I have repeatedly acknowledged it is not impossible for WotC to abuse the license, but as they are dependent on the community’s now extremely diminished goodwill for their continued business, I don’t believe they will. Also, keep in mind that, crass as it may be to say it, this license is going to essentially be the only game in town for D&D going forwards for most 3PP’s; they might not all take it up from the outset but I think you overestimate how much hardline resistance there is.
I guess we will get to the "I told you so" phase in a few years.
I can only hope I won't be the one saying it, but I fear I will be.
I think it's a forgone conclusion at this point. My guess is they'll sink a couple hundred more mil into the new content and it will be great for about 18 months, when the video gamers find the next best thing and the TTRPG fanatics refuse to come back.
You know, sorta like DDO.
There is some good that will possible, MAYBE come of this. Someone else might create a game that replicates the success of the original and put it into an unbreakable license that will allow the ecosystem to flourish, even if D&D withers on the vine.
Y’all are getting a bit ahead of yourselves there. Personally I expect the new OGL to be finalized, ideally with some extra or revised language to allay the concerns people have floated, and life will go on.
Y’all are getting a bit ahead of yourselves there. Personally I expect the new OGL to be finalized, ideally with some extra or revised language to allay the concerns people have floated, and life will go on.
I have serious doubts on fears being allayed. At least in my case, I don't believe they will budge on the previous SRDs being left in peace and I think they'll hold fast on the VTT stuff because they haven't been able to figure out how to monetize the VTT if anyone else can compete (there are ways I doubt they'll consider them).
They have certain things they simply MUST do according to their plan and those things are incompatible with the minimum requirements by many of the naysayers. The changes required to allay the concerns are too big.
I hated having to cancel my sub, even though my time is spend playing playing OSR products about twice as much as 5E but I've still kept buying products to support them and to support the community.I hope I am wrong. but I'm just not hopeful common ground can be found. I don't see myself subscribing or buying product in the foreseeable future and I sadly think that any change of posture on WOTC part will require them to be losing money in a big way so I might not get the chance to support them before they tank. I'm NOT one of the NEVER AGAIN WOT$EE people but I do have other things I can spend my entertainment dollars on and some things are just not negotiable.
The reality is, both Hasbro and Paizo are for-profit corporations. They're not your friends, they're trying to make money. WotC stepped in it, and Paizo decided to release a PR stunt to capitalize on it. There's nothing wrong with that, but don't mistake it for any special good will on their part -- rather, they believe that damaging D&D will improve sales of Pathfinder. There's a distinct smell of astroturfing in some of the commentary going on.
I cancelled my Master-level sub in protest of the sneaky way they were doing things, but there was no impact to me from the changes. (If you weren't publishing, OGL doesn't mean diddly. This actually impacted hardly any players.) Now they're doing proper consultation, monetization is gone, license-back is gone, core rules will be creative commons... that's a lot of concessions. What little impact 1.1 would have had, 1.2 has none at all.
Now, after those changes, we're seeing the disingenuous actors who were actually just in this to hurl mud at WotC for being too woke, or wanted people to try their pet game, or were publishing their own content and didn't want royalties cutting into the bottom line.
I never thought they'd drop revenue sharing completely or put rules into Creative Commons to put creator's minds at rest. Anyone who wants to make something can just use the Creative Commons stuff and avoid the OGL if they want: "But CC doesn't cover everything in the SRD?!" So? I thought you were making valuable new content for 5e? What kind of low-rent, Wish version of 5e are you making if it falls apart because you can't reprint what a 5e elf is? Make your own freaking classes, monsters and spells. Look... I'll do one for you: Bear-owl. Bam. Nailed it.
As far as I'm concerned 1.2 is a total win. And now that's happened I have zero issue going back to a service I love
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I Cancelled my Master Tier Subscription January 12th 2023 because of "OGL" 1.1 - Resubscribed 28th of Jan, now the SRD is in CC-BY-4.0
"What little impact 1.1 would have had, 1.2 has none at all."
Sorry, but you're wrong here. The current 1.2 OGL if it went forward would kill off the current OGL, meaning everyone who's business currently relies on it to make their content would be forced to either stop making new content in the future or adapt to the new OGL - which can be revoked by any time by Wizards, so there's literally no security in it. If you watch DnD short's video you'll see a myriad of issues with the 1.2 OGL - the people who dislike it are not just 'bad faith actors' as you put it, they have real concerns and real issues with these proposed changes.
"I never thought they'd drop revenue sharing completely or put rules into Creative Commons to put creator's minds at rest."
Just because you never expected them to back down from their ridiculously greedy plan doesn't mean the rest of us should have that same mindset; they either put that stuff in and went ham making it insane (I've never seen a company ask for 25% of gross revenue, it just isn't done in a royalty contract) so that they could act like they're being so kind and generous by removing it (and you're falling for it) or they really did think that stuff was okay and reasonable and were going to try and get away with it. Either way you slice it it's not pretty.
"As far as I'm concerned 1.2 is a total win. And now that's happened I have zero issue going back to a service I love"
If you watch DnD short's video you'll see a myriad of issues
If I watched DnD short's video I'd have watched a DnD Shorts video and lost 10 IQ points. And honestly, I don't have that many to spare.
The current 1.2 OGL if it went forward would kill off the current OGL, meaning everyone who's business currently relies on it to make their content would be forced to either stop making new content in the future or adapt to the new OGL - which can be revoked by any time by Wizards
So make it under the CC license that WotC can't touch.
Just because you never expected them to back down from their ridiculously greedy plan doesn't mean the rest of us should have that same mindset
I don't recall saying you should? Have a good time protesting... whatever it is you've made up in your head.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I Cancelled my Master Tier Subscription January 12th 2023 because of "OGL" 1.1 - Resubscribed 28th of Jan, now the SRD is in CC-BY-4.0
So make it under the CC license that WotC can't touch.
The CC license only applies to 5e content. 3/3.5/OSR are still out in the cold.
1.2 also actively effects VTTs and actively enables WotC to revoke the license/change it whenever they’d like (the irrevocable is applied to content not the license. So they can put a stop to the license and you can’t strip it off your content)
That’s what making your voice heard via the survey is for, but I wouldn’t count on them drawing any hard lines; as people have said, that just invites bad actors to create an even bigger circus as they play “I’m not touching you” with the letter of the license. I don’t believe WotC is going to make frequent use of this option to suppress anything they don’t like, as that’s just going to alienate the community. But they want an option to quickly divorce themselves from actual hate content. I’m not saying the other uses are impossible, but I believe the past few weeks have ably demonstrated that such actions would go poorly for them
Again a matter of perspective. If Hasbro wants a clean cut, family friendly (as much as possible), more milquetoast product without even the slightest risk of any single thing blowing back on them whatsoever no matter what it does to fringe 3PPs then this is absolutely the safest route. Because any bigots won't bother but neither will more legit fringe 3PPs including (as far as I can tell) LGBTQ material. The mere act of making an appeals process will make only the racist trolls with the largest warchests bother and even then they'd probably lose their appeals anyway. This is a company that made over $5,000,000,000 in revenue in 2021 I think they can afford to cough up an appeals process for folks and add some clearer language. I would also hope that this appeals process, with sufficient independence and proper staffing, could help ensure that no matter what happens with WOTC leadership 6(f) will only apply to what they claim they intend to apply to it.
The question for me isn't what will they do in the future. The question is what this will do to 3PPs now and it's not good.
The “we want to be absolutely safe and inoffensive so we’ll water everything down with a firehose” creative content image is a strawman position. Most creative companies have been shifting to the left to one degree or another anymore with inclusion and representation being big talking points.
You are saying the quiet part out loud there.
This isn't about protecting the human dignity of those of us who are marginalized. It is about a soft totalitarianism that demands everyone fall in line with what one side thinks.
And you're misconstruing my point. Censorship is not a good look for any creators, particularly a major brand that has a massive spotlight on them now. WotC is already fighting one legal battle over someone attempting to use one of their products as a platform to spread hate speech via 3PP; they want an option to quickly nip that in the bud in the future. There's very little practical difference between this and the kind of content moderation you blithely agree to without even reviewing the terms on something like YouTube, Twitch, or any art hosting site. This, despite what the alarmist segment is claiming, is not some new and unprecedented provision; this is a very boilerplate inclusion for any company that is letting people post unreviewed works under their banner.
Wow the biggest worry back in my teen days playing D&D 1A was the bible thumpers.
My friends mother sent 5 of us to a Baptist class on how D&D was causing kids to turn to demonism and devil worship. Her son was the only baptist we were all good Catholic boys. Even out priest found the reaction a little over the top. He knew we did not actually worship demons or actually cast spells.
And before anyone cries about my being Catholic. We included anyone at our tables. At least three of our players were girls and we knew one young man was openly gay. We got along just fine. None of us understand the ism's going on today. Yes we still talk, we just no longer play D&D together. Too much real life.
We never noticed any ism's in the 3rd party content we played. And this was long before any OGL. We learned about trademarks and copyrights.
I cancelled my Master-level sub in protest of the sneaky way they were doing things, but there was no impact to me from the changes. (If you weren't publishing, OGL doesn't mean diddly. This actually impacted hardly any players.) Now they're doing proper consultation, monetization is gone, license-back is gone, core rules will be creative commons... that's a lot of concessions. What little impact 1.1 would have had, 1.2 has none at all.
Now, after those changes, we're seeing the disingenuous actors who were actually just in this to hurl mud at WotC for being too woke, or wanted people to try their pet game, or were publishing their own content and didn't want royalties cutting into the bottom line.
I never thought they'd drop revenue sharing completely or put rules into Creative Commons to put creator's minds at rest. Anyone who wants to make something can just use the Creative Commons stuff and avoid the OGL if they want: "But CC doesn't cover everything in the SRD?!" So? I thought you were making valuable new content for 5e? What kind of low-rent, Wish version of 5e are you making if it falls apart because you can't reprint what a 5e elf is? Make your own freaking classes, monsters and spells. Look... I'll do one for you: Bear-owl. Bam. Nailed it.
As far as I'm concerned 1.2 is a total win. And now that's happened I have zero issue going back to a service I love
I would recommend reading through the 1.2 draft very carefully. It is not nearly as benevolent as you think, and there are no protections against WOTC trying to bring back all the stuff you hated. As for the CC stuff, everything they released was purely game mechanics and already something they couldn't copyright or trademark anyways. This is not a total win. This is a baby step.
I don't know how anyone can trust WotC after they made a huge deal of adding 'irrevocable' to the OGL 1.2 but then redefined 'irrevocable' to mean until they release a new OGL whenever they want to change the rules again. That level of dishonest pandering should sicken everyone. Not to mention they removed the earlier Q&A on the original OGL from their website from 2004 in an attempt to rewrite history and refuse to acknowledge what the OGL stood for.
I cancelled my Master-level sub in protest of the sneaky way they were doing things, but there was no impact to me from the changes. (If you weren't publishing, OGL doesn't mean diddly. This actually impacted hardly any players.) Now they're doing proper consultation, monetization is gone, license-back is gone, core rules will be creative commons... that's a lot of concessions. What little impact 1.1 would have had, 1.2 has none at all.
Now, after those changes, we're seeing the disingenuous actors who were actually just in this to hurl mud at WotC for being too woke, or wanted people to try their pet game, or were publishing their own content and didn't want royalties cutting into the bottom line.
I never thought they'd drop revenue sharing completely or put rules into Creative Commons to put creator's minds at rest. Anyone who wants to make something can just use the Creative Commons stuff and avoid the OGL if they want: "But CC doesn't cover everything in the SRD?!" So? I thought you were making valuable new content for 5e? What kind of low-rent, Wish version of 5e are you making if it falls apart because you can't reprint what a 5e elf is? Make your own freaking classes, monsters and spells. Look... I'll do one for you: Bear-owl. Bam. Nailed it.
As far as I'm concerned 1.2 is a total win. And now that's happened I have zero issue going back to a service I love
I would recommend reading through the 1.2 draft very carefully. It is not nearly as benevolent as you think, and there are no protections against WOTC trying to bring back all the stuff you hated. As for the CC stuff, everything they released was purely game mechanics and already something they couldn't copyright or trademark anyways. This is not a total win. This is a baby step.
I would argue that they changed almost nothing. What they did change was rewording things to make it less obvious that they were prepared to confiscate your created content and provide you with a small negotiated settlement in return.
They're still killing off the old SRDs.
They are still trying your hands when challenging the ownership of your IP.
They are still moving forward with creating a monopoly in the VTT space.
All of these are unacceptable to me. Especially the draconian legal measures you have to agree with and retroactively shutting down an OGL that the said, or at least strongly implied, they would never rescind.
I don't know how anyone can trust WotC after they made a huge deal of adding 'irrevocable' to the OGL 1.2 but then redefined 'irrevocable' to mean until they release a new OGL whenever they want to change the rules again. That level of dishonest pandering should sicken everyone. Not to mention they removed the earlier Q&A on the original OGL from their website from 2004 in an attempt to rewrite history and refuse to acknowledge what the OGL stood for.
For me it is pretty easy. I don't trust corporations, I buy products because I want said product, not because of any false sense of trust.
ALL corporations have 1 motive and that is to make as much money as they can. They have PR teams to make them look good so people can "trust them" and believe that they have "your best interests at heart", but the reality is, they just want to make money. It is easier to do that if people think that there is more to it than that. If a company missteps (as WotC has) and the flow of money begins to slow, they alter course to renew the flow of money.
I trust that WotC (Hasbo) will do the thing that will get them the most money.
Disclaimer: Individuals within a corporation can very much be worthy of trust. I do not think the OGL 1.1 draft was a good thing nor am I completely sold on the 1.2 draft. I only want to get through all this as quickly as possible so that I can go back to more peaceful time on the forums where people yelled at each other about rules interpretations.
To me, many of the critics right now have become the Bible thumpers, citing their own 'Freedom for US / WotC are the DEVIL' scripture. "Corporations are evil! They want to control us and steal our SOULS!!!!"
There is reason to be sceptical, to question and criticize but the fanatical, evangelical reaction is taking it too far. And I think further than many of those ranting really understand
The difference here is that people are upset with WotC based on their actions and actual, tangible impacts - not based on faith or belief.
Seriously, WotC tried to sneakily force through 1.1 to the gross disadvantage of third parties and community - thats a thing that happened.
In no way is that similar to people trying to force spiritual beliefs on others. There's no equivalence.
Yeah all the people going to bat for WotC seem to be forgetting that...
Things were 100% fine? Like, 2 weeks ago?
All of this is because WotC decided to come in here and flip the table upside down, not us. Not the players. We're not just abruptly, for no reason at all, saying WotC is evil and the devil incarnate. We're saying that because of actions they chose to take that were duplicitous and greedy.
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Please tell me we’re not going to have another month of this. At this point I’d actually rather an alignment thread
Folks, the survey is up. There’s a link to it in the ogl post. Please go say what you need to say there, and let’s all move on with our lives
Rondonvolante0816
I have repeatedly acknowledged it is not impossible for WotC to abuse the license, but as they are dependent on the community’s now extremely diminished goodwill for their continued business, I don’t believe they will. Also, keep in mind that, crass as it may be to say it, this license is going to essentially be the only game in town for D&D going forwards for most 3PP’s; they might not all take it up from the outset but I think you overestimate how much hardline resistance there is.
Survey link is live on this page for those who need it:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1432-starting-the-ogl-playtest
I guess we will get to the "I told you so" phase in a few years.
I can only hope I won't be the one saying it, but I fear I will be.
I think it's a forgone conclusion at this point. My guess is they'll sink a couple hundred more mil into the new content and it will be great for about 18 months, when the video gamers find the next best thing and the TTRPG fanatics refuse to come back.
You know, sorta like DDO.
There is some good that will possible, MAYBE come of this. Someone else might create a game that replicates the success of the original and put it into an unbreakable license that will allow the ecosystem to flourish, even if D&D withers on the vine.
Y’all are getting a bit ahead of yourselves there. Personally I expect the new OGL to be finalized, ideally with some extra or revised language to allay the concerns people have floated, and life will go on.
I have serious doubts on fears being allayed. At least in my case, I don't believe they will budge on the previous SRDs being left in peace and I think they'll hold fast on the VTT stuff because they haven't been able to figure out how to monetize the VTT if anyone else can compete (there are ways I doubt they'll consider them).
They have certain things they simply MUST do according to their plan and those things are incompatible with the minimum requirements by many of the naysayers. The changes required to allay the concerns are too big.
I hated having to cancel my sub, even though my time is spend playing playing OSR products about twice as much as 5E but I've still kept buying products to support them and to support the community.I hope I am wrong. but I'm just not hopeful common ground can be found. I don't see myself subscribing or buying product in the foreseeable future and I sadly think that any change of posture on WOTC part will require them to be losing money in a big way so I might not get the chance to support them before they tank. I'm NOT one of the NEVER AGAIN WOT$EE people but I do have other things I can spend my entertainment dollars on and some things are just not negotiable.
The reality is, both Hasbro and Paizo are for-profit corporations. They're not your friends, they're trying to make money. WotC stepped in it, and Paizo decided to release a PR stunt to capitalize on it. There's nothing wrong with that, but don't mistake it for any special good will on their part -- rather, they believe that damaging D&D will improve sales of Pathfinder. There's a distinct smell of astroturfing in some of the commentary going on.
I cancelled my Master-level sub in protest of the sneaky way they were doing things, but there was no impact to me from the changes. (If you weren't publishing, OGL doesn't mean diddly. This actually impacted hardly any players.)
Now they're doing proper consultation, monetization is gone, license-back is gone, core rules will be creative commons... that's a lot of concessions. What little impact 1.1 would have had, 1.2 has none at all.
Now, after those changes, we're seeing the disingenuous actors who were actually just in this to hurl mud at WotC for being too woke, or wanted people to try their pet game, or were publishing their own content and didn't want royalties cutting into the bottom line.
I never thought they'd drop revenue sharing completely or put rules into Creative Commons to put creator's minds at rest. Anyone who wants to make something can just use the Creative Commons stuff and avoid the OGL if they want: "But CC doesn't cover everything in the SRD?!" So? I thought you were making valuable new content for 5e? What kind of low-rent, Wish version of 5e are you making if it falls apart because you can't reprint what a 5e elf is? Make your own freaking classes, monsters and spells. Look... I'll do one for you: Bear-owl. Bam. Nailed it.
As far as I'm concerned 1.2 is a total win.
And now that's happened I have zero issue going back to a service I love
I Cancelled my Master Tier Subscription January 12th 2023 because of "OGL" 1.1 - Resubscribed 28th of Jan, now the SRD is in CC-BY-4.0
"What little impact 1.1 would have had, 1.2 has none at all."
Sorry, but you're wrong here. The current 1.2 OGL if it went forward would kill off the current OGL, meaning everyone who's business currently relies on it to make their content would be forced to either stop making new content in the future or adapt to the new OGL - which can be revoked by any time by Wizards, so there's literally no security in it. If you watch DnD short's video you'll see a myriad of issues with the 1.2 OGL - the people who dislike it are not just 'bad faith actors' as you put it, they have real concerns and real issues with these proposed changes.
"I never thought they'd drop revenue sharing completely or put rules into Creative Commons to put creator's minds at rest."
Just because you never expected them to back down from their ridiculously greedy plan doesn't mean the rest of us should have that same mindset; they either put that stuff in and went ham making it insane (I've never seen a company ask for 25% of gross revenue, it just isn't done in a royalty contract) so that they could act like they're being so kind and generous by removing it (and you're falling for it) or they really did think that stuff was okay and reasonable and were going to try and get away with it. Either way you slice it it's not pretty.
"As far as I'm concerned 1.2 is a total win.
And now that's happened I have zero issue going back to a service I love"
I'm sure you'd have gotten there regardless.
If I watched DnD short's video I'd have watched a DnD Shorts video and lost 10 IQ points. And honestly, I don't have that many to spare.
So make it under the CC license that WotC can't touch.
I don't recall saying you should? Have a good time protesting... whatever it is you've made up in your head.
I Cancelled my Master Tier Subscription January 12th 2023 because of "OGL" 1.1 - Resubscribed 28th of Jan, now the SRD is in CC-BY-4.0
The CC license only applies to 5e content. 3/3.5/OSR are still out in the cold.
1.2 also actively effects VTTs and actively enables WotC to revoke the license/change it whenever they’d like (the irrevocable is applied to content not the license. So they can put a stop to the license and you can’t strip it off your content)
And you're misconstruing my point. Censorship is not a good look for any creators, particularly a major brand that has a massive spotlight on them now. WotC is already fighting one legal battle over someone attempting to use one of their products as a platform to spread hate speech via 3PP; they want an option to quickly nip that in the bud in the future. There's very little practical difference between this and the kind of content moderation you blithely agree to without even reviewing the terms on something like YouTube, Twitch, or any art hosting site. This, despite what the alarmist segment is claiming, is not some new and unprecedented provision; this is a very boilerplate inclusion for any company that is letting people post unreviewed works under their banner.
Wow the biggest worry back in my teen days playing D&D 1A was the bible thumpers.
My friends mother sent 5 of us to a Baptist class on how D&D was causing kids to turn to demonism and devil worship.
Her son was the only baptist we were all good Catholic boys. Even out priest found the reaction a little over the top. He knew we did not actually worship demons or actually cast spells.
And before anyone cries about my being Catholic. We included anyone at our tables. At least three of our players were girls and we knew one young man was openly gay. We got along just fine. None of us understand the ism's going on today. Yes we still talk, we just no longer play D&D together. Too much real life.
We never noticed any ism's in the 3rd party content we played. And this was long before any OGL. We learned about trademarks and copyrights.
I would recommend reading through the 1.2 draft very carefully. It is not nearly as benevolent as you think, and there are no protections against WOTC trying to bring back all the stuff you hated. As for the CC stuff, everything they released was purely game mechanics and already something they couldn't copyright or trademark anyways. This is not a total win. This is a baby step.
I don't know how anyone can trust WotC after they made a huge deal of adding 'irrevocable' to the OGL 1.2 but then redefined 'irrevocable' to mean until they release a new OGL whenever they want to change the rules again. That level of dishonest pandering should sicken everyone. Not to mention they removed the earlier Q&A on the original OGL from their website from 2004 in an attempt to rewrite history and refuse to acknowledge what the OGL stood for.
I would argue that they changed almost nothing. What they did change was rewording things to make it less obvious that they were prepared to confiscate your created content and provide you with a small negotiated settlement in return.
They're still killing off the old SRDs.
They are still trying your hands when challenging the ownership of your IP.
They are still moving forward with creating a monopoly in the VTT space.
All of these are unacceptable to me. Especially the draconian legal measures you have to agree with and retroactively shutting down an OGL that the said, or at least strongly implied, they would never rescind.
For me it is pretty easy. I don't trust corporations, I buy products because I want said product, not because of any false sense of trust.
ALL corporations have 1 motive and that is to make as much money as they can. They have PR teams to make them look good so people can "trust them" and believe that they have "your best interests at heart", but the reality is, they just want to make money. It is easier to do that if people think that there is more to it than that. If a company missteps (as WotC has) and the flow of money begins to slow, they alter course to renew the flow of money.
I trust that WotC (Hasbo) will do the thing that will get them the most money.
Disclaimer: Individuals within a corporation can very much be worthy of trust. I do not think the OGL 1.1 draft was a good thing nor am I completely sold on the 1.2 draft. I only want to get through all this as quickly as possible so that I can go back to more peaceful time on the forums where people yelled at each other about rules interpretations.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
The difference here is that people are upset with WotC based on their actions and actual, tangible impacts - not based on faith or belief.
Seriously, WotC tried to sneakily force through 1.1 to the gross disadvantage of third parties and community - thats a thing that happened.
In no way is that similar to people trying to force spiritual beliefs on others. There's no equivalence.
Yeah all the people going to bat for WotC seem to be forgetting that...
Things were 100% fine? Like, 2 weeks ago?
All of this is because WotC decided to come in here and flip the table upside down, not us. Not the players. We're not just abruptly, for no reason at all, saying WotC is evil and the devil incarnate. We're saying that because of actions they chose to take that were duplicitous and greedy.