Posted it elsewhere but this is the place it belongs...
Well, I am pretty sure they are misdirecting on number 2. Nobody is working on AI DMs.
I suspect they have subbed it out but you can look at an earlier post of mine why I think they are. In addition, they chose the Unreal engine for the VTT for a reason. It’s expensive for a commercial company to use it but has one nice feature most folks do not know about… Here is the link. https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.1/en-US/behavior-trees-in-unreal-engine/
Here are the first two sentences…Behavior Trees assets in Unreal Engine 5 (Unreal Engine) can be used to create artificial intelligence (AI) for non-player characters in your projects. While the Behavior Tree asset is used to execute branches containing logic, to determine which branches should be executed, the Behavior Tree relies on another asset called a Blackboard which serves as the "brain" for a Behavior Tree.
There is more but you get the point. If Congress had asked the military if any military soldiers were working on the stuff I mentioned in my earlier post they could have truthfully said NO because it had been contracted out to a civilian company with no soldiers it…
Posted it elsewhere but this is the place it belongs...
Well, I am pretty sure they are misdirecting on number 2. Nobody is working on AI DMs.
I suspect they have subbed it out but you can look at an earlier post of mine why I think they are. In addition, they chose the Unreal engine for the VTT for a reason. It’s expensive for a commercial company to use it but has one nice feature most folks do not know about… Here is the link. https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.1/en-US/behavior-trees-in-unreal-engine/
Here are the first two sentences…Behavior Trees assets in Unreal Engine 5 (Unreal Engine) can be used to create artificial intelligence (AI) for non-player characters in your projects. While the Behavior Tree asset is used to execute branches containing logic, to determine which branches should be executed, the Behavior Tree relies on another asset called a Blackboard which serves as the "brain" for a Behavior Tree.
There is more but you get the point. If Congress had asked the military if any military soldiers were working on the stuff I mentioned in my earlier post they could have truthfully said NO because it had been contracted out to a civilian company with no soldiers it…
That’s how Hasbro puts out statements…
Fixed a spot where I put in yes instead of NO
Fixed be to been
There's no way they've got an AI program advanced enough to run a D&D session or campaign. If they had programming that advanced, they'd be farming it out to the government and other businesses for millions, not using it for a hobby game.
I believe everyone has their own idea of what they think an AI would do. There is everyone's different expectations and there is what is possible that HASBRO is shooting for and what they will wind up with.
I do not believe any computer will ever achieve what a human DM can do.
That being said, the people giving the orders (Hasbro senior management), in my opinion, have never played D&D, have certainly never been a DM and likely think it must be similar to Monopoly since people sit around a table most of the time in both. I suspect they have no idea what a VTT is supposed to do either. I would bet they think it's just another video conference meeting.
I am serious. Listen or watch some of the recorded board and shareholder meetings for Hasbro. Never underestimate the stupidity of someone who has been in power unchallenged and does not know the area they are making decisions on without listening to advice. This is Hasbro. Look up what happened to MTG and their Marvell and GI Joe decisions.
I think WOTC is shooting for something like Baldur's Gate 3 when it is in Turn Mode, but thinking they can run it out of a web browser like they do their Character sheet on their new VTT.
I think they will fail.
That does not stop them from trying and that's what I think this whole mess is about. People at the top, not understanding the conquences of what they are ordering WOTC to do, to make sure theirs has no rivals when their VTT came out.
First, no, I won't address these posts to Kyle. He's merely going to be the *scapegoat* I warned about in my previous post. Yeah, he may be an exec for WotC, and he may have indeed loved the game prior to joining your company. Hell, he may still love the game and play, I don't know, I don't know a damn thing about him. However, I do know when a goat is being staked to the ground and I, for one, will continue to go after the hunter, not the goat.
Secondly, not an f'ing DRAFT! You keep saying this, and we all know better at this point. Own it! It is what it is, and at this point continuing to try to downplay what you brought on is only making things worse.
I will say this, though, thanks for at least apologizing, kind of, it's a start; not a good one and not nearly good enough, but a start all the same.
To my fellow community members,
I'm an old gamer. I use that term deliberately as that was the term that the video game community (which I am one as well) borrowed from us ttrpg'ers. When we met our fellow nerds, we'd simply ask, "Do you game," and we would know what anyone in the community meant by that. So, I'm an old gamer, I've also been an executive, and let me advise you of a couple of things up front that I will guarantee will happen moving forward:
First, Hasbro WILL change the OGL. If they claim so it's more inclusive, to prevent hate, etc., laugh in their faces. They can do that with minor changes to 1.0(a),
And secondly, as for the surveys that they put out, I will be crystal clear on this. These surveys will be put to us by a company that admittedly views us as an obstacle to their profits. They are not, nor will they ever be, out ally. They don't understand what D&D is. They don't understand that they don't actually own D&D. Oh, they can point to this document or that document and say that they do own it, but let me ask you this to prove my point, how many people played a module put out by TSR or WotC exactly as written? How many people follow only the rules as written? I would bet that it's a very, very small number of us. So, how can they own YOUR game when they didn't write or publish the game you actually play? Sure, they own the name, legally, they own a handful of monsters, items, etc. that a lot of us use for our game, but they have never once, nor can they ever own YOUR game, don't let them try.
