Official OGL Discussion Thread

[Unoriginal]

Precisely. I'll say again what I said earlier: the OGL is only, and can ever be only a speedbump for mid-size developers; aka their would-be competition.

Larger corporations would either not care at all, care a little about it (and work around it for negligible-to-them cost), or care A LOT and just buy Wizards from Hasbro, or Hasbro as a whole.

The OGL was meant as a speedbump for WotC, not for other developers.

The OGL was a promise WotC would not ruin smaller developers by making them go to court frivolously. And with this promise, they attracted smaller developers who benefited from the D&D brand thanks to the existing audience and systems and who benefited D&D by providing content WotC was unwilling and unable to provide with the limits it set, and as such kept the blood flowing in the hobby and the money flowing in Hasbro's wallet.


In other words, the OGL always had little protective powers, but what little power it had was to protect everyone else from Wizards of the Coast. Never the contratry.

[Rynjin]

The OGL was meant as a speedbump for WotC, not for other developers.

The OGL was a promise WotC would not ruin smaller developers by making them go to court frivolously. And with this promise, they attracted smaller developers who benefited from the D&D brand thanks to the existing audience and systems and who benefited D&D by providing content WotC was unwilling and unable to provide with the limits it set, and as such kept the blood flowing in the hobby and the money flowing in Hasbro's wallet.


In other words, the OGL always had little protective powers, but what little power it had was to protect everyone else from Wizards of the Coast. Never the contratry.

Yes. I should start specifying OGL versions or something. I think we're on 1.2 now? 1.2 is the one that has the inverse purpose of the current OGL.

[Unoriginal]

Yes. I should start specifying OGL versions or something. I think we're on 1.2 now? 1.2 is the one that has the inverse purpose of the current OGL.

I apologize, I should have read your post more carefully

You're correct, the OGL 1.2 and 1.1 have the inverse purpose and the inverse effect of the original OGL.

It's like if in a school-setting comedy, the stereotypical bratty rich kid signed a letter promising they won't bully the other kids so that said other kids would play with them, and then the rich kid claims they revised the letter to say they decide who uses what during recess and everyone must give them 25% of their lunch money.


Which makes takes like "I believe it would have worked if they hadn't tried to do it through secrecy" particularly puzzling.

[Psyren]

Allow me to make an analogy for you to understand why people are upset at this stance. Lets say youre afraid somebody will break into your house. Locks are to keep the honest people out, so you want to improve security a bit. So you start putting down bear traps in all the doorways into your house, and between all the rooms, and you also dont tell any of your roommates or guests that youre doing this.

And then when people catch you setting them up, you tell people that what youre really worried about is somebody driving a truck through your wall, and thats why youre putting out the traps when they find out.

What youve done is threatened and harmed the people who are supposed to be sharing the space with you while not really meaningfully protecting yourself from the intruders you claim to be warding off.

1.1 could be viewed that way, and we successfully dealt with that version. I don't see this analogy as realistically applying to 1.2, and especially not to the CC portion that has no restrictions at all.

The masses are pretty familiar with TTRPGs at this point.

Familiar with the concept, yes. Actually joining the hobby and playing one regularly, that's still a no - there are still considerable logistical obstacles that keep a lot of people from just sitting down and doing that. DM shortages are a thing, sparse FLGS are a thing, people who live in remote areas or don't know where to even start (especially DMing) are a thing, lack of ways to play online that don't require a lot of fiddling and prework are a thing, and so on.

Companies are monoliths. People working at them may have a tiny bit of say, they may be able to act as a conscience in some cases, but at the end of the day the company is controlled at the top and that's where the people are that can shut down or order the start of whatever the company has the resources for.

The creative team may have great people, they may care about what they do and want to take steps to make sure nothing corrupts the simple joy of playing the game and the good will between them and the players. None of that matters if somebody above them says "we're doing this, make it work." Unless the creative team is also running the company as a whole and are all the major shareholders they're stuck doing what they're told like any other employees of the company.

This is ultimately going to be a value judgement; everyone has a line beyond which the actions at the top override all the good happening in the other layers. WotC, despite their apologies and course corrections appear to have irretrievably crossed yours, but they got back behind the line with mine. We're allowed to disagree.

The clear intent of this is to get a larger degree of control on things to wring out more cash flow and limit competition, the same clear intent as them making a new edition where they can sell new books re-releasing the existing content right when they start talking about how they could get more money out of D&D. Not as a result of them suddenly feeling like they're threatened after all these years of success and claiming they're the worlds greatest RPG. Not as an amazing insight into the future of the industry. Certainly not to ensure the Tabletop Gaming community is free of bigotry which they couldn't truly successfully enforce even if everybody in the world signed up for the OGL.

Where we fundamentally differ is that I don't see these goals as mutually exclusive. You appear to do so, and that's okay - again, we're allowed to disagree.

