Official OGL Discussion Thread

[Psyren]

Having just listened to the full quote, it could go either way on whether he meant players or "ranking WotC execs/leads." And, if he's referring to "execs/leads, he obviously doesn't believe that "guys like me can't leave soon enough," or he'd actually take the initiative and leave, being a "guy like him."

1) The question he was answering when this came up makes the context quite clear.

2) Quitting on the spot before your successor is ready is a lousy way to do succession planning or talent development of any kind, especially in a large corporation - and that's putting aside the fact that it wouldn't be his choice anyway, it would be the choice of his boss.

Also this relates pretty directly to the Orion Black stuff I said I wouldn't be talking about so I'll leave it there.

[Just to Browse]

IMO any possible discussion to be had about this particular answer from Brink is only going to be tangentially related to the topic of the thread. It would be better if that discussion branched off into its own thread. When the "discourse" there inevitably spirals out of control, it will be relegated to its own dedicated thread, and this one doesn't have to get locked.

[Witty Username]

LotFP has a Youtube channel where Raggi himself pretty much spells out why a morality clause would be a bad idea, especially given what's happened to his company. Trying to use LotFP's case to justify the existence of a morality clause would be completely backwards.

Sure, a morality clause being a bad idea or reliant on cooperate benevolence and therefore suspect on our end are definitely concerns.

I was more responding to the idea that nothing controversial will never come up, and nothing controversial has ever come up. I could definitely see it happen.

Would that make Wotc in the right, probably not. I personally find that the moral stuff is like alot of Wotc stuff, not necessarily malicious but reaks of incompetence.

Kinda like some of the stuff related to representation in MTG, which tends to come off to me as supportive, and tonedeaf. But that is a whole other topic that probably can't be given a proper discussion here.

[Devils_Advocate]

not necessarily malicious but reaks of incompetence.

They may be evil, but at least they're bad at it.

[Dr.Samurai]

It's ironic that WotC tried to use equality and inclusivity as a smoke-screen to their{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} actions, and then, Brinks, on camera, says that people like him (refering to white men) "can't leave soon enough".

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Case in point. Who is going to take anyone seriously that says something like that? Further, who is going to cede authority on what is "right and wrong" to someone that says something like that?

People like him can't leave soon enough? What a nonsensical, unscientific, unethical, immoral, inane, and banal platitude to make to... who? People that think only people that look a certain way should be making decisions about role-playing games?

It is an absolutely ABSURD time we live in. The pendulum can't swing back to sanity fast enough.

[Tanarii]

Respect to the interviewers, those were good questions firmly applied.

The little I was willing to watch, I felt like he was getting a little soft-balled by someone that doesn't understand the way corporations work, so wasn't able to properly call him out on many of his claims.

Otoh I didn't watch the entire thing so it's possible I missed some of the hard hitting questions.

Ultimately my opinion was not changed by this interview. It could have improved/decreased it further but the mixed outcomes were a wash.

My opinion of this Tasha-era management and design teams at WotC was unlikely to be changed anyway. I'm more interested in if they can save D&Done with the community or not. Because right now anger at WotC is still very strong. It's even affecting MtG. They must be hemorrhaging money right now. It's a golden opportunity to launch non-D&D campaigns.

Although personally I'd still like to run BECMI more than anything else.

[Psyren]

Kyle Brink did a second interview, this time with the Mastering Dungeons channel. As before, I've pulled out questions and timestamps for those who don't want to sit through the whole thing.

There was some new information with this one that I'll go over after the spoiler.

