You know what this reads like? Every now and again, a popular business entity thinks they're infallible: they can do what they want and expect to get away with it. Sometimes, that's true (cough...
You know what this reads like?
Every now and again, a popular business entity thinks they're infallible: they can do what they want and expect to get away with it. Sometimes, that's true (cough Microsoft coughcough Facebook cough jesus christ thats a long list cough). Other times, the business entity thinks they're one of those, and they're not.
But they put out a banner with regressive, repressive terms that seeks to either shore up their ownership of the thing they make or bring in more money. They think it's perfectly within their rights – and they're correct about that part, but they miss out on a lot of context when they do that.
I'm not a D&D aficionado, but it looks to me like third-party books suddenly getting more expensive for no obvious reason – nevermind disappearing completely – would set off an alarm bell or two within the community of nerds and geeks. Nobody wants to have less fun for more money. Nerds and geeks are among the worst group of people to piss off when it comes to entertainment.
So, what this reads like is an obituary, 20 years in advance.
On top of my reply, I just realized one of the most relevant tech examples: Oracle with the JDK. Turns out, enough people in other big companies rely on the JDK that bolstering OpenJDK was the far...
Every now and again, a popular business entity thinks they're infallible: they can do what they want and expect to get away with it. Sometimes, that's true (cough Microsoft cough cough Facebook cough jesus christ thats a long list cough). Other times, the business entity thinks they're one of those, and they're not.
On top of my reply, I just realized one of the most relevant tech examples: Oracle with the JDK. Turns out, enough people in other big companies rely on the JDK that bolstering OpenJDK was the far preferable option. For the price Oracle was trying to charge for the JDK, for any sizeable java shop it'd be cheaper to hire multiple full-time devs to work on OpenJDK itself rather than pay the fee.
There might not be a mass exodus the way that Oracle saw, but I wager a slow but steady trickle away from DnD products is inevitable.
I would bet the reverse, actually. We know that WotC has a close relationship with Critical Role; Mercer has published like 3 official WotC books on Critical Role content. That also indicates that...
I would bet the reverse, actually. We know that WotC has a close relationship with Critical Role; Mercer has published like 3 official WotC books on Critical Role content. That also indicates that WotC knows that Critical Role is a big advertising opportunity for them. DnDBeyond, now owned by WotC, is also their closest and biggest sponsor ever since they became independent.
I think WotC is going to give CR a bag of cash to officially and loudly swap to OneDnD, as a big advertising push for 1D&D. Maybe even in the middle of campaign 3, if the bag is large enough.
I'm not gonna claim to know what Matt Mercer and Co. would do given any single change in the D&D ecosystem, but if that were me: What's the point of maintaining a relationship with a company that...
I'm not gonna claim to know what Matt Mercer and Co. would do given any single change in the D&D ecosystem, but if that were me:
What's the point of maintaining a relationship with a company that doesn't want to proliferate its own content? I imagine Mercer and the rest of the writers would continue to earn passive income off the sales of the campaign setting books; going a different direction would be folly for WotC. That leaves the DnDBeyond issue, aka "finding a solid sponsor or several to replace that whale" – something I don't have a solution for.
Even with a bag of cash, playtesting a system that's due to come out only in 2024 is a big risk. The CritRole experience is the cast having lots of fun with a system they mostly understand (and it's a DM's job to illuminate and explain the parts they don't). If they have to stumble through a crooked set of rules (and if the DM has to rule on them too often), it's not gonna be fun for anyone at that table. Plus, by the time 2024 rolls out, campaign 3 would be well underway, and it would make no sense whatsoever to switch so close to a (supposed, but likely) finale.
As far as I'm aware, Critical Role have no obligation of sticking to a particular system. If they're ready to irk WotC by switching (assuming this is something WotC would be irked about), the fallout of the new license would be a solid reason to do so. It would be messy for a while, sure, but flames tend to die down eventually. I just hope that if they do switch, it would be the embers of WotC and not Critical Role that fizzle out.