I got off topic, but back to my original point about the surveys. NONE, ZERO, NADA, ZILCH, NULL of the questions will give us, the actual owners of the game, any real power to say what will and won't go into the OGL. They'll throw us a bone here and there about things they don't care about and have no real impact on the new OGL. But, most of the questions they will pose will be presented in a multiple choice format that begins with a question that would be analogous to "Would you rather?" When it's all done and said they will proudly march out, stating here's the new OGL "the community" agreed to. If there is any problems with it, take it up with "the community" as they voted for it and we simply followed their wishes. Oh, you don't think it's the communities fault, oh, well take it up with Kyle, it was his decision, we Hasbro, had nothing to do with it.
And now I will close by addressing Hasbro again,
I will not be returning to D&D Beyond until and unless the requirements that I laid out in a previous message are met. I will not return if there isn't binding language prohibiting the change of 1.0(a) is introduced. You, as is your right, can introduce new OGLs. You can, by all means, attempt (and maybe succeed) in changing previous OGLs. You own the framework of the game, and this is well within your rights to do or attempt to do. However, there is a fatal flaw baked into this whole framework, that the past few weeks have proven to you, or should have: WE CAN AND WILL REJECT IT! Oh, then I can't create and publish for D&D you say? First, yes I can, I just have to avoid stepping on anything that is trademarked by you IF AND ONLY IF I want to share it with the community at large. Second, how many games are there that are D&D in all but name? Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, Middle Earth Roleplaying, and that's just three to name off the top of my head and discount the veritable smorgasbord of high fantasy role playing games on the market. Hell, I could easily turn the Talisman board game into an RPG.... oh, wait, that's already been done.
Hasbro, you are unable to succeed in this. How much has your stock fallen already? How many subs have been cancelled? How many of us do you actually think you can win back? You tried to fix something that wasn't broken. You thought you could approach D&D as if it was a video game. You thought this would blow over. You thought we would simply sit down and take it. What you thought was wrong. You are dealing with a community that brought YOU in, not one that you built. We existed and shared our work with each other long before WotC bought TSR. We are (or were) the outcasts of normal society, the nerds and geeks that didn't fit in. We are all highly intelligent and for almost 50 years, we have been parsing the rules of D&D, bending and twisting them to our favor until they screamed in protest. And where we couldn't, we flat out ignored the rules and replaced them with our own. You picked a fight that you will always fail to attain your goals. In truth, it would've been better if the OGL wasn't ever put out, then this whole controversy wouldn't have arisen. But as my mom used to say, you can't unring a bell. But to paraphrase Gandalf from LotR, "YOU SHALL NOT TAKE!" You can't have what you've already given us back. It's ours now, and we are the ones that will continue to fight you every step of the way. If you force it, which is well within your rights, then we will find something else (many of us already have).
That being said, the people giving the orders (Hasbro senior management), in my opinion, have never played D&D, have certainly never been a DM and likely think it must be similar to Monopoly since people sit around a table most of the time in both. I suspect they have no idea what a VTT is supposed to do either. I would bet they think it's just another video conference meeting.
I am serious. Listen or watch some of the recorded board and shareholder meetings for Hasbro. Never underestimate the stupidity of someone who has been in power unchallenged and does not know the area they are making decisions on without listening to advice. This is Hasbro. Look up what happened to MTG and their Marvell and GI Joe decisions.
I think WOTC is shooting for something like Baldur's Gate 3 when it is in Turn Mode, but thinking they can run it out of a web browser like they do their Character sheet on their new VTT.
I think they will fail.
That does not stop them from trying and that's what I think this whole mess is about. People at the top, not understanding the conquences of what they are ordering WOTC to do, to make sure theirs has no rivals when their VTT came out.
edit computer, not company
Ah yes, the classic "the execs are completely out of touch idiots who don't even bother to check in with reality before they commit do a decision" bit. While I'm sure it's not completely unheard of, I rather doubt it exists on the scale you're trying to present here. Execs have to answer to the board and shareholders; you can't just give a project group, division, company or whatever a vague wishlist, say "make it so", and then just leave it to succeed or run itself into the ground. They have to answer for the decisions they make, and what kind of progress is being made. Even on the off-chance someone managed to get a ridiculous project like this started, it wouldn't take long for someone to call them on the carpet over this and see that it's a tilting at the windmills project and can it. Now, I could see them trying to put together some kind of "virtual DM screen" suite of features to help people run a campaign, but that's a whole other ball game and could ultimately be a positive. This "they're gonna run the company into the ground chasing AI" bit just comes across as a strawman "this is why you shouldn't like WotC" argument.
So, I have watched and listened to the recorded board and shareholder meetings. I am guessing you have not...One of us is going to look silly to anyone else that has looked at past decisions by the Hasbro senior leadership.
So, I have watched and listened to the recorded board and shareholder meetings. I am guessing you have not...One of us is going to look silly to anyone else that has looked at past decisions by the Hasbro senior leadership.
Literally laughing out loud...
Links to said videos and recorded board sessions please?
Just something I think we should all stop an consider. WotC's management like most corporate leaders are narcissists and you need to understand clearly what an apology is and is not in the eyes of a narcissist: (I have modified the text from psychcentral.com).
None of which is terribly relevant, because we have clear benchmarks for whether behavior has improved: the released document. If it's just as bad as before, they're gaslighting us; if it's improved, they might be engaged in good faith negotiation. The whole point of enforceable contracts is to make it less important whether the person you're negotiating with is actually honest and trustworthy.
Except their “good-faith” apology continues a lie that it was all a “draft” and a misunderstanding. Their management only cares about their PR and stock price. The first opportunity that presents itself they absolutely will screw the community over if they believe they can get away with it.
a true apology accepts the guilt and blame without conditions or arguing it was a misunderstanding. They have not done that. They have blame shifted and excused their behavior. They have tried to twist their mistake to make it sound like something positive. It’s all hollow words they hope will make their screw up go away.
"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
Just something I think we should all stop an consider. WotC's management like most corporate leaders are narcissists and you need to understand clearly what an apology is and is not in the eyes of a narcissist: (I have modified the text from psychcentral.com).
None of which is terribly relevant, because we have clear benchmarks for whether behavior has improved: the released document. If it's just as bad as before, they're gaslighting us; if it's improved, they might be engaged in good faith negotiation. The whole point of enforceable contracts is to make it less important whether the person you're negotiating with is actually honest and trustworthy.
Except their “good-faith” apology continues a lie that it was all a “draft” and a misunderstanding. Their management only cares about their PR and stock price. The first opportunity that presents itself they absolutely will screw the community over if they believe they can get away with it.
a true apology accepts the guilt and blame without conditions or arguing it was a misunderstanding. They have not done that. They have blame shifted and excused their behavior. They have tried to twist their mistake to make it sound like something positive. It’s all hollow words they hope will make their screw up go away.
What do you expect them to do? Say "We are sorry, the status quo is perfect. We are evil and will all go commit ritual suicide immediately!" ?
Say, publicly, "We are completely incompetent, we will all step down immediately, leaving this company with no management whatsoever," even though that would be career suicide?
Seriously, all this zero tolerance, no quarter rhetoric is all very fine and well, but if you are allowing no viable endgame here, no 'out' of any sort and if too many agree on that, then the game will fold and there will be no more D&D IP for 3rd parties to publish supplements for. And it is not a given that anything new or better will rise in its place.
"Community feedback has been clear - there's not much room for de-authorizing OGL 1.0a. OGL 2.0 will not reference such, and will apply primarily to new content for OneDnD/DnD 6e, and optionally for content for 5e if creators opt to do so"
That's it. I dont care about fake apologies or make demands on what they do with new content and agreements going forward. Just honor their past contracts.
The wording of every response shows the true intent, they don't and can't admit they are wrong, they have a set goal in mind and want it accomplished and don't care about the community cause they know they can turn a profit no matter what. If they lose all of the community but still force thier changes now or later likely at this point.
Facts: 1. They want people to stop talking about this on public platforms and what it keep in the forums they control and don't look at, those lose less money and can make essential changes to their plans. 2. The ceo or whomever is responsible for the ogl changes don't care about d&d or the community but about money, that is their job. The issue is they seem to have such an ego that any push to thier changes results in staf quiting (like we saw in october), staff being fired, and the d&d community being abused verbally and financially by WotC. 3. WotC has a right to desire money from 3rd party who use d&d to make revenue, however as an ogl was established already changes to oil is not possible and WotC should instead embrace 3rd party allowing their work to be sold on dndbeyond and wotc gets a small revenue for that.
Not like wotc will see this or bother with any of our post here, only way to send a message is on Twitter and other social platforms whike cancelling our subs sadly.
Just something I think we should all stop an consider. WotC's management like most corporate leaders are narcissists and you need to understand clearly what an apology is and is not in the eyes of a narcissist: (I have modified the text from psychcentral.com).
None of which is terribly relevant, because we have clear benchmarks for whether behavior has improved: the released document. If it's just as bad as before, they're gaslighting us; if it's improved, they might be engaged in good faith negotiation. The whole point of enforceable contracts is to make it less important whether the person you're negotiating with is actually honest and trustworthy.
Except their “good-faith” apology continues a lie that it was all a “draft” and a misunderstanding. Their management only cares about their PR and stock price. The first opportunity that presents itself they absolutely will screw the community over if they believe they can get away with it.
a true apology accepts the guilt and blame without conditions or arguing it was a misunderstanding. They have not done that. They have blame shifted and excused their behavior. They have tried to twist their mistake to make it sound like something positive. It’s all hollow words they hope will make their screw up go away.
What do you expect them to do? Say "We are sorry, the status quo is perfect. We are evil and will all go commit ritual suicide immediately!" ?
Say, publicly, "We are completely incompetent, we will all step down immediately, leaving this company with no management whatsoever," even though that would be career suicide?
How about this:
"We are very sorry that some people in our company tried to trick the community. The OGL won't change in any form except in one word, we add the term 'irrevocable'. The capitalistic imperialists have left the company. Please help us to improve our competitivness in the form to create a better product with One D&D."
Just something I think we should all stop an consider. WotC's management like most corporate leaders are narcissists and you need to understand clearly what an apology is and is not in the eyes of a narcissist: (I have modified the text from psychcentral.com).
None of which is terribly relevant, because we have clear benchmarks for whether behavior has improved: the released document. If it's just as bad as before, they're gaslighting us; if it's improved, they might be engaged in good faith negotiation. The whole point of enforceable contracts is to make it less important whether the person you're negotiating with is actually honest and trustworthy.
Except their “good-faith” apology continues a lie that it was all a “draft” and a misunderstanding. Their management only cares about their PR and stock price. The first opportunity that presents itself they absolutely will screw the community over if they believe they can get away with it.
a true apology accepts the guilt and blame without conditions or arguing it was a misunderstanding. They have not done that. They have blame shifted and excused their behavior. They have tried to twist their mistake to make it sound like something positive. It’s all hollow words they hope will make their screw up go away.
What do you expect them to do? Say "We are sorry, the status quo is perfect. We are evil and will all go commit ritual suicide immediately!" ?
Say, publicly, "We are completely incompetent, we will all step down immediately, leaving this company with no management whatsoever," even though that would be career suicide?
Seriously, all this zero tolerance, no quarter rhetoric is all very fine and well, but if you are allowing no viable endgame here, no 'out' of any sort and if too many agree on that, then the game will fold and there will be no more D&D IP for 3rd parties to publish supplements for. And it is not a given that anything new or better will rise in its place.
"Community feedback has been clear - there's not much room for de-authorizing OGL 1.0a. OGL 2.0 will not reference such, and will apply primarily to new content for OneDnD/DnD 6e, and optionally for content for 5e if creators opt to do so"
That's it. I dont care about fake apologies or make demands on what they do with new content and agreements going forward. Just honor their past contracts.
And damned be *their* bottom line? 6e will be backwards compatible with 5e. That is the plan. And people are insisting that, therefore, 6e will have to be under the 1.0, too.
There is zero evidence that OGL 1.0a has ever been anything but beneficial to their bottom line, and significant evidence that walking away from it or trying to invalidate it is catastrophic.
See also 4e as compared to 3.5 and 5e (evidence available prior to this debacle), and the current community revolt with potentially tens of thousands of canceled subs.
The whole "but their bottom line" angle is bizarre, as the "good" financial decision has never, ever been invalidating OGL 1.0a. If they're concerned about 6e competing with 5e, they should try making 6e a better product.
There is zero evidence that OGL 1.0a has ever been anything but beneficial to their bottom line, and significant evidence that walking away from it or trying to invalidate it is catastrophic.
See also 4e as compared to 3.5 and 5e (evidence available prior to this debacle), and the current community revolt with potentially tens of thousands of canceled subs.
The whole "but their bottom line" angle is bizarre, as the "good" financial decision has never, ever been invalidating OGL 1.0a. If they're concerned about 6e competing with 5e, they should try making 6e a better product.
For me, that comes back to wondering what all this 3rd party content that is somehow the main reason the game is still going.
Ryan Dancy explained how it helped DnD coming into 3rd ed in the interview he did with Roll for Combat. Its not exactly straightforward, but its pretty clear that third parties serve a critical role in the overall TTRPG ecosystem.
Tons of people- maybe not you- play adventures, use mechanics, etc.- created by third party creators that make DnD more playable to them, and encourages them to spend on and engage with the core 5e content Wizards puts out as well.
Posted it elsewhere but this is the place it belongs...
Well, I am pretty sure they are misdirecting on number 2. Nobody is working on AI DMs.
I suspect they have subbed it out but you can look at an earlier post of mine why I think they are. In addition, they chose the Unreal engine for the VTT for a reason. It’s expensive for a commercial company to use it but has one nice feature most folks do not know about… Here is the link. https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.1/en-US/behavior-trees-in-unreal-engine/
Here are the first two sentences…Behavior Trees assets in Unreal Engine 5 (Unreal Engine) can be used to create artificial intelligence (AI) for non-player characters in your projects. While the Behavior Tree asset is used to execute branches containing logic, to determine which branches should be executed, the Behavior Tree relies on another asset called a Blackboard which serves as the "brain" for a Behavior Tree.
There is more but you get the point. If Congress had asked the military if any military soldiers were working on the stuff I mentioned in my earlier post they could have truthfully said NO because it had been contracted out to a civilian company with no soldiers it…
That’s how Hasbro puts out statements…
Fixed a spot where I put in yes instead of NO
Fixed be to been
There's no way they've got an AI program advanced enough to run a D&D session or campaign. If they had programming that advanced, they'd be farming it out to the government and other businesses for millions, not using it for a hobby game.
Friend. With all due respect. Ai running a game the way they imagine it is NOT advanced. It will play like a combo between a video game and a moderate choose your own adventure.
Also, go look at chatgpt running games for people. It's a real ass thing.
Just something I think we should all stop an consider. WotC's management like most corporate leaders are narcissists and you need to understand clearly what an apology is and is not in the eyes of a narcissist: (I have modified the text from psychcentral.com).
None of which is terribly relevant, because we have clear benchmarks for whether behavior has improved: the released document. If it's just as bad as before, they're gaslighting us; if it's improved, they might be engaged in good faith negotiation. The whole point of enforceable contracts is to make it less important whether the person you're negotiating with is actually honest and trustworthy.
Except their “good-faith” apology continues a lie that it was all a “draft” and a misunderstanding. Their management only cares about their PR and stock price. The first opportunity that presents itself they absolutely will screw the community over if they believe they can get away with it.
a true apology accepts the guilt and blame without conditions or arguing it was a misunderstanding. They have not done that. They have blame shifted and excused their behavior. They have tried to twist their mistake to make it sound like something positive. It’s all hollow words they hope will make their screw up go away.
What do you expect them to do? Say "We are sorry, the status quo is perfect. We are evil and will all go commit ritual suicide immediately!" ?
Say, publicly, "We are completely incompetent, we will all step down immediately, leaving this company with no management whatsoever," even though that would be career suicide?
Seriously, all this zero tolerance, no quarter rhetoric is all very fine and well, but if you are allowing no viable endgame here, no 'out' of any sort and if too many agree on that, then the game will fold and there will be no more D&D IP for 3rd parties to publish supplements for. And it is not a given that anything new or better will rise in its place.
"Community feedback has been clear - there's not much room for de-authorizing OGL 1.0a. OGL 2.0 will not reference such, and will apply primarily to new content for OneDnD/DnD 6e, and optionally for content for 5e if creators opt to do so"
That's it. I dont care about fake apologies or make demands on what they do with new content and agreements going forward. Just honor their past contracts.
Exactly this! WotC was very clear in what they promised OGL 1.0a was supposed to do, and now they are attempting to break that promise. That is unacceptable.
Plus, OGL 1.0a is a failsafe to protect the game from future business missteps and that goes far, far beyond next year's OneD&D. Do we trust WotC of 2033? 2043? OGL 1.0a's intent was to be a failsafe to allow the community to protect the game longer than any executive's tenure and their current business plans, especially since those business plans will just be changed by the next president to enter the revolving door to direct things for a few years before leaving.
And damned be *their* bottom line? 6e will be backwards compatible with 5e. That is the plan. And people are insisting that, therefore, 6e will have to be under the 1.0, too.
If their bottom line is "damned" because they don't know how to run their business under a license they agreed to, then maybe someone else should be in charge. Past leadership found ways to leverage the OGL to greatly benefit WotC's bottom line, and in fact, the license was designed specifically to benefit WotC. Are you saying current leadership is less competent than past leadership? That the only way they can turn a profit is to try to weasel their way out of a contract that was fully intended to stay in effect?
I've been very skeptical of some of their decisions, but you must have a very dim view of their abilities if you think OGL 1.0a staying around will "damn their bottom line." Wow. Give them some credit. D&D seems to have been doing pretty well.
So, I have watched and listened to the recorded board and shareholder meetings. I am guessing you have not...One of us is going to look silly to anyone else that has looked at past decisions by the Hasbro senior leadership.
Literally laughing out loud...
Links to said videos and recorded board sessions please?
Not wanting to take a forced vacation from the forums for a few weeks or forever I am not going to provide links on it to meeting of the highest management and shareholders of the company that owns WOTC. Use Goggle. I will make it easier and suggest you go watch or listen to the last meeting that is on the web, the 8 December 2022 meeting.
In the first 23 minutes most of what is discussed will not mean much to those who do not follow all the previous meetings but they do introduce what has been their biggest money maker, the Magic the Gathering card game, which is introduced as a video game. Really…The one person in the meeting who must know better does not correct the presenter. Think on that.
At 23 minutes in, and for next 8 minutes, the talk is really about why they lost just under 1/2 to 1/3 their stock value over MTG mishandling, but unless you have been following them you would not understand that’s what they are talking, and denying about in the meeting.
At 31 minutes they go into D&D monetizing, the woman who cuts in is Hasbro's CEO and President of WOTC - Cynthia Williams, previously from Microsoft Transactions.
At 33 minutes she calls it DDD and gets corrected off mic that its D&D or DND and calls it DND going forward.
At 37 minutes the exciting news is Chris who came up managing MTG saying he is going to release something with our D&D fans soon. you all now know what he meant.... This again is 8 December…
You can also google the attempted hostile takeover to separate WOTC from HASBRO that failed, the meeting where they explained how HASBRO lost their European Monopoly trademark after some bad faith findings by the court, and find other things I am not mention specifically here for good reasons.
After suitable research you will realize much of what has occurred is not malice, just ignorance and greed by HASBRO, who really does do the “My way or the highway” leadership.
And damned be *their* bottom line? 6e will be backwards compatible with 5e. That is the plan. And people are insisting that, therefore, 6e will have to be under the 1.0, too.
5E has been released under OGL 1.05a and nothing they say alters that fact. I, for one, will release content under OGL 1.05a for 5E the moment they issue language revoking OGL 1.05a and if they don't like it, I'll see them in court, along with thousands of others.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
Friend. With all due respect. Ai running a game the way they imagine it is NOT advanced. It will play like a combo between a video game and a moderate choose your own adventure.
Also, go look at chatgpt running games for people. It's a real ass thing.