Spoiler: Timestamped Questions

Show

• (1:35) How did you get started with D&D?
• (3:22) Do you have a favorite setting?
• (3:57) Favorite 3rd-Party product?
• (4:24) What was your role at WotC before becoming executive director of D&D? (Joined 2 years ago as an Operations Director)
• (6:06) How many people are on the team and how are they organized?
• (6:57) How do you help everyone come together on such a large team so that even new designers have a voice?
• (8:41) For designers in the past who have left WotC frustrated, do you feel like the issues that contributed to that have been corrected / improved?
• (10:24) Do you have equity/diversity targets so your team is representative of the playerbase?
• (13:06) Who do you report to?
• (13:41) Do you get to meet with the C-Suite and do they hear your concerns?
• (13:53) Do you feel you have enough visibility into what WotC and Hasbro are planning at the corporate level, and do they have enough visibility into the D&D team?
• (15:33) The design team feels separate from the digital side nowadays with DnDBeyond. Where is that line between the two teams drawn? What about the incorporation of what used to be a variety of content sources (website blogs, discord posts, twitter threads) into DnDBeyond?
• (17:32) How much can the DnDBeyond team affect new products from the D&D Game Studio, and how are disconnects between the two resolved?
• (19:18) Changing the OGL was a surprise to the community, was it also a surprise to your team?
• (20:38) You mentioned this has been in the works for quite sometime, did no one speak up to warn about the kinds of things that might happen?
• (21:50) What might a large company create with the OGL that WotC would have seen as a problem? Can you give an example?
• (23:58) Were the royalties seen more as a growth cap for creators, or a deterrent for large companies?
• (25:55) Are royalties now dead?
• (26:59) Another concern was hateful content. The biggest examples of that recently have unfortunately been from WotC themselves, same with NFTs and Hasbro. What is the community failing to understand related to what WotC wanted to do with content protection?
• (29:38) WotC shied away from content standards in the past, Adventurer’s League was going to have one and now it has none, what’s WotC’s strategy towards content protection going forward?
• (31:12) Wanted to ask about Share-Alike; the OGL drafts that were shared didn’t seem to contain Share-Alike, and even the CC license WotC chose doesn’t have that. Was that intentional? Does WotC see Share-Alike as a problem?
• (33:19) People want to understand the difference between WotC and Hasbro and the design team, and where the idea of revising the OGL began in earnest, was that at the Hasbro executive level, the WotC executive level, the design team level… where was that happening?
• (34:48) There’s a feeling that if you speak up, it can come at personal cost. Is that something that is happening at WotC and what are you doing to change that?
• (37:17) Did anyone sign the 1.1 Draft?
• (38:10) What about feedback from third parties like Kobold Press? Why did they feel they weren’t being listened to or that their feedback wasn’t being acted on?
• (39:32) 1.2 had a number of improvements but still tried to deauthorize 1.0a. Why was that?
• (42:02) WotC has a reputation for being tough negotiators, do you think that’s been in WotC’s best interests?
• (43:06) WotC asked for a 1.2 survey, then the plug was pulled on the OGL and we went all the way to Creative Commons, how was it that we got to that place?
• (45:17) There were so many goals around royalties, protecting against large companies etc, are all those shelved until later? Is WotC willing to say “we will not deauthorize 1.0a?”
• (47:02) 5.1 is in Creative Commons, that’s great, but we will see it get updated for OneD&D and things like the Artificer?
• (48:15) Will you add the 3.5 SRD to CC?
• (49:04) Concerning VTTs, will WotC continue to work with Roll20 and Foundry? Are they seen as partners or competitors?
• (50:54) What about third-party content inside DnDBeyond and your VTT, will that be possible?
• (52:15) Will the staff get to see the D&D movie early?
• (52:33) Though the movie and tv show are coming - with Hasbro selling off eOne, and WotC scaling back on video games, will D&D meet its growth targets? Will too much emphasis be placed on the VTT to deliver something unprecedented?
• (53:33) Has what has happened with the OGL affected the strategy for OneD&D?
• (54:14) Will OneD&D be the final edition of D&D?
• (55:52) The OneD&D playtest is behind schedule; Will the timeline shift for OneD&D past 2024?
• (56:38) The feedback in the playtest videos seems to be considerably more positive than feedback from reviewers. Is there a disconnect there, and would an independent outside firm helping with survey design and measuring what people like and don’t like help resolve that? (Comparison to DnDNext playtest here as well.)
• (59:47)What has WotC learned from this experience to prevent this from happening in future?

And here is some of the new stuff:

Spoiler: New things from Interview 2

Show

1) Ryan Dancey raised a concern a little while ago about the specific Creative Commons license WotC opted to use for SRD 5.1, because it lacks "share-alike." Kyle Brink touches on that topic directly at around 31:12 and states that they chose the one they chose intentionally, so that creators would have more control over their derivative works. I won't comment on the legalities of which one is better for what purpose, just pointing everyone to that part of the discussion.

2) We learned a bit more about their plans for 1.0a and OneD&D. When asked if 1.0a deauthorization was still on the table, from Kyle's perspective he doesn't see any point in doing so anymore, people will just stick with CC which is a stronger (and more trustworthy, for those who no longer trust WotC) license anyway. And the plan is indeed to eventually release the 3.5 SRD into CC as well, they just want to go through it with a fine-toothed comb first because they don't actually remember what's in it.