Because like it or not, WotC is the biggest player by far in the space, and while the degree of dickish-ness may be fair play, the internet is not terribly great at judging business successes and...
What's the point of maintaining a relationship with a company that doesn't want to proliferate its own content?
Because like it or not, WotC is the biggest player by far in the space, and while the degree of dickish-ness may be fair play, the internet is not terribly great at judging business successes and failures. Assuming that this will go poorly business wise would be folly.
Even with a bag of cash, playtesting a system that's due to come out only in 2024 is a big risk. The CritRole experience is the cast having lots of fun with a system they mostly understand
I don't think this would really change anything. OneDnD is a big change mostly in character creation, which Mercer can guide them all through. They've never been particularly good at knowing the rules themselves anyway - Liam still didn't understand how the luck feat worked at the end of campaign 1. The draw is more everything else, they're not particularly great at playing the game itself (although, that being said, the criticism that CR is just talking is also overblown - Mercer makes sure they have plenty of combat sessions).
As far as I'm aware, Critical Role have no obligation of sticking to a particular system.
They don't, but they have large financial incentives to stick with WotC. Increasing sponsorship from DnDBeyond, which WotC seems to be expanding, opportunities to publish official content (which is hypothetically even more lucrative now that third party content has... challenges), and financial sponsorships from WotC themselves is huge.
I don't see why they would swap, honestly. Out of all of the content makers, they work so closely with WotC that the new OGL is basically irrelevant - they're publishing official content to begin with!
Them's fair points. Again, I'm not saying I know what the Crit Role cast would do, or would want to do, in this situation. "Nothing" is a valid answer. Just saying I'd think about switching for...
Them's fair points.
Again, I'm not saying I know what the Crit Role cast would do, or would want to do, in this situation. "Nothing" is a valid answer.
Just saying I'd think about switching for campaign 4 – especially this early into campaign 3 – 'cause nothing breeds rethinking one's move than a major ally willing to walk away. "Garbage in, garbage out" is a common business model, but one I wouldn't want to encourage by sticking with the business' products.
But then, what do I know? Mercer et al. have to make all the decisions. I'm just a dude on the Internet shooting shit.
I dunno that it would even take 20 years, I could see it happening in less than 5 under the right circumstances. D&D dominates for two reasons, cultural inertia, and breadth of supplementary...
I dunno that it would even take 20 years, I could see it happening in less than 5 under the right circumstances. D&D dominates for two reasons, cultural inertia, and breadth of supplementary material, and they're fucking directly with the latter in a way that's gonna weaken the former, which I think is the dominant effect.There are many different systems more suitable to the kinds of games most people want to run, and most of the people that I start out on non-d20 systems go on to prefer them and keep playing them, even people who I suspect would've long since fallen out of D&D. If they incentivize people to branch out even for their first RPG experiences, I think that might finally let the RPG Cambrian explosion of the last ten years start to percolate into the minds of the general public, which is not a good thing at all for their market share.
I mean, even among fans of the products, I don't recall many fans of the company itself. I do think it'll be a deathknell for them to try to wrest control back from openess. As patents expire...
I mean, even among fans of the products, I don't recall many fans of the company itself.
I do think it'll be a deathknell for them to try to wrest control back from openess. As patents expire they'll be left with trademarks and copyrights. In the end, a lot of the core DnD stuff has been so engrained in wider culture people could point to other sources as plausible deniability. I'd bet if there are a few large enough competitors affected by these OGL changes that they'd be able to mount a legal battle, specifically against trying to 'claw back' anything based on the prior license.
I'm a BIG fan of oTSR[1]. WotC? I mostly remember them as the creators of a game that devalued the market so much they eroded the foundation of the Big Dog and then bought them. Here's the thing...
I'm a BIG fan of oTSR[1]. WotC? I mostly remember them as the creators of a game that devalued the market so much they eroded the foundation of the Big Dog and then bought them.
