Such bad actors don't have my sympathy. But considering the amount of innocuous things deemed "problematic" these days, I'm definitely in the "I don't want a major corporation to have carte-blanche authority to pull my product without recourse if they deem it hateful" camp.
This, this, a thousand times this!
I will never in a million years comprehend anyone who wants to give over the discretion for what they can create or purchase to a corporate entity... much less a fortune 500 multi-national mega-conglomerate.
Amazing how the definition of "innocuous" is up to the individual speaking, with absolutely no input from the people who are being targeted by discrimination and hateful speech. That's always an awesome take.
... Well: YES. That's how "taking offence" works; it's always inherently subjective to the person being offended. I'm First Nations (That's Canuck Native American); one of my favourite episodes of South Park is "Red Man's Greed"; it is, quite deliberately, VERY offensive... and I happen to find it hilarious. Some other people certainly would not, and demand that "you canot make jokes about this serious subject!" Thing is though; someone thinks that, about almost every subject under the yellow sun.
Except wotc always had the ability to revoke anyones license if they misused the license.
Not quite--they can terminate the license if someone "fail[s] to comply with all the terms herein and fail to cure such breach within 30 days of becoming aware of the breach." However, the license itself does not set "don't be racist" as a term--it merely talks about usage and, even then, is pretty vague (honestly, as far as legal documents go, it is pretty poorly written--it was clearly written so everyone could read it, and those failures and lackings in the initial draft are why it is getting changed now). That means there is uncertainty if they could revoke the license when someone is engaged in bigoted behavior--and uncertainty is a bad place to be when someone is trying to use your name, your product, and your speech to spread their hate.
If Wizards includes a statement to the effect of "we reserve the right to terminate a contract formed under this License if the Creator creates and sells content that is discriminatory or hateful", then Wizards doesn't get to terminate contracts just-for-becuz and decide what "Discriminatory or Hateful" means themselves. They have to prove to a judge, to that judge's satisfaction, that the content actually violated the terms of the OGL when they're inevitably taken to court on it and if they fail, then the judge will order sanctions and very likely compel Wizards to reinstate the product or otherwise compensate the creator for lost revenue.
As you noted in the part I snipped for taking up less space, we do not know what the full terms will be. What I expect would happen: Wizards will include some kind of terms saying how their product cannot be used. When Wizards learns of a breach of those terms, they send a Cease and Desist letter basically saying "you are not in compliance, we are revoking your license." That gives the person in breach three options: (a) publish anyway and get sued, in which case a judge will decide if there was in fact a breach, (b) sue Wizards for breach of contract, in which case a judge will decide whether or not Wizards improperly ended the contract, or (c) do nothing and not publish the materials.
Lots of options for folks to get some recourse from someone other than Wizards if they think they were in the right.
Except wotc always had the ability to revoke anyones license if they misused the license.
No, they actually did not. Or rather, "misuse" of the license was limited to breaking Wotsee's copyrights. I am not kiddingwhen I say that under OGL 1.0 rules it's an open question as to whether Wizards would be able to do anything about somebody writing, publishing, and selling The Bigot's Guide to Genocide: an Ethnic Cleansing Supplement for the World's Greatest Roleplaying Game. Frankly, as best I understand it from my admittedly imperfect and untrained legal grounding, provided whoever decided to write said awful book complied with all the terms of the OGL and respected Wizards' copyright, the company would have very little recourse for disputing the book and would have to allow the author to publicly smear their IP with his armpit stain of a publication. They would certainly try, and they MIGHT be able to dispute the book on the same grounds they're using against Ernie G - namely, that the publication is causing true and irreparable harm to their brand through association with deplorable content. Whether that would work? Hopefully we'll never know - but to the best of my understanding it'd be an uphill battle for Wizards.
And I dunno 'bout you lot, but I don't particularly feel like playing a D&D where The Bigot's Guide to Genocide becomes a popular and high-selling third-party supplement. Do you?
You know what? GOOD: let someone sink money into making that. It'll sell 4 coppies to 4 basement-dwelling losers. And... that will be the end of it. You can keep right on playing your game, and that book can continue to exist in a quantum super-state of you knowing nothing about what's between its covers.