3) The concerns they had that led to new OGLs haven't gone away, but the strategy has changed dramatically. They're still worried about offensive content and very large corporations, but not so much so that they want to alienate their vibrant creator community over them. So the strategy now is to use the tools they have with Creative Commons where necessary (e.g. pulling attribution) and otherwise, largely rely on the community to help them police bad actors since the community has shown that we have a pretty large megaphone for such things. And obviously, the stuff that's outside the CC, i.e. their closed content, they can protect via legal means as before. And WotC will still be putting out a Content Policy to let people know what their standards are, even though it won't be legally enforceable the way 1.2 would have been.

4) No one signed the 1.1 draft; the intent was for it to be a click-through type of license when finally released. However, creators they met with were signing other things - like NDAs to see the draft language, or other deals, that he understands would lead people to believe they were signing the OGL itself. It's a moot point in any case as 1.1 is dead.

5) The 5e SRD will get updated in some way - either with brand new rules added, or with "bridging language" (e.g. a supplementary document that says "everywhere in 5.1 that you see "race", we're now using "species" instead.) Either way, whatever SRD OneD&D eventually gets will be compatible with 5.1. No definitive answer on the Artificer being added to the SRD. They do not view OneD&D as the "final edition" of D&D, rather they want D&D to be a game that feels familiar 20 years from now even if it doesn't play exactly the same 20 years from now.

6) The OneD&D Playtest was indeed impacted by all the goings-on, but they're still committed to a 2024 release. We should get more playtest information soon.

Otoh I didn't watch the entire thing so it's possible I missed some of the hard hitting questions.

My post upthread contains every question 3BH asked so you can see for yourself.

[Sparky McDibben]

Kyle Brink did a second interview

This one was more credulous than 3BH, certainly, with functionally zero pushback from Abadia as he ran it. Now, credit where it's due, Abadia got a bunch of info on how WotC's creative process works, and how the development team actually runs. But I think there were several opportunities to press Brink, both on the OGL and on 6th edition.

It was a missed opportunity to engage in...Brinks-manship.

(Yeah, I know that's not what brinksmanship actually is. But c'mon, how often am I going to be able to make that joke?)

[Psyren]

We got much more on the new edition in this one than the last one imo, such as confirmation that they won't be making a separate "closed license" for it, confirmation that they have no plans of shifting the 2024 release date, as well as confirmation that more playtest stuff was coming "real soon."

[Witty Username]

They may be evil, but at least they're bad at it.

Eh, more the opposite, based on some of Wotcs actions they seem to have good intentions, it is just hard to tell from malicious intent as it is sufficiently advanced incompetence. Like say, they probably thought the morality clause was a selling point to us, which would explain why it was abandoned so quickly.
Er, the hypothetical break down
- Royalties, probably seeing what they could get away with
- the closing loopholes for the digital and competition game stuff, probably the primary goal
- morality clause, non-goal, consideration for the community to be more accepting of the changes

The Royalties went first, because they were met with vitriol. Then the morality clause got ire, and since that was the selling point of the contract to us, Wotc panics and drops the whole idea. Even the move to the CC, not what people were asking for, and comes off as an almost comical overreaction.
"You like the OGL and want to keep it, how about we also give you a bunch more access and future proof it from us revoking it."
"Well, the OGL was fine, but that's cool, I guess"

[Saintheart]

This one was more credulous than 3BH, certainly, with functionally zero pushback from Abadia as he ran it. Now, credit where it's due, Abadia got a bunch of info on how WotC's creative process works, and how the development team actually runs. But I think there were several opportunities to press Brink, both on the OGL and on 6th edition.

It was a missed opportunity to engage in...Brinks-manship.

(Yeah, I know that's not what brinksmanship actually is. But c'mon, how often am I going to be able to make that joke?)

I know your pun has a good chance of pushing me to the brink.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Ryan Dancey raised a concern a little while ago about the specific Creative Commons license WotC opted to use for SRD 5.1, because it lacks "share-alike." Kyle Brink touches on that topic directly at around 31:12 and states that they chose the one they chose intentionally, so that creators would have more control over their derivative works. I won't comment on the legalities of which one is better for what purpose, just pointing everyone to that part of the discussion.

I'm actually baffled by Dancey's take here. CC-BY is the most common license used by existing publishers, because it creates a baseline that people can fork from. Once you've released under CC, the cow is out of the barn in terms of creating competition for yourself.

