Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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This is sort of the crux of it though right?
They accidentally created a better market landscape, and now are regretful they weren't more protective earlier so they want to take back a big helping of market share because they feel they're owed even more market dominance than they already have.
But clawing a huge chunk of market share without actually improving your products or services is still... Bad? The landscape they made where other companies are freer to compete on the substance of their service is a genuinely better one. Their original intent doesn't really matter
As another example, in video games Namco patented loading screen minigames years and years ago. They were totally legally entitled to prevent the rest of the industry from adopting a practice that would have improved their services, but as a result of enforcing it they prevented the marketplace from improving some of their services.
Maybe, and this is just a wacky thought, but maybe that's because people who want help with a Kobold Press product go to Kobold Press's forums, and people who want help with Ghost Fire products go to the Ghostfire forums, and people who want help with Paizo products go to the Paizo forums. I'm on the Ghost Fire Gaming Discord. I have to keep the server muted because I can't keep up with the volume of posts, but when the current campaign I'm in ends, I'm going to be looking for someone who's starting a Dungeons of Drakkenheim campaign. At least, I was. No idea if GFG's will still exist and be able to support their products two or three months from now. No idea of people will still be interested in running those games, given how badly everyone is getting burned by WotC
That doesn't matter. They created the license. They stated repeatedly that it was irrevokable. Now they're trying to walk it back and destroy the livelihoods of thousands of people just because they don't like a little competition. Paizo's not the villain of the piece here. WotC/Hasbro is.
Skallagrim, as in.. the Canadian Viking Skall? Nice to see you here.
My main point was that when I see people post on here about their games, the vast majority of the stuff I see is homebrewed for their game in particular. It's not being made to be published, it's being made so that the people can have a good time at their table.
Don't get me wrong; Ithink that we need to keep an environment that encourages creativity, and I think that the changes to the OGL need to be seriously reviewed. Don't care that they want a cut if people are making business-level incomes off their work, that seems fair. Do care that they can take my IP and claim it as their own, because I mentioned rolling a D20 or casting a WotC Spell somewhere else in the same book.
I think the point I'm making is that, whilst this does suck, if we lost all of the OGL content out there for sale, people would still play D&D, the games where people homebrew everything (for example, my own) would keep going, and creativity would still win out. What's more likely to happen is that the people making D&D content will choose to release it for free to retain the IP, they will stop doing so as frequently, and times will change for the worse - but this won't kill the game!
Yes me too
Peace be with you friend.
Again, I see people looking at this through the lens we have been conditioned into looking through; that money and greed are the only things worth picking up on.
WotC is a business, and as such needs to make money. they currently have a total of 20 people in the bracket which they say will be paying them royalties. 20, out of however many thousands of people who have published things.
Are you anticipating making more than $750k per year on your book? Had you considered using some basic code on your sale site to say "the book is $19.99, and there are only 37,500 copies available each year", so that you fall just under the bracket?
People are getting caught up on the idea that "Evil Corporation is trying to make money from their IP! how evil! I wanted to make money from it, not them!", and missing the biggest point I've seen from the leaked OGL:
The content you make under the new OGL can be seized and published by WotC without giving you anything.
This means that if your book were 200 pages of detailed ships for Spelljammer, they could come along on the same day and republish it digitally as their own, and becasue you sign the OGL, there's nothing you can do about it.
That's the criminal bit. The problem isn't that they're money grabbing, it's that they're IP grabbing. Frankly, I would love to pay royalties to WotC, because that means I'm taking home $750k a year! You only py on earnings over that! So if you think $750k a year isn't enough, then who's the money grabber?
Please people, focus on the actual problem. They aren't trying to steal your profits - they're trying to claim your ideas!
if the rumors check out, and everything I read seems to confirm that they do unless they smell the fart they just dropped and decide to change course before it becomes official, then this is a massive middle finger to try and nuke Paizo and Kobold press and the likes...
the net result is that they will force those companies, and others, to create their own gaming system... which is replicating the situation with the 4e GSL that caused Paizo to become a thing in the first place... so they're trying to pull a stunt that backfired big time in the past.
Now, that particular middle finger is understandable, because as they say, the release wasn't intended as a freebie for their competitors (or rather, in their hubris they never thought that real competition would be a possibility)... but the predatory and ruthless way they go about it is going to screw over pretty much everybody else too..
people who collectively don't even reach a 1% turnover of WotC and who's work actually enriches WotC because it keeps so many players tied to this particular gaming system, are going to find their entire projects, current kickstarters, recently funded ones, and new stuff they aim to launch, to be completely gauged from under their feet, putting them out of business.
