>What isn’t permitted are features that don’t replicate your dining room table storytelling. If you replace yourimagination with an animation of the Magic Missile streaking across the board to strike your target, or your VTT integrates our content into an NFT, that’s not the tabletop experience. That’s more like a video game.
You need to clarify exactly what you're trying to ban, if, as you've explicitly written, you're banning animations and effects in a VTT that is not acceptable to the community and you need to walk that decision back on your final draft. I get that you dont want to give people a license to make a video game, but that bar needs to be way higher than animations and effects, you will not be banning foundry and talespire, make it work.
Where the line should be: WOTC should comply with their own VTT policy, any functionality in the first party unreal engine VTT should be allowed in third party VTTs, anything less is monopolistic and predatory.
>May I make my VTT Owlbear token look like the one from the Monster Manual? : No
Unacceptable, figure out a way for this to be allowed for non commercial purposes, we're already right clicking your images and using them, trying to ban this is dumb, you should even be the ones creating the tokens for us, make it work.
You need to address integration with D&D beyond using 3rd party VTTs, right now we're using extensions to scrape the website and integrate with VTTs, this needs to not only be explicitly allowed, but you need to create an API for developers to use to integrate D&D beyond character sheets with the VTTs, export of sheets to XML format for import into VTTs is also a needed feature.
You also need to address non SRD content, Use of purchased D&D beyond content in 3rd party VTTs is a requirement that you must allow, limiting people to the SRD is a non-starter, making us purchase it twice for use on the VTT is also not acceptable. The integration API in my previous comment would be perfect solution, allow us to log into DDB from within other VTTs to access purchased content.
I play DnD in 2023, so I will not accept banning animations, automations, dynamics fog of wars, etc. I'm sorry but, as I'm overall happier with this draft, you need to accept that in 2023 we use Foundry to launch magic missile.
You need to clarify exactly what you're trying to ban
I think first someone needs to sit them down and explain to them what a video game is and what a virtual table top is. An actual adult human being wrote "Where is the line between a VTT and a video game?" as though they were remotely the same. It's like saying you don't understand the difference between someone watching Netflix, and having a video chat on your phone. Sure, both things are digital and visual. Both can be entertaining. And that's... about as far as the similarities go.
And whoever wrote "your VTT integrates our content into an NFT" needs to be removed from the process. I get that NFT is still a big buzzword and a thing they have heard is bad, but just reading this says wotc has no idea what the heck they're talking about.
I think some of you folks seem to be confused about what this clause is really about. You see our buddies at WotC are planning on making a VTT that is very much a video game and they want to make sure that they have exclusive features you can't get anywhere else like spell animations and NFT scams. They want you to use your imagination everywhere else but when you're on their turf, they want you to use your wallet.
I think some of you folks seem to be confused about what this clause is really about. You see our buddies at WotC are planning on making a VTT that is very much a video game and they want to make sure that they have exclusive features you can't get anywhere else like spell animations and NFT scams. They want you to use your imagination everywhere else but when you're on their turf, they want you to use your wallet.
I think what you've said, and them not having any real idea what a VTT is or that an NFT is not another name for a character token, are not mutually exclusive. Given my own experience in large corporations, I think it's likely that you are right and that I am also right. Some exec somewhere heard some buzzwords and handed down a few pronouncements that the rank and file have to incorporate and when they floated things back up for approval before release, the exec changed some things to be utterly ridiculous and the people who do the actual work had to just let it stand.
Personal example: At my last corpo job I was responsible for creating directional documents that went to every store nationwide every month. One mid-level exec decided he didn't like how periods looked at the end of paragraphs so he started marking them for changes in his final review. When I didn't change it to incorrectly not end sentences with periods I got a stern talking to from four levels of management and endured snarky comments for months whenever I forgot to leave off the period at the end of the sentence. Of course a different exec, who knew this was wrong, would mark some of the paragraphs for me to put the periods back on at the end (but not all of them). So I got reamed out by both of them plus every layer of management between them and me every issue because some of the paragraphs had periods and some didn't, and they both thought they were right. It didn't matter which was actually right, just who saw it last. I was told to stop thinking and do what I was told, so after a few months of fruitlessly arguing about it, I just did that. And of course I got blamed by everyone else for it when people made comments and jokes at our expense. You would not believe the outrageous level of drama caused at all levels of the organization because of periods or lack of them.
