I noted, that I want to talk only about that specific sentence, that was cited here, not the whole book. Instead of attacking me please respond with valid arguments.
There is nothing valid about focusing on only one sentence when people are talking about the entire book. Also, what BoringBard said.
You are criticising Gagax for writing: “Races in SFNG [Star Frontiers: New Genesis] are not unlike races in the real world. Some are better at certain things than others, and some races are superior than others”.
But some species in D&D are better at certain things than others:
<Snip>
And some species are superior to others:
<Snip>
That is not racist.
You are missing a number of important details. The first and most important is that you ignore the way the word "race" is being used here.
In D&D, you are correct that certain species are better at certain things than others. That being said, they are all relatively equal in over all power level, and you are comparing creatures from the Monster Manual to various species, while ignoring the fact that those two things are not treated as the same in game.
However, Ernest Gygax explicitly said that "Some races are superior than others" in real life. The fifth edition of D&D as well as a number of other role-playing games use the term "race" to incorrectly describe a species, such as a Faerie or Minotaur. That being said, there aren't any species like that in real life. Due to this, it is clear what Ernest meant when he talked about races in the real world. He was clearly spreading racist, white supremacy based beliefs.
Well, humans in the real world don't have races. We're just one species. Implying otherwise is racist. Advocating that we should categorize ourselves into races is the fundamental core false belief that enables racism. The categories of races are arbitrary, entirely a social construct. Yet you seem to be affirming that in the real world we have different races. Not cool.
You are also ignoring a number of incredibly problematic aspects in the game. Some of the things in this version of Star Frontiers are so horrible that I would probably get banned just for repeating them, so I will pass on doing so. However, this quote is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how problematic that game is. You are focusing on one detail and ignoring numerous other important ones, and I would advise that you actually attempt to do research on the subject before you form any opinions.
Please do not promote that book here. A couple of people have suggested that we should read it now, and we absolutely shouldn't. It is extremely problematic.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Please do not promote that book here. A couple of people have suggested that we should read it now, and we absolutely shouldn't. It is extremely problematic.
I did not read his book. I am writing about the truthfulness of the sole sentence quoted here. Where I am wrong? You did not point anything in my post that is wrong.
Then maybe you should know what the book contains before spouting off about how it isn't racist.
I don't think it is a great idea to promote that book here.
Please do not promote that book here. A couple of people have suggested that we should read it now, and we absolutely shouldn't. It is extremely problematic.
You did. He said he hadn't read it. You told him he should he know its contents, before talking about it.
Perhaps you didn't mean to promote reading the book, but you clearly did. Your response indicates you think he shouldn't respond unless he has read it.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Well, humans in the real world don't have races. We're just one species. Implying otherwise is racist. Advocating that we should categorize ourselves into races is the fundamental core false belief that enables racism. The categories of races are arbitrary, entirely a social construct. Yet you seem to be affirming that in the real world we have different races. Not cool.
Please do not promote that book here. A couple of people have suggested that we should read it now, and we absolutely shouldn't. It is extremely problematic.
1) I am NOT promoting Star Frontiers. I would never suggest anyone buy a racist product or support someone like Ernest Gygax financially. What I did say, however, was that people should research the game before they declare that it isn't racist when it clearly is.
2) I NEVER said race was something biological or scientific. Just because something is largely a social construct doesn't mean it doesn't affect people. Money is a social construct. The government is a social construct. Both of those things drastically affect peoples day to day lives.
In the real world, people have invented races to divide and discriminate. Stating that talking about race is racist denies peoples' life experiences and histories as well as the pain many groups of people have had to experience for centuries.
Ernest Gygax stated that some races in the real world are superior, and others are inferior. That is racist and incorrect. If you are seriously arguing that social constructs can't hurt people, or that anti-racists are racist, then I honestly don't know what to say.
Someone doesn't need to read the actual book to get the gist, just read media coverage or if you're bold and bored WotC's filing (page 9 has the examples).
However, Ernest Gygax explicitly said that "Some races are superior than others" in real life. The fifth edition of D&D as well as a number of other role-playing games use the term "race" to incorrectly describe a species, such as a Faerie or Minotaur. That being said, there aren't any species like that in real life. Due to this, it is clear what Ernest meant when he talked about races in the real world. He was clearly spreading racist, white supremacy based beliefs.