[Sception]

They're still insisting that they can 'deauthorize' the existing OGL for future products, and the 1.2 draft careful re-defines the terms 'perpetual' and 'irrevocable' in ways that would allow WotC to similarly cancel the new ogl whenever they wanted. As long as these are the case, WotC is asking 3pp to simply trust them not to try to yank the rug out from under them (again) in the middle of any future project development. And WotC, by their behavior, and by their ongoing insistence that the leaked 1.1 document was only ever a draft, has proven themselves to be unworthy of that trust. If this were the final version of the new ogl, then it would allow WotC to re-introduce all the other stuff they've walked back in the face of public outrage - the royalties, the license-back, all of it - the moment they think the outrage has passed, and based on their behavior to this point that's exactly what they intend to do.

The document also asks 3pp to simply trust that WotC won't abuse the option to boot them from the contract for any reason under the 'objectionable material' clause. {Scrubbed}

The VTT stuff is also unacceptable. If WotC were confident that their new vtt were good enough to be worth whatever they plan on charging for it, they wouldn't feel the need to try to strangle competition in this manner.

...

The attitude has improved considerably, but what they're trying to do to the OGL is still completely unacceptable, and I see no indication that the people making the decisions at wotc have changed their planning at all, only their language and their time table. I see no reason to re-subscribe to dndbeyond or to stop looking for alternative games to D&D. If I were a 3pp, this would not stop me from moving away from WotC altogether.

[EggKookoo]

It would be cleaner. Whether they have the legal right to do it is a legal question, and maybe unknowable until a court creates legal reality.
They certainly have the POWER to say "we're not going to treat OGL 1.0a as a Ring of Legal PRotection anymore."

But it doesn't follow that they can remove that protection from other companies. All WotC can do is abandon 1.0 for themselves.

IANAL but it would seem that they'd have an easier time in court with Plucky Little Gaming Company in case A vs case B.

Case A.
PLGC publishes Dungeons Under The Lost Castle under OGL 1.0a in 2020
PLGC publishes Labyrinth Under The Scary Mountain under OGL 1.2 in 2024.
PLGC tries to publish Return to the Dungeons Under The Lost Castle under OGL 1.0a in 2026
And WOTC says "Nuh uh, no OGL 1.0a no more. You agreed to that, here's the signature Your Honor"

Case B.
PLGC publishes Dungeons Under The Lost Castle under OGL 1.0a in 2020
PLGC makes a statement in 2023 "Up Yours WOTC, OGL 1.0a For Life. IRREVOCABLE"
PLGC publishes Labyrinth Under The Scary Mountain under OGL 1.0a in 2024, basically daring WOTC to sue.

Right. The problem is, you're only bound to an agreement if you agree to it. Don't agree to 1.2+, you aren't bound to it. So they need to get publishers to agree to 1.2+, which includes the clause that you voluntarily no longer agree to 1.0, in order to get you to stop agreeing to 1.0.

If WotC could summarily dismiss 1.0 they would have done so back in the GSL days.

I think deauthorizing 1.0a is the whole point of the exercise. Exactly why I'm not sure. But that's the common thread.

OGL 1.2+ has that "if we decide what you publish is offensive we can kick you out of the clubhouse" clause, which I suspect is the real meat. If I'm using 1.0, WotC has no way to control what I put out. If I jump over to 1.2+, that clause gives them that power. At the same time, jumping over to 1.2+ removes my recourse to go back to 1.0, because I agreed that 1.0 is deauthorized.

That's why they're doing it this way, I think.

Curious if ORC will have a similar clause when it's all said and done.

[Theoboldi]

Ah, as I recall there was an uproar about an adventure some time ago, but I believe it was the DMs Guild (in relation to Curse of Hearts), not Wizards specifically. Or if they even had any hand it at all.

If you search DM's Guild banned LGBT content/Curse of Hearts you should find some articles about it.

Thank you very much, I'll see what I can find on the matter.

[Psyren]

OGL 1.2+ has that "if we decide what you publish is offensive we can kick you out of the clubhouse" clause, which I suspect is the real meat. If I'm using 1.0, WotC has no way to control what I put out. If I jump over to 1.2+, that clause gives them that power. At the same time, jumping over to 1.2+ removes my recourse to go back to 1.0, because I agreed that 1.0 is deauthorized.

That's why they're doing it this way, I think.

Curious if ORC will have a similar clause when it's all said and done.

I genuinely don't see Paizo of all people going free speech absolutist and leaving out a decency clause of some kind. It definitely won't include "you can't sue us" though.

[Lemmy]

I genuinely don't see Paizo of all people going free speech absolutist and leaving out a decency clause of some kind. It definitely won't include "you can't sue us" though.

That has nothing to do with "going free speech absolutist".

The clause allows Hasbro/WotC to screw over anyone using OGL 1.2 at any time, for any reason, and the other side doesn't even get to dispute it.

Anyone who thinks Hasbro/WotC are above abusing this clause to get rid of competition hasn't been paying attention.

