Basically I love D&D and I don’t want anything to change (though I don’t mind One D&D cause those changes seem to be mostly for the better). But that’s exactly what this new OGL is doing, bringing very negative change to an otherwise peaceful ecosystem. As a result, I decided I don’t like it either.
That makes sense I guess. But it is still very much a possibility that the leaked version of Open Game License 1.1 is either inaccurate or not the final draft.
Genuinely how? How could that be a possibility? The company would have put out this PR wildfire in seconds if it were false? We have seen the full document that was sent out? Are we thinking WOTC sent out a draft document rather than a final one? Because man that would smack of major incompetence. And even if this is a draft it means this was an intended creation.
At this point it is beyond any reasonable doubt that these are valid and true.
The comments by at least one 3rd Party Publisher (Griffon's Saddlebag, IIRC) were that the documents were accompanied by executable contracts. You don't include executable contracts for "draft" documents.
I don't believe Hasbro will change from their existing Ogl 1.1 plans while their share price is rising.
They have no idea the value of the product they sell. It's not the I.P. or modules. It's the story telling tools that help us connect, build a narrative with people we care for and let us voice our creativity with a familiar simple framework so others can jump in if they want.
I will not support Wizards with a single penny if Hasbro try to impose values contrary to this. #OpenDnD
The leaked document was confirmed by multiple sources within the industry to be the one they were sent -- final draft, with contracts to sign. Example.
I don't know if this has been addressed, but the now leaked document does include a provision indicating that portions of the agreement, including the rights granted to WOTC for your property, do exist passed termination.
And I'm not a lawyer, but I did take business law as part of getting my degree in business admin which focused mostly on contract language. That shit is binding.
So with the leaked ogl WOTC can can terminate your ability to use the 1.1 ogl and can sell any content you made without giving you royalties.
I don't know if this has been addressed, but the now leaked document does include a provision indicating that portions of the agreement, including the rights granted to WOTC for your property, do exist passed termination.
And I'm not a lawyer, but I did take business law as part of getting my degree in business admin which focused mostly on contract language. That shit is binding.
So with the leaked ogl WOTC can can terminate your ability to use the 1.1 ogl and can sell any content you made without giving you royalties.
Yeah, F that and F WotC / Hasbro if they think that shit is going to fly.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Info, Inflow, Overload. Knowledge Black Hole Imminent!
I was around for the 4e split and the primary issue wasn't mainly the 4E changes. They were honestly not as bad as we think they were. The GSL stuff killed 4E by blocking all third party creators from wanting to make content for it. Namely because the GSL contained a poisoned pill, which is really what this one is doing as well.
Basically if you publish 1.1 content you acknowledge and accept that all other versions of the OGL are voided, self terminating that contract. The GSL had the same poison pill for the OGL and that is the ONLY reason that Paizo made Pathfinder. They were happy making adventures and likely would have continued to do so for 4E regardless of the changes to the system. Honestly some aspects of 4E made encounter building and adventure planning easier.
You can see the same thing happening with Kobold now.
I was around for the 4e split and the primary issue wasn't mainly the 4E changes. They were honestly not as bad as we think they were.
If you look at the actual public complaints, it was clearly the 4e changes. There's a reasonable argument that the OGL has significant blame for the failure of 4E (because it made it a lot easier to just keep playing 3.5e, and it allowed Pathfinder to exist).
I wasn't going to comment beyond what I've already said, but then a realization flashed today and I issue a warning to your company. Now I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of finances and how the elite investors react. I'm a common man, despite positions and jobs I've had in the past. I've been in the ttrpg community for almost 40 years now and I've seen a lot of them rise and fall. Games have tried and fell, while others have stayed the course and, while they made mistakes at times, they've risen from them and soldiered on.
Hasbro, you're repeating a mistake that TSR and WotC both made on their own at different times. TSR went bankrupt, and 4th ed. failed miserly, to the point that the rise of a DnD adjacent rose up. Now, with the implementation of 1.1, the path of 4th ed. and TSR is about to be retread. This time, though, there's a new wrinkle, one you have failed to account for. Through DnD Beyond, and other salient websites, the community is more interconnected than ever before. And that will severely hamper your saturation of the market.
