collateral damage.
2. 6f is a huge hole, because they reserve the exclusive and unreviewable right to decide what those very vague terms mean.

We will see, again the problem with the new one, aside from legal issues, and precisely what they view as "mechanics" since classes seem to be OGL not CC will be "similarity." So many of the Iconic DnD monsters are themselves borrowed from other sources, reskinned and renamed, will they use this to go after anyone who has a spell that puts enemies to sleep, which is in sources.like Morte de Arthur? Owlbears themselves were copied from another source, as I recall, as were mindflayers, displacer beasts and a number of Non-OGL creatures. Magic missles may have a unique name--but nothing else is unique about it. Will they go after any setting that is Tolkienesque, despite the fact that they borrowed from Tolkien?

Second big question is how this applies to new products on sublicense, or the D6 questions I've asked about, before (in review OpenD6 used OGL 1.0a to go open despite having no WOTC content, though I suspect WOTC used some D6 content jmin constructing 3.x). Deauthorizing is a fraught matter, and should be treated as a deal breaker by WOTC's customers. It just creates too many problems and only works if we assume TSR was far more original than it was, or than WOTC is.

If they maintain the you can't sue us language, that also should be a deal breaker as well, whether or not said clause is enforceable or not.

Ashtagon

2023-01-19, 04:44 PM

Initial reading of the draft 1.2 OGL reveals it to be worse than toilet paper (that, at least, is already on paper so is immediately available for bottom-cleansing purposes).

They make a point of banning the 1.0a OGL. For me, this is basically a red line unless the new OGL is less restrictive (it isn't). They helpfully note that this ban has a grandfather clause for anything that is already published by a date TBD. That date is guaranteed to annoy a lot of 3PPs unless it is at least a year in the future (unlikely), due to product development cycles.

The "morality clauses" are in there. In essence, WotC reserves for itself and only itself the right to determine if any given product passes or fails a morality standard. This morality standard isn't defined anywhere in this OGL, and I suspect it will end up becoming a moving goalpost (our cultural norms and 'what is offensive' change over time after all). There's nothing other than a post-hoc legal challenge to prevent WotC from arbitrarily declaring any 1.2-licenced product to be "immoral" and then, under other clauses in this "licence", demanding that it immediately be removed from sale and publication.

Even though most 3PPs probably have no intention of breaching such a clause, the power it gives WotC over their company means this OGL should be a non-starter. WotC can arbitrarily ban any product it likes, and the only comeback is a court case, which will be prohibitively expensive for nearly all 3PPs; those that could afford it would be better advised to switch to a genuinely open licence without trap clauses instead.

Oh, except the 3PP can't take legal action, due to the "you can't sue us" clause. So. Yeah.

Finally, despite wotc claiming this 1.2 licence is irrevocable, clause 9d defines a situation in which WotC can unilaterally declare it revoked anyway.

This licence won't affect any hobbyist publishing gaming content for fun (although be aware that WotC can monetise that content by restricting access to it on vtt to paying members). But anyone planning on commercial publishing (including pretty much everyone that the original OGL was aimed at encouraging) would be foolish to use this as written. There's too many trap clauses.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 04:47 PM

I think the removal of the (weird) language around product identity is precisely so 3PP stop having to debate/track whether owlbears and mindflayers and displacer beasts (oh my!) are okay to include in their books and VTTs or not. It will simply be - if we include it in the any future SRD or the current one, you can use it, period.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 04:50 PM

Blackdrop

2023-01-19, 04:50 PM

Section 3 is also a huge red flag.

"If we steal your work, you need to prove that we knowingly intended to steal your work. If you somehow manage to prove that borderline impossibility, you're only entitled to monetary damages and you can't stop us from continuing to publish the stolen material."

Psyren

2023-01-19, 04:51 PM

Segev

2023-01-19, 04:51 PM

Again though I'm pretty sure that videogames and other interactive experiences are their primary concern, especially given the language in the VTT policy ("at what point does a VTT become a video game?") They're even cracking down on animations and such, which will give their own VTT an edge.

This is another one they're going to have trouble enforcing. They can't claim copyright over the concept of animations for spells. Nor for "cones of fire" or "spheres of fire" or even "small magical bullets flying through the air."

NichG

2023-01-19, 04:51 PM

I never said people didn't.

The context of your back and forth with Atranen, to which I was adding on, was an issue about what WotC 'ought' to do and how people could behave in reaction to that - specifically with you recommending to just publish under the new OGL and Atranen objecting to that idea on the basis of WotC's behavior. So your comment of 'yes, they have the right to do this' was implicitly arguing that because its their right, actions in protest against them exercising that right would be unjustified: they have the right to do this (so you shouldn't object).

So I think its salient to point out that just because someone might have the legal right to do something doesn't mean others are automatically unjustified in objecting to how they utilize that right. Especially when those others are considering how to exercise their own rights in ways that might lead to positive or negative consequences to that first entity, or which might involve risk should that first entity betray subsequent trusts.

Xervous

2023-01-19, 04:52 PM

Anyone else notice the VTT section where it calls out "an animation of magic missile" as no bueno?

What isn’t permitted are features that don’t replicate your dining room table storytelling. If you replace your
imagination with an animation of the Magic Missile streaking across the board to strike your target

Just glancing over at Foundry I can think of a dozen, dozen things that could be coded for increased entertainment value that would run afoul of this.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 04:55 PM

I mean, you're allowed to not like it but bold is exactly the reason why they can't codify that clause.

But to even assume it should be at issue requires WOTC to take stances they lack the qualifications to make. Cultural shifts are only meaningful if one holds to a subjectivity ethic, as the culture could simply be wrong, and that is why, as someone who rejects those schemes, I consider better definition essential.

Brookshw

2023-01-19, 04:59 PM

So long as it doesn't permit Wizards to declare it unenforceable and void the entire license on their own, that sounds reasonable.

Agreeing with Phoenix, though will add there are many different types of reformation clauses available that are widely used, WotC did settle on a more draconic one, but one which is the end result of what would have happened without a clause at all, and still leaves them the option for reformation.

Really not sure how much we can say about these clauses in detail....

Psyren

2023-01-19, 04:59 PM

This is another one they're going to have trouble enforcing. They can't claim copyright over the concept of animations for spells. Nor for "cones of fire" or "spheres of fire" or even "small magical bullets flying through the air."

They're not claiming copyright over anything. They're attempting to say the license doesn't cover video games, and acknowledging that the line between a highly-automated VTT and a video game is fuzzy at best.

The context of your back and forth with Atranen, to which I was adding on, was an issue about what WotC 'ought' to do and how people could behave in reaction to that - specifically with you recommending to just publish under the new OGL and Atranen objecting to that idea on the basis of WotC's behavior. So your comment of 'yes, they have the right to do this' was implicitly arguing that because its their right, actions in protest against them exercising that right would be unjustified: they have the right to do this (so you shouldn't object).

My "publish under 1.2" suggestion was specifically responding to the lament that there wouldn't be a way to make 5e content going forward. We now know that to be false, SRD 5.1 (on which 5e is based) is explicitly covered under OGL 1.2. It had nothing to do with a moral objection or protest to the new OGL, it was a purely logistical suggestion.

ProsecutorGodot

2023-01-19, 05:07 PM

Anyone else notice the VTT section where it calls out "an animation of magic missile" as no bueno?

Just glancing over at Foundry I can think of a dozen, dozen things that could be coded for increased entertainment value that would run afoul of this.

Talespire and, to a lesser extent, Roll20 also have some features that would arguably violate this guideline. My guess is that this is how they'd want to push the "graphics" of the VTT they're building over the others, by limiting what access the others have to these graphical flair effects.

It's such an odd inclusion into it, it almost seems like they're trying to mask it as well by including it in the banning of NFT creation which at this stage is almost universally supported. I can't see it accomplishing anything positive for them to include this restriction, so once feedback opens I'll definitely be suggesting its removal.

Atranen

2023-01-19, 05:07 PM

The "morality clauses" are in there. In essence, WotC reserves for itself and only itself the right to determine if any given product passes or fails a morality standard. This morality standard isn't defined anywhere in this OGL, and I suspect it will end up becoming a moving goalpost (our cultural norms and 'what is offensive' change over time after all). There's nothing other than a post-hoc legal challenge to prevent WotC from arbitrarily declaring any 1.2-licenced product to be "immoral" and then, under other clauses in this "licence", demanding that it immediately be removed from sale and publication.