[Rynjin]

I genuinely don't see Paizo of all people going free speech absolutist and leaving out a decency clause of some kind. It definitely won't include "you can't sue us" though.

It will most likely be similar to their current policy, yeah. Paizo has less of a track record with being "kneejerky" as far as morals/decency in their products go, which is one of the major concerns. Wizards has had a recent history of just...doing stuff any time they get minor pushback and making changes based on what are essentially memes *scrubbed*

I typically expect Paizo to do things with a bit more thought. When they wanted to remove slavery from their setting, they didn't just randomly do that out of the blue, they mentioned that in the intervening time between PF1e Golarion and PF2e Golarion, the last few holdouts of slavery in the setting were forced to let go of it.

I still feel I could have been handled BETTER (what a missed opportunity for an adventure like "Triumph of the Bellflowers" or something), but it was handled with a level of class and care that Wizards has recently lacked.

This is a matter of even assuming all best possible intentions from Wizards, I do not trust Wizards to have a clause like that and not abuse it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

On Morality--if that was their intent, there's nothing beneficial that clause provides over a simple disclaimer clause requirement. AKA "this work is not a product of WotC and they are not responsible for the contents". In fact, with the proposed clause, people (ie the twitter mobs) can make the claim that because they haven't taken action (in the interval between publication and revocation/removal) on some "bad thing", they must not think it's so bad. Which causes the entire firestorm of twitter-hate. Or whatever vector it happens to come in on.

So the current clause is somewhere between worse than the previous and ineffective, at least at its stated purpose. It's great if the intent is to use it to hamstring competition, because the disclaimer clause doesn't give them that power.

On Video Games--their proposed solution does nothing in this regard, at least against the big names. If one of the big names wanted to make a "D&D" video game, it needs a few things--
a) mechanics. Those are either CC'd explicitly or need to be written from the ground up anyway to make a passable video game.
b) lore and "iconic" monsters. Those are not covered by the OGL/SRD at all.
c) branding. Also not covered by the OGL.

And, as stated, the big names consider Hasbro a gnat in this field. They could just outright buy the company if they wanted that IP. And the parts they'd be interested in are exactly (b) and (c), which neither the 1.0a OGL nor the 1.2 OGL cover. The mechanics? Stat blocks? Yeah, not all that useful.

-------

Thus, both of the stated rationales fall flat--there wasn't a problem already and the proposals don't move the needle forward on those issues at all. They do allow for anti-competitive actions against their actual competitors, ie Paizo et al. So either Hasbro's lawyers and suits are utter morons or their real goal isn't what they stated it to be and it's something more nefarious (because if it wasn't, they'd have come out with it instead of the obvious fig leafs).

Heck, if those really were their goals, they could have published a OGL 1.0(b) that contained a stronger disclaimer clause and a statement that if you're making an interactive video game or something not designed as an aide for Table Top play, you need a special license. Throw in a "licensed creator" badge and sweeten the SRD a little bit and people would have voluntarily jumped on it. None of the fuss, none of the muss, all of the benefit for those particular aspects. But they chose not to. Instead they chose to lead with a secretive "take over the industry/all your base belong to us" plan and then walked back parts of it to something still obnoxious. Which says their true goals aren't their stated ones.

On Paizo and morality clauses--the way they're structuring ORC (as an unowned-by-them, truly open and perpetual/irrevocable license), they cannot include an active morality clause that gives them, or anyone else in the industry an active enforcement role. Because the stated intent is that it will be owned by a law firm or non-profit somewhere and Paizo (and the other founders, they're not alone) will have no operational control.

[Rynjin]

On Paizo and morality clauses--the way they're structuring ORC (as an unowned-by-them, truly open and perpetual/irrevocable license), they cannot include an active morality clause that gives them, or anyone else in the industry an active enforcement role. Because the stated intent is that it will be owned by a law firm or non-profit somewhere and Paizo (and the other founders, they're not alone) will have no operational control.

Yeah, that's a big thing; no single company will have unilateral control of the licence.

Though I'll eat my hat if it doesn't have some kind of wording based around content that is considered "morally objectionable to the general public" being disqualified from using the ORC, and there be some way to have that enforced by SOMEBODY.

There's a lot of stuff that is technically legal to post fiction of but nobody would want to be tainted by association with. The ORC needs some kind of similar clause, with clear and defined wording.

[warty goblin]

I'm glad you agree WotC doesn't have anything close to a monopoly here nor.

I don't think they are a monopoly; they have a clear and large lead in market share, but TTRPGs are pretty resistant to monopolistic exploitation because the cost of entry is very low. That doesn't mean the space is immune to unpleasant rent seeking behavior or other forms of anti- competitive manipulation.

The things is, I don't actually disagree with you that Big Tech would be slowed down much if they wanted to enter this space in earnest. What you haven't answered is why WotC should make things even easier for them. It would be like them handing out rent-controlled apartments to oil barons.

