It feels like typical corporate back peddling. They’re trying to put the pieces back together by lying to the community that built them. Unless they fully revoke their OGL updates my subscription will stay deleted and I’ll move to Pathfinder or something. #PaizoPOG
The community built DnD to what it is today and if WotC continues with what they’re doing the community will move on and leave WotC in its grave. The unfortunate reality of corporate greed. I’m honestly proud of how this community stood up for itself and its creators.
I'm surprised, frankly, that they are even allowing this thread to continue. But I'm not coming back unless the D&D brand is bought by someone with morals
If you're going to apologize, don't lie in the apology. They ALMOST got it right, then couldn't help trying to spin themselves as the good guys in this scenario. Outline for the correct response:
1. We were completely wrong. 2. Here's who's been fired for thinking any of this was okay. 3. Here's a couple things we should do in the new version (NFT stuff, Racism, Etc). 4. Here's how we'll be getting feedback on the new version. 5. Sincere apology, written by whoever internally had the guts to point out this was wrong, and has now been promoted to replace the people fired in step 2.
Notice the complete lack of deflecting, blaming others, or blatantly lying.
Can any of you cancel your subscriptions right now? I keep getting redirected to the subscribe page when I try to go to management, and the option is not available on the app at the moment.
Yes, go to your account settings, then Manage Subscription, then hit the hyperlink at the bottom that says Cancel My Subscription or somesuch.
I'm highly doubtful any major changes will actually take place, my thought is at best more flowery language will be added in order to make easily discerning the meaning behind all their words more difficult but some things are crystal clear at this point.
They actually intended to roll out OGL 1.1 with no changes, make no mistake. They didn't want/need our feedback.
-If they actually intended to get our feedback then why did they contract platforms like Kickstarter and the like far in advance in order to work out terms with them regarding the royalty payments without including the community they supposedly planned on getting feedback from?
-If they truly believed the OGL is for the benefit of the fans then why make it a part of the "draft" that the fan's content could be claimed by Wotc and used for any purpose without even so much as crediting the creators? Even if the leak version was a so-called draft, that alone goes against their most recent response claiming they never intended to harm the vast community. They were/still are after the community's money, nothing more, nothing less. Don't forget: in the leaked OGL they had it written "You own the new and original content You create. You agree to give Us a nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license to use that content for any purpose."
"Any purpose", meaning yes, they could if they wanted to, sell "Your" original content as they wished. Anywhere they want, with no requirement to state you as a content creator, homebrewer or aspiring designer had any hand in it officially.
This runs counter to their current statement of "It was never our intent to impact the vast majority of the community." It's not hard to see where they were going.
"OTHER PRODUCTS. Sometimes, great minds think alike. We can’t and won’t cancel products out of fear that they’d be seen as “similar to” Licensed Works. Therefore: A. You agree that nothing prohibits Us from developing, distributing, selling, or promoting something that is substantially similar to a Licensed Work."
but ya know, stealing content creator's content was never their original intent.
Just remember "Our plan was always to solicit the input of our community before any update to the OGL" So... if they intendedto hear your voice in the first place why did their changing of plans only come about after about a week of radio silence, mass unsubscribing, and multiple delays on any form of official communication regarding this "draft" ? Why did they already make the contracts with Kickstarter, Patreon and so on for royalty payments?
In my opinion, they'd already worked out everything and planned on releasing it without any changes whatsoever, with the leak it's only now after so many people have actively stated they're leaving, unsubscribing, and ultimately costing the company money that they're changing plans. If the leaker hadn't released it you wouldn't have seen anything until it released, that's the only truth in this situation. There is no sincerity in those words, only veiled niceties to try and get back on the good side of a community they planned to backstab.
They started off with an outright lie about this being a draft. Everything else from that is ruined.
All we want is honesty from Wizards of the Coast. Say what you are really planning, ask for feedback, take the advice or leave it but please don't lie to your customers.