I want to point to settings that you have zero control over, IPs such as Conan (Gygax's original inspiration for DnD), Willow (the movie from the 80s), Narnia by CS Lewis, hell even Wonderland, even the foundational inspiration of DnD; LotR. All these settings simply lack the core game mechanics (with the exception of LotR and Wonderland). Now, let me direct you to system agnostic rule sets where mechanics are laid out, but lack a definite setting.....
By trying to replace the OGL to block the rise of competitors that the license "was not intended for", you're simply given the player and creator base a reason to look for something that would satisfy the DnD itch while not being associated with Hasbro at all. I had already begun this search before the leak and confirmation of 1.1. While DnD will always be a personal foundation of mine, the game that introduced me to roleplaying at a time of my life where my life was filled with trauma, and for that I will always be indebted to TSR, Gygax and David Arneson, WotC and even you Hasbro, it's always been a little lacking for me.
Finally, I will close with three absolutes about the hobby:
1) TTRPG is NOT a video game. By that I mean you can't monetize it like you can a video game. TTRPGs were first invented by children all over the world, uniquely and independently of each other and each session was started off with a phrase similar to "Let's pretend...". You will not be able to follow the video game model in your efforts to monetize (except with interactive digital media) any more than you can with plays, movies, books, campfire stories, music, or anything else that lives in the Theater of the MInd.
2) It's the players that will always dictate the terms to the creators and the corporations when it comes to these types of games. I don't know how many rules I've tweaked, modified, ignored or added over the years. In fact, I was using a perception score back in AD&D (1st edition). There was no rule for it like there is now (I think i may have been mentioned either in a Dragon magazine or a Polyhedron issue). So, while you may attempt to increase the monetization for DnD, which is your right to do so, you will find that the overall amount of revenue that you can effectively collect shrinks. You're on the wrong side of your own dam that you're building. You should've remained on the reservoir side, but instead put yourself on the outflow and are forcing creators to look elsewhere and other avenues of expression.
3) Lastly, while DnD will live on, it lives on despite you Hasbro. Sure you may have certain elements within the game that you rightfully own, things like the Ilithid/Mind Flayer, Beholder and a few others. But, the staples, the core of the game, the wizard, fighter, healer, druid, shaman, ranger, hunter, tracker, dragon, orc, goblin, underground ruin, sword, sorcery, divine healing.... these are all things that predate DnD. Rolling a dice and compare the result to determine an outcome, yep not yours either. Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity and Charisma, again not yours. Health, armor, spells, resistances to detrimental effects.... You get the idea. Most of what makes DnD play the way it plays, you don't have control over.
So, bring on your 1.1, establish it and enforce it with an iron fist. But, remember my words, most of what people think about when they think DnD isn't Forgotten Realms or even Greyhawk, they think of Middle Earth. You don't have control of the mechanics of DnD either. Simple name change here, and viola, my own independently created system. Moreover, with the rise of system agnostic rulesets (or rather rediscovery), I can easily, with minimal effort, play DnD without using ANY of your trademarked material. Maybe I'll call it Dragons and Ruins???? You've made two mistakes in all of this, you first are attempting to abolish the very thing that caused your AQUIRED property of DnD so popular by "de-authorizing" 1.0(a). And your biggest mistake is hubris. You forgot that this whole community, from the player to the DM to the content creator are all creative people that are in the habit of dismissing, modifying, tweaking or inventing their own rules to play your game. You've now asked them to use the skill many of us have honed for decades to play a game that is DnD in every respect, minus a few spices here and there, except it won't be owned or controlled by Hasbro or WotC.
So, Hasbro, congratulations, you outplayed yourself.
I don't know if this has been addressed, but the now leaked document does include a provision indicating that portions of the agreement, including the rights granted to WOTC for your property, do exist passed termination.
And I'm not a lawyer, but I did take business law as part of getting my degree in business admin which focused mostly on contract language. That shit is binding.
So with the leaked ogl WOTC can can terminate your ability to use the 1.1 ogl and can sell any content you made without giving you royalties.
Now there's a lot to hate about this version of the license. But I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that the furor over this clause in particular is much ado about nothing.
Flash back to 2005. There was an airplane flick you might have heard about called Stealth. It was cheesy as hell, kind of enjoyable but totally BS. But there was an IP troll named Leo Stoller who threatened to sue Sony because he had a (spurious) trademark on the word "Stealth." Does that sound stupid to you? It does to me. You can't trademark a broad concept. But this guy had the right to his day in court. His goal was a payday.