The point was that telling people "you're not allowed to be injured by speech unless I give you permission to be injured by speech" is a great way to silence, marginalize, and dismiss people who have had enough of being silenced, marginalized, and dismissed. Believe it or not, most such folks can tell the difference between innocent faux pas and deliberate cruelty, but the one becomes the other if an innocent-faux-pas sticks to their guns and starts blaming everybody else for daring to not be okay with discrimination and dismissal.
For the first time in its nearly fifty-year history, Wizards is paying attention and trying to do better by its historically disinvited playerbase. Believe it or not, we're not about to let people convince them to stop.
I’d say it would be fair to have those kinds of rules apply to dnd beyond as that’s is a place that is undoubtedly theirs but having it apply to the system over all is way too tempting to abuse by jumping on edge cases and mistakes to shut down places that aren’t them
I’d say it would be fair to have those kinds of rules apply to dnd beyond as that’s is a place that is undoubtedly theirs but having it apply to the system over all is way too tempting to abuse by jumping on edge cases and mistakes to shut down places that aren’t them
Sure; that's entirely reasonable: it's their service, they can decide what is hosted on it. WOTC however doesn't have the right to extend its jurisdiction to every gaming table in the world just because they WANT to... And that's assuming we buy that they are doing it "for our own good" as opposed to "for their bottom line".
... Nobody is "injured by speech"; you'll feel bad for a minute, and then you'll get over it. Living in the real world means that you are at peace with the fact that some where, right now, someone is saying something you don't agree with or find hurtful. You will get over it. Somewhere else: someone is watching something that you would find "problematic", this does not effect your life either. You will get over it. It is NOT, Wizards of the Coast's job to be your psychic guardian; that's your job. If your greatest fear in a day is an errant word; your life is frankly unspeakably incredible.
Actually, one of my greatest fears is my employer and work colleagues discovering I'm transfeminine and dismissing me from my job I cannot replace over it. I am fortunate in that my "Otherness" is not visible to the naked eye unless I decide to, for whatever reason, present unmistakeably feminine. I can hide behind my White Murican Mandudebroguy mask and get by without issue. Y'know, other than the issue of constantly having to be something I'm not.
I'm not going to get into the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages of forum posts that have already been made on this subject. Suffice it to say that the incredible life is the one in which a person has never been the subject of hateful speech and has no comprehension of the impact it can have on a person. Especially when repeated hundreds of times a day over the course of a person's entire life.
The words, and opinions of perfect strangers should not have the power to all on their own ruin your day. If they do; that is power and influence you are granting them over your life. A corporation cannot save you from that situation; it can only prevent you from taking the sometimes painful steps necessary to move the locus of control form external to internal.
Your "locus of control" has nothing to do with their right to decide who gets to use their intellectual property.
Does Hasbro have exclusive rights to determine what is considered hateful content here? I mean if another company starting making a lot of high quality, profitable material but it included orcs as being innately evil, could WoTC use that depiction of orcs as an excuse to drop the corporate hammer?
All forms of censorship are evil. Including the kind that happens on this forum.
You mean forum moderation? Did you bother reading the Terms of Service/Code of Conduct you agreed to?
This is a red herring. I'm all in favor of restricting hateful content in your own system that you own. I don't mind WotC doing that if people like Ernie Gygax are going around stirring up drama for no reason other than to appeal to chuds who are neither silent nor a majority despite their delusions to the contrary.
What I do mind is that WotC could have easily done all of that without giving themselves the right to monetize other people's creations and squeeze 3rd Party Publishers. THAT is what people were upset about, and THAT should have been the focus of the document.
This is a red herring. I'm all in favor of restricting hateful content in your own system that you own. I don't mind WotC doing that if people like Ernie Gygax are going around stirring up drama for no reason other than to appeal to chuds who are neither silent nor a majority despite their delusions to the contrary.
What I do mind is that WotC could have easily done all of that without giving themselves the right to monetize other people's creations and squeeze 3rd Party Publishers. THAT is what people were upset about, and THAT should have been the focus of the document.
