Since you guys are generally against Wizards being able to protect their players, their IP, their employees, or anything else...let me ask you this. As a hypothetical.
Say you all got your wish, and 1.0a stayed authorized alongside 1.2 BUT!!! This came with a public, widely dispersed statement from Wizards of the Coast to the effect of:
"We are not de-authorizing OGL 1.0a, due to concerns raised by our community. However, going forward Wizards of the Coast intends to operate under OGL 1.2 where and as possible. We publicly disavow OGL 1.0a and all people and products associated with it. No OGL 1.0a product is considered to carry the endorsement or support of Wizards, no OGL 1.0a product will receive support of any kind from Wizards, material or otherwise. Businesses operating under OGL 1.0a will receive no support or offers of further business with Wizards of the Coast under that license and hereby, by using OGL 1.0a, publicly acknowledge and agree to indemnify Wizards against all negative results from their products and will agree not to contest Wizards' assertion that third-party products are uncontrolled and unable to be policed. OGL 1.0a products are considered 'At Own Risk' for both the product seller and the product purchaser, and we hereby reserve every possible right to throw your nasty ass to the ******* sharks and torpedo your business when you inevitably **** up and drag us into your bullshit."
Effectively, you can keep the dumb thing, but it becomes an orphan child Pariah License that is very publicly acknowledged as an inferior and unstable license unable to be associated with legitimate business or legitimate interests. It becomes the 'license' of pirates, hacks, nincomprods, extremists, evil hateful bigots, NFT grifters, and all the other bad actors y'all are championing who try to use D&D and the SRD for Evil, and when they inevitably do something awful Wizards is allowed to bring their full legal might down upon the offender without any censure or kickback from legal experts or The Community. Wizards would be allowed to periodically remind The Community that 1.0a is effectively a rogue license they do not endorse or operate anymore and anyone using it is doing so to the direct and immediate detriment of D&D.
Would that work for you folks? Getting to keep your license under the conditions that it becomes the catchbin for evil hateful untrustworthy bullshit nobody should be able to peddle in the first place?
Obviously Wizards isn't going to do this, because even such announcements would leave them vulnerable to having their IP destroyed by bad actors using D&D to peddle their hatred. But I'm curious what people who think 1.0a should be left in place even if 1.2 goes live think, since that stance is utter madness and completely misses the entire point of this whole fiasco.
My question for 1.0a die-hards is what about it they even like so much. Completely disregarding the issues with the proposed new versions, if there exists a hypothetical new and objectively better license, why should anyone care about deprecating 1.0a?
This question is predicated on the false belief that 1.0a is in anyway a broken license. The excuse that vile content exists is a straw-man argument. In reality very little objectionable, content exists, and that content does exist, is already publicly, called out and shamed by the vast majority of the community.
I suspect we all know exactly what content I refer to there - and in fact that continent is the pariah in the community.
There’s nothing now that stops wizards from publicly denouncing that sort of content. They likewise they can put legitimate pressure on the market places (especially drive-through, and DM guild) voluntarily not accept that sort of content.
No, the argument that 1.0a must change to improve inclusivity or prevent hate, racism, sexism is just a smokescreen designed a mask, their desire for control over the VTT market. It’s about money, not brand. It was about brand they never would’ve brought out any licensing change.
I suspect we all know exactly what content I refer to there - and in fact that continent is the pariah in the community.
And the funny part is, that content doesn't even use the OGL 1.0A.
This is a straw man argument. Leaving 1.0A alone will do none of the things OP says it will, it hasn't done so in the last 22 years, and that certainly would have been possible fot it to do this. So, I vote yes. Because what OP says will happen won't happen.
Since you guys are generally against Wizards being able to protect their players, their IP, their employees, or anything else...let me ask you this. As a hypothetical.
Say you all got your wish, and 1.0a stayed authorized alongside 1.2 BUT!!! This came with a public, widely dispersed statement from Wizards of the Coast to the effect of:
"We are not de-authorizing OGL 1.0a, due to concerns raised by our community. However, going forward Wizards of the Coast intends to operate under OGL 1.2 where and as possible. We publicly disavow OGL 1.0a and all people and products associated with it. No OGL 1.0a product is considered to carry the endorsement or support of Wizards, no OGL 1.0a product will receive support of any kind from Wizards, material or otherwise. Businesses operating under OGL 1.0a will receive no support or offers of further business with Wizards of the Coast under that license and hereby, by using OGL 1.0a, publicly acknowledge and agree to indemnify Wizards against all negative results from their products and will agree not to contest Wizards' assertion that third-party products are uncontrolled and unable to be policed. OGL 1.0a products are considered 'At Own Risk' for both the product seller and the product purchaser, and we hereby reserve every possible right to throw your nasty ass to the ****ing sharks and torpedo your business when you inevitably **** up and drag us into your bullshit."
Effectively, you can keep the dumb thing, but it becomes an orphan child Pariah License that is very publicly acknowledged as an inferior and unstable license unable to be associated with legitimate business or legitimate interests. It becomes the 'license' of pirates, hacks, nincomprods, extremists, evil hateful bigots, NFT grifters, and all the other bad actors y'all are championing who try to use D&D and the SRD for Evil, and when they inevitably do something awful Wizards is allowed to bring their full legal might down upon the offender without any censure or kickback from legal experts or The Community. Wizards would be allowed to periodically remind The Community that 1.0a is effectively a rogue license they do not endorse or operate anymore and anyone using it is doing so to the direct and immediate detriment of D&D.