I guarantee you, WotC does not give a damn about your homebrew campaign world. But they, like other companies whose business model depends on content publication, do care about being able to publish their campaign worlds, and they can lose a lot of money by having a spurious lawsuit push back a product release date. So clauses like this exist because they want to be able to point to that and say "regardless of apparent similarities in these two works, this person agreed to a license with us that says we can publish our works without interference."
There's a lot to object to in OGL 1.1. But this particular point is based on a drastic misapprehension of how rights assignment works and how litigious certain people are when they think they can blackmail somebody for a payday.
I was around for that whole thing and I was heavily invested into 3.5 at the time. I didn't like all the changes, but a lot of the complaints were speculation since we didn't actually have the game in our hands. The GSL bullshit fueled the hatred though and ALSO lead to the pathfinder creating a lifeboat.
I'm not saying 4E was some bastion of greatness, though a lot of it's ideas are found in 5E, but it only failed as fast as it did because of the GSL causing almost all third parties to jump to other games.
It's all kinda moot to me. I quit D&D for 4th edition because of the GSL, and I'm going to do the same for this despite actually looking forward to some of the system changes they were talking about. Never tried Pathfinder, but I'll do that or whatever Kobold is cooking probably.
For now nothing for players is changing. But if 6e changes things to much I will just stick with 5e. As for content creation, I have done way too much over the years but never sold anything, or even placed it on line. Me and friends have even come up with whole game systems. I can play anything it doesn't matter. So its wait and see for me.
By the way who owns the rights to all the old TSR games? I thought WotC sold off Gamma World but what about the others?
I don't know if this has been addressed, but the now leaked document does include a provision indicating that portions of the agreement, including the rights granted to WOTC for your property, do exist passed termination.
And I'm not a lawyer, but I did take business law as part of getting my degree in business admin which focused mostly on contract language. That shit is binding.
So with the leaked ogl WOTC can can terminate your ability to use the 1.1 ogl and can sell any content you made without giving you royalties.
Now there's a lot to hate about this version of the license. But I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that the furor over this clause in particular is much ado about nothing.
Flash back to 2005. There was an airplane flick you might have heard about called Stealth. It was cheesy as hell, kind of enjoyable but totally BS. But there was an IP troll named Leo Stoller who threatened to sue Sony because he had a (spurious) trademark on the word "Stealth." Does that sound stupid to you? It does to me. You can't trademark a broad concept. But this guy had the right to his day in court. His goal was a payday.
I guarantee you, WotC does not give a damn about your homebrew campaign world. But they, like other companies whose business model depends on content publication, do care about being able to publish their campaign worlds, and they can lose a lot of money by having a spurious lawsuit push back a product release date. So clauses like this exist because they want to be able to point to that and say "regardless of apparent similarities in these two works, this person agreed to a license with us that says we can publish our works without interference."
There's a lot to object to in OGL 1.1. But this particular point is based on a drastic misapprehension of how rights assignment works and how litigious certain people are when they think they can blackmail somebody for a payday.
There is language covering the right to publish their own similar content as being their own. The right to distribute and sell content made explicitly by the non WoTC entity is a separate clause, and is explicitly mentioned later in the existence beyond termination.
Thinking like a business person the reason I would put something like this in a contract would be the following. There new shiny VTT looks like it's going to be a pain in the ass, and also very expensive, to develop content for and so they wouldn't ever want to be in a position where they are forced to de-list content.
Third party makes a piece of content and loads it up to our centralized location. We host and allow them to sell that content on our digital platforms for our new shiny VTT and other things. Something happens and either the third party or WotC terminates the license. there are provisions in the OGL for this obviously. Without the provision to distribute loyalty free WotC would have to delist and stop selling that third party content on their platform. That's bad for business generally. With this provision WotC can keep that content there despite the termination of the license, with the only actual change is now they don't have to pay you royalties.
As an additional note. WotC has never been sued for anything remotely like this in the history of them owning D&D as far as I'm aware so there isn't a lot of motivating precedent for them to add that clause.
What WotC stated regarding 1.1 (not including any of the leaked), the myriad of creators I watch will change nothing as they already badge their D&D content, do not deal in any NFTs, are well below the income requirements for their D&D-specific income, and do not expect to exceed that income boundary anytime soon.
Several of them stated they have no worries about 1.1 when asked directly (most of the time by someone presenting things that weren't stated in a what seemed like a panic).
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
At this point, the best case scenario that you hope for is that they will fully back down and deny 1.1 was their creation - however, to do this, they must have constant pressure from the community. The wait and see approach does not provide this pressure and therefore isn’t the logical option.
Sure, complain to Wizards of the Coast all you want. But people making comments saying things like "WE NEED TO RISE UP" against Wizards of the Coast are seriously overreacting. You can voice your opinion and criticize Wizards over something, but it is important to remember that we aren't fully sure of what will happen at this point. Due to this, noise for noises sake is unnecessary when compared to rational anger that takes into the fact that much of this is all hypothetical at this point.
In other words, the sky isn't falling just yet. Sure, people can say that Open Game License is bad, but the wait and see approach is the most reasonable when it comes to the decision of whether to quit or keep playing the game. And it isn't like people can't express displeasure with the leaked document while taking the full facts of the situation into consideration.
I don't think *not verified* term is no longer apt for this situation. I consider it basically verified now, but just not yet *official* and subject to change..
We'll see what happens. You guys may be right and the leaked OGL may be the one Wizards of the Coast releases. However, just because the company didn't say something is false doesn't necessarily mean that it's true. Wizards of the Coast has done their best to quell the rumors several times, and it is reasonable that they are hesitant to provide any more information into private future business plans.
I haven't seen many people verify this to be honest. People keep saying that lot's of 3PP are getting this contract and being told to sign it, but I have only seen one person who said anything like this, and those talking about numerous people verifying this haven't been able to list any other people. The one person I have seen confirm this is Griffon's Saddlebag, and the fact that he would have to be speaking through an NDA to publicly say this as well as the fact that he seems to be the one who may have started these rumors makes things even iffier. (I talked about this a in a bit more depth HERE.)
Anyways, I am unsubscribing from this thread since it is stressful to have to repeat myself over and over again and hear some people (not everyone) panicking even more so in response and accusing me of being a "reality denier", an uncharitable person who deserves to be shamed, as well as several other kind things several users have said earlier in this thread. I might post to this thread again... But probably not. In the meantime, you guys can keep up doing whatever you guys are doing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
Anyways, I am unsubscribing from this thread since it is stressful to have to repeat myself over and over again and hear some people (not everyone) panicking even more so in response and accusing me of being a "reality denier", an uncharitable person who deserves to be shamed, as well as several other kind things several users have said earlier in this thread. I might post to this thread again... But probably not. In the meantime, you guys can keep up doing whatever you guys are doing.
We have everything to lose by 'wait and see', and nothing to lose by starting to express our discontent now, before this goes public.
And frankly, if you're not concerned at this point by the extremely reliable evidence this leak is reasonably valid and is definitely something that they intend(ed) to execute, you really are in denial of reality.
If everyone took your position, there'd be zero chance of preventing catastrophe - as is, there's not much chance, but its better than inaction.
Boring Bard are correct that we do not know the final terms, but the terms that were leaked feel pretty much the definition of a Darth Vader style deal (Pray I don't alter the deal further). I understand that a lot of people will not be bothered because they do not purchase third party content anyways (Paizo Publishing makes between $10-50 Million in revenue a year vs. WotC $100+ million profit a quarter), but this is very much a monopoly abusing their market position to take advantage of competitors.
Whether you agree or not, it is apparent that from statements made by the new CEO and from earning reports the plan is to monetize D&D. That means that their plan is built around extracting more cash from everyone: players, third party partners, and anyone else they can convince to pay. The general description is built around the video game model, and I for one do not like the idea of loot boxes, DLC, season passes, or any other hot garbage schemes that infect video games to be brought over to TTRPGs. You frequently point out the terms only effect a small number of companies, but what prevents the offer to be changed without recourse? I would almost be willing to bet their plan is to follow every other company that has gone down this road and slowly turn up the cost. They will blame inflation, wages, or anything else they can think of; while their financial reports will show they simply are extracting more profit because their C-Suite executive's bonuses are tied to stock value and they can get away with it.
The OGL 1.0 and 1.0a was designed to protect the integrity of the game/system and players from MBA induced corporate greed. OGL 1.1 appears to be only concerned in protecting Hasbro's monopoly rent-seeking ability.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"When truth presents itself, the wise person see the light, takes it in, and makes adjustments. The fool tries to adjust the truth so he does not have to adjust to it." ~ Henry Cloud #ORC #OpenDND
The brand loyalty some folks can transfer to WoTC just by dint of them being the stewards of the D&D IP is so weird to me. The company management aren't the creative talent. They're not responsible or answerable to you, as consumers. Company management changes, execs change, and with new execs come shiny new priorities to make their marks and find money where there was none.
Monentization in today's entertainment ecosystem is expressly tied to gamification and entertainment as service, so there's always a drip-feed of dopamine which you're going to pay for and keep paying for. You don't own the products, you're just paying for the privilege of renting it out.
I think you've hit the nail on the head here, and folks who are refusing to see the writing on the wall are setting themselves up for severe disappointment down the line.
Whether you agree or not, it is apparent that from statements made by the new CEO and from earning reports the plan is to monetize D&D. That means that their plan is built around extracting more cash from everyone: players, third party partners, and anyone else they can convince to pay. The general description is built around the video game model, and I for one do not like the idea of loot boxes, DLC, season passes, or any other hot garbage schemes that infect video games to be brought over to TTRPGs. You frequently point out the terms only effect a small number of companies, but what prevents the offer to be changed without recourse? I would almost be willing to bet their plan is to follow every other company that has gone down this road and slowly turn up the cost. They will blame inflation, wages, or anything else they can think of; while their financial reports will show they simply are extracting more profit because their C-Suite executive's bonuses are tied to stock value and they can get away with it.
This is something that I fundamentally don't get - this expression of trust and hope and "LETS WAIT AND SEE" to a party which has not earned your trust and by their silence has only shown a willingness to wait out the bad press and get on with what they want to do, which is make more $$$, however shortsighted and destructive in the long term it might be.
As of the leak of this OGL, and the non-denial, I am doing the following:
The comments by at least one 3rd Party Publisher (Griffon's Saddlebag, IIRC) were that the documents were accompanied by executable contracts. You don't include executable contracts for "draft" documents.
#OpenDND - opendnd.games
I don't believe Hasbro will change from their existing Ogl 1.1 plans while their share price is rising.
They have no idea the value of the product they sell. It's not the I.P. or modules. It's the story telling tools that help us connect, build a narrative with people we care for and let us voice our creativity with a familiar simple framework so others can jump in if they want.
I will not support Wizards with a single penny if Hasbro try to impose values contrary to this. #OpenDnD
The leaked document was confirmed by multiple sources within the industry to be the one they were sent -- final draft, with contracts to sign. Example.
I don't know if this has been addressed, but the now leaked document does include a provision indicating that portions of the agreement, including the rights granted to WOTC for your property, do exist passed termination.
And I'm not a lawyer, but I did take business law as part of getting my degree in business admin which focused mostly on contract language. That shit is binding.
So with the leaked ogl WOTC can can terminate your ability to use the 1.1 ogl and can sell any content you made without giving you royalties.
Yeah, F that and F WotC / Hasbro if they think that shit is going to fly.
Info, Inflow, Overload. Knowledge Black Hole Imminent!
I was around for the 4e split and the primary issue wasn't mainly the 4E changes. They were honestly not as bad as we think they were. The GSL stuff killed 4E by blocking all third party creators from wanting to make content for it. Namely because the GSL contained a poisoned pill, which is really what this one is doing as well.
Basically if you publish 1.1 content you acknowledge and accept that all other versions of the OGL are voided, self terminating that contract. The GSL had the same poison pill for the OGL and that is the ONLY reason that Paizo made Pathfinder. They were happy making adventures and likely would have continued to do so for 4E regardless of the changes to the system. Honestly some aspects of 4E made encounter building and adventure planning easier.
You can see the same thing happening with Kobold now.
If you look at the actual public complaints, it was clearly the 4e changes. There's a reasonable argument that the OGL has significant blame for the failure of 4E (because it made it a lot easier to just keep playing 3.5e, and it allowed Pathfinder to exist).