Well, it's a good thing they specifically disavowed that proposal and are not going to be monetizing others' creations now, isn't it?
Except wotc always had the ability to revoke anyones license if they misused the license.
This is a fact. It can be revoked at anytime without warning per person / entity. Wizards also already has copyright protection which can protect them from any merchandise or NFTs they seem to be worried about. Wizards has not only been able to do these things but has actively enforced these things.
The real truth is that the OGL was a way to capture marketshare in the DND space and strongarm creators into forking over cash and intellectual property to wizards. This is not a draft this is something that Wizards was actively pursuing and enforcing with Kickstarter and other sources. The only reason we know about this is that someone who was being strong armed leaked this and saved us all from a DND monopolized by Wizards.
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"You canceled your subscription on 01/14/2023."
(1) Our job is to be good stewards of the game: Wrong. We are the stewards of the game. You print books.
(2) the OGL exists for the benefit of the fans: Wrong. The OGL exists to benefit Wizards. 3rd party Creators have made your game what it is today.
This is a red herring. I'm all in favor of restricting hateful content in your own system that you own. I don't mind WotC doing that if people like Ernie Gygax are going around stirring up drama for no reason other than to appeal to chuds who are neither silent nor a majority despite their delusions to the contrary.
What I do mind is that WotC could have easily done all of that without giving themselves the right to monetize other people's creations and squeeze 3rd Party Publishers. THAT is what people were upset about, and THAT should have been the focus of the document.
Well, it's a good thing they specifically disavowed that proposal and are not going to be monetizing others' creations now, isn't it?
the jury is still out on that; i believe the term might be arguing facts not in evidence i am sure you will correct me if i am wrong. Until we actually see the OGL they are going to use their words are as vapor and worth just as much.
Recently a friend and I were working on manuscript we were going to publish this year. He wrote up an NPC who was blatantly Racist had his own handpicked all human company of soldiers. we talked about the choice to use racism in context and whether or not I would actually use it .I did end up using both the Character and the racist attitude in our game one night. I am going to admit I was not comfortable in doing so. One of my newer players My CO-DM's son just who is on the spectrum has issues with social interactions. Playing a female elf had the best reaction and questioned the NPC's attitude as if he were overcompensating. For something small on his body
Racism is evil and evil should be fought wherever we find it. Sweeping it under a rug or hiding it out of sight because it makes us uncomfortable. It is a disservice to the game, to each other and to the children we introduce to the game.
the jury is still out on that; i believe the term might be arguing facts not in evidence i am sure you will correct me if i am wrong. Until we actually see the OGL they are going to use their words are as vapor and worth just as much.
The facts in evidence are that they disavowed the proposal--and they have, in fact, provided a specific disavowal of that proposal. That is a fact in evidence--and a fact that has some degree of weight considering the level of economic suicide that would occur if they backtracked on it. Now, you might not find that fact overly probative, but, for the time being, I am going to trust corporate greed not to do something that would go so strongly against corporate financial interests.
Racism is evil and evil should be fought wherever we find it. Sweeping it under a rug or hiding it out of sight because it makes us uncomfortable. It is a disservice to the game, to each other and to the children we introduce to the game.
The thing these conversations ignore is pretty obvious--there is a difference between creating a product that includes themes of prejudice, discrimination, slavery, etc. and making a product that is racist.
Out of the Abyss deals with some themes of slavery--both drow and duergar are slavers and duergar racism toward derro features throughout the Gracklstrugh chapter. It, however, is not racist--it does not correlate the races in question directly to real-world races--they are fantasy creations built off fantasy tropes, rather divorced from reality. Compare to Ernest Gygax's attempt to steal Wizards' IP and use it in a racist way, specifically stating "races in [rip off game] are not unlike races in the real world. Some are better at certain things than others, and some races are superior than others." The former explores themes of racism but does so in a way that does not also put down people based on their real world race, creed, orientation, etc. The latter, however, is super full of things that actively promulgate stereotypes and racist messages.
That is the key distinction--and Wizards has been very consistent in saying they merely that they do not want products that are actively "hateful or discriminatory" to be made using their content. But the slippery slope of "if you give them this power, they will try to take your legitimate content respectfully dealing with these issues" certainly sounds scary--which is why it is a mainstay argument of folks advocating against tools that would undermine the promulgation of hate within the community.
I work in the video game industry and have dealt with this shit for a living, having to make sure we never break any IP copyrights. But whatever man. you do you.
Keep making excuses for a company that hate you and sees you as an obstacle between them and their money.
Do you feel that you should be allowed to break IP copyrights, then? And that companies that defend their own IP's are somehow evil? If so, I guess you are ok if it is anything you create that is being used without your permission? (outside of fair use, of course)
That's not what is going on here. What is going on here is that Wizards has had a standing agreement that allowed creators to make a living by supporting and helping D&D grow. D&D would be a shell of itself without large creators who stock our shelves with supplemental material. Wizards has brainwashed you to think that this is them defending themselves, but the reality is they have always been able to protect themselves from IP infringement, they have always had the legal right to revoke OGLs per creator, and they have always had the right to defend their trademarks. What has gone on here was a conspiracy to steal both money and intellectual property from 3rd party creators by threatening them via legal action to sign a document under NDA in 7 days or else risk losing their entire business. This was a orchestrated plan to steal money and property from 3rd parties. You have somehow twisted this into Wizards defending themselves which they have always been able to do instead of what it actually is: Robbery and bullying from a mega rich corporation who is deadset on killing 3rd parties to take more money for themselves when 3rd parties are solely responsible for making this game as popular as it is today. None of us would be here without content creators, 3rd party publishers, critical role, podcasts... all of these were being threatened with legal action to have their hard work, IP, and money stolen from them. This was never about Wizards protecting their IP they have always had the legal right and ability and funds to do so.
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"You canceled your subscription on 01/14/2023."
(1) Our job is to be good stewards of the game: Wrong. We are the stewards of the game. You print books.
(2) the OGL exists for the benefit of the fans: Wrong. The OGL exists to benefit Wizards. 3rd party Creators have made your game what it is today.
“I mean are a Drow a touch on the evils of extreme feminism and black power? I don't know, Business was my major in college not anthropology or political silence.”
Just because it’s very personal to me, Political SCIENCE (lets just assume that is a typo..they happen) does not address that outside of general social science critical thinking. Political science looks at political behavior (of states, individuals, governments, etc..) using empirical evidence to find understanding.
However, a published for profit third party product based on discrimination can do damage to D&D as a brand. The DMs cannot stop that.
Want an example? Look back at the 80s Satanic Panic. No amount of DMs were able to prevent “Mazes and Monsters” getting Parents to prevent their kids from ever seeing the game.
Fair point. And yes, I actually do remember the Mazes and Monsters thing. Oh man, the 80s, what a time to be alive. And yes, it was a typo above.
The OGL though has been in existence for a while now... And what WOTC is doing is going to damage the DnD brand. If they alienate the people who play the same result happens except you get a heap of bad will. And in the 20 plus years, how bad has it been for WOTC? From what I understand it has been pretty good, especially after the failure of 4th Edition. And things go through phases. I mean didn't the church put Harry Potter in the Crosshairs? And who is the one to really go after the Harry Potter, its the people who are made at JK Rowling because she has said certains things about transexuals.
The Satanic Panic happened for certain reasons and the hysteria of the public and religious folk. Whats going to happen to WOTC is going to be a monster of their own making and will have nothing to do with the Satanic Panic, because that time passed.
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"You are a beginner once, but a student for life." - Firearm Instruction Adage.
They never intended for this to combat any form of discrimination since that's already covered in the current OGL anything blatantly offensive will get taken down and there's no examples of such things being made in the recent setting of dnd. They just knew they'd get some people who heard the buzz words for racism and discrimination that they'd get atleast SOME people advocating for them. They tried to role this out behind everyone's back sent contracts with NDA's and a week to sign to creators and only now that they're caught and dnd beyond subscriptions (their only active gauge for this community) have begun to tank are they back peddling and saying oh its not for the money it's to fight racism and other big corporations ok guys haha funny joke you won now stop unsubbing please. Make no mistake this not WoTC and us vs the big bad rich people they are the big bad rich people. I know I and a lot of others are done buying dnd merchandise entirely because of this if they tried once they will again and maybe that time we won't have as many people brave enough to leak the information before it's too late.
TLDR: It was never about racism discrimination or defense from other corporations it is and always was about the money they only see us as wallets so let's put our wallets somewhere else I heard 40k has some insane lore. CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TO DND BEYOND
I work in the video game industry and have dealt with this shit for a living, having to make sure we never break any IP copyrights. But whatever man. you do you.
Keep making excuses for a company that hate you and sees you as an obstacle between them and their money.
Do you feel that you should be allowed to break IP copyrights, then? And that companies that defend their own IP's are somehow evil? If so, I guess you are ok if it is anything you create that is being used without your permission? (outside of fair use, of course)
That's not what is going on here. What is going on here is that Wizards has had a standing agreement that allowed creators to make a living by supporting and helping D&D grow. D&D would be a shell of itself without large creators who stock our shelves with supplemental material. Wizards has brainwashed you to think that this is them defending themselves, but the reality is they have always been able to protect themselves from IP infringement, they have always had the legal right to revoke OGLs per creator, and they have always had the right to defend their trademarks. What has gone on here was a conspiracy to steal both money and intellectual property from 3rd party creators by threatening them via legal action to sign a document under NDA in 7 days or else risk losing their entire business. This was a orchestrated plan to steal money and property from 3rd parties. You have somehow twisted this into Wizards defending themselves which they have always been able to do instead of what it actually is: Robbery and bullying from a mega rich corporation who is deadset on killing 3rd parties to take more money for themselves when 3rd parties are solely responsible for making this game as popular as it is today. None of us would be here without content creators, 3rd party publishers, critical role, podcasts... all of these were being threatened with legal action to have their hard work, IP, and money stolen from them. This was never about Wizards protecting their IP they have always had the legal right and ability and funds to do so.
That agreement was set up 20 years ago, though, before online anything was as widespread as today, making both copying and publishing a LOT easier than it was even then.
But this 'killing third parties' bit is still not fully in evidence. Regardless of how the 1.1 might have been used, we have no actual evidence of it being used that aggressively.
We do. Several 3rd parties have come out and said that they've been materially threatened not only by this step but within the recent years. You don't think taking 25% of all D&D Kickstarter revenue wouldn't be killing third parties?
Second, yeah that agreement was set up 20 years ago. In the legal world that is a good thing as it has 20 years of legal precedence and settled cases to point to. They have always had the ability to protect themselves from copyrights. They have always had the ability to revoke OGLs from those abusing them. An OGL change isn't going to stop NFTs. Wizards of the Coast Passed $1 Billion in Revenue in 2021. This isn't some small company trying to protect themselves. They have an army of lawyers who are plenty capable of defending them OGL or not.
Anyone who decides to post after this point who wants to claim "words can't cause harm" - You are factually incorrect and any such statement will be removed under our site rules on trolling/flaming.
Anyone who decides to invalidate the harm that others have experienced, likewise your posts will be removed and you will face infractions for violating site rules
The harm that language can do to people, especially but not limited to racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic language, is not a matter of debate; while you are free to disagree with that, you are not free to disagree with that here.
Yes, they should be able to prevent that kind of usage. But the way it's written in that press release, to me, it appears they're throwing, the people who have been working to make the game break away from its problematic past, under a bus. But then maybe I'm a bit paranoid when it's about this topic.
Has this been a problem from publishers? What products and what impact?
The only case I can recall of this happening was by WotC with the Hadozee in Spelljammer only four months ago.
Bit rich to claim to be the stewards of the game when the most high profile case of racist content is from the "stewards".
Just a psycological trick at the beginning of the post to make you think, 'ah, WotC, sorry yes, your intentions were just so good and it is just a big misunderstanding'. Totally nonsense, because: what shall be the definition of a disciminating and hateful product which uses the OGL? WotC, please provide examples on existing systems on the market.
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... Well: YES. That's how "taking offence" works; it's always inherently subjective to the person being offended. I'm First Nations (That's Canuck Native American); one of my favourite episodes of South Park is "Red Man's Greed"; it is, quite deliberately, VERY offensive... and I happen to find it hilarious. Some other people certainly would not, and demand that "you canot make jokes about this serious subject!" Thing is though; someone thinks that, about almost every subject under the yellow sun.
Not quite--they can terminate the license if someone "fail[s] to comply with all the terms herein and fail to cure such breach within 30 days of becoming aware of the breach." However, the license itself does not set "don't be racist" as a term--it merely talks about usage and, even then, is pretty vague (honestly, as far as legal documents go, it is pretty poorly written--it was clearly written so everyone could read it, and those failures and lackings in the initial draft are why it is getting changed now). That means there is uncertainty if they could revoke the license when someone is engaged in bigoted behavior--and uncertainty is a bad place to be when someone is trying to use your name, your product, and your speech to spread their hate.
As you noted in the part I snipped for taking up less space, we do not know what the full terms will be. What I expect would happen: Wizards will include some kind of terms saying how their product cannot be used. When Wizards learns of a breach of those terms, they send a Cease and Desist letter basically saying "you are not in compliance, we are revoking your license." That gives the person in breach three options: (a) publish anyway and get sued, in which case a judge will decide if there was in fact a breach, (b) sue Wizards for breach of contract, in which case a judge will decide whether or not Wizards improperly ended the contract, or (c) do nothing and not publish the materials.
Lots of options for folks to get some recourse from someone other than Wizards if they think they were in the right.
You know what? GOOD: let someone sink money into making that. It'll sell 4 coppies to 4 basement-dwelling losers. And... that will be the end of it. You can keep right on playing your game, and that book can continue to exist in a quantum super-state of you knowing nothing about what's between its covers.
Missing the Point for 500, Bob.
The point was that telling people "you're not allowed to be injured by speech unless I give you permission to be injured by speech" is a great way to silence, marginalize, and dismiss people who have had enough of being silenced, marginalized, and dismissed. Believe it or not, most such folks can tell the difference between innocent faux pas and deliberate cruelty, but the one becomes the other if an innocent-faux-pas sticks to their guns and starts blaming everybody else for daring to not be okay with discrimination and dismissal.
For the first time in its nearly fifty-year history, Wizards is paying attention and trying to do better by its historically disinvited playerbase. Believe it or not, we're not about to let people convince them to stop.
Please do not contact or message me.
I’d say it would be fair to have those kinds of rules apply to dnd beyond as that’s is a place that is undoubtedly theirs but having it apply to the system over all is way too tempting to abuse by jumping on edge cases and mistakes to shut down places that aren’t them
Mostly nocturnal
help build a world here
Sure; that's entirely reasonable: it's their service, they can decide what is hosted on it. WOTC however doesn't have the right to extend its jurisdiction to every gaming table in the world just because they WANT to... And that's assuming we buy that they are doing it "for our own good" as opposed to "for their bottom line".
Actually, one of my greatest fears is my employer and work colleagues discovering I'm transfeminine and dismissing me from my job I cannot replace over it. I am fortunate in that my "Otherness" is not visible to the naked eye unless I decide to, for whatever reason, present unmistakeably feminine. I can hide behind my White Murican Mandudebroguy mask and get by without issue. Y'know, other than the issue of constantly having to be something I'm not.
I'm not going to get into the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages of forum posts that have already been made on this subject. Suffice it to say that the incredible life is the one in which a person has never been the subject of hateful speech and has no comprehension of the impact it can have on a person. Especially when repeated hundreds of times a day over the course of a person's entire life.
Please do not contact or message me.
Your "locus of control" has nothing to do with their right to decide who gets to use their intellectual property.
You mean forum moderation? Did you bother reading the Terms of Service/Code of Conduct you agreed to?
This is a red herring. I'm all in favor of restricting hateful content in your own system that you own. I don't mind WotC doing that if people like Ernie Gygax are going around stirring up drama for no reason other than to appeal to chuds who are neither silent nor a majority despite their delusions to the contrary.
What I do mind is that WotC could have easily done all of that without giving themselves the right to monetize other people's creations and squeeze 3rd Party Publishers. THAT is what people were upset about, and THAT should have been the focus of the document.
Well, it's a good thing they specifically disavowed that proposal and are not going to be monetizing others' creations now, isn't it?
This is a fact. It can be revoked at anytime without warning per person / entity. Wizards also already has copyright protection which can protect them from any merchandise or NFTs they seem to be worried about. Wizards has not only been able to do these things but has actively enforced these things.
The real truth is that the OGL was a way to capture marketshare in the DND space and strongarm creators into forking over cash and intellectual property to wizards. This is not a draft this is something that Wizards was actively pursuing and enforcing with Kickstarter and other sources. The only reason we know about this is that someone who was being strong armed leaked this and saved us all from a DND monopolized by Wizards.
"You canceled your subscription on 01/14/2023."
(1) Our job is to be good stewards of the game: Wrong. We are the stewards of the game. You print books.
(2) the OGL exists for the benefit of the fans: Wrong. The OGL exists to benefit Wizards. 3rd party Creators have made your game what it is today.
the jury is still out on that; i believe the term might be arguing facts not in evidence i am sure you will correct me if i am wrong. Until we actually see the OGL they are going to use their words are as vapor and worth just as much.
Recently a friend and I were working on manuscript we were going to publish this year. He wrote up an NPC who was blatantly Racist had his own handpicked all human company of soldiers. we talked about the choice to use racism in context and whether or not I would actually use it .I did end up using both the Character and the racist attitude in our game one night. I am going to admit I was not comfortable in doing so. One of my newer players My CO-DM's son just who is on the spectrum has issues with social interactions. Playing a female elf had the best reaction and questioned the NPC's attitude as if he were overcompensating. For something small on his body
Racism is evil and evil should be fought wherever we find it. Sweeping it under a rug or hiding it out of sight because it makes us uncomfortable. It is a disservice to the game, to each other and to the children we introduce to the game.
The facts in evidence are that they disavowed the proposal--and they have, in fact, provided a specific disavowal of that proposal. That is a fact in evidence--and a fact that has some degree of weight considering the level of economic suicide that would occur if they backtracked on it. Now, you might not find that fact overly probative, but, for the time being, I am going to trust corporate greed not to do something that would go so strongly against corporate financial interests.
The thing these conversations ignore is pretty obvious--there is a difference between creating a product that includes themes of prejudice, discrimination, slavery, etc. and making a product that is racist.
Out of the Abyss deals with some themes of slavery--both drow and duergar are slavers and duergar racism toward derro features throughout the Gracklstrugh chapter. It, however, is not racist--it does not correlate the races in question directly to real-world races--they are fantasy creations built off fantasy tropes, rather divorced from reality. Compare to Ernest Gygax's attempt to steal Wizards' IP and use it in a racist way, specifically stating "races in [rip off game] are not unlike races in the real world. Some are better at certain things than others, and some races are superior than others." The former explores themes of racism but does so in a way that does not also put down people based on their real world race, creed, orientation, etc. The latter, however, is super full of things that actively promulgate stereotypes and racist messages.
That is the key distinction--and Wizards has been very consistent in saying they merely that they do not want products that are actively "hateful or discriminatory" to be made using their content. But the slippery slope of "if you give them this power, they will try to take your legitimate content respectfully dealing with these issues" certainly sounds scary--which is why it is a mainstay argument of folks advocating against tools that would undermine the promulgation of hate within the community.
That's not what is going on here. What is going on here is that Wizards has had a standing agreement that allowed creators to make a living by supporting and helping D&D grow. D&D would be a shell of itself without large creators who stock our shelves with supplemental material. Wizards has brainwashed you to think that this is them defending themselves, but the reality is they have always been able to protect themselves from IP infringement, they have always had the legal right to revoke OGLs per creator, and they have always had the right to defend their trademarks. What has gone on here was a conspiracy to steal both money and intellectual property from 3rd party creators by threatening them via legal action to sign a document under NDA in 7 days or else risk losing their entire business. This was a orchestrated plan to steal money and property from 3rd parties. You have somehow twisted this into Wizards defending themselves which they have always been able to do instead of what it actually is: Robbery and bullying from a mega rich corporation who is deadset on killing 3rd parties to take more money for themselves when 3rd parties are solely responsible for making this game as popular as it is today. None of us would be here without content creators, 3rd party publishers, critical role, podcasts... all of these were being threatened with legal action to have their hard work, IP, and money stolen from them. This was never about Wizards protecting their IP they have always had the legal right and ability and funds to do so.
"You canceled your subscription on 01/14/2023."
(1) Our job is to be good stewards of the game: Wrong. We are the stewards of the game. You print books.
(2) the OGL exists for the benefit of the fans: Wrong. The OGL exists to benefit Wizards. 3rd party Creators have made your game what it is today.
Fair point. And yes, I actually do remember the Mazes and Monsters thing. Oh man, the 80s, what a time to be alive. And yes, it was a typo above.
The OGL though has been in existence for a while now... And what WOTC is doing is going to damage the DnD brand. If they alienate the people who play the same result happens except you get a heap of bad will. And in the 20 plus years, how bad has it been for WOTC? From what I understand it has been pretty good, especially after the failure of 4th Edition. And things go through phases. I mean didn't the church put Harry Potter in the Crosshairs? And who is the one to really go after the Harry Potter, its the people who are made at JK Rowling because she has said certains things about transexuals.
The Satanic Panic happened for certain reasons and the hysteria of the public and religious folk. Whats going to happen to WOTC is going to be a monster of their own making and will have nothing to do with the Satanic Panic, because that time passed.
"You are a beginner once, but a student for life." - Firearm Instruction Adage.
They never intended for this to combat any form of discrimination since that's already covered in the current OGL anything blatantly offensive will get taken down and there's no examples of such things being made in the recent setting of dnd. They just knew they'd get some people who heard the buzz words for racism and discrimination that they'd get atleast SOME people advocating for them. They tried to role this out behind everyone's back sent contracts with NDA's and a week to sign to creators and only now that they're caught and dnd beyond subscriptions (their only active gauge for this community) have begun to tank are they back peddling and saying oh its not for the money it's to fight racism and other big corporations ok guys haha funny joke you won now stop unsubbing please. Make no mistake this not WoTC and us vs the big bad rich people they are the big bad rich people. I know I and a lot of others are done buying dnd merchandise entirely because of this if they tried once they will again and maybe that time we won't have as many people brave enough to leak the information before it's too late.
TLDR: It was never about racism discrimination or defense from other corporations it is and always was about the money they only see us as wallets so let's put our wallets somewhere else I heard 40k has some insane lore. CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TO DND BEYOND
We do. Several 3rd parties have come out and said that they've been materially threatened not only by this step but within the recent years. You don't think taking 25% of all D&D Kickstarter revenue wouldn't be killing third parties?
Second, yeah that agreement was set up 20 years ago. In the legal world that is a good thing as it has 20 years of legal precedence and settled cases to point to. They have always had the ability to protect themselves from copyrights. They have always had the ability to revoke OGLs from those abusing them. An OGL change isn't going to stop NFTs. Wizards of the Coast Passed $1 Billion in Revenue in 2021. This isn't some small company trying to protect themselves. They have an army of lawyers who are plenty capable of defending them OGL or not.
"You canceled your subscription on 01/14/2023."
(1) Our job is to be good stewards of the game: Wrong. We are the stewards of the game. You print books.
(2) the OGL exists for the benefit of the fans: Wrong. The OGL exists to benefit Wizards. 3rd party Creators have made your game what it is today.
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Yes, they should be able to prevent that kind of usage. But the way it's written in that press release, to me, it appears they're throwing, the people who have been working to make the game break away from its problematic past, under a bus. But then maybe I'm a bit paranoid when it's about this topic.
Just a psycological trick at the beginning of the post to make you think, 'ah, WotC, sorry yes, your intentions were just so good and it is just a big misunderstanding'. Totally nonsense, because: what shall be the definition of a disciminating and hateful product which uses the OGL? WotC, please provide examples on existing systems on the market.