I completely missed the Gamer Gate controversy because I'm not from the USA, but I am very afraid that this riot will damage the D&D community. Probably not irreparably, but badly nonetheless. I agree that pushback was and is necessary, but I think Wizards has been backed into a corner now they can't possibly get out of. After all, if a ton of people says they are quitting D&D forever even if Wizards backs down, WotC doesn't really have a lot of reason to back down much, if at all. That said, I myself was shocked that they tweeted a "please stay on the phone" tweet 5 days after the leak. There should have been an actual reply on Monday at the latest.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
But it was never on the table, and frankly I'd rather have the riot than abject disinterest.
Depends on who's fanning the flames though, doesn't it?
I said this in another thread, but I'm starting to notice some disturbing parallels to Gamer Gate in what's happening here. Accounts that never post, or that are making their first post just to say they're boycotting/cancelling their sub -- sometimes on the very same day the account was created. Among the posters who actually, y'know, post, a not insignificant amount of overlap between the "the OGL is the devil" crowd and the "WOTC is too woke" crowd, and pointing to OSR alternatives now that D&D is apparently forever ruined by something that hasn't even happened yet
I'm not saying every member of the mob has bad intentions or is acting in bad faith, but then, a lot of people fell for the "Gamer Gate is just about ethics in game journalism" line too
as one of the accounts who hasn't posted here in a while and has a miserably small post count, i figure i'd share my perspective - i've loved DnD for a long time, started with 3.5, migrated to PF1e, was courted back by 5e. learned 5e was even worth it after seeing some crit role stuff, which i know my peers in grognardism will call me cringe for or whatever. i've played off and on for a long time, have my own campaign setting materials thrown together set in the elemental plane of air, the works. i just don't hang out on DDB much because (largely until recently) i was always able to find an IRL group when i got the DnD itch, besides one campaign i played in over discord.
DDB is the most direct line that fans have to WotC, with paid staff who monitor the board, and which also isn't heavily censoring the topic like the DnD discord. i know DDB and WotC are seperate entities, but there's a level of communication between the two at this point which is clear, hence why more people might be flocking to this forum to discuss the issue.
i feel like until we start seeing a glut of people openly harassing adjacent individuals, i'm not sure this can be compared with GG? i do agree though that the "dnd is too woke" crowd is mostly sweaty chuds, but hey, lots of people play and enjoy DnD including sweaty chuds and that's fine. if your gamergate comparison does play out to that point though, would it be right to say "oh okay i guess a bunch of people are going to lose their jobs and companies and the entire hobby will be poorer because of copyright restrictions but it's fine i guess"? unlike with GG the foundation of this controversy isn't rumors and speculation about what somebody might have done to get free advertising - the foundation of this controversy is a company using regressive intellectual property laws to try and unironically kill their competition. i feel like this has more in common with the netscape microsoft debacle from way back when
i, for one, welcome whatever similarly "woke" product 3pps make in response to this controversy. in fact, i'd like to see a bit of soft decoupling of mechanics from a characters' racial background be implemented into core rules for a future fantasy adventure ttrpg; you can't really get around having races in a tolkien-inspired high fantasy setting, but i'd at least like to see more thought put into the concept
Speaking of playbooks. One of the most toxic corporatist tactics employed in so many recent media controversies has been to attempt to tie legitimate, innocuous criticisms of a product or company to extremist elements in an attempt to discredit them. Change the narrative. It's not about bad decisions, destructive short-termist financial decisions, destroying legitimacy, or anti-consumer business models, it's all some anti-woke dog whistle. Until hopefully a movement has been completely delegitimized by thinly veiled concern trolling and the companies involved can resume their quiet class warfare.
Do you think you'll be able to pull it off for this conversation, too?
Speaking of playbooks. One of the most toxic corporatist tactics employed in so many recent media controversies has been to attempt to tie legitimate, innocuous criticisms of a product or company to extremist elements in an attempt to discredit them. Change the narrative. It's not about bad decisions, destructive short-termist financial decisions, destroying legitimacy, or anti-consumer business models, it's all some anti-woke dog whistle. Until hopefully a movement has been completely delegitimized by thinly veiled concern trolling and the companies involved can resume their quiet class warfare.
Do you think you'll be able to pull it off for this conversation, too?
I too always find it a bit funny... How the people who talk about "caring", and "diversity", and decrying the "toxicity" of fan backlashes so often... are always the people who go out of their way to stand in defence (for free, when said companies have PR departments) of some of the largest, most corrupt, and generally worst companies in the world. Disney springs immediately to mind: holy crap the adult Disney fans are basically cultists.
I imagine my post count is very low as I don't typically need to engage with the community. I just play D&D with my friends. It is because one of my friends mentioned the controversy that I became aware of it and sought out more information.