Really though, all this is make it easier for a moderately savvy larger firm to move in and crush in the VTT space. All they have to do now is issue their rules under ORC or some other very open and reasonable license. Boom. Microsoft wins! PR Fatality!

Beyond the brutal PR suplex though, it's a strong business move. Combine a really good VTT app with a reasonable revenue split for third parties who release their stuff on that VTT, and you get a huge content mill churning out material for you.Just have the game rules be totally open for, say, pen and paper or PDF distribution, but charge like 20% for VTT sales, along with a good toolset for intergrating content. If you allow for 3d models, you can sell cosmetics, or allow people to make and sell their own under some revenue split.

In other words, treat the game platform like a platform. And a platform needs content and users, who are mostly drawn by content and decent pricing models. WoTC has just announced they would really like to take a giant dump on third party publishers, this does not strengthen their position; quite the opposite.

The fundamental problem is that WoTC is acting like D&D is simply without compare in the space, so people are going to agree to bad terms to get a piece of the pie. Because of their size advantage and established brand recognition that might be true right now. But the size advantage utterly disappears if a tech giant enters the scene, and the tiny bits of D&D as a system that they can assuredly protect are not that much (if any) better than what a rival with decent resources could easily create. In that scenario getting people to want to make and use content for your system is way, way more important than making sure Microsoft can't call something Magic Missile. Like what, nobody could bear to play a game with Eldritch Arrow instead?

But let's say this does, in some way, slightly slow down some big company deciding to move on TTRPGs; an event that as far as I'm aware is entirely hypothetical at the moment. In exchange for putting up a really feeble roadblock, they've pissed off a swath of their most dedicated fans and done probably irreparable damage to their brand and the ecosystem around it. These are exactly the things a smaller, entrenched company needs to survive a challenge by a bigger, newer player trying to muscle in. This is a dumb strategy.

[EggKookoo]

The clause allows Hasbro/WotC to screw over anyone using OGL 1.2 at any time, for any reason, and the other side doesn't even get to dispute it.

The problem is, these things need to be defined. "You can't do anything offensive" is about as wide open to interpretation as anything can be.

My hope is that if ORC has similar clauses, they're well-defined.

[Rynjin]

I'm fairly certain Wizards cannot stop people from using the term "Magic Missile" in any case. "Melf's Magic Missile", certainly, but "Magic Missile" is too broad of term, being descriptive in a purely utilitarian sense. It is a missile (a projectile, in other words) hurled through the air, that is made of magic.

Trying to claim that nobody can use that specific term in the context of a fantasy video game or whatever will have them getting immediately blasted by Activision-Blizzard (and by proxy Microsoft, if that sale ever goes through), among other entities who have used the term in other games. That seems like the opposite of what they claim to want.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yeah, that's a big thing; no single company will have unilateral control of the licence.

Though I'll eat my hat if it doesn't have some kind of wording based around content that is considered "morally objectionable to the general public" being disqualified from using the ORC, and there be some way to have that enforced by SOMEBODY.

There's a lot of stuff that is technically legal to post fiction of but nobody would want to be tainted by association with. The ORC needs some kind of similar clause, with clear and defined wording.

The problem is, these things need to be defined. "You can't do anything offensive" is about as wide open to interpretation as anything can be.

My hope is that if ORC has similar clauses, they're well-defined.

I expect a very strong disclaimer clause, or a morality clause that can stand up to legal scrutiny. As in "we can sue you to revoke this license". Which requires a lot more clarity. And a disclaimer clause already does 99% of what you can legally expect--officially separates the makers of the license (who won't even have their names on it!) from the content made with that license. Sure, various hate-mongers (those who stir up mobs) can ignore that...but they can ignore a standard morality clause as well. They're bound by neither truth nor logic, least of all legality. Heck, they've been known to point the mobs at people who had absolutely nothing to do with it.

I remember a doctor once saying that he'd been sued for a patient he, nor his practice, had ever seen. Why? Because they were the big name in that field in that area and thus were a convenient target for legal extortion (settle or we'll ruin you in legal fees). Similar things (minus the legal fees) happen in this space.

[ToranIronfinder]

I'm sorry, I'm still hung up on the deauthorization thing.

Why do they need to put the deauthorization language into 1.2? Why can't they just deauthorize it independently? Wouldn't that be cleaner?

If they can't deauthorize it independently, what gives them the magic power to do it when they write "1.2" first?

My conclusion is that they can't deauthorize 1.0. At all, ever. They can only trick people into voluntarily renouncing it, and they do that by putting that language into 1.2 and trying to (initially) pressure and then (currently) cajole people into accepting it.

Were I a 3PP, I would demand the 1.0 deauthorization language be removed and put someplace else, before I signed anything.

I think a lot of is agree with you here, but aren't commenting on the legality of deauthorization, due to the opening requirement we don't.

Most I will say, of they deauthorize, for reasons listed before, I'm not buying any more WOTC products, as monopolies, whether legal action can be taken on this front or not, are bad for the hobby.