Dear Hasbro,
I wasn't going to comment beyond what I've already said, but then a realization flashed today and I issue a warning to your company. Now I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of finances and how the elite investors react. I'm a common man, despite positions and jobs I've had in the past. I've been in the ttrpg community for almost 40 years now and I've seen a lot of them rise and fall. Games have tried and fell, while others have stayed the course and, while they made mistakes at times, they've risen from them and soldiered on.
Hasbro, you're repeating a mistake that TSR and WotC both made on their own at different times. TSR went bankrupt, and 4th ed. failed miserly, to the point that the rise of a DnD adjacent rose up. Now, with the implementation of 1.1, the path of 4th ed. and TSR is about to be retread. This time, though, there's a new wrinkle, one you have failed to account for. Through DnD Beyond, and other salient websites, the community is more interconnected than ever before. And that will severely hamper your saturation of the market.
I want to point to settings that you have zero control over, IPs such as Conan (Gygax's original inspiration for DnD), Willow (the movie from the 80s), Narnia by CS Lewis, hell even Wonderland, even the foundational inspiration of DnD; LotR. All these settings simply lack the core game mechanics (with the exception of LotR and Wonderland). Now, let me direct you to system agnostic rule sets where mechanics are laid out, but lack a definite setting.....
By trying to replace the OGL to block the rise of competitors that the license "was not intended for", you're simply given the player and creator base a reason to look for something that would satisfy the DnD itch while not being associated with Hasbro at all. I had already begun this search before the leak and confirmation of 1.1. While DnD will always be a personal foundation of mine, the game that introduced me to roleplaying at a time of my life where my life was filled with trauma, and for that I will always be indebted to TSR, Gygax and David Arneson, WotC and even you Hasbro, it's always been a little lacking for me.
Finally, I will close with three absolutes about the hobby:
1) TTRPG is NOT a video game. By that I mean you can't monetize it like you can a video game. TTRPGs were first invented by children all over the world, uniquely and independently of each other and each session was started off with a phrase similar to "Let's pretend...". You will not be able to follow the video game model in your efforts to monetize (except with interactive digital media) any more than you can with plays, movies, books, campfire stories, music, or anything else that lives in the Theater of the MInd.
2) It's the players that will always dictate the terms to the creators and the corporations when it comes to these types of games. I don't know how many rules I've tweaked, modified, ignored or added over the years. In fact, I was using a perception score back in AD&D (1st edition). There was no rule for it like there is now (I think i may have been mentioned either in a Dragon magazine or a Polyhedron issue). So, while you may attempt to increase the monetization for DnD, which is your right to do so, you will find that the overall amount of revenue that you can effectively collect shrinks. You're on the wrong side of your own dam that you're building. You should've remained on the reservoir side, but instead put yourself on the outflow and are forcing creators to look elsewhere and other avenues of expression.
3) Lastly, while DnD will live on, it lives on despite you Hasbro. Sure you may have certain elements within the game that you rightfully own, things like the Ilithid/Mind Flayer, Beholder and a few others. But, the staples, the core of the game, the wizard, fighter, healer, druid, shaman, ranger, hunter, tracker, dragon, orc, goblin, underground ruin, sword, sorcery, divine healing.... these are all things that predate DnD. Rolling a dice and compare the result to determine an outcome, yep not yours either. Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity and Charisma, again not yours. Health, armor, spells, resistances to detrimental effects.... You get the idea. Most of what makes DnD play the way it plays, you don't have control over.
So, bring on your 1.1, establish it and enforce it with an iron fist. But, remember my words, most of what people think about when they think DnD isn't Forgotten Realms or even Greyhawk, they think of Middle Earth. You don't have control of the mechanics of DnD either. Simple name change here, and viola, my own independently created system. Moreover, with the rise of system agnostic rulesets (or rather rediscovery), I can easily, with minimal effort, play DnD without using ANY of your trademarked material. Maybe I'll call it Dragons and Ruins???? You've made two mistakes in all of this, you first are attempting to abolish the very thing that caused your AQUIRED property of DnD so popular by "de-authorizing" 1.0(a). And your biggest mistake is hubris. You forgot that this whole community, from the player to the DM to the content creator are all creative people that are in the habit of dismissing, modifying, tweaking or inventing their own rules to play your game. You've now asked them to use the skill many of us have honed for decades to play a game that is DnD in every respect, minus a few spices here and there, except it won't be owned or controlled by Hasbro or WotC.