Admittedly, the potential changes to the OGL don't really impact me much since I am not a content creator, nor do I use much 3rd party content. However, it is easy to see the potential chilling effect this would have on the TTRPG hobby at large. It is for this reason that I have chosen to unsubscribe from DnD Beyond. It is doubtful that they will even notice my missing $2.99 a month in their vast dragon hoard of revenues, but unsubscribing and this post are the only ways I have as a humble player to signify my dissatisfaction in the course they are setting.
I am glad Yurei made this thread, it is more calm and the people here seem a lot more reasonable and level headed. I have a background and some experience in accounting, so I will offer my three cents (this is a long post, and my efforts deserve more than two cents) about the royalty component in the leaked OGL1.1 (just so we are on the same page, I am assuming we are all talking about the OGL leak presented on battlezoo), since there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding around it. Lots of smart people I know have no idea how tax brackets work despite filing and paying taxes for years, so yeah, the royalty component looks scarier than it actually is. If you design your products and sales right, you might not even need to pay Wizards a dime (even if you did not do it right, I highly doubt most people here would be successful enough to even have that royalty apply), even if you agree to the leaked OGL1.1. Also, I strongly recommend speaking to your lawyer about this, but you might not even need to give Wizards any financial data if you design and price your products correctly.
I am going to use some corpospeak, because people honestly got to learn. And once people understand it, it is honestly a lot less scary. I will do my best to explain financial jargon in layman terms, but I would still recommend people to go to Investopedia and read the definition there. Accounting terms like PROFIT will be emphasized like that. And honestly, Gizmodo kind of sucks; as Caerwyn Glyndor said in another thread, their journalism is crap. If you are using Gizmodo to read the headlines and stay updated in general, that is fine, but please read them with a grain of salt. To put it mildly, their journalists are incompetent: the devil is in the details and they get the detals wrong, and details really really really matters, especially in cases like this. I hope by sharing what little accounting knowledge I have, it would help people see things more clearly, and will be less swayed by clickbait headlines and rampant misinformation.
I agree paying 25% royalty on a business's GROSS REVENUE may be over the top, but that is not actually what is said in OGL1.1. I agree that it could have been worded a bit better in certain sections (it should be lot more technical and specific), but I guess Wizards is just being its usual dumbass and thinks plain language is sufficient.
So, what does it actually say? To put it simply, Wizards can only claim royalty from Qualifying Revenue (this is not an accounting term, hence the slight de-emphasis, but it is defined in the OGL and deserves more clarity) fromGROSS REVENUEfrom products that uses the OGL. And what does this actually mean? I am going to work backwards from that answer.
— — — — — — —
Not every product a business sell needs to use the OGL. So when does a product requires the use of the OGL? If the product uses the SRD or references it signficantly, then the product will probably need to use the OGL. Depending on the type of product, this could range from super easy to do to very difficult to do.
For stuff like maps, characters, setting, lore, etc., there is absolutely no reason to involve the SRD if the book is primarily about those things. You can involve the SRD if you want to, but I will just think you are a dumbass.
For stuff like monsters, magic items, and spells, while mechanics may have to be involved, the SRD does not. Make up your own format for your monsters, magic items, and spells so it does not look like how it is presented in the SRD. If you really want to make a connection with the SRD without actually making one, use vague language and offer vague suggestions, i.e. encourage the reader to reference whatever game system they are using and have them homebrew it. For example, instead saying your Wand of Coldness can cast Ice Knife at the lowest level ten times before recharging at dawn and requires attunement, just say that your Wand of Coldness can cast one or more low level ice themed damage spells of the GM's choice ten times per day and that it needs a person with magical knowledge to use (or hell, in this case, you might as well make up your own ice spell for your Wand to use).
For stuff like subclasses and backgrounds though, you are involving the SRD and it is harder to disentangle your stuff from it. Your stuff might not look pretty without the context and framework to have it make sense, but I think it is doable. For a simple example, if you make a Fighter subclass that is based around getting an extra Action Surge during every subclass feature level, you will need to divorce your concept from the Fighter class and the term Action Surge. You will want to say something like nonmagical people will gain the effect of being able to act twice in a turn (but without gaining extra movement) an increasing amount of times at certain levels, and they can do that up to five times at max level (so a D&D 5e Fighter should be able to do it seven times with this subclass at level 20).
— — — — — — —
So, what is GROSS REVENUE? It is basically the money you earn when you sell a product or service, within a certain time frame. Wizards does not really care about the GROSS REVENUE of your entire business. What Wizards do care about is the GROSS REVENUE from sales that involves their IP. If you design, 3D print, and sell your own minis for example, Wizards does not really care about that since it does not involve the SRD, and you certainly do not need the OGL for that. Similarly, if you create your own setting and lore book, but it does not use the SRD, Wizards does not really care about that either. However, if you write a Player's Ultimate Handbook that involves the SRD and requires the OGL, then Wizards will want to know about that and may claim royalty fees depending on the sales numbers.