1) Wrong tone. This isn't a funny relatable slip-up, and it isn't an optimistic signal of future growth. And this partial reversal is CERTAINLY not a minor timetable advance on a positive move they were already planning to make because they love you.
2) Lies. It wasn't a draft and it wasn't circulated to get feedback. Repeating and rephrasing that claim doesn't make it true. They aren't supporting anyone going forward. They'll support "aspiring designers," but not designers. Keep aspiring forever. "The thought never crossed our minds" -- does anyone believe this? "UwU, we're just a bunch of silly little guys!" "It was never our intent to impact the vast majority of the community." Guess what? The community buys third party products. Who the hell else do you think is buying them? Martians?
3) Hidden knives. They indicated that yes, they do intend to "de-authorize" the existing version, and yes, they do intend to shut down all competition. These things are just slightly rephrased to try to get you on board with them this time. Notice that "VTT uses" are exempt (what are those, even?) but not VTTs.
My rating: Oni/10. The illusion would be convincing if the monster was able to control its insatiable craving for human flesh, but it keeps slipping food innuendos into conversation and licking its lips.
Everything is a lie until we see hard evidence it's not. Until the new terms are laid out for full view of the community, we assume they only spout falsehoods.
Sounds corporate. The fact that they still have comments turned off and are posting as "DND Beyond Staff" suggests they don't have our interests at heart. Not confident in the goodwill of the company.
Hate that their response says they always intended to solicit feedback and that's why we saw the OGL when it was a leak. I've canceled my DDB subscription. This plus some other enraging stuff (the fact that hadozee happened at all still baffles me) has shown me that it's time to move on to another system. It's very sad to see, but I'm not going to let myself get milked for every penny I'm worth by Hasbro.
Sorry Hasbro/WotC this is not rolling a “1”. This was an outright auto fail on knowing your target audience.
The original OGL was one of the better moves of the company. Without that OGL D&D was stagnating and fragmenting. TSR made the same mistake in the 80’s and into the 90s going after the old BBS and Fanzines.
No I’m not going to threaten to cancel my D&D Beyond subscription. Especially considering how much I’ve spent into it. Why should that worry you more, because I am willing to spend money on products I like. Lately I have been questioning myself if I truly want the product being produced. Why’s that you ask, it’s because recent products have been quite lackluster in appeal.
I’m in the middle of packing my house up, my role playing game room is just under half done, and that was my non- TSR/WotC stuff. 30 bankers boxes of third party items or systems, about half of which are directly D&D compatible in 1E/3E/5E. As you see I could easily run a game a night and not repeat for a long time. But D&D has been my steadfast play anytime.
And that is why I find your apology note simply disingenuous. You thought the 4E fracture was bad, you lost the trust of those third parties that said buy WOTC’s rule system here is some extra to go with it. Rather than being satisfied with the explosion of users of your base system you felt the need to steal from everyone one else.
Did you ever wonder why with Beyond’s ability to home brew the majority of folks don’t publish for others. Because they are using the third party stuff and adapting it to your system becoming subscribed to share it with their groups.
That is what you should be embracing, allow those third parties, the Adventure League, everyone putting things out on DMs Guild to get their stuff into your system. You negotiate with them a price point and your fee or percentage for doing so.
When your management starts screaming it’s under monetized tell them no. Tell them to read the history of D&D and how a cash grab in 2E sunk TSR. How 4E made everyone feel “video gamish”. Magic the Gathering is experiencing much of the same woes I hear.
You want to be good shepherds of the community then your apology should be an actual apology and truthful.What you provided was nothing more than a lawyer’s backpedaling and actually stunk of lies.
Tell them the first rule of lawyering is not to ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.
The next rule of the day for you is to be aware of your target audience, we are not your bread and circus crowd. We are a fairly higher than average IQ bunch who pour through rulebooks for fun. Anytime we read a contract we actually read it it and don’t just auto sign.
