i wouldnt even use gygax as a measure. he wasnt as great a guy as folk make him out to be
Per the community rules, please do not name & shame members of the community, living or dead. Some of us knew Gary, and don't have to rely on anonymous forum posters or consequence-free Reddit hit pieces to form an opinion about him.
Gygax wouldn't have released D&D under an open license, no. But TSR's famous litigiousness and its business woes both postdate his leaving the company over disagreements with a new majority owner. TSR under Gygax was more likely to be sued than to sue. Say what you will about him, he was a gamer first, and while his negative opinions about the OGL are known, his problems with it in no way suggest that he would have approved of Wizards' recent behavior.
That doesn't fix the major issue with OGL 1.1 which is the deauthorization of OGL 1.0a.
This only fixes (some) things for people who were going to make content for one D&D/6e since wotc can apply whatever license they want to that SRD anyways.
.... For context that's the winning line. Do not deauthorize OGL 1.0a (wotc probably can't in the first place but that's the root of these problems.)
Direct quote from the article you replied to.
"Your OGL 1.0a content. Nothing will impact any content you have published under OGL 1.0a. That will always be licensed under OGL 1.0a."
I guess we'll wait and see what it says in the legal documentation. But their public stance as of this morning seems pretty clear.
Nothing will impact any content you have published under OGL 1.0a. Which sounds like them not deauthorizing OGL 1.0a.
OGL 1.0a not being deauthorized means that you can continue publishing content for 3.5 and 5e, without new limitations like prohibitions for video games.
"No impact on prior publishing" is only part of it.
I'm pretty sure what you guys are quibbling about is that they acknowledged they cannot, retroactively, go after people who published things under the 1.0 OGL, even though they have 'deauthorized it'. They are saying that everything that has been made up till this point is safe using the 1.0 OGL - but they want to force people to not be able to use that 1.0 OGL in the future or be unable to continue making things going forward, and they want to require everyone to use this new, unfair OGL that they whipped up so that they can get royalties and more control over content ownership.
"Nothing will impact any content you have published under OGL 1.0a." - past tense. Have published. Is already completed.
Ergo; they're trying to say "Look guys, don't worry! We're not trying to go after what you already made, we just want you to abide by these NEW rules and restrictions, which are tooootally fair, trust us!" because they actually know that legally they can't remove the original 1.0 OGL; they know they can trick people into signing a NEW ogl, and if they can get anyone to do that, then they're stuck with that new OGL because they signed it. They also know they can make a 'new' game and put THAT game out with a new OGL, but they also know that if they do that we're legally allowed to stick with the original OGL and we all like 5e just fine. Which means that we'd just keep doing as we're doing, no cash cow for Wizards.
So they have to try and convince people that this new OGL is both legal in the court of public opinion [cuz I doubt they actually want to go to real court over it, it sounds like from all accounts they don't have a single legal leg to stand on and will lose mightily] and that people should use it because it's not that bad, and find a way to make it apply to 5e content. If they only applied the new OGL to the new one DND, we'd just never adopt the new One DND.
I'm pretty sure what you guys are quibbling about is that they acknowledged they cannot, retroactively, go after people who published things under the 1.0 OGL, even though they have 'deauthorized it'. They are saying that everything that has been made up till this point is safe using the 1.0 OGL - but they want to force people to not be able to use that 1.0 OGL in the future or be unable to continue making things going forward, and they want to require everyone to use this new, unfair OGL that they whipped up so that they can get royalties and more control over content ownership.
"Nothing will impact any content you have published under OGL 1.0a." - past tense. Have published. Is already completed.
Ergo; they're trying to say "Look guys, don't worry! We're not trying to go after what you already made, we just want you to abide by these NEW rules and restrictions, which are tooootally fair, trust us!" because they actually know that legally they can't remove the original 1.0 OGL; they know they can trick people into signing a NEW ogl, and if they can get anyone to do that, then they're stuck with that new OGL because they signed it. They also know they can make a 'new' game and put THAT game out with a new OGL, but they also know that if they do that we're legally allowed to stick with the original OGL and we all like 5e just fine. Which means that we'd just keep doing as we're doing, no cash cow for Wizards.