Even though most 3PPs probably have no intention of breaching such a clause, the power it gives WotC over their company means this OGL should be a non-starter. WotC can arbitrarily ban any product it likes, and the only comeback is a court case, which will be prohibitively expensive for nearly all 3PPs; those that could afford it would be better advised to switch to a genuinely open licence without trap clauses instead.

Agreed. There can't be a way for 3PP content to be stripped by WoTC without notice, regardless of how high-minded the reasons for doing so are. The only way out of this knot is to note that the morality clause is not compatible with any form of open license. I don't expect WoTC to back down, hence they do not support open gaming.

I mean, you're allowed to not like it but bold is exactly the reason why they can't codify that clause further.

They could drop the clause.

The context of your back and forth with Atranen, to which I was adding on, was an issue about what WotC 'ought' to do and how people could behave in reaction to that - specifically with you recommending to just publish under the new OGL and Atranen objecting to that idea on the basis of WotC's behavior. So your comment of 'yes, they have the right to do this' was implicitly arguing that because its their right, actions in protest against them exercising that right would be unjustified: they have the right to do this (so you shouldn't object).

So I think its salient to point out that just because someone might have the legal right to do something doesn't mean others are automatically unjustified in objecting to how they utilize that right. Especially when those others are considering how to exercise their own rights in ways that might lead to positive or negative consequences to that first entity, or which might involve risk should that first entity betray subsequent trusts.

This was also my reading of your posts, Psyren. As far as I know, people aren't putting forward the argument that Wizards can't do this (and that argument isn't within the scope of this thread). They're upset because they think it is a bad thing to do, regardless of whether they have that right. Responding to that with 'well, they have the right to do so' doesn't address the concern.

My "publish under 1.2" suggestion was specifically responding to the lament that there wouldn't be a way to make 5e content going forward. We now know that to be false, SRD 5.1 (on which 5e is based) is explicitly covered under OGL 1.2. It had nothing to do with a moral objection or protest to the new OGL, it was a purely logistical suggestion.

My, uh, lament, is that there is not a way to publish 5e content without accepting the new license. That is, the new license is going to force people to adopt it or cut them off from the system. I think this is a bad thing to do.

Rynjin

2023-01-19, 05:07 PM

They're not claiming copyright over anything. They're attempting to say the license doesn't cover video games, and acknowledging that the line between a highly-automated VTT and a video game is fuzzy at best.

And the natural response to this would be to bean them in the forehead with an eraser and scream "Magic Missile!".

It's an absurd standpoint to have that "replacing imagination" is A.) a thing and B.) is something VTTs do anymore than the aforementioned LARP "animation" does.

Ashtagon

2023-01-19, 05:07 PM

I mean, you're allowed to not like it but bold is exactly the reason why they can't codify that clause further.

Well sure. I get that morality is very much in the "I know it when I see it" area. But that's the problem. Two people can easily have different understandings of what is offensive; its even possible for two different WotC executives to disagree on this; it's even possible for WiotC to revise its opinion based on a particularly intense campaign by an external campaign group (anyone remember BADD?). And all that matters is the opinion of whichever manager happens to be at the steering wheel of WotC that day. This vagueness means that a 3PP has no way of knowing ahead of time that their product won't be slapped down by WotC. And there's no process for asking WotC to review their plans to greenlight anything "just in case". There's just "publish and hope WotC won't slap you arbitrarily".

When a genuinely open licence will be available shortly, there's just no incentive to touch this one if you plan on publishing commercially.

Jury trials are not the only form of legal action.

edit: redacted

That's fair. a 3PP can still sue in a non-jury context. But I do note that class actions and all forms of collective action are specifically banned.

Oramac

2023-01-19, 05:09 PM

Bad things:
1. 1.a + 1.c.i is still a huge question mark area. Want to publish your homebrew on an electronic forum in something other than PDF form? Unclear whether that's covered. Depending on how much falls into the CC zone, that may have larger or smaller effects. But likely, if you have a homebrew class that uses spells from the SRD, your options for publication are (a) printed or pdf or (b)VTT module. This kills <various sites I won't mention by name>, which is good, but also has a broad potential for collateral damage.

At the very least, they need to clarify if a fillable PDF qualifies as "static" or not. I'm betting not, but we can hope.

2. 6f is a huge hole, because they reserve the exclusive and unreviewable right to decide what those very vague terms mean.

It kind of has to be? They can't predict what terms will become obscene or hate speech 20 years from now. I'm too smart to give recent examples but they exist.

Yes and yes. They can't predict the terms that will be obscene, but they can define "obscene" in the context of the document. This is done in law all the time. I won't go any further to avoid breaking forum rules.

Also, I agree with Phoenix that their right to decide is "unreviewable". This section needs, if not a complete rewrite, then at least a lot more specifics to pass muster.

Actually the current SRD is 5.1.

Yup. For reference, the page numbers listed refer to the SRD thus:

56-104: All the basics. Alignment, Inspiration, Backgrounds, Equipment, Armor, Weapons, Ability Scores, Advantage/Disadvantage, etc.

254-260: Basic Monster Stuff. No stat blocks, but all the info IN a stat block. Hit points, AC, size, types, speed, senses, etc.

358-359: Conditions. Blinded, deafened, paralyzed, etc.

Section 3 is also a huge red flag.

"If we steal your work, you need to prove that we knowingly intended to steal your work. If you somehow manage to prove that borderline impossibility, you're only entitled to monetary damages and you can't stop us from continuing to publish the stolen material."

Yea this one is pretty awful too. Definitely not a fan.

Idkwhatmyscreen

2023-01-19, 05:12 PM

I mean, you're allowed to not like it but bold is exactly the reason why they can't codify that clause further.

They have to find a resolution to the conflict if they want people to use the license.

Because as long as they can plug the plug on anything for any reason, the license offers no protection to publishers. No matter how well intended the clause is, if it's abusable by Wotc, it has to be changed.

Ashtagon

2023-01-19, 05:14 PM

They have to find a resolution to the conflict if they want people to use the license.

Because as long as they can plug the plug on anything for any reason, the license offers no protection to publishers. No matter how well intended the clause is, if it's abusable by Wotc, it has to be changed.

Exactly. By having that clause in there, this draft offers a 3PP less legal protection than they would have had simply by going by the "you can't copyright game rules" principle.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 05:15 PM

Thanks for sharing, interesting and decent choice for a CC license (I'm particularly surprised at Sec. 2(a)(4), especially contrasted against Sec. 1(b) of the OGL). Re: Sec. 1(c)(ii), aren't people commissioning or otherwise licensing art to use in their products, not sure if that's intentional or an oversight. Sec. 3....er, wot? I guess... I laughed at 9(b), 9(e), (g) interesting...

Am I correct in understanding this only applies to the 5.x SRD and not the 3.x Srd, and if so what happens there as OGL 1.0a is deaithorized?

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-19, 05:16 PM

Having now been told that 5.1 SRD is the current 5e one, here's the rough breakdown of what is CC. Anything not mentioned is Licensed Content and requires accepting the OGL once published.

Pages 56-104:
Section starting "Beyond 1st Level": Level advancement, multiclassing, Alignment, languages, inspiration, backgrounds, equipment (all of it, weapons, armor, etc, including tables), mounts, vehicles, expenses, Feats (lol grappler), Using Ability Scores (including advantage/disadvantage, proficiency bonus, and skills), time, movement, environment, resting, downtime, combat (including initiative, actions, surprise, creature sizes, attacking, damage, healing, resistance, vulnerability, and the core rules of spellcasting not including any specific spells.

Pages 254-260:
Sentient magic items (not the list of regular magic items), artifacts, and part of the intro to the monsters chapter. This is odd--maybe my copy has wrong page numbers? I'd expect that this was supposed to be just the intro to the monsters chapter and I'm off by about 2 pages. Proper pages in my copy should be 256-263 I think?
Another victim of an old SRD. This is the intro to the monsters chapter without any of the monsters themselves.