[MonochromeTiger]

Familiar with the concept, yes. Actually joining the hobby and playing one regularly, that's still a no - there are still considerable logistical obstacles that keep a lot of people from just sitting down and doing that. DM shortages are a thing, sparse FLGS are a thing, people who live in remote areas or don't know where to even start (especially DMing) are a thing, lack of ways to play online that don't require a lot of fiddling and prework are a thing, and so on.

I fail to see where attempting to strangle competition on VTTs and other TTRPG focused products or multimedia projects makes any of that inherently more accessible. If they manage to torpedo Roll20 and Foundry so that their own VTT isn't competing with them it's not going to drive their playerbase toward WotC's VTT and D&D it's just going to cause more resentment and make them look for alternative ways to play apart from WotC's way. Widening their own VTT doesn't require any of the measures they're taking and doesn't make people join up on its own, it doesn't bring people from other rule systems who are playing those because they like those rule systems or are comfortable with them to D&D.

The hobby doesn't flourish on the actions of D&D alone, nor is it strengthened and made more accessible through discouraging competitors or putting them under threat of being shut down. If granting access to people in remote areas or who don't know how to get started was an actual concern here the solution wouldn't be a contract claiming to revoke a previous agreement that the bulk of TTRPG content is under or the option for WotC to arbitrarily shut down anyone's work. The solution would be heightening awareness of all available VTTs and resources and making sure they're easier to access in a reliable way that works not just for WotC but for other companies as well.

This is ultimately going to be a value judgement; everyone has a line beyond which the actions at the top override all the good happening in the other layers. WotC, despite their apologies and course corrections appear to have irretrievably crossed yours, but they got back behind the line with mine. We're allowed to disagree.

Agreed, my views are mine and your views are yours. Neither of them invalidates the other and disagreement on context and results isn't grounds to ignore a differing viewpoint.

Hopefully your trust that they're going to somehow promote growth for TTRPGs and acting in bad faith won't come back to bite you but for me no matter the hopes and intentions of the people working there they remain a company and a company exists for the purpose of making money, usually focused on short term gain. If it takes being underhanded and doing things that hurt consumers to make that money, or if it costs the company itself at some point in the future, that's rarely a concern for a company at the time it makes that decision.

Where we fundamentally differ is that I don't see these goals as mutually exclusive. You appear to do so, and that's okay - again, we're allowed to disagree.

It's not whether the goals are mutually exclusive or not that bothers me, it's that achieving the highest profit encourages a corrupt approach to the other goals and that WotC has no real grounds to act as arbiter of morality to begin with.

You yourself have pointed out that what people consider morally right changes with time, a point you've made to justify them not giving clear terms for what would qualify to be allowed or struck; that claim in itself isn't wrong but to give them authority to decide while also not defining terms clearly means treating them as absolute moral authority no matter their own actions or stances and accepting that authority to change its claims at will. It's entrusting a bludgeon to a group with a vested interest in not allowing anyone else to rival them and giving guidelines so vague they can be used to justify using it on whoever is nearby regardless of wrongdoing.

Beside that point it's also such an impossible thing to viably accomplish that it really has no use being brought up except to paint them as "the good guy" out to defend the people and anyone opposing them as "the bad guy" who must have some immoral and bigoted reason to oppose giving them the right to stamp said opposition out. They can't go up to somebody's table and dictate that they're being too mean to some specific social group, they can't erase sexism, racism, and all the various other isms and phobias from people involved in the hobby. What they can do is shut down 3PPs and competitors on flimsy justifications, or no justifications at all except their own claim, and then say they've protected the players from wrongful hatred.

[johnbragg]

But it doesn't follow that they can remove that protection from other companies. All WotC can do is abandon 1.0 for themselves.

True, but I'm not sure how much grounds WOTC would have to sue over 3PP infringing on d20 Star Wars or Mutants and Masterminds or PFSRD or White Wolf content anyway. The judge is going to ask "How does that give WOTC a claim to damages" and that seems like a hard question to answer. (IANAL, IANAL, you can't copyright mechanics).

Come to think of it, did anyone build a non-D&D system on the 5E mechanics? I can't think of anything.

Right. The problem is, you're only bound to an agreement if you agree to it. Don't agree to 1.2+, you aren't bound to it. So they need to get publishers to agree to 1.2+, which includes the clause that you voluntarily no longer agree to 1.0, in order to get you to stop agreeing to 1.0.

I think we agree on this. If you sign on to OGL 1.2, you're pretty much agreeing to abandon OGL 1.0a. Anything you've done under 1.0a, if you want to update it, you're on shaky ground trying to continue to publish it under 1.0a. As a Non-Lawyer, I see the OGL as a set of conditions under which WOTC pretty much assures you that they won't sue you. That part of it is revocable. As your DM says when you ask if you can do a thing, "You can try."

If WotC could summarily dismiss 1.0 they would have done so back in the GSL days.