Additionally, while Wizards generally does not really care about your minis and lore book, if you create a bundle that contains both your minis and lore book AND the PUHB, then Wizards will also want to know about that and may claim royalty fees on the entire bundle. You might not think that is fair, but keep in mind you are using Wizards IP to help you sell your minis and lore book, since you are tethering the sale of those minis and lore book to the sale of the PUHB.
— — — — — — —
So, what is Qualifying Revenue according to the OGL? Qualifying Revenue is the amount of GROSS REVENUE that comes from sales that involves Wizards IP (so if we use the aforementioned examples, it will be the PUHB and the bundle) and only a portion of that GROSS REVENUE that is after the intial $750,000.00, and Wizards wants a 25% cut of the Qualifying Revenue.
For example, let us say your business has $950,000.00 in GROSS REVENUE, and $850,000.00 comes from minis and lore books, and $100,000.00 from PUHBs and bundles. Wizards does not take any royalty from you, since the PUHB and bundle sales do not amount to $750,000.00 in GROSS REVENUE.
However, let us say the break down is $100,000.00 from minis and lore books, and $850,000.00 from PUHBs and bundles. Wizards will take royalty from you, since the PUHB and bundle do go over $750,000.00 in GROSS REVENUE. Since that GROSS REVENUE is over by $100,000.00, that $100,000.00 is Qualifying Revenue, and Wizards wants $25,000.00 in royalty fees.
— — — — — — —
So, what does this all mean in practice? To me at least, there seems to be a big ass easy loophole to exploit, and creators can expand their Rod of Collapsing into it and **** Wizards silly. I recommend consulting your lawyer though, because I am not a lawyer and I am not sure how legally sound my following suggestion would be.
Instead of writing the Ultimate Monster Manual that involves the SRD, you write the Tome of Monsters that does not involve the SRD and present monsters in a different format. You also write the Monster Format Conversion that shows readers how to convert monsters from your format to the SRD format.
Wizards should not be able to claim any royalty on the sales of TOM, but you will have to pay them money on the sale of MFC if MFC sells well enough. If you also sell a bundle containing TOM and MFC, then you may have to pay royalty on the bundle if it sells well too.
If you want to spite Wizards and not give them a single penny, you can sell TOM as usual, give away for MFC for free, and never sell TOM and MFC together in a bundle.
— — — — — — —
I mentioned PROFIT earlier, but I have not defined it then, since it is not really relevant to the OGL discussion. I did specifically pick PROFIT though as an example, because a dumbass who wrote an article on Gizmodo got REVENUE and PROFIT mixed up. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. In simple terms, PROFIT is REVENUE minus EXPENSES. Yeah, no shit, it is that simple, and I do not understand how these people can get these terms mixed when the OGL only mentioned PROFIT twice in a very vague way, whereas REVENUE gets mentioned thirty-five freaking times and is defined and emphasized multiple times.
You do not need to know the rest of these terms in detail, but I figure I would explain them below to provide more context and knowledge.
REVENUE refers to total sales, the very top line of an INCOME STATEMENT (basically a vertical math equation that summarizes how much money is earned, spent, and left over at each step or line). Sometimes we want to make a distinction between GROSS REVENUE and NET REVENUE if it is MATERIAL (IMMATERIAL means something is not relevant). NET REVENUE is basically GROSS REVENUE, but minus product returns, discounts, and a few other things. If what kind of REVENUE is not specified and no context is given, I usually assume it is GROSS REVENUE.
EXPENSES are pretty self explanatory, like rent, utilties, wages, transportation, etc., you know, anytime the business has to spend money. If you want to know a little bit more about the supply chain, sound smart, and impress Janice in accounting, COGS stands for COST OF GOODS SOLD, and it generally refers to the EXPENSES (or costs) that is DIRECTLY related to the sale of a product, such as materials and labor that goes into a product. An INDIRECT COST would be something like rent and advertising that you cannot tie to a sale of a specific product. If you 3D print minis for sale, the filaments would be considered a DIRECT COST when you sell the mini, and it would be part of COGS. If you are an LGS and you purchase books from Hasbro, when you sell the books, that purchase from Hasbro will become a part of COGS.
Back to PROFIT, there are many types of PROFIT. GROSS PROFIT is REVENUE minus COGS, and this is useful to know if you deal with selling physical products a lot. OPERATING INCOME refers to REVENUE minus COGS and OPERATING EXPENSES (basically most indirect costs, such as rent and advertising as mentioned, that is necessary to the operations of a business); OPERATING INCOME is also known as EBIT, EARNINGS BEFORE INTEREST AND TAXES. Most importantly, NET INCOME refers to the very bottom line of an INCOME STATEMENT, basically how much money you bring home at the end of the day. INCOME and PROFIT mean the same thing, just use whichever sounds better to you (GROSS INCOME, OPERATING PROFIT, and NET PROFIT just sound strange to me). EBITDA stands for EARNINGS BEFORE INTEREST, TAXES, DEPRECIATION, AND AMORTIZATION, and you will hear this a lot in corpospeak; some people want to know this number because it shows the profitability of the core operations of a business without factoring capitalization, while others like Warren Buffet think this metric is stupid because it does not factor in those costs. If what type of PROFIT is not specified and there is no context, it is generally safe to assume it is refering to NET INCOME (or NET PROFIT for you weirdos who prefer that).
DEPRECIATION refers to spreading the cost of a TANGIBLE ASSET (stuff like buildings, cars, machinery) over a period of time. AMORTIZATION is the same thing, but for INTANGIBLE ASSETS, such as intellectual property. ASSETS just basically refer to all the stuff your business owns. And another thing, while LAND is a TANGIBLE ASSET, you NEVER DEPRECIATE it, since land is a very limited resources and almost never theoretically go down in value. If LAND does go down in value, the process to lower its value is to IMPAIR it. Similarly for GOOD WILL (this is supposed to represent brand recognition and customer relations; generally the only way to get GOOD WILL is through acquistions and mergers, where one party overpays another party's valuation to buy them), it is an INTANGIBLE ASSET, but you NEVER AMORTIZE it (technically you can depending on jurisdiction, but I am assuming USA where you cannot), but you can IMPAIR it (such as right now for Hasbro).
LIABILITY refers to debt that the business owes to its lenders. EQUITY refers to how much the owners own in a business after accounting for TOTAL LIABILITIES.
Finally, TOTAL ASSETS equals TOTAL LIABILITIES plus EQUITY. Basically, the money you put into the business and the money you borrow from others, should equal to the stuff that the business owns. This accounting equation is the very first thing every accountant learns.
And so concludes my Accounting 101 lesson. That is three cents please. Thank you very much.
Journalists have been wrong before. This is concerning news, but these "leaks" about the OGL potentially being revoked are also unconfirmed; So I wouldn't recommend panicking just yet.
Also, different lawyers have different views and ways to interpret things. None of them are infallible, so going of what person says is typically not the best idea.
Is it true? Yes. WotC has not tried to tell us the text leaked was wrong but is trying to paint the stuff they sent out with contracts as drafts instead, because claiming it didn't exist would be ridicolous.
Different lawyers? I found one so far who does not believe this to be a radical, if not as radical as possible, change from openess and 3rd party driven ecosystem to a close system in which 3rd parties cannot survive pretty much -- if WotC wins with what they claim or those 3rd parties sign 1.1.
So, what does this all mean in practice? To me at least, there seems to be a big ass easy loophole to exploit, and creators can expand their Rod of Collapsing into it and **** Wizards silly. I recommend consulting your lawyer though, because I am not a lawyer and I am not sure how legally sound my following suggestion would be.
Aha. If that would be the case WotC better should sue their own lawyers for legal malpractise and throw all the changing ideas out of the window and tell everybody they do so to repair trust. If it does not do any harm really (changes nothing for most or all people relevant)...
It is amazing how people over and over again apply some basic understanding of a subject matter to an expert subject and once they come to their conclusion don't even try to test its compatibility with expert opinion. If your view differs from the vast majority of experts you need very good arguments even as an expert. If you are no such expert you better write at least a very detailed paper on it for peer review by the experts. It is almost as if there was a term for this phenomenon. Like D....-K.... something.
Speaking of playbooks. One of the most toxic corporatist tactics employed in so many recent media controversies has been to attempt to tie legitimate, innocuous criticisms of a product or company to extremist elements in an attempt to discredit them. Change the narrative. It's not about bad decisions, destructive short-termist financial decisions, destroying legitimacy, or anti-consumer business models, it's all some anti-woke dog whistle. Until hopefully a movement has been completely delegitimized by thinly veiled concern trolling and the companies involved can resume their quiet class warfare.
Do you think you'll be able to pull it off for this conversation, too?
I too always find it a bit funny... How the people who talk about "caring", and "diversity", and decrying the "toxicity" of fan backlashes so often... are always the people who go out of their way to stand in defence (for free, when said companies have PR departments) of some of the largest, most corrupt, and generally worst companies in the world. Disney springs immediately to mind: holy crap the adult Disney fans are basically cultists.
Yeah. It surprised me that it did not start professionally last week. But if no specialiced PR company is at their headquarters now I would be shocked. All that will happen and it will be a really toxic shit show. They invested 146.000.000$ into DnDB and put something like 250.000.000$ hiring ontop of it to make the OneDnD world work. Top management needs to win the war or go most likely. It will be really ugly almost certainly. Virtue signalling to get the white knights going is only a very primitive starting point they probably did not need experts for. Next steps will not be so obvious.