So, Hasbro, congratulations, you outplayed yourself.
Now there's a lot to hate about this version of the license. But I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that the furor over this clause in particular is much ado about nothing.
Flash back to 2005. There was an airplane flick you might have heard about called Stealth. It was cheesy as hell, kind of enjoyable but totally BS. But there was an IP troll named Leo Stoller who threatened to sue Sony because he had a (spurious) trademark on the word "Stealth." Does that sound stupid to you? It does to me. You can't trademark a broad concept. But this guy had the right to his day in court. His goal was a payday.
I guarantee you, WotC does not give a damn about your homebrew campaign world. But they, like other companies whose business model depends on content publication, do care about being able to publish their campaign worlds, and they can lose a lot of money by having a spurious lawsuit push back a product release date. So clauses like this exist because they want to be able to point to that and say "regardless of apparent similarities in these two works, this person agreed to a license with us that says we can publish our works without interference."
There's a lot to object to in OGL 1.1. But this particular point is based on a drastic misapprehension of how rights assignment works and how litigious certain people are when they think they can blackmail somebody for a payday.
#OpenDND
I was around for that whole thing and I was heavily invested into 3.5 at the time. I didn't like all the changes, but a lot of the complaints were speculation since we didn't actually have the game in our hands. The GSL bullshit fueled the hatred though and ALSO lead to the pathfinder creating a lifeboat.
I'm not saying 4E was some bastion of greatness, though a lot of it's ideas are found in 5E, but it only failed as fast as it did because of the GSL causing almost all third parties to jump to other games.
It's all kinda moot to me. I quit D&D for 4th edition because of the GSL, and I'm going to do the same for this despite actually looking forward to some of the system changes they were talking about. Never tried Pathfinder, but I'll do that or whatever Kobold is cooking probably.
I am just going to wait and watch.
For now nothing for players is changing. But if 6e changes things to much I will just stick with 5e.
As for content creation, I have done way too much over the years but never sold anything, or even placed it on line. Me and friends have even come up with whole game systems.
I can play anything it doesn't matter. So its wait and see for me.
By the way who owns the rights to all the old TSR games? I thought WotC sold off Gamma World but what about the others?
There is language covering the right to publish their own similar content as being their own. The right to distribute and sell content made explicitly by the non WoTC entity is a separate clause, and is explicitly mentioned later in the existence beyond termination.
Thinking like a business person the reason I would put something like this in a contract would be the following. There new shiny VTT looks like it's going to be a pain in the ass, and also very expensive, to develop content for and so they wouldn't ever want to be in a position where they are forced to de-list content.
Third party makes a piece of content and loads it up to our centralized location. We host and allow them to sell that content on our digital platforms for our new shiny VTT and other things. Something happens and either the third party or WotC terminates the license. there are provisions in the OGL for this obviously. Without the provision to distribute loyalty free WotC would have to delist and stop selling that third party content on their platform. That's bad for business generally. With this provision WotC can keep that content there despite the termination of the license, with the only actual change is now they don't have to pay you royalties.
As an additional note. WotC has never been sued for anything remotely like this in the history of them owning D&D as far as I'm aware so there isn't a lot of motivating precedent for them to add that clause.
What WotC stated regarding 1.1 (not including any of the leaked), the myriad of creators I watch will change nothing as they already badge their D&D content, do not deal in any NFTs, are well below the income requirements for their D&D-specific income, and do not expect to exceed that income boundary anytime soon.
Several of them stated they have no worries about 1.1 when asked directly (most of the time by someone presenting things that weren't stated in a what seemed like a panic).
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Sure, complain to Wizards of the Coast all you want. But people making comments saying things like "WE NEED TO RISE UP" against Wizards of the Coast are seriously overreacting. You can voice your opinion and criticize Wizards over something, but it is important to remember that we aren't fully sure of what will happen at this point. Due to this, noise for noises sake is unnecessary when compared to rational anger that takes into the fact that much of this is all hypothetical at this point.
In other words, the sky isn't falling just yet. Sure, people can say that Open Game License is bad, but the wait and see approach is the most reasonable when it comes to the decision of whether to quit or keep playing the game. And it isn't like people can't express displeasure with the leaked document while taking the full facts of the situation into consideration.