Pages 358-359: Something's badly off here. That references 2 random pages at the start of the "beasts" section of the bestiary, but just kinda in the middle. Edit: this is the Conditions stuff and I had an old SRD printing.

---------

So yeah, judging from that, what I'd expect to be covered by CC (once the page numbers get correctly correlated) is all the parts about playing the game that aren't actual content (except feats?). None of the classes, none of the monsters or spells, none of the species. But the descriptions of what a monster has and all the interactions parts.

Which is enough to make a system, but woefully insufficient to make a character or homebrew content (unless you want a pure martial). Likely any use of anything like a monster (including monster stat block formats), mentioning classes (such as making a subclass for an SRD class), or mentioning a spell or magic item is considered (by them) Licensed Content requiring OGL acceptance (or a more specific license).

Edit: looks like I was looking at an old srd version., Which is why the page numbers didn't line up. Conditions for that last block makes total sense.

Oramac

2023-01-19, 05:19 PM

Pages 254-260:
Sentient magic items (not the list of regular magic items), artifacts, and part of the intro to the monsters chapter. This is odd--maybe my copy has wrong page numbers? I'd expect that this was supposed to be just the intro to the monsters chapter and I'm off by about 2 pages. Proper pages in my copy should be 256-263 I think?

Pages 358-359: Something's badly off here. That references 2 random pages at the start of the "beasts" section of the bestiary, but just kinda in the middle.

Yea your pages are off a bit. The second section is just the monster basics, and the third section is literally JUST Conditions (blinded, paralyzed, etc).

Blackdrop

2023-01-19, 05:20 PM

Yup. For reference, the page numbers listed refer to the SRD thus:

56-104: All the basics. Alignment, Inspiration, Backgrounds, Equipment, Armor, Weapons, Ability Scores, Advantage/Disadvantage, etc.

254-260: Basic Monster Stuff. No stat blocks, but all the info IN a stat block. Hit points, AC, size, types, speed, senses, etc.

358-359: Conditions. Blinded, deafened, paralyzed, etc.

It says, and I quote "The core D&D mechanics, which are located at pages 56-104, 254-260, and 358-359 of this System Reference Document 5.1 (but not the examples used on those pages)"

What are they defining as the examples that can not be used?

This is beyond the fact, and I'll say it loud for the people in the back, YOU CAN'T COPYRIGHT GAME MECHANICS!

Yea this one is pretty awful too. Definitely not a fan.

I'm also a little concerned how section 3 interacts with the the part of the termination clause that allows them to cancel your access to the License if you challenge their copyright on Their Licensed Content.

BRC

2023-01-19, 05:22 PM

Having now been told that 5.1 SRD is the current 5e one, here's the rough breakdown of what is CC. Anything not mentioned is Licensed Content and requires accepting the OGL once published.

Pages 56-104:
Section starting "Beyond 1st Level": Level advancement, multiclassing, Alignment, languages, inspiration, backgrounds, equipment (all of it, weapons, armor, etc, including tables), mounts, vehicles, expenses, Feats (lol grappler), Using Ability Scores (including advantage/disadvantage, proficiency bonus, and skills), time, movement, environment, resting, downtime, combat (including initiative, actions, surprise, creature sizes, attacking, damage, healing, resistance, vulnerability, and the core rules of spellcasting not including any specific spells.

Pages 254-260:
Sentient magic items (not the list of regular magic items), artifacts, and part of the intro to the monsters chapter. This is odd--maybe my copy has wrong page numbers? I'd expect that this was supposed to be just the intro to the monsters chapter and I'm off by about 2 pages. Proper pages in my copy should be 256-263 I think?

Pages 358-359: Something's badly off here. That references 2 random pages at the start of the "beasts" section of the bestiary, but just kinda in the middle.

---------

So yeah, judging from that, what I'd expect to be covered by CC (once the page numbers get correctly correlated) is all the parts about playing the game that aren't actual content (except feats?). None of the classes, none of the monsters or spells, none of the species. But the descriptions of what a monster has and all the interactions parts.

Which is enough to make a system, but woefully insufficient to make a character or homebrew content (unless you want a pure martial). Likely any use of anything like a monster (including monster stat block formats), mentioning classes (such as making a subclass for an SRD class), or mentioning a spell or magic item is considered (by them) Licensed Content requiring OGL acceptance (or a more specific license).

Edit: looks like I was looking at an old srd version., Which is why the page numbers didn't line up. Conditions for that last block makes total sense.

I think the goal of the CC portion is so that somebody can build their own 5e-like system from the ground up and be confident that WOTC won't come after them.

Which, they probably couldn't anyway, but it's a CYOA. That said, because those mechanics are Creative Commons, people don't need to actually sign onto the OGL to use that! The whole creative commons section is a pure win.

Ashtagon

2023-01-19, 05:22 PM

Random thought... suppose WotC decides to arbitrarily take down a product from a 3PP on some tenuous but barely plausible ground. That 3PP is faced with either walk from the development and printing costs, or sue. If they sue, does this draft include a clause that allows WotC to withdraw the licence from that 3PP for all products due to the legal action?

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-19, 05:27 PM

It says, and I quote "The core D&D mechanics, which are located at pages 56-104, 254-260, and 358-359 of this System Reference Document 5.1 (but not the examples used on those pages)"

What are they defining as the examples that can not be used?

This is beyond the fact, and I'll say it loud for the people in the back, YOU CAN'T COPYRIGHT GAME MECHANICS!

Examples of examples include:
* The text under multiclassing/spells known and prepared about wizards of particular levels.
* Depending on interpretation, possibly the example backgrounds and feats? Unclear.

As to the not being able to copyright mechanics thing...that's true. But the boundaries of that are exceedingly unclear in this context. So having a specific chunk of text placed explicitly and permanently in the CC domain provides a lot of additional surety against lawsuits and thus has value.

----

As to SRDs before 5.1...that is unclear. A restriction-maximalist reading would say that they're Unlicensed Content and thus cannot be used at all, no matter what, full stop except for previously published work under 1.0(a). I'd bet that that interpretation will not be the actual one, however.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 05:27 PM

They could drop the clause.

It's literally the first of their two "core goals" so... good luck with that I guess.

This was also my reading of your posts, Psyren. As far as I know, people aren't putting forward the argument that Wizards can't do this (and that argument isn't within the scope of this thread). They're upset because they think it is a bad thing to do, regardless of whether they have that right. Responding to that with 'well, they have the right to do so' doesn't address the concern.

Fine, dropping this subtopic entirely.

My, uh, lament, is that there is not a way to publish 5e content without accepting the new license. That is, the new license is going to force people to adopt it or cut them off from the system. I think this is a bad thing to do.

Leaving the old license as a viable avenue for new content, violates both "core goals."

Here's what I think we might be able to get them to budge on.

- 1b Works Covered - as currently written, it's not clear what would happen to say, homebrew published on a message board (like this one) or in a wiki, and whether it would be allowed or not, or need to be taken down and then reuploaded as a PDF etc. I understand their intent is to not let homebrew be published into a "non-TTRPG" format, but I don't know that something as simple as a forum post should violate that.

- 9d Severability - Without going into too much detail, I think Brookshw's statement that they have multiple ways to approach this and they chose one of the more severe ones than they needed to is accurate.

- The VTT policy - I think a static image of a spell effect, e.g. a drawing of a magic missile that then travels from one token to another,, is something that you could see at a "dining room table" and something that a VTT could get away with doing without being confused for a video game.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 05:28 PM

I think the goal of the CC portion is so that somebody can build their own 5e-like system from the ground up and be confident that WOTC won't come after them.

Which, they probably couldn't anyway, but it's a CYOA. That said, because those mechanics are Creative Commons, people don't need to actually sign onto the OGL to use that! The whole creative commons section is a pure win.

Yeah, the problems come in with similarities. My thoughts for a setting sort of including taking a world inspired you Tolkien/C S Lewis/Stephen Lawhead and a few other writers which in a sense means removing many core elements of DnD tropes, or rather accretions to traditions from DnD developments (elves seem to be sorcerers more than wizards, the problems in Vancian spellcasting, numerous issues with clerics that are vexing, etc).Probably won't publish it, but others in my community might be interested in the project, for family game nights as it is intended to be family friendly, and less political than standard fare these days, likely using Minisix (good intro for kids). Problem one always has is the issue of similarity.