Next year marks Fifty years of D&D, don’t let it be it’s last year in print.
Note: Most if not all of the DND Beyond and WOTC staff do not like what the C Suite corporate hacks are trying to pull on us so do not harass them.
The announcement from DNDBeyond and its parent company Hasbro is nothing more than a smoke screen and slap to the face of the DND Community.
We won the first round of this battle but the war is far from over and the only way to make sure this can never happen again is to support the new #ORC open license framework and continue to cancel your DNDBeyond subscriptions. WOTC has shot themselves in the knee and it will take a good decade or two before they will be able to fully recover and rebuild our trust.
I for one will not be moving to DND 6 and I will be looking into other DND like campaigns that I can play with my friends as an alternative. That said I will also continue to play DND 5e for many years to come.
Note I will not be buying any more 1st party DND 5e content nor will I reinstate my subscription if the new OGL is released with the provisions that grant them a royalty free sublicense to everything you create and the ability to terminate your license at any time and for any reason while still keeping that sub license that allows them to use all of your content forever without paying you for it.
They really killed ALL of the goodwill they have fostered over the years with this bullsh*t, and a lot of people are hurt and angry that they even thought to TRY to pull that. When the hell has anyone ever reacted well to the "company owns all your work because you use their stuff" clause? That was a non-starter to begin with, and they should have known better. People's trust in Wizards, which was shaky already because no one likes big corporations in the first place, has been utterly shattered.
The only way they're going to regain a small percentage of that trust is to post their next draft publicly and accept feeedback from everyone. There's just no way any corporation can make things work with a community while not including the community in its decision making.
You know what I don't see a back-pedal on in this response to the community backlash?
The attempt to de-authorize previous Open Gaming Licenses.
Whatever crazy provisions you want to put on licensing 6th edition is one thing-- but canceling the license that plenty of companies have been relying on for 20 years was absolute madness.
I did kind of get the issue with some of the provisions of the 1.1 on first sight.
Like-- I have never felt comfortable with just how much Pathfinder copied directly from 3.5 D&D. And not just because I felt like defending WotC, but there were certain race stats (basically any races that was written in the Monster Manual) and monster stats that I thought surely someone would change if they were going to revise the system-- and then I look at Pathfinder and they just mindlessly copied everything over without demonstrating any real thought.
The kind of stuff NuTSR was engaging with-- literally putting white supremacist propaganda into their game system in order to "own the libs"? Yeah-- obviously it would be nice if there were a clean and simple way to get rid of such things before they become a giant blemish on the gaming market. (But then-- the gaming world survived F.A.T.A.L., didn't it?) It kind of sucks to have to engage in active litigation against people clearly being antagonistic towards protected classes purely for the enjoyment of being antagonistic and cruel.
And I do see a bit of an issue that if when 6th edition launches, what if a bunch of creators make the Psion class and the Warlord class and any other classes or races that have existed in previous editions of D&D-- or things that would be pretty obvious additions for certain campaign settings like a Gunslinger or a Samurai or an Investigator or an Inquisitor... if a 3rd party developer manages to put out a 6th edition version first, does that mean that the primary design team can never make their own version?
With a fair number of these things, I think some of the mechanics for such a class would be pretty obvious meaning that there would inevitably be some similarity.
But surely, SURELY there has to be a better way of doing it than to claim absolute control and ownership of every concept someone writes into an OGL book. Surely there can be a middle ground that would allow WotC to use similar mechanics but have no claim over any artwork or description attached.
But-- again-- however much they want to control and dictate use of 6E-- no amount of back-pedaling on anything else can undo their stated attempt to de-authorize previous versions of the license. With no more than a weeks notice no less! Once they have demonstrated the intent to do that, nothing written in any future version of a license can be trusted not to be changed on a dime.
Yes. Go to Your account, then manage subscription, then hit the hyperlink that says Cancel my Subscription.