Here's the thing that WotC needs to understand: ultimately, they are not the final arbiters on D&D. Not really. They may have the last official say, but fans have been homebrewing and worldmodding D&D since it was Chainmail, and they won't stop. Not if they get rid of OGL. Not if they go under. D&D isn't going away, even if WotC dies does.
[1] I had to include the nod to TSR being oTSR because there's a new TSR, and it's as if FATAL became a game company.
Incredibly bad move. I've read the OGL front to back several times. The article writes that WotC's stance is the original OGL was never intended to permit use for material outside of printed paper...
Incredibly bad move. I've read the OGL front to back several times.
The article writes that WotC's stance is the original OGL was never intended to permit use for material outside of printed paper products, which is a bald faced lie. WotC was perfectly well aware of what ecosystem the OGL would create; and if they wanted to keep it to print, they would have used some of the language from GURPS. Or, you know, include such language in an earlier revision.
I guess WotC thinks its customers are the dumbest people to walk the earth. A real shame all around, because the original OGL was such a genuinely cool move from the company and had earned them a lot of goodwill from me.
I'm practically completely divorced from tabletop role playing games, and it seems obvious to me that players are not particularly attached to DnD-specific gameplay mechanics or any of their more...
I'm practically completely divorced from tabletop role playing games, and it seems obvious to me that players are not particularly attached to DnD-specific gameplay mechanics or any of their more modern trademark features. From my outisder view, it seems to be that the only thing that players seem to really attach to is the old monsters and spells from back when it was a TSR property. The game itself has been updated multiple times and every time I've heard people talk about ruleset updates, they are tepid at best, and sometimes even angry.
DnD may be the biggest name in roleplaying, but they're far from the only game in town; in addition to games that specialize in different fictional genres and themes, there's also Pathfinder, which seems to owe a lot of it's popularity to how the publisher makes the core resources for the game freely available. Paizo's success seems to be largely from simply attempting to make their game as accessible as possible. In contrast one of the reasons why I never got into DnD (besides never having friends who were interested) was because there seemed to be a pretty steep investment; a few years ago they started selling "starter kits" which were fairly inexpensive, but it was a pretty misleading package because it was essentially just a subset of the game; it was basically a shareware demo you had to pay for.
D&D may not be the only game in town, but it is to TTRPGs what Coke is to cola and Kleenex is to facial tissue. People who don't even know the term RPG have heard of D&D, to the point where to...
D&D may not be the only game in town, but it is to TTRPGs what Coke is to cola and Kleenex is to facial tissue. People who don't even know the term RPG have heard of D&D, to the point where to some people the terms are interchangeable. That kind of brand recognition is invaluable.
That said, while I do play TTRPGs (every other week for a year now), I haven't played D&D in quite a while. And as I said in a different post, people will homebrew their own system and reskin D&D things if it comes to that.
I know this isn't the most important part, but I hate how the new license is 10x longer than the old one and is full of massive changes and they chose to increment the version from 1.0 to 1.1. The...
I know this isn't the most important part, but I hate how the new license is 10x longer than the old one and is full of massive changes and they chose to increment the version from 1.0 to 1.1. The version number is a marketing/PR maneuver and I hate it.
In design, this is referred to as a "dark pattern", because its main purpose is to deceive the user into doing something they wouldn't ordinarily do. This includes hiding ways to unsubscribe from...
In design, this is referred to as a "dark pattern", because its main purpose is to deceive the user into doing something they wouldn't ordinarily do. This includes hiding ways to unsubscribe from a service or making it unnecessarily difficult (e.g. having to call the company or provide written requests).
What WotC is doing is a clear example of a dark pattern. Any software lawyer would recognize that such a massive change would warrant a new major version (i.e., 2.0, not a minor version 1.1 or a patch version 1.0.1), or even a separate license. There's no reason to make it 1.1 given the scope of changes, because that would be misleading to the majority of its potential users: given the ostensibly-small bump the the license version, people wouldn't want to bother reading it unless it directly and obviously concerns them.
What they're looking to do is minimize the profile of the change. They want to avoid the hot water as much as they possible can wiggle out to. It's sleazy.
An open letter has been published under the title "#OpenDND". At this moment, it's been signed by 15 000+ people. UPD: almost four days later, the signature count is 66k. Also, the website has...
An open letter has been published under the title "#OpenDND". At this moment, it's been signed by 15 000+ people.
#OpenDnD is a rallying cry under which creators and fans have unified to demand that WotC revoke the draconian 1.1 OGL and pledge to support the existing 1.0 OGL into future editions of their games. This isn’t an opportunity to litigate and tinker with a new license, but to return to the values of open gaming. Our community deserves an open future if we want our favorite games to not only survive, but thrive!!
If you are a creator, #DontSign the new agreement. If you love roleplaying games, let WotC know we won't support them without an #OpenDnD!
WotC has shown that they are the dragon on top of the hoard, willing to burn the thriving village if only to get a few more gold pieces. It’s time for us to band together as adventurers to defend our village from the terrible wyrm.
UPD: almost four days later, the signature count is 66k.
Also, the website has added an update of their own to the front page:
After more than sixty thousand signatures, Wizards of the Coast has announced concessions to their proposed 2.0 Open Gaming License.
The fight for open gaming isn’t over.
Until we see this license for ourselves, Wizards of the Coast might still maintain the most damning terms, including banning VTTs and other software, mandatory invasive reporting, and threatening other systems built on the original 1.0 OGL. This letter will remain and update as the fight evolves.
Paizo – a publishing house known for Pathfinder – has announced development of a "system-neutral" (aka system-agnostic) RPG license that is "open, perpetual, and irrevocable" [emphasis theirs]....
Paizo – a publishing house known for Pathfinder – has announced development of a "system-neutral" (aka system-agnostic) RPG license that is "open, perpetual, and irrevocable" [emphasis theirs].
They call it – and I love that – ORC: Open RPG Creative license.
We believe that any interpretation that the OGL 1.0 or 1.0(a) were intended to be revocable or able to be deauthorized is incorrect, and with good reason.
We were there.
Paizo owner Lisa Stevens and Paizo president Jim Butler were leaders on the Dungeons & Dragons team at Wizards at the time. Brian Lewis, co-founder of Azora Law, the intellectual property law firm that Paizo uses, was the attorney at Wizards who came up with the legal framework for the OGL itself. Paizo has also worked very closely on OGL-related issues with Ryan Dancey, the visionary who conceived the OGL in the first place.
<...>
The new Open RPG Creative License will be built system agnostic for independent game publishers under the legal guidance of Azora Law, an intellectual property law firm that represents Paizo and several other game publishers. Paizo will pay for this legal work. We invite game publishers worldwide to join us in support of this system-agnostic license that allows all games to provide their own unique open rules reference documents that open up their individual game systems to the world.
<...>
Of course, Paizo plans to continue publishing Pathfinder and Starfinder, even as we move away from the Open Gaming License. Since months’ worth of products are still at the printer, you’ll see the familiar OGL 1.0(a) in the back of our products for a while yet. While the Open RPG Creative License is being finalized, we’ll be printing Pathfinder and Starfinder products without any license, and we’ll add the finished license to those products when the new license is complete.
Another dissenting voice online, this time – from Kobold Press, a company publishing 5th Edition D&D rulebooks of its own. Kobold Press is launching Project: Black Flag: "a new Core Fantasy...
Another dissenting voice online, this time – from Kobold Press, a company publishing 5th Edition D&D rulebooks of its own. Kobold Press is launching Project: Black Flag: "a new Core Fantasy tabletop ruleset: available, open, and subscription-free for those who love it".
You can sign up to playtest the ruleset, as well as join their Discord server.
The YouTube channel LegalEagle says that were your DnD-compatible content to avoid direct quotes from the official rule books then you do not need the OGL at all, making this all moot....
The YouTube channel LegalEagle says that were your DnD-compatible content to avoid direct quotes from the official rule books then you do not need the OGL at all, making this all moot.
Essentially, you don't need a license to make derived content unless you infringe on specific trademarked elements or reproduce content verbatim and in length. The licenses serve only to provide...
Essentially, you don't need a license to make derived content unless you infringe on specific trademarked elements or reproduce content verbatim and in length. The licenses serve only to provide extra reassurance that you won't have to argue this in court, but, if you go to court, you will likely win.
My biggest question: Can they actually change the license on previous editions of DnD? It seems like this should kill revenue as people stay on v4 or v5. Edit: v4 was not OGL licensed.
My biggest question: Can they actually change the license on previous editions of DnD? It seems like this should kill revenue as people stay on v4 or v5.
This appears to be their goal: to relicense everything (that was under the original OGL, aka v1.0a) retroactively and either (a) force people to switch and pay up, (b) remove the competition via...
This appears to be their goal: to relicense everything (that was under the original OGL, aka v1.0a) retroactively and either (a) force people to switch and pay up, (b) remove the competition via lawsuit blizzard due to "incompliance with the license".
Did the original OGL (I think I'm following all these acronyms) include any clause that allowed them to revoke that license? Or are licenses generally retractable by their licensors at any time...
Did the original OGL (I think I'm following all these acronyms) include any clause that allowed them to revoke that license? Or are licenses generally retractable by their licensors at any time unless the license specifically states otherwise?
https://opengamingfoundation.org/ogl.html Depends on how you interpret "authorized". You'd have one side arguing that "authorized" means "currently authorized" and another arguing it means "ever...
Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.
Depends on how you interpret "authorized". You'd have one side arguing that "authorized" means "currently authorized" and another arguing it means "ever authorized".
Is that going to be accepted by a judge? I’m sure most people would choose to avoid the lawsuit entirely but there must be one group bold enough to argue you can’t do that retroactively.
Is that going to be accepted by a judge? I’m sure most people would choose to avoid the lawsuit entirely but there must be one group bold enough to argue you can’t do that retroactively.
I'm no expert on the matter, so I can't say either way with any amount of certainty. Bold enough? Sure. Probably every single TTRPG publishing house worth a damn. The question – as it often is in...
I'm no expert on the matter, so I can't say either way with any amount of certainty.
there must be one group bold enough to argue you can’t do that retroactively
Bold enough? Sure. Probably every single TTRPG publishing house worth a damn. The question – as it often is in the US – is money: litigation in the States is an expensive process, win or lose – in a way that makes people sweat at the mere thought of fighting a patent troll in court, nevermind a legitimate case.
In situations like this one, it's a game of "who has the money to afford a better lawyer". If it ain't you, chances are, you've already lost. It's not even a gamble in cases where large corporations are involved.
Which is a real shame, 'cause holy shit we would see a lot fewer large corporations – with their lax attitudes towards user data collection and general feeling of invulnerability to the law – if the cost of lawyering up would not be the deciding factor before the case is even heard.
You know what this reads like?
Every now and again, a popular business entity thinks they're infallible: they can do what they want and expect to get away with it. Sometimes, that's true (cough Microsoft cough cough Facebook cough jesus christ thats a long list cough). Other times, the business entity thinks they're one of those, and they're not.
But they put out a banner with regressive, repressive terms that seeks to either shore up their ownership of the thing they make or bring in more money. They think it's perfectly within their rights – and they're correct about that part, but they miss out on a lot of context when they do that.
I'm not a D&D aficionado, but it looks to me like third-party books suddenly getting more expensive for no obvious reason – nevermind disappearing completely – would set off an alarm bell or two within the community of nerds and geeks. Nobody wants to have less fun for more money. Nerds and geeks are among the worst group of people to piss off when it comes to entertainment.
So, what this reads like is an obituary, 20 years in advance.
On top of my reply, I just realized one of the most relevant tech examples: Oracle with the JDK. Turns out, enough people in other big companies rely on the JDK that bolstering OpenJDK was the far preferable option. For the price Oracle was trying to charge for the JDK, for any sizeable java shop it'd be cheaper to hire multiple full-time devs to work on OpenJDK itself rather than pay the fee.
There might not be a mass exodus the way that Oracle saw, but I wager a slow but steady trickle away from DnD products is inevitable.
inb4 Critical Role campaign 4 switches back to Pathfinder
I would bet the reverse, actually. We know that WotC has a close relationship with Critical Role; Mercer has published like 3 official WotC books on Critical Role content. That also indicates that WotC knows that Critical Role is a big advertising opportunity for them. DnDBeyond, now owned by WotC, is also their closest and biggest sponsor ever since they became independent.
I think WotC is going to give CR a bag of cash to officially and loudly swap to OneDnD, as a big advertising push for 1D&D. Maybe even in the middle of campaign 3, if the bag is large enough.
I'm not gonna claim to know what Matt Mercer and Co. would do given any single change in the D&D ecosystem, but if that were me:
What's the point of maintaining a relationship with a company that doesn't want to proliferate its own content? I imagine Mercer and the rest of the writers would continue to earn passive income off the sales of the campaign setting books; going a different direction would be folly for WotC. That leaves the DnDBeyond issue, aka "finding a solid sponsor or several to replace that whale" – something I don't have a solution for.
Even with a bag of cash, playtesting a system that's due to come out only in 2024 is a big risk. The CritRole experience is the cast having lots of fun with a system they mostly understand (and it's a DM's job to illuminate and explain the parts they don't). If they have to stumble through a crooked set of rules (and if the DM has to rule on them too often), it's not gonna be fun for anyone at that table. Plus, by the time 2024 rolls out, campaign 3 would be well underway, and it would make no sense whatsoever to switch so close to a (supposed, but likely) finale.
As far as I'm aware, Critical Role have no obligation of sticking to a particular system. If they're ready to irk WotC by switching (assuming this is something WotC would be irked about), the fallout of the new license would be a solid reason to do so. It would be messy for a while, sure, but flames tend to die down eventually. I just hope that if they do switch, it would be the embers of WotC and not Critical Role that fizzle out.
Because like it or not, WotC is the biggest player by far in the space, and while the degree of dickish-ness may be fair play, the internet is not terribly great at judging business successes and failures. Assuming that this will go poorly business wise would be folly.
I don't think this would really change anything. OneDnD is a big change mostly in character creation, which Mercer can guide them all through. They've never been particularly good at knowing the rules themselves anyway - Liam still didn't understand how the luck feat worked at the end of campaign 1. The draw is more everything else, they're not particularly great at playing the game itself (although, that being said, the criticism that CR is just talking is also overblown - Mercer makes sure they have plenty of combat sessions).
They don't, but they have large financial incentives to stick with WotC. Increasing sponsorship from DnDBeyond, which WotC seems to be expanding, opportunities to publish official content (which is hypothetically even more lucrative now that third party content has... challenges), and financial sponsorships from WotC themselves is huge.
I don't see why they would swap, honestly. Out of all of the content makers, they work so closely with WotC that the new OGL is basically irrelevant - they're publishing official content to begin with!
Them's fair points.
Again, I'm not saying I know what the Crit Role cast would do, or would want to do, in this situation. "Nothing" is a valid answer.
Just saying I'd think about switching for campaign 4 – especially this early into campaign 3 – 'cause nothing breeds rethinking one's move than a major ally willing to walk away. "Garbage in, garbage out" is a common business model, but one I wouldn't want to encourage by sticking with the business' products.
But then, what do I know? Mercer et al. have to make all the decisions. I'm just a dude on the Internet shooting shit.
I dunno that it would even take 20 years, I could see it happening in less than 5 under the right circumstances. D&D dominates for two reasons, cultural inertia, and breadth of supplementary material, and they're fucking directly with the latter in a way that's gonna weaken the former, which I think is the dominant effect.There are many different systems more suitable to the kinds of games most people want to run, and most of the people that I start out on non-d20 systems go on to prefer them and keep playing them, even people who I suspect would've long since fallen out of D&D. If they incentivize people to branch out even for their first RPG experiences, I think that might finally let the RPG Cambrian explosion of the last ten years start to percolate into the minds of the general public, which is not a good thing at all for their market share.
I mean, even among fans of the products, I don't recall many fans of the company itself.
I do think it'll be a deathknell for them to try to wrest control back from openess. As patents expire they'll be left with trademarks and copyrights. In the end, a lot of the core DnD stuff has been so engrained in wider culture people could point to other sources as plausible deniability. I'd bet if there are a few large enough competitors affected by these OGL changes that they'd be able to mount a legal battle, specifically against trying to 'claw back' anything based on the prior license.
I'm a BIG fan of oTSR[1]. WotC? I mostly remember them as the creators of a game that devalued the market so much they eroded the foundation of the Big Dog and then bought them.
Here's the thing that WotC needs to understand: ultimately, they are not the final arbiters on D&D. Not really. They may have the last official say, but fans have been homebrewing and worldmodding D&D since it was Chainmail, and they won't stop. Not if they get rid of OGL. Not if they go under. D&D isn't going away, even if WotC
diesdoes.[1] I had to include the nod to TSR being oTSR because there's a new TSR, and it's as if FATAL became a game company.
Incredibly bad move. I've read the OGL front to back several times.
The article writes that WotC's stance is the original OGL was never intended to permit use for material outside of printed paper products, which is a bald faced lie. WotC was perfectly well aware of what ecosystem the OGL would create; and if they wanted to keep it to print, they would have used some of the language from GURPS. Or, you know, include such language in an earlier revision.
I guess WotC thinks its customers are the dumbest people to walk the earth. A real shame all around, because the original OGL was such a genuinely cool move from the company and had earned them a lot of goodwill from me.
I'm practically completely divorced from tabletop role playing games, and it seems obvious to me that players are not particularly attached to DnD-specific gameplay mechanics or any of their more modern trademark features. From my outisder view, it seems to be that the only thing that players seem to really attach to is the old monsters and spells from back when it was a TSR property. The game itself has been updated multiple times and every time I've heard people talk about ruleset updates, they are tepid at best, and sometimes even angry.
DnD may be the biggest name in roleplaying, but they're far from the only game in town; in addition to games that specialize in different fictional genres and themes, there's also Pathfinder, which seems to owe a lot of it's popularity to how the publisher makes the core resources for the game freely available. Paizo's success seems to be largely from simply attempting to make their game as accessible as possible. In contrast one of the reasons why I never got into DnD (besides never having friends who were interested) was because there seemed to be a pretty steep investment; a few years ago they started selling "starter kits" which were fairly inexpensive, but it was a pretty misleading package because it was essentially just a subset of the game; it was basically a shareware demo you had to pay for.
D&D may not be the only game in town, but it is to TTRPGs what Coke is to cola and Kleenex is to facial tissue. People who don't even know the term RPG have heard of D&D, to the point where to some people the terms are interchangeable. That kind of brand recognition is invaluable.
That said, while I do play TTRPGs (every other week for a year now), I haven't played D&D in quite a while. And as I said in a different post, people will homebrew their own system and reskin D&D things if it comes to that.
I know this isn't the most important part, but I hate how the new license is 10x longer than the old one and is full of massive changes and they chose to increment the version from 1.0 to 1.1. The version number is a marketing/PR maneuver and I hate it.
In design, this is referred to as a "dark pattern", because its main purpose is to deceive the user into doing something they wouldn't ordinarily do. This includes hiding ways to unsubscribe from a service or making it unnecessarily difficult (e.g. having to call the company or provide written requests).
What WotC is doing is a clear example of a dark pattern. Any software lawyer would recognize that such a massive change would warrant a new major version (i.e.,
2.0, not a minor version1.1or a patch version1.0.1), or even a separate license. There's no reason to make it1.1given the scope of changes, because that would be misleading to the majority of its potential users: given the ostensibly-small bump the the license version, people wouldn't want to bother reading it unless it directly and obviously concerns them.What they're looking to do is minimize the profile of the change. They want to avoid the hot water as much as they possible can wiggle out to. It's sleazy.
An open letter has been published under the title "#OpenDND". At this moment, it's been signed by 15 000+ people.
UPD: almost four days later, the signature count is 66k.
Also, the website has added an update of their own to the front page:
Paizo – a publishing house known for Pathfinder – has announced development of a "system-neutral" (aka system-agnostic) RPG license that is "open, perpetual, and irrevocable" [emphasis theirs].
They call it – and I love that – ORC: Open RPG Creative license.
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Another dissenting voice online, this time – from Kobold Press, a company publishing 5th Edition D&D rulebooks of its own. Kobold Press is launching Project: Black Flag: "a new Core Fantasy tabletop ruleset: available, open, and subscription-free for those who love it".
You can sign up to playtest the ruleset, as well as join their Discord server.
The YouTube channel LegalEagle says that were your DnD-compatible content to avoid direct quotes from the official rule books then you do not need the OGL at all, making this all moot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZQJQYqhAgY
Essentially, you don't need a license to make derived content unless you infringe on specific trademarked elements or reproduce content verbatim and in length. The licenses serve only to provide extra reassurance that you won't have to argue this in court, but, if you go to court, you will likely win.
WOTC has officially responded: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1423-an-update-on-the-open-game-license-ogl
I don't have the time to do a full rebuttal, but my goodness there's a lot of lies, half-truths, and misdirection in that statement.
Do tag me if you do go for a full rebuttal.
WOTC tries again with a second official response: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1428-a-working-conversation-about-the-open-game-license
My biggest question: Can they actually change the license on previous editions of DnD? It seems like this should kill revenue as people stay on v4 or v5.
Edit: v4 was not OGL licensed.
This appears to be their goal: to relicense everything (that was under the original OGL, aka v1.0a) retroactively and either (a) force people to switch and pay up, (b) remove the competition via lawsuit blizzard due to "incompliance with the license".
Did the original OGL (I think I'm following all these acronyms) include any clause that allowed them to revoke that license? Or are licenses generally retractable by their licensors at any time unless the license specifically states otherwise?
https://opengamingfoundation.org/ogl.html
Depends on how you interpret "authorized". You'd have one side arguing that "authorized" means "currently authorized" and another arguing it means "ever authorized".
Is that going to be accepted by a judge? I’m sure most people would choose to avoid the lawsuit entirely but there must be one group bold enough to argue you can’t do that retroactively.
I'm no expert on the matter, so I can't say either way with any amount of certainty.
Bold enough? Sure. Probably every single TTRPG publishing house worth a damn. The question – as it often is in the US – is money: litigation in the States is an expensive process, win or lose – in a way that makes people sweat at the mere thought of fighting a patent troll in court, nevermind a legitimate case.
In situations like this one, it's a game of "who has the money to afford a better lawyer". If it ain't you, chances are, you've already lost. It's not even a gamble in cases where large corporations are involved.
Which is a real shame, 'cause holy shit we would see a lot fewer large corporations – with their lax attitudes towards user data collection and general feeling of invulnerability to the law – if the cost of lawyering up would not be the deciding factor before the case is even heard.