This VTT policy smacks of the same stupidity to me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have a unique relationship with Lady Luck. She smiles on me often. Usually with derision. -- https://linktr.ee/aurhia
I don't understand, we use gunfire at the table to replicate magic missiles, and propane bombs for fireballs. Who are all the pansies playing with imagination in the first place?
Their section about what is banned is fundamentally flawed and is only designed so WotC can send arbitrary DMCA takedown notices.
Using the policy is that anything beyond what you have at a table top is fraught with vagueness that will cause unlimited issues. Let’s say my tabletop requires magic missile to have a little token that the player moves from their miniature to a monster token. That’s still our imagination, it’s no different than using miniatures (which are clearly allowed since they imply tokens are ok).
Now, let’s say I make that player say “pew pew” while moving that token across a map. Again, it’s just an imagination. Ok, now I make them play a sound on their phone that sounds vaguely the way you’d expect a missile the sound. It’s still all in my imagination.
Therefore, example they give is completely invalid. I have shown each aspect of what they call out as a “video game” is perfectly analogous to how a player can play today, using their imagination a table top.
How about fog of war? Personally, I put a piece of paper over the parts of the map I don’t want my players to see. Dark vision, I’ll give you that that is something you have to imagine but if I really really wanted to I could wear sunglasses while looking at the map.
Finally, they should have no right in specifying features that a VTT can implement. And this is what that policy does - not directly but effectively - as they are going after the creators that share VTT content.
The problem is, they want to create a VTT video game like experience but are afraid of competition. That isn’t the way things work - they should be focusing on making the better experience not restricting other experiences.
what distinguishes a VTT from a video game then? Video games automate the actions of nonplayer character’s. That’s the difference. If they want to make this policy reasonable, then it must prevent monsters from automatically making decisions as to what they should do without a DM’s decision making. For example, you could have a goblin. You can click a button that says move to nearest player. You can have a button that says do sword damage. What you can’t do is on the goblins initiative decide to do those actions automatically. That is what makes a game different than a tabletop role-playing experience.
In other words, you cannot automate the DM decisions. If they want to try that for their VTT let them - that can be there distinguishing feature.
We all know that WOTC is developing a VTT, if they don't want another massive backlash, they will focus on making the best VTT, not trying to shut down the competition with the licensing agreement or other legal maneuvers.
If you act against the other VTTs, it will be another colossal PR blunder, think about it, everyone who is currently playing on a VTT that loses features because of legal shenanigans will be angry at you for making the game they're currently playing in worse.
And all those functiona they claim a reason to deny a feature for D&D will still be used perfectly fine on other games(most already work for multiple systems), giving them another reason to to play those games instead.
Guys. Foundry will still be able to use animations. They'll just need a custom license with WotC for that functionality like roll20 has.
You mean like the license Foundry hasn't been able to get since it was released? The Foundry devs have stated publicly several times WotC has shown no interest in working with them to provide official content. Many foundry users would love to buy official WotC content. The reason we don't have it is because WotC has refused to license any VTT other than roll20 or FG. What we've seen empirically is that WotC doesn't want more VTT licensees. I certainly hope that policy changes but we've seen nothing indicating it will.
Imagine a game like Baldur's Gate 3. Now, what you do is you make it so 4-5-6 player can play it simultaneously, each controlling one character in the party - and you call it a VTT. Bam!
See? You see that, right? That would mean you could make a DND computer game completely license free, grab all that money for yourself and share nothing with poor old Hasbro. And to have any chance of that provision standing up in a court of law, they have draw the line somewhere. If it's wishy-washy in any way, they've just given away the ability to make money on licensed video games.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
>What isn’t permitted are features that don’t replicate your dining room table storytelling. If you replace your imagination with an animation of the Magic Missile streaking across the board to strike your target, or your VTT integrates our content into an NFT, that’s not the tabletop experience. That’s more like a video game.