Enjoy!
~"Until we meet again..." -Elminster the Mage
Play the game if you like it, but don´t pay anything more.
I still use books from games 10 years ago bought ^^
I'm surprised, frankly, that they are even allowing this thread to continue. But I'm not coming back unless the D&D brand is bought by someone with morals
~"Until we meet again..." -Elminster the Mage
If you're going to apologize, don't lie in the apology. They ALMOST got it right, then couldn't help trying to spin themselves as the good guys in this scenario. Outline for the correct response:
1. We were completely wrong.
2. Here's who's been fired for thinking any of this was okay.
3. Here's a couple things we should do in the new version (NFT stuff, Racism, Etc).
4. Here's how we'll be getting feedback on the new version.
5. Sincere apology, written by whoever internally had the guts to point out this was wrong, and has now been promoted to replace the people fired in step 2.
Notice the complete lack of deflecting, blaming others, or blatantly lying.
Yes, go to your account settings, then Manage Subscription, then hit the hyperlink at the bottom that says Cancel My Subscription or somesuch.
~"Until we meet again..." -Elminster the Mage
The fact that they think we're this stupid to fall for the crap they're saying when this community invented the term Rules Lawyer is hilarious.
I'm highly doubtful any major changes will actually take place, my thought is at best more flowery language will be added in order to make easily discerning the meaning behind all their words more difficult but some things are crystal clear at this point.
They actually intended to roll out OGL 1.1 with no changes, make no mistake. They didn't want/need our feedback.
-If they actually intended to get our feedback then why did they contract platforms like Kickstarter and the like far in advance in order to work out terms with them regarding the royalty payments without including the community they supposedly planned on getting feedback from?
-If they truly believed the OGL is for the benefit of the fans then why make it a part of the "draft" that the fan's content could be claimed by Wotc and used for any purpose without even so much as crediting the creators? Even if the leak version was a so-called draft, that alone goes against their most recent response claiming they never intended to harm the vast community. They were/still are after the community's money, nothing more, nothing less. Don't forget: in the leaked OGL they had it written
"You own the new and original content You create. You agree to give Us a nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license to use that content for any purpose."
"Any purpose", meaning yes, they could if they wanted to, sell "Your" original content as they wished. Anywhere they want, with no requirement to state you as a content creator, homebrewer or aspiring designer had any hand in it officially.
This runs counter to their current statement of "It was never our intent to impact the vast majority of the community." It's not hard to see where they were going.
"OTHER PRODUCTS. Sometimes, great minds think alike. We can’t and won’t cancel products out of fear that they’d be seen as “similar to” Licensed Works. Therefore: A. You agree that nothing prohibits Us from developing, distributing, selling, or promoting something that is substantially similar to a Licensed Work."
but ya know, stealing content creator's content was never their original intent.
Just remember
"Our plan was always to solicit the input of our community before any update to the OGL"
So... if they intended to hear your voice in the first place why did their changing of plans only come about after about a week of radio silence, mass unsubscribing, and multiple delays on any form of official communication regarding this "draft" ? Why did they already make the contracts with Kickstarter, Patreon and so on for royalty payments?
In my opinion, they'd already worked out everything and planned on releasing it without any changes whatsoever, with the leak it's only now after so many people have actively stated they're leaving, unsubscribing, and ultimately costing the company money that they're changing plans. If the leaker hadn't released it you wouldn't have seen anything until it released, that's the only truth in this situation. There is no sincerity in those words, only veiled niceties to try and get back on the good side of a community they planned to backstab.
They started off with an outright lie about this being a draft. Everything else from that is ruined.
All we want is honesty from Wizards of the Coast. Say what you are really planning, ask for feedback, take the advice or leave it but please don't lie to your customers.
Why is the response coming from DndBeyond and not directly from WotC, signed by the CEO?