Here he says something problematic, but hard to determine with clarity what he means. Races in D&D etc means the same thing species means, and if Gygax is using that definition then what he's talking about is perfectly fine. Lions are different from fish and are different from humans. Species have different inherent strengths and weaknesses. That isn't problematic or even controversial. It's just obvious.
You, however, are implying that he means the racist version of the word race. But to get to that conclusion insist that there are races in real life, and we know this because there aren't species. That... isn't ok.
In the real world, people have invented races to divide and discriminate. Stating that talking about race is racist denies peoples' life experiences and histories as well as the pain many groups of people have had to experience for centuries.
You insisted that real world had real races. That isn't just "talking" about race.
The bits I bolded, directly from your comment, are problematic. If that isn't what you meant, it might need some rephrasing. I can't read your mind, only your comment. It sounds to me like you are arguing that races in real life are real. If that ain't your intent, carry on.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Someone doesn't need to read the actual book to get the gist, just read media coverage or if you're bold and bored WotC's filing (page 9 has the examples).
I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept for Ravnodaus to grasp.
You insisted that real world had real races. That isn't just "talking" about race.
The real world technically does have races. However, you are correct that those races are social constructs based on arbitrary measurements. They were created to divide and discriminate, but that doesn't mean that the concept of real life races and the harm they are causing doesn't exist.
The bits I bolded, directly from your comment, are problematic. If that isn't what you meant, it might need some rephrasing. I can't read your mind, only your comment. It sounds to me like you are arguing that races in real life are real. If that ain't your intent, carry on.
Since you are misunderstanding my point so badly, it is possible that some of the poor communication is due to the way I phrased things. Due to this, I will try to explain it again in a way that you (hopefully) are able to understand better:
When people talk about how some races are superior to others in the real world, it is misleading and confusing to say the least. This is especially true considering the fact that the main definition talked about today for the term "race" is related to the skin color or ethnicity of a person. According to Oxford Languages, all the other definitions of the term race that might be applicable are "nontechnical" and don't fully apply.
Whilst the word race was made to divide, and the way it is used is often arbitrary, that doesn't change the fact that it has a certain connotation and typical usage and that statements such as the one made by Ernest Gygax are insensitive and incredibly poorly phrased, at a minimum.
To start, here is what this thread is not about: It is not about the contents of the alleged draft OGL 1.1.It is not about wild speculation.It is not about unproductive commentary like “Wizards is doing this because they are evil.”If you want to engage in that or respond to any posts others make about that, there are a dozen or so other threads to choose from.
This thread is about addressing a certain argument that has been raised on those other threads - the proposition that the OGL did not need to change.This proposition is incorrect, as is plainly apparent from actual statements from Wizards and actual facts about recent events and how Wizards operates as a company.
Below, I will spell out the five reasons (presented in no particular order) Wizards has given or heavily implied are their reasons for changing OGL 1.0, all of which follow from this article.There may be other reasons as well, but this is sticking just with actual facts and statements, and the reasonable extrapolation therefrom in light of other tangible facts.
Reason One: NFTs
As Wizards mentioned in the OGL article on this site, one of the reasons they need to update the OGL is to ensure it cannot be used for “third-parties to mint D&D NFTs”
NFTs are, as is widely known, a rather predatory bubble - both predatory in terms of commonly ripping off others’ intellectual property rights and in how they are marketed to folks as a get-rich-quick scheme that is little more than an exploitative bubble.Like most other things that rely on blockchain, they are also an ecological disaster, consuming huge amounts of energy during transactions.As such, there are incredibly obvious reasons Wizards would not want to be associated with these commodities, especially as controlled by third-parties.
The current OGL is silent on NFTs and could allow their creation - which makes sense, when OGL 1.0 was drafted, the idea of an NFT did not exist, except perhaps in parody.Thus, an update to address NFTs is needed to protect both customers and the brand from
Reason Two: Protecting Wizards from racism and other forms of bigotry being published with their branding.