I completely missed the Gamer Gate controversy because I'm not from the USA, but I am very afraid that this riot will damage the D&D community. Probably not irreparably, but badly nonetheless. I agree that pushback was and is necessary, but I think Wizards has been backed into a corner now they can't possibly get out of. After all, if a ton of people says they are quitting D&D forever even if Wizards backs down, WotC doesn't really have a lot of reason to back down much, if at all. That said, I myself was shocked that they tweeted a "please stay on the phone" tweet 5 days after the leak. There should have been an actual reply on Monday at the latest.
WotC as a whole could just release 1.0b being irrevocable and covering both 5e and 6e. Cynthia Williams probably cannot as that would be hard do explain to investors after trying 1.1. Before that I actually believe not touching OGL would have not been a big problem for OneDnD. The Brand was large enough to pretty much ignore the others (including what we might consider the core community) without hurting them, probably not even alienating them for quite a while. But that was not the media company default. And both Cynthia Williams and Chris Cox are MS executives. They probably pretty much got heart attacks once being told what the OGL is for the first time (ironically by now top management in MS has realized the worth in things like Linux and returning very heavily to the C++ community, but that has happened after Cox left, and was not exactly in William's area of work [and probably after her time, too]).
To those who are telling people that nothing is here to see, everything is fine this might be a good thing to listen and think about -- without even having to dive into the legal details: https://youtu.be/WknpzezLZzA?t=305
It would still matter a lot even if they were wrong about every legal assumption they are making (which is hardly a possible universe to be in).
And because I prefer to work with details some depth:
I completely missed the Gamer Gate controversy because I'm not from the USA, but I am very afraid that this riot will damage the D&D community. Probably not irreparably, but badly nonetheless. I agree that pushback was and is necessary, but I think Wizards has been backed into a corner now they can't possibly get out of. After all, if a ton of people says they are quitting D&D forever even if Wizards backs down, WotC doesn't really have a lot of reason to back down much, if at all. That said, I myself was shocked that they tweeted a "please stay on the phone" tweet 5 days after the leak. There should have been an actual reply on Monday at the latest.
DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
as one of the accounts who hasn't posted here in a while and has a miserably small post count, i figure i'd share my perspective - i've loved DnD for a long time, started with 3.5, migrated to PF1e, was courted back by 5e. learned 5e was even worth it after seeing some crit role stuff, which i know my peers in grognardism will call me cringe for or whatever. i've played off and on for a long time, have my own campaign setting materials thrown together set in the elemental plane of air, the works. i just don't hang out on DDB much because (largely until recently) i was always able to find an IRL group when i got the DnD itch, besides one campaign i played in over discord.
DDB is the most direct line that fans have to WotC, with paid staff who monitor the board, and which also isn't heavily censoring the topic like the DnD discord. i know DDB and WotC are seperate entities, but there's a level of communication between the two at this point which is clear, hence why more people might be flocking to this forum to discuss the issue.
i feel like until we start seeing a glut of people openly harassing adjacent individuals, i'm not sure this can be compared with GG? i do agree though that the "dnd is too woke" crowd is mostly sweaty chuds, but hey, lots of people play and enjoy DnD including sweaty chuds and that's fine. if your gamergate comparison does play out to that point though, would it be right to say "oh okay i guess a bunch of people are going to lose their jobs and companies and the entire hobby will be poorer because of copyright restrictions but it's fine i guess"? unlike with GG the foundation of this controversy isn't rumors and speculation about what somebody might have done to get free advertising - the foundation of this controversy is a company using regressive intellectual property laws to try and unironically kill their competition. i feel like this has more in common with the netscape microsoft debacle from way back when
i, for one, welcome whatever similarly "woke" product 3pps make in response to this controversy. in fact, i'd like to see a bit of soft decoupling of mechanics from a characters' racial background be implemented into core rules for a future fantasy adventure ttrpg; you can't really get around having races in a tolkien-inspired high fantasy setting, but i'd at least like to see more thought put into the concept
Speaking of playbooks. One of the most toxic corporatist tactics employed in so many recent media controversies has been to attempt to tie legitimate, innocuous criticisms of a product or company to extremist elements in an attempt to discredit them. Change the narrative. It's not about bad decisions, destructive short-termist financial decisions, destroying legitimacy, or anti-consumer business models, it's all some anti-woke dog whistle. Until hopefully a movement has been completely delegitimized by thinly veiled concern trolling and the companies involved can resume their quiet class warfare.
Do you think you'll be able to pull it off for this conversation, too?
I too always find it a bit funny... How the people who talk about "caring", and "diversity", and decrying the "toxicity" of fan backlashes so often... are always the people who go out of their way to stand in defence (for free, when said companies have PR departments) of some of the largest, most corrupt, and generally worst companies in the world. Disney springs immediately to mind: holy crap the adult Disney fans are basically cultists.