A Sharealike would be fully viral: if you release a book under it, anything which references the license in that book has to also be completely CC-SA. Which means that releasing any material under a sharealike allows anyone to use the entire text of their product--you can't just say "this part of the book is under Sharealike, this part is my stuff that you can't use". It's all or nothing.

[Tanarii]

, based on some of Wotcs actions they seem to have good intentions,

Unfortunately in the real world, actions and results are what matter, not intentions.*

This is something that executives are usually very good at understanding. For all their other flaws. But they're NOT the best at seeing what results certain actions will result in.

*Surprisingly more and more ttrpg morality systems have moved to get this truth back-to-front over time. Probably because it's something young idealists often get wrong.

[Amnestic]

Unfortunately in the real world, actions and results are what matter, not intentions.*

Intentions absolutely matter in "the real world" both on an interpersonal level and when dealing with legal matters. Yes, actions+results are also important, but to say intentions don't matter is just like...wrong.

If I throw a ball with the intention of playing a game with you and you get hurt, that's bad.
If I throw a ball the exact same way with the intention of hurting you and you get hurt, I would expect most people would agree that's worse, even if the end result ("you are hurt") is the same.

[Rynjin]

Intentions absolutely matter in "the real world" both on an interpersonal level and when dealing with legal matters. Yes, actions+results are also important, but to say intentions don't matter is just like...wrong.

If I throw a ball with the intention of playing a game with you and you get hurt, that's bad.
If I throw a ball the exact same way with the intention of hurting you and you get hurt, I would expect most people would agree that's worse, even if the end result ("you are hurt") is the same.

This only really work with low stakes actions.

If instead you throw the ball and someone dies, intent matters significantly less than the action. In both cases someone has died due to your carelessness and you bear responsibility for that.

The higher the stakes, the less intent comes into play as a mitigating factor. Incompetence and malice become nearly indistinguishable because the effects are devastating.

It doesn't particularly matter WHY Wizards/Hasbro decided to try and kill their competition. The fact of the matter is that they did it, openly. And they could try to do it again, because they are unlikely to have grown either less malicious or less incompetent.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Saintheart
I know your pun has a good chance of pushing me to the brink.

Does anyone remember the brinker-roo?

[Psyren]

Eh, more the opposite, based on some of Wotcs actions they seem to have good intentions, it is just hard to tell from malicious intent as it is sufficiently advanced incompetence. Like say, they probably thought the morality clause was a selling point to us, which would explain why it was abandoned so quickly.
Er, the hypothetical break down
- Royalties, probably seeing what they could get away with
- the closing loopholes for the digital and competition game stuff, probably the primary goal
- morality clause, non-goal, consideration for the community to be more accepting of the changes

The Royalties went first, because they were met with vitriol. Then the morality clause got ire, and since that was the selling point of the contract to us, Wotc panics and drops the whole idea. Even the move to the CC, not what people were asking for, and comes off as an almost comical overreaction.
"You like the OGL and want to keep it, how about we also give you a bunch more access and future proof it from us revoking it."
"Well, the OGL was fine, but that's cool, I guess"

Yeah I'm going with Hanlon's Razor here too.

But while I was originally with you on judging it a "comical overreaction" - Kyle's interviews have led me to believe it was a more calculated, or at least thoughtful, move than sheer panic. Putting the SRDs in CC gets WotC out of the "OGL business" for good, and furthermore undermines the competition (now if "ORC" is even slightly more restrictive than CC, they can point and laugh), and lastly, it gives them a concrete way of saying they're standing with their community of creatives in a way they never had before. The more I hear him speak about it the more I see it as the most obvious move they could have made.

I'm actually baffled by Dancey's take here. CC-BY is the most common license used by existing publishers, because it creates a baseline that people can fork from. Once you've released under CC, the cow is out of the barn in terms of creating competition for yourself.

A Sharealike would be fully viral: if you release a book under it, anything which references the license in that book has to also be completely CC-SA. Which means that releasing any material under a sharealike allows anyone to use the entire text of their product--you can't just say "this part of the book is under Sharealike, this part is my stuff that you can't use". It's all or nothing.

Indeed, Kyle covered this in interview 2 as well. At this point I think Dancey is just being vindictive/clout-chasing.

[Amnestic]

This only really work with low stakes actions.

If instead you throw the ball and someone dies, intent matters significantly less than the action. In both cases someone has died due to your carelessness and you bear responsibility for that.

This is, again, incorrect. I could have used the example of throwing a ball and you died and the situation would have been the same. The legal ramifications ("responsibility") of an accidental vs. intentional killing are different, at least where I'm from. Intentions quite clearly matter here. Yes, if you take the stakes to an unreasonably high degree - beyond murder - I'm sure intentions matter less.

