What was bad about it? I've not seen anything bad come from it, I've seen a lot of fantastic stuff including OSRIC, OSE, PF1. The OGL has been a fantastic thing for the hobby.
It's very vague in terms of what it covers and what it doesn't, and the TTRPG landscape (not to mention gaming as a whole) is very different now than it was in 2000. I'm not denying that we got a lot of great things from it over that time, but we also lucked out in terms of people not trying to abuse it as much as they could have. And bluntly, WotC is not a charity, so when you have folks like Owlcat making tens of millions off it without WotC seeing a dime of those proceeds, I can understand how their fiduciary responsibility could compel them to take another look at the license.
What was bad about it? I've not seen anything bad come from it, I've seen a lot of fantastic stuff including OSRIC, OSE, PF1. The OGL has been a fantastic thing for the hobby.
It's very vague in terms of what it covers and what it doesn't, and the TTRPG landscape (not to mention gaming as a whole) is very different now than it was in 2000. I'm not denying that we got a lot of great things from it over that time, but we also lucked out in terms of people not trying to abuse it as much as they could have. And bluntly, WotC is not a charity, so when you have folks like Owlcat making tens of millions off it without WotC seeing a dime of those proceeds, I can understand how their fiduciary responsibility could compel them to take another look at the license.
I'm curious - what exactly is your stake in this "bad deal"?
I don't need a "stake" to have my own opinion, even one that runs counter to that of other people on a message board.
I'd like to see an explanation of how OGL 1.0 is in anyway a bad deal. Based on the plain fact that the new OGL is basically like a BIG Dog biting the multiple small hands that are feeding it. If it wasn't for content creators both big and small; D&D would still be niche in the broader gaming world. It's thanks to both a Pandemic and excellent content creators that it was able to leap into the broader light of day (Popular Culture discourse). And for Hasbruh and their sub, WoTC to act like their OGL 1.1/1.whatever/2.0 to be anything but money grabbing tool is complete BS.
What was bad about it? I've not seen anything bad come from it, I've seen a lot of fantastic stuff including OSRIC, OSE, PF1. The OGL has been a fantastic thing for the hobby.
It's very vague in terms of what it covers and what it doesn't, and the TTRPG landscape (not to mention gaming as a whole) is very different now than it was in 2000. I'm not denying that we got a lot of great things from it over that time, but we also lucked out in terms of people not trying to abuse it as much as they could have. And bluntly, WotC is not a charity, so when you have folks like Owlcat making tens of millions off it without WotC seeing a dime of those proceeds, I can understand how their fiduciary responsibility could compel them to take another look at the license.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that Owlcat are making millions off of WotC when they released Pathfinder games. Sure PF1 was based off of 3.5 but it's not as if WotC has used that system in around 15 years, and Paizo changed it so much that it's hard to really recognise it as 3.5.
There's less change than you'd think. I was using Fantasy Grounds during the early 2000s, I was using software to make characters, I was using software to make maps. Sure, there was no DDB, and that would have been nice given how accessibility friendly this website actually is and how badly WotC made their PDFs for folk who use screen readers and other accessibility software. But really, aside from a few new VTTs and some disappearing, there's less change.
I guess, we had better RPG video games then with Neverwinter Nights and it being really open to community modules and expansions. If one compares that to say Sword Coast Legends or Baldur's Gate 3 then, in my opinion, the newer games are lacking. Granted, BG3 isn't fully released yet, but having played it for a number of hours, it's not great. And indeed, the Pathfinder video games do a far superior job.
So, I don't see making a video game inspired by a (sadly) dead edition as someone preying on Wizards or abusing the OGL.
Written by a gamer lawyer (not me): "Let’s repeat this again: They are not going back to 1.0. They should not. It is one of the worst written legal documents I have ever seen, and I have seen contracts that were so poorly written entire terms were tossed out by a judge.
It does not clearly define the scope of each time one enters into the 1.0 contract. It uses legally significant terms it fails to define in the definitions paragraph. It implies certain terms it does not actually spell out. It does not clearly define what constitutes a breach. It does not clearly define what mediums of content it covers. Its ambiguity would make it an effective shield for folks wanting to release hate speech under it.
It should never have been released in its present form in the first place and an update is long overdue. Ambiguity is bad for everyone, content creators and Wizards alike, and the document is simply replete with poorly-written, ambiguous terms.
Now, what form that update takes is cause for legitimate debate. But anyone who is advocating for the current 1.0 to remain is being foolish - it doesn’t behoove anyone to leave something so clearly important to many people to such a so clearly poorly written document."
Written by me: Also, 3PP did not make D&D what it is today. Brand name, CR and Stranger Things did. What 3PP did do is maintain some influence over hardcore gamers through Pathfinder, and then some of those gamers switched back to 5e. But today hardcore gamers are very much the minority of D&D players. Even if they ALL left (and they won't unless 2.0 really, really sucks), Hasbro could probably pull through on casuals alone. They would lose a lot of money, One D&D would be in trouble, but WotC would still sell more copies of books than anyone else, but to a casual only audience.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
So, I don't see making a video game inspired by a (sadly) dead edition as someone preying on Wizards or abusing the OGL.
Those two games were really just the tip of the iceberg. Much as Owlcat followed the Neverwinter Nights formula, Baldur's Gate 3 would be used as a template for the next big thing. And those are just traditional CRPGs, we haven't even considered new experiences like VR and AI yet. Let WotC do the legwork of figuring out how to translate D&D to those media, then hop onto OGL 1.0a and release something just different enough to not need a more specific license, easy money.
When the OGL first came out, it was pretty clear that Wizards' intent was that they would handle things like core books and third parties would handle the unprofitable stuff like adventures, it had some weird limits on the SRD that made it impossible to actually create a character, but they did a really crappy job of putting in those limits so those limitations were trivial to bypass. I am in no way surprised that WotC regrets what they made available under the OGL and wants to pull back on it.
However, 5th edition being released under the OGL has no excuse of "we didn't know what we were doing", and there's a general problem of reliance interests.
Written by a gamer lawyer (not me): "Let’s repeat this again: They are not going back to 1.0. They should not. It is one of the worst written legal documents I have ever seen, and I have seen contracts that were so poorly written entire terms were tossed out by a judge.
It does not clearly define the scope of each time one enters into the 1.0 contract. It uses legally significant terms it fails to define in the definitions paragraph. It implies certain terms it does not actually spell out. It does not clearly define what constitutes a breach. It does not clearly define what mediums of content it covers. Its ambiguity would make it an effective shield for folks wanting to release hate speech under it.
It should never have been released in its present form in the first place and an update is long overdue. Ambiguity is bad for everyone, content creators and Wizards alike, and the document is simply replete with poorly-written, ambiguous terms.
Now, what form that update takes is cause for legitimate debate. But anyone who is advocating for the current 1.0 to remain is being foolish - it doesn’t behoove anyone to leave something so clearly important to many people to such a so clearly poorly written document."
Written by me: Also, 3PP did not make D&D what it is today. Brand name, CR and Stranger Things did. What 3PP did do is maintain some influence over hardcore gamers through Pathfinder, and then some of those gamers switched back to 5e. But today hardcore gamers are very much the minority of D&D players. Even if they ALL left (and they won't unless 2.0 really, really sucks), Hasbro could probably pull through on casuals alone. They would lose a lot of money, One D&D would be in trouble, but WotC would still sell more copies of books than anyone else, but to a casual only audience.
True. As i've noted before, i've been in TTRPG back when it was 3 white books (friends books who introduce me to it) in '78 and others longer. I remember, and own, a number of other TTRPGs that came out in the 1980s beyond those loosely based on the D&D structure. I recently found my copy of the James Bond RPG i got, i think, when i was in the Army. It wasn't good but it was an idea.
There were a LOT of them.. and they are almost all gone today... and gone for a reason. D&D brand name did part of the job and they stayed on top of changes - usually did it well (and sometimes very poorly) but they kept it alive via name (and CRPG help).
3PP are always nice add-ons but never the draw. DMs can create on the fly as they want - we all have for over 40 years.
So, I don't see making a video game inspired by a (sadly) dead edition as someone preying on Wizards or abusing the OGL.
Those two games were really just the tip of the iceberg. Much as Owlcat followed the Neverwinter Nights formula, Baldur's Gate 3 would be used as a template for the next big thing. And those are just traditional CRPGs, we haven't even considered new experiences like VR and AI yet. Let WotC do the legwork of figuring out how to translate D&D to those media, then hop onto OGL 1.0a and release something just different enough to not need a more specific license, easy money.
If BG3 is the next big thing, then I think I'm done with any D&D video games, when a tiny indie company like Tactical Adventures can make a more satisfying video game than WotC partnering with a rather large company, then I don't think D&D video games have much hope for the future. Especially when you still get games like Pillars of Eternity which are fantastic.
I don't know why anyone would want AI in their D&D, I certainly don't, but anyone who wanted to create an AI for D&D would have to spend a huge amount of time and money getting it usable, so even if WotC figures out how to make it work, it's not likely that small developers could copy it, because they lack the resources, and it's not as if anyone would expect WotC to release that stuff under the OGL, license it out? Sure.
I guess some people might enjoy VR, but that's not how I want to enjoy D&D or any RPG. Though I believe that there is already someone creating a system agnostic VTT.
When the OGL first came out, it was pretty clear that Wizards' intent was that they would handle things like core books and third parties would handle the unprofitable stuff like adventures, it had some weird limits on the SRD that made it impossible to actually create a character, but they did a really crappy job of putting in those limits so those limitations were trivial to bypass. I am in no way surprised that WotC regrets what they made available under the OGL and wants to pull back on it.
However, 5th edition being released under the OGL has no excuse of "we didn't know what we were doing", and there's a general problem of reliance interests.
You're confusing the OGL with the d20 license, the OGL had no such restrictions, but the d20 license did. It also forbade creating interactive software, with a very clear and expansive definition of what it meant.
You're confusing the OGL with the d20 license, the OGL had no such restrictions, but the d20 license did. It also forbade creating interactive software, with a very clear and expansive definition of what it meant.
I was talking about what was in the SRD, not about the d20 license. The SRD has always been the core issue, if they hadn't released a basically complete and playable game as the SRD this whole situation would have never come up.
Written by a gamer lawyer (not me): "Let’s repeat this again: They are not going back to 1.0. They should not. It is one of the worst written legal documents I have ever seen, and I have seen contracts that were so poorly written entire terms were tossed out by a judge.
It does not clearly define the scope of each time one enters into the 1.0 contract. It uses legally significant terms it fails to define in the definitions paragraph. It implies certain terms it does not actually spell out. It does not clearly define what constitutes a breach. It does not clearly define what mediums of content it covers. Its ambiguity would make it an effective shield for folks wanting to release hate speech under it.
It should never have been released in its present form in the first place and an update is long overdue. Ambiguity is bad for everyone, content creators and Wizards alike, and the document is simply replete with poorly-written, ambiguous terms.
Now, what form that update takes is cause for legitimate debate. But anyone who is advocating for the current 1.0 to remain is being foolish - it doesn’t behoove anyone to leave something so clearly important to many people to such a so clearly poorly written document."
Written by me: Also, 3PP did not make D&D what it is today. Brand name, CR and Stranger Things did. What 3PP did do is maintain some influence over hardcore gamers through Pathfinder, and then some of those gamers switched back to 5e. But today hardcore gamers are very much the minority of D&D players. Even if they ALL left (and they won't unless 2.0 really, really sucks), Hasbro could probably pull through on casuals alone. They would lose a lot of money, One D&D would be in trouble, but WotC would still sell more copies of books than anyone else, but to a casual only audience.
True. As i've noted before, i've been in TTRPG back when it was 3 white books (friends books who introduce me to it) in '78 and others longer. I remember, and own, a number of other TTRPGs that came out in the 1980s beyond those loosely based on the D&D structure. I recently found my copy of the James Bond RPG i got, i think, when i was in the Army. It wasn't good but it was an idea.
There were a LOT of them.. and they are almost all gone today... and gone for a reason. D&D brand name did part of the job and they stayed on top of changes - usually did it well (and sometimes very poorly) but they kept it alive via name (and CRPG help).
3PP are always nice add-ons but never the draw. DMs can create on the fly as they want - we all have for over 40 years.
That bolded bottom line is what has been bugging me about this too. To hear too many here talk, the game is impossible to play without 3rd party supplements. If that were true, it would not exist to play at all, since it predates any such publications.
Is there good 3rd party content? Sure. However people seem to be acting like 'If Pathfinder ceased to be, D&D wouldn't be worth playing.' If the existence of Pathfinder is why someone plays D&D, I would love to hear the explanation.
I think they are talking about supplements, not stand alone game systems using the ogl. I would say the game is very much broken once your party go above 14th level. I homebrew heavily at that point because the game starts to break at 10th level and up. Its why most adventure modules don't go that high.
Reasons 1 & 2 are both reasonable, and if the iterations in the upcoming feedback process focus on these, I'll applaud the team for steps to keep NFTs and bigotry away from D&D.
Reasons 3-5 are also reasonable, with limits around number 5. The leaked revisions handled "reclaiming revenue" in ways that would damage the community (and would thus ultimately damage WotC's bottom line by damaging the brand and the hobby's popularity). WotC has hard work to do to recover trust, but there can be positive changes made to the license to reflect changes in culture and technology.
I'm curious - what exactly is your stake in this "bad deal"?
I don't need a "stake" to have my own opinion, even one that runs counter to that of other people on a message board.
Of course. Forgive me for asking. This appears to be going in circles. I disagree with just a few of your statements, and I do also recognize a keen mind and sharp wit at work. That being said, it's not clear what your intent is, here. People are free to have whatever opinions, but an opinion is not an argument. But if you treat it like one, the onus falls to you to justify it, with valid logic and/or true facts. As you know, in a debate an opinion is merely a guess; a personal attack is irrelevant (at best); and, clever metaphor is worth nothing (beyond a good chuckle, maybe?). This is the impasse: On the one hand you appear to be offering debate, but on the other, the request to explain your statements ends in I'm entitled to my (unpopular) opinion. Certainly true, all well and good...but also trivial. Where is the debate? What makes your statements regarding OGL 1.0a valid and true? Don't keep us in suspense. We're dying for you to teach us something valuable. (Well, at least I am). Or, failing that, you could instead teach us (me) about you. I invite you to say something about yourself that motivates the hopeless tenacity and derision toward the OGL. Do you have OCD (that I can definitely relate to)? Is this a new meme? Did the old OGL ruin your life? Those are far more interesting than opinions, possibly even the whole debate.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron Satie
Hasbro loves NFTs they sell Power Ranger ones. They just don't want other people selling dnd nfts. As for bigotry the first OLG actually had coverage of that soooo, yea it's a lie that they were trying to prevent either of those things. One they support whole heartedly and the other was already taken care of.
Hasbro loves NFTs they sell Power Ranger ones. They just don't want other people selling dnd nfts. As for bigotry the first OLG actually had coverage of that soooo, yea it's a lie that they were trying to prevent either of those things. One they support whole heartedly and the other was already taken care of.
Wizards of the Coast has a certain level of autonomy from Hasbro, and if Wizards can make a commitment against NFTs, that's a great step. I can't see how the permissibility and proliferation of NFTs would do anything positive for the community, so the clause against them in OGL1.2 is at minimum neutral. If Wizards can pair this with a clear policy against them that executives cannot immediately revoke, that would be excellent.
I'm not aware that the first OGL had a clause against hate and harassment. If it did, could you please quote the language? Please forgive my not finding it. The 1.2 clause needs some work: there needs to be some kind of neutral arbiter, rather than Wizards itself making arbitrary decisions. However, protecting both the brand and the players from association with hateful content is in principle a necessary step.
There are other parts of OGL 1.2 that need improvement, but these changes to the license moving forward strike me as positive.
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.
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)
Well first... OGL 1.1 wasn't draft. Calling such is a complete lie. This is not alleged. There was a contract connected to it and is binding to anyone foolish enough to sign with it.
Reason One - Bogus reasoning. No change in the OGL is required to affect anything related to NTF. Protections against NFT already exists outside of the OGL.
Reason Two - Another complete bogus reason. There is no requirement to revoke the OGL 1.0/a to be able to do this. They have always be able to do this anytime with OGL 1.0/a in place. It is a smoke screen and complete non-sense. Another straight out lie.
There has been no real reasoning presented so far that is benefit to the community. They are trying to change the conversation and we should not be falling for it.
As for bigotry the first OLG actually had coverage of that
That is a lie. The original OGL had no such proviso in it because that would defeat the purpose of such a thing as an "Open License". Who gets to define what bigotry is? Corporate suits that want to prevent someone from muscling in on their territory can very easily tar and feather their competition as "bigots" if you grant them that power. The only thing WotC could do under the old OGL was say "Yea, we're not gonna let you put official D&D product identity items in your game if we hate you." which is a far cry from the poison pill morality clause in the current one.
The whole "we must fight hate/bigotry" line is just a Motte-and-Bailey fallacy. Anyone that buys into it should seriously reconsider...
It's very vague in terms of what it covers and what it doesn't, and the TTRPG landscape (not to mention gaming as a whole) is very different now than it was in 2000. I'm not denying that we got a lot of great things from it over that time, but we also lucked out in terms of people not trying to abuse it as much as they could have. And bluntly, WotC is not a charity, so when you have folks like Owlcat making tens of millions off it without WotC seeing a dime of those proceeds, I can understand how their fiduciary responsibility could compel them to take another look at the license.
I don't need a "stake" to have my own opinion, even one that runs counter to that of other people on a message board.
With childish discourse like this, is it any wonder nobody wants to explain themselves to you?
It's not the arrow with my name on it that worries me. It's the arrow that says, "To whom it may concern".
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that Owlcat are making millions off of WotC when they released Pathfinder games. Sure PF1 was based off of 3.5 but it's not as if WotC has used that system in around 15 years, and Paizo changed it so much that it's hard to really recognise it as 3.5.
There's less change than you'd think. I was using Fantasy Grounds during the early 2000s, I was using software to make characters, I was using software to make maps. Sure, there was no DDB, and that would have been nice given how accessibility friendly this website actually is and how badly WotC made their PDFs for folk who use screen readers and other accessibility software. But really, aside from a few new VTTs and some disappearing, there's less change.
I guess, we had better RPG video games then with Neverwinter Nights and it being really open to community modules and expansions. If one compares that to say Sword Coast Legends or Baldur's Gate 3 then, in my opinion, the newer games are lacking. Granted, BG3 isn't fully released yet, but having played it for a number of hours, it's not great. And indeed, the Pathfinder video games do a far superior job.
So, I don't see making a video game inspired by a (sadly) dead edition as someone preying on Wizards or abusing the OGL.
Fantasy Grounds Ultimate Licence Holder
Written by a gamer lawyer (not me): "Let’s repeat this again: They are not going back to 1.0. They should not. It is one of the worst written legal documents I have ever seen, and I have seen contracts that were so poorly written entire terms were tossed out by a judge.
It does not clearly define the scope of each time one enters into the 1.0 contract. It uses legally significant terms it fails to define in the definitions paragraph. It implies certain terms it does not actually spell out. It does not clearly define what constitutes a breach. It does not clearly define what mediums of content it covers. Its ambiguity would make it an effective shield for folks wanting to release hate speech under it.
It should never have been released in its present form in the first place and an update is long overdue. Ambiguity is bad for everyone, content creators and Wizards alike, and the document is simply replete with poorly-written, ambiguous terms.
Now, what form that update takes is cause for legitimate debate. But anyone who is advocating for the current 1.0 to remain is being foolish - it doesn’t behoove anyone to leave something so clearly important to many people to such a so clearly poorly written document."
Written by me: Also, 3PP did not make D&D what it is today. Brand name, CR and Stranger Things did. What 3PP did do is maintain some influence over hardcore gamers through Pathfinder, and then some of those gamers switched back to 5e. But today hardcore gamers are very much the minority of D&D players. Even if they ALL left (and they won't unless 2.0 really, really sucks), Hasbro could probably pull through on casuals alone. They would lose a lot of money, One D&D would be in trouble, but WotC would still sell more copies of books than anyone else, but to a casual only audience.
DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
Those two games were really just the tip of the iceberg. Much as Owlcat followed the Neverwinter Nights formula, Baldur's Gate 3 would be used as a template for the next big thing. And those are just traditional CRPGs, we haven't even considered new experiences like VR and AI yet. Let WotC do the legwork of figuring out how to translate D&D to those media, then hop onto OGL 1.0a and release something just different enough to not need a more specific license, easy money.
new update:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/162020-its-here-let-the-rampage-begin-new-statement-on
When the OGL first came out, it was pretty clear that Wizards' intent was that they would handle things like core books and third parties would handle the unprofitable stuff like adventures, it had some weird limits on the SRD that made it impossible to actually create a character, but they did a really crappy job of putting in those limits so those limitations were trivial to bypass. I am in no way surprised that WotC regrets what they made available under the OGL and wants to pull back on it.
However, 5th edition being released under the OGL has no excuse of "we didn't know what we were doing", and there's a general problem of reliance interests.
True. As i've noted before, i've been in TTRPG back when it was 3 white books (friends books who introduce me to it) in '78 and others longer. I remember, and own, a number of other TTRPGs that came out in the 1980s beyond those loosely based on the D&D structure. I recently found my copy of the James Bond RPG i got, i think, when i was in the Army. It wasn't good but it was an idea.
There were a LOT of them.. and they are almost all gone today... and gone for a reason. D&D brand name did part of the job and they stayed on top of changes - usually did it well (and sometimes very poorly) but they kept it alive via name (and CRPG help).
3PP are always nice add-ons but never the draw. DMs can create on the fly as they want - we all have for over 40 years.
If BG3 is the next big thing, then I think I'm done with any D&D video games, when a tiny indie company like Tactical Adventures can make a more satisfying video game than WotC partnering with a rather large company, then I don't think D&D video games have much hope for the future. Especially when you still get games like Pillars of Eternity which are fantastic.
I don't know why anyone would want AI in their D&D, I certainly don't, but anyone who wanted to create an AI for D&D would have to spend a huge amount of time and money getting it usable, so even if WotC figures out how to make it work, it's not likely that small developers could copy it, because they lack the resources, and it's not as if anyone would expect WotC to release that stuff under the OGL, license it out? Sure.
I guess some people might enjoy VR, but that's not how I want to enjoy D&D or any RPG. Though I believe that there is already someone creating a system agnostic VTT.
Fantasy Grounds Ultimate Licence Holder
You're confusing the OGL with the d20 license, the OGL had no such restrictions, but the d20 license did. It also forbade creating interactive software, with a very clear and expansive definition of what it meant.
Fantasy Grounds Ultimate Licence Holder
I was talking about what was in the SRD, not about the d20 license. The SRD has always been the core issue, if they hadn't released a basically complete and playable game as the SRD this whole situation would have never come up.
I think they are talking about supplements, not stand alone game systems using the ogl. I would say the game is very much broken once your party go above 14th level. I homebrew heavily at that point because the game starts to break at 10th level and up. Its why most adventure modules don't go that high.
Absolutely, positively love this game.
I did not mention this title here as it uses a d100 system instead a d20 system.
Reasons 1 & 2 are both reasonable, and if the iterations in the upcoming feedback process focus on these, I'll applaud the team for steps to keep NFTs and bigotry away from D&D.
Reasons 3-5 are also reasonable, with limits around number 5. The leaked revisions handled "reclaiming revenue" in ways that would damage the community (and would thus ultimately damage WotC's bottom line by damaging the brand and the hobby's popularity). WotC has hard work to do to recover trust, but there can be positive changes made to the license to reflect changes in culture and technology.
Of course. Forgive me for asking. This appears to be going in circles. I disagree with just a few of your statements, and I do also recognize a keen mind and sharp wit at work. That being said, it's not clear what your intent is, here. People are free to have whatever opinions, but an opinion is not an argument. But if you treat it like one, the onus falls to you to justify it, with valid logic and/or true facts. As you know, in a debate an opinion is merely a guess; a personal attack is irrelevant (at best); and, clever metaphor is worth nothing (beyond a good chuckle, maybe?). This is the impasse: On the one hand you appear to be offering debate, but on the other, the request to explain your statements ends in I'm entitled to my (unpopular) opinion. Certainly true, all well and good...but also trivial. Where is the debate? What makes your statements regarding OGL 1.0a valid and true? Don't keep us in suspense. We're dying for you to teach us something valuable. (Well, at least I am). Or, failing that, you could instead teach us (me) about you. I invite you to say something about yourself that motivates the hopeless tenacity and derision toward the OGL. Do you have OCD (that I can definitely relate to)? Is this a new meme? Did the old OGL ruin your life? Those are far more interesting than opinions, possibly even the whole debate.
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron SatieHasbro loves NFTs they sell Power Ranger ones. They just don't want other people selling dnd nfts. As for bigotry the first OLG actually had coverage of that soooo, yea it's a lie that they were trying to prevent either of those things. One they support whole heartedly and the other was already taken care of.
Wizards of the Coast has a certain level of autonomy from Hasbro, and if Wizards can make a commitment against NFTs, that's a great step. I can't see how the permissibility and proliferation of NFTs would do anything positive for the community, so the clause against them in OGL1.2 is at minimum neutral. If Wizards can pair this with a clear policy against them that executives cannot immediately revoke, that would be excellent.
I'm not aware that the first OGL had a clause against hate and harassment. If it did, could you please quote the language? Please forgive my not finding it. The 1.2 clause needs some work: there needs to be some kind of neutral arbiter, rather than Wizards itself making arbitrary decisions. However, protecting both the brand and the players from association with hateful content is in principle a necessary step.
There are other parts of OGL 1.2 that need improvement, but these changes to the license moving forward strike me as positive.
Well first... OGL 1.1 wasn't draft. Calling such is a complete lie. This is not alleged. There was a contract connected to it and is binding to anyone foolish enough to sign with it.
Reason One - Bogus reasoning. No change in the OGL is required to affect anything related to NTF. Protections against NFT already exists outside of the OGL.
Reason Two - Another complete bogus reason. There is no requirement to revoke the OGL 1.0/a to be able to do this. They have always be able to do this anytime with OGL 1.0/a in place. It is a smoke screen and complete non-sense. Another straight out lie.
There has been no real reasoning presented so far that is benefit to the community. They are trying to change the conversation and we should not be falling for it.
That is a lie. The original OGL had no such proviso in it because that would defeat the purpose of such a thing as an "Open License". Who gets to define what bigotry is? Corporate suits that want to prevent someone from muscling in on their territory can very easily tar and feather their competition as "bigots" if you grant them that power. The only thing WotC could do under the old OGL was say "Yea, we're not gonna let you put official D&D product identity items in your game if we hate you." which is a far cry from the poison pill morality clause in the current one.
The whole "we must fight hate/bigotry" line is just a Motte-and-Bailey fallacy. Anyone that buys into it should seriously reconsider...
https://opengamingfoundation.org/ogl.html
Hyperbole. Look I'm not giving them any more money until they jettison all the jerks that were mocking players.