Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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I am simply not going to buy any WoTC products until they change the OGL 1.0a to say that it is irrevocable. Just that, perpetual and irrevocable.
And if they don't, I won't buy anything else from them. I've been playing D&D for 30 years, and regularly buying almost everything WoTC publishes (from TSR I bought at the time, but much less than now) for 20. But I also play other systems. Actually one of the main reasons I have for playing D&D is the vast amount of content that is out there. Both official and third party. Do you kill third party content? I have no incentive to continue playing your game.
So I will only continue buying if they guarantee that all that content will continue to exist. And the only way to do that is to ensure that OGL 1.0a is perpetual and irrevocable. WoTC has shown that it's not to be trusted, so they have to put in a clause that prevents them from attempting another overbearing coup like this.
LOL glad it wasn't just me.
Cancelled Master Tier Subscription because of OGL 1.1
My problem is deeper than the wording. I have a problem with their actual stated goals. The OGL was specifically aimed at 3pp's and professional designers. An entire industry has been built up on that to support the game far better than WotC could alone. But they stated as one of their three goals is to make the OGL no longer viable for 3pp's. It is for "fans, homebrewers, aspiring designers" etc.
That is a fundamental change in what the OGL even is.
So wording doesn't matter at all to me if the target they outright state they are aiming for is to undermine the entire purpose of the OGL and prevent 3pp's and professional designers from supporting the game. This will directly harm people I know (and the 3pp harming provisions goes far beyond just the royalty scheme to even the fundamental breach of 23 years of trust).
It will also hurt the game because WotC (circa 2000) knew that one of TSR's biggest failures was thinking they could meet all of fan's interests themselves, and one of WotC's (circa 2000) best ideas was fostering an entire ecosystem of supporting companies producing D&D products to keep fans satisfied and playing D&D. WotC (circa 2023) is taking some of the same steps that led TSR to go from ruling the RPG market to bankruptcy and almost killing the game. With WotC so much larger than TSR was at the time, the decisions are much larger and costlier, so that if they fail again, D&D will ironically crash faster now that's bigger.
So for the livelihood of people I know, and for a healthy business ecosystem around D&D, I completely disagree with their stated goals themselves. It's been tried before and it severely harmed D&D. Waiting for the wording is pointless when the goals themselves are misguided.
This is what keeps getting lost in the conversation, but we can't let it be. After Hasbro/WotC's response, ORC is the correct answer.
Hopefully there will be another wave of subscription cancelation as people (like me) wrap up their campaigns to move away. It's so sad and disappointing; I was really looking forward to seeing the VTT.
I can dispute it. There is no NEED for it and this was proved in 23 years of the original OGL. It seems like none of you were around for the Book of Erotic Fantasy. It was a VERY adult book released under the OGL. And the OGL very much anticipated such a thing.
The key was, to gain brand recognition, a D20 license and logo was devised. D&D products were released with the logo, and anything that met the standards of THAT license also could use the logo. This immediately created brand recognition. If you had the logo, you were compatible with D&D.
The Book of Erotic Fantasy had no D20 logo. It was not immediately recognizable as compatible with D&D.
They KNEW that people could write white supremacist garbage, or any sort of garbage, under the OGL. THAT DID NOT MATTER! The market would determine the validity or idiocy of such products, AND IT WORKED FOR TWENTY-THREE YEARS!
This is all a red herring from WotC over their money/monopoly grab playing off NuTSR nonsense which has NOTHING to do with the OGL and EVERYTHING to do with copyright and trademark infringement. Star Frontier was NEVER released in any form under the OGL.
The age of OGL is over. The Time of the ORC has come!
The moment that WotC declares OGL 1.0a "de-authorized", "revoked" or any such nonsense is the moment I release as much content as possible under OGL 1.0a and say, "Sue me WotC". OGL1.0a cannot be revoked. If thousands of us do it, the countersuit will be a class action suit.
In addition to all this, that clause is fallacious. Because let's face it, anything can be accused of discriminatory if you think about it enough. You just need to find the right angle to say "Hey, this is discriminatory" and throw the project down.
In the end it is simply a clause to have power over what others do, sold under a noble pretext.
Some of you people are huffing on the smokescreen!
Almost every sentence in their statement is a lie.
Does anyone really believe the "first concern" bullshit? Their first concern was MONEY.
WotC CEO Cynthia Williams told investors in simple terms: "D&D is under-monetized."
THAT was their first concern. Their ONLY concern.