But we're talking about "the real world", no? No one was murdered here.

It doesn't particularly matter WHY Wizards/Hasbro decided to try and kill their competition. The fact of the matter is that they did it, openly. And they could try to do it again, because they are unlikely to have grown either less malicious or less incompetent.

I dunno, I totally think it does matter why a corpo does something alongside their actions, because it speaks to not only their current actions but also their future actions too.

If they did a bad thing because they were trying to do a good thing, they're less likely to do a bad thing again once the bad thing has been corrected.
If they did a bad thing because they were trying to a bad thing, that makes them quite likely to try to do the bad thing again, because they wanted to do a bad thing in the first place.

[Rynjin]

I dunno, I totally think it does matter why a corpo does something alongside their actions, because it speaks to not only their current actions but also their future actions too.

If they did a bad thing because they were trying to do a good thing, they're less likely to do a bad thing again once the bad thing has been corrected.
If they did a bad thing because they were trying to a bad thing, that makes them quite likely to try to do the bad thing again, because they wanted to do a bad thing in the first place.

It doesn't matter because you will never be able to verify. The corpo can say what it likes and mean the opposite.

If the dog goes berserk and mauls your leg, then acts normal afterward, you don't say "oh well, guess he really didn't mean it". You turn them over to animal control and have them put down.

If they're stupid enough to try it, why would you trust them to not still be ****ing morons?

If they're hostile enough to try it, why would you trust them to not still be hostile?

In either case, trust is lost. Intention is meaningless. "Oh well they didn't mean to..." So? True or not, they still tried to do it. And they could do it again. They might not...but you can never be sure.

[Psyren]

It doesn't particularly matter WHY Wizards/Hasbro decided to try and kill their competition. The fact of the matter is that they did it, openly. And they could try to do it again, because they are unlikely to have grown either less malicious or less incompetent.

It is likely (or at least can be), because the company is not a monolith. Kyle stated that one of the biggest factors that led to this morass was the fact that the creatives within the company, who are closest to the creatives outside it in the larger community, were not given a proper seat at the table for these kinds of decisions. And even that wasn't malice against them so much as a misguided "you D&D people keep your heads down and make the game, we'll handle the business stuff for you" when the reality is that they shouldn't have been separating the two. He has said openly twice now that that has changed, because the company has a new appreciation for how loud the community can get when threatened and how easily the pure business side of the house can screw up without them, and I believe him. Do I think they'll never make a mistake again, of course not - but this particular mistake is impossible to recur thanks to the CC, which is another big reason they chose it.

[Dr.Samurai]

This only really work with low stakes actions.

If instead you throw the ball and someone dies, intent matters significantly less than the action. In both cases someone has died due to your carelessness and you bear responsibility for that.

The higher the stakes, the less intent comes into play as a mitigating factor. Incompetence and malice become nearly indistinguishable because the effects are devastating.

It doesn't particularly matter WHY Wizards/Hasbro decided to try and kill their competition. The fact of the matter is that they did it, openly. And they could try to do it again, because they are unlikely to have grown either less malicious or less incompetent.

I tend to agree that the stakes impact the relevance of intent.

I think it went without saying that this move would not go over well for a lot of people, and we thought WotC was delusional for trying something like this. The fact that they didn't or couldn't see that, that they chose to ignore the people designing the game, and didn't think there'd be backlash, is big enough, for me at least, that it overshadows whatever their intent was. It was a colossal blunder, almost without a doubt motivated by the bottom line, and so it begs the question of "how far are we from the next misguided, blundering attempt?".

The fact that the design team is now in the loop doesn't change the fact that the exec team lacks foresight, good sense, an appreciation for the product they are stewarding and its consumers, etc etc etc. Those are all the same people, but now they are letting Design say some stuff at the table. Will that be enough? I hardly think that's a foregone conclusion.

[Psyren]

If you truly don't believe they can do any better then you're free to quit and wait for ORC. All I can say is I won't be, and that Kyle seems like a level-headed leader.

[Dr.Samurai]

I didn't say that. I'm saying it's the exact same people, but now they are letting Design have a seat at the table. That... doesn't guarantee anything in and of itself. It's not like Design is going to be running the show now. It will be the same misguided people as before, with some hindsight. Is that hindsight "Hey, we really need to consider the community at large when we make these decisions!" or "Hey, we really need to tamp down on leaks and figure out how to achieve this without all this blowback. We had no idea we could face a reaction like this."? I don't know. But I'm not going to extend a massive benefit of the doubt.

