Hasbro has the money to hire a great legal team, so I doubt they're foolish enough to scorch earth their VTT competitors. That could trigger a federal investigation. In the US it's okay to have a monopoly if customers think you have the best product, but it's not if predatory business tactics are used.
Then again, Hasbro thinks upsetting their customers will increase revenue.
But they can surely try to actively block innovations of other VTT Creators or else their "Project Sandcastle" might crumble, losing money invested. Screwing over People that developed VTTs long before WizBro jumping on the train should face serious backlash by the community, as they've enabled us to play together throughout the pandemics, and/or with friends far away. And as an indicator, this anti-competitive behaviour, shows even more reasons to not trust the future plans of WizBro's execs.
But they can surely try to actively block innovations of other VTT Creators or else their "Project Sandcastle" might crumble, losing money invested.
The counterpoint being “at what stage does ‘innovation’ start to become a new/different product?”. As someone pointed out, some of those old BioWare games like KotOR use something pretty close to a d20 VTT program to run the core game features. If WotC makes the VTT license too open, someone could potentially create and sell an “autonomous single player module experience” that is functionally a video game in the same vein as KotOR, use WotC names, settings, etc., and claim protection under the VTT license. I’m sure this is not a flawless case, but does it help illustrate why WotC is looking to define a solid distinction between VTT and video game?
But they can surely try to actively block innovations of other VTT Creators or else their "Project Sandcastle" might crumble, losing money invested.
The counterpoint being “at what stage does ‘innovation’ start to become a new/different product?”. As someone pointed out, some of those old BioWare games like KotOR use something pretty close to a d20 VTT program to run the core game features. If WotC makes the VTT license too open, someone could potentially create and sell an “autonomous single player module experience” that is functionally a video game in the same vein as KotOR, use WotC names, settings, etc., and claim protection under the VTT license. I’m sure this is not a flawless case, but does it help illustrate why WotC is looking to define a solid distinction between VTT and video game?
Agreed, Single-Player with no DM involved would be a totally different thing - but that's not what a VTT - or "VTT innovation" - is about.
VTTs are video games, in terms of what they are. I've yet to hear a definition that didn't wrongly classify a videogame as a VTT or vice versa. I'm having trouble coming up with a solid definition, though.
Do you need a human Dungeon Master to have the story progress? If YES > it is a TTRPG. If NO> it is a video game, because the responses are pre-programmed in the game.
It's really not complicated.
Video games have a certain amount of possibilities, for as much as they want to tell you they have sandbox worlds and endless possibilities, that is simply not the case from a programming or coding perspective. This means there's only so many scenarios or ways you can 'play' something. You can't brute force your way through Mario Kart by trying to stop the car, pick up a turtle shell and sell it, creating an ecosystem of commerce in the area. With a human DM, you can do literally anything, any time, because the 'game engine' that is giving you the responses to your actions is just as human and capable of creative thought as you, and it doesn't have a preset number of possibilities/responses to a scenario. This alone is a huge factor in the difference between a video game expereince and a TTRPG experience; I've never in my life encountered a video game that would let me actually do anything the way a DM could.
But they can surely try to actively block innovations of other VTT Creators or else their "Project Sandcastle" might crumble, losing money invested.
The counterpoint being “at what stage does ‘innovation’ start to become a new/different product?”. As someone pointed out, some of those old BioWare games like KotOR use something pretty close to a d20 VTT program to run the core game features. If WotC makes the VTT license too open, someone could potentially create and sell an “autonomous single player module experience” that is functionally a video game in the same vein as KotOR, use WotC names, settings, etc., and claim protection under the VTT license. I’m sure this is not a flawless case, but does it help illustrate why WotC is looking to define a solid distinction between VTT and video game?
Agreed, Single-Player with no DM involved would be a totally different thing - but that's not what a VTT - or "VTT innovation" - is about.
It’s not what we think of, but an ambiguously worded license could mean a big drawn out legal fight they might not win. Ergo hammering out a hard delineation, although animations were a flawed starting point.