Back to the topic:
The Future of the Open Gaming License (OGL) and D&D
=
ORC LICENSE
I don't see what's so objectionable or difficult to understand here. The OGL is intended for 3PP to make a name for themselves and create supplemental content for a popular game in a way that benefits both parties, but not to subsidize major or direct competitors (especially those outside of the TTRPG space, such as video games and other interactive experiences.) I find this perfectly reasonable. You can still be a Kobold Press or Ghostfire Games who attains considerable success they wouldnt' have otherwise, making modules and subclasses for the TTRPG game without being able to use the OGL in those other ways.
The leaked 1.1 text said you didn't have a reasonableness defense. That was the part that seemed excessive to me.
Now, I disagree that WotC needs to have that at all for noncommercial works. Generally speaking, they aren't going to get blamed for things they don't profit from and don't have approval authority over. However, once they start getting into having some control, they need to have sufficient control to actually prevent the objectionable content.
Agreed--even reaffirming the legitimacy of OGL 1.0a is no longer enough. It's time for new leadership. Between this and their idea for the $1000 MtG booster packs of proxies, it's clear that they have no interest in quality of product or positive customer relationships.
Fixed it for them.
Thank you. It's just so blatantly obvious its hilarious. The literal definition of the idiom "grasping at straws".
Thanks for the reminder on this 3PP title.
I’m reminded of the old meme about the internet. 95% of humanity’s first thought when exposed to the internet was how to use it for pron. Nerds first thought was how could we use it to play Dungeons and Dragons.
I find it very interesting how much of a problem people have with the royaly thing.
First off, to clarify - the problem with the new OGL was not that the company wnated people making huge sums of money to give them a little for their contributions to the 3rd party companies existing at all. The problem was them trying to lay claim to everyones work.
And that's gone. They have announced that this was never the intention (which corresponds with their original statement at the start of that section which says it is to make sure they don't have to worry about releasing stuff in case the thousands of publishers online have released it first), so this actually remains a consistent message that they have sent out - they aren't trying to steal your stuff. They said it in the orignal OGL, they said it in the OGL1.1, they said it in their release after the fallout of OGL1.1. But hey, they're rich, so let's assume they're lying, right? [/sarcasm]
Now, onto the money thing. It's an important thing to note that dissent among the working classes has always - and likely will always - be about the rich people wanting money. we are conditioned to want to hate anyone who wants money. But there is severe hypocrisy in this whole shebang. I will try to elucidate:
It takes 2 things to make OGL products. It takes the licenced content from WotC, and it takes the original content from the OGL user.
WotC issued the royalty thing to say "Hey, you know how you're making over three quarters of a million dollars in revenue from this every year? Well, we think that we should be owed something for our contribution to your work from the revenue above that, because you're really making a fortune here and it seems unfair that we get nothing".
And people lost their minds because a rich person (corporation) wanted money. Because we're conditioned to hate that, because we blame all our ailments on the rich people having the money.
to sum up the hypocrisy as briefly as I can:
Somehow, the idea of two large companies (and if you're making over $750,000 a year, you'e a large company, financially) having to split the revenue when both have contributed to the works is seen as money-grabbing from the larger company. If WotC was only making $100k a year, you would all be on their side - somehow, we are allowing money to get between us and what's actually fair. Saying to someone who made $1,000,000 in one year that they should pay (at 25% of the last $250k) $62,500 to WotC (out of a million dollars. In one year.) for their contribution to the works is not exactly unreasonable. It's 6.25% of the revenue. If a publishing company has such a small profit margin as to be ruined by this, they are not doing very well anyway. And if they lay off staff or up prices to keep up profits, then they care more about their investors than their staff or customers, and so are just as bad as (or worse than) WotC.
There are 20 people in the world making enough money to qualify. If WotC was doing this for the money, they would be making the OGL require that you publish through DDB. They would have every piece of homebrew you make sold exclusively though here, and they would take a cut of every sale, similar to DMs Guild. But they aren't. Because they are only interested in making sure that big companies who can afford it pay them what's reasonably due for their contributions.
Every piece of work made on the OGL uses IP made by WotC and IP made by the content creator. If something is ludicrously successful, is it really unreasonable for the people who made some of the product to ask for a cut of the money?
At any rate, the important thing is done. WotC has removed the clause saying they own your stuff. I couldn't give a rats behind about the royalties, because if I made that much money, I would gladly pay! And then I would buy a freaking huge plot of land with all the money I still made in one year, build my dream home, and send WotC a christmas card every year to thank them for letting me use their IP.
Yeah so Hasbro made $2.1 BILLION last year I’m sorry your “ludicrously successful” $750k is 0.00036% of that like my man sending them a Christmas card?
That’s beyond unreasonable. That’s greedy.