I think I'll stick with our track record on this matter over, you know, the people that were defending and justifying WotC's decisions every step of the way.

[Psyren]

I didn't say that. I'm saying it's the exact same people, but now they are letting Design have a seat at the table. That... doesn't guarantee anything in and of itself. It's not like Design is going to be running the show now. It will be the same misguided people as before, with some hindsight. Is that hindsight "Hey, we really need to consider the community at large when we make these decisions!" or "Hey, we really need to tamp down on leaks and figure out how to achieve this without all this blowback. We had no idea we could face a reaction like this."? I don't know. But I'm not going to extend a massive benefit of the doubt.

I think I'll stick with our track record on this matter over, you know, the people that were defending and justifying WotC's decisions every step of the way.

Assuming you mean me with that last part, I supported some and opposed others, before it mostly became a moot point. Nuance is difficult on the internet.

[KorvinStarmast]

I know your pun has a good chance of pushing me to the brink.

At least he didn't publish the cliff notes of the interview.

Spoiler: worse pun

Show

And who knew that Sparky was an edge lord?

[Saintheart]

At least he didn't publish the cliff notes of the interview.

Spoiler: worse pun

Show

And who knew that Sparky was an edge lord?

This conversation is getting more abyss-mal with every post.

[Devils_Advocate]

There are many ways in which recent events could be characterized, so "Doing this means they're more likely to do something similar in the future" isn't very specific. Understanding the factors underlying these events seems like it might be helpful for more accurately guessing how future events might be similar.

Not that we can sanely trust a company spokesthing to give us a fully accurate and unbiased understanding of the relevant factors, but that's a different counterpoint from "Intentions don't matter". Personally, I'd recommend comparing this to stuff that WotC has done previously. A single incident on its own is not a long-term pattern of behavior.

Eh, more the opposite, based on some of Wotcs actions they seem to have good intentions, it is just hard to tell from malicious intent as it is sufficiently advanced incompetence. Like say, they probably thought the morality clause was a selling point to us, which would explain why it was abandoned so quickly.

Trying to undermine the creative freedoms of others is hostile towards those whose rights you're trying to undermine, even if you do it with popular support. That's a dubious thing to even be trying to do, so it doesn't really work to justify dubious means. Sure, it's crazy to expect corporation-critical people to trust your corporation not to abuse a position of control gained through an unethical power grab. But even in the bizarre hypothetical scenario where that expectation is somehow correct, that doesn't make your intentions good. Like, a bizarre hypothetical scenario in which a large group of pacifists becomes pro-murder isn't ipso facto one in which murder is the right thing to do, to give an analogy. Sure, if it actually happens, the odds are unusually good, but that's because it's a bizarre hypothetical scenario that wouldn't happen except under exceptional circumstances!

[Tanarii]

Besides watching if WotC can save D&Done, the other thing I'm still excited about is the ORC license project, and the resulting games and products that come out of it. (The idea that WoTC's CC SRD release makes ORC not important is .)

Given the negative odor wotc has given D&D, we may not even see a 5e fork (using the CC released material) to pick up their market share loss at this point. The real question is if someone can capture enough of the market with a completely non-D&D-related product, most likely under ORC.

[Psyren]

Not that we can sanely trust a company spokesthing to give us a fully accurate and unbiased understanding of the relevant factors, but that's a different counterpoint from "Intentions don't matter". Personally, I'd recommend comparing this to stuff that WotC has done previously. A single incident on its own is not a long-term pattern of behavior.

The good news is we don't have to trust their speech when we can just judge their actions. Putting the SRD in Creative Commons is truly irrevocable in every sense of the word, as it's a license that has been tested in court and that WotC has zero control over. It also has fewer restrictions on creators than even 1.0a. And they intentionally chose the "non-viral" license too.

Besides watching if WotC can save D&Done, the other thing I'm still excited about is the ORC license project, and the resulting games and products that come out of it. (The idea that WoTC's CC SRD release makes ORC not important is .)

Given the negative odor wotc has given D&D, we may not even see a 5e fork (using the CC released material) to pick up their market share loss at this point. The real question is if someone can capture enough of the market with a completely non-D&D-related product, most likely under ORC.

Eh, sure they lost market share over this, but if Paizo or Kobold's goal is to get higher than second and third place respectively I wish them luck.

[JadedDM]

New interview just dropped: