WotC and D&D Beyond will not get a cent of money from me or any of my friends until they take it back, fix what they’ve done, and repair all the bridges they’ve burned behind them.
I used to fantasize about growing up to work for WotC … no longer.
I cancelled until further notice, like a real attempt at working with 3rd party creators, ect... guess i got my sub cancelled right before they hid the cancel button. wow really hiding cancel - P.S. You can cancel said Credit Card and have it re issued easy by your Bank!
The DNDBeyond staff have been very reasonable, not locking down discussion threads about the new OGL.
The response posted by WOTC and signed "by DND Beyond Staff" is a very different matter.
I can only speculate but I suspect that the vast majority of D&D staff didn't know. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that only the members of the legal team and higher executives knew. As a result I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest to find out that most of the D&D staff, likely including the forum moderation team, are outraged as well.
What about the likes of Perkins and Crawford ?? Radio Silence ??? why didnt they learn from the 4th ed debacle , and what about the non commital rubbish statement from critical role - on the pay role of wotc - i suppose well paid actors are well paid actors - of course they are not going to say anything .
Unsubbed im glad to see most of the this great community WE have built sticking together .
As gary Gygax said you dont need any books for DnD just a DM with friends and imagination,
First they came for Magic the Gathering, and I didn't speak up cause I don't play Magic anymore. Then they came for Dungeons and Dragons- no new OGL! no more money for the HasBros
It's fancy words, Until we see the finalized official document that shows what they're saying to hold without a clause that lets them change it without notice it's silver tongued attempts to placate the fans, and pull wool over the eyes of the masses If I didn't have a yearly sub and have players that rely on me sharing my collection my sub would have been canceled already. If they opt to pull the content sharing perk My sub will go father than a Monk's movment speed.
As it stands I have been a DnD player going on 25 years playing 2nd ed with my buddies back since I was 15. It's hard to find games I enjoy that have GM's available other than DnD
I will still play, I will still run if the OGL and WOTC basically plan to **** over the content creators I just won't be putting any of my work in an open forum that WOTC has control of. It will remain my own and I will never make it publicly available. They do not get to profit from my work.
What about the likes of Perkins and Crawford ?? Radio Silence ??? why didnt they learn from the 4th ed debacle , and what about the non commital rubbish statement from critical role - on the pay role of wotc - i suppose well paid actors are well paid actors - of course they are not going to say anything .
Unsubbed im glad to see most of the this great community WE have built sticking together .
As gary Gygax said you dont need any books for DnD just a DM with friends and imagination,
In regards to Critical Role, they are probably under a ton of non-disparagement clauses in their contracts; remember DNDBeyond has been sponsoring them for many, many years. Learn to read between the lines in their statement, and consider: Given who they are and how they've been in the past, do you really believe they are pro-Hasbro on this? Their statement stated they support creators and game development; that doesn't scream WotC shills to me. More than likely, this is the most that they could say that would make it past legal/PR and not get them sued.
I'm surprised that they were able to make a statement at all, but then again their agreements would have been with DNDBeyond, not Hasbro/WotC themselves. If CR went out hard against WotC, they would get sued and there's no way they could afford that: Going to court against a large company is going to take years, and cost tens of millions before it's all over. CR wouldn't be able to withstand that.
It was the official response that pushed my to cancel my master subscription. In fact I'm so insulted by the blatant lies that I've just written calamity style events in all of my ongoing campaigns to explain the change in rules to the pathfinder ruleset. I've had my eye on pathfinder for a while but my players weren't that interested. Wotc's complete disregard for their customers has helped me change my players minds, we're fleeing this sinking ship.
If the next license "draft" doesn't immortalize protections for people using OGL 1.0, I'll cancel everything I have here. I have been playing D&D since 1993. The response was a weak attempt at PR damage control that came off as hollow.
Hasbro has already ruined MTG for me, and last year I sold all 19,000 of my cards and exited the game for good. I had been playing since 1998. I already don't like the crossover between D&D and MTG much, and wish they would have made Strixhaven content without connecting the two.
If WoTC ends up treating D&D like they did MTG, I will stop paying for their products as well. There are dozens of other systems that are available and tons of online sources for content. I like D&DBeyond, but its just a tool.
The changes they proposed in the initial update would cripple their fan base. They wouldn't make more money through licensing, they would lose it as vast groups of people transition to other systems or download their products for free from external sources.
This next draft, the perpetual and irrevocable protection of the fans and creators using OGL 1.0, are necessary to stop this dumpster fire from costing them a fortune.
Edit: Better yet, I will cancel my subscription until I see these changes. I'll be proactive.
It was the official response that pushed my to cancel my master subscription. In fact I'm so insulted by the blatant lies that I've just written calamity style events in all of my ongoing campaigns to explain the change in rules to the pathfinder ruleset. I've had my eye on pathfinder for a while but my players weren't that interested. Wotc's complete disregard for their customers has helped me change my players minds, we're fleeing this sinking ship.
I never thought of that, if my current campaign was not in the final session of it for this month whenever it happens I would too but we are at the big boss and will be done before my sub expires in may.
How do I feel about the dnd beyond staff response?
- I feel sorry for them. Hasbroke & WOTCha has burned down everything they have worked on and loved. To be honest, it probably isn’t coming back because the suits don’t get what it even was they had. Anyways, I hope you guys manage to find work doing something you enjoy, somewhere else.
This is a link to a 2 hour livestream video yesterday of a former lawyer going over what Wotc's leaker is stating is "OGL 2.0" Wotc started to make "updates" after the community's outrage. Long story short they still want to stop people from making anything using the the original OGL but work made before they release their "update" won't be included in their new version, but everything after will be included and even if people are just updating old content to 5e after 2.0 is implemented it will fall into their "new terms"."OGL 2.0" decreases the royalties they intend to take from third party creators from 25% to, you guessed it! 20%! What a deal! But they're not doing anything to change that they plan to take 3rd party content from creators so they still want backstab everyone. And it's likely they still plan on including that they can change 2.0's terms as long as they give people 30 day notice, so it's highly highly likely 1.0's original very bad terms will be reimplemented the moment they get enough people locked into to their planned terms.
10:30 is when the newer leak is begun to be discussed, the previous is a recap of 1.1
I'll be honest, I've been trying to be in the wait and see camp for this whole situation, but that post by them has really been rubbing me the wrong way. Since I read that post yesterday my irritation has steadily been growing and the fact that DNDBeyond, a company that only exists because they built themselves up with that same OGL they are now helping to shred, who then got bought up by WOTC, is frankly not excusable.
You mean passive aggressive pile of words that was clumsily arranged into so many verifiable lies that it looked like it written by George Santos? Yeah, no. I'm not impressed by that. I waited until that was released to decide if I was going to cancel my nearly 6 year sub, and that is exactly what I did the second after if finished reading that dreck. I wanted to give them a fair chance to walk things back but after that slap in the face, "we won too," bs I'm done until at least the people like Chris Cocks, Cynthia Williams and Dan Rawson are still involved with the decision making at Hasbro/WotC. I can't believe that they tried to convince us that it never crossed their minds that we would think they wanted to still our creations when they included an clause that granted them a license to use our work that was royalty free, perpetual, irrevocable, and sublicensable in both the noncommercial license and commercial license. If they didn't want to steal our work then why did they not only want to give themselves the rights to use it but they wanted the right to grant others the rights to use it with out paying us for our work. I've already begun working with all five of my groups I run to figure out what system we will switch to in the coming months.
The specific things they are rolling back on are the same things that would have caused them the most legal trouble, what a funny coincidence. They want to get this out as quickly as possible because they can always try to sneak through the changes the really want later. The way they see it the leak was bad luck and they can always try again.
what about the non commital rubbish statement from critical role - on the pay role of wotc - i suppose well paid actors are well paid actors - of course they are not going to say anything .
CR actually said quite a bit. You just need to read between the lines since they're bound by contract not to smack-talk WotC/Hasbro. it probably took days with their lawyers to make that statement in such a way they wouldn't violate NDSs.
Basically, they are most certainly on the side of the gaming community, NOT WotC.
They said as much as they legally could and that is that they stand with those negatively affected by OGL1.1.
There are ways to do an apology, and this was not it.
They still are trying to sugarcoat it and pretend that it's just a misunderstanding. The only misunderstanding was just how outraged the fan base would be by this sort of stunt.
Completely disingenuous. Not a real apology since they're not confessing to what they actually did. This, "Hey...we're really sorry if you got offended by how we were trying to protect you and *only* you," is the worst sort of corporate PR BS.
WotC had built up a lot of goodwill for me with 5e and squandered it within days. And the response shows they still don't really care.
I don't see any indication that the suits want to fix this. They just want to stop losing subscriptions.
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UNSUBSCRIBE.
WotC and D&D Beyond will not get a cent of money from me or any of my friends until they take it back, fix what they’ve done, and repair all the bridges they’ve burned behind them.
I used to fantasize about growing up to work for WotC … no longer.
I feel bad for most the workers and staff cause its just some suits screwing over their work place and the community.
But that being said suits only know one language and thats money so we cut off their money from our subs and they will listen and learn hopefully.
As the penny arcade comic states they dont pay us....we pay them so where's that hand at.
I cancelled until further notice, like a real attempt at working with 3rd party creators, ect... guess i got my sub cancelled right before they hid the cancel button. wow really hiding cancel - P.S. You can cancel said Credit Card and have it re issued easy by your Bank!
I can only speculate but I suspect that the vast majority of D&D staff didn't know. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that only the members of the legal team and higher executives knew. As a result I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest to find out that most of the D&D staff, likely including the forum moderation team, are outraged as well.
What about the likes of Perkins and Crawford ?? Radio Silence ??? why didnt they learn from the 4th ed debacle , and what about the non commital rubbish statement from critical role - on the pay role of wotc - i suppose well paid actors are well paid actors - of course they are not going to say anything .
Unsubbed im glad to see most of the this great community WE have built sticking together .
As gary Gygax said you dont need any books for DnD just a DM with friends and imagination,
First they came for Magic the Gathering, and I didn't speak up cause I don't play Magic anymore. Then they came for Dungeons and Dragons- no new OGL! no more money for the HasBros
It's fancy words, Until we see the finalized official document that shows what they're saying to hold without a clause that lets them change it without notice it's silver tongued attempts to placate the fans, and pull wool over the eyes of the masses If I didn't have a yearly sub and have players that rely on me sharing my collection my sub would have been canceled already. If they opt to pull the content sharing perk My sub will go father than a Monk's movment speed.
As it stands I have been a DnD player going on 25 years playing 2nd ed with my buddies back since I was 15. It's hard to find games I enjoy that have GM's available other than DnD
I will still play, I will still run if the OGL and WOTC basically plan to **** over the content creators I just won't be putting any of my work in an open forum that WOTC has control of. It will remain my own and I will never make it publicly available. They do not get to profit from my work.
In regards to Critical Role, they are probably under a ton of non-disparagement clauses in their contracts; remember DNDBeyond has been sponsoring them for many, many years. Learn to read between the lines in their statement, and consider: Given who they are and how they've been in the past, do you really believe they are pro-Hasbro on this? Their statement stated they support creators and game development; that doesn't scream WotC shills to me. More than likely, this is the most that they could say that would make it past legal/PR and not get them sued.
I'm surprised that they were able to make a statement at all, but then again their agreements would have been with DNDBeyond, not Hasbro/WotC themselves. If CR went out hard against WotC, they would get sued and there's no way they could afford that: Going to court against a large company is going to take years, and cost tens of millions before it's all over. CR wouldn't be able to withstand that.
It was the official response that pushed my to cancel my master subscription. In fact I'm so insulted by the blatant lies that I've just written calamity style events in all of my ongoing campaigns to explain the change in rules to the pathfinder ruleset. I've had my eye on pathfinder for a while but my players weren't that interested. Wotc's complete disregard for their customers has helped me change my players minds, we're fleeing this sinking ship.
If the next license "draft" doesn't immortalize protections for people using OGL 1.0, I'll cancel everything I have here. I have been playing D&D since 1993. The response was a weak attempt at PR damage control that came off as hollow.
Hasbro has already ruined MTG for me, and last year I sold all 19,000 of my cards and exited the game for good. I had been playing since 1998. I already don't like the crossover between D&D and MTG much, and wish they would have made Strixhaven content without connecting the two.
If WoTC ends up treating D&D like they did MTG, I will stop paying for their products as well. There are dozens of other systems that are available and tons of online sources for content. I like D&DBeyond, but its just a tool.
The changes they proposed in the initial update would cripple their fan base. They wouldn't make more money through licensing, they would lose it as vast groups of people transition to other systems or download their products for free from external sources.
This next draft, the perpetual and irrevocable protection of the fans and creators using OGL 1.0, are necessary to stop this dumpster fire from costing them a fortune.
Edit: Better yet, I will cancel my subscription until I see these changes. I'll be proactive.
They've been caught in multiple lies and wrote this in a needlessly vindictive-sounding way in some spots.
What would trying to come back from this even look like, especially considering it's pretty obvious nobody fell for it?
"I'm skeptical that you could, yet intrigued that you may."
I never thought of that, if my current campaign was not in the final session of it for this month whenever it happens I would too but we are at the big boss and will be done before my sub expires in may.
How do I feel about the dnd beyond staff response?
- I feel sorry for them. Hasbroke & WOTCha has burned down everything they have worked on and loved. To be honest, it probably isn’t coming back because the suits don’t get what it even was they had. Anyways, I hope you guys manage to find work doing something you enjoy, somewhere else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQhx9WERqqI&t=1433s
This is a link to a 2 hour livestream video yesterday of a former lawyer going over what Wotc's leaker is stating is "OGL 2.0" Wotc started to make "updates" after the community's outrage. Long story short they still want to stop people from making anything using the the original OGL but work made before they release their "update" won't be included in their new version, but everything after will be included and even if people are just updating old content to 5e after 2.0 is implemented it will fall into their "new terms". "OGL 2.0" decreases the royalties they intend to take from third party creators from 25% to, you guessed it! 20%! What a deal! But they're not doing anything to change that they plan to take 3rd party content from creators so they still want backstab everyone. And it's likely they still plan on including that they can change 2.0's terms as long as they give people 30 day notice, so it's highly highly likely 1.0's original very bad terms will be reimplemented the moment they get enough people locked into to their planned terms.
10:30 is when the newer leak is begun to be discussed, the previous is a recap of 1.1
I'll be honest, I've been trying to be in the wait and see camp for this whole situation, but that post by them has really been rubbing me the wrong way. Since I read that post yesterday my irritation has steadily been growing and the fact that DNDBeyond, a company that only exists because they built themselves up with that same OGL they are now helping to shred, who then got bought up by WOTC, is frankly not excusable.
Edit: I've unsubscribed.
It's a surprisingly long-winded collection of lies, projection and gaslighting.
To be honest it's quite a perfect corporate press release, but sadly for once facing customers that aren't buying it.
You mean passive aggressive pile of words that was clumsily arranged into so many verifiable lies that it looked like it written by George Santos? Yeah, no. I'm not impressed by that. I waited until that was released to decide if I was going to cancel my nearly 6 year sub, and that is exactly what I did the second after if finished reading that dreck. I wanted to give them a fair chance to walk things back but after that slap in the face, "we won too," bs I'm done until at least the people like Chris Cocks, Cynthia Williams and Dan Rawson are still involved with the decision making at Hasbro/WotC. I can't believe that they tried to convince us that it never crossed their minds that we would think they wanted to still our creations when they included an clause that granted them a license to use our work that was royalty free, perpetual, irrevocable, and sublicensable in both the noncommercial license and commercial license. If they didn't want to steal our work then why did they not only want to give themselves the rights to use it but they wanted the right to grant others the rights to use it with out paying us for our work. I've already begun working with all five of my groups I run to figure out what system we will switch to in the coming months.
The specific things they are rolling back on are the same things that would have caused them the most legal trouble, what a funny coincidence. They want to get this out as quickly as possible because they can always try to sneak through the changes the really want later. The way they see it the leak was bad luck and they can always try again.
CR actually said quite a bit. You just need to read between the lines since they're bound by contract not to smack-talk WotC/Hasbro. it probably took days with their lawyers to make that statement in such a way they wouldn't violate NDSs.
Basically, they are most certainly on the side of the gaming community, NOT WotC.
They said as much as they legally could and that is that they stand with those negatively affected by OGL1.1.
There are ways to do an apology, and this was not it.
They still are trying to sugarcoat it and pretend that it's just a misunderstanding. The only misunderstanding was just how outraged the fan base would be by this sort of stunt.
Completely disingenuous. Not a real apology since they're not confessing to what they actually did. This, "Hey...we're really sorry if you got offended by how we were trying to protect you and *only* you," is the worst sort of corporate PR BS.
WotC had built up a lot of goodwill for me with 5e and squandered it within days. And the response shows they still don't really care.
I don't see any indication that the suits want to fix this. They just want to stop losing subscriptions.