The only way forward for them is side with the bigger players in some sort of class action, but that too requires resources that most of the small creators cannot possibly invest in this whilst at the same time having to go back to looking for a day job.
Yes, Hasbro has the right to do this (although if the text is as reported they are going to be attacked on the timeline they are proposing for people to "cease and desist" because such a timeline has to be at least somewhat reasonable and 10 days just isn't it)... I was saying, yes, Hasbro has the right to defend their IP and their product however they see fit.... but it is a scummy move that belies a lack of understanding of the community and how the third party creations have fueled the community and kept things interesting for everybody involved.
It so happens that I have fairly recently renewed my subscription to DnDbeyond, but I am seriously considering buying the books I haven't got yet in paper format to ensure that I won't loose them in the upcoming shift to One DnD. I fully expect printed books to eventually become a thing of the past, and in the new paradigm postulated by this leaked document, I now also expect that my ability to enjoy the future editions moving forward will forever be held hostage by whatever shape and microtransaction and royalty fee markup the future holds.
I have, by paying the DnDBeyond subscription, now paid the books that I "own" a few times over... and I was fine with it. I accepted the tradeoff of having to keep paying for content I already have paid once when I bought it to be able to access it, with the ease offered by the character creator and so on...
now, that goodwill is dwindling, and I assume the same can be said for many other players.
I think WotC will see a spike in sales in paper copies, and then a solid chunk of people riding out their subscription and then set sail to friendlier shores..
Not all of us have been brought up listening to music on spotify.. some of us still buy CDs and vinyl and listen to the music we like on our terms rather than those of the provider...
I don't need a VTT.. I can just as well play with a webcam pointed at my kitchen-table and running a zoom call.
I use VTTs and was willing to consider eventually using WotC's own one when the time came, because they're available... if suddenly WotC's is going to become the only one on the market, then I will think twice whether I want my hobby to be held hostage by them, especially after they pull this stunt (again, if it's confirmed).
That of course is just my 2cents, and in the grand scheme of things that's more than the turnover WotC will lose if I take my business elsewhere... but I suspect, and sorta hope, that I am not alone.
Finally, the whole "we expect pushback but are also open to being told we have made a mistake" bit is such a bit of PR varnish that it's laughable.. it's obviously written by someone who does engage with the community and has studied media communication, but has exactly 0 pull to make that promise... There is not going to be a dialogue or a modification in the company's intents and strategies.. those are coming from the top of the food-chain... it's frankly irritating to see this happen. I've worked in the toy industry for over a decade and rubbed elbows with these people, and people like them, at tradeshows, in a previous career... they are suits, through and through and my outlook on this issue can't be anything but grim.
It would be very interesting to hear the thoughts of authors who have contributed to the latest books published by WotC.. authors who come from the DM guild and who until today made a living by publishing third party content, running kickstarters and so on...
but I reckon most of them have already signed the NDA.
If this new "OGL" comes along with OneD&D then I am D&Done.
I believe you might do well to take a step back and think about what you just wrote and why you wrote it.
If you spent 2+ years working on a book, and assuming that book is somewhere close to being done, why change course? While 'technically' you are supporting Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro by releasing your product, you are even more supporting yourself. If you think about it, WotC is asking for a royalty based on the use of the SRD and/or IP. How much random % of your book will you be paying to other random people without even thinking about it? Maybe kickstarter, paypal, drivethru, mastercard/visa, etc.? You freely pay % of transactions for using a services that have nothing to do with your actual product. At least WotC says you don't need to pay unless it is 3/4 of a million dollars, the others charge you no matter what.
As for the whole part about them being able to reuse content, there is so much content on the DMsguild I doubt they could ever read it all let alone reuse it. My personal opinion is, that I think this is more designed to protect WotC from accidentally republishing something that a developer read a year ago and incorporated in a game without even realizing he was copying it, but maybe that's just me.
Regardless, why waste all that time you spent? It's only you that you're hurting, not WotC.
I agree. Let's say that WotC release an oceanic supplement and it features a Shark-leviathan. How many eople have published something with that in it? 3? 4? 20? so WotC doesn't want everyne who's had this idea already to come to them and say "hey, that's mine", especially when they made it for WotC's game!
Someone mentioned aftermarket car parts on here. Say I make a suspension unit for a car that lets it go up and down, and then the makers of the car make the same thing and start selling it - I can hardly say that it was mine, because I made it for their car, which is theirs!
No you definitely could if you patented it. There's no issue patenting something thats meant to work with another physical product.
Then after about 20 years of time your patent would revert to the public, so that the industry as a whole could benefit from the part instead of just you monopolizing the device you made.
The reason copyrights don't revert to the public under similar timeframes (Even though making new IP is considerably easier than making new industry changing physical parts) is largely due to massive lobbying, especially by a certain mouse themed corporation.
To note there is actually considerable controversy about companies that charge a fee on every little transaction, not everyone believes thats the right thing to do either.
But even still there is a fairly large difference between "I will require a fee to facilitate the action you want (Crowdfunding, Bank to bank payment etc.) and a royalty for just existing. One is giving a company money to continue their service, the other is giving a company money for some imagined past service.
"Hey I know we haven't actually done anything to help with your book, but it includes SOME of our rules from 15 years ago! That'll be 20% of your revenue please-"
And also note they can change the values any time they want as long as they give 30 days notice, so those threshholds are very likely to change given they are also demanding financial data from anyone earning 50K or more.
I would generally veer away from "This legal document is fine as long as this company maintains human-like morals" as it very often does not turn out well longterm. (See also Apple's proprietary products VS consumers who just want to repair shit)
As long as the writer removes any reference to D%D he should be fine.'
Spells that are ONLY in WotC copy written material included. But just a fireball spell would be fine since its a very generic effect used across many stories and games. Setting and city names published in WotC material should also be removed.
But all of that is easy in a good word processing program.
You can easily say its yours. As long as its unique and you can prove you were the first to use it. A patent is the official proof most people take to court and use but some few people have gotten away with less.
I used to rebuild classic cars. If I purchased aftermarket parts they did not necessarily have the cars logo attached and were thus of various quality and normally cheaper. One time I have to use all Ford parts and official replacement parts. One trunk chrome badge cost me 500 dollars, 20 years ago. The aftermarket part without the official Ford logo was 100 bucks.
People really should read the official copyright rules and laws of the US. Its not long or hard. But you will quickly see that ANY OGL is just wrong and in many ways go against these long standing laws. But if you sign that contract your now bound to uphold it.
While you're right it's unlikely they read everything on DMsGuild (which again brings up the question of the cost of more directly managing all these licensees), DMsGuild sales figures are one way many designers ultimately find work with WotC and the other larger 3rd party publishers. Sometimes, WotC or the 3rd party even reaches out to the creative, so yeah, DMsGuild is noted by "the pros" (and let's also note that many folks who've written officially for WotC will still produce content for DMsGuild when their contract is over etc). I think what isn't being said enough in these OGL analysis is it seems WotC wants to basically put all creative content for D&D produced outside of WotC to terms closer to DMsGuild than the current 3rd party situation. That's an aggressive upset to what is yes, economic small potatoes compared to WotC's D&D revenue, which is why I find this move on WotC's part so bewildering.
I think WotC's scared. Despite the compatibility claims that seem pretty evident in the One D&D claim, someone, maybe a newly hired exec from the software industry or part of the braintrust they may have brought on board with them for the biz side of things was aware of what happened to D&D in the shift from 3.5 and 4.0 and is trying to devise a way to control the property of D&D in such a way that if 6e or whatever produces a similar "let's stick with 5e ftw" consensus among the player base, they won't see a Pathfinder scooping up their hard core players at the end of the core product release cycle. And again, the folks devising this aren't really "D&D people" but "product moving people" so if it seems there's a disregard for community, etc., it's because these decisions are coming from the side of the house that doesn't even engage community.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
As I've stewed on this, and in thinking about the campaign I currently play and the new one I'm about to start, this whole debacle and the exposure of Hasbro/WotC's intentions, have left a bad taste in my mouth. To the point that my desire to play the game with any content they've created (essentially, "D&D") has taken a big hit. I don't want to play a game that is owned by a company that would do this. I'm not a content creator, and the OGL 1.1 change wouldn't directly affect me, at least not in the near-term, but when the whole point of playing is to have fun, it's hard to do that when you know the ultimate source of it has become corrupted and tainted.
Don't get me wrong, I like 5e, and I've had a lot of fun playing it. But it's the taint that's now present, that will loom over every session, the knowledge that what you're playing is borne from (or at least currently owned by) the BBEG, that will simply make it less fun.
It's like spending money that you didn't rightly earn. Yeah, it can be fun, but there's a kernel of you that feels bad about it, and everything you buy with that money is tainted with that knowledge and becomes a persistent reminder that you don't deserve it.
Every roll of a die, every lookup of a rule, every flip through a book to find such-and-such reference, will be a reminder of the rot that's present at Hasbro/WotC. And that's just not a fun way to spend time.
If WotC/Hasbro won't back down from this appalling new direction with the OGL (that goes against WotC's explicit past promises), I'm straight back to pen and paper (and genuinely sorry that I renewed my subscriptions in autumn).
"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?" -Death