Would that work for you folks? Getting to keep your license under the conditions that it becomes the catchbin for evil hateful untrustworthy bullshit nobody should be able to peddle in the first place?
Obviously Wizards isn't going to do this, because even such announcements would leave them vulnerable to having their IP destroyed by bad actors using D&D to peddle their hatred. But I'm curious what people who think 1.0a should be left in place even if 1.2 goes live think, since that stance is utter madness and completely misses the entire point of this whole fiasco.
You have a very strange definition of "inferior". The marketplace will determine if 1.0a is the superior license regardless of what WotC or anyone else puts out. Just like the marketplace will determine if OneDND is better or worse than its predecessors or competition.
My question for 1.0a die-hards is what about it they even like so much. Completely disregarding the issues with the proposed new versions, if there exists a hypothetical new and objectively better license, why should anyone care about deprecating 1.0a?
I'd counter that with another question:
If the new license is objectively better, why would you need to deprecate the previous one? Folks can just and are likely to choose the new one because it's better, not because you're telling them 'you have to'. (there is no requirement for them to 'deprecate' a previous version of the license in order to make a new one in the same respect that CC3.0-BY-NC getting updated to CC3.1-BY-NC doesn't 'require you to deprecate' CC3.0-NC. They're different licenses; you can just choose between them.)
Given how many people are shouting that the only acceptable thing WotC could do is to not touch 1.0a at all, "folks are likely to choose the new one because it's better" has a massive "citation needed" attached. This is the thrust of my question: what makes the current license so perfect that such people would refuse something better?
e: Also I'll point out a lot of this is historical context. 1.0a was created so that the 'WE WILL SUE YOU' legacy of TSR could be dust-binned so that third party publishers would be willing to make content for WotC's D&D system (and just for systems generally that ran on the 'D20 System') and there's no way they would 'buy that they've turned over a new leaf' without something like the OGL being put up. By same respect, overturning that same license sends the very strong message of 'WE WILL SUE YOU --- AGAIN!'
Sure, unless that old license were replaced with something that still says "we won't sue you." If that were the case, then interpreting it as "WE WILL SUE YOU --- AGAIN!" would be really silly.
This question is predicated on the false belief that 1.0a is in anyway a broken license. The excuse that vile content exists is a straw-man argument. In reality very little objectionable, content exists, and that content does exist, is already publicly, called out and shamed by the vast majority of the community.
The potential issue here is not that the community will blame them, but the market at large. Hasbro and WotC presumably want to grow their market, which means reaching out to those outside of the community. given the stigma these games have faced in the past (satanic panic, racism in the game), do you think they want to have to defend themselves in perpetuity to the general market who don't know the relationships at work here?
I suspect we all know exactly what content I refer to there - and in fact that continent is the pariah in the community.
There’s nothing now that stops wizards from publicly denouncing that sort of content. They likewise they can put legitimate pressure on the market places (especially drive-through, and DM guild) voluntarily not accept that sort of content.
No, the argument that 1.0a must change to improve inclusivity or prevent hate, racism, sexism is just a smokescreen designed a mask, their desire for control over the VTT market. It’s about money, not brand. It was about brand they never would’ve brought out any licensing change.
the lack of verbiage on VTT and other modern gameplay developments is reason enough to vacate using the 1.0a by itself. Of course they want control over their IPs usage in new markets that didn't exist at the time of 1.0a's writing. Especially for a market that straddles the line between Table play (OGL covered) and video game (non-OGL covered). That, since the 1.0a cannot be effectively amended, is a crucial gap in their licensing contracts. You may not like the current policy, but it is not a sin on the part of the company for them to want to regulate the use of their IP in any media format, tabletop, VTT, or videogame/film.
Also, they absolutely can (and do) want both. they aren't hiding one behind the other here
My question for 1.0a die-hards is what about it they even like so much. Completely disregarding the issues with the proposed new versions, if there exists a hypothetical new and objectively better license, why should anyone care about deprecating 1.0a?
I'd counter that with another question:
If the new license is objectively better, why would you need to deprecate the previous one? Folks can just and are likely to choose the new one because it's better, not because you're telling them 'you have to'. (there is no requirement for them to 'deprecate' a previous version of the license in order to make a new one in the same respect that CC3.0-BY-NC getting updated to CC3.1-BY-NC doesn't 'require you to deprecate' CC3.0-NC. They're different licenses; you can just choose between them.)
e: Also I'll point out a lot of this is historical context. 1.0a was created so that the 'WE WILL SUE YOU' legacy of TSR could be dust-binned so that third party publishers would be willing to make content for WotC's D&D system and there's no way they would 'buy that they've turned over a new leaf' without something like the OGL being put up. By same respect, overturning that same license sends the very strong message of 'WE WILL SUE YOU --- AGAIN!'
This is an easy question: Because 1.0 gives racists and other bigots a shield.
1.2 is objectively better in every significant regard - it doesn’t look like it was written by a high school student pretending to be a lawyer, it clearly spells out what the terms mean, and it gives folks the ability to use one of Wizards’ very valuable trademarks to signify the content works with D&D.
But all the things that make it better legally make it worse if you want to take Wizards’ intellectual property and twist their property into something bigoted - all that ambiguity, all that amateur writing of 1.0 becomes your friend and could be enough to confuse the issue if you went before a Court.
Which is why Wizards doesn’t want it out there for anyone to accept and use moving forward - you don’t let people à la carte choose if they want “the bad option that makes things worse for everyone” instead of the current version.
I don't see any problem with that, frankly. WoTC has already lived with more than one license in the past, some more restrictive than others.
For example, in the 2000s, there was the OGL 1.0a and the D20 license (a purely commercial license, much more restrictive than the OGL but with more advantages as well). And, oh surprise, a lot more content was published under the D20 license than under just the OGL (at the end of the 2000s things changed and a lot of content began to be published under the OGL but outside of D20 license. And the final turn came with the release of 4e, the GSL and PAIZO dominating the market).
In any case, there is no problem with two licenses coexisting. However, the existence of OGL 1.0a is a business issue for WoTC, and goes against its monetization strategy. That's the whole problem. It's not because of the hateful content. It is not the defense per se of intellectual property. It is that it gets in the way of the monetization and capitalization strategy for a future sale (the latter is totally my assumption. But although I have no proof, I have no doubts. But I repeat that it is my assumption, not information).
My assumption is that people want 1.0a for one (or both) of precisely two reasons:
1.) "You promised! You promised!" I.e. Wizards said twenty years ago that they would operate under these terms and people take that to mean the market cannot grow, change, evolve, or in any other way transform around D&D and Wizards MUST stick to those terms EXCLUSIVELY FOREVER, no matter how bad that turns out to be for D&D. The Promise(C) is more important than any other reality surrounding this whole fracas, and people will ride that promise into an early, fiery grave if that's what it takes to Hold Wizards Accountable(TM). It doesn't matter if Wizards is trying to offer a provably better deal, it doesn't matter if the new license is equivalent-or-better to the older one, it doesn't matter that the old license is causing all sorts of issues - literally the only thing that matters is Wizards Promised(P) and that is that.
2.) "OGL 1.0a lets us get away with shady questionably sketchy shit and 1.2's trying to stop us! Wizards doesn't get to decide what constitutes Sketchy Shit, we deserve to be able to do whatever we want no matter how sketchy it is!" Which doesn't need explanation, really. It's the same argument we've had from hundreds of people on these forums for the past three years - people want to be explicitly endorsed by Wizards for being evil hateful bigots and Wizards would rather not endorse that. I'm not inclined to ever let that argument slide, no matter how people try to dismiss it as a 'smokescreen'.
And that's it. One (or both) of those two reasons is the stance taken by actually factually every single proponent of abandoning 1.2 and the efforts to craft a newer, better license in favor of championing 1.0a. There is no other justification.
My question for 1.0a die-hards is what about it they even like so much. Completely disregarding the issues with the proposed new versions, if there exists a hypothetical new and objectively better license, why should anyone care about deprecating 1.0a?
I'd counter that with another question:
If the new license is objectively better, why would you need to deprecate the previous one? Folks can just and are likely to choose the new one because it's better, not because you're telling them 'you have to'. (there is no requirement for them to 'deprecate' a previous version of the license in order to make a new one in the same respect that CC3.0-BY-NC getting updated to CC3.1-BY-NC doesn't 'require you to deprecate' CC3.0-NC. They're different licenses; you can just choose between them.)
Given how many people are shouting that the only acceptable thing WotC could do is to not touch 1.0a at all, "folks are likely to choose the new one because it's better" has a massive "citation needed" attached. This is the thrust of my question: what makes the current license so perfect that such people would refuse something better?
e: Also I'll point out a lot of this is historical context. 1.0a was created so that the 'WE WILL SUE YOU' legacy of TSR could be dust-binned so that third party publishers would be willing to make content for WotC's D&D system (and just for systems generally that ran on the 'D20 System') and there's no way they would 'buy that they've turned over a new leaf' without something like the OGL being put up. By same respect, overturning that same license sends the very strong message of 'WE WILL SUE YOU --- AGAIN!'
Sure, unless that old license were replaced with something that still says "we won't sue you." If that were the case, then interpreting it as "WE WILL SUE YOU --- AGAIN!" would be really silly.
You're right!
Almost as silly as a corporation putting out PR pieces saying 'we never lied' and 'that didn't happen' over matters which folks who were given opportunities and eyes on to what they were doing confirmed they lied and that happened. Taking some folksy 'oh we rolled a one, we love D&D so much, we just want it to be like the tabletop in your dining room' tone as serious because 'the tone is so down-to-earth and humble!' just means you're buying their bait.
PR is 99% spin on a good day. The OGL is a contract...guess which one is enforceable in a court of law?
If they want folks to believe they won't sue them, their first objective is to stop lying and gaslighting folks. They have no intention of doing so. Trusting a con-artist to sell you 'a good deal' is really silly.
Do you think the 3PP are pillars of honesty? I hate to use a "whaddabout..." here but I don't know of a company who won't bend the truth to make themselves look better from time to time. they were technically correct in their language, but technically correct is not good PR when the common usage of words like "draft" varies from the technical. But to continually pile on that after multiple additional developments (including new actual language to review) is overly reductive.
e: As for 'why would folks be so against 1.0a going down if a new license that's better shows up'
Because killing 1.0a when 1.1 was leaked and 1.2/2.0 confirms their intentions on said license demonstrates that folks do not want the new license. They would subscribe to a new license that was better if they were given option to do so.
Of course they (being 3PPs) don't, because it has given them wide latitude to do whatever the heck they want for 20+ years! But a permissive OGL is not necessarily a good OGL, especially when it comes to allowing content that could harm members of the community or public and open the IP owner to liability and reputational harm.
Instead, this is like being on Windows 10 and then Microsoft says 'we're upgrading you to Windows 12 which is now a monthly subscription' and saying 'we know we said you were sold a license we would never revoke, but the times have changed and Linux has gotten big enough to threaten us, so jog off I guess because we're doing this -- oh but if you're unhappy please be sure to shout directly into our round filing bin rather than on social media, thanks'.
Microsoft and every other major technology corporation always allows themselves to modify licenses at any time...the OGL 1.0a is a freaking unicorn in that regard, but it also never said it was irrevokable. Even if the writer said that was it's intent, it has to say so for it to be true, and it doesn't.
My question for 1.0a die-hards is what about it they even like so much. Completely disregarding the issues with the proposed new versions, if there exists a hypothetical new and objectively better license, why should anyone care about deprecating 1.0a?
I'd counter that with another question:
If the new license is objectively better, why would you need to deprecate the previous one? Folks can just and are likely to choose the new one because it's better, not because you're telling them 'you have to'. (there is no requirement for them to 'deprecate' a previous version of the license in order to make a new one in the same respect that CC3.0-BY-NC getting updated to CC3.1-BY-NC doesn't 'require you to deprecate' CC3.0-NC. They're different licenses; you can just choose between them.)
e: Also I'll point out a lot of this is historical context. 1.0a was created so that the 'WE WILL SUE YOU' legacy of TSR could be dust-binned so that third party publishers would be willing to make content for WotC's D&D system and there's no way they would 'buy that they've turned over a new leaf' without something like the OGL being put up. By same respect, overturning that same license sends the very strong message of 'WE WILL SUE YOU --- AGAIN!'
This is an easy question: Because 1.0 gives racists and other bigots a shield.
1.2 is objectively better in every significant regard - it doesn’t look like it was written by a high school student pretending to be a lawyer, it clearly spells out what the terms mean, and it gives folks the ability to use one of Wizards’ very valuable trademarks to signify the content works with D&D.
But all the things that make it better legally make it worse if you want to take Wizards’ intellectual property and twist their property into something bigoted - all that ambiguity, all that amateur writing of 1.0 becomes your friend and could be enough to confuse the issue if you went before a Court.
Which is why Wizards doesn’t want it out there for anyone to accept and use moving forward - you don’t let people à la carte choose if they want “the bad option that makes things worse for everyone” instead of the current version.
1.0 does not provide a shield, at all. You keep harping on this point, pointlessly I might add, but it has no bearing in the discussion. WotC is NOT LIABLE for the WORKS OF OTHERS.
Meanwhile you also apparently have no idea what a lawyer does or does not do. OGL 1.0a was put out by an established, reputable lawyer who had been employed by WotC previously, and your constant libelous attacks on that person could have consequence.
WotC will end up in court for tortious interference at the very least if they try to assert that they have any right to "de-authorize" OGL 1.0a, and the most likely result will be they lose that case.
... 1) Trust that the community will oust those who need to be ousted as it has done for 22 years ...
Except "The Community " has explicitly, provably, and verifiably Not Done That Thing. I know all the 1.0a diehards are people who've never engaged with the DDB community and are here specifically to piss in everybody's corn flakes and make sure nothing happens to 1.0a no matter how bad that turns out for people, but racism is a huge problem in this forum. We are constantly having to deal with fresh threads from new people trying to protest Wizards' measures to reduce hateful content in their game and trying to push against it. Every third time I turn around there's some new gobshyte "Wizards is Killing LORE!" thread where some jackwaffle is protesting that orcs being evil and PCs indulging in goblin genocide never hurt nobody ever and we should all stop trying to "woke-ify" D&D. It's gotten to the point where the mods have to step in on every thread and remind people that denying other people's pain and problems is no longer permitted in DDB, and we still get the "you're just a woke ****in' liar!" posts in most of these threads.
And not a damn ******* soul outside of a dozen or so folks on this forum and some overworked mods that have to ever does a single god damned thing about it. And those dozen-odd folks constantly get called absolutely horrid shit for daring to speak up against the active celebration of flagrant racism in D&D.
Where've you been for all those threads, good sir? Where was your united community effort to oust Evil Hateful Shit for the three years we've had to fight this constant goddamned brush war against Evil Hateful Shit in our own house?
Nah. I don't trust "The Community" to do jack monkey squat about hateful content. I was proud of us as a community for 'bout ninety seconds when I read the first Wizards response and their pullback on the most objectionable elements of 1.2...then I was reminded that oh yeah, everything sucks here as people immediately started eating each other alive over it.
1.0 does not provide a shield, at all. You keep harping on this point, pointlessly I might add, but it has no bearing in the discussion. WotC is NOT LIABLE for the WORKS OF OTHERS.
Meanwhile you also apparently have no idea what a lawyer does or does not do. OGL 1.0a was put out by an established, reputable lawyer who had been employed by WotC previously, and your constant libelous attacks on that person could have consequence.
WotC will end up in court for tortious interference at the very least if they try to assert that they have any right to "de-authorize" OGL 1.0a, and the most likely result will be they lose that case.
Sigh. The literal point of a licensing agreement is to provide a shield - it says “I know I own this intellectual property, but I am going to let you use it for your purposes, and I can’t sue you over your use.” That is explicitly the point - to allow person A to use person B’s property and be shielded from person B getting upset about that.
And, while Wizards might not be liable for third party content, they are still accountable for it. They are the ones who are letting another use their platform—which means, to an extent, they are empowering them. It might not mean they are liable in a court, but accountable in the court of public opinion? Likely. “Bigots release product for D&D under Wizards’ license” is a pretty bad headline, even if it is not entirely fair to Wizards.
The rest of your post gave me a good chuckle though, so I appreciated that!
My assumption is that people want 1.0a for one (or both) of precisely two reasons:
1.) "You promised! You promised!" I.e. Wizards said twenty years ago that they would operate under these terms and people take that to mean the market cannot grow, change, evolve, or in any other way transform around D&D and Wizards MUST stick to those terms EXCLUSIVELY FOREVER, no matter how bad that turns out to be for D&D. The Promise(C) is more important than any other reality surrounding this whole fracas, and people will ride that promise into an early, fiery grave if that's what it takes to Hold Wizards Accountable(TM). It doesn't matter if Wizards is trying to offer a provably better deal, it doesn't matter if the new license is equivalent-or-better to the older one, it doesn't matter that the old license is causing all sorts of issues - literally the only thing that matters is Wizards Promised(P) and that is that.
2.) "OGL 1.0a lets us get away with shady questionably sketchy shit and 1.2's trying to stop us! Wizards doesn't get to decide what constitutes Sketchy Shit, we deserve to be able to do whatever we want no matter how sketchy it is!" Which doesn't need explanation, really. It's the same argument we've had from hundreds of people on these forums for the past three years - people want to be explicitly endorsed by Wizards for being evil hateful bigots and Wizards would rather not endorse that. I'm not inclined to ever let that argument slide, no matter how people try to dismiss it as a 'smokescreen'.
And that's it. One (or both) of those two reasons is the stance taken by actually factually every single proponent of abandoning 1.2 and the efforts to craft a newer, better license in favor of championing 1.0a. There is no other justification.
Do you honestly think that 1.2 is a better license for the D&D ecosystem than 1.0a? Not that it can be better, everything can be improved. If not right now, as laid out in the draft, it's a better license. That it will lead to the publication of more and better material for D&D, or cheaper, or more accessible, or whatever. Do you really think that the hobby will be better with 1.2?
Until yesterday I thought they were going to try to do things better. That they had realized what the fans were asking for. But 1.2 is just as abusive as 1.1. It's actually the same license, just with sweeter words.
And you know what I think now? They have no intention of improving anything. That this draft is so terrible that later, in a future version, they remove everything that obviously nobody is going to like. And they'll say "Hey, we heard you." But in reality, the main lines of 1.1 will continue there. And that this is going to be terrible for the fans.
That's why I want to keep 1.0a. Because it is a refuge for what is to come. And because I haven't seen what ORC is going to offer yet, and frankly I don't trust PAIZO either. The 1.0a has been with us for 22 years, and it has been good for the fans. What is to come, we'll see. But it doesn't look good seeing what 1.2 proposes. That's my honest opinion, and I hope I'm wrong.
My assumption is that people want 1.0a for one (or both) of precisely two reasons:
1.) "You promised! You promised!" I.e. Wizards said twenty years ago that they would operate under these terms and people take that to mean the market cannot grow, change, evolve, or in any other way transform around D&D and Wizards MUST stick to those terms EXCLUSIVELY FOREVER, no matter how bad that turns out to be for D&D. The Promise(C) is more important than any other reality surrounding this whole fracas, and people will ride that promise into an early, fiery grave if that's what it takes to Hold Wizards Accountable(TM). It doesn't matter if Wizards is trying to offer a provably better deal, it doesn't matter if the new license is equivalent-or-better to the older one, it doesn't matter that the old license is causing all sorts of issues - literally the only thing that matters is Wizards Promised(P) and that is that.
And that's it. One (or both) of those two reasons is the stance taken by actually factually every single proponent of abandoning 1.2 and the efforts to craft a newer, better license in favor of championing 1.0a. There is no other justification.
Then they should include the 3.0 SRD and the 3.5 SRD which are both under 1.0a. They should state explicitly that 1.0a products are not being orphaned. They should state explicitly that they aren’t trying to force people onto a revocable license (note that this license is only irrevocable with respect to published content. They reserve the right to revoke it later).
Please don’t try to reduce the argument to “I wanna pirate things” vs “the new license prevents hate speech”. That’s a very dishonest simplification of the problem.
Bluntly this license is targeted at 3rd party publishers still using 3.0/3.5 mechanics (like the OSR revival), VTTs and any other company that used ogl 1.0a to publish non-DnD content (generally because it was the most permissive available license at the time and they didn’t want to hire their own lawyer. Well and because wotc told them they could use it like that).
Fine. There. The line that bothers you so much is gone from my signature. You clearly misunderstood its purpose in the first place, but nevertheless it's gone.
Now. Are you gonna stop calling me out and making personal digs at me over it? Your umbrage with my delivery is noted but irrelevant, I will be as colorful and fiery as I like until told by forum staff to do otherwise. This place has been an incendiary hellscape the last couple of weeks, do pardon me if I'm not feeling very charitable towards the deluge of Jamie-come-latelies who've never bothered engaging with the community before a day in their damn life trotting out of the weeds to tell me and mine we're horrible people for wanting to play some god damned D&D.
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Since you guys are generally against Wizards being able to protect their players, their IP, their employees, or anything else...let me ask you this. As a hypothetical.
Say you all got your wish, and 1.0a stayed authorized alongside 1.2 BUT!!! This came with a public, widely dispersed statement from Wizards of the Coast to the effect of:
"We are not de-authorizing OGL 1.0a, due to concerns raised by our community. However, going forward Wizards of the Coast intends to operate under OGL 1.2 where and as possible. We publicly disavow OGL 1.0a and all people and products associated with it. No OGL 1.0a product is considered to carry the endorsement or support of Wizards, no OGL 1.0a product will receive support of any kind from Wizards, material or otherwise. Businesses operating under OGL 1.0a will receive no support or offers of further business with Wizards of the Coast under that license and hereby, by using OGL 1.0a, publicly acknowledge and agree to indemnify Wizards against all negative results from their products and will agree not to contest Wizards' assertion that third-party products are uncontrolled and unable to be policed. OGL 1.0a products are considered 'At Own Risk' for both the product seller and the product purchaser, and we hereby reserve every possible right to throw your nasty ass to the ******* sharks and torpedo your business when you inevitably **** up and drag us into your bullshit."
Effectively, you can keep the dumb thing, but it becomes an orphan child Pariah License that is very publicly acknowledged as an inferior and unstable license unable to be associated with legitimate business or legitimate interests. It becomes the 'license' of pirates, hacks, nincomprods, extremists, evil hateful bigots, NFT grifters, and all the other bad actors y'all are championing who try to use D&D and the SRD for Evil, and when they inevitably do something awful Wizards is allowed to bring their full legal might down upon the offender without any censure or kickback from legal experts or The Community. Wizards would be allowed to periodically remind The Community that 1.0a is effectively a rogue license they do not endorse or operate anymore and anyone using it is doing so to the direct and immediate detriment of D&D.
Would that work for you folks? Getting to keep your license under the conditions that it becomes the catchbin for evil hateful untrustworthy bullshit nobody should be able to peddle in the first place?
Obviously Wizards isn't going to do this, because even such announcements would leave them vulnerable to having their IP destroyed by bad actors using D&D to peddle their hatred. But I'm curious what people who think 1.0a should be left in place even if 1.2 goes live think, since that stance is utter madness and completely misses the entire point of this whole fiasco.
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My question for 1.0a die-hards is what about it they even like so much. Completely disregarding the issues with the proposed new versions, if there exists a hypothetical new and objectively better license, why should anyone care about deprecating 1.0a?
This question is predicated on the false belief that 1.0a is in anyway a broken license. The excuse that vile content exists is a straw-man argument. In reality very little objectionable, content exists, and that content does exist, is already publicly, called out and shamed by the vast majority of the community.
I suspect we all know exactly what content I refer to there - and in fact that continent is the pariah in the community.
There’s nothing now that stops wizards from publicly denouncing that sort of content. They likewise they can put legitimate pressure on the market places (especially drive-through, and DM guild) voluntarily not accept that sort of content.
No, the argument that 1.0a must change to improve inclusivity or prevent hate, racism, sexism is just a smokescreen designed a mask, their desire for control over the VTT market. It’s about money, not brand. It was about brand they never would’ve brought out any licensing change.
And the funny part is, that content doesn't even use the OGL 1.0A.
This is a straw man argument. Leaving 1.0A alone will do none of the things OP says it will, it hasn't done so in the last 22 years, and that certainly would have been possible fot it to do this. So, I vote yes. Because what OP says will happen won't happen.
You have a very strange definition of "inferior". The marketplace will determine if 1.0a is the superior license regardless of what WotC or anyone else puts out. Just like the marketplace will determine if OneDND is better or worse than its predecessors or competition.
Given how many people are shouting that the only acceptable thing WotC could do is to not touch 1.0a at all, "folks are likely to choose the new one because it's better" has a massive "citation needed" attached. This is the thrust of my question: what makes the current license so perfect that such people would refuse something better?
Sure, unless that old license were replaced with something that still says "we won't sue you." If that were the case, then interpreting it as "WE WILL SUE YOU --- AGAIN!" would be really silly.
The potential issue here is not that the community will blame them, but the market at large. Hasbro and WotC presumably want to grow their market, which means reaching out to those outside of the community. given the stigma these games have faced in the past (satanic panic, racism in the game), do you think they want to have to defend themselves in perpetuity to the general market who don't know the relationships at work here?
the lack of verbiage on VTT and other modern gameplay developments is reason enough to vacate using the 1.0a by itself. Of course they want control over their IPs usage in new markets that didn't exist at the time of 1.0a's writing. Especially for a market that straddles the line between Table play (OGL covered) and video game (non-OGL covered). That, since the 1.0a cannot be effectively amended, is a crucial gap in their licensing contracts. You may not like the current policy, but it is not a sin on the part of the company for them to want to regulate the use of their IP in any media format, tabletop, VTT, or videogame/film.
Also, they absolutely can (and do) want both. they aren't hiding one behind the other here
This is an easy question: Because 1.0 gives racists and other bigots a shield.
1.2 is objectively better in every significant regard - it doesn’t look like it was written by a high school student pretending to be a lawyer, it clearly spells out what the terms mean, and it gives folks the ability to use one of Wizards’ very valuable trademarks to signify the content works with D&D.
But all the things that make it better legally make it worse if you want to take Wizards’ intellectual property and twist their property into something bigoted - all that ambiguity, all that amateur writing of 1.0 becomes your friend and could be enough to confuse the issue if you went before a Court.
Which is why Wizards doesn’t want it out there for anyone to accept and use moving forward - you don’t let people à la carte choose if they want “the bad option that makes things worse for everyone” instead of the current version.
I don't see any problem with that, frankly. WoTC has already lived with more than one license in the past, some more restrictive than others.
For example, in the 2000s, there was the OGL 1.0a and the D20 license (a purely commercial license, much more restrictive than the OGL but with more advantages as well). And, oh surprise, a lot more content was published under the D20 license than under just the OGL (at the end of the 2000s things changed and a lot of content began to be published under the OGL but outside of D20 license. And the final turn came with the release of 4e, the GSL and PAIZO dominating the market).
In any case, there is no problem with two licenses coexisting. However, the existence of OGL 1.0a is a business issue for WoTC, and goes against its monetization strategy. That's the whole problem. It's not because of the hateful content. It is not the defense per se of intellectual property. It is that it gets in the way of the monetization and capitalization strategy for a future sale (the latter is totally my assumption. But although I have no proof, I have no doubts. But I repeat that it is my assumption, not information).
My assumption is that people want 1.0a for one (or both) of precisely two reasons:
1.) "You promised! You promised!" I.e. Wizards said twenty years ago that they would operate under these terms and people take that to mean the market cannot grow, change, evolve, or in any other way transform around D&D and Wizards MUST stick to those terms EXCLUSIVELY FOREVER, no matter how bad that turns out to be for D&D. The Promise(C) is more important than any other reality surrounding this whole fracas, and people will ride that promise into an early, fiery grave if that's what it takes to Hold Wizards Accountable(TM). It doesn't matter if Wizards is trying to offer a provably better deal, it doesn't matter if the new license is equivalent-or-better to the older one, it doesn't matter that the old license is causing all sorts of issues - literally the only thing that matters is Wizards Promised(P) and that is that.
2.) "OGL 1.0a lets us get away with shady questionably sketchy shit and 1.2's trying to stop us! Wizards doesn't get to decide what constitutes Sketchy Shit, we deserve to be able to do whatever we want no matter how sketchy it is!" Which doesn't need explanation, really. It's the same argument we've had from hundreds of people on these forums for the past three years - people want to be explicitly endorsed by Wizards for being evil hateful bigots and Wizards would rather not endorse that. I'm not inclined to ever let that argument slide, no matter how people try to dismiss it as a 'smokescreen'.
And that's it. One (or both) of those two reasons is the stance taken by actually factually every single proponent of abandoning 1.2 and the efforts to craft a newer, better license in favor of championing 1.0a. There is no other justification.
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PR is 99% spin on a good day. The OGL is a contract...guess which one is enforceable in a court of law?
Do you think the 3PP are pillars of honesty? I hate to use a "whaddabout..." here but I don't know of a company who won't bend the truth to make themselves look better from time to time. they were technically correct in their language, but technically correct is not good PR when the common usage of words like "draft" varies from the technical. But to continually pile on that after multiple additional developments (including new actual language to review) is overly reductive.
Of course they (being 3PPs) don't, because it has given them wide latitude to do whatever the heck they want for 20+ years! But a permissive OGL is not necessarily a good OGL, especially when it comes to allowing content that could harm members of the community or public and open the IP owner to liability and reputational harm.
Microsoft and every other major technology corporation always allows themselves to modify licenses at any time...the OGL 1.0a is a freaking unicorn in that regard, but it also never said it was irrevokable. Even if the writer said that was it's intent, it has to say so for it to be true, and it doesn't.
1.0 does not provide a shield, at all. You keep harping on this point, pointlessly I might add, but it has no bearing in the discussion. WotC is NOT LIABLE for the WORKS OF OTHERS.
Meanwhile you also apparently have no idea what a lawyer does or does not do. OGL 1.0a was put out by an established, reputable lawyer who had been employed by WotC previously, and your constant libelous attacks on that person could have consequence.
WotC will end up in court for tortious interference at the very least if they try to assert that they have any right to "de-authorize" OGL 1.0a, and the most likely result will be they lose that case.
Except "The Community " has explicitly, provably, and verifiably Not Done That Thing. I know all the 1.0a diehards are people who've never engaged with the DDB community and are here specifically to piss in everybody's corn flakes and make sure nothing happens to 1.0a no matter how bad that turns out for people, but racism is a huge problem in this forum. We are constantly having to deal with fresh threads from new people trying to protest Wizards' measures to reduce hateful content in their game and trying to push against it. Every third time I turn around there's some new gobshyte "Wizards is Killing LORE!" thread where some jackwaffle is protesting that orcs being evil and PCs indulging in goblin genocide never hurt nobody ever and we should all stop trying to "woke-ify" D&D. It's gotten to the point where the mods have to step in on every thread and remind people that denying other people's pain and problems is no longer permitted in DDB, and we still get the "you're just a woke ****in' liar!" posts in most of these threads.
And not a damn ******* soul outside of a dozen or so folks on this forum and some overworked mods that have to ever does a single god damned thing about it. And those dozen-odd folks constantly get called absolutely horrid shit for daring to speak up against the active celebration of flagrant racism in D&D.
Where've you been for all those threads, good sir? Where was your united community effort to oust Evil Hateful Shit for the three years we've had to fight this constant goddamned brush war against Evil Hateful Shit in our own house?
Nah. I don't trust "The Community" to do jack monkey squat about hateful content. I was proud of us as a community for 'bout ninety seconds when I read the first Wizards response and their pullback on the most objectionable elements of 1.2...then I was reminded that oh yeah, everything sucks here as people immediately started eating each other alive over it.
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Sigh. The literal point of a licensing agreement is to provide a shield - it says “I know I own this intellectual property, but I am going to let you use it for your purposes, and I can’t sue you over your use.” That is explicitly the point - to allow person A to use person B’s property and be shielded from person B getting upset about that.
And, while Wizards might not be liable for third party content, they are still accountable for it. They are the ones who are letting another use their platform—which means, to an extent, they are empowering them. It might not mean they are liable in a court, but accountable in the court of public opinion? Likely. “Bigots release product for D&D under Wizards’ license” is a pretty bad headline, even if it is not entirely fair to Wizards.
The rest of your post gave me a good chuckle though, so I appreciated that!
Do you honestly think that 1.2 is a better license for the D&D ecosystem than 1.0a? Not that it can be better, everything can be improved. If not right now, as laid out in the draft, it's a better license. That it will lead to the publication of more and better material for D&D, or cheaper, or more accessible, or whatever. Do you really think that the hobby will be better with 1.2?
Until yesterday I thought they were going to try to do things better. That they had realized what the fans were asking for. But 1.2 is just as abusive as 1.1. It's actually the same license, just with sweeter words.
And you know what I think now? They have no intention of improving anything. That this draft is so terrible that later, in a future version, they remove everything that obviously nobody is going to like. And they'll say "Hey, we heard you." But in reality, the main lines of 1.1 will continue there. And that this is going to be terrible for the fans.
That's why I want to keep 1.0a. Because it is a refuge for what is to come. And because I haven't seen what ORC is going to offer yet, and frankly I don't trust PAIZO either. The 1.0a has been with us for 22 years, and it has been good for the fans. What is to come, we'll see. But it doesn't look good seeing what 1.2 proposes. That's my honest opinion, and I hope I'm wrong.
Then they should include the 3.0 SRD and the 3.5 SRD which are both under 1.0a. They should state explicitly that 1.0a products are not being orphaned. They should state explicitly that they aren’t trying to force people onto a revocable license (note that this license is only irrevocable with respect to published content. They reserve the right to revoke it later).
Please don’t try to reduce the argument to “I wanna pirate things” vs “the new license prevents hate speech”. That’s a very dishonest simplification of the problem.
Bluntly this license is targeted at 3rd party publishers still using 3.0/3.5 mechanics (like the OSR revival), VTTs and any other company that used ogl 1.0a to publish non-DnD content (generally because it was the most permissive available license at the time and they didn’t want to hire their own lawyer. Well and because wotc told them they could use it like that).
Fine. There. The line that bothers you so much is gone from my signature. You clearly misunderstood its purpose in the first place, but nevertheless it's gone.
Now. Are you gonna stop calling me out and making personal digs at me over it? Your umbrage with my delivery is noted but irrelevant, I will be as colorful and fiery as I like until told by forum staff to do otherwise. This place has been an incendiary hellscape the last couple of weeks, do pardon me if I'm not feeling very charitable towards the deluge of Jamie-come-latelies who've never bothered engaging with the community before a day in their damn life trotting out of the weeds to tell me and mine we're horrible people for wanting to play some god damned D&D.
Please do not contact or message me.