Have you tried those? Unless they've gotten a LOT better in the last couple months magically, they are really poor. Can't hold a plot past maybe the opening two lines
1) Yeah, it's bad. Most new technologies are, until they're not. GPS and text prediction used to suck too.
Friend. With all due respect. Ai running a game the way they imagine it is NOT advanced. It will play like a combo between a video game and a moderate choose your own adventure.
Also, go look at chatgpt running games for people. It's a real ass thing.
Have you tried those? Unless they've gotten a LOT better in the last couple months magically, they are really poor. Can't hold a plot past maybe the opening two lines
1) Yeah, it's bad. Most new technologies are, until they're not. GPS and text prediction used to suck too.
To be fair, what they technically confirmed is that no one is currently working on it. Not that it's not on their future project list, or up for consideration, or that there isn't some "Automagic Dungeon Master" project.
Though if it was pending, I'm guessing the project is dead now.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Posted it elsewhere but this is the place it belongs...
Well, I am pretty sure they are misdirecting on number 2. Nobody is working on AI DMs.
I suspect they have subbed it out but you can look at an earlier post of mine why I think they are. In addition, they chose the Unreal engine for the VTT for a reason. It’s expensive for a commercial company to use it but has one nice feature most folks do not know about… Here is the link. https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.1/en-US/behavior-trees-in-unreal-engine/
Here are the first two sentences…Behavior Trees assets in Unreal Engine 5 (Unreal Engine) can be used to create artificial intelligence (AI) for non-player characters in your projects. While the Behavior Tree asset is used to execute branches containing logic, to determine which branches should be executed, the Behavior Tree relies on another asset called a Blackboard which serves as the "brain" for a Behavior Tree.
There is more but you get the point. If Congress had asked the military if any military soldiers were working on the stuff I mentioned in my earlier post they could have truthfully said NO because it had been contracted out to a civilian company with no soldiers it…
That’s how Hasbro puts out statements…
Fixed a spot where I put in yes instead of NO
Fixed be to been
There's no way they've got an AI program advanced enough to run a D&D session or campaign. If they had programming that advanced, they'd be farming it out to the government and other businesses for millions, not using it for a hobby game.
I believe everyone has their own idea of what they think an AI would do. There is everyone's different expectations and there is what is possible that HASBRO is shooting for and what they will wind up with.
I do not believe any computer will ever achieve what a human DM can do.
That being said, the people giving the orders (Hasbro senior management), in my opinion, have never played D&D, have certainly never been a DM and likely think it must be similar to Monopoly since people sit around a table most of the time in both. I suspect they have no idea what a VTT is supposed to do either. I would bet they think it's just another video conference meeting.
I am serious. Listen or watch some of the recorded board and shareholder meetings for Hasbro. Never underestimate the stupidity of someone who has been in power unchallenged and does not know the area they are making decisions on without listening to advice. This is Hasbro. Look up what happened to MTG and their Marvell and GI Joe decisions.
I think WOTC is shooting for something like Baldur's Gate 3 when it is in Turn Mode, but thinking they can run it out of a web browser like they do their Character sheet on their new VTT.
I think they will fail.
That does not stop them from trying and that's what I think this whole mess is about. People at the top, not understanding the conquences of what they are ordering WOTC to do, to make sure theirs has no rivals when their VTT came out.
edit computer, not company
Dear Hasbro,
First, no, I won't address these posts to Kyle. He's merely going to be the *scapegoat* I warned about in my previous post. Yeah, he may be an exec for WotC, and he may have indeed loved the game prior to joining your company. Hell, he may still love the game and play, I don't know, I don't know a damn thing about him. However, I do know when a goat is being staked to the ground and I, for one, will continue to go after the hunter, not the goat.
Secondly, not an f'ing DRAFT! You keep saying this, and we all know better at this point. Own it! It is what it is, and at this point continuing to try to downplay what you brought on is only making things worse.
I will say this, though, thanks for at least apologizing, kind of, it's a start; not a good one and not nearly good enough, but a start all the same.
To my fellow community members,
I'm an old gamer. I use that term deliberately as that was the term that the video game community (which I am one as well) borrowed from us ttrpg'ers. When we met our fellow nerds, we'd simply ask, "Do you game," and we would know what anyone in the community meant by that. So, I'm an old gamer, I've also been an executive, and let me advise you of a couple of things up front that I will guarantee will happen moving forward:
First, Hasbro WILL change the OGL. If they claim so it's more inclusive, to prevent hate, etc., laugh in their faces. They can do that with minor changes to 1.0(a),
And secondly, as for the surveys that they put out, I will be crystal clear on this. These surveys will be put to us by a company that admittedly views us as an obstacle to their profits. They are not, nor will they ever be, out ally. They don't understand what D&D is. They don't understand that they don't actually own D&D. Oh, they can point to this document or that document and say that they do own it, but let me ask you this to prove my point, how many people played a module put out by TSR or WotC exactly as written? How many people follow only the rules as written? I would bet that it's a very, very small number of us. So, how can they own YOUR game when they didn't write or publish the game you actually play? Sure, they own the name, legally, they own a handful of monsters, items, etc. that a lot of us use for our game, but they have never once, nor can they ever own YOUR game, don't let them try.