1) Wrong tone. This isn't a funny relatable slip-up, and it isn't an optimistic signal of future growth. And this partial reversal is CERTAINLY not a minor timetable advance on a positive move they were already planning to make because they love you.
2) Lies. It wasn't a draft and it wasn't circulated to get feedback. Repeating and rephrasing that claim doesn't make it true. They aren't supporting anyone going forward. They'll support "aspiring designers," but not designers. Keep aspiring forever. "The thought never crossed our minds" -- does anyone believe this? "UwU, we're just a bunch of silly little guys!" "It was never our intent to impact the vast majority of the community." Guess what? The community buys third party products. Who the hell else do you think is buying them? Martians?
3) Hidden knives. They indicated that yes, they do intend to "de-authorize" the existing version, and yes, they do intend to shut down all competition. These things are just slightly rephrased to try to get you on board with them this time. Notice that "VTT uses" are exempt (what are those, even?) but not VTTs.
My rating: Oni/10. The illusion would be convincing if the monster was able to control its insatiable craving for human flesh, but it keeps slipping food innuendos into conversation and licking its lips.
Everything is a lie until we see hard evidence it's not. Until the new terms are laid out for full view of the community, we assume they only spout falsehoods.
draft claim is such BS.
Sounds corporate. The fact that they still have comments turned off and are posting as "DND Beyond Staff" suggests they don't have our interests at heart. Not confident in the goodwill of the company.
Remember, corporations are not your friends.
Total empty promises. Reads like a hollow corporate apology to get you back to spend money.
Hate that their response says they always intended to solicit feedback and that's why we saw the OGL when it was a leak. I've canceled my DDB subscription. This plus some other enraging stuff (the fact that hadozee happened at all still baffles me) has shown me that it's time to move on to another system. It's very sad to see, but I'm not going to let myself get milked for every penny I'm worth by Hasbro.
Sorry Hasbro/WotC this is not rolling a “1”. This was an outright auto fail on knowing your target audience.
The original OGL was one of the better moves of the company. Without that OGL D&D was stagnating and fragmenting. TSR made the same mistake in the 80’s and into the 90s going after the old BBS and Fanzines.
No I’m not going to threaten to cancel my D&D Beyond subscription. Especially considering how much I’ve spent into it. Why should that worry you more, because I am willing to spend money on products I like. Lately I have been questioning myself if I truly want the product being produced. Why’s that you ask, it’s because recent products have been quite lackluster in appeal.
I’m in the middle of packing my house up, my role playing game room is just under half done, and that was my non- TSR/WotC stuff. 30 bankers boxes of third party items or systems, about half of which are directly D&D compatible in 1E/3E/5E. As you see I could easily run a game a night and not repeat for a long time. But D&D has been my steadfast play anytime.
And that is why I find your apology note simply disingenuous. You thought the 4E fracture was bad, you lost the trust of those third parties that said buy WOTC’s rule system here is some extra to go with it. Rather than being satisfied with the explosion of users of your base system you felt the need to steal from everyone one else.
Did you ever wonder why with Beyond’s ability to home brew the majority of folks don’t publish for others. Because they are using the third party stuff and adapting it to your system becoming subscribed to share it with their groups.
That is what you should be embracing, allow those third parties, the Adventure League, everyone putting things out on DMs Guild to get their stuff into your system. You negotiate with them a price point and your fee or percentage for doing so.
When your management starts screaming it’s under monetized tell them no. Tell them to read the history of D&D and how a cash grab in 2E sunk TSR. How 4E made everyone feel “video gamish”. Magic the Gathering is experiencing much of the same woes I hear.
You want to be good shepherds of the community then your apology should be an actual apology and truthful. What you provided was nothing more than a lawyer’s backpedaling and actually stunk of lies.
Tell them the first rule of lawyering is not to ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.
The next rule of the day for you is to be aware of your target audience, we are not your bread and circus crowd. We are a fairly higher than average IQ bunch who pour through rulebooks for fun. Anytime we read a contract we actually read it it and don’t just auto sign.