D&D is Now Trash
Goodbye
Again, you're letting how much WotC made themselves get in the way of it. The product making over $750k per year contains their IP. They said before that the OGL was never meant to allow people to build large businesses on WotC's IP, it was meant to let creative people make some money doing what they love.
I mean, it's gone now - they're revoking the royalty thing as well following this backlash - and I cannot argue that they need the money. But the world doesn't work on people getting what they need, or there would be nobody hungry and nobody paying Jeff Bezos to go on a day-trip to space. The OGL is very much an exception to the rule in most things. You try making a game using content owned by EA, or Ubisoft, and see how much of the revenue you get to keep once they're done with you.
I'm just saying I dont think it was actually unreasonable, WotC's circumstances aside, for them to ask people making large amounts of money to pay them a small proportion for the IP they are using.
The point here, the really important thing and why all this fuss has been made, is because WoTC intends to change the terms of a license that was established as "perpetual" at the time.
No one made a fuss when in 4e, for example, a new, much more restrictive license was created. Mainly because OGL 1.0a was left untouched, which was a perpetual agreement.
Why doesn't WoTC keep OGL 1.0a, and create a new license for One D&D? Because they are afraid that the shot will backfire again, and a competitor will come out and surpass them (what happened with 4e).
And yes, nobody says that it is not understandable that WoTC (or Hasbro) want to exploit their product to the maximum, what is said is that it is intolerable that they try to disavow an agreement that was perpetual.
WoTC can protect its IP in many ways. And they have the right to do it. What they dont have is the right to modify the terms of an agreement that was perpetual.
That's the only important thing here. If someone were to take WoTC to court on this issue, only one thing would be settled by the judges. Can WoTC revoke OGL 1.0a by ignoring the perpetuity clause?
Hasbro’s circumstances aside like what ok let’s conveniently forget about the BILLION$ they made in profit and assume our 0.00036% is a “large amount of money” in respect. No it’s not. It’s not even close. The point of D&D is that it’s your adventure. Not theirs.
D&D is Now Trash
Goodbye
First of all, them claiming it was "never their intention to steal other people's IP" was a lie. A Proveable lie.
Page 14, Section XII. Other Products
"B. You own the new and original content you create. You agree to give Us a nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, world-wide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license to use that content for any purpose."
There is literally no other reason to include this passage, other than WotC's intentions to profit from other people's original content without paying due royalties or credit. They can license 3rd party works out to film and television, videogames, comics, etc, and keep all the profit from themselves. Subsection A. of the same section, however, says:
"A. Nothing prohibits Us from developing, distributing, selling, or promoting something that is substantially similar to a Licensed Work."
On it's own, this would seem fine for protecting WotC of false claims of copyright infingement if they ever released content that was similar by pure coincidence. But the fact that 3rd companies would be required to provide their products for review by WotC before launch (which they can then reject for any reason they see fit), it suddenly seems a lot similar to Hollywood's abuse of spec-script writers. They would have 3rd party companies doing all the work, and they could cherry pick which one they'd kill off and release themselves, and the 3rd party could do nothing about it because they agreed to give up right to sue when they signed.
They never said they would remove this from their next draft, because they claimed the intention to steal work was not included in the original, which means they don't consider XII B. a form of stealing work, just licensing it.
As to the idea that WotC deserve to profit from 3rd party success: They already do. Third party support is what keeps the communit engaged with the game. When there's a long period between releases, or the release was disappointing, a strong 3rd party support system keeps people playing the game with new ideas, concepts, characters, mechanics, etc. Hasbro is already the biggest profiteer in the D&D game's economy, by a huge margin. They just want more, regardless of the long term impact on the game's communuty, and even it's economy. It's also incredibly anti-consumer to box out healthy competition. There's a reason why monopolies are considered a bad thing for everyone:
Without competition, it becomes financially benificial to provide poorer quality in your products and services for a higher price. People end up paying more for less, and with no competing product or service, they either begrudgingly continue, or give up the product and/or service due to disillusionment or an inability to afford the costs. The consumerbase becomes smaller, meaning profits decrease. The company needs to meet its targets, which were based off previous growth, and so they tighten their grip and exploit their remaining consumers more. Eventually, all consumers are priced out, and the company crashes. The workforce lose their jobs, the IP gets sold off by the higher ups in order to fill their pockets as much as possible before jumping ship, its taken up by another company either to start the cycle again, or to gather dust.