I got off topic, but back to my original point about the surveys. NONE, ZERO, NADA, ZILCH, NULL of the questions will give us, the actual owners of the game, any real power to say what will and won't go into the OGL. They'll throw us a bone here and there about things they don't care about and have no real impact on the new OGL. But, most of the questions they will pose will be presented in a multiple choice format that begins with a question that would be analogous to "Would you rather?" When it's all done and said they will proudly march out, stating here's the new OGL "the community" agreed to. If there is any problems with it, take it up with "the community" as they voted for it and we simply followed their wishes. Oh, you don't think it's the communities fault, oh, well take it up with Kyle, it was his decision, we Hasbro, had nothing to do with it.
And now I will close by addressing Hasbro again,
I will not be returning to D&D Beyond until and unless the requirements that I laid out in a previous message are met. I will not return if there isn't binding language prohibiting the change of 1.0(a) is introduced. You, as is your right, can introduce new OGLs. You can, by all means, attempt (and maybe succeed) in changing previous OGLs. You own the framework of the game, and this is well within your rights to do or attempt to do. However, there is a fatal flaw baked into this whole framework, that the past few weeks have proven to you, or should have: WE CAN AND WILL REJECT IT! Oh, then I can't create and publish for D&D you say? First, yes I can, I just have to avoid stepping on anything that is trademarked by you IF AND ONLY IF I want to share it with the community at large. Second, how many games are there that are D&D in all but name? Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, Middle Earth Roleplaying, and that's just three to name off the top of my head and discount the veritable smorgasbord of high fantasy role playing games on the market. Hell, I could easily turn the Talisman board game into an RPG.... oh, wait, that's already been done.
Hasbro, you are unable to succeed in this. How much has your stock fallen already? How many subs have been cancelled? How many of us do you actually think you can win back? You tried to fix something that wasn't broken. You thought you could approach D&D as if it was a video game. You thought this would blow over. You thought we would simply sit down and take it. What you thought was wrong. You are dealing with a community that brought YOU in, not one that you built. We existed and shared our work with each other long before WotC bought TSR. We are (or were) the outcasts of normal society, the nerds and geeks that didn't fit in. We are all highly intelligent and for almost 50 years, we have been parsing the rules of D&D, bending and twisting them to our favor until they screamed in protest. And where we couldn't, we flat out ignored the rules and replaced them with our own. You picked a fight that you will always fail to attain your goals. In truth, it would've been better if the OGL wasn't ever put out, then this whole controversy wouldn't have arisen. But as my mom used to say, you can't unring a bell. But to paraphrase Gandalf from LotR, "YOU SHALL NOT TAKE!" You can't have what you've already given us back. It's ours now, and we are the ones that will continue to fight you every step of the way. If you force it, which is well within your rights, then we will find something else (many of us already have).
Ah yes, the classic "the execs are completely out of touch idiots who don't even bother to check in with reality before they commit do a decision" bit. While I'm sure it's not completely unheard of, I rather doubt it exists on the scale you're trying to present here. Execs have to answer to the board and shareholders; you can't just give a project group, division, company or whatever a vague wishlist, say "make it so", and then just leave it to succeed or run itself into the ground. They have to answer for the decisions they make, and what kind of progress is being made. Even on the off-chance someone managed to get a ridiculous project like this started, it wouldn't take long for someone to call them on the carpet over this and see that it's a tilting at the windmills project and can it. Now, I could see them trying to put together some kind of "virtual DM screen" suite of features to help people run a campaign, but that's a whole other ball game and could ultimately be a positive. This "they're gonna run the company into the ground chasing AI" bit just comes across as a strawman "this is why you shouldn't like WotC" argument.
So, I have watched and listened to the recorded board and shareholder meetings. I am guessing you have not...One of us is going to look silly to anyone else that has looked at past decisions by the Hasbro senior leadership.
Literally laughing out loud...
Links to said videos and recorded board sessions please?
Except their “good-faith” apology continues a lie that it was all a “draft” and a misunderstanding. Their management only cares about their PR and stock price. The first opportunity that presents itself they absolutely will screw the community over if they believe they can get away with it.
a true apology accepts the guilt and blame without conditions or arguing it was a misunderstanding. They have not done that. They have blame shifted and excused their behavior. They have tried to twist their mistake to make it sound like something positive. It’s all hollow words they hope will make their screw up go away.
"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
"Community feedback has been clear - there's not much room for de-authorizing OGL 1.0a. OGL 2.0 will not reference such, and will apply primarily to new content for OneDnD/DnD 6e, and optionally for content for 5e if creators opt to do so"
That's it. I dont care about fake apologies or make demands on what they do with new content and agreements going forward. Just honor their past contracts.
The wording of every response shows the true intent, they don't and can't admit they are wrong, they have a set goal in mind and want it accomplished and don't care about the community cause they know they can turn a profit no matter what. If they lose all of the community but still force thier changes now or later likely at this point.