Probably a solid point. That would have killed Pathfinder in the crib (or at least gone to court to do so).

I wonder if I'm under-weighting the "social justice" CYA aspect. Even if they can't legally nuke OGL 1.0a, if they try and fail to dissociate themselves from the next Zak S / NuTSR / whatever, they can reliably say "Well, we tried."

[Psyren]

That has nothing to do with "going free speech absolutist".

The clause allows Hasbro/WotC to screw over anyone using OGL 1.2 at any time, for any reason, and the other side doesn't even get to dispute it.

Anyone who thinks Hasbro/WotC are above abusing this clause to get rid of competition hasn't been paying attention.

That's why I'm in favor of removing the "you can't sue us" language, as well as possibly even implementing the "general public considers" standard like Paizo has. I think the clause itself is fine so long as one or both protections are in place over its use.

(Consider this a response to @PhoenixPhyre and @MonochromeTiger's opposition to the morality clause as well.)

On Video Games--their proposed solution does nothing in this regard, at least against the big names. If one of the big names wanted to make a "D&D" video game, it needs a few things--
a) mechanics. Those are either CC'd explicitly or need to be written from the ground up anyway to make a passable video game.
b) lore and "iconic" monsters. Those are not covered by the OGL/SRD at all.
c) branding. Also not covered by the OGL.

The stuff that is CC'd is fine. The stuff that is not, is being left out on purpose, and there is value to keeping those elements TTRPG-exclusive.

And, as stated, the big names consider Hasbro a gnat in this field. They could just outright buy the company if they wanted that IP.

Right, they could - which would be a win for Hasbro's shareholders and therefore Hasbro. If you set up your licenses such that bigger players might want to buy you outright at above market value, you've done your fiduciary duty and then some.

Heck, if those really were their goals, they could have published a OGL 1.0(b) that contained a stronger disclaimer clause and a statement that if you're making an interactive video game or something not designed as an aide for Table Top play, you need a special license.

By 1.2 saying it only covers TTRPGs and (certain) VTTs, they are doing exactly that. You need a special license for everything else.

On Paizo and morality clauses--the way they're structuring ORC (as an unowned-by-them, truly open and perpetual/irrevocable license), they cannot include an active morality clause that gives them, or anyone else in the industry an active enforcement role. Because the stated intent is that it will be owned by a law firm or non-profit somewhere and Paizo (and the other founders, they're not alone) will have no operational control.

It will give that power to someone, and that someone won't be the licensee(s).

[Lemmy]

That's why I'm in favor of removing the "you can't sue us" language, as well as possibly even implementing the "general public considers" standard like Paizo has. I think the clause itself is fine so long as one or both protections are in place over its use.

(Consider this a response to @PhoenixPhyre and @MonochromeTiger's opposition to the morality clause as well.)

Removing the "you can't sue us" doesn't do much... Oh, now I have the option to go to court against a billion dollar corporation!! Thanks...?

The "general public" thing isn't much better either. Hasbro/WotC can easily word their decision in a way that vaguely lines up with whatever the "general public" thinks. e.g.: "This is racist. The general public is against racism. Therefore, your license is revoked!".

Neither of those things give any real security to 3pp developers.

As pointed out by others, if Hasbro/WotC actually cared about morality and/or protecting themselves from being associated with anything they deem "immoral" , they'd be better off not including this clause at all.

Not that I think they care in the first place...

Hasbro/WotC is just a soulless giant corporation. The only reason they are against anything "immoral" is because they think it'll hurt their bottom line. If they thought including those "immoral" things would increase their profits, they'd gladly stamp it on the cover of their books... We know this because that's exactly what they are trying to do with the new OGL.

[EggKookoo]

The "general public" thing isn't much better either. Hasbro/WotC can easily word their decision in a way that vaguely lines up with whatever the "general public" thinks. e.g.: "This is racist. The general public is against racism. Therefore, your license is revoked!".

"Your OGL 1.2+ game has evil orcs. YOU'RE OUTTA HERE!"

[Psyren]

Removing the "you can't sue us" doesn't do much... Oh, now I have the option to go to court against a billion dollar corporation!! Thanks...?

The "general public" thing isn't much better either. Hasbro/WotC can easily word their decision in a way that vaguely lines up with whatever the "general public" thinks. e.g.: "This is racist. The general public is against racism. Therefore, your license is revoked!".

Neither of those things give any real security to 3pp developers.

If absolute security is what you're after, stick with Creative Commons stuff and/or don't use their license at all. I'm sorry if that sounds severe but that's the only realistic solution here.

[Segev]

I don't really understand all the legalese and terms being tossed around, but from what little I can tell, this OGL thing sounds like it only applies to for-profit content and not freely distributed material. Is that accurate?

Sort-of. They're stripping back the OGL so that you now NEED a "fan license" to do the kind of homebrew stuff you're probably thinking of, and if you DO freely distribute it, they CAN come after you for it. Because you distributed it. They might not, but they CAN.

