We moved on to Pathfinder 2E back in Aug. Way more fun combat!
And the CR system scales way better. My local table switched years ago.
Ah, man I'm happy to hear that. Currently learning the rules for Pathfinder as a possible system to transition to, and I've always struggled to make encounters a fair challenge for my group. I'm a fan of the whole "3 Actions" system, so far :)
I had to really pull back when I switched! Turns out a few CR 2 zombies was a huge challenge for my party of 1st levels.
It's a great system. Easy to transition to
The thing is, I've spent half a year preparing for a Spelljammer campaign. You'd think that would make me invested enough in D&D to stay, but because the 5e book was so barebones, I've had to homebrew the vast majority of the rules and such, so converting it over to Pathfinder doesn't seem much of a worry XD I know they have Starfinder, but I've been told it's closer to the 1e Pathfinder than 2e, and modifying my Spelljammer prep to Pathfinder might suit my needs better.
We moved on to Pathfinder 2E back in Aug. Way more fun combat!
And the CR system scales way better. My local table switched years ago.
Ah, man I'm happy to hear that. Currently learning the rules for Pathfinder as a possible system to transition to, and I've always struggled to make encounters a fair challenge for my group. I'm a fan of the whole "3 Actions" system, so far :)
I had to really pull back when I switched! Turns out a few CR 2 zombies was a huge challenge for my party of 1st levels.
It's a great system. Easy to transition to
Ya a thing to note about Pathfinder is monsters are seperated by "cr" it is level. The encounter rules in the GMG are actually accurate.
We moved on to Pathfinder 2E back in Aug. Way more fun combat!
And the CR system scales way better. My local table switched years ago.
Ah, man I'm happy to hear that. Currently learning the rules for Pathfinder as a possible system to transition to, and I've always struggled to make encounters a fair challenge for my group. I'm a fan of the whole "3 Actions" system, so far :)
Likewise, I'm starting to read the PDF right now - I really like what I am finding.
Its sad though - 2 weeks ago I would have laughed at anyone even suggesting wasting their time looking at P2E - and now I've bought a copy. Never say never I guess is the moral.
Hasbro has to cancel in some way OGL1.0a in order to both a) regulate and profit from 3PP content that is compatible with 6.0 and b) have 6.0 be backwards compatible with the 5.1 SRD.
OGL 2.0 is their attempt to do this.
Paizo and other 3pp are prepared to fight any such attempt to "cancel" OGL 1.0a in court. They will likely win since the leadership of Paizo were a part of the team that created OGL 1.0a and they have the receipts to PROVE it is irrevocable.
Good luck with that WotC. Your best bet is to make 6E a completely new animal, slap the D&D logo on it and license it however you want. Of course, things didn't go so well for WotC in 2008 when they did the same thing with D&D 4E.
100% agree, and Paizo has even stated that they will fight this in court. I don’t think its a guaranteed win for Paizo (it’s the courts, so you never know), but based on everything I’ve read and listened to, it’s still highly likely Paizo wins. Hasbro’s best option was to try and strong arm their competitors in accepting the unauthorization as a fait accompli, and we saw how that worked out.
I would imagine you’ll see groups like EFF join the case as well, given the implications that unauthorizing OGL1.0 will have on the larger open license community.
Now the interesting question. Paizo and Hasbro go to court, and the court rules that Hasbro cannot unauthorize OGL1.0. Does Hasbro release 6.0 under OGL1.0, or do they remove the backward compatibility of 6.0 with 5.1? Because if the court rules against them, they can’t have both.
Also, this question makes it obvious why Hasbro needs to decide this question now. Whatever path they take will impact the future development of 6.0.
And the ironic part? They could have avoided all of this if they had just worked with the 3PP more. Given them a platform to publish on DDB and integrate with their own material. They would have essentially made DDB the go-to for anything D&D related, homebrew or official. They could have taken a cut for publishing it, hell they could have pulled a steam/apple and and done a 70/30 cut if they posted it to the marketplace and it most likely would have been accepted because of DDB popularity and the freedom / lack of overhead needed to publish on the 3PP side of things. Not to mention it would have been widely accepted as it would not have been mandatory.