Facts: 1. They want people to stop talking about this on public platforms and what it keep in the forums they control and don't look at, those lose less money and can make essential changes to their plans. 2. The ceo or whomever is responsible for the ogl changes don't care about d&d or the community but about money, that is their job. The issue is they seem to have such an ego that any push to thier changes results in staf quiting (like we saw in october), staff being fired, and the d&d community being abused verbally and financially by WotC. 3. WotC has a right to desire money from 3rd party who use d&d to make revenue, however as an ogl was established already changes to oil is not possible and WotC should instead embrace 3rd party allowing their work to be sold on dndbeyond and wotc gets a small revenue for that.
Not like wotc will see this or bother with any of our post here, only way to send a message is on Twitter and other social platforms whike cancelling our subs sadly.
How about this:
"We are very sorry that some people in our company tried to trick the community. The OGL won't change in any form except in one word, we add the term 'irrevocable'. The capitalistic imperialists have left the company. Please help us to improve our competitivness in the form to create a better product with One D&D."
There is zero evidence that OGL 1.0a has ever been anything but beneficial to their bottom line, and significant evidence that walking away from it or trying to invalidate it is catastrophic.
See also 4e as compared to 3.5 and 5e (evidence available prior to this debacle), and the current community revolt with potentially tens of thousands of canceled subs.
The whole "but their bottom line" angle is bizarre, as the "good" financial decision has never, ever been invalidating OGL 1.0a. If they're concerned about 6e competing with 5e, they should try making 6e a better product.
Ryan Dancy explained how it helped DnD coming into 3rd ed in the interview he did with Roll for Combat. Its not exactly straightforward, but its pretty clear that third parties serve a critical role in the overall TTRPG ecosystem.
Tons of people- maybe not you- play adventures, use mechanics, etc.- created by third party creators that make DnD more playable to them, and encourages them to spend on and engage with the core 5e content Wizards puts out as well.
Friend. With all due respect. Ai running a game the way they imagine it is NOT advanced. It will play like a combo between a video game and a moderate choose your own adventure.
Also, go look at chatgpt running games for people. It's a real ass thing.
Exactly this! WotC was very clear in what they promised OGL 1.0a was supposed to do, and now they are attempting to break that promise. That is unacceptable.
Plus, OGL 1.0a is a failsafe to protect the game from future business missteps and that goes far, far beyond next year's OneD&D. Do we trust WotC of 2033? 2043? OGL 1.0a's intent was to be a failsafe to allow the community to protect the game longer than any executive's tenure and their current business plans, especially since those business plans will just be changed by the next president to enter the revolving door to direct things for a few years before leaving.
If their bottom line is "damned" because they don't know how to run their business under a license they agreed to, then maybe someone else should be in charge. Past leadership found ways to leverage the OGL to greatly benefit WotC's bottom line, and in fact, the license was designed specifically to benefit WotC. Are you saying current leadership is less competent than past leadership? That the only way they can turn a profit is to try to weasel their way out of a contract that was fully intended to stay in effect?
I've been very skeptical of some of their decisions, but you must have a very dim view of their abilities if you think OGL 1.0a staying around will "damn their bottom line." Wow. Give them some credit. D&D seems to have been doing pretty well.
Not wanting to take a forced vacation from the forums for a few weeks or forever I am not going to provide links on it to meeting of the highest management and shareholders of the company that owns WOTC. Use Goggle. I will make it easier and suggest you go watch or listen to the last meeting that is on the web, the 8 December 2022 meeting.
In the first 23 minutes most of what is discussed will not mean much to those who do not follow all the previous meetings but they do introduce what has been their biggest money maker, the Magic the Gathering card game, which is introduced as a video game. Really…The one person in the meeting who must know better does not correct the presenter. Think on that.
At 23 minutes in, and for next 8 minutes, the talk is really about why they lost just under 1/2 to 1/3 their stock value over MTG mishandling, but unless you have been following them you would not understand that’s what they are talking, and denying about in the meeting.
At 31 minutes they go into D&D monetizing, the woman who cuts in is Hasbro's CEO and President of WOTC - Cynthia Williams, previously from Microsoft Transactions.
At 33 minutes she calls it DDD and gets corrected off mic that its D&D or DND and calls it DND going forward.
At 37 minutes the exciting news is Chris who came up managing MTG saying he is going to release something with our D&D fans soon. you all now know what he meant.... This again is 8 December…
You can also google the attempted hostile takeover to separate WOTC from HASBRO that failed, the meeting where they explained how HASBRO lost their European Monopoly trademark after some bad faith findings by the court, and find other things I am not mention specifically here for good reasons.
After suitable research you will realize much of what has occurred is not malice, just ignorance and greed by HASBRO, who really does do the “My way or the highway” leadership.
5E has been released under OGL 1.05a and nothing they say alters that fact. I, for one, will release content under OGL 1.05a for 5E the moment they issue language revoking OGL 1.05a and if they don't like it, I'll see them in court, along with thousands of others.
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.
1) Yeah, it's bad. Most new technologies are, until they're not. GPS and text prediction used to suck too.
2) It's moot anyway since they confirmed they're not working on it.
To be fair, what they technically confirmed is that no one is currently working on it. Not that it's not on their future project list, or up for consideration, or that there isn't some "Automagic Dungeon Master" project.
Though if it was pending, I'm guessing the project is dead now.