As folks likely know, content published under the OGL must contain various notices of the use of Wizards’ intellectual property.This very easily could result in racist content that is directly tied to Wizards of the Coast - something which both reflects poorly on the game and on the player base itself.Wizards has expressed a desire to change the OGL to better limit hate speech and bigotry published under their brand.
Recent events have put this weakness of the current OGL to the forefront of Wizards’ mind.Ernest Gygax - one of D&D’s founders, son of Gary, and original player of Tenser (which is an anagram for Ernest) - is presently being sued for taking Wizards intellectual property and tarnishing the brand by releasing racist content under that brand name.Specifically, he is trying to publish a new version of Star Frontiers, which Wizards owns and which Wizards still licenses the same of pdfs of old rule books for, with content like “Races in SFNG [Star Frontiers: New Genesis] are not unlike races in the real world. Some are better at certain things than others, and some races are superior than others” (actual quote) and worse.
That lawsuit has exposed an inherent weakness in OGL 1.0 - Star Frontiers has a substantial amount of protection from folks who would illegally use Wizards’ IP for racist purposes, but OGL 1.0 opens up publication of D&D-tied content with similarly horrific language contained within.
Wizards has been lucky so far - they have not had a major figure like Ernest Gygax attempt to abuse OGL 1.0 in this manner.It likely was not even a major concern in their mind when OGL 1.0 was drafted.But the existence of one such instance indicates the possibilities of others, and luck is hardly the shield explicit contractual language would be.Rather than risk another Star Frontiers situation, but this time with content Wizards has freely given the community, updating the OGL to prevent this kind of third-party content is the most sensible course of action.
Reason Three: Data collection.
Wizards has consistently said that sales data is one of their most important assets.For both D&D and Magic, they have talked about how carefully they collect and track product data to know what types of product players like, and determine what settings, themes, and other elements folks enjoy.
When OGL 1.0 was drafted, Wizards likely did not know the extent to which 5e would take off. Many elements in 5e’s success were external - Stranger Things, shows like Critical Role becoming cultural phenomenons, a global pandemic - greatly expanding D&D’s popularity to new heights.
This in turn led to a surge in third party content being created - content Wizards does not necessarily receive sales data on.This unprecedented surge in third-party sales impacts Wizards’ ability to better tune and target their own products as they do not receive the same level of data collection they historically relied upon.The reporting requirements Wizards has stated the new OGL will contain for larger third-party developers are all but certainly designed to help recapture this otherwise lost data.
Reason Four: “Exploitation” (Wizards’ word) of Wizards’ IP by third-parties.
Right now, there is nothing stopping Amazon or any other large company from mass producing mass-scale products rivalling D&D.Recently, Amazon dipped its toes in the D&D business with their publication of Critical Role’s Vox Machina.While Critical Role did an admirable job respecting Wizards’ rights with the show, Amazon is not exactly known for being the most respectful of other people’s products and designs.An updated OGL will prevent someone like Amazon from releasing a product at a scale unprecedented by existing third-party contributors.
Reason Five: Recapturing Lost Revenue.
Almost certainly the most controversial on this list, Wizards is clearly return to recapture revenue from the largest creators (they have said there are only about twenty such creators at the scale for their royalty component to kick in).
D&D is and always has been the largest tabletop RPG - the data saying Pathfinder sold more than D&D 4e is incomplete - it looks only at local game store sales, which are stores frequented by folks already inclined toward gaming.It ignores big box stores, major bookstore chains, and Amazon, all of which are more frequented by folks who are more casual gamers. Casual gamers are going to gravitate toward the name they recognise, and no name in the industry is more recognisable than Dungeons & Dragons.Additionally, the LGS data misses the subscription service D&D Insider, which provided the totality of 4e content online. As such, the LGS sales data misses two major chunks of 4e sales, both of which would put 4e above Pathfinder for the general populations
Why is that relevant?The major third party creators want to make products compatible with D&D - it is better to take a small chunk out of a big pie, than a slightly larger chunk out of a small pie. They have grown to the size they have specifically because they are relying on Wizards’ intellectual property and (more importantly) Wizards’ unrivalled popularity and brand recognition within the industry.