So they have to try and convince people that this new OGL is both legal in the court of public opinion [cuz I doubt they actually want to go to real court over it, it sounds like from all accounts they don't have a single legal leg to stand on and will lose mightily] and that people should use it because it's not that bad, and find a way to make it apply to 5e content. If they only applied the new OGL to the new one DND, we'd just never adopt the new One DND.
Doooo deee doooo munch munch munch humm this pop corn need more butter.
So Gary Gygax crafted this game from his imagination he branded it sold it and at some time it just stopped being fun so he sold it. You are the crafters of your own fun as Gary was there is 4 decades content out there that a lot of people used to craft a campaign with. Dungeons and Dragons id a name of a brand like google when people want to say search it they simply say google it.
The Game is a genre it you simply stop connecting it to the brand D&D you can craft your own content. There are some that are going about making other brands of this type genre people who get laid off from one brand can always work for the up and coming brands and find they have new bosses that care about you and the game they love. They should have seen the brand they currently work for does not care so they should have their resumes ready to mail out and start looking for other competitors of their current employers.
anyways Gary did it with paper and an imagination you can dust of your first edition books and craft content you can make your own content and have a youtube and show it off you simply leave out saying a brand name. Do not sign a new contract that gives away your content if you are making a living off of the said content contact a lawyer and get your content copyrighted so a brand name cannot just use it in their sixth edition.
but don't mind me i am off to melt some butter for this popcorn. =P
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
And here I thought I was on my best behavior. BUT NO I got scolded and threatened with corner time. I guess we are not allowed to express our feelings or opinions on anything here. All hugs and kisses every body's special every one gets a ribbon that says 'Your a winner" Not here more then a week and I got naughty points twice. How many points do I get?
WOTC presented some content creators with a offensive OGL, that would hurt the content creators and deprive the community of those creative efforts.
The community rallied behind the content creators to show WOTC that we are protective over them.
WOTC promised to change course.
Immediately sensing weakness, the community doubled down on their efforts. Continued to unsub from D&DBeyond, promised to boycott the D&D movie, swore off all D&D products going forward. Not just risking the livihoods of the content creators, but also of innocent WOTC employees.
What are we angry about again? Hurting the content creators? Being deprived of future 3rd party releases for D&D? We're the ones doing that now. Not just that, but jeopardizing the careers of folks whose only crime is working for official D&D, which until last month we all loved....
I get the anger, but it's gone too far. Take a breather. Wait to see what WOTC's next OFFICIAL move is, not anonymous rumors. Let them show us with their actions if we need to continue the pressure.
Once you've revealed yourself to be Darth Sidious, you can no longer go back to playing Emporer Palpatine.
As a reminder, we live in a capitalist society. It is not my responsibility to support the careers of WotC staff, that would be the executes. It is very unfortunate that some jobs may be lost due to this, but that is the nature of capitalism. Consumers vote with their wallets while companies rise and fall by their leaderships choices. Do not blame consumers for participating in the system we are forced to live under.
i wouldnt even use gygax as a measure. he wasnt as great a guy as folk make him out to be
Per the community rules, please do not name & shame members of the community, living or dead. Some of us knew Gary, and don't have to rely on anonymous forum posters or consequence-free Reddit hit pieces to form an opinion about him.
I'm not "shaming" anyone, I was quoting his own words from a 2004 interview he gave verbatim. And BladeGod's "he wasn't as great a guy as folk made him out to be" is extremely tame as criticism goes.
"Nothing will impact content you have published under OGL 1.0a"
They're not walking back deauthorizing 1.0a they're stating that they'll grandfather current publications. This is a PR way of saying "We don't want to end up in a lawsuit over currently published materials but we also don't want you to keep making content under that license. So we're still deauthorizing it we're just lowering the amount that you can claim for damages"
Their statement actively supports the notion that 1.0a is getting deauthorized still.
That seems abundantly clear to me as well, but that is their right until/unless a court decides otherwise.
Just remember, accepting anything other than OGL 1.0a as it is or a separate supplement firming up the anti-racist or discriminatory content is allowing WotC to bypass the "irrevocable" language in OGL 1.0a. This would allow them an easier time in the future completely revoking this new OGL for something similar to 1.1.
WOTC presented some content creators with a offensive OGL, that would hurt the content creators and deprive the community of those creative efforts.
The community rallied behind the content creators to show WOTC that we are protective over them.
WOTC promised to change course.
Immediately sensing weakness, the community doubled down on their efforts. Continued to unsub from D&DBeyond, promised to boycott the D&D movie, swore off all D&D products going forward. Not just risking the livihoods of the content creators, but also of innocent WOTC employees.
What are we angry about again? Hurting the content creators? Being deprived of future 3rd party releases for D&D? We're the ones doing that now. Not just that, but jeopardizing the careers of folks whose only crime is working for official D&D, which until last month we all loved....
I get the anger, but it's gone too far. Take a breather. Wait to see what WOTC's next OFFICIAL move is, not anonymous rumors. Let them show us with their actions if we need to continue the pressure.
Once you've revealed yorrself to be Darth Sidious, you can no longer go back to playing Emporer Palpatine.
As a reminder, we live in a capitalist society.
Man, comments like this remain utterly bonkers in a discussion surrounding D&D and really speak to the truth of the matter:
The folks raging on the forums right now, after both statements released on D&D Beyond, don't really give a damn about the OGL 1.1 or the rumors swirling out of a D&Dshort's bottom, it's a personal crusade of the various vices that define their own experience with WotC (or I guess LOLcapitalism) and this was just an excuse to let it rip.
All these supposed vanguards of D&D, TTRPGs or 3rd party creators are anything but.
WOTC presented some content creators with a offensive OGL, that would hurt the content creators and deprive the community of those creative efforts.
The community rallied behind the content creators to show WOTC that we are protective over them.
WOTC promised to change course.
Immediately sensing weakness, the community doubled down on their efforts. Continued to unsub from D&DBeyond, promised to boycott the D&D movie, swore off all D&D products going forward. Not just risking the livihoods of the content creators, but also of innocent WOTC employees.
What are we angry about again? Hurting the content creators? Being deprived of future 3rd party releases for D&D? We're the ones doing that now. Not just that, but jeopardizing the careers of folks whose only crime is working for official D&D, which until last month we all loved....
I get the anger, but it's gone too far. Take a breather. Wait to see what WOTC's next OFFICIAL move is, not anonymous rumors. Let them show us with their actions if we need to continue the pressure.
The main problem is that WoTC intended to withdraw an agreement that was perpetual. That is the first thing to understand.
If they had just made a new license for D&D One, and not touched OGL1.0a, none of this would have happened. They already did it with the GSL in 4e and no one complained. Only the shot backfired on them.
WoTC can make a license as restrictive as it wants. It's the ******* WoTC license. What they cannot do is unilaterally break an agreement that was forever. And that was the spark of the fire.
Then the fire got out of control. But the only one to blame is WoTC for trying to do something so unethical and probably illegal.
WOTC presented some content creators with a offensive OGL, that would hurt the content creators and deprive the community of those creative efforts.
The community rallied behind the content creators to show WOTC that we are protective over them.
WOTC promised to change course.
Immediately sensing weakness, the community doubled down on their efforts. Continued to unsub from D&DBeyond, promised to boycott the D&D movie, swore off all D&D products going forward. Not just risking the livihoods of the content creators, but also of innocent WOTC employees.
What are we angry about again? Hurting the content creators? Being deprived of future 3rd party releases for D&D? We're the ones doing that now. Not just that, but jeopardizing the careers of folks whose only crime is working for official D&D, which until last month we all loved....
I get the anger, but it's gone too far. Take a breather. Wait to see what WOTC's next OFFICIAL move is, not anonymous rumors. Let them show us with their actions if we need to continue the pressure.
Once you've revealed yorrself to be Darth Sidious, you can no longer go back to playing Emporer Palpatine.
As a reminder, we live in a capitalist society.
Man, comments like this remain utterly bonkers in a discussion surrounding D&D and really speak to the truth of the matter:
The folks raging on the forums right now, after both statements released on D&D Beyond, don't really give a damn about the OGL 1.1 or the rumors swirling out of a D&Dshort's bottom, it's a personal crusade of the various vices that define their own experience with WotC (or I guess LOLcapitalism) and this was just an excuse to let it rip.
All these supposed vanguards of D&D, TTRPGs or 3rd party creators are anything but.
I mean. My crusade here is that ogl 1.0a was intended to be irrevocable and perpetual so wotc should stop trying to screw with it. I feel like I’ve made that clear and that is my line in the sand with any new OGL. I don’t actually care what is in the new OGL so long as they revoke/deauthorize/prevent use of 1.0a.
WOTC presented some content creators with a offensive OGL, that would hurt the content creators and deprive the community of those creative efforts.
The community rallied behind the content creators to show WOTC that we are protective over them.
WOTC promised to change course.
Immediately sensing weakness, the community doubled down on their efforts. Continued to unsub from D&DBeyond, promised to boycott the D&D movie, swore off all D&D products going forward. Not just risking the livihoods of the content creators, but also of innocent WOTC employees.
What are we angry about again? Hurting the content creators? Being deprived of future 3rd party releases for D&D? We're the ones doing that now. Not just that, but jeopardizing the careers of folks whose only crime is working for official D&D, which until last month we all loved....
I get the anger, but it's gone too far. Take a breather. Wait to see what WOTC's next OFFICIAL move is, not anonymous rumors. Let them show us with their actions if we need to continue the pressure.
Once you've revealed yorrself to be Darth Sidious, you can no longer go back to playing Emporer Palpatine.
As a reminder, we live in a capitalist society.
Man, comments like this remain utterly bonkers in a discussion surrounding D&D and really speak to the truth of the matter:
The folks raging on the forums right now, after both statements released on D&D Beyond, don't really give a damn about the OGL 1.1 or the rumors swirling out of a D&Dshort's bottom, it's a personal crusade of the various vices that define their own experience with WotC (or I guess LOLcapitalism) and this was just an excuse to let it rip.
All these supposed vanguards of D&D, TTRPGs or 3rd party creators are anything but.
I'm sorry, what? I'm not claiming to be a vanguard for anything. I'm claiming to be a consumer of tabletop RPGs who has been playing, thus paying for, games like D&D for over 20 years. Hasbro/WotC are companies and they have been companies I was willing to support for a very long time. Once a company loses my faith and confidence I will not do business with them again, or at least it will take a monumental effort to get me back. Regardless, though, it is my, personal, goddamn decision on what I will support and for what reasons. The tabletop RPG community is far larger than D&D and I will happily continue to play and support other games and companies.
I'm getting sick and tired of these people acting like any kind of moral stance or social activism is somehow pointless, because blah blah capitalism, blah blah boring dystopian quote. Like, I get it, maybe you aren't feeling particularly compelled right now to participate - that doesn't mean you need to go out of your way to discourage people from pushing for positive social change that they think is valuable for humanity at large. Get a more original take that isn't so middle school angst.
What are we angry about again? Hurting the content creators? Being deprived of future 3rd party releases for D&D? We're the ones doing that now. Not just that, but jeopardizing the careers of folks whose only crime is working for official D&D, which until last month we all loved....
I get the anger, but it's gone too far. Take a breather. Wait to see what WOTC's next OFFICIAL move is, not anonymous rumors. Let them show us with their actions if we need to continue the pressure.
I think there needs to be a lot more voices like this. WoTC screwed up and turns out that they are people. They are working to correct it, what more could you want? I love DDB, I love D&D, and have since the early ‘80s. I play other games, but D&D will continue to be my primary game. This is starting to sound more like Cancel Culture than anything else. The same group of people that hate Nickleback because social media told them to and have never heard a song. Most people don’t even seem to have facts or the truth. Just spewing hate and misinformation. If we wanted the game to be better, people would be taking a different tack. We need to be careful we don’t kill D&D while trying to make it better.
WOTC presented some content creators with a offensive OGL, that would hurt the content creators and deprive the community of those creative efforts.
The community rallied behind the content creators to show WOTC that we are protective over them.
WOTC promised to change course.
Immediately sensing weakness, the community doubled down on their efforts. Continued to unsub from D&DBeyond, promised to boycott the D&D movie, swore off all D&D products going forward. Not just risking the livihoods of the content creators, but also of innocent WOTC employees.
What are we angry about again? Hurting the content creators? Being deprived of future 3rd party releases for D&D? We're the ones doing that now. Not just that, but jeopardizing the careers of folks whose only crime is working for official D&D, which until last month we all loved....
I get the anger, but it's gone too far. Take a breather. Wait to see what WOTC's next OFFICIAL move is, not anonymous rumors. Let them show us with their actions if we need to continue the pressure.
Once you've revealed yorrself to be Darth Sidious, you can no longer go back to playing Emporer Palpatine.
As a reminder, we live in a capitalist society.
Man, comments like this remain utterly bonkers in a discussion surrounding D&D and really speak to the truth of the matter:
The folks raging on the forums right now, after both statements released on D&D Beyond, don't really give a damn about the OGL 1.1 or the rumors swirling out of a D&Dshort's bottom, it's a personal crusade of the various vices that define their own experience with WotC (or I guess LOLcapitalism) and this was just an excuse to let it rip.
All these supposed vanguards of D&D, TTRPGs or 3rd party creators are anything but.
You seem VERY invested in putting down anyone who is fighting to make the future of D&D better.
WOTC presented some content creators with a offensive OGL, that would hurt the content creators and deprive the community of those creative efforts.
The community rallied behind the content creators to show WOTC that we are protective over them.
WOTC promised to change course.
Immediately sensing weakness, the community doubled down on their efforts. Continued to unsub from D&DBeyond, promised to boycott the D&D movie, swore off all D&D products going forward. Not just risking the livihoods of the content creators, but also of innocent WOTC employees.
What are we angry about again? Hurting the content creators? Being deprived of future 3rd party releases for D&D? We're the ones doing that now. Not just that, but jeopardizing the careers of folks whose only crime is working for official D&D, which until last month we all loved....
I get the anger, but it's gone too far. Take a breather. Wait to see what WOTC's next OFFICIAL move is, not anonymous rumors. Let them show us with their actions if we need to continue the pressure.
A lot of people have got an axe to grind with D&D over various behaviors including going into the activist space quite a bit and now entering full on corporate greed. So D&D has found a way to alienate old fans and the new fans as well, let alone social media that is why D&D became as successful as it did for 5E. Simply put, D&D should have stayed apolitical and kept normal business practices. They could have added new features and charged more for higher tier and they would have been fine, but then they had to do frankly some dirty business with the OGL and their customers are supposed to back them?
Other than the core rule books, there is nothing of worth to me that D&D puts out now. Almost every book I did buy in the last 3 years was a waste of money. I've went to 3rd party content creators over D&D's content policies and now D&D wants to be able to police 3rd party content for what they put out as well? No thank you.
I'm already moved over to Fantasy Grounds and prepping my group to leave D&D and go to Dungeon Crawl Classics. I still have the books, I can still play when I want and with whom I want. I don't need D&D Beyond, however D&D Beyond needs me and everyone else. Maybe D&D should go back about 5 years in behavior and we'll give them money again. I'm done though.
What are we angry about again? Hurting the content creators? Being deprived of future 3rd party releases for D&D? We're the ones doing that now. Not just that, but jeopardizing the careers of folks whose only crime is working for official D&D, which until last month we all loved....
I get the anger, but it's gone too far. Take a breather. Wait to see what WOTC's next OFFICIAL move is, not anonymous rumors. Let them show us with their actions if we need to continue the pressure.
I think there needs to be a lot more voices like this. WoTC screwed up and turns out that they are people. They are working to correct it, what more could you want? I love DDB, I love D&D, and have since the early ‘80s. I play other games, but D&D will continue to be my primary game. This is starting to sound more like Cancel Culture than anything else. The same group of people that hate Nickleback because social media told them to and have never heard a song. Most people don’t even seem to have facts or the truth. Just spewing hate and misinformation. If we wanted the game to be better, people would be taking a different tack. We need to be careful we don’t kill D&D while trying to make it better.
WotC has stated they will work to improve OGL 2 and will continue to deauthorize OGL 1.0a for new content. That's the line in the sand that a lot of people didn't like (including myself) and honestly most everything else in their statements have been noise to try and cause people to be less mad about losing OGL 1.0a.
Their official moves have consistently been "We are changing part of what you're mad about but we will deauthorize OGL 1.0a". The only thing they've done that is arguably good is explicitly state that they won't go after old content that's still being printed. They have not stated that they will allow OGL 1.0a to be used to continue to publish content compatible with OGL 1.0a content.
I don't think this is a case where "We need to be careful we don’t kill D&D while trying to make it better." is a valid argument. WotC has straight up stated that they do not value the community around D&D insofar as they are unable to exert contractual control over the game system outputs. That + the lack of any transparency over future alterations (note they did not mention that they would remove the 30 days notice clause) mean that they currently are not acting in a trustworthy way. Bluntly the only thing wotc should do on friday when they release the new license is not include language deauthorizing the OGL 1.0a. If they do that? sure we can talk about the license. If they try to include language deauthorizing/revoking 1.0a? I'd argue that WotC is the one at risk of killing D&D (and arguably destabilizing tabletop in general for a good long time while things get resolved in court.)
What are we angry about again? Hurting the content creators? Being deprived of future 3rd party releases for D&D? We're the ones doing that now. Not just that, but jeopardizing the careers of folks whose only crime is working for official D&D, which until last month we all loved....
I get the anger, but it's gone too far. Take a breather. Wait to see what WOTC's next OFFICIAL move is, not anonymous rumors. Let them show us with their actions if we need to continue the pressure.
I think there needs to be a lot more voices like this. WoTC screwed up and turns out that they are people. They are working to correct it, what more could you want? I love DDB, I love D&D, and have since the early ‘80s. I play other games, but D&D will continue to be my primary game. This is starting to sound more like Cancel Culture than anything else. The same group of people that hate Nickleback because social media told them to and have never heard a song. Most people don’t even seem to have facts or the truth. Just spewing hate and misinformation. If we wanted the game to be better, people would be taking a different tack. We need to be careful we don’t kill D&D while trying to make it better.
WotC has stated they will work to improve OGL 2 and will continue to deauthorize OGL 1.0a for new content. That's the line in the sand that a lot of people didn't like (including myself) and honestly most everything else in their statements have been noise to try and cause people to be less mad about losing OGL 1.0a.
Their official moves have consistently been "We are changing part of what you're mad about but we will deauthorize OGL 1.0a". The only thing they've done that is arguably good is explicitly state that they won't go after old content that's still being printed. They have not stated that they will allow OGL 1.0a to be used to continue to publish content compatible with OGL 1.0a content.
I don't think this is a case where "We need to be careful we don’t kill D&D while trying to make it better." is a valid argument. WotC has straight up stated that they do not value the community around D&D insofar as they are unable to exert contractual control over the game system outputs. That + the lack of any transparency over future alterations (note they did not mention that they would remove the 30 days notice clause) mean that they currently are not acting in a trustworthy way. Bluntly the only thing wotc should do on friday when they release the new license is not include language deauthorizing the OGL 1.0a. If they do that? sure we can talk about the license. If they try to include language deauthorizing/revoking 1.0a? I'd argue that WotC is the one at risk of killing D&D (and arguably destabilizing tabletop in general for a good long time while things get resolved in court.)
Honestly, I think what will happen is that people just won't sign it and just ignore WotC and distribute under OGL 1.0
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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"Let's take a breath and wait and see." **ck no.
Per the community rules, please do not name & shame members of the community, living or dead. Some of us knew Gary, and don't have to rely on anonymous forum posters or consequence-free Reddit hit pieces to form an opinion about him.
Gygax wouldn't have released D&D under an open license, no. But TSR's famous litigiousness and its business woes both postdate his leaving the company over disagreements with a new majority owner. TSR under Gygax was more likely to be sued than to sue. Say what you will about him, he was a gamer first, and while his negative opinions about the OGL are known, his problems with it in no way suggest that he would have approved of Wizards' recent behavior.
https://web.archive.org/web/20121113190652/http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/news/2008/03/ff_gygax?currentPage=all
https://www.rpg.net/columns/advanced-designers-and-dragons/advanced-designers-and-dragons47.phtml
J
Great Wyrm Moonstone Dungeon Master
The time of the ORC has come. No OGL without irrevocability; no OGL with 'authorized version' language. #openDND
Practice, practice, practice • Respect the rules; don't memorize them • Be merciless, not cruel • Don't let the dice run the game for you
I'm pretty sure what you guys are quibbling about is that they acknowledged they cannot, retroactively, go after people who published things under the 1.0 OGL, even though they have 'deauthorized it'. They are saying that everything that has been made up till this point is safe using the 1.0 OGL - but they want to force people to not be able to use that 1.0 OGL in the future or be unable to continue making things going forward, and they want to require everyone to use this new, unfair OGL that they whipped up so that they can get royalties and more control over content ownership.
"Nothing will impact any content you have published under OGL 1.0a." - past tense. Have published. Is already completed.
Ergo; they're trying to say "Look guys, don't worry! We're not trying to go after what you already made, we just want you to abide by these NEW rules and restrictions, which are tooootally fair, trust us!" because they actually know that legally they can't remove the original 1.0 OGL; they know they can trick people into signing a NEW ogl, and if they can get anyone to do that, then they're stuck with that new OGL because they signed it. They also know they can make a 'new' game and put THAT game out with a new OGL, but they also know that if they do that we're legally allowed to stick with the original OGL and we all like 5e just fine. Which means that we'd just keep doing as we're doing, no cash cow for Wizards.
So they have to try and convince people that this new OGL is both legal in the court of public opinion [cuz I doubt they actually want to go to real court over it, it sounds like from all accounts they don't have a single legal leg to stand on and will lose mightily] and that people should use it because it's not that bad, and find a way to make it apply to 5e content. If they only applied the new OGL to the new one DND, we'd just never adopt the new One DND.
Soooo... "Trust me bro, i'm a Megacorp!"? scnr
Doooo deee doooo munch munch munch humm this pop corn need more butter.
So Gary Gygax crafted this game from his imagination he branded it sold it and at some time it just stopped being fun so he sold it. You are the crafters of your own fun as Gary was there is 4 decades content out there that a lot of people used to craft a campaign with. Dungeons and Dragons id a name of a brand like google when people want to say search it they simply say google it.
The Game is a genre it you simply stop connecting it to the brand D&D you can craft your own content. There are some that are going about making other brands of this type genre people who get laid off from one brand can always work for the up and coming brands and find they have new bosses that care about you and the game they love. They should have seen the brand they currently work for does not care so they should have their resumes ready to mail out and start looking for other competitors of their current employers.
anyways Gary did it with paper and an imagination you can dust of your first edition books and craft content you can make your own content and have a youtube and show it off you simply leave out saying a brand name. Do not sign a new contract that gives away your content if you are making a living off of the said content contact a lawyer and get your content copyrighted so a brand name cannot just use it in their sixth edition.
but don't mind me i am off to melt some butter for this popcorn. =P
And here I thought I was on my best behavior. BUT NO I got scolded and threatened with corner time. I guess we are not allowed to express our feelings or opinions on anything here. All hugs and kisses every body's special every one gets a ribbon that says 'Your a winner" Not here more then a week and I got naughty points twice. How many points do I get?
Once you've revealed yourself to be Darth Sidious, you can no longer go back to playing Emporer Palpatine.
As a reminder, we live in a capitalist society. It is not my responsibility to support the careers of WotC staff, that would be the executes. It is very unfortunate that some jobs may be lost due to this, but that is the nature of capitalism. Consumers vote with their wallets while companies rise and fall by their leaderships choices. Do not blame consumers for participating in the system we are forced to live under.
I'm not "shaming" anyone, I was quoting his own words from a 2004 interview he gave verbatim. And BladeGod's "he wasn't as great a guy as folk made him out to be" is extremely tame as criticism goes.
That seems abundantly clear to me as well, but that is their right until/unless a court decides otherwise.
Just remember, accepting anything other than OGL 1.0a as it is or a separate supplement firming up the anti-racist or discriminatory content is allowing WotC to bypass the "irrevocable" language in OGL 1.0a. This would allow them an easier time in the future completely revoking this new OGL for something similar to 1.1.
Man, comments like this remain utterly bonkers in a discussion surrounding D&D and really speak to the truth of the matter:
The folks raging on the forums right now, after both statements released on D&D Beyond, don't really give a damn about the OGL 1.1 or the rumors swirling out of a D&Dshort's bottom, it's a personal crusade of the various vices that define their own experience with WotC (or I guess LOLcapitalism) and this was just an excuse to let it rip.
All these supposed vanguards of D&D, TTRPGs or 3rd party creators are anything but.
This doesn't fix anything, it's not a legal document, just a blog post.
The main problem is that WoTC intended to withdraw an agreement that was perpetual. That is the first thing to understand.
If they had just made a new license for D&D One, and not touched OGL1.0a, none of this would have happened. They already did it with the GSL in 4e and no one complained. Only the shot backfired on them.
WoTC can make a license as restrictive as it wants. It's the ******* WoTC license. What they cannot do is unilaterally break an agreement that was forever. And that was the spark of the fire.
Then the fire got out of control. But the only one to blame is WoTC for trying to do something so unethical and probably illegal.
I mean. My crusade here is that ogl 1.0a was intended to be irrevocable and perpetual so wotc should stop trying to screw with it. I feel like I’ve made that clear and that is my line in the sand with any new OGL. I don’t actually care what is in the new OGL so long as they revoke/deauthorize/prevent use of 1.0a.
I'm sorry, what? I'm not claiming to be a vanguard for anything. I'm claiming to be a consumer of tabletop RPGs who has been playing, thus paying for, games like D&D for over 20 years. Hasbro/WotC are companies and they have been companies I was willing to support for a very long time. Once a company loses my faith and confidence I will not do business with them again, or at least it will take a monumental effort to get me back. Regardless, though, it is my, personal, goddamn decision on what I will support and for what reasons. The tabletop RPG community is far larger than D&D and I will happily continue to play and support other games and companies.
Just came to echo my friends above. There is only one way to make this right.
An irrevocable perpetual OGL 1.0a under which I can publish today and tomorrow. And that will never happen, I am sure of it.
I'm getting sick and tired of these people acting like any kind of moral stance or social activism is somehow pointless, because blah blah capitalism, blah blah boring dystopian quote. Like, I get it, maybe you aren't feeling particularly compelled right now to participate - that doesn't mean you need to go out of your way to discourage people from pushing for positive social change that they think is valuable for humanity at large. Get a more original take that isn't so middle school angst.
I think there needs to be a lot more voices like this. WoTC screwed up and turns out that they are people. They are working to correct it, what more could you want? I love DDB, I love D&D, and have since the early ‘80s. I play other games, but D&D will continue to be my primary game. This is starting to sound more like Cancel Culture than anything else. The same group of people that hate Nickleback because social media told them to and have never heard a song. Most people don’t even seem to have facts or the truth. Just spewing hate and misinformation. If we wanted the game to be better, people would be taking a different tack. We need to be careful we don’t kill D&D while trying to make it better.
You seem VERY invested in putting down anyone who is fighting to make the future of D&D better.
A lot of people have got an axe to grind with D&D over various behaviors including going into the activist space quite a bit and now entering full on corporate greed. So D&D has found a way to alienate old fans and the new fans as well, let alone social media that is why D&D became as successful as it did for 5E. Simply put, D&D should have stayed apolitical and kept normal business practices. They could have added new features and charged more for higher tier and they would have been fine, but then they had to do frankly some dirty business with the OGL and their customers are supposed to back them?
Other than the core rule books, there is nothing of worth to me that D&D puts out now. Almost every book I did buy in the last 3 years was a waste of money. I've went to 3rd party content creators over D&D's content policies and now D&D wants to be able to police 3rd party content for what they put out as well? No thank you.
I'm already moved over to Fantasy Grounds and prepping my group to leave D&D and go to Dungeon Crawl Classics. I still have the books, I can still play when I want and with whom I want. I don't need D&D Beyond, however D&D Beyond needs me and everyone else. Maybe D&D should go back about 5 years in behavior and we'll give them money again. I'm done though.
WotC has stated they will work to improve OGL 2 and will continue to deauthorize OGL 1.0a for new content. That's the line in the sand that a lot of people didn't like (including myself) and honestly most everything else in their statements have been noise to try and cause people to be less mad about losing OGL 1.0a.
Their official moves have consistently been "We are changing part of what you're mad about but we will deauthorize OGL 1.0a". The only thing they've done that is arguably good is explicitly state that they won't go after old content that's still being printed. They have not stated that they will allow OGL 1.0a to be used to continue to publish content compatible with OGL 1.0a content.
I don't think this is a case where "We need to be careful we don’t kill D&D while trying to make it better." is a valid argument. WotC has straight up stated that they do not value the community around D&D insofar as they are unable to exert contractual control over the game system outputs. That + the lack of any transparency over future alterations (note they did not mention that they would remove the 30 days notice clause) mean that they currently are not acting in a trustworthy way. Bluntly the only thing wotc should do on friday when they release the new license is not include language deauthorizing the OGL 1.0a. If they do that? sure we can talk about the license. If they try to include language deauthorizing/revoking 1.0a? I'd argue that WotC is the one at risk of killing D&D (and arguably destabilizing tabletop in general for a good long time while things get resolved in court.)
Honestly, I think what will happen is that people just won't sign it and just ignore WotC and distribute under OGL 1.0