Oramac

2023-01-19, 05:30 PM

It says, and I quote "The core D&D mechanics, which are located at pages 56-104, 254-260, and 358-359 of this System Reference Document 5.1 (but not the examples used on those pages)"

What are they defining as the examples that can not be used?

My guess is things like in the Size Categories table on page 254: Examples: Imp, Sprite, Giant Rat, etc. So you can use the table, but not the Examples column. They definitely need to add clarification here though.

This is beyond the fact, and I'll say it loud for the people in the back, YOU CAN'T COPYRIGHT GAME MECHANICS!

Yea, I noticed that too. Lmao. So basically they just took all the crap they can't control anyway and said "here's an olive branch. please like us again".

I'm also a little concerned how section 3 interacts with the the part of the termination clause that allows them to cancel your access to the License if you challenge their copyright on Their Licensed Content.

Yea. There's definitely improvements that need to be made. Many of them.

Atranen

2023-01-19, 05:30 PM

It's literally the first of their two "core goals" so... good luck with that I guess.

Leaving the old license as a viable avenue for new content, violates both "core goals."

That's the whole point--what they have identified as 'core goals' are in competition with the best way to have a healthy TTRPG community. It's not a question of 'what we can get them to budge on', it's a question of why have they adopted these as core goals in the first place, given that they must do something bad for the community in order to achieve them?

BRC

2023-01-19, 05:30 PM

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 05:37 PM

I'm no lawyer, but at this point the main point of objection I see is section 6f. It's not clear what termination of a license means (Pulling all product from shelves?), but given that the OGL says you are not allowed to contest WOTC's decision, that's the main red flag. Even if we assume they only use it in good faith, an entire industry being dependent on the Standards department of a single company isn't great.

Yep. Like I said, they lost a customer, all to often, very bad results have come from those who appears to begin with altruistic intentions. My only interest is how something I might post involving OpenD6 or something else will be affected by claims of "similarity."

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-19, 05:37 PM

My guess is things like in the Size Categories table on page 254: Examples: Imp, Sprite, Giant Rat, etc. So you can use the table, but not the Examples column. They definitely need to add clarification here though.

Or the table about multiclassing proficiencies, since they're bound to Licensed Content (the names of the classes and their proficiencies).

Yea, I noticed that too. Lmao. So basically they just took all the crap they can't control anyway and said "here's an olive branch. please like us again".

That has value, but yes. It's a "we're going to carve off the chunks we don't believe we can maintain control of if challenged and promise not to sue about them" olive branch. Which is valuable, but not very valuable.

Snowbluff

2023-01-19, 05:41 PM

That has value, but yes. It's a "we're going to carve off the chunks we don't believe we can maintain control of if challenged and promise not to sue about them" olive branch. Which is valuable, but not very valuable.

It seems to be taking into consideration of the people who said WotC would suddenly because very litigious over the license changing. Instead of the game mechanics being an up-in-the-air legal problem, its simply done away with. I've heard a lot of people say WotC would utterly bury anyone working without their blessing moving forward, so this is likely to assuage that fear.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 05:42 PM

That's the whole point--what they have identified as 'core goals' are in competition with the best way to have a healthy TTRPG community. It's not a question of 'what we can get them to budge on', it's a question of why have they adopted these as core goals in the first place, given that they must do something bad for the community in order to achieve them?

Given that I fundamentally disagree with the bolded premise I don't think there's anywhere for you and I to go on this point.

I'm no lawyer, but at this point the main point of objection I see is section 6f. It's not clear what termination of a license means (Pulling all product from shelves?), but given that the OGL says you are not allowed to contest WOTC's decision, that's the main red flag. Even if we assume they only use it in good faith, an entire industry being dependent on the Standards department of a single company isn't great.

edit-redacted again

Oramac

2023-01-19, 05:43 PM

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 05:49 PM

You can contest their decision, just not via jury trial specifically (9g).

A distinction without a difference. If the clause is enforceable, the problem we will dance around here, or whether it is narrowly to the pulling of a license or more broadly to publicalky defamatory statements that might be made in the process, since these things are far too often done publically.

But I would say it is foolish to sign away ones rights in this manner, and highly suspect thing to insert into a licensing agreement.

Ashtagon

2023-01-19, 05:49 PM

When we discuss this OGL and how we can offer constructive feedback, we should remember something important:

For the community (fan writers, 3PPs) to pick up on this licence, it has to be better than both the to-be-made ORC licence and the "you can't copyright game rules" no-licence. An improved version of this draft isn't competing with itself, or the 1.1 "leaked draft", but with those first two options. A revised 1.2 draft can be better than the initial 1.2 draft, and still be immeasurably worse than the ORC licence or the "no-licence".

verbatim

2023-01-19, 05:50 PM

Yea, I noticed that too. Lmao. So basically they just took all the crap they can't control anyway and said "here's an olive branch. please like us again".

I feel like a smarter company would have loaded up a bunch of stuff they didn't really need/want in the original draft so that they could give the community the impression of having defeated the Big Bad Dragon that is capitalism who hath been bullied into removing all the extra stuff wotc didn't really care all that much about and couldn't enforce anyways.

This seems a little too scatterbrained and all over the place and also the fact that 1.2 is tripling down on something they will mega lose to Paizo in court over (being able to unauthorize use of the OGL 1.0a for the 3.0 and 5.0 SRD's going forwards) makes me think they didn't think that far ahead.

johnbragg

2023-01-19, 05:51 PM

It says, and I quote "The core D&D mechanics, which are located at pages 56-104, 254-260, and 358-359 of this System Reference Document 5.1 (but not the examples used on those pages)"

What are they defining as the examples that can not be used?

Quick scroll through: the Acolyte background(60-61), the Grappler feat (76) are fully described, as an example of "Background" and "Feat". Magic Missile, Bless and Cure Wounds are mentioned in the section on how spells and spellcasting work (100-104

I'd want to know if Wizards considers the 5e skills described under the abilities (80-82) to be examples or mechanics.

This is beyond the fact, and I'll say it loud for the people in the back, YOU CAN'T COPYRIGHT GAME MECHANICS!

Which is probably why their putting the Cold damage type under CC, and the Cone of Cold spell under the new OGL.
If this is really about protecting the brand / industry from racial and other culture war controversies, it makes sense to put in various degrees of separation.
The stuff that's Creative Commons probably isn't copyrightable (but you never know until the court decision comes down--maybe a new generation of judges decides that 50-200 pages of copy-and-pasted rules text and spell descriptions from old TSR books DOES constitute copyright infringement by the OSR guys), so if the Lamentations of the Flame PRincess guys want to do that, WOTC can't stop them, but they can point and say "Not *OUR* OGL, that's Creative Commons out of our control."

I'm also a little concerned how section 3 interacts with the the part of the termination clause that allows them to cancel your access to the License if you challenge their copyright on Their Licensed Content.

It means that if you decide to sue them for infringement, they're going to war, and revoking whatever shield the OGL provides.

Atranen

2023-01-19, 05:55 PM

Given that I fundamentally disagree with the bolded premise I don't think there's anywhere for you and I to go on this point.

I'm curious about why you disagree with the bolded premise. Thus far, I've seen arguments that WoTC has the right to make changes and that it makes business sense for them to make changes. But I haven't seen any reason why WoTC constructing a walled garden is good for the TTRPG community or beneficial to me as a TTRPG player.

BRC

2023-01-19, 05:57 PM

You can contest their decision, just not via jury trial specifically (9g).
6f)
We have the sole right to decide what conduct or content is hateful, and you
covenant that you will not contest any such determination via any suit or other legal action

So I guess you can contest it by starting a twitter poll or whatever.

I'm not saying WOTC intends to do this, but theoretically lets say you publish a module called "Rise of the Dark Cult" and it becomes very successful.

WOTC could say "Oh, your module about an evil cult is Harmful because it says sometimes it's okay to discriminate against people for their religion. We are terminating your license and shutting you down", your book is now Unlicensed, which I guess means you need to pull it from the shelves and can't make any money from it, even if you already spent money printing physical copies.

You have no legal recourse to contest that decision.