I fully agree. If they had gone down this route, almost all of us would be arguing which 3PP content was good or not. All the while just living in this growing DND Beyond ecology and still within the WotC system. Odds are good most would already be doing the slow informal transition to OneDND, jumping on the D&D VTT etc etc. In short, we'd even be more tied to the D&D system than ever before.
But because of the various actions done/not done, it did exactly the opposite. Created enough polarizing sentiment that it now drives many of the core players - the whales, away into other waters. And because trust is now tainted no matter how we go forward for many of those whales, it's hard to see how this will ever turn back.
It could still be open, depending on how it is used in practice, though. Even the most open world game still has restrictions on where you can go. Reality has restrictions on where you can practically go. "Open" still gets used as a term, even though reality is never completely open.
This is a total misunderstanding of the word 'open' in the context of the 'open gaming license.' It was modeled on the open source licenses for software which the Creative Commons (foro artistic expression) would also use. It's a complicated subject but the general idea of 'open' in 'open source' is well written in the Wikipedia article on the subject (emphasis mine):
The idea and spirit of OGL is to make the rules of 3.0 (and later 3.5 and 5e) free for anyone to use with very few strings attached in the spirit of the Open Source Movement. This was the intention of the OGL when released and its worked quite well for them for 23 years. The use of the word 'open' is more akin to 'do what you like with this we're not involved unless we want to be' not 'do what you want but only under these parameters'. Not that the latter is wrong or the former is right (that's not what this reply is about) but the latter is very much not 'open' in this context and anyone who tells you otherwise is ignorant or dishonest.
tl'dr:' Open = the bare minimum of restrictions if any at all' and not 'Open = Open like Open World gaming'.
Imho focus on making a great game play in person, online, imagination, 3d tabletop, roll20 etc just tons of options.
if hosting or selling content they can charge a fee for awesome stuff. For easy hosting / integration I am ok with a small fee (<3%)
if they want to addd nft language I am ok with it.
they need to understand no one can monetize the imagination of the community . Lets not cause an exodus , hopefully executives make better decisions in the spirit of dnd which is special.
lastly , please increase the pace of one dnd. Would help with positive community news and new topics
consider nudging onednd into baldurs gate 3 expansion or major mod
It could still be open, depending on how it is used in practice, though. Even the most open world game still has restrictions on where you can go. Reality has restrictions on where you can practically go. "Open" still gets used as a term, even though reality is never completely open.
This is a total misunderstanding of the word 'open' in the context of the 'open gaming license.' It was modeled on the open source licenses for software which the Creative Commons (foro artistic expression) would also use. It's a complicated subject but the general idea of 'open' in 'open source' is well written in the Wikipedia article on the subject (emphasis mine):
The idea and spirit of OGL is to make the rules of 3.0 (and later 3.5 and 5e) free for anyone to use with very few strings attached in the spirit of the Open Source Movement. This was the intention of the OGL when released and its worked quite well for them for 23 years. The use of the word 'open' is more akin to 'do what you like with this we're not involved unless we want to be' not 'do what you want but only under these parameters'. Not that the latter is wrong or the former is right (that's not what this reply is about) but the latter is very much not 'open' in this context and anyone who tells you otherwise is ignorant or dishonest.
tl'dr:' Open = the bare minimum of restrictions if any at all' and not 'Open = Open like Open World gaming'.
And based on all of your very accurate description, Open Gaming License 1.1 wasn't Open at all. Perhaps 2.0 will be, but I'm extremely skeptical.
1.1 and 2.0 are being called "Open Gaming License" only as a part of the strategy of de-authorizing OGL 1.0a.
And based on all of your very accurate description, Open Gaming License 1.1 wasn't Open at all. Perhaps 2.0 will be, but I'm extremely skeptical.
1.1 and 2.0 are being called "Open Gaming License" only as a part of the strategy of de-authorizing OGL 1.0a.
As a long time proponent of the Open Software Movement, and someone who has released a few minor things under both the GNU and a Creative Commons license, I would agree with that. While some people argue that Wizards' business plan to take money from those that license their products is good, or at least reasonable, in the context of being an 'open' gaming licnese in the spirit of things like the GNU, Creative Commons, or other open licenses, nothing in the 1.1 is 'open'. In fact, WITHIN the licnese it encourages licensees to cut their own deal with Wizards! Having to register your product, having executives monitor what you produce, letting them know how much you make so they can determine how much, if any, they can take etc is so against the idea of 'open' that it feels (IANAL) malpractice-y to continue to call it open. I don't even know if you can call it 'open' in the sense that anybody could use it because under these terms you HAVE to register your product with Wizards!
Again, I'm not here, in this post at least, to judge whether 1.1 is good or bad for Wizards, for 3PPs, or the community in general. I am here to say that NONE of the added elements of it are 'open' at all in this context which I think is almost undisputable based on even a surface level understanding of the spirit (open source/free software movements) in which 1.0 was originally drafted.
Here's some feedback. How about this? Why don't you lot grow a set and respond to the community about your sneaky, underhanded filthy tricks with the OGL?! How about you get Chris Cocks to shift his lazy corpulent self onto a stage and get his greasy weaselly sneaky little mealy-mouth to open up and admit this new OGL isn't to help the hobby, the game or even the players but was in fact, engineered in an brand cheapening effort to profiteer, steal ideas and intellectual property of 3rd parties and treat us all like fools. You didn't make D&D, WotC, it made you. Enjoy the grave you have dug for yourselves. Your CEO and his lackeys and that fat corporate pig of a woman who is just a greasy ad pusher should be ashamed of their own births. Time for your monetizing minded empty heads to do some damage control. Too bad there will be nothing left.
I agree with what you say, but not how you say it. I'd argue that there's enough to talk about in these peoples' appalling behavior without descending into ad-hominem attack.
Would you recommend Starfinder for a fun, Red Dwarf style adventure?
Yeah, I can see that! A little Paranoia, too. I DM with a heavy dose of horror, and it's great for that. I do use my own setting, though. My source book is about 40 pages now. I find that the way the rules are written you can easily strip their setting out for your own. Most games tie setting and mechanics together.
Here's some feedback. How about this? Why don't you lot grow a set and respond to the community about your sneaky, underhanded filthy tricks with the OGL?! How about you get Chris Cocks to shift his lazy corpulent self onto a stage and get his greasy weaselly sneaky little mealy-mouth to open up and admit this new OGL isn't to help the hobby, the game or even the players but was in fact, engineered in an brand cheapening effort to profiteer, steal ideas and intellectual property of 3rd parties and treat us all like fools. You didn't make D&D, WotC, it made you. Enjoy the grave you have dug for yourselves. Your CEO and his lackeys and that fat corporate pig of a woman who is just a greasy ad pusher should be ashamed of their own births. Time for your monetizing minded empty heads to do some damage control. Too bad there will be nothing left.
That's just great vitriol right there! Colorful as hell!
My feedback is that if you wanted ip you should have gone about it far more gregariously. If something sells well enough they get a seal of approval and digital content would be posted on beyond with a split of profits. Everyone wins.
How WotC went about this and their response 8s a crash course in how not to do pr. Short of a new CEO, agreeing that 1.0a cannot be deaithorized, and signing onto ORC, you will never again have the trust of the community.
By now you're feeling it. You subscription numbers have dropped significantly as the community demonstrated exactly the kind of "obstacle" we can be. You had a good thing going, players that eagerly supported you, demanding that you take our money. Content creating you to the point that your market penetration rose from a respectable 50% to a staggering 80%+. You had cultivated a community that if not sung your praises, they begrudgingly respected you for what you had done for the ttrpg community as a whole.
So, your decision to hire those that said, "Hey, you have a miraculous thing here, I bet we can f it up for you," was such a mind numbingly dumb idea that it truly baffles me at the stupidity of it. Moreover that there wasn't one person with the ability or power to push back on it. I can only think of one instance, though there may be others, where a company made such a colossally stupid mistake and that was when Coke opted to change their formula back in the 80s. Fortunately, they were smart enough to realize the epic f up they made and made it right by reintroducing the original formula and keeping the new one. Unfortunately, Hasbro, you don't have that option.
Now, for the most part, I don't hold WotC accountable in this, though I'm sure that there were more than a few that were at least complicit in what your fully executable and legally binding "draft" proposed. No, this fault lies squarely on Hasbro because this is something that no subsidiary company can do without, at minimum, the permission of the parent company. This "draft" reeked of greedy corporate fingers that didn't realize that their ownership of D&D was in name only. That the true owners of the game lay in the minds of the players and content creators, who, until recently, weren't your "obstacles", but instead were the very REASON that the IP was so valuable. And then you decided to piss every single ttrpg player/creator off, even those that didn't play *your* game.
So, how to rectify this and right the ship? As I see it you have a few options, you can hold firm, in which case you'll likely survive, but you will lose the market share you enjoy and another will rise to take your place (look at TSR for historical precedence). Option 2) You can modify your new agreement in an attempt to acquire more of the ttrpg communities money/content, in which case again, you lose your market penetration and give rise to competitors (look around at the current events for that example). Option 3) You can rescind the proposed changes and keep 1.0a, again, you lose market penetration due to lack of trust. Option 4) Rescind proposed changes, modify existing ones adding only protection for content creators and players while possibly carving out some of the other media income (digital, movie, tv, etc). Again, loss of market penetration, competitors, blah, blah, blah, based of lack of trust. Option 5) Publicly apologize and fire the individuals (as in top execs, not some scape goat) responsible for the debacle and pursue option 3 or 4. Again, loss of market penetration, though not as much, because of trust issues that you won't try this again in the future. Option 6) Sign on to ORC as well as firing the idiots who started all this. This is one that I can't predict and the one that if I had to bet, I would bet that you won't do. You're a big business in the U.S. and we all know that big businesses here are infallible in their own minds. They can never make a mistake unless it affects the profits. You'll never directly apologize, admitting the epic f-up ;this all was, and definitely never sign on to ORC as it has been put out by what is now a true and legitimate competitor, as well as many other now competitors signing on to it. The irony is, you literally, in one fell swoop, created your competitors literally overnight.
Hasbro, you had an amazing thing that other companies can only dream of, what the hell did you want to f it up?.
To all those who haven't heard, new unconfirmed rumours from Hos of Dungeon Scribe. Hasbro/WotC are planning to overhaul D&D Beyon in the following ways:
- increase higher tier subscription to $30 a month.
- Make homebrew creation tools inaccessible for lower tiers.
- Creating AI-DMs, that produce algorithm-based stories and judgements for Players.
The rumours state they are also continuing forward with de-authorising the OGL1.0a.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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The thing is, I've spent half a year preparing for a Spelljammer campaign. You'd think that would make me invested enough in D&D to stay, but because the 5e book was so barebones, I've had to homebrew the vast majority of the rules and such, so converting it over to Pathfinder doesn't seem much of a worry XD I know they have Starfinder, but I've been told it's closer to the 1e Pathfinder than 2e, and modifying my Spelljammer prep to Pathfinder might suit my needs better.
I love Starfinder! It is closer to 1e, and yeah, my group does play PF1e too.
Would you recommend Starfinder for a fun, Red Dwarf style adventure?
Ya a thing to note about Pathfinder is monsters are seperated by "cr" it is level. The encounter rules in the GMG are actually accurate.
Likewise, I'm starting to read the PDF right now - I really like what I am finding.
Its sad though - 2 weeks ago I would have laughed at anyone even suggesting wasting their time looking at P2E - and now I've bought a copy. Never say never I guess is the moral.
I fully agree. If they had gone down this route, almost all of us would be arguing which 3PP content was good or not. All the while just living in this growing DND Beyond ecology and still within the WotC system. Odds are good most would already be doing the slow informal transition to OneDND, jumping on the D&D VTT etc etc. In short, we'd even be more tied to the D&D system than ever before.
But because of the various actions done/not done, it did exactly the opposite. Created enough polarizing sentiment that it now drives many of the core players - the whales, away into other waters. And because trust is now tainted no matter how we go forward for many of those whales, it's hard to see how this will ever turn back.
I run three games with it and love it. Edited to add: It's far more Star Wars than Treasure Planet.
This is a total misunderstanding of the word 'open' in the context of the 'open gaming license.' It was modeled on the open source licenses for software which the Creative Commons (foro artistic expression) would also use. It's a complicated subject but the general idea of 'open' in 'open source' is well written in the Wikipedia article on the subject (emphasis mine):
The idea and spirit of OGL is to make the rules of 3.0 (and later 3.5 and 5e) free for anyone to use with very few strings attached in the spirit of the Open Source Movement. This was the intention of the OGL when released and its worked quite well for them for 23 years. The use of the word 'open' is more akin to 'do what you like with this we're not involved unless we want to be' not 'do what you want but only under these parameters'. Not that the latter is wrong or the former is right (that's not what this reply is about) but the latter is very much not 'open' in this context and anyone who tells you otherwise is ignorant or dishonest.
tl'dr:' Open = the bare minimum of restrictions if any at all' and not 'Open = Open like Open World gaming'.
Imho focus on making a great game play in person, online, imagination, 3d tabletop, roll20 etc just tons of options.
if hosting or selling content they can charge a fee for awesome stuff. For easy hosting / integration I am ok with a small fee (<3%)
if they want to addd nft language I am ok with it.
they need to understand no one can monetize the imagination of the community . Lets not cause an exodus , hopefully executives make better decisions in the spirit of dnd which is special.
lastly , please increase the pace of one dnd. Would help with positive community news and new topics
consider nudging onednd into baldurs gate 3 expansion or major mod
And based on all of your very accurate description, Open Gaming License 1.1 wasn't Open at all. Perhaps 2.0 will be, but I'm extremely skeptical.
1.1 and 2.0 are being called "Open Gaming License" only as a part of the strategy of de-authorizing OGL 1.0a.
That comparison really helps, actually! Thanks
As a long time proponent of the Open Software Movement, and someone who has released a few minor things under both the GNU and a Creative Commons license, I would agree with that. While some people argue that Wizards' business plan to take money from those that license their products is good, or at least reasonable, in the context of being an 'open' gaming licnese in the spirit of things like the GNU, Creative Commons, or other open licenses, nothing in the 1.1 is 'open'. In fact, WITHIN the licnese it encourages licensees to cut their own deal with Wizards! Having to register your product, having executives monitor what you produce, letting them know how much you make so they can determine how much, if any, they can take etc is so against the idea of 'open' that it feels (IANAL) malpractice-y to continue to call it open. I don't even know if you can call it 'open' in the sense that anybody could use it because under these terms you HAVE to register your product with Wizards!
Again, I'm not here, in this post at least, to judge whether 1.1 is good or bad for Wizards, for 3PPs, or the community in general. I am here to say that NONE of the added elements of it are 'open' at all in this context which I think is almost undisputable based on even a surface level understanding of the spirit (open source/free software movements) in which 1.0 was originally drafted.
I agree with what you say, but not how you say it.
I'd argue that there's enough to talk about in these peoples' appalling behavior without descending into ad-hominem attack.
Yeah, I can see that! A little Paranoia, too. I DM with a heavy dose of horror, and it's great for that. I do use my own setting, though. My source book is about 40 pages now. I find that the way the rules are written you can easily strip their setting out for your own. Most games tie setting and mechanics together.
That's just great vitriol right there! Colorful as hell!
My feedback is that if you wanted ip you should have gone about it far more gregariously. If something sells well enough they get a seal of approval and digital content would be posted on beyond with a split of profits. Everyone wins.
How WotC went about this and their response 8s a crash course in how not to do pr. Short of a new CEO, agreeing that 1.0a cannot be deaithorized, and signing onto ORC, you will never again have the trust of the community.
I've cancelled my master subscription. No to AI DM's! No to changing the OGL! No to corporate greed! No thanks!
Down with Hasbro C-Suite Investor oligarch overlords, they are ruining the very foundation of the game all for end stage capitalistic greed
Dear Hasbro,
By now you're feeling it. You subscription numbers have dropped significantly as the community demonstrated exactly the kind of "obstacle" we can be. You had a good thing going, players that eagerly supported you, demanding that you take our money. Content creating you to the point that your market penetration rose from a respectable 50% to a staggering 80%+. You had cultivated a community that if not sung your praises, they begrudgingly respected you for what you had done for the ttrpg community as a whole.
So, your decision to hire those that said, "Hey, you have a miraculous thing here, I bet we can f it up for you," was such a mind numbingly dumb idea that it truly baffles me at the stupidity of it. Moreover that there wasn't one person with the ability or power to push back on it. I can only think of one instance, though there may be others, where a company made such a colossally stupid mistake and that was when Coke opted to change their formula back in the 80s. Fortunately, they were smart enough to realize the epic f up they made and made it right by reintroducing the original formula and keeping the new one. Unfortunately, Hasbro, you don't have that option.
Now, for the most part, I don't hold WotC accountable in this, though I'm sure that there were more than a few that were at least complicit in what your fully executable and legally binding "draft" proposed. No, this fault lies squarely on Hasbro because this is something that no subsidiary company can do without, at minimum, the permission of the parent company. This "draft" reeked of greedy corporate fingers that didn't realize that their ownership of D&D was in name only. That the true owners of the game lay in the minds of the players and content creators, who, until recently, weren't your "obstacles", but instead were the very REASON that the IP was so valuable. And then you decided to piss every single ttrpg player/creator off, even those that didn't play *your* game.
So, how to rectify this and right the ship? As I see it you have a few options, you can hold firm, in which case you'll likely survive, but you will lose the market share you enjoy and another will rise to take your place (look at TSR for historical precedence). Option 2) You can modify your new agreement in an attempt to acquire more of the ttrpg communities money/content, in which case again, you lose your market penetration and give rise to competitors (look around at the current events for that example). Option 3) You can rescind the proposed changes and keep 1.0a, again, you lose market penetration due to lack of trust. Option 4) Rescind proposed changes, modify existing ones adding only protection for content creators and players while possibly carving out some of the other media income (digital, movie, tv, etc). Again, loss of market penetration, competitors, blah, blah, blah, based of lack of trust. Option 5) Publicly apologize and fire the individuals (as in top execs, not some scape goat) responsible for the debacle and pursue option 3 or 4. Again, loss of market penetration, though not as much, because of trust issues that you won't try this again in the future. Option 6) Sign on to ORC as well as firing the idiots who started all this. This is one that I can't predict and the one that if I had to bet, I would bet that you won't do. You're a big business in the U.S. and we all know that big businesses here are infallible in their own minds. They can never make a mistake unless it affects the profits. You'll never directly apologize, admitting the epic f-up ;this all was, and definitely never sign on to ORC as it has been put out by what is now a true and legitimate competitor, as well as many other now competitors signing on to it. The irony is, you literally, in one fell swoop, created your competitors literally overnight.
Hasbro, you had an amazing thing that other companies can only dream of, what the hell did you want to f it up?.
To all those who haven't heard, new unconfirmed rumours from Hos of Dungeon Scribe. Hasbro/WotC are planning to overhaul D&D Beyon in the following ways:
- increase higher tier subscription to $30 a month.
- Make homebrew creation tools inaccessible for lower tiers.
- Creating AI-DMs, that produce algorithm-based stories and judgements for Players.
The rumours state they are also continuing forward with de-authorising the OGL1.0a.