However, it might very well be that this uproar + accompanied (temporary?) account-cancellations is just a calculated risk they’re taking. Beside the (strategic) mistakes in the communication about the new plans, this has to be part of a bigger, long term strategy. It sounds to me like they’re hoping an upcoming movie + new version of D&D + WotC-VTT + Vox Machina s02 etc. will bring more new people in (that will pay for the basics again) then they may lose (people loudly voicing how much they love 3pp, that WotC makes no money from).
From what I understand WotC wants to make D&D bigger, thus making more money. The community sees it as abusing 3rd party content creators. Can’t there be a win-win somewhere in this? What do long-time players think about this?
Two big points: WotC does make money off of 3rd party publishers indirectly as they are basically free advertising and support for the game. Similar to modmakers for video games, the breathe life into the game for far longer and at no cost to the game's owner. WotC makes money by how many people play the game and a lot of them are brought in by 3rd party tools and supplements keeping the community interested and engaged. They might make more profit in the short term by limiting 3rd party content, but that will just drive those content makers to other games, which will reduce demand for DnD over time as the user base finds other things to do.
If DnD wants to make DnD bigger they need to expand into other areas than playing the game as that part is pretty saturated at this point in time. Maybe even post peak. Not everyone will keep playing, but that audience that did play in the past are likely to be interested in faithful adaptations in movies, books, series, and other media. If Honor Among Thieves lands the feeling of DnD it will be huge among the players and it looks like it will have broad appeal without losing the parts that make it DnD. If they can keep that up they could be bringing in movie money in addition to the saturated tabletop gaming market. But if they toss out the game, then they will lose the thing that separates their media from any other fantasy series, a dedicated userbase that will promote their stuff for free in addition to whatever they spend.
But it turns out that most of the community does consume third-party content. Here in the forum there are several surveys in this regard with more than 90%. And I, in my personal experience, have never come across anyone who does not use any third-party content. Maybe some very casual gamer I suppose.
Survey on this website are far from statistically valid, as is your anecdotal evidence. Yes, lots of people use 3pp. But if “most” of the community did, kobold press, mcdm, et al would be much larger operations than they are. (Arguably, they deserve to be bigger, they make good stuff.)
We know only 20ish are making more than 750k/year. Round that up to 1M, and we’re at 20m/year. And D&D is making more like 150M. Yes, people who but 3pp are also buying WotC, but that same person is probably buying from multiple 3pp. 3pp are just not that big of a slice of the pie.
I’d argue, actually most people don’t even know of the existence of 3pp. And a smaller subset of those actually use them. There are lots and lots of people buying a starter set at target who play and don’t ever know about other publishers. (Maybe you want to deride them as casuals, but they are still players.) Maybe they upgrade and buy the PHB on Amazon, or go to a Barnes and noble, where they might see a book from another system. Some will pick it up and explore that new system. Some will pick it up, realize it’s not D&D and put it back down, some won’t even pick it up.
This isn’t to say the community shouldn’t stand up for 3pp and against the awful 1.1, and continue to make 1.2 the best we can. It’s good that we did, and that WotC are re-thinking their strategy. And I want for my fellow gamers who enjoy 3pp (as I, myself, do) to keep on enjoying them. It’s just, 3pp aren’t that widely used.
While it is true that a survey on this forum is by no means exhaustive, and a personal anecdote is just a personal anecdote with no statistical value, what I do not accept is the nonsense that if almost all D&D players buy content from third parties, companies like Kobolod would be bigger. You know why? Because there is a lot, a lot of third-party content. And people don't buy all third-party content.
In fact, the proof that the D&D fan, in general, buys a lot of third-party content is that every D&D KS, no matter how stupid, gets a lot of money. And then there's local third-party content, which sells a lot in their countries. Games based on D&D, in different editions, that have many fans. Etc...
What almost any D&D player will buy is the core. But from third-party content, everyone will buy different things. There will be those who consume the content of Goodman Games. There will be those who consume the content of Matthew Colville. Or Kobold's. There will be someone who buys X setting that releases its version for 5e. Etc...
They're run by people who actually play the games they make. D&D is probably the only ttrpg controlled by someone who has never played the game they're in charge of. Literally nothing but corporate suits making the decisions for D&D.
Say someone likes having cars but does not drive them and says to someone "You can use this car in perpetuity" Are they not allowed to sell the car, ever? If they replace the car, does the person have the right to use the next car, in perpetuity, simply because they were allowed to use the first car? Even if there were a series of cars that the person was allowed to use, does the next car purchased have to fall under the same agreement?
And, regardless of such agreements, are the cars not still those of their actual owner, rather than the person allowed to use them?
And still not convinced that Hasbro is getting any material benefit from the current arrangement.
??? You asked why the 3PP care more than Hasbro. I have no clue what any of this has to do with my response...
I have heard all sorts of claims regarding the benefit to Hasbro. I have yet to see anything other than assumptions.
Where were you when the 4efold fell?
Long story short, GSL was bad. OGL was tgood. Under GSL fewer players, zero outside content that was worth buying. Pathfinder became a reality because, irrevokable OGL. Like seriously, if they thought it was revokable, they would have done it back then when you know, their biggest competition could have been shut down over night.
Then return to OGL. Then exploding markets in online communities. Imagine what game would be most popular if Crit Role went with Pathfinder? What if they withheld the licence from Stranger Things? We'd be playing Caves and Cadavers fight Bleckblah!
The growth of the business is partly because the game is relevant. It is relevant because it has a wealth of material beyond what they put out there. Let us not forget, This very website was not developed in house. 3PP. The player base used this. Let us not forget that there is no in house VTT. Had those not existed, the pandemic would have seen us playing or doing something else.
There are so many factors in the success of 5e. Only some of which can be blamed on Wizards. The rest is other creators making things for it, be it modules, settings, VTTs, live plays, or cultural icons.
It is doesn't hurt that it is practically Kleenex. My gaming group played Pathfinder for 4 years and still, every week we told each other, let's get together and play Dungeons and Dragons.
From what I understand WotC wants to make D&D bigger, thus making more money. The community sees it as abusing 3rd party content creators. Can’t there be a win-win somewhere in this? What do long-time players think about this?
I've said it before on these forums I'll say it again. This is less about money than it is about control. Hasbro wants 'quality' over quantity and by 'quality' I mean 3PPs who will play ball. If they want D&D to be a 'brand' the they need to control the IP behind it as much as possible. Writing onerous requirements as part of the license weeds out those that aren't comfortable with the boot of OGL 1.2 (or something like it) on their throat. Those wildcard 3PPs (which may include bigoted, 'dark', horror, or LGBTQ+ content) free to use ORC or whatever other license they want while leaving the docile ones who are desperate from crumbs from the D&D pie.
IMO the win-win would be a 1.01 version which tightens up the (apparently) poor legal language of 1.0a but keeps the spirit. 1.2 is, for the most part, very much not in that spirit.
There have been many good responses, but most failed answer the original question - why should someone who doesn’t rely on third-party content care about the OGL.
There are a couple of reasons you *should* care. 1. It hurts others who followed the rules. 2. It is a binding promise that for 15+ years had WotC claim it change couldn’t affect you ability to use 1.0a. 3) there is significant danger that this sets a precedence beyond just DND - much of the Internet is built on similar open source licenses.
But that wasn’t the question. The question is why should *you* care? The answer here is simple, changing OGL in any way will fragment the market into a dozen different systems. Trying to find a table or get new players will become harder and harder without taking the time and energy to learn new systems.
We have already seen signs of this, pathfinder 2e subReddit has increased subs by 15k in a month. Many companies are creating their own competing system. And no matter how good the systems are they all suffer from one thing: they’re not DND 5E - they are different.
And so yes, many of us are boycotting the movie and the new book, we are not resubscribing to D&D Beyond. We do this as an act of desperation and a calculated risk. We believe that the damage from a fragmented market is much worse than what we are giving up.
Not everyone believes the same way, and that is their right, but it is also what Wizards/Hasbro is betting on. They will keep tweaking the OGL just enough until some fixed number of subscribers return. The more of us that hold fast to the belief that they cannot change the OGL1.0a for the SRDs already released, the more likely they back down. This is an example of game theory - will we stand firm, or will they?
And that’s where the question is really answered. Which side do you prefer to be on?
It affects directly to VTTs, where a huge amount of players play. There are far more DnD players in VTT that irl
This isn't true. Wizards of the Coast may be releasing their Virtual Table Top Policy at the same time as the OGL, but the draft of 1.2 clearly stated that the two are not the same contract.
Also, most players I know play in person, not online. Can you please give the data you're using to talk about the consensus of tens of millions of people?
It affects directly to VTTs, where a huge amount of players play. There are far more DnD players in VTT that irl
This isn't true. Wizards of the Coast may be releasing their Virtual Table Top Policy at the same time as the OGL, but the draft of 1.2 clearly stated that the two are separate.
Technically (and legally) yes but it's rather hard to believe the two aren't related in a lot of ways especially in regards to business decisions.
Technically (and legally) yes but it's rather hard to believe the two aren't related in a lot of ways especially in regards to business decisions.
We'll see. I think you're right that the two are connected, but what Wizards is outlining for VTTs doesn't seem too bad. If I am interpreting their FAQ correctly, then using Virtual Table Tops as just that is fine. The problems will only arise if they start to become like a video game.
In all honesty, it makes sense for Wizards' to clarify their policies on Virtual Table Tops to avoid authorizing things they didn't intend to.
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They're run by people who actually play the games they make. D&D is probably the only ttrpg controlled by someone who has never played the game they're in charge of. Literally nothing but corporate suits making the decisions for D&D.
Say someone likes having cars but does not drive them and says to someone "You can use this car in perpetuity" Are they not allowed to sell the car, ever? If they replace the car, does the person have the right to use the next car, in perpetuity, simply because they were allowed to use the first car? Even if there were a series of cars that the person was allowed to use, does the next car purchased have to fall under the same agreement?
And, regardless of such agreements, are the cars not still those of their actual owner, rather than the person allowed to use them?
And still not convinced that Hasbro is getting any material benefit from the current arrangement.
??? You asked why the 3PP care more than Hasbro. I have no clue what any of this has to do with my response...
Clearly, it has absolutely nothing to do with it. What it does do is wrench the focus away from the subject at hand, so let's not let that happen.
I have foundry which is far superior in character creation, and even Roll 20 is superior - and I don't have to pay extra to customize my own characters, lol.
Interesting fact - about a year ago I posted how I didn't like how I had to subscribe to use homebrew content - and was kind of shouted down in this forum. People said "well, if you don't like the official rules then either pay or go somewhere else"
Well, I did go to Foundry and Roll 20 about 2 years ago - because this D&D Beyond community is basically hostile to anyone saying 5e isn't perfect and has flaws.
Technically (and legally) yes but it's rather hard to believe the two aren't related in a lot of ways especially in regards to business decisions.
We'll see. I think you're right that the two are connected, but what Wizards is outlining for VTTs doesn't seem too bad. If I am interpreting their FAQ correctly, then using Virtual Table Tops as just that is fine. The problems will only arise if they start to become like a video game.
In all honesty, it makes sense for Wizards' to clarify their policies on Virtual Table Tops to avoid authorizing things they didn't intend to.
Clarification isn't the real problem here it's the fact that, again, they need to control the space as much as possible.
I understand the controversy of the OGL. I can see what the community is trying to do. But unsubscribing from the great tools that D&D Beyond offers is so ridiculous. The fact that people are willing to sacrifice helpful D&D tools just to put out their opinion is, in my eyes, over-the-top. Why does it matter where your money goes? The D&D Beyond website hasn't changed at all and dozens of D&D YouTubers are basically rebelling against the website. Why? I haven't seen a YouTuber say that they actually prefer paper character sheets because, let's be honest, nobody does. Digital character sheets, stat blocks, and combat trackers are so useful, and even D&D players who don't make 3rd party content are unsubscribing and are refusing to buy any more official D&D products, for no apparent reason that I understand.
I am going to get a lot of hate for this comment and I'm risking that just so I can have the answer: why?
D&D Beyond is owned by WotC and is the core staple at the centre of WotC's monetisation strategy of One D&D. WotC and by extension Hasbro do not remotely care about the community, only their bottom line and wallet. Recurring subscriptions are the most immediate and easily digestible metrics for income from business strategies. Unsubscribing takes that money away from them most immediately to send a message that they screwed up.
The tools are also meaningless and unnecessary, and all of the tools that D&D Beyond provides if you REALLY want them can be attained elsewhere by companies not trying to **** you in the ass right now.
I have heard all sorts of claims regarding the benefit to Hasbro. I have yet to see anything other than assumptions.
Where were you when the 4efold fell?
Long story short, GSL was bad. OGL was tgood. Under GSL fewer players, zero outside content that was worth buying. Pathfinder became a reality because, irrevokable OGL. Like seriously, if they thought it was revokable, they would have done it back then when you know, their biggest competition could have been shut down over night.
Then return to OGL. Then exploding markets in online communities. Imagine what game would be most popular if Crit Role went with Pathfinder? What if they withheld the licence from Stranger Things? We'd be playing Caves and Cadavers fight Bleckblah!
The growth of the business is partly because the game is relevant. It is relevant because it has a wealth of material beyond what they put out there. Let us not forget, This very website was not developed in house. 3PP. The player base used this. Let us not forget that there is no in house VTT. Had those not existed, the pandemic would have seen us playing or doing something else.
There are so many factors in the success of 5e. Only some of which can be blamed on Wizards. The rest is other creators making things for it, be it modules, settings, VTTs, live plays, or cultural icons.
It is doesn't hurt that it is practically Kleenex. My gaming group played Pathfinder for 4 years and still, every week we told each other, let's get together and play Dungeons and Dragons.
Critical Role filmed the game in normal play. Arguably, fair use and 1st Amendment, plus clear publicity for WotC. Why would they have shut it down? (By the way, this is also why I do not believe they would go after similar YouTube streams. Free commercial spots are free and since it would actually cost Hasbro money to hire DM's and players to do similar, why would they do any of the crackdown fearmongers are insisting on?
Stranger Things, ditto. Do we know that was purely under the 1.0? How?
People who have no clue about the game are not going to just suddenly search for supplements for it any more most people would look at the DLC's of any computer game or console game before looking at the main game. There might be some fringe cases but fringe cases are fringe.
And meanwhile, those 3rd parties could have written for any of the other games out there. Including Pathfinder. So, especially through the 4e years, why didn't Pathfinder suddenly just take over the top spot? What about it made it second choice to write for (or not a choice at all)?
In that same line of reasoning, one might say that, one is not simply going to look for mods for Skyrim or Fallout. True enough. They are going to be drawn there for something. Advertising, youtubers, and so forth. They might play the game for sometime because it is good.
Playing the same game for a decade? That is more about third party content then it is about the initial release.
I believe Pathfinder very nearly did take over. Let's try and remember the life cycle of editions in the early 200's. 3.0 came out in 2000, 4 came out in 3008.
There were over 80 official WOTC released books in that time for 3.0 and 3.5. During the original OGL days. Some excellent third party stuff also came out.
4e was launched with the closed GSL. Lewss than 60 books were produced.
There likely biggest thrid party released Pathfinder. It was exceedingly popular. No one wrote for 4e. No one. It was released under a licence that no one wanted. Goodmand Games opted out.
The landscape was a little different then. This is for all intents and purposes pre-youtube. Pre twitter, pre Amazon easy publishing and all of that.
Third parties did write for Pathfinder. Paizo was the biggest third party, and Wizards tried to shut them out of the market, instead the created their own biggest competitor. Thatr is what they are talking about recently with the whole financing our competition. The last time they changed the OGL it created a uber second choice. This time it will do the same, has done the same.
How big was Pathfinder? It was what Matt Mercer5 was playing ast home, until the live stream. They went with the latest Dungeons and Dragons because the rules were more easily translated in to a show. Pathfinder is very crunchy.
Stranger Things is not using the 1.0. I suspect they either have a deal or they just used it hoping for fair use, though Vecna ain't fair use. I was saying, the way the way Wizards is currently working, they might not allow that sort of thing.
We are also way in to the weeds on this. Why should Wizards care about Matt Colville and the Dungeon Dudes? Should they care about Venger Satanis? That dude uses their name right in his advertising. They don't seem to care about that right now. He isn't using the OGL, he is flat out using their trademark and brand identifiers. They seem disinterested in stopping him.
So why this fight?
Why are we going back and forth here? Is it because this is the most important thing in the license, or is it because they wanted something else and they slipped this in there?
Wizards probably didn't care about Gavin Norman, who doesn't seem to be getting rich off of OSE? Do they care about Ginny Di and her calendar or guide stuff? Do they Care about Sly Flourish? What about Hank and Index Card RPG? They don't care about qany of that. I care about all of that though.
And it seems to me that their squeeze on VTTs and smaller companies may just catch some of my fish in the process.
They can't even target Paizo with this. Pathfinder 2e is not OGL content. I suspect anything they have left in there is probably in the creative commons release anyway. All wizards has done is fracture a fanbase and give steam to their competition and make people who rely on the OGL for a living fear it. Good job.
Cancelled. Thanks for wrecking my game Cindy and her leadership team. I've been loyal since the 80s. I was a buying machine for you. You screwed it up so bad I'll never open another D&D book or read an article about it. Done. Plenty of better games out there to play.
I understand the controversy of the OGL. I can see what the community is trying to do. But unsubscribing from the great tools that D&D Beyond offers is so ridiculous. The fact that people are willing to sacrifice helpful D&D tools just to put out their opinion is, in my eyes, over-the-top. Why does it matter where your money goes? The D&D Beyond website hasn't changed at all and dozens of D&D YouTubers are basically rebelling against the website. Why? I haven't seen a YouTuber say that they actually prefer paper character sheets because, let's be honest, nobody does. Digital character sheets, stat blocks, and combat trackers are so useful, and even D&D players who don't make 3rd party content are unsubscribing and are refusing to buy any more official D&D products, for no apparent reason that I understand.
I am going to get a lot of hate for this comment and I'm risking that just so I can have the answer: why?
"Why does it matter where your money goes?"
As individual consumers, we have no power. Collectively we do.
"The D&D Beyond website hasn't changed at all...
...and dozens of D&D YouTubers are basically rebelling against the website. Why?"
When I first joined DnDBeyond the tools were regularly updated, with regular "updates from the devs" on youtube. Has that continued since WotC aquired DnDBeyond? Are those devs still working here, or did many leave around the time of the acquisition and now working on demiplane.com?
It's also of note that a senior WoTC exec in charge of the official DnD VTT (that we saw in the OneDnd trailers) has been reported as being wanting to kill DnDBeyond in favour of his own solution in development before the acquisition. This is according to numerous internal employees (their ID corroborated by legitimate news outlets, not just youtube leaks ). I understand it is that product that is where the rumoured $30 per month price came from.
I loved DnDBeyond for years. But I actually think un-subbing now may be the only way to send a message to WotC that could see a change in approach. It may already be too late.
"...even D&D players who don't make 3rd party content are unsubscribing and are refusing to buy any more official D&D products, for no apparent reason that I understand."
As others have said, the community would not exist without the original OGL or 3P content makers. I could personally continue to blindly play DnD without being personally impacted in the short term. But, there are too many red flags for the future, not just in TTRPGs but, as a software developer, I'm also concerned about the implications to open source software licences. The OGL was never meant to be something anyone could change, and it is scary legal precedent that could reach way beyond DnD. Almost all websites are built with packages made freely available using similar licences. I'll be watching the legal proceedings from companies like Paizo closely.
"I am going to get a lot of hate for this comment and I'm risking that just so I can have the answer: why?"
It's mainly the principle for me. I have subbed for years, but cancelled two days before the boycott even began. I've already started playing pathfinder instead. I haven't purchased a game from EA in over a decade. I don't buy from Nestle. Or Apple. I can't stand seeing shady business practices an just won't support a business that I don't trust. But hey, I am an idealist.
"From what I understand WotC wants to make D&D bigger, thus making more money. The community sees it as abusing 3rd party content creators. Can’t there be a win-win somewhere in this? What do long-time players think about this?"
The OGL WAS a "win win". The OGL fostered a vibrant creative community via products that WOTC wouldnt make / couldnt make profitably, and WOTC sold TONS of their official materials to the members of this growing and vibrant community. The amount of profit flowing to the third party creatives through the OGL is rounding errors on the Billion Dollar Hasbro balance sheets.
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Two big points: WotC does make money off of 3rd party publishers indirectly as they are basically free advertising and support for the game. Similar to modmakers for video games, the breathe life into the game for far longer and at no cost to the game's owner. WotC makes money by how many people play the game and a lot of them are brought in by 3rd party tools and supplements keeping the community interested and engaged. They might make more profit in the short term by limiting 3rd party content, but that will just drive those content makers to other games, which will reduce demand for DnD over time as the user base finds other things to do.
If DnD wants to make DnD bigger they need to expand into other areas than playing the game as that part is pretty saturated at this point in time. Maybe even post peak. Not everyone will keep playing, but that audience that did play in the past are likely to be interested in faithful adaptations in movies, books, series, and other media. If Honor Among Thieves lands the feeling of DnD it will be huge among the players and it looks like it will have broad appeal without losing the parts that make it DnD. If they can keep that up they could be bringing in movie money in addition to the saturated tabletop gaming market. But if they toss out the game, then they will lose the thing that separates their media from any other fantasy series, a dedicated userbase that will promote their stuff for free in addition to whatever they spend.
While it is true that a survey on this forum is by no means exhaustive, and a personal anecdote is just a personal anecdote with no statistical value, what I do not accept is the nonsense that if almost all D&D players buy content from third parties, companies like Kobolod would be bigger. You know why? Because there is a lot, a lot of third-party content. And people don't buy all third-party content.
In fact, the proof that the D&D fan, in general, buys a lot of third-party content is that every D&D KS, no matter how stupid, gets a lot of money. And then there's local third-party content, which sells a lot in their countries. Games based on D&D, in different editions, that have many fans. Etc...
What almost any D&D player will buy is the core. But from third-party content, everyone will buy different things. There will be those who consume the content of Goodman Games. There will be those who consume the content of Matthew Colville. Or Kobold's. There will be someone who buys X setting that releases its version for 5e. Etc...
??? You asked why the 3PP care more than Hasbro. I have no clue what any of this has to do with my response...
Where were you when the 4efold fell?
Long story short, GSL was bad. OGL was tgood. Under GSL fewer players, zero outside content that was worth buying. Pathfinder became a reality because, irrevokable OGL. Like seriously, if they thought it was revokable, they would have done it back then when you know, their biggest competition could have been shut down over night.
Then return to OGL. Then exploding markets in online communities. Imagine what game would be most popular if Crit Role went with Pathfinder? What if they withheld the licence from Stranger Things? We'd be playing Caves and Cadavers fight Bleckblah!
The growth of the business is partly because the game is relevant. It is relevant because it has a wealth of material beyond what they put out there. Let us not forget, This very website was not developed in house. 3PP. The player base used this. Let us not forget that there is no in house VTT. Had those not existed, the pandemic would have seen us playing or doing something else.
There are so many factors in the success of 5e. Only some of which can be blamed on Wizards. The rest is other creators making things for it, be it modules, settings, VTTs, live plays, or cultural icons.
It is doesn't hurt that it is practically Kleenex. My gaming group played Pathfinder for 4 years and still, every week we told each other, let's get together and play Dungeons and Dragons.
I've said it before on these forums I'll say it again. This is less about money than it is about control. Hasbro wants 'quality' over quantity and by 'quality' I mean 3PPs who will play ball. If they want D&D to be a 'brand' the they need to control the IP behind it as much as possible. Writing onerous requirements as part of the license weeds out those that aren't comfortable with the boot of OGL 1.2 (or something like it) on their throat. Those wildcard 3PPs (which may include bigoted, 'dark', horror, or LGBTQ+ content) free to use ORC or whatever other license they want while leaving the docile ones who are desperate from crumbs from the D&D pie.
IMO the win-win would be a 1.01 version which tightens up the (apparently) poor legal language of 1.0a but keeps the spirit. 1.2 is, for the most part, very much not in that spirit.
There have been many good responses, but most failed answer the original question - why should someone who doesn’t rely on third-party content care about the OGL.
There are a couple of reasons you *should* care. 1. It hurts others who followed the rules. 2. It is a binding promise that for 15+ years had WotC claim it change couldn’t affect you ability to use 1.0a. 3) there is significant danger that this sets a precedence beyond just DND - much of the Internet is built on similar open source licenses.
But that wasn’t the question. The question is why should *you* care? The answer here is simple, changing OGL in any way will fragment the market into a dozen different systems. Trying to find a table or get new players will become harder and harder without taking the time and energy to learn new systems.
We have already seen signs of this, pathfinder 2e subReddit has increased subs by 15k in a month. Many companies are creating their own competing system. And no matter how good the systems are they all suffer from one thing: they’re not DND 5E - they are different.
And so yes, many of us are boycotting the movie and the new book, we are not resubscribing to D&D Beyond. We do this as an act of desperation and a calculated risk. We believe that the damage from a fragmented market is much worse than what we are giving up.
Not everyone believes the same way, and that is their right, but it is also what Wizards/Hasbro is betting on. They will keep tweaking the OGL just enough until some fixed number of subscribers return. The more of us that hold fast to the belief that they cannot change the OGL1.0a for the SRDs already released, the more likely they back down. This is an example of game theory - will we stand firm, or will they?
And that’s where the question is really answered. Which side do you prefer to be on?
The players or the lawyers
Life is much simpler, and I'm convinced, much healthier when you don't burden yourself with such questions.
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This isn't true. Wizards of the Coast may be releasing their Virtual Table Top Policy at the same time as the OGL, but the draft of 1.2 clearly stated that the two are not the same contract.
Also, most players I know play in person, not online. Can you please give the data you're using to talk about the consensus of tens of millions of people?
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He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Technically (and legally) yes but it's rather hard to believe the two aren't related in a lot of ways especially in regards to business decisions.
We'll see. I think you're right that the two are connected, but what Wizards is outlining for VTTs doesn't seem too bad. If I am interpreting their FAQ correctly, then using Virtual Table Tops as just that is fine. The problems will only arise if they start to become like a video game.
In all honesty, it makes sense for Wizards' to clarify their policies on Virtual Table Tops to avoid authorizing things they didn't intend to.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Clearly, it has absolutely nothing to do with it. What it does do is wrench the focus away from the subject at hand, so let's not let that happen.
I actually never saw the benefit of subbing.
I have foundry which is far superior in character creation, and even Roll 20 is superior - and I don't have to pay extra to customize my own characters, lol.
Interesting fact - about a year ago I posted how I didn't like how I had to subscribe to use homebrew content - and was kind of shouted down in this forum. People said "well, if you don't like the official rules then either pay or go somewhere else"
Well, I did go to Foundry and Roll 20 about 2 years ago - because this D&D Beyond community is basically hostile to anyone saying 5e isn't perfect and has flaws.
Clarification isn't the real problem here it's the fact that, again, they need to control the space as much as possible.
D&D Beyond is owned by WotC and is the core staple at the centre of WotC's monetisation strategy of One D&D. WotC and by extension Hasbro do not remotely care about the community, only their bottom line and wallet. Recurring subscriptions are the most immediate and easily digestible metrics for income from business strategies. Unsubscribing takes that money away from them most immediately to send a message that they screwed up.
The tools are also meaningless and unnecessary, and all of the tools that D&D Beyond provides if you REALLY want them can be attained elsewhere by companies not trying to **** you in the ass right now.
In that same line of reasoning, one might say that, one is not simply going to look for mods for Skyrim or Fallout. True enough. They are going to be drawn there for something. Advertising, youtubers, and so forth. They might play the game for sometime because it is good.
Playing the same game for a decade? That is more about third party content then it is about the initial release.
I believe Pathfinder very nearly did take over. Let's try and remember the life cycle of editions in the early 200's. 3.0 came out in 2000, 4 came out in 3008.
There were over 80 official WOTC released books in that time for 3.0 and 3.5. During the original OGL days. Some excellent third party stuff also came out.
4e was launched with the closed GSL. Lewss than 60 books were produced.
There likely biggest thrid party released Pathfinder. It was exceedingly popular. No one wrote for 4e. No one. It was released under a licence that no one wanted. Goodmand Games opted out.
The landscape was a little different then. This is for all intents and purposes pre-youtube. Pre twitter, pre Amazon easy publishing and all of that.
Third parties did write for Pathfinder. Paizo was the biggest third party, and Wizards tried to shut them out of the market, instead the created their own biggest competitor. Thatr is what they are talking about recently with the whole financing our competition. The last time they changed the OGL it created a uber second choice. This time it will do the same, has done the same.
How big was Pathfinder? It was what Matt Mercer5 was playing ast home, until the live stream. They went with the latest Dungeons and Dragons because the rules were more easily translated in to a show. Pathfinder is very crunchy.
Stranger Things is not using the 1.0. I suspect they either have a deal or they just used it hoping for fair use, though Vecna ain't fair use. I was saying, the way the way Wizards is currently working, they might not allow that sort of thing.
We are also way in to the weeds on this. Why should Wizards care about Matt Colville and the Dungeon Dudes? Should they care about Venger Satanis? That dude uses their name right in his advertising. They don't seem to care about that right now. He isn't using the OGL, he is flat out using their trademark and brand identifiers. They seem disinterested in stopping him.
So why this fight?
Why are we going back and forth here? Is it because this is the most important thing in the license, or is it because they wanted something else and they slipped this in there?
Wizards probably didn't care about Gavin Norman, who doesn't seem to be getting rich off of OSE? Do they care about Ginny Di and her calendar or guide stuff? Do they Care about Sly Flourish? What about Hank and Index Card RPG? They don't care about qany of that. I care about all of that though.
And it seems to me that their squeeze on VTTs and smaller companies may just catch some of my fish in the process.
They can't even target Paizo with this. Pathfinder 2e is not OGL content. I suspect anything they have left in there is probably in the creative commons release anyway. All wizards has done is fracture a fanbase and give steam to their competition and make people who rely on the OGL for a living fear it. Good job.
I have now realised that.
If anybody would like my GMing playlists
battles: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2mRp57MBAz9ZsVpw895IzZ?si=243bee43442a4703
exploration: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0qk0aKm5yI4K6VrlcaKrDj?si=81057bef509043f3
town/tavern: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/49JSv1kK0bUyQ9LVpKmZlr?si=a88b1dd9bab54111
character deaths: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6k7WhylJEjSqWC0pBuAtFD?si=3e897fa2a2dd469e
Cancelled. Thanks for wrecking my game Cindy and her leadership team. I've been loyal since the 80s. I was a buying machine for you. You screwed it up so bad I'll never open another D&D book or read an article about it. Done. Plenty of better games out there to play.
This was very well said and an excellent summary of what has gone before.
As individual consumers, we have no power. Collectively we do.
When I first joined DnDBeyond the tools were regularly updated, with regular "updates from the devs" on youtube. Has that continued since WotC aquired DnDBeyond? Are those devs still working here, or did many leave around the time of the acquisition and now working on demiplane.com?
It's also of note that a senior WoTC exec in charge of the official DnD VTT (that we saw in the OneDnd trailers) has been reported as being wanting to kill DnDBeyond in favour of his own solution in development before the acquisition. This is according to numerous internal employees (their ID corroborated by legitimate news outlets, not just youtube leaks ). I understand it is that product that is where the rumoured $30 per month price came from.
I loved DnDBeyond for years. But I actually think un-subbing now may be the only way to send a message to WotC that could see a change in approach. It may already be too late.
As others have said, the community would not exist without the original OGL or 3P content makers. I could personally continue to blindly play DnD without being personally impacted in the short term. But, there are too many red flags for the future, not just in TTRPGs but, as a software developer, I'm also concerned about the implications to open source software licences. The OGL was never meant to be something anyone could change, and it is scary legal precedent that could reach way beyond DnD. Almost all websites are built with packages made freely available using similar licences. I'll be watching the legal proceedings from companies like Paizo closely.
It's mainly the principle for me. I have subbed for years, but cancelled two days before the boycott even began. I've already started playing pathfinder instead. I haven't purchased a game from EA in over a decade. I don't buy from Nestle. Or Apple. I can't stand seeing shady business practices an just won't support a business that I don't trust. But hey, I am an idealist.
"From what I understand WotC wants to make D&D bigger, thus making more money. The community sees it as abusing 3rd party content creators. Can’t there be a win-win somewhere in this? What do long-time players think about this?"
The OGL WAS a "win win". The OGL fostered a vibrant creative community via products that WOTC wouldnt make / couldnt make profitably, and WOTC sold TONS of their official materials to the members of this growing and vibrant community. The amount of profit flowing to the third party creatives through the OGL is rounding errors on the Billion Dollar Hasbro balance sheets.