Do you need a human Dungeon Master to have the story progress? If YES > it is a TTRPG. If NO> it is a video game, because the responses are pre-programmed in the game.
Making that actually true does require certain limitations on features that you might put into a VTT, though.
The obvious one is that you can't allow bots (anything that lets an entity take actions without human intervention). That probably isn't a big issue, I don't think any VTT maker is terribly interested, and third person bots, while possible, are enough of an edge case that I don't think they matter.
A harder edge case is triggers, because that's something VTT makers might actually want to enable (e.g. if you move a token to a certain location, a door is opened or a trap is revealed or something), but you can do an awful lot with a robust trigger system.
But do Chris Cao, WotC, realize that If they make us choose between DnD and Foundry, we surely pick Foundry, right? Tell me that they are not so crazy to think that we are going to reject all the Foundry mods ecosystem...
Brand names matter a lot. It’s why people buy band aids even if the store brand bandage is cheaper. Someone picking up the game for this first time next year won’t have heard of foundry, yet. But if they start buying books and add-ons here, they’ll most likely just stay here. Like why people don’t switch often between Apple and android and then need to re-buy their apps. Plus, until WotC releases their VTT, there’s no way to know. They’ve got time, resources and no legal questions about what they can use. If they make a better product and price it well, people will use it.
Hasbro/WotC Top Management wants to monopolize D&D VTT and D&D online gaming and they want to establish D&D online gaming as the future standard for their revenue (probably against the general opinion of the devs of D&D at WotC and DDB
I’ve been thinking about this a bit. If, say, we take the dndshorts video at face value, so much of it seems like office politics, imo. The guy that oversees digital wants to grow digital, and make the game mostly digital. Well, of course he does, digital is his portfolio, and he wants to expand it. It’s the old, if all you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail. And the leakers are people who don’t like the direction, but lack the standing to do anything about it.
So cao wants to expand digital, because it’s his job. It makes me wonder if there’s someone else in there, pushing the other way, but they’re not as good at the politics of it, so their voice is getting drowned out. Or, also likely, they have sales projections that show lots more growth potential online than in print. So the digital people are ascendant.
Is WotC planning an statements, like the previous ones, adressing why this absurd sentence regarding the VTT animation and visual effects? Maybe these are not the key of Foundry success, and maybe not even 1% of Foundry users use this layer of colours and nimations, but... They don't make this a videogame, not even close! Is just minor visual sffects! It has zero impact in the roleplaying experience, It does not bring closer VTTs and videogames, the DM still controlls everything!
So... Why this sentence in the OGL? Is really Chris Cao so so so obsessed in Foundry anihilation?
I suspect it relates to the fact that, according to the Foundry website, they are publishing everything WotC related under the 1.0 license, meaning that WotC gets not a single penny from their use of it.
Sure, except all those people like me who also (until recently) had a DnD Beyond subscription so I could couple the great features of DDB with Foundry (using the Beyond20 Companion and the DDB Importer modules). Sure, you can run Foundry without DDB, but the combination of the two makes running any DnD campaign far easier.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron Satie
They advertise their own character sheet system and everything needed, under the 1.0. I do not personally know how far that really goes, but it is what they advertise.
The funny thing is: the stuff a character sheet does, unless it allows creating a character, is covered by what Wizards put under creative commons. What they can't do is provide a database of things like classes, monsters, and spells.
VTTs are video games, in terms of what they are. I've yet to hear a definition that didn't wrongly classify a videogame as a VTT or vice versa. I'm having trouble coming up with a solid definition, though.
Do you need a human Dungeon Master to have the story progress? If YES > it is a TTRPG. If NO> it is a video game, because the responses are pre-programmed in the game.
It's really not complicated.
Video games have a certain amount of possibilities, for as much as they want to tell you they have sandbox worlds and endless possibilities, that is simply not the case from a programming or coding perspective. This means there's only so many scenarios or ways you can 'play' something. You can't brute force your way through Mario Kart by trying to stop the car, pick up a turtle shell and sell it, creating an ecosystem of commerce in the area. With a human DM, you can do literally anything, any time, because the 'game engine' that is giving you the responses to your actions is just as human and capable of creative thought as you, and it doesn't have a preset number of possibilities/responses to a scenario. This alone is a huge factor in the difference between a video game expereince and a TTRPG experience; I've never in my life encountered a video game that would let me actually do anything the way a DM could.
Ok then, what's a DM?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Is WotC planning an statements, like the previous ones, adressing why this absurd sentence regarding the VTT animation and visual effects? Maybe these are not the key of Foundry success, and maybe not even 1% of Foundry users use this layer of colours and nimations, but... They don't make this a videogame, not even close! Is just minor visual sffects! It has zero impact in the roleplaying experience, It does not bring closer VTTs and videogames, the DM still controlls everything!
So... Why this sentence in the OGL? Is really Chris Cao so so so obsessed in Foundry anihilation?
I suspect it relates to the fact that, according to the Foundry website, they are publishing everything WotC related under the 1.0 license, meaning that WotC gets not a single penny from their use of it.
Sure, except all those people like me who also (until recently) had a DnD Beyond subscription so I could couple the great features of DDB with Foundry (using the Beyond20 Companion and the DDB Importer modules). Sure, you can run Foundry without DDB, but the combination of the two makes running any DnD campaign far easier.
They advertise their own character sheet system and everything needed, under the 1.0. I do not personally know how far that really goes, but it is what they advertise.
They have their own sheets, and you can use them alongside DDB with the Beyond20 extension. Foundry does not have the super easy character maker or the easy homebrew for monsters, spells, items, feats, classes. Nor does it have all the supplements I purchased on DDB and shared with my players through my subscription that had to be imported. Foundry only has what's in the SRD, otherwise. It would be a monumental task to re-create all of that manually in Foundry itself. I don't even know if it's possible.
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron Satie
I think the people in D&D responsible for this have poor technical understanding of how VTTs actually work (or they'd realize how nonsense the focus on animations actually is), though I doubt they'd specifically mind kneecapping the competition.
What leads you to believe this?
Don't you know that VTT and TTRPGs are almost identical to mobile P2W microtransaction games? There's no reason to learn anything about the first two, when you understand the latter one.
They have their own sheets, and you can use them alongside DDB with the Beyond20 extension. Foundry does not have the super easy character maker or the easy homebrew for monsters, spells, items, feats, classes. Nor does it have all the supplements I purchased on DDB and shared with my players through my subscription that had to be imported. Foundry only has what's in the SRD, otherwise. It would be a monumental task to re-create all of that manually in Foundry itself. I don't even know if it's possible.
Fair enough. Was just going off of their own advertising. Ok, then other than worrying they might develop those things, Foundry sounds not as questionable as they seemed.
Well foundry does a hell of a lot, especially with the modules that the community programs to do additional things. It does not do everything that I want. The price is excellent for what it does do. $50 permanent license with free upgrades is amazing, plus I could use it for 229 different game systems (and counting), and I think most of them are TTRPGs. And I host it on my own PC for free. Wizards with their upcoming micro-transaction plan can't compete with that price, which is presumably why the strong-arm licensing tactics. They'd really be better off just improving DDB, because people like me would continue to use both. The problem is, they aren't satisfied with what they get now. They want all the marbles.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron Satie
Is WotC planning an statements, like the previous ones, adressing why this absurd sentence regarding the VTT animation and visual effects? Maybe these are not the key of Foundry success, and maybe not even 1% of Foundry users use this layer of colours and nimations, but... They don't make this a videogame, not even close! Is just minor visual sffects! It has zero impact in the roleplaying experience, It does not bring closer VTTs and videogames, the DM still controlls everything!
So... Why this sentence in the OGL? Is really Chris Cao so so so obsessed in Foundry anihilation?
I suspect it relates to the fact that, according to the Foundry website, they are publishing everything WotC related under the 1.0 license, meaning that WotC gets not a single penny from their use of it.
Sure, except all those people like me who also (until recently) had a DnD Beyond subscription so I could couple the great features of DDB with Foundry (using the Beyond20 Companion and the DDB Importer modules). Sure, you can run Foundry without DDB, but the combination of the two makes running any DnD campaign far easier.
They advertise their own character sheet system and everything needed, under the 1.0. I do not personally know how far that really goes, but it is what they advertise.
They have their own sheets, and you can use them alongside DDB with the Beyond20 extension. Foundry does not have the super easy character maker or the easy homebrew for monsters, spells, items, feats, classes. Nor does it have all the supplements I purchased on DDB and shared with my players through my subscription that had to be imported. Foundry only has what's in the SRD, otherwise. It would be a monumental task to re-create all of that manually in Foundry itself. I don't even know if it's possible.
Moreover, If we have bought the books and the characters options in DnDbeyond, We have the right to use them wherever we want If there is no economic revenue in that. Imagine buying a book an Wizards telling you that you cannot bring the book to several stores, only official ones.
I have spent hundres and hundres of money in DndB, and I want to spend thousands more! But the reason is that I can import everything to Foundry!
Moreover, If we have bought the books and the characters options in DnDbeyond, We have the right to use them wherever we want If there is no economic revenue in that. Imagine buying a book an Wizards telling you that you cannot bring the book to several stores, only official ones.
I have spent hundres and hundres of money in DndB, and I want to spend thousands more! But the reason is that I can import everything to Foundry!
The thing is, we don't actually buy the books on here. We buy a nontransferable license to use the book on this site. Been that way since day 1. It's all in the ToS. It's one of the reasons they don't officially support things like the extension that lets you use dndbeyond on Roll20. To buy the book, you need a dead tree copy. That you own outright, no question about it.
I've bought the books so many times it's kind of ridiculous. First in hardback. Then for Fantasy Grounds. FG was more than I was willing to put in to learn. So I went to Roll20 and bought them again. Players wanted to keep their characters in DnDB so they were bought again. I pulled them into foundry when we switched yet again.
And that feeds into what made me angriest about the OGL fiasco. I've bought the same WotC stuff multiple times. I run my game over VTT because my group has scattered to multiple states and Mexico. The OGL was worded to be a direct threat to that. For WotC to essentially say, yeah you're going to need to pay us again, but this time monthly because we aren't getting enough...no. Not just no, but F--- no!
Add in all the other stuff I found offensive and their Survey that came up with "You've already taken this survey" before I even finished and they blew every bit of goodwill I had towards them.
I'm still going to play 5e, I just won't play any WotC content I haven't bought already. If they do decide to shut down Foundry once they get their VTT off the ground, I'll play one of the other 10+ games I have over zoom before they see a dime from me.
I'm not boycotting. That implies I want change. They already know what they are going to do. I'm just done with them in the same way I was done with General Motors after the joy that was my 84 Celebrity.
Moreover, If we have bought the books and the characters options in DnDbeyond, We have the right to use them wherever we want If there is no economic revenue in that. Imagine buying a book an Wizards telling you that you cannot bring the book to several stores, only official ones.
I have spent hundres and hundres of money in DndB, and I want to spend thousands more! But the reason is that I can import everything to Foundry!
The thing is, we don't actually buy the books on here. We buy a nontransferable license to use the book on this site. Been that way since day 1. It's all in the ToS. It's one of the reasons they don't officially support things like the extension that lets you use dndbeyond on Roll20. To buy the book, you need a dead tree copy. That you own outright, no question about it.
And I think the uncertainty around Wizards right now is making people gun shy moving forward. I for one would like them to provide PDF versions of the books as well when you purchase on here. I used to be okay with the terms that they have set out and assumed the platform will be stable in the future, but I have concerns now. Can someone from DND Beyond offer their thoughts on our material moving forward?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Hasbro has the money to hire a great legal team, so I doubt they're foolish enough to scorch earth their VTT competitors. That could trigger a federal investigation. In the US it's okay to have a monopoly if customers think you have the best product, but it's not if predatory business tactics are used.
Then again, Hasbro thinks upsetting their customers will increase revenue.
But they can surely try to actively block innovations of other VTT Creators or else their "Project Sandcastle" might crumble, losing money invested. Screwing over People that developed VTTs long before WizBro jumping on the train should face serious backlash by the community, as they've enabled us to play together throughout the pandemics, and/or with friends far away. And as an indicator, this anti-competitive behaviour, shows even more reasons to not trust the future plans of WizBro's execs.
The counterpoint being “at what stage does ‘innovation’ start to become a new/different product?”. As someone pointed out, some of those old BioWare games like KotOR use something pretty close to a d20 VTT program to run the core game features. If WotC makes the VTT license too open, someone could potentially create and sell an “autonomous single player module experience” that is functionally a video game in the same vein as KotOR, use WotC names, settings, etc., and claim protection under the VTT license. I’m sure this is not a flawless case, but does it help illustrate why WotC is looking to define a solid distinction between VTT and video game?
Agreed, Single-Player with no DM involved would be a totally different thing - but that's not what a VTT - or "VTT innovation" - is about.
Do you need a human Dungeon Master to have the story progress? If YES > it is a TTRPG. If NO> it is a video game, because the responses are pre-programmed in the game.
It's really not complicated.
Video games have a certain amount of possibilities, for as much as they want to tell you they have sandbox worlds and endless possibilities, that is simply not the case from a programming or coding perspective. This means there's only so many scenarios or ways you can 'play' something. You can't brute force your way through Mario Kart by trying to stop the car, pick up a turtle shell and sell it, creating an ecosystem of commerce in the area. With a human DM, you can do literally anything, any time, because the 'game engine' that is giving you the responses to your actions is just as human and capable of creative thought as you, and it doesn't have a preset number of possibilities/responses to a scenario. This alone is a huge factor in the difference between a video game expereince and a TTRPG experience; I've never in my life encountered a video game that would let me actually do anything the way a DM could.
It’s not what we think of, but an ambiguously worded license could mean a big drawn out legal fight they might not win. Ergo hammering out a hard delineation, although animations were a flawed starting point.
Making that actually true does require certain limitations on features that you might put into a VTT, though.
The obvious one is that you can't allow bots (anything that lets an entity take actions without human intervention). That probably isn't a big issue, I don't think any VTT maker is terribly interested, and third person bots, while possible, are enough of an edge case that I don't think they matter.
A harder edge case is triggers, because that's something VTT makers might actually want to enable (e.g. if you move a token to a certain location, a door is opened or a trap is revealed or something), but you can do an awful lot with a robust trigger system.
Brand names matter a lot. It’s why people buy band aids even if the store brand bandage is cheaper. Someone picking up the game for this first time next year won’t have heard of foundry, yet. But if they start buying books and add-ons here, they’ll most likely just stay here. Like why people don’t switch often between Apple and android and then need to re-buy their apps.
Plus, until WotC releases their VTT, there’s no way to know. They’ve got time, resources and no legal questions about what they can use. If they make a better product and price it well, people will use it.
I’ve been thinking about this a bit. If, say, we take the dndshorts video at face value, so much of it seems like office politics, imo. The guy that oversees digital wants to grow digital, and make the game mostly digital. Well, of course he does, digital is his portfolio, and he wants to expand it. It’s the old, if all you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail. And the leakers are people who don’t like the direction, but lack the standing to do anything about it.
So cao wants to expand digital, because it’s his job. It makes me wonder if there’s someone else in there, pushing the other way, but they’re not as good at the politics of it, so their voice is getting drowned out.