The only missing piece, and what definitely has to go, is OGL 1.0a. That was what allowed Paizo to gazump them on fourth edition, and they see it as a standing risk going forward. WOTC cannot allow that licence to persist for this gamble to pay off. I doubt that will be walked back, even if the morality clause is. The very fact they're standing ground on that issue, and not on others, says to me that is their core goal, not making D&D "inclusive" for everybody (which is supposedly their Mission, according to Brink's own non-apology to the community.) That past licence just cannot be allowed to exist for WOTC to dominate the space going forward, which is ultimately what they want to do.

Absolutely: the big thing they want is to revoke the OGL. They're calling it "an updated version" and a "deauthorization" of the previous version, but it's a revocation that they know they can't legally do, hence the weasel words to try to dress it up as something else.

The trouble they're going to face, I think, is that enough lawyers are out there saying "you can't copyright mechanics" that I'm pretty sure there iwll be SOMEBODY who publishes the 5.0 equivalent to Pathfinder. LevelUp D&D already exists as a third party's attempt at 5.5e/PF-for-5e. I am 100% sure they're already looking at their book with a fine-toothed comb and seeing just how much of the 5e SRD they actually are using, and how hard it would be to strip that out of there by some simple rewording. Heck, with the new promise that "anything published already" is okay to keep using 1.0(a), they may not even need to change their main books, and can just make sure their new books don't use SRD material from WotC and don't use any OGL license versions at all.

Now, this isn't me giving legal advice. This is me speculating on what existing companies responses might be, based on what I know are arguments floating around out there. And there's also the eternal "who cares what's legal? WotC has the lawyers and money to drown you in court" side of things to consider. But given just the nature of humanity, and how you can count on there being somebody to try something if enough people are "dared" to "try it," there will be efforts in these directions made...and I suspect the ORC horde (I love that description of them) will be willing to back a self-appointed champion who shows they did their homework enough to have at least a plausible argument for why they're totally kosher.

For fans of D&D it means a better chance of more D&D long-term. If you don't care about D&D specifically and are happy with any TTRPG, then I don't suppose it benefits you, no, but neither do they need to prioritize your wants. Cleared up?

Does it, though? Or does it only mean a better chance of more things labeled "D&D," but which are increasingly unsatisfying to a growing mass of those fans?

Hasbro and WotC are betting that, by revoking the OGL, they can prevent a 4e/PF split from happening again. They must KNOW that they're making moves that will drive such a split, which is why they're trying to make it impossible by simply forbidding anybody from making 5.0-like content anymore.

Except, y'know, the massively negative impact for the consumer base across the hobby. Except for those that use first-party WotC hard copy products only. Put together with the decline in quality of those products since 2020, even those folks are going to be hard pressed IMO.

Otoh when they fail m their primary goal of taking even more control of the market and it backfires instead ... massive loss of subscribers, announcement of the ORC license and Black Flag projects, boycotts for their upcoming movie, and overall loss of Q1 revenue driving down stock prices, and long term loss of market share driving them both down further ... it will end up being a net positive for the consumer base. Except those that liked buying 3PP products for 5e.

Exactly. Not only is the way they're moving to try to "continue the D&D brand" one that suggests they don't think they CAN compete on quality, and therefore aren't going to try, but when (not if, when) the backlash doesn't stop (even if it gets quieter) and money starts flowing to things other than the "undermonetized" D&D despite all these moves and now expensive investments (e.g. the movie), I wouldn't expect D&D to actually survive very well at all.

I fully expect the executives who made the decisions that alienated their customer base and forced the ecosystem to move away from supporting D&D and into a much more competition-strewn market of non-D&D products to decide that it was the line workers for D&D's fault that it just didn't live up to expectations, that D&D is just a hasbeen brand, and rip support out from under it, making it unable to sustain anything but a token existence. After all, it's not THEIR fault, right? D&D obviously just COULD NOT work. The market changed, players are fickle, and customers don't want D&D. Nothing to be done about it. Certainly, it couldn't have gone differently if the executives had not alienated the customers.

[Lemmy]

If absolute security is what you're after, stick with Creative Commons stuff and/or don't use their license at all. I'm sorry if that sounds severe but that's the only realistic solution here.

Well, yeah. I agree with you.

But I didn't say it required "absolute security". No. Just security that WotC doesn't have the power to revoke my license whenever they want because something is "offensive". Especially when they are clearly willing to rules-lawyer anything, including licenses they themselves created.

Not having that clause hasn't been a problem to WotC for over 20 years now, what makes it suddenly necessary other than WotC wanting themselves a legal way to screw over people operating under their license?

[Psyren]

Hasbro and WotC are betting that, by revoking the OGL, they can prevent a 4e/PF split from happening again. They must KNOW that they're making moves that will drive such a split, which is why they're trying to make it impossible by simply forbidding anybody from making 5.0-like content anymore.