Also, the clause includes conduct, not just content. So your module might be fine, but WOTC could pull up a 10 year old tweet from one of your playtesters where they respond "Yum Yum Dead Cows" when a vegan tries to tell them about plant-based alternatives to meat and use that as an excuse to spike your license for "Harassment".

Edit: Also, it's not like theres any guidance that WOTC themselves must follow. They could shut down "Rise of the Dark Cult", then turn around and publish "War Against the Goblins! A Module where the very forces that define "Good" in the universe condone the wholesale slaughter of every goblin you can find!"

Rynjin

2023-01-19, 06:11 PM

I'm curious about why you disagree with the bolded premise. Thus far, I've seen arguments that WoTC has the right to make changes and that it makes business sense for them to make changes. But I haven't seen any reason why WoTC constructing a walled garden is good for the TTRPG community or beneficial to me as a TTRPG player.

Based on an unrelated discussion from another thread, Psyren appears to believe that what is good for Wizards is good for TTRPGs as a whole, and vice versa. The new OGL is good for Wizards, and thus D&D, and thus good for the community.

This is something there is probably no way to reconcile. He can feel free to correct me, but this is what I THINK his position was on the matter.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 06:12 PM

6f)
We have the sole right to decide what conduct or content is hateful, and you
covenant that you will not contest any such determination via any suit or other legal action

So I guess you can contest it by starting a twitter poll or whatever.

I'm not saying WOTC intends to do this, but theoretically lets say you publish a module called "Rise of the Dark Cult" and it becomes very successful.

WOTC could say "Oh, your module about an evil cult is Harmful because it says sometimes it's okay to discriminate against people for their religion. We are terminating your license and shutting you down", your book is now Unlicensed, which I guess means you need to pull it from the shelves and can't make any money from it, even if you already spent money printing physical copies.

You have no legal recourse to contest that decision.

Also, the clause includes conduct, not just content. So your module might be fine, but WOTC could pull up a 10 year old tweet from one of your playtesters where they respond "Yum Yum Dead Cows" when a vegan tries to tell them about plant-based alternatives to meat and use that as an excuse to spike your license for "Harassment".

Edit: Also, it's not like theres any guidance that WOTC themselves must follow. They could shut down "Rise of the Dark Cult", then turn around and publish "War Against the Goblins! A Module where the very forces that define "Good" in the universe condone the wholesale slaughter of every goblin you can find!"

Well to be fair, this draws them into conflicts corporations ought to stay out of. But the question and it isn't one for the boards, is whether this is a legally enforceable clause. It is good reason to boycott WOTC IMO, as.I have a hard time construing the intent of this in any positive light, but let's not work on he assumption that it will be something they can act upon.

Blackdrop

2023-01-19, 06:13 PM

Saintheart

2023-01-19, 06:22 PM

Well to be fair, this draws them into conflicts corporations ought to stay out of. But the question and it isn't one for the boards, is whether this is a legally enforceable clause. It is good reason to boycott WOTC IMO, as.I have a hard time construing the intent of this in any positive light, but let's not work on he assumption that it will be something they can act upon.

I am a lawyer, but IP and serious contract law is not my specialty. Not providing legal advice here, and if you did use legal advice from a forum post you're in deeper trouble than I thought.

That clause - plus outright 'deactivation' of 1.0a - means it's still a hard no from me. It is still an attempt primarily to eliminate competition from other, less-known, and in some cases better products, an anticompetitive wolf disguised as a sheep wringing its hands (hooves) about social media criticism.

If WOTC decides they don't like your product issued under the OGL 1.2, they can kill it under this clause. No recourse, no definitions of terms, no fair or equal footing to contest it. WOTC defines what the words mean, just like Humpty Dumpty with Alice. "BuT yoU CaN ALWays TAke It TO CouRT!" Sure. Where WOTC has already primarily written the rules of that combat to favour them by the wording of the licence. And you have to not only get around their definition of the terms, but the clause in the contract that says you can't sue them to contest it. Yeah. Sure. Atticus Finch lives.

It's now a decision for D&D players and weak DMs whether they can accept a monopolistic approach to the market disguised as a concern about moral panics. Simple as that.

Oramac

2023-01-19, 06:24 PM

6f)
We have the sole right to decide what conduct or content is hateful, and you
covenant that you will not contest any such determination via any suit or other legal action

So I guess you can contest it by starting a twitter poll or whatever.

snip for space

Well said. I agree wholeheartedly. Section 6f honestly needs a complete rewrite. Will it get one? Unlikely. But it needs it.

BRC

2023-01-19, 06:25 PM

Oramac

2023-01-19, 06:26 PM

no definitions of terms

I'm no lawyer. I admit that. But I have had a hand in state level legislation, and this part specifically screams at me in big red letters.

Blackdrop

2023-01-19, 06:27 PM

I am a lawyer, but IP and serious contract law is not my specialty. Not providing legal advice here, and if you did use legal advice from a forum post you're in deeper trouble than I thought.

That clause - plus outright 'deactivation' of 1.0a - means it's still a hard no from me. It is still an attempt primarily to eliminate competition from other, less-known, and in some cases better products, an anticompetitive wolf disguised as a sheep wringing its hands (hooves) about social media criticism.

If WOTC decides they don't like your product issued under the OGL 1.2, they can kill it under this clause. No recourse, no definitions of terms, no fair or equal footing to contest it. WOTC defines what the words mean, just like Humpty Dumpty with Alice. "BuT yoU CaN ALWays TAke It TO CouRT!" Sure. Where WOTC has already primarily written the rules of that combat to favour them by the wording of the licence. Yeah. Sure.

It's now a decision for D&D players and weak DMs whether they can accept a monopolistic approach to the market disguised as a concern about moral panics. Simple as that.

Agree 110%. My only issue with your post is that a wolf disguised as a sheep would not ring their hand or hooves. They be wringing their paws. Their greedy, anticompetitive paws.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 06:32 PM

I am a lawyer, but IP and serious contract law is not my specialty. Not providing legal advice here, and if you did use legal advice from a forum post you're in deeper trouble than I thought.

That clause - plus outright 'deactivation' of 1.0a - means it's still a hard no from me. It is still an attempt primarily to eliminate competition from other, less-known, and in some cases better products, an anticompetitive wolf disguised as a sheep wringing its hands (hooves) about social media criticism.

If WOTC decides they don't like your product issued under the OGL 1.2, they can kill it under this clause. No recourse, no definitions of terms, no fair or equal footing to contest it. WOTC defines what the words mean, just like Humpty Dumpty with Alice. "BuT yoU CaN ALWays TAke It TO CouRT!" Sure. Where WOTC has already primarily written the rules of that combat to favour them by the wording of the licence. And you have to not only get around their definition of the terms, but the clause in the contract that says you can't sue them to contest it. Yeah. Sure. Atticus Finch lives.

It's now a decision for D&D players and weak DMs whether they can accept a monopolistic approach to the market disguised as a concern about moral panics. Simple as that.

No advise from threads, just something a lawyer and I discussed in relationship to an unrelated matter.

And yes, it is grounds to reject WOTC products, there we agree. As I noted, my concerns would be claims of violations based on dimilarities, because you know, I used the word "orc" for something inspired (but not fully developed from) ancient Minoan and Myconean culture, and therefore I must be violating their IP
even though I'd never touch DnD after this. You and I are in substantial agreement.

Saintheart

2023-01-19, 06:34 PM

I mean the positive light is that they want to protect the health of the brand by having a method of excluding offensive or hurtful content.

I would suggest the health of a brand depends rather more substantially on something other than social media campaigns against things people don't like, or on being tarred with bad products from bad people who don't work for them.

Case in point being the Book of Erotic Fantasy. Was originally to be published under the d20 trademark from c. 2000. The d20 trademark also got amended to include a "community decency" wordology, and WOTC used that to pull the licence for that product. It was because the OGL existed that the product still was published. I didn't see the towers of WOTC come crashing down because of it; by early 2000s standards the book was an eyebrow-raiser at least. (Although on a cold read these days, it's almost middle of the road if you exclude some of the interior art. It's kind of sad the book's acknowledgements contained more names of models than playtesters, but oh well.)

Saintheart

2023-01-19, 06:37 PM

No advise from threads, just something a lawyer and I discussed in relationship to an unrelated matter.

And yes, it is grounds to reject WOTC products, there we agree. As I noted, my concerns would be claims of violations based on dimilarities, because you know, I used the word "orc" for something inspired (but not fully developed from) ancient Minoan and Myconean culture, and therefore I must be violating their IP
even though I'd never touch DnD after this. You and I are in substantial agreement.

(For avoidance of doubt: my use of the word "you" was a reference to people in general, not you as in you personally. :D )

I hate words. :D

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-19, 06:44 PM

One note--

I didn't see any clause in there on a quick readthrough that lets you sublicense or declare your content to be available for others to use under that same license. There are only 4 types:
1) CC stuff (explicitly deliniated)
2) Their Licensed Stuff (anything else from the SRD)
3) Your Licensed Stuff (anything you make under the license)
4) Unlicensed Stuff (everything else of theirs).

But in order to be category 3, it must include Their Licensed Stuff and Your Licensed Stuff. Not "Someone else who accepted this license's Licensed Stuff, even if they said it was under the license."

This doesn't mean that you can't let someone else use your stuff...but you can only let them use the stuff that doesn't count as Your Licensed Stuff. Because they can't inherit the OGL status from you, they have to get it separately.

Maybe I'm not reading it correctly? But that's a real bummer, since then you can't freely use other people's OGL stuff, whereas before they could declare some of it Open Gaming Content which was added to the OGL pool alongside the SRD material, etc. Now you have (if I'm reading that correctly) to do a separate license dance for that stuff.

Blackdrop

2023-01-19, 06:53 PM

Psyren

2023-01-19, 07:03 PM

I'm curious about why you disagree with the bolded premise. Thus far, I've seen arguments that WoTC has the right to make changes and that it makes business sense for them to make changes. But I haven't seen any reason why WoTC constructing a walled garden is good for the TTRPG community or beneficial to me as a TTRPG player.

Speaking for myself, (without anyone putting words in my mouth):

As with the previous OGL, the current one include Wizards of the Coast's name. That means anyone releasing products under it will be including the license, and WotC's name, in their product. Simply put, WotC has the right to control which books reference their company by name. This clause gives them a means of defense if a reprehensible work does so. That's beneficial to any creator who is offering a license, including ORC if it were to somehow end up with Paizo's name at the top, not just WotC.

Atranen

2023-01-19, 07:09 PM

Based on an unrelated discussion from another thread, Psyren appears to believe that what is good for Wizards is good for TTRPGs as a whole, and vice versa. The new OGL is good for Wizards, and thus D&D, and thus good for the community.

This is something there is probably no way to reconcile. He can feel free to correct me, but this is what I THINK his position was on the matter.

Based on this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?653094-So-uh-whens-the-next-UA) Psyren seems to be operating under the bizarre belief that TTRPG community and WotC are one and the same. Why he thinks that it is the bigger question.

Edit: Damnit Rynjin *fist shake*

Ah. Well if one believed WoTC making more money would be good for TTRPGs, and I agree we're not going to progress. But Psyren can correct me if I'm wrong about that.

EDIT: Sorry Psyren, I missed your post.

Speaking for myself, (without anyone putting words in my mouth):

As with the previous OGL, the current one include Wizards of the Coast's name. That means anyone releasing products under it will be including the license, and WotC's name, in their product. Simply put, WotC has the right to control which books reference their company by name. This clause gives them a means of defense if a reprehensible work does so. That's beneficial to any creator who is offering a license, including ORC if it were to somehow end up with Paizo's name at the top, not just WotC.

No dispute here, I understand why they're doing it and why it makes sense from WoTC's perspective. But this doesn't address my question--how is that good for the TTRPG community? How is that good for me as a TTRPG player? How is it good for anyone other than WoTC?

END EDIT

Ironically, there is an angle for 'this is good for the community'; it's that the community to a large extent leaves WoTC, competing products spring up, and D&D is no longer the only game in town (or overwhelmingly most common game, if you have to be literal). We get more experimentation with mechanics, some new innovations, and everyone wins.

But in that case the community would be providing the win, not WoTC.

It's now a decision for D&D players and weak DMs whether they can accept a monopolistic approach to the market disguised as a concern about moral panics. Simple as that.

Yeah, the wording of that section is incredibly hostile to creators. Suppose some version of their Spelljammer issue happened with a 3PP. In WoTC's case, they published an errata and apology online, and that was that. But if a 3PP does the same...maybe their work never sees the light of day again. Which is just to say, the kind of mistakes that run afoul of the clause are easy to make, even for the company defining the terms.

Lemmy

2023-01-19, 07:10 PM

I am a lawyer, but IP and serious contract law is not my specialty. Not providing legal advice here, and if you did use legal advice from a forum post you're in deeper trouble than I thought.

That clause - plus outright 'deactivation' of 1.0a - means it's still a hard no from me. It is still an attempt primarily to eliminate competition from other, less-known, and in some cases better products, an anticompetitive wolf disguised as a sheep wringing its hands (hooves) about social media criticism.

If WOTC decides they don't like your product issued under the OGL 1.2, they can kill it under this clause. No recourse, no definitions of terms, no fair or equal footing to contest it. WOTC defines what the words mean, just like Humpty Dumpty with Alice. "BuT yoU CaN ALWays TAke It TO CouRT!" Sure. Where WOTC has already primarily written the rules of that combat to favour them by the wording of the licence. And you have to not only get around their definition of the terms, but the clause in the contract that says you can't sue them to contest it. Yeah. Sure. Atticus Finch lives.

It's now a decision for D&D players and weak DMs whether they can accept a monopolistic approach to the market disguised as a concern about moral panics. Simple as that.
Thank you for wording this far better than I ever could!

I see no significant improvements in 1.2. It's an "improvement" of being stabbed in the back 21 times instead of 24 times... Does it even matter??

Blackdrop

2023-01-19, 07:15 PM

It might be the sleep deprivation talking but what does disagreeing with this bolded:

That's the whole point--what they have identified as 'core goals' are in competition with the best way to have a healthy TTRPG community. It's not a question of 'what we can get them to budge on', it's a question of why have they adopted these as core goals in the first place, given that they must do something bad for the community in order to achieve them?

Have to do with this:

Speaking for myself, (without anyone putting words in my mouth):

As with the previous OGL, the current one include Wizards of the Coast's name. That means anyone releasing products under it will be including the license, and WotC's name, in their product. Simply put, WotC has the right to control which books reference their company by name. This clause gives them a means of defense if a reprehensible work does so. That's beneficial to any creator who is offering a license, including ORC if it were to somehow end up with Paizo's name at the top, not just WotC.

Unless you're trying to argue that WotC deciding that it gets to be S&P for everyone who uses the OGL 1.2 is somehow good for the health of TTRPG community at large?
Which, come to think of it, does kinda it fit with the idea that WotC=the TTRPG community.

Unoriginal

2023-01-19, 07:15 PM

Simply put, WotC has the right to control which books reference their company by name.

No they don't.

There is no right and no legal basis to control anyone or anything referencing a company or even a person by name.

Making claim about said company or person? Sure, there are legal basis.

But referencing or mentioning? Nothing.

jjordan

2023-01-19, 07:15 PM

OldTrees1

2023-01-19, 07:18 PM

Actually the current SRD is 5.1.

My main issue is 9(d) where Wizards has the express right to void the license whenever, for any or no reason.

Ah, I'd not realized that about the current SRD.

As to 9(d), my understanding is that that's a bog-standard clause. It only triggers when a part of it is struck down by the courts and reserves the right to either cut that part out and enforce the rest or drop the whole thing (for a rewrite). That sort of clause is everywhere in most contracts so you don't get to defeat the whole thing by finding a hole in one little bit. Or if you can cut out the heart, you can't wear it as a skin-suit.

9(d) might be standard but it is abusable with 7(a). Just modify a dynamic section to be unenforceable and then revoke the entire license.

6(f) allows it to be revoked and allows it to be abused.
9(d) allows it to be revoked.
7(a) is abusable*
* I see a code injection abuse, I don't know if that would hold up in court or if it would trigger 9(d).
3 + 9(e) could be reasonable or could be an exploit to limit accountability for plagiarism (and make plagiarism turn a profit).
Edit: On a reread, 3 is reasonable. I thought it prevented punitive damages.

NichG

2023-01-19, 07:19 PM

The whole thing leading to conflating 'who owns the material being licensed' and 'who owns the concept of this license' (and by extension having this really artificial 'if person A is going to let person B use something they made, WotC is a concerned party because person A is using a license written first by WotC') is really a mess. Even some other license where some party tries to retain a sense of ownership over the license text itself seems vulnerable to conflicts of interest, especially when that owning company is a TTRPG company.

Like, if I were making something that I had sole ownership of, choosing to license that out as OGL or even ORC seems like just giving control to a third party who otherwise wouldn't be a stakeholder at all. It seems foolish to do that rather than, say, just entering the work into public domain or using one of the generic CC licenses.

White Blade

2023-01-19, 07:20 PM

I think a different part of the hateful conduct rule’s problems is that WotC’s standards for immorality are obscure even to WotC. The rewriting of the Hadozee show that WotC can believe it is acting in good faith and doing diligence and then be persuaded (totally voluntarily) to take down the content. That’s not to say the rewrite was bad, but it is saying it can just not achieve it’s own moral standard by accident. What sort of person wants to be judged by someone who is not even aware of their own rules?

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 07:22 PM

Kane0

2023-01-19, 07:22 PM

And after all the discussion... nothing will really change.

The very fact that it was caught, raised and pushed on is itself noteworthy, even if its only a footnote in the history.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 07:23 PM

It might be the sleep deprivation talking but what does disagreeing with this bolded:

Have to do with this:

We were explicitly talking about WotC's "core goals." (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1428-a-working-conversation-about-the-open-game-license) Could you please stop dragging in baggage from completely different threads where I wasn't even discussing the OGL?

Unoriginal

2023-01-19, 07:25 PM

Psyren

2023-01-19, 07:30 PM

The very fact that it was caught, raised and pushed on is itself noteworthy, even if its only a footnote in the history.

I can agree with that. And we have more pushback yet. I could see the "you agree not to sue" clause in 6f attracting some ire.

No they don't.

There is no right and no legal basis to control anyone or anything referencing a company or even a person by name.

Making claim about said company or person? Sure, there are legal basis.

But referencing or mentioning? Nothing.

They're not just idly referring to them though, they're actively using their license. I can see that being too close to tacit approval for WotC. You're always free to release your content without it.

I'm going to be very amused if/when ORC includes a similar clause.

Kane0

2023-01-19, 07:35 PM

I can agree with that. And we have more pushback yet. I could see the "you agree not to sue" clause in 6f attracting some ire.

Yeah I can definitely imagine a large portion of people responding with a sound 'I agree to no such thing!'

Blackdrop

2023-01-19, 07:40 PM

We were explicitly talking about WotC's "core goals." (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1428-a-working-conversation-about-the-open-game-license) Could you please stop dragging in baggage from completely different threads where I wasn't even discussing the OGL?

Let's try this again.

What does disagreeing with this:

...what they have identified as 'core goals' are in competition with the best way to have a healthy TTRPG community...

Have to do with them having unilateral control over what is offensive or hateful?

And what you refer to as "baggage" I'm trying to use as "context", 'cuz I genuinely have no idea what your point is supposed to be.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 07:41 PM

They're not just idly referring to them though, they're actively using their license. I can see that being too close to tacit approval for WotC. You're always free to release your content without it.

Yes but as the license is often posted in books not because WOTC content is used, but to avoid frivolous suits based on "similarities" it does present a problem. The real problem isn't for people creating an overt DnD setting. "It is that WOTC could say your orcs are similar to ours so you will pull your product line or we will sue you." You really can't use 1.2 for that type of protection from the frivolous suits that will I expect will follow.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 07:43 PM

Let's try this again.

What does disagreeing with this:

Have to do with them having unilateral control over what is offensive or hateful?

If you don't want them to define it, then who?

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-19, 07:45 PM

If you don't want them to define it, then who?

I do want them to define it. But up front, in clear terms they can be held to. Not as an amorphous "things we don't like" clause.

Kane0

2023-01-19, 07:52 PM

What is considered hateful or offensive is much like what is considered politically correct, its not universally understood and is subject to change over time. Leaving that open to interpretation is going to lead to problems even before you account for a single entity determining it.

Atranen

2023-01-19, 07:53 PM

If you don't want them to define it, then who?

They can define it clearly, i.e. in a way where a 3PP can be sure prior to publication that their work will not be invalidated, or they can give up defining it. Given the topic in question, I don't think a clear enough definition is possible.

And I agree with Blackdrop that I don't see how this relates to the question of whether a walled garden is best for the TTRPG community.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 07:53 PM

I do want them to define it. But up front, in clear terms they can be held to. Not as an amorphous "things we don't like" clause.

Yep. Particularly when done publically.

Kane

What is considered hateful or offensive is much like what is considered politically correct, its not universally understood and is subject to change over time. Leaving that open to interpretation is going to lead to problems even before you account for a single entity determining it.

That is the nature of debates outside of the board, but I would suggest this is the general problem of the day, different worldviews exist within the same society. But in any kind of license or contract, the terms need to be concrete rather than fuzzy. If they said no intentional disparagement of real world living groups, fine but if someone misunderstands your literary sources for something and applies it to a living group, now we have a problem, because under these types of areas where the readers response is more important than the creator's intentions, we have crossed several perilous straits, since one can never anticipate how someone will eisegete something into your work at some point in the future.

Blackdrop

2023-01-19, 07:54 PM

If you don't want them to define it, then who?

Oh no no no, we're not playing this game.

Please tell me why WotC having unilateral control to define what is offensive or hateful good for the health of the TTRPG community?

Psyren

2023-01-19, 08:04 PM

I do want them to define it. But up front, in clear terms they can be held to. Not as an amorphous "things we don't like" clause.

They can define it clearly, i.e. in a way where a 3PP can be sure prior to publication that their work will not be invalidated, or they can give up defining it.

Language and culture change over time. Locking in a specific definition now is not helpful.

And I agree with Blackdrop that I don't see how this relates to the question of whether a walled garden is best for the TTRPG community.

As a core goal, the alternative is no license at all. You could hold out hope that "ORC" does not include a similar clause I suppose, but given that Paizo's compatibility license (https://paizo.com/pathfinder/compatibility) includes a similar provision, and that inclusivity and having the means to oppose being associated with offensive content is one of the key areas where Paizo and WotC share common ground, I think your chances are slim.

Oh no no no, we're not playing this game.

Please tell me why WotC having unilateral control to define what is offensive or hateful good for the health of the TTRPG community?

There is no "game." It's the best option and you have no better alternative.

Idkwhatmyscreen

2023-01-19, 08:06 PM

If you don't want them to define it, then who?

Last time I checked the community already does a decent job of policing this sort of thing. Like if someone does publish a work that is morally objectionable, word will spread via review that the content is morally objectionable.

It is impossible to do them via Kickstarter, Amazon, DriveThru RGP, etc.

I suppose that you can make them for unofficial distribution, but then the OGL 1.2 doesn't apply them anyway.

Atranen

2023-01-19, 08:12 PM

Language and culture change over time. Locking in a specific definition now is not helpful.

Agreed.

As a core goal, the alternative is no license at all. You could hold out hope that "ORC" does not include a similar clause I suppose, but given that Paizo's compatibility license (https://paizo.com/pathfinder/compatibility) includes a similar provision, and that inclusivity and having the means to oppose being associated with offensive content is one of the key areas where Paizo and WotC share common ground, I think your chances are slim.

Which provision in Paizo's license do you consider similar?

You've lost me here. I don't understand your argument or why you think having the clause is a good thing. The right response to me seems to be: "given that effectively realizing this 'core goal' through the license will restrict 3PP in a way that is unacceptable, we will not use the license to do so". That's all. It doesn't mean sacrificing inclusivity as a 'core goal'.

There is no "game." It's the best option and you have no better alternative.

The best option to me seems to let the players decide what content is and is not acceptable, rather than putting that power in the hands of WoTC. This method has had great success, for example with the Hadozee. The community has proven themselves to be better judges than WoTC on this issue.