We'll see what happens. You guys may be right and the leaked OGL may be the one Wizards of the Coast releases. However, just because the company didn't say something is false doesn't necessarily mean that it's true. Wizards of the Coast has done their best to quell the rumors several times, and it is reasonable that they are hesitant to provide any more information into private future business plans.
I haven't seen many people verify this to be honest. People keep saying that lot's of 3PP are getting this contract and being told to sign it, but I have only seen one person who said anything like this, and those talking about numerous people verifying this haven't been able to list any other people. The one person I have seen confirm this is Griffon's Saddlebag, and the fact that he would have to be speaking through an NDA to publicly say this as well as the fact that he seems to be the one who may have started these rumors makes things even iffier. (I talked about this a in a bit more depth HERE.)
Anyways, I am unsubscribing from this thread since it is stressful to have to repeat myself over and over again and hear some people (not everyone) panicking even more so in response and accusing me of being a "reality denier", an uncharitable person who deserves to be shamed, as well as several other kind things several users have said earlier in this thread. I might post to this thread again... But probably not. In the meantime, you guys can keep up doing whatever you guys are doing.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.We have everything to lose by 'wait and see', and nothing to lose by starting to express our discontent now, before this goes public.
And frankly, if you're not concerned at this point by the extremely reliable evidence this leak is reasonably valid and is definitely something that they intend(ed) to execute, you really are in denial of reality.
If everyone took your position, there'd be zero chance of preventing catastrophe - as is, there's not much chance, but its better than inaction.
Boring Bard are correct that we do not know the final terms, but the terms that were leaked feel pretty much the definition of a Darth Vader style deal (Pray I don't alter the deal further). I understand that a lot of people will not be bothered because they do not purchase third party content anyways (Paizo Publishing makes between $10-50 Million in revenue a year vs. WotC $100+ million profit a quarter), but this is very much a monopoly abusing their market position to take advantage of competitors.
Whether you agree or not, it is apparent that from statements made by the new CEO and from earning reports the plan is to monetize D&D. That means that their plan is built around extracting more cash from everyone: players, third party partners, and anyone else they can convince to pay. The general description is built around the video game model, and I for one do not like the idea of loot boxes, DLC, season passes, or any other hot garbage schemes that infect video games to be brought over to TTRPGs. You frequently point out the terms only effect a small number of companies, but what prevents the offer to be changed without recourse? I would almost be willing to bet their plan is to follow every other company that has gone down this road and slowly turn up the cost. They will blame inflation, wages, or anything else they can think of; while their financial reports will show they simply are extracting more profit because their C-Suite executive's bonuses are tied to stock value and they can get away with it.
The OGL 1.0 and 1.0a was designed to protect the integrity of the game/system and players from MBA induced corporate greed. OGL 1.1 appears to be only concerned in protecting Hasbro's monopoly rent-seeking ability.
"When truth presents itself, the wise person see the light, takes it in, and makes adjustments. The fool tries to adjust the truth so he does not have to adjust to it." ~ Henry Cloud #ORC #OpenDND
The brand loyalty some folks can transfer to WoTC just by dint of them being the stewards of the D&D IP is so weird to me. The company management aren't the creative talent. They're not responsible or answerable to you, as consumers. Company management changes, execs change, and with new execs come shiny new priorities to make their marks and find money where there was none.
Monentization in today's entertainment ecosystem is expressly tied to gamification and entertainment as service, so there's always a drip-feed of dopamine which you're going to pay for and keep paying for. You don't own the products, you're just paying for the privilege of renting it out.
I think you've hit the nail on the head here, and folks who are refusing to see the writing on the wall are setting themselves up for severe disappointment down the line.
This is something that I fundamentally don't get - this expression of trust and hope and "LETS WAIT AND SEE" to a party which has not earned your trust and by their silence has only shown a willingness to wait out the bad press and get on with what they want to do, which is make more $$$, however shortsighted and destructive in the long term it might be.
>> #OpenDND
Wait and See, they said.
WoTC / Hasbro are going to answer properly and in due time, they said.
https://twitter.com/DnDBeyond/status/1612871896759926784?s=20&t=mSLbaagi-ADcwEP5OoNrWw
Disappointing lack of an actual response, to be honest.
>> #OpenDND