As for your hang ups about the working class hating the rich because it's trendy, or because their jealous, because they're uneducated, or whatever personal justification you have for it, I don't personally care. You're free to venerate the uber wealthy as much as you like, I hope it brings you joy. But please, don't allow your personal distaste for the working class cloud you to the blatant wrong doing of the upper. I won't challange your reasons for believing that that is how the world works, because I know nothing would change your mind. But even if you believe that the poor person claiming a rich person just stole their dog from them is jealous of their wealth, or too woke, or whatever, that doesn't mean a crime hasn't been committed, and it doesn't mean you can ignore the wagging tail poking out of the rich person's armani suit.
The OGL1.0a was designed by WotC to EXPRESSLY allow 3rd party companies to use a limited portion of D&D's copyrighted expressions to provide a framework for original, 3rd party, profitable support. It was sold to companies as being irrevocable, because otherwise those companies would not sign up to it, and WotC needed them to to ensure their upcoming 5e would have the 3rd party support they'd lacked with their failed 4e release, which featured a highly restricted GSL. Despite their recent claims to the contrary, the 3rd party companies profiting from the OGL1.0a was the exact thing the OGL1.0a was created to support. 5e would not have survived had it not been for the OGL1.0a, and D&D might have collapsed entirely. You can agree or disagree about whether or not the OGL1.0a is legally irrevocable, or if it was a good idea, or whatever. But the fact that it was WotC's intentions to support 3rd party companies in creating royalty-free, profitable works for the long term benefit of WotC's properties is just that: A fact. One they are blatantly lying about now.
There are many more provable lies in their statement, which should make clear to any reasonable consumer that they can no longer trust Hasbro/WotC to followthrough on any promise in regards to the quality of their products/services. If you'd like more examples of such untruths, I'd be more than happy to compile them, and I'll even do my best to provide sources, because I really have that little going on this month.
Just a couple of things:
1: I am actually open entirely to people changine my mind, and have changed my mind through discussion and debate on several occasions, and this is no different - if you can provide me with a good reason to, then I will not avoid it. I debate, not argue; the focus is on finding the true answer, not on pursuading others to agree with me. Your statement "I won't challange your reasons for believing that that is how the world works, because I know nothing would change your mind." implies that this is somewhere we differ. You seem extremely fixed in your world view that "Hasbro are lying to us because the big corporation said they want to make more money, therefore they only care about money", and have assumed the same of me, incorrectly.
2: I don't venerate the super-rich. If anything, I am also predisposed to think that they either don't deserve or shouldn't have the money they do. But the fact is, their rights over their own IP does not change based on how much money they are making. It is just as illegal to steal from the rich as it is to steal from the poor - Morals are not the same as laws. I personally think that people should be limted to 1 million, and that the world would be better if there were fewer people who could just buy everything they wanted and still have change to spare.
3: your comparison of the rich stealing someones dog is not relevant, and the make of their suit is also irrelevant - it could be the dogs tail poking from a hobo's jacket, it would still be just as illegal to stal the dog. Instead, contemplate a wealthy person who has many dogs, and says to their community, "I have a lot of good-quality dogs. If anyone wants to walk a dog, you can walk one of mine, for free. You can even do odd jobs with them, and keep the money". Then they find out that someone has been running a business which relies on these dogs, offered freely, and is making a large sum of money from it. Is the rich guy stealing if they ask, not for them to stop, but for a cut of the profit? Now swap the rich guy for a poor guy, who has these same dogs. The legality of it doesn't change, but the morals do. Exploiting a generous rich person somehow feels less bad than exploiting a generous poor one. But the legalty remains the same.
And that's the thing - this is a legal document, not a moral document. They could have said "all products need to pay royalties on the licence", but they limited it to just 20 people in the entire-freaking-world, who had entire businesses with six-figure incomes based off a document that was never meant to make other people rich from WotC's IP. That right there is the opposite of money-grabbing. How many of those Hasbro suits do you think suggested they remove the OGL entirely and just use DMs Guild, to get royalties off of everything? How many of them suggested using DDB to sell the homebrew, for the same reason? Do you not think that WotC (who haven't been kicked out and replaced, it's still the same people with a new boss) have worked hard to avoid such things?
I'm not trying to change your mind here - but I do believe that the original text, which is clearly a piece of legalese which was inserted as a fairly standard practice, in a section explained as being so that they could release product without worries over plaigarism claims, might actally have been so that they could release product without worries over plaigarism claims. And the fact that their response was, more or less, "Oh, wow, we didn;t think of it like that. We're not trying to steal your stuff, we were trying to release product without worries over plaigarism claims, we'l go back and change that", might just point to a consistent piece of information - that they were just trying to release product without worries over plaigarism claims.
Is that not a possibility?