Or, also likely, they have sales projections that show lots more growth potential online than in print. So the digital people are ascendant.
Sure, except all those people like me who also (until recently) had a DnD Beyond subscription so I could couple the great features of DDB with Foundry (using the Beyond20 Companion and the DDB Importer modules). Sure, you can run Foundry without DDB, but the combination of the two makes running any DnD campaign far easier.
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron SatieThe funny thing is: the stuff a character sheet does, unless it allows creating a character, is covered by what Wizards put under creative commons. What they can't do is provide a database of things like classes, monsters, and spells.
Ok then, what's a DM?
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
They have their own sheets, and you can use them alongside DDB with the Beyond20 extension. Foundry does not have the super easy character maker or the easy homebrew for monsters, spells, items, feats, classes. Nor does it have all the supplements I purchased on DDB and shared with my players through my subscription that had to be imported. Foundry only has what's in the SRD, otherwise. It would be a monumental task to re-create all of that manually in Foundry itself. I don't even know if it's possible.
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron SatieThey really are not anymore - at least to me. The OGL fiasco has pretty much made me refuse to even consider anything that DND brings out.
What leads you to believe this?
Don't you know that VTT and TTRPGs are almost identical to mobile P2W microtransaction games? There's no reason to learn anything about the first two, when you understand the latter one.
Well foundry does a hell of a lot, especially with the modules that the community programs to do additional things. It does not do everything that I want. The price is excellent for what it does do. $50 permanent license with free upgrades is amazing, plus I could use it for 229 different game systems (and counting), and I think most of them are TTRPGs. And I host it on my own PC for free. Wizards with their upcoming micro-transaction plan can't compete with that price, which is presumably why the strong-arm licensing tactics. They'd really be better off just improving DDB, because people like me would continue to use both. The problem is, they aren't satisfied with what they get now. They want all the marbles.
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron SatieMoreover, If we have bought the books and the characters options in DnDbeyond, We have the right to use them wherever we want If there is no economic revenue in that. Imagine buying a book an Wizards telling you that you cannot bring the book to several stores, only official ones.
I have spent hundres and hundres of money in DndB, and I want to spend thousands more! But the reason is that I can import everything to Foundry!
The thing is, we don't actually buy the books on here. We buy a nontransferable license to use the book on this site. Been that way since day 1. It's all in the ToS. It's one of the reasons they don't officially support things like the extension that lets you use dndbeyond on Roll20. To buy the book, you need a dead tree copy. That you own outright, no question about it.
I've bought the books so many times it's kind of ridiculous. First in hardback. Then for Fantasy Grounds. FG was more than I was willing to put in to learn. So I went to Roll20 and bought them again. Players wanted to keep their characters in DnDB so they were bought again. I pulled them into foundry when we switched yet again.
And that feeds into what made me angriest about the OGL fiasco. I've bought the same WotC stuff multiple times. I run my game over VTT because my group has scattered to multiple states and Mexico. The OGL was worded to be a direct threat to that. For WotC to essentially say, yeah you're going to need to pay us again, but this time monthly because we aren't getting enough...no. Not just no, but F--- no!
Add in all the other stuff I found offensive and their Survey that came up with "You've already taken this survey" before I even finished and they blew every bit of goodwill I had towards them.
I'm still going to play 5e, I just won't play any WotC content I haven't bought already. If they do decide to shut down Foundry once they get their VTT off the ground, I'll play one of the other 10+ games I have over zoom before they see a dime from me.
I'm not boycotting. That implies I want change. They already know what they are going to do. I'm just done with them in the same way I was done with General Motors after the joy that was my 84 Celebrity.
And I think the uncertainty around Wizards right now is making people gun shy moving forward. I for one would like them to provide PDF versions of the books as well when you purchase on here. I used to be okay with the terms that they have set out and assumed the platform will be stable in the future, but I have concerns now. Can someone from DND Beyond offer their thoughts on our material moving forward?