PhoenixPhyre

2023-01-19, 08:17 PM

The current version of that clause is identical in effect to "we reserve the right to cancel your license at any time for any reason without warning, and you have no recourse. But trust us, we'll only do it if we think you're writing Bad Things. No, we won't define those. And if we screw up...yeah, you're still SoL. But trust us." Which is not an acceptable license clause in any agreement, at least for me. There can be no meeting of the minds if I don't know what (at least with reasonable certainty) will trigger the end of the license. Which I can't, under those terms.

And WotC has completely forfeited any trust anyone had in them as good stewards or judges of what is right or wrong. At least in my eyes.

ToranIronfinder

2023-01-19, 08:19 PM

Language and culture change over time. Locking in a specific definition now is not helpful.

And this changes the need to lock down a specific definition why, precisely? This assumes far too much that should not be. Some specific points might require vague, this is entirely too vague, but I think at core it needs to say "intentionally . . . " so we are dealing with authorial intent rather than reader responses. Also necessary and words like "deliberately provokes" "racial slurs" etc. You can have something that describes categories wothout being this vague.

And how about, letting a court decide when an impasse occurs? Afterall if you say a person is X you have the epistemic responsibility to prove it, he or she does not have the duty to disprove it, he or she logically must only demonsteate you have not proven your case.

Psyren

2023-01-19, 08:23 PM

Which provision in Paizo's license do you consider similar?

"You must use your best efforts to preserve the high standard of our trademarks. You may not use this License for material that the general public would classify as "adult content," offensive, or inappropriate for minors."

And for good measure:

"We can terminate this License at any time, at our sole discretion."

You can certainly argue with them about whether "the general public would classify" but ultimately, the determination that you've failed to comply and the decision to revoke is theirs. And as noted in the second quote, they don't even need the first.

You've lost me here. I don't understand your argument or why you think having the clause is a good thing. The right response to me seems to be: "given that effectively realizing this 'core goal' through the license will restrict 3PP in a way that is unacceptable, we will not use the license to do so". That's all. It doesn't mean sacrificing inclusivity as a 'core goal'.

But it's not unacceptable. Not for them.

The best option to me seems to let the players decide what content is and is not acceptable, rather than putting that power in the hands of WoTC. This method has had great success, for example with the Hadozee. The community has proven themselves to be better judges than WoTC on this issue.

The players had no actual power in that instance (save the last resort of voting with their wallets) - they brought something to WotC's attention and WotC decided to do something about it. WotC were the ones who got to choose whether and when to errata the books, update people's DDB instances, what change was appropriate etc.

Blackdrop

2023-01-19, 08:27 PM

There is no "game." It's the best option and you have no better alternative.

Now see, providing the TTRPG/D&D community with no alternative, a literal "our way or the high-way", doesn't seem terribly healthy.

Also!

That's not really answer to my question! So, once more unto the breach dear friends:

Please tell me why WotC having unilateral control to define what is offensive or hateful good for the health of the TTRPG community?

EggKookoo

2023-01-19, 08:36 PM

SpyOne

2023-01-19, 08:39 PM

And after all the discussion... nothing will really change. WotC will lose some market share and a degree of control, mostly because this flap has raised the question of whether or not the OGL is even needed except in a few cases and there will be a couple of lawsuits that determine the exact boundaries of the IP claim (can they claim mechanics?). But they'll damage control and the vast majority of the players will go back to playing D&D because they love the IP and the game itself. It's the game everyone uses to date themselves. I've been playing since version X. They aren't going anywhere. Ten years from now they'll be saying "I survived OGL".

Actually there is potential for a significant change, although whether for good or ill is up for debate.
An investment group with several percent of Hasbro stock has been pushing to make WotC a separate company, on the grounds that such a move would increase value for the shareholders. Their position is that the value of an independent WotC would be similar to the current value of Hasbro, so being part of Hasbro is clearly dragging WotC's value down.
In response, Hasbro executives have been asked by shareholders what they are doing to increase the value of WotC, and this may well be the source for some of their ... questionable recent decisions.

If Hasbro executives did something that significantly harmed the value of WotC, that would provide ammunition to those arguing that the responsibility to maximize value for shareholders requires that they make WotC a separate company.

Whether that would prove to be good or bad for gaming in general and/or D&D specifically is something I am not remotely qualified to guess at. But it would definitely be a change.

Atranen

2023-01-19, 08:40 PM

"You must use your best efforts to preserve the high standard of our trademarks. You may not use this License for material that the general public would classify as "adult content," offensive, or inappropriate for minors."

So to compare:

No Hateful Content or Conduct. You will not include content in Your Licensed Works that is harmful,
discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing, or engage in conduct that is harmful, discriminatory, illegal,
obscene, or harassing. We have the sole right to decide what conduct or content is hateful, and you
covenant that you will not contest any such determination via any suit or other legal action.

You must use your best efforts to preserve the high standard of our trademarks. You may not use this License for material that the general public would classify as "adult content," offensive, or inappropriate for minors.

A crucial difference to me seems to be the 'general public would classify as' vs. 'We have the sole right to decide'.

Regarding termination, the PF2e license seems to be for licensed works that bear the compatibility logo and font etc. As far as I'm aware (although I don't play PF2e), you can still publish PF2e content under the OGL as long as you don't use the compatibility logo and font etc. Terminating this kind of license is a different beast than terminating the OGL wholesale.

But it's not unacceptable. Not for them.

It may be acceptable to WoTC that 3PP get a raw deal. But that's entirely separate from the question of whether it's good for the game or not. Given the negative effects on the game, WoTC should consider it unacceptable.

The players had no actual power in that instance (save the last resort of voting with their wallets) - they brought something to WotC's attention and WotC decided to do something about it. WotC were the ones who got to choose whether and when to errata the books, update people's DDB instances, what change was appropriate etc.

As we've seen, public pressure and voting with your wallet are very effective means of making producers comply with the community's wishes. The community led the charge, and WoTC responded.

So why not trust the community to lead the way in the future?

ProsecutorGodot

2023-01-19, 08:40 PM

Okay, so... (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1432-starting-the-ogl-playtest)

I scanned this thread earlier but I might have missed it if this was discussed. Does this update still essentially claim OGL 1.0 is deauthorized for everyone moving forward? Or only if you agree to the new one, be it 1.1, 1.2, or whatever version they'll end up with? I mean that's what it seems like it's saying to me. I just want to make sure I'm not missing something.

It is deauthorized for further use, not for continued use in products that already use it. All published content currently under OGL 1.0a will continue to use it and is under no obligation to update to the new license. New content cannot use 1.0a and as such must agree to 1.2, or whichever number takes its place when its made official.

Brookshw

2023-01-19, 08:40 PM

Am I correct in understanding this only applies to the 5.x SRD and not the 3.x Srd, and if so what happens there as OGL 1.0a is deaithorized?

I'm biting my lip pretty hard while I write this and watch this thread for reasons I'm sure you recognize, my apologies if this answer is (intentionally) vague. The deauthorization clause of 1.2 eliminates the 1.0a license from further use other than through the safe harbor provisions provided in the updated OGL. If there's no such license other than as permitted through the safe harbor provisions, then the use of content that was dependent upon its existence would lose that tie in. The OGL 1.2 is a license, an offer for a contract, you do not need to accept it.

If a mod wanted to clarify what constitutes "legal advice" I'd be much appreciative, its hard not to discuss the details of these clauses without discussing what they mean.

To the discussion of 6(f), WoTC has repeatedly asserted that such protections are a core tenant of this change to the license; in every negotiation you get to a point where the other side simply won't budge, and you have to decide if you want to accept where you landed in that negotiation, or walk away. It seems that 6(f) is such a point. I get it that people may be unhappy, and may decide to walk away (and most certainly will scream into the void that is the internet), but expecting WoTC to clarify it seems futile (and leaving it vague isn't uncommon), at this point it seems that the clause is very much a "take it or leave it".

And WotC has completely forfeited any trust anyone had in them as good stewards or judges of what is right or wrong. At least in my eyes.

Not for nothing, but can you think of an instance where WoTC went after someone's use that you think should have been allowed? Don't forget, they don't need this clause to take action, all they're really doing is putting people on notice.