I imagine my post count is very low as I don't typically need to engage with the community. I just play D&D with my friends. It is because one of my friends mentioned the controversy that I became aware of it and sought out more information.
Admittedly, the potential changes to the OGL don't really impact me much since I am not a content creator, nor do I use much 3rd party content. However, it is easy to see the potential chilling effect this would have on the TTRPG hobby at large. It is for this reason that I have chosen to unsubscribe from DnD Beyond. It is doubtful that they will even notice my missing $2.99 a month in their vast dragon hoard of revenues, but unsubscribing and this post are the only ways I have as a humble player to signify my dissatisfaction in the course they are setting.
I am glad Yurei made this thread, it is more calm and the people here seem a lot more reasonable and level headed. I have a background and some experience in accounting, so I will offer my three cents (this is a long post, and my efforts deserve more than two cents) about the royalty component in the leaked OGL1.1 (just so we are on the same page, I am assuming we are all talking about the OGL leak presented on battlezoo), since there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding around it. Lots of smart people I know have no idea how tax brackets work despite filing and paying taxes for years, so yeah, the royalty component looks scarier than it actually is. If you design your products and sales right, you might not even need to pay Wizards a dime (even if you did not do it right, I highly doubt most people here would be successful enough to even have that royalty apply), even if you agree to the leaked OGL1.1. Also, I strongly recommend speaking to your lawyer about this, but you might not even need to give Wizards any financial data if you design and price your products correctly.
I am going to use some corpospeak, because people honestly got to learn. And once people understand it, it is honestly a lot less scary. I will do my best to explain financial jargon in layman terms, but I would still recommend people to go to Investopedia and read the definition there. Accounting terms like PROFIT will be emphasized like that. And honestly, Gizmodo kind of sucks; as Caerwyn Glyndor said in another thread, their journalism is crap. If you are using Gizmodo to read the headlines and stay updated in general, that is fine, but please read them with a grain of salt. To put it mildly, their journalists are incompetent: the devil is in the details and they get the detals wrong, and details really really really matters, especially in cases like this. I hope by sharing what little accounting knowledge I have, it would help people see things more clearly, and will be less swayed by clickbait headlines and rampant misinformation.
I agree paying 25% royalty on a business's GROSS REVENUE may be over the top, but that is not actually what is said in OGL1.1. I agree that it could have been worded a bit better in certain sections (it should be lot more technical and specific), but I guess Wizards is just being its usual dumbass and thinks plain language is sufficient.
So, what does it actually say? To put it simply, Wizards can only claim royalty from Qualifying Revenue (this is not an accounting term, hence the slight de-emphasis, but it is defined in the OGL and deserves more clarity) from GROSS REVENUE from products that uses the OGL. And what does this actually mean? I am going to work backwards from that answer.
— — — — — — —
Not every product a business sell needs to use the OGL. So when does a product requires the use of the OGL? If the product uses the SRD or references it signficantly, then the product will probably need to use the OGL. Depending on the type of product, this could range from super easy to do to very difficult to do.
For stuff like maps, characters, setting, lore, etc., there is absolutely no reason to involve the SRD if the book is primarily about those things. You can involve the SRD if you want to, but I will just think you are a dumbass.
For stuff like monsters, magic items, and spells, while mechanics may have to be involved, the SRD does not. Make up your own format for your monsters, magic items, and spells so it does not look like how it is presented in the SRD. If you really want to make a connection with the SRD without actually making one, use vague language and offer vague suggestions, i.e. encourage the reader to reference whatever game system they are using and have them homebrew it. For example, instead saying your Wand of Coldness can cast Ice Knife at the lowest level ten times before recharging at dawn and requires attunement, just say that your Wand of Coldness can cast one or more low level ice themed damage spells of the GM's choice ten times per day and that it needs a person with magical knowledge to use (or hell, in this case, you might as well make up your own ice spell for your Wand to use).
For stuff like subclasses and backgrounds though, you are involving the SRD and it is harder to disentangle your stuff from it. Your stuff might not look pretty without the context and framework to have it make sense, but I think it is doable. For a simple example, if you make a Fighter subclass that is based around getting an extra Action Surge during every subclass feature level, you will need to divorce your concept from the Fighter class and the term Action Surge. You will want to say something like nonmagical people will gain the effect of being able to act twice in a turn (but without gaining extra movement) an increasing amount of times at certain levels, and they can do that up to five times at max level (so a D&D 5e Fighter should be able to do it seven times with this subclass at level 20).