They are successful because of Wizards and the OGL while simultaneously siphoning customers to their products and away from Wizards’, and Wizards wants to reclaim a portion of those lost profits, receiving some compensation for the fact those third-parties would not be as large as they are if they had relied on non-Wizards intellectual property.
Now, there is legitimate reason for controversy on this point - it can be argued that those third parties are providing advertising and increase Wizards’ prestige and encourage folks who might not otherwise buy D&D product to buy official content.That is a legitimate topic of conversation, and one you can bet Wizards is discussing and negotiating with the twenty or so third party sellers at a sufficiently large scale for royalties to kick in. It is not something we on the forums can really discuss, as it would involve complex financial records and data we simply do not have access to.
TL;DR:The world has changed a lot since OGL 1.0, in terms of the game’s popularity, threats which did not exist or were not apparent at the time of OGL 1.0 (NFTs, major content producers creating racist content with Wizards’ intellectual property, ultra-corporations setting their eyes on D&D content), and a rise of third party sales unprecedented by early editions.
OGL 1.0 does not address the realities of the world we live in and needs to be updated.The exact shape of the update is still to be decided—and what form that update should take is one I am sure folks will be debating on other threads up to and beyond the OGL 1.1 release.
(Updated to reflect reasons Wizards stated they are moving away from)
The energy requirement of sending NFTs on Proof-of-Stake blockchain networks (like Polkadot, Cardano, Solana and Ethereum 2.0) is way lower than the one required to see a video steaming on Twitch or than the increased energy consumption of your CPU after some hour of YouTube (the energy consumption of the ads alone, not on the video itself). “Like most things relying on blockchain … they are an ecological disaster” is an uninformed opinion. I suggest you to educate yourself about the the blockchain technology and then to speak.
1. The energy footprint of a blockchain depends on the hashing power of the network (how many computational resources miners are willing to use in order to compete one against the other to solve cryptographic puzzles and win mining rewards). Even for Proof of Work networks (like Bitcoin), the amount of energy used is not directly related to the number of transactions. If in one block X or X/2 transactions are happening, the energy consumption doesn’t change (so it doesn’t matter if you are sending more or less NFTs).
2. Best of my knowledge most NFTs are using Proof of Stake networks (Ethereum 2.0, Binance, Cardano, Solana, etc…), where energy consumptions are really really lower than Proof of Work networks like Bitcoin or Monero. I don’t have knowledge of ANY major NFT platform using Proof of Work blockchain networks.
3. Proof of Stake energy consumption is similar to the energy requirements of many services that we use every day. Even reading this post on this blog is consuming energy: a bit of your device CPU and display lightning is consuming energy, D&D beyond hosting servers are consuming energy.
4. Although there is indeed a speculative component in Web3, most thing that are for profit have some degree of speculation imbedded in it. For sure Magic cards can be used as an investment, waiting to resell them after some years, but that’s not necessarily “evil”, is just monetization. Which is part of life.
Note that Ethereum fully transitioned to Ethereum PoS in autumn 2022, as so, the emissions associated with Ethereum (the main network used for NFTs) is the tini tiny silver at the most right part of the graphic. Compare it to YouTube at the left part of the graphic… you do the math.
Using Web3 as a cover for the change in OGL is pathetic.
Wizard is a for profit company and understandably wants to monetize NFTs or videogames Royalties, is not evil, I agree, but let’s not Wizard play the Aasimar Paladin, here.
Someone doesn't need to read the actual book to get the gist, just read media coverage or if you're bold and bored WotC's filing (page 9 has the examples).
I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept for Ravnodaus to grasp.
He said he didn't read the book. You took issue with that. Why?
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I think everyone here needs to go play some ttrpgs and stop allowing corporate greed to mess with your heads and lull you into thinking it wants whats best for you.
I think everyone here needs to go play some ttrpgs and stop allowing corporate greed to mess with your heads and lull you into thinking it wants whats best for you.
That goes both ways, though. There is also paranoia over corporate greed and customer expectations are not always realistic.
What isn't realistic is failing to acknowledge how the original, perpetual OGL shapes the nature of this conflict and how WoTC's last attempt to assert more power in the industry in hopes of driving customers to a VTT of their choosing (that they didn't even get off the ground) turned out to be bad for WoTC and its customers. It's also realistic to accept that WoTC's legal claims are questionable and some are only questionable because of judge-made law over the last two decades. They could still lose on that front. I'm not sure why WoTC cheerleaders refuse to accept that and pretend that WoTC is clearly within their rights to do whatever they want. A company gave a perpetual license and said they could never take it away. Now, they say they can. The context of the OGL makes WoTC's position legally questionable.
I think everyone here needs to go play some ttrpgs and stop allowing corporate greed to mess with your heads and lull you into thinking it wants whats best for you.
That goes both ways, though. There is also paranoia over corporate greed and customer expectations are not always realistic.
What isn't realistic is failing to acknowledge how the original, perpetual OGL shapes the nature of this conflict and how WoTC's last attempt to assert more power in the industry in hopes of driving customers to a VTT of their choosing (that they didn't even get off the ground) turned out to be bad for WoTC and its customers. It's also realistic to accept that WoTC's legal claims are questionable and some are only questionable because of judge-made law over the last two decades. They could still lose on that front. I'm not sure why WoTC cheerleaders refuse to accept that and pretend that WoTC is clearly within their rights to do whatever they want. A company gave a perpetual license and said they could never take it away. Now, they say they can. The context of the OGL makes WoTC's position legally questionable.
Case in point, equating 'Doing something' with 'Doing whatever they want.' Everything is legally questionable. The answer to the questions is not always as the asker wishes or expects, though.
Not being an anti-WotC cheerleader does not equal being a pro-WotC cheerleader, either.
No, sorry, everything is NOT legally questionable. THIS OGL is and it is only because Judges are apt to create new case law that usually seems to favor big businesses. When the original OGL was written, "perpetual" was enough. The intentions of the OGL were clear at the time. WoTC has gone back on its word. If they can take advantage of new case law and use a loophole they will still HAVE GONE BACK ON THEIR WORD. They will have broken trust, trust that some gave them to take financial risks. Why anyone sympathizes with Hasbro/WoTC or engages in the "both sides" fallacy, I don't know.
Because a lot of us are old and experienced enough to KNOW the world and the rules within it have changed dramatically from when the OGL was written. Tons of stuff seems like a great idea now, but 20 years from now, will look like idiots were making decisions. Companies, contracts and legal issues evolve and the companies need to evolve with them, If this includes cleaning up a license that has holes in it, that were not recognized when it was created, then so be it.
See, there's a demographic who understand evolution of business and that world. We want things to keep up, not remain in the dark ages. There is no "both sides" fallacy, it's a reality. There are 2 sides to the tale, even if you only want to listen to one. Denial of facts does not invalidate or erase them. OGL or die is a losing cause. Make the new OGL fair and sensible will, eventually, be the winning side, I have little doubt. The only real question is will it take 2, 3 or 25 drafts before they get it right?
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Because a lot of us are old and experienced enough to KNOW the world and the rules within it have changed dramatically from when the OGL was written. Tons of stuff seems like a great idea now, but 20 years from now, will look like idiots were making decisions. Companies, contracts and legal issues evolve and the companies need to evolve with them, If this includes cleaning up a license that has holes in it, that were not recognized when it was created, then so be it.
See, there's a demographic who understand evolution of business and that world. We want things to keep up, not remain in the dark ages. There is no "both sides" fallacy, it's a reality. There are 2 sides to the tale, even if you only want to listen to one. Denial of facts does not invalidate or erase them. OGL or die is a losing cause. Make the new OGL fair and sensible will, eventually, be the winning side, I have little doubt. The only real question is will it take 2, 3 or 25 drafts before they get it right?
Mmmyeah I am also 'an old' and have been around long enough to know the world and the rules within it - and yeah sure, they do change over time. No argument there.
But acting like somehow over time WotC deserves more than ever was their fair share is just not the take I'd ascribe to all older, mature people. I run a business, bought my house and paid for my whole life and a few others at this point, so I know how to run a business and keep it relatively afloat - and it's not by simply deciding that I'm going to piss off 35% of my customer base overnight with overreaching decisions that will negatively impact them, and then also cripple the rest of my product line for the forseeable future. That would be a bad business decision in my book.
If they actually make the new OGL fair and sensible there's still the issue of establishing it's change as a precedence - no one has shown me a single instance of WotC not being sufficently able to defend their IP with the current OGL we've had for 20 years, so why does it need to change at all? They have all the rights they need already, any changes simply open the door to future changes that make it not a favorable OGL once more ~ which brings us back around to 'there's really no reason to change it, and changing it just creates problems, so why are you changing it?'
Denial of reality that we can see plainly doesn't change it, simply saying that it needs to change isn't enough; unless there's an actual reason, like some way they have tried and failed in court to reasonably defend their D&D IP, then I'm not moved by the idea that things need to change merely because time has happened. That's a silly reason to change something, especially when there's the potential consequence of that change allowing for worse change in the future.
They will have broken trust, trust that some gave them to take financial risks. Why anyone sympathizes with Hasbro/WoTC or engages in the "both sides" fallacy, I don't know.
99% of the folks who "took financial risks" will still be able to maintain their businesses under the new OGL. It was one thing when it had the licenseback and the royalty stuff but those are gone now. Even our savior Linda Codega is saying the diehards need to back off the 1.0a deauthorization stuff and just get the hell over it already.
They will have broken trust, trust that some gave them to take financial risks. Why anyone sympathizes with Hasbro/WoTC or engages in the "both sides" fallacy, I don't know.
99% of the folks who "took financial risks" will still be able to maintain their businesses under the new OGL. It was one thing when it had the licenseback and the royalty stuff but those are gone now. Even our savior Linda Codega is saying the diehards need to back off the 1.0a deauthorization stuff and just get the hell over it already.
They are a journalist, their opinion is irrelevant, their ability to find true information is what matters, also they are not saying that. They are saying fight for the best deal possible whilst being pessimistic of the outcome. I played a game of 5e yesterday had a blast, still reading up on the rules of other systems. I'll be dropping 5e pretty soon if what goes through is as awful as it looks. Stop shilling man, its like WotC is your dad or something. I've probably blew over a thousand on this site, I'm still dumping it if this dogma gets passed as an OGL.
No, I didn't.
There is nothing valid about focusing on only one sentence when people are talking about the entire book. Also, what BoringBard said.
Using it as a salient example isn't promoting it. (And it's been pulled anyway, so there's nothing to promote.)
Well, humans in the real world don't have races. We're just one species. Implying otherwise is racist. Advocating that we should categorize ourselves into races is the fundamental core false belief that enables racism. The categories of races are arbitrary, entirely a social construct. Yet you seem to be affirming that in the real world we have different races. Not cool.
Please do not promote that book here. A couple of people have suggested that we should read it now, and we absolutely shouldn't. It is extremely problematic.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I suggested no such thing; you don't have to read a book to know its contents, there are literally news sources quoting it.
You did. He said he hadn't read it. You told him he should he know its contents, before talking about it.
Perhaps you didn't mean to promote reading the book, but you clearly did. Your response indicates you think he shouldn't respond unless he has read it.
And no one should have to read it.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
1) I am NOT promoting Star Frontiers. I would never suggest anyone buy a racist product or support someone like Ernest Gygax financially. What I did say, however, was that people should research the game before they declare that it isn't racist when it clearly is.
2) I NEVER said race was something biological or scientific. Just because something is largely a social construct doesn't mean it doesn't affect people. Money is a social construct. The government is a social construct. Both of those things drastically affect peoples day to day lives.
In the real world, people have invented races to divide and discriminate. Stating that talking about race is racist denies peoples' life experiences and histories as well as the pain many groups of people have had to experience for centuries.
Ernest Gygax stated that some races in the real world are superior, and others are inferior. That is racist and incorrect. If you are seriously arguing that social constructs can't hurt people, or that anti-racists are racist, then I honestly don't know what to say.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Someone doesn't need to read the actual book to get the gist, just read media coverage or if you're bold and bored WotC's filing (page 9 has the examples).
Here he says something problematic, but hard to determine with clarity what he means. Races in D&D etc means the same thing species means, and if Gygax is using that definition then what he's talking about is perfectly fine. Lions are different from fish and are different from humans. Species have different inherent strengths and weaknesses. That isn't problematic or even controversial. It's just obvious.
You, however, are implying that he means the racist version of the word race. But to get to that conclusion insist that there are races in real life, and we know this because there aren't species. That... isn't ok.
You insisted that real world had real races. That isn't just "talking" about race.
The bits I bolded, directly from your comment, are problematic. If that isn't what you meant, it might need some rephrasing. I can't read your mind, only your comment. It sounds to me like you are arguing that races in real life are real. If that ain't your intent, carry on.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept for Ravnodaus to grasp.
The real world technically does have races. However, you are correct that those races are social constructs based on arbitrary measurements. They were created to divide and discriminate, but that doesn't mean that the concept of real life races and the harm they are causing doesn't exist.
Since you are misunderstanding my point so badly, it is possible that some of the poor communication is due to the way I phrased things. Due to this, I will try to explain it again in a way that you (hopefully) are able to understand better:
When people talk about how some races are superior to others in the real world, it is misleading and confusing to say the least. This is especially true considering the fact that the main definition talked about today for the term "race" is related to the skin color or ethnicity of a person. According to Oxford Languages, all the other definitions of the term race that might be applicable are "nontechnical" and don't fully apply.
Whilst the word race was made to divide, and the way it is used is often arbitrary, that doesn't change the fact that it has a certain connotation and typical usage and that statements such as the one made by Ernest Gygax are insensitive and incredibly poorly phrased, at a minimum.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.The energy requirement of sending NFTs on Proof-of-Stake blockchain networks (like Polkadot, Cardano, Solana and Ethereum 2.0) is way lower than the one required to see a video steaming on Twitch or than the increased energy consumption of your CPU after some hour of YouTube (the energy consumption of the ads alone, not on the video itself). “Like most things relying on blockchain … they are an ecological disaster” is an uninformed opinion. I suggest you to educate yourself about the the blockchain technology and then to speak.
1. The energy footprint of a blockchain depends on the hashing power of the network (how many computational resources miners are willing to use in order to compete one against the other to solve cryptographic puzzles and win mining rewards). Even for Proof of Work networks (like Bitcoin), the amount of energy used is not directly related to the number of transactions. If in one block X or X/2 transactions are happening, the energy consumption doesn’t change (so it doesn’t matter if you are sending more or less NFTs).
2. Best of my knowledge most NFTs are using Proof of Stake networks (Ethereum 2.0, Binance, Cardano, Solana, etc…), where energy consumptions are really really lower than Proof of Work networks like Bitcoin or Monero. I don’t have knowledge of ANY major NFT platform using Proof of Work blockchain networks.
3. Proof of Stake energy consumption is similar to the energy requirements of many services that we use every day. Even reading this post on this blog is consuming energy: a bit of your device CPU and display lightning is consuming energy, D&D beyond hosting servers are consuming energy.
4. Although there is indeed a speculative component in Web3, most thing that are for profit have some degree of speculation imbedded in it. For sure Magic cards can be used as an investment, waiting to resell them after some years, but that’s not necessarily “evil”, is just monetization. Which is part of life.
To have some references of relative energy consumption of YouTube, vs blockchains https://cryptobriefing.com/how-much-energy-do-nfts-use-less-than-you-may-think/
Note that Ethereum fully transitioned to Ethereum PoS in autumn 2022, as so, the emissions associated with Ethereum (the main network used for NFTs) is the tini tiny silver at the most right part of the graphic. Compare it to YouTube at the left part of the graphic… you do the math.
Using Web3 as a cover for the change in OGL is pathetic.
Wizard is a for profit company and understandably wants to monetize NFTs or videogames Royalties, is not evil, I agree, but let’s not Wizard play the Aasimar Paladin, here.
He said he didn't read the book. You took issue with that. Why?
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I didn't take issue with him not reading the book; I took issue with him saying it wasn't racist despite having no idea as to its contents.
Do you think all the different news articles about its contents, as well as WotC's own filing, are wrong?
Anybody who thinks E. Gygax is what is driving Hasbro/WoTC's business decisions concerning the OGL and VTTs is way off, IMO.
I think everyone here needs to go play some ttrpgs and stop allowing corporate greed to mess with your heads and lull you into thinking it wants whats best for you.
What isn't realistic is failing to acknowledge how the original, perpetual OGL shapes the nature of this conflict and how WoTC's last attempt to assert more power in the industry in hopes of driving customers to a VTT of their choosing (that they didn't even get off the ground) turned out to be bad for WoTC and its customers. It's also realistic to accept that WoTC's legal claims are questionable and some are only questionable because of judge-made law over the last two decades. They could still lose on that front. I'm not sure why WoTC cheerleaders refuse to accept that and pretend that WoTC is clearly within their rights to do whatever they want. A company gave a perpetual license and said they could never take it away. Now, they say they can. The context of the OGL makes WoTC's position legally questionable.
No, sorry, everything is NOT legally questionable. THIS OGL is and it is only because Judges are apt to create new case law that usually seems to favor big businesses. When the original OGL was written, "perpetual" was enough. The intentions of the OGL were clear at the time. WoTC has gone back on its word. If they can take advantage of new case law and use a loophole they will still HAVE GONE BACK ON THEIR WORD. They will have broken trust, trust that some gave them to take financial risks. Why anyone sympathizes with Hasbro/WoTC or engages in the "both sides" fallacy, I don't know.
Because a lot of us are old and experienced enough to KNOW the world and the rules within it have changed dramatically from when the OGL was written. Tons of stuff seems like a great idea now, but 20 years from now, will look like idiots were making decisions. Companies, contracts and legal issues evolve and the companies need to evolve with them, If this includes cleaning up a license that has holes in it, that were not recognized when it was created, then so be it.
See, there's a demographic who understand evolution of business and that world. We want things to keep up, not remain in the dark ages. There is no "both sides" fallacy, it's a reality. There are 2 sides to the tale, even if you only want to listen to one. Denial of facts does not invalidate or erase them. OGL or die is a losing cause. Make the new OGL fair and sensible will, eventually, be the winning side, I have little doubt. The only real question is will it take 2, 3 or 25 drafts before they get it right?
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Mmmyeah I am also 'an old' and have been around long enough to know the world and the rules within it - and yeah sure, they do change over time. No argument there.
But acting like somehow over time WotC deserves more than ever was their fair share is just not the take I'd ascribe to all older, mature people. I run a business, bought my house and paid for my whole life and a few others at this point, so I know how to run a business and keep it relatively afloat - and it's not by simply deciding that I'm going to piss off 35% of my customer base overnight with overreaching decisions that will negatively impact them, and then also cripple the rest of my product line for the forseeable future. That would be a bad business decision in my book.
If they actually make the new OGL fair and sensible there's still the issue of establishing it's change as a precedence - no one has shown me a single instance of WotC not being sufficently able to defend their IP with the current OGL we've had for 20 years, so why does it need to change at all? They have all the rights they need already, any changes simply open the door to future changes that make it not a favorable OGL once more ~ which brings us back around to 'there's really no reason to change it, and changing it just creates problems, so why are you changing it?'
Denial of reality that we can see plainly doesn't change it, simply saying that it needs to change isn't enough; unless there's an actual reason, like some way they have tried and failed in court to reasonably defend their D&D IP, then I'm not moved by the idea that things need to change merely because time has happened. That's a silly reason to change something, especially when there's the potential consequence of that change allowing for worse change in the future.
I don't think a decision has to be based solely on one thing.
99% of the folks who "took financial risks" will still be able to maintain their businesses under the new OGL. It was one thing when it had the licenseback and the royalty stuff but those are gone now. Even our savior Linda Codega is saying the diehards need to back off the 1.0a deauthorization stuff and just get the hell over it already.
They are a journalist, their opinion is irrelevant, their ability to find true information is what matters, also they are not saying that. They are saying fight for the best deal possible whilst being pessimistic of the outcome. I played a game of 5e yesterday had a blast, still reading up on the rules of other systems. I'll be dropping 5e pretty soon if what goes through is as awful as it looks. Stop shilling man, its like WotC is your dad or something. I've probably blew over a thousand on this site, I'm still dumping it if this dogma gets passed as an OGL.