No one has answered this yet so I'll ask again:

What specifically in 1.2 would prevent another TTRPG company with a good enough system from becoming the next Paizo/Pathfinder?

Well, yeah. I agree with you.

But I didn't say it required "absolute security". No. Just security that WotC doesn't have the power to revoke my license whenever they want because something is "offensive". Especially when they are clearly willing to rules-lawyer anything, including licenses they themselves created.

Not having that clause hasn't been a problem to WotC for over 20 years now, what makes it suddenly necessary other than WotC wanting themselves a legal way to screw over people operating under their license?

In your opinion, has Paizo published anything that would have risked triggering that clause in the last 14 years?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Not having that clause hasn't been a problem to WotC for over 20 years now, what makes it suddenly necessary other than WotC wanting themselves a legal way to screw over people operating under their license?

Yeah. Believing that this is a pressing problem requires me to believe that
a) there's a horde of people just waiting to publish blatantly offensive stuff and blame WotC for it.
b) but yet they haven't done so (or at least no one can point to any in particular) over the last 20 years.

People point to the nuTSR...but that isn't an OGL issue and wouldn't be even if they wanted it to be. That's a pure trademark issue.

Pushing draconian, easily-abused clauses to fix an issue that hasn't ever existed in the past and doesn't even have a strong threat of existing now[1] smells to high heavens of pretext. Especially when they could get 99.98% of the benefit by just including a strong disclaimer of relationship clause. Which basically no one would have objected to. At least I certainly would not have.

[1] publishing standards are way tighter now and way more watchful for even the hint of such things than they ever were in the past. Stuff you could slip by the editors or self-publish fairly effectively then...just wouldn't fly now. At least not in any way that would make a public splash. Could you post it on <pirate sites>? Sure. But you still can--those sites were already out of compliance with the old OGL and engaged in unlicensed distribution! Revoking the license won't do a darn thing to stop or even dampen them--they're already operating in open contravention of the system.

[Luccan]

Setting everything else aside, I don't trust any company to dictate what is and is not moral. Companies don't operate on morality, particularly publicly traded companies. If WotC* used that power exclusively to do things I agree with I still wouldn't trust them, because it doesn't matter what they believe now, what matters is what they believe or more likely what makes more money later. I don't trust people I know nothing about like that. Certainly not when they have incentives to use that power for personal (or company) gain. I certainly don't trust that future execs won't abuse it.

And as others have pointed out, this only creates problems for WotC if it's true that what they care about is not being seen to endorse anything vile, because now they have to check everything that comes out that is covered by the license or receive brand-damage if they miss something. The whole morality clause is just asking for abuse, both from trolls and by WotC itself.

*I find the idea that Hasbro has any qualms about immorality or that they would care beyond how it effects their bottom line laughable, but at the very least a number of WotC products have a lot to say on morality. Whether the executives have thought it through or not.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Setting everything else aside, I don't trust any company to dictate what is and is not moral. Companies don't operate on morality, particularly publicly traded companies. If WotC* used that power exclusively to do things I agree with I still wouldn't trust them, because it doesn't matter what they believe now, what matters is what they believe or more likely what makes more money later. I don't trust people I know nothing about like that. Certainly not when they have incentives to use that power for personal (or company) gain. I certainly don't trust that future execs won't abuse it.

And as others have pointed out, this only creates problems for WotC if it's true that what they care about is not being seen to endorse anything vile, because now they have to check everything that comes out that is covered by the license or receive brand-damage if they miss something. The whole morality clause is just asking for abuse, both from trolls and by WotC itself.

*I find the idea that Hasbro has any qualms about immorality or that they would care beyond how it effects their bottom line laughable, but at the very least a number of WotC products have a lot to say on morality. Whether the executives have thought it through or not.

Strong agree on all of this. This morality clause puts them even more in the spotlight and increases the chances of them getting blamed for something compared to a much more anodyne disclaimer clause. Only benefit it provides is being more weaponizable in an anti-competitive aspect. Which is not acceptable to me.

Edit: and the fact that now both of their public statements have lead with "hey, we're just trying to protect you from bad stuff!", the strong guess is that they're trying to paint anyone who disagrees as an X-ist. Which is abhorrent behavior.

[johnbragg]

Not having that clause hasn't been a problem to WotC for over 20 years now, what makes it suddenly necessary other than WotC wanting themselves a legal way to screw over people operating under their license?

Because 20 years ago, the sentence "IP holders have to worry about a future JK Rowling problem" would have been total gibberish. But in 2023 you understand that sentence perfectly.

For a Hasbro shareholder, the downside risk of losing all 3PP content for D&D is probably less than the downside risk of a D&D 3rd party dragging the movie franchise or the Living Greyhawk VTT/VR/MMORPG/CRPG into a money-hemmorhaging culture war controversy.

These statements are all from WOTC's perspective, speculation on why they're doing what they're doing. I don't know that I'd advise you to release anything under OGL 1.2, personally. (Not given as business or legal advice, just context if you want to respond to my post).