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So, what is GROSS REVENUE? It is basically the money you earn when you sell a product or service, within a certain time frame. Wizards does not really care about the GROSS REVENUE of your entire business. What Wizards do care about is the GROSS REVENUE from sales that involves their IP. If you design, 3D print, and sell your own minis for example, Wizards does not really care about that since it does not involve the SRD, and you certainly do not need the OGL for that. Similarly, if you create your own setting and lore book, but it does not use the SRD, Wizards does not really care about that either. However, if you write a Player's Ultimate Handbook that involves the SRD and requires the OGL, then Wizards will want to know about that and may claim royalty fees depending on the sales numbers.
Additionally, while Wizards generally does not really care about your minis and lore book, if you create a bundle that contains both your minis and lore book AND the PUHB, then Wizards will also want to know about that and may claim royalty fees on the entire bundle. You might not think that is fair, but keep in mind you are using Wizards IP to help you sell your minis and lore book, since you are tethering the sale of those minis and lore book to the sale of the PUHB.
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So, what is Qualifying Revenue according to the OGL? Qualifying Revenue is the amount of GROSS REVENUE that comes from sales that involves Wizards IP (so if we use the aforementioned examples, it will be the PUHB and the bundle) and only a portion of that GROSS REVENUE that is after the intial $750,000.00, and Wizards wants a 25% cut of the Qualifying Revenue.
For example, let us say your business has $950,000.00 in GROSS REVENUE, and $850,000.00 comes from minis and lore books, and $100,000.00 from PUHBs and bundles. Wizards does not take any royalty from you, since the PUHB and bundle sales do not amount to $750,000.00 in GROSS REVENUE.
However, let us say the break down is $100,000.00 from minis and lore books, and $850,000.00 from PUHBs and bundles. Wizards will take royalty from you, since the PUHB and bundle do go over $750,000.00 in GROSS REVENUE. Since that GROSS REVENUE is over by $100,000.00, that $100,000.00 is Qualifying Revenue, and Wizards wants $25,000.00 in royalty fees.
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So, what does this all mean in practice? To me at least, there seems to be a big ass easy loophole to exploit, and creators can expand their Rod of Collapsing into it and **** Wizards silly. I recommend consulting your lawyer though, because I am not a lawyer and I am not sure how legally sound my following suggestion would be.
Instead of writing the Ultimate Monster Manual that involves the SRD, you write the Tome of Monsters that does not involve the SRD and present monsters in a different format. You also write the Monster Format Conversion that shows readers how to convert monsters from your format to the SRD format.
Wizards should not be able to claim any royalty on the sales of TOM, but you will have to pay them money on the sale of MFC if MFC sells well enough. If you also sell a bundle containing TOM and MFC, then you may have to pay royalty on the bundle if it sells well too.
If you want to spite Wizards and not give them a single penny, you can sell TOM as usual, give away for MFC for free, and never sell TOM and MFC together in a bundle.
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I mentioned PROFIT earlier, but I have not defined it then, since it is not really relevant to the OGL discussion. I did specifically pick PROFIT though as an example, because a dumbass who wrote an article on Gizmodo got REVENUE and PROFIT mixed up. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. In simple terms, PROFIT is REVENUE minus EXPENSES. Yeah, no shit, it is that simple, and I do not understand how these people can get these terms mixed when the OGL only mentioned PROFIT twice in a very vague way, whereas REVENUE gets mentioned thirty-five freaking times and is defined and emphasized multiple times.
You do not need to know the rest of these terms in detail, but I figure I would explain them below to provide more context and knowledge.
REVENUE refers to total sales, the very top line of an INCOME STATEMENT (basically a vertical math equation that summarizes how much money is earned, spent, and left over at each step or line). Sometimes we want to make a distinction between GROSS REVENUE and NET REVENUE if it is MATERIAL (IMMATERIAL means something is not relevant). NET REVENUE is basically GROSS REVENUE, but minus product returns, discounts, and a few other things. If what kind of REVENUE is not specified and no context is given, I usually assume it is GROSS REVENUE.
EXPENSES are pretty self explanatory, like rent, utilties, wages, transportation, etc., you know, anytime the business has to spend money. If you want to know a little bit more about the supply chain, sound smart, and impress Janice in accounting, COGS stands for COST OF GOODS SOLD, and it generally refers to the EXPENSES (or costs) that is DIRECTLY related to the sale of a product, such as materials and labor that goes into a product. An INDIRECT COST would be something like rent and advertising that you cannot tie to a sale of a specific product. If you 3D print minis for sale, the filaments would be considered a DIRECT COST when you sell the mini, and it would be part of COGS. If you are an LGS and you purchase books from Hasbro, when you sell the books, that purchase from Hasbro will become a part of COGS.