You need to clarify exactly what you're trying to ban, if, as you've explicitly written, you're banning animations and effects in a VTT that is not acceptable to the community and you need to walk that decision back on your final draft. I get that you dont want to give people a license to make a video game, but that bar needs to be way higher than animations and effects, you will not be banning foundry and talespire, make it work.
Where the line should be: WOTC should comply with their own VTT policy, any functionality in the first party unreal engine VTT should be allowed in third party VTTs, anything less is monopolistic and predatory.
>May I make my VTT Owlbear token look like the one from the Monster Manual? : No
Unacceptable, figure out a way for this to be allowed for non commercial purposes, we're already right clicking your images and using them, trying to ban this is dumb, you should even be the ones creating the tokens for us, make it work.
You need to address integration with D&D beyond using 3rd party VTTs, right now we're using extensions to scrape the website and integrate with VTTs, this needs to not only be explicitly allowed, but you need to create an API for developers to use to integrate D&D beyond character sheets with the VTTs, export of sheets to XML format for import into VTTs is also a needed feature.
You also need to address non SRD content, Use of purchased D&D beyond content in 3rd party VTTs is a requirement that you must allow, limiting people to the SRD is a non-starter, making us purchase it twice for use on the VTT is also not acceptable. The integration API in my previous comment would be perfect solution, allow us to log into DDB from within other VTTs to access purchased content.
I play DnD in 2023, so I will not accept banning animations, automations, dynamics fog of wars, etc. I'm sorry but, as I'm overall happier with this draft, you need to accept that in 2023 we use Foundry to launch magic missile.
I think first someone needs to sit them down and explain to them what a video game is and what a virtual table top is. An actual adult human being wrote "Where is the line between a VTT and a video game?" as though they were remotely the same. It's like saying you don't understand the difference between someone watching Netflix, and having a video chat on your phone. Sure, both things are digital and visual. Both can be entertaining. And that's... about as far as the similarities go.
And whoever wrote "your VTT integrates our content into an NFT" needs to be removed from the process. I get that NFT is still a big buzzword and a thing they have heard is bad, but just reading this says wotc has no idea what the heck they're talking about.
I have a unique relationship with Lady Luck. She smiles on me often. Usually with derision.
--
https://linktr.ee/aurhia
Any VTT that tried to make an NFT will be laughed out of existence...
WotC... you weren't thinking actually adding NFTs to your VTT were you? Surely you company can't be THAT out of touch... oh right... the last month.
I think some of you folks seem to be confused about what this clause is really about. You see our buddies at WotC are planning on making a VTT that is very much a video game and they want to make sure that they have exclusive features you can't get anywhere else like spell animations and NFT scams. They want you to use your imagination everywhere else but when you're on their turf, they want you to use your wallet.
I think what you've said, and them not having any real idea what a VTT is or that an NFT is not another name for a character token, are not mutually exclusive. Given my own experience in large corporations, I think it's likely that you are right and that I am also right. Some exec somewhere heard some buzzwords and handed down a few pronouncements that the rank and file have to incorporate and when they floated things back up for approval before release, the exec changed some things to be utterly ridiculous and the people who do the actual work had to just let it stand.
Personal example: At my last corpo job I was responsible for creating directional documents that went to every store nationwide every month. One mid-level exec decided he didn't like how periods looked at the end of paragraphs so he started marking them for changes in his final review. When I didn't change it to incorrectly not end sentences with periods I got a stern talking to from four levels of management and endured snarky comments for months whenever I forgot to leave off the period at the end of the sentence. Of course a different exec, who knew this was wrong, would mark some of the paragraphs for me to put the periods back on at the end (but not all of them). So I got reamed out by both of them plus every layer of management between them and me every issue because some of the paragraphs had periods and some didn't, and they both thought they were right. It didn't matter which was actually right, just who saw it last. I was told to stop thinking and do what I was told, so after a few months of fruitlessly arguing about it, I just did that. And of course I got blamed by everyone else for it when people made comments and jokes at our expense. You would not believe the outrageous level of drama caused at all levels of the organization because of periods or lack of them.
This VTT policy smacks of the same stupidity to me.
I have a unique relationship with Lady Luck. She smiles on me often. Usually with derision.
--
https://linktr.ee/aurhia
I don't understand, we use gunfire at the table to replicate magic missiles, and propane bombs for fireballs. Who are all the pansies playing with imagination in the first place?
Their section about what is banned is fundamentally flawed and is only designed so WotC can send arbitrary DMCA takedown notices.
Using the policy is that anything beyond what you have at a table top is fraught with vagueness that will cause unlimited issues. Let’s say my tabletop requires magic missile to have a little token that the player moves from their miniature to a monster token. That’s still our imagination, it’s no different than using miniatures (which are clearly allowed since they imply tokens are ok).
Now, let’s say I make that player say “pew pew” while moving that token across a map. Again, it’s just an imagination. Ok, now I make them play a sound on their phone that sounds vaguely the way you’d expect a missile the sound. It’s still all in my imagination.
Therefore, example they give is completely invalid. I have shown each aspect of what they call out as a “video game” is perfectly analogous to how a player can play today, using their imagination a table top.
How about fog of war? Personally, I put a piece of paper over the parts of the map I don’t want my players to see. Dark vision, I’ll give you that that is something you have to imagine but if I really really wanted to I could wear sunglasses while looking at the map.
Finally, they should have no right in specifying features that a VTT can implement. And this is what that policy does - not directly but effectively - as they are going after the creators that share VTT content.
The problem is, they want to create a VTT video game like experience but are afraid of competition. That isn’t the way things work - they should be focusing on making the better experience not restricting other experiences.
what distinguishes a VTT from a video game then? Video games automate the actions of nonplayer character’s. That’s the difference. If they want to make this policy reasonable, then it must prevent monsters from automatically making decisions as to what they should do without a DM’s decision making. For example, you could have a goblin. You can click a button that says move to nearest player. You can have a button that says do sword damage. What you can’t do is on the goblins initiative decide to do those actions automatically. That is what makes a game different than a tabletop role-playing experience.
In other words, you cannot automate the DM decisions. If they want to try that for their VTT let them - that can be there distinguishing feature.
We all know that WOTC is developing a VTT, if they don't want another massive backlash, they will focus on making the best VTT, not trying to shut down the competition with the licensing agreement or other legal maneuvers.
If you act against the other VTTs, it will be another colossal PR blunder, think about it, everyone who is currently playing on a VTT that loses features because of legal shenanigans will be angry at you for making the game they're currently playing in worse.
Guys. Foundry will still be able to use animations. They'll just need a custom license with WotC for that functionality like roll20 has.
And all those functiona they claim a reason to deny a feature for D&D will still be used perfectly fine on other games(most already work for multiple systems), giving them another reason to to play those games instead.
Roman Candles make great magic missle props.
You mean like the license Foundry hasn't been able to get since it was released? The Foundry devs have stated publicly several times WotC has shown no interest in working with them to provide official content. Many foundry users would love to buy official WotC content. The reason we don't have it is because WotC has refused to license any VTT other than roll20 or FG. What we've seen empirically is that WotC doesn't want more VTT licensees. I certainly hope that policy changes but we've seen nothing indicating it will.
I see the concern, though. Don't you?
Imagine a game like Baldur's Gate 3. Now, what you do is you make it so 4-5-6 player can play it simultaneously, each controlling one character in the party - and you call it a VTT. Bam!
See? You see that, right? That would mean you could make a DND computer game completely license free, grab all that money for yourself and share nothing with poor old Hasbro. And to have any chance of that provision standing up in a court of law, they have draw the line somewhere. If it's wishy-washy in any way, they've just given away the ability to make money on licensed video games.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
The automations clauses must be denied. They are absurd. Or maybe they want the war to continue...