Next year marks Fifty years of D&D, don’t let it be it’s last year in print.
Note: Most if not all of the DND Beyond and WOTC staff do not like what the C Suite corporate hacks are trying to pull on us so do not harass them.
The announcement from DNDBeyond and its parent company Hasbro is nothing more than a smoke screen and slap to the face of the DND Community.
We won the first round of this battle but the war is far from over and the only way to make sure this can never happen again is to support the new #ORC open license framework and continue to cancel your DNDBeyond subscriptions. WOTC has shot themselves in the knee and it will take a good decade or two before they will be able to fully recover and rebuild our trust.
I for one will not be moving to DND 6 and I will be looking into other DND like campaigns that I can play with my friends as an alternative. That said I will also continue to play DND 5e for many years to come.
Note I will not be buying any more 1st party DND 5e content nor will I reinstate my subscription if the new OGL is released with the provisions that grant them a royalty free sublicense to everything you create and the ability to terminate your license at any time and for any reason while still keeping that sub license that allows them to use all of your content forever without paying you for it.
#OpenDND #ORC #RaisetheFlag
They really killed ALL of the goodwill they have fostered over the years with this bullsh*t, and a lot of people are hurt and angry that they even thought to TRY to pull that. When the hell has anyone ever reacted well to the "company owns all your work because you use their stuff" clause? That was a non-starter to begin with, and they should have known better. People's trust in Wizards, which was shaky already because no one likes big corporations in the first place, has been utterly shattered.
The only way they're going to regain a small percentage of that trust is to post their next draft publicly and accept feeedback from everyone. There's just no way any corporation can make things work with a community while not including the community in its decision making.
You know what I don't see a back-pedal on in this response to the community backlash?
The attempt to de-authorize previous Open Gaming Licenses.
Whatever crazy provisions you want to put on licensing 6th edition is one thing-- but canceling the license that plenty of companies have been relying on for 20 years was absolute madness.
I did kind of get the issue with some of the provisions of the 1.1 on first sight.
Like-- I have never felt comfortable with just how much Pathfinder copied directly from 3.5 D&D. And not just because I felt like defending WotC, but there were certain race stats (basically any races that was written in the Monster Manual) and monster stats that I thought surely someone would change if they were going to revise the system-- and then I look at Pathfinder and they just mindlessly copied everything over without demonstrating any real thought.
The kind of stuff NuTSR was engaging with-- literally putting white supremacist propaganda into their game system in order to "own the libs"? Yeah-- obviously it would be nice if there were a clean and simple way to get rid of such things before they become a giant blemish on the gaming market. (But then-- the gaming world survived F.A.T.A.L., didn't it?) It kind of sucks to have to engage in active litigation against people clearly being antagonistic towards protected classes purely for the enjoyment of being antagonistic and cruel.
And I do see a bit of an issue that if when 6th edition launches, what if a bunch of creators make the Psion class and the Warlord class and any other classes or races that have existed in previous editions of D&D-- or things that would be pretty obvious additions for certain campaign settings like a Gunslinger or a Samurai or an Investigator or an Inquisitor... if a 3rd party developer manages to put out a 6th edition version first, does that mean that the primary design team can never make their own version?
With a fair number of these things, I think some of the mechanics for such a class would be pretty obvious meaning that there would inevitably be some similarity.
But surely, SURELY there has to be a better way of doing it than to claim absolute control and ownership of every concept someone writes into an OGL book. Surely there can be a middle ground that would allow WotC to use similar mechanics but have no claim over any artwork or description attached.
But-- again-- however much they want to control and dictate use of 6E-- no amount of back-pedaling on anything else can undo their stated attempt to de-authorize previous versions of the license. With no more than a weeks notice no less! Once they have demonstrated the intent to do that, nothing written in any future version of a license can be trusted not to be changed on a dime.