Back to PROFIT, there are many types of PROFIT. GROSS PROFIT is REVENUE minus COGS, and this is useful to know if you deal with selling physical products a lot. OPERATING INCOME refers to REVENUE minus COGS and OPERATING EXPENSES (basically most indirect costs, such as rent and advertising as mentioned, that is necessary to the operations of a business); OPERATING INCOME is also known as EBIT, EARNINGS BEFORE INTEREST AND TAXES. Most importantly, NET INCOME refers to the very bottom line of an INCOME STATEMENT, basically how much money you bring home at the end of the day. INCOME and PROFIT mean the same thing, just use whichever sounds better to you (GROSS INCOME, OPERATING PROFIT, and NET PROFIT just sound strange to me). EBITDA stands for EARNINGS BEFORE INTEREST, TAXES, DEPRECIATION, AND AMORTIZATION, and you will hear this a lot in corpospeak; some people want to know this number because it shows the profitability of the core operations of a business without factoring capitalization, while others like Warren Buffet think this metric is stupid because it does not factor in those costs. If what type of PROFIT is not specified and there is no context, it is generally safe to assume it is refering to NET INCOME (or NET PROFIT for you weirdos who prefer that).
DEPRECIATION refers to spreading the cost of a TANGIBLE ASSET (stuff like buildings, cars, machinery) over a period of time. AMORTIZATION is the same thing, but for INTANGIBLE ASSETS, such as intellectual property. ASSETS just basically refer to all the stuff your business owns. And another thing, while LAND is a TANGIBLE ASSET, you NEVER DEPRECIATE it, since land is a very limited resources and almost never theoretically go down in value. If LAND does go down in value, the process to lower its value is to IMPAIR it. Similarly for GOOD WILL (this is supposed to represent brand recognition and customer relations; generally the only way to get GOOD WILL is through acquistions and mergers, where one party overpays another party's valuation to buy them), it is an INTANGIBLE ASSET, but you NEVER AMORTIZE it (technically you can depending on jurisdiction, but I am assuming USA where you cannot), but you can IMPAIR it (such as right now for Hasbro).
LIABILITY refers to debt that the business owes to its lenders. EQUITY refers to how much the owners own in a business after accounting for TOTAL LIABILITIES.
Finally, TOTAL ASSETS equals TOTAL LIABILITIES plus EQUITY. Basically, the money you put into the business and the money you borrow from others, should equal to the stuff that the business owns. This accounting equation is the very first thing every accountant learns.
And so concludes my Accounting 101 lesson. That is three cents please. Thank you very much.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
Is it true? Yes. WotC has not tried to tell us the text leaked was wrong but is trying to paint the stuff they sent out with contracts as drafts instead, because claiming it didn't exist would be ridicolous.
Different lawyers? I found one so far who does not believe this to be a radical, if not as radical as possible, change from openess and 3rd party driven ecosystem to a close system in which 3rd parties cannot survive pretty much -- if WotC wins with what they claim or those 3rd parties sign 1.1.
If you comment on it maybe start reading.
Aha. If that would be the case WotC better should sue their own lawyers for legal malpractise and throw all the changing ideas out of the window and tell everybody they do so to repair trust. If it does not do any harm really (changes nothing for most or all people relevant)...
It is amazing how people over and over again apply some basic understanding of a subject matter to an expert subject and once they come to their conclusion don't even try to test its compatibility with expert opinion. If your view differs from the vast majority of experts you need very good arguments even as an expert. If you are no such expert you better write at least a very detailed paper on it for peer review by the experts. It is almost as if there was a term for this phenomenon. Like D....-K.... something.
Yeah. It surprised me that it did not start professionally last week. But if no specialiced PR company is at their headquarters now I would be shocked. All that will happen and it will be a really toxic shit show. They invested 146.000.000$ into DnDB and put something like 250.000.000$ hiring ontop of it to make the OneDnD world work. Top management needs to win the war or go most likely. It will be really ugly almost certainly. Virtue signalling to get the white knights going is only a very primitive starting point they probably did not need experts for. Next steps will not be so obvious.
WotC as a whole could just release 1.0b being irrevocable and covering both 5e and 6e. Cynthia Williams probably cannot as that would be hard do explain to investors after trying 1.1. Before that I actually believe not touching OGL would have not been a big problem for OneDnD. The Brand was large enough to pretty much ignore the others (including what we might consider the core community) without hurting them, probably not even alienating them for quite a while. But that was not the media company default. And both Cynthia Williams and Chris Cox are MS executives. They probably pretty much got heart attacks once being told what the OGL is for the first time (ironically by now top management in MS has realized the worth in things like Linux and returning very heavily to the C++ community, but that has happened after Cox left, and was not exactly in William's area of work [and probably after her time, too]).
To those who are telling people that nothing is here to see, everything is fine this might be a good thing to listen and think about -- without even having to dive into the legal details:
https://youtu.be/WknpzezLZzA?t=305
It would still matter a lot even if they were wrong about every legal assumption they are making (which is hardly a possible universe to be in).
And because I prefer to work with details some depth: