It's always been possible to do that. You could have done it under 1.2, because there are lots of ways to make something compatible with D&D without incorporating the SRD in the first place. They just don't gain any new tools.
This. Except not "under", but while it exists, without entering/using it (which is very likely what you ment to say anyways, but as people seemingly really struggle to understand [still not sure if some of them are trolling])...
So I have an extremely dumb question about today's announcement. It says "You choose which you prefer to use."
I thought the original OGL and SRD were basically symbiotic/connected licenses and documents? That any third party creating 5E-compatible content and using the OGL was also agreeing to operate under the terms of the SRD?
But today's announcement makes it an either/or thing...so was it always? Is that new?
The SRD is *not* a license. The SRD is the *content* being licensed under the OGL 1.0a (or, now, under the CC-BY-4.0).
The point is not about actual legal endorsement. The point is that some muckraker looking for a fresh target to go on the attack against, and they could legitimately describe some hate piece under 1.0a as something like "Product with License from Dungeons and Dragons Publisher Wizards of the Coast Promotes Racial Inequality". Everything about that statement would be correct, and they could spin up a lot of controversy from that without crossing the line into libel. And WotC can't even say they're looking to close that path going forward now. Yes, they can point out there is no official connection or collaboration between them and the publisher besides that they took up an open license, but that can only come after the big fiery headline and the net result will still be bad press for WotC.
I mean, if you're worried about what tucker carlson will say bad reporters intentionally writing a slanted hitpiece will write, I don't think there's a license in the world that would protect WotC from that. At that point, they might as well put a shingle on their door and just stop publishing IP all together. All wizards needs to do is put out a response, probably via twitter disavowing (or even decrying) the content, mention that the SRD is opened source for anyone to use and clarify that such books do not reflect the attitudes and opinions of Wizards or their employees. Done and Done.
My prediction is that 6E or whatever they decide to call it will have its own restrictive license, which will in turn cause another 4E situation (in terms of licensing, yeah, this isn't the first time they tried to get rid of the OGL, just last time internet outrage was less of a thing). It will be an unpopular version of D&D, a sizeable portion of the audience will stick with 5E and we'll see a bunch of new TTRPG systems.
All of that already looks plausible and happening to some degree already.
I doubt it, not if they want it to sell. Otherwise, everyone will start looking elsewhere or just stay with the 5e products that are most likely going to keep releasing almost perpetually at this point. They've put themselves in a position where they need to offer temptingly favorable terms for OneDnD or they lose sales to their own older product, even if it's just 3rd parties still releasing material for that product.
Ahh, but all WotC needs to do there is make 6e good. If it’s a better game, the players will follow. And the 3pp will follow their customers. Making it good is easier said than done, but if the game and VTT are better, 3pp won’t have much choice but to make stuff for 6e.
My prediction is that 6E or whatever they decide to call it will have its own restrictive license, which will in turn cause another 4E situation (in terms of licensing, yeah, this isn't the first time they tried to get rid of the OGL, just last time internet outrage was less of a thing). It will be an unpopular version of D&D, a sizeable portion of the audience will stick with 5E and we'll see a bunch of new TTRPG systems.
All of that already looks plausible and happening to some degree already.
I doubt it, not if they want it to sell. Otherwise, everyone will start looking elsewhere or just stay with the 5e products that are most likely going to keep releasing almost perpetually at this point. They've put themselves in a position where they need to offer temptingly favorable terms for OneDnD or they lose sales to their own older product, even if it's just 3rd parties still releasing material for that product.
Ahh, but all WotC needs to do there is make 6e good. If it’s a better game, the players will follow. And the 3pp will follow their customers. Making it good is easier said than done, but if the game and VTT are better, 3pp won’t have much choice but to make stuff for 6e.
I do agree with you. But I think this whole mess has made enough people wary that there are going to be A LOT of questions about what sort of license agreements are going to be wrapped around OneDmD before they will make a purchase in the first place.
Nobody listens to rabbid hyena's. Voice your concerns politely through the appropriate channels and they might listen.
Like they did to the OGL or bust people.
In seriousness though, I think they were well aware they were on shakey ground legally and didn't wan to test it in court with their revenue being actively reduced from the mass departure from the system. I would have preferred a result where they just left the hateful conduct exclusion with no other changes, but unfortunately they pushed too hard too fast (as many of us were trying to warn) and now they have no option but to do a 180.
Today perhaps, but I suspect if it came to a choice between people like myself and their bottom line I'd be dumped in a ditch faster than a Tabaxi monk. If the right wing succeeds in smearing the LGBTQ+ community as predators sufficiently Wizards will side with them and clauses like this will simply make it easier to isolate and exclude us.
I'd argue that this was a test (a soft one), and they failed to live up to those ideals. The announcement basically says "the only thing that's going to protect our bottom line is to back away entirely, even if that means backing away from protecting our community from hateful content".
I'm sure a lot of people who work at Wizards care about this issue, but it doesn't seem like the company cares one bit. They could have made literally any gesture, but instead they threw up their hands and said "Fine. You deal with it." after throwing rocks at the hornets nest.
It's impossible to go back to before the leaked OGL, but they still could have made an attempt to show they care about hateful content. Maybe an OGL that includes a version of the hateful conduct clause but doesn't deauthorize the previous versions. And they could have announced that OneD&D content would be released under that license. I'm sure many 3PPs would be proud to have the hate-free license for their content, and I'm sure many customers would be proud to buy products with that license.
Some people here might think that without deauthorizing the earlier versions that this would be legally useless, but it least it would be better than what he have after the announcement. It would provide a way for the community to identify "safe" content, and it would be a commitment that WotC actually cares to uphold those ideals.
But it's moot now that they've released everything under CC.
On the plus side we won't be stopped from creating content that Wizards could decided is too "controversial" to be associated with, morality clauses swing hard with political winds and its not hard to imagine them being turned as a weapon against minority communities. I'm stuck here on Terf island and the current line of attack is lobbying companies to erase LGBTQ+ people from advertising and product targeting under the accusation that they are indoctrinating youths and normalizing deviant behaviour, there nothing to say wizards couldn't fall foul of a similar movement in the US.
Wizards has explicitly said they do not believe things like that and stand in support of communities that have been marginalized. They support streamers who often play as LGBTQ+ characters and put several LGBTQ+ characters in some of their books. This clause is meant to protect - not hurt - groups like this who have long been discriminated against. As such, the removal of this morality clause is extremely disappointing.
Yes, and guess what. If you include a morality clause, that would last exactly as long is at takes Karen Stockholder to grasp her pearls in shock over little Timmy and Suzy reading about gay farmers in Storm King's Thunder, as which point all queer content is banned from any Official DnD material as well as anything licensed under some version of an License with a morality clause. Or exactly as long as it takes for some new CEO who hates queer people to come along and get hired to run Hasbro. Morality clauses are, without fail, weaponized against women and minorities, especially the ones they are intended to protect. History had taught us this *repeatedly*.
I've been a harsh critic of yours since the start of this fiasco. That's not going to change much in the short term, but I do believe in acknowledging good work. Your move today surprised me, which isn't easy to do. I'm a cynic, I'm jaded, and I can only think of a community ground swell such as this working once before in my life and that was the New Coke debacle that Coca-Cola pulled back in the 80s/90s. So, good job, you ultimately did the right thing, more over you went past that by adding 5.1 to the CC license and for that I'm actually impressed.
But, I'm not naïve, and I know the reasons you acquiesced wasn't out of a sense of altruism, you're in full on damage control because your profits were being directly impacted after a disastrous Q4 2022 report, because you were being openly criticized on twitter by Alta Fox, and because you were already hemorrhaging money from poor decisions regarding MtG. So, yeah, you listened because an average of 83% of your responding customer base was pissed at you and that correlated to direct loss of future revenue.
So, you've taken a step in the right direction, albeit a big step, but it was just ONE step. In just a few months you burned down what took you over 20 years to build, trust and goodwill. I for one don't have much to spare for most people and a hell-of-a-lot less for companies. You have a long way to go to rebuild even a semblance of trust and goodwill with the community and especially old schoolers like myself.
To do that, I strongly urge your board of directors to consider replacing Hasbro CEO, Chris Cocks; WotC CEO, Cynthia Williams, and executive producer, Chris Cao. These three individuals are responsible for what has happened with MtG and D&D. Either they spearheaded the events or, at the very least, were complacent. These three should stick to their video games and leave us the hell alone.
And as a note to you three directly, the video game community just saw what we did. I would be willing to place a small wager that this particular rejection is going to spread to that hobby as well.
Unfortunately at this point on this journey leaving 1.0a untouched is no longer a feasible resolution. A 1.0b revision removing all ambiguity, in line with existing customer expectations, needs to be produced.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members."
Unfortunately at this point on this journey leaving 1.0a untouched is no longer a feasible resolution. A 1.0b revision removing all ambiguity, in line with existing customer expectations, needs to be produced.
Leaving OGL 1.0 untouched was literally a very vocal demand from the community.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Yes, and guess what. If you include a morality clause, that would last exactly as long is at takes Karen Stockholder to grasp her pearls in shock over little Timmy and Suzy reading about gay farmers in Storm King's Thunder, as which point all queer content is banned from any Official DnD material as well as anything licensed under some version of an License with a morality clause. Or exactly as long as it takes for some new CEO who hates queer people to come along and get hired to run Hasbro. Morality clauses are, without fail, weaponized against women and minorities, especially the ones they are intended to protect. History had taught us this *repeatedly*.
Thank you!
Hasbro's intent was to protect the brand of Dungeons and Dragons more than its intent was to protect marginalized people.
If Hasbro wanted to protect marginalized people, they wouldn't have written an OGL that would have pushed marginalized third party creators out of the market.
It's textbook performative activism from a capitalist corporation, championed when they can profit, ignored when they can't profit, and turned against when turning against is more profitable.
Thankfully, the tabletop roleplaying game community saw through the façade.
Stop pretending you don't know exactly what's going to happen when somebody uses their explicitly granted chance to peddle their hatred using D&D and all y'all buy it like it's a Black Friday Super Deal.
How about you stop pretending there isn't a LONG and storied history of morality clauses and morality laws being weaponized against marginalized and vulnerable people. That there isn't a history of the simple existance of certain people being considered obscene. I don't know how you can watch what is happening to queer people, especially trains people, in the US right now and not understand how hard the reactionary pendulum is swinging, and how, if Wizards is allowed to become the sole arbiter of morality, all it would take is one change in management, or one pearly clutching stock holder to see that morality clause turned into a way to ban "undesirables" like queer people, or sex workers, or people of color, or anyone with an arrest record from working on any OGL project.
Is there going to be hateful content in the TTRPG hobby. Yes. It sucks, but it has always sucked, because it's been there pretty much since the start. There is hateful content in every medium you care to name. WotC/Hasbro and TSR before them are responsible for some of that hateful content. I suspect at some people in the future, they will be again. Is it possible that some third party will use the SRD content in one of their hateful projects. Yes. Is it possible they will try to associated it with WotC/Hasbro and/or DnD. If they do, WotC/Hasbro will sue them into oblivion for both violation of the license, and for violation of the trademarks and copyrights, which they are *not* allowed to use under the OGL or the CC license.
Hateful content sucks. As someone who can't go a single freaking day without seeing some public figure spewing hatred in the direction of people like me, I would love it if there were some way to shut it down. But their isn't, and every time someone tries to use morality or obsceneity rules, they just end up handing the bigots new tools to use against marginalized people.
Unfortunately at this point on this journey leaving 1.0a untouched is no longer a feasible resolution. A 1.0b revision removing all ambiguity, in line with existing customer expectations, needs to be produced.
Just sayin it is a bit weird how this all got resolved just as the community was about to have a big spotlight on the board of directors and shareholder Alta Fox's Free the Wizards pitch about putting new qualified people on the board that understand the MTG and DnD communities.
Just sayin it is a bit weird how this all got resolved just as the community was about to have a big spotlight on the board of directors and shareholder Alta Fox's Free the Wizards pitch about putting new qualified people on the board that understand the MTG and DnD communities.
Just sayin it is a bit weird how this all got resolved just as the community was about to have a big spotlight on the board of directors and shareholder Alta Fox's Free the Wizards pitch about putting new qualified people on the board that understand the MTG and DnD communities.
... just sayin
Um... I'm not sure what great conspiracy anyone is seeing here. The reality is, this whole situation did damage to the D&D brand, and Doing Something is kind of expected behavior from upper management. I would not be surprised to see someone get fired (or resign under pressure), given that they did a bunch of damage to their brand and didn't actually gain anything of value.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
This. Except not "under", but while it exists, without entering/using it (which is very likely what you ment to say anyways, but as people seemingly really struggle to understand [still not sure if some of them are trolling])...
The SRD is *not* a license. The SRD is the *content* being licensed under the OGL 1.0a (or, now, under the CC-BY-4.0).
I mean, if you're worried about what
tucker carlson will saybad reporters intentionally writing a slanted hitpiece will write, I don't think there's a license in the world that would protect WotC from that. At that point, they might as well put a shingle on their door and just stop publishing IP all together. All wizards needs to do is put out a response, probably via twitter disavowing (or even decrying) the content, mention that the SRD is opened source for anyone to use and clarify that such books do not reflect the attitudes and opinions of Wizards or their employees. Done and Done.Ahh, but all WotC needs to do there is make 6e good. If it’s a better game, the players will follow. And the 3pp will follow their customers.
Making it good is easier said than done, but if the game and VTT are better, 3pp won’t have much choice but to make stuff for 6e.
I do agree with you. But I think this whole mess has made enough people wary that there are going to be A LOT of questions about what sort of license agreements are going to be wrapped around OneDmD before they will make a purchase in the first place.
Paizo has sold as much Pathfinder in the last 2 weeks as it normally does in 8 months. It says so on their Twitter account.
Nobody listens to rabbid hyena's. Voice your concerns politely through the appropriate channels and they might listen.
Like they did to the OGL or bust people.
In seriousness though, I think they were well aware they were on shakey ground legally and didn't wan to test it in court with their revenue being actively reduced from the mass departure from the system. I would have preferred a result where they just left the hateful conduct exclusion with no other changes, but unfortunately they pushed too hard too fast (as many of us were trying to warn) and now they have no option but to do a 180.
Why are you on this forum then? Genuinely curious thought this was a dnd only site.
I'd argue that this was a test (a soft one), and they failed to live up to those ideals. The announcement basically says "the only thing that's going to protect our bottom line is to back away entirely, even if that means backing away from protecting our community from hateful content".
I'm sure a lot of people who work at Wizards care about this issue, but it doesn't seem like the company cares one bit. They could have made literally any gesture, but instead they threw up their hands and said "Fine. You deal with it." after throwing rocks at the hornets nest.
It's impossible to go back to before the leaked OGL, but they still could have made an attempt to show they care about hateful content. Maybe an OGL that includes a version of the hateful conduct clause but doesn't deauthorize the previous versions. And they could have announced that OneD&D content would be released under that license. I'm sure many 3PPs would be proud to have the hate-free license for their content, and I'm sure many customers would be proud to buy products with that license.
Some people here might think that without deauthorizing the earlier versions that this would be legally useless, but it least it would be better than what he have after the announcement. It would provide a way for the community to identify "safe" content, and it would be a commitment that WotC actually cares to uphold those ideals.
But it's moot now that they've released everything under CC.
Yes, and guess what. If you include a morality clause, that would last exactly as long is at takes Karen Stockholder to grasp her pearls in shock over little Timmy and Suzy reading about gay farmers in Storm King's Thunder, as which point all queer content is banned from any Official DnD material as well as anything licensed under some version of an License with a morality clause. Or exactly as long as it takes for some new CEO who hates queer people to come along and get hired to run Hasbro. Morality clauses are, without fail, weaponized against women and minorities, especially the ones they are intended to protect. History had taught us this *repeatedly*.
Hasbro/Wotc,
I've been a harsh critic of yours since the start of this fiasco. That's not going to change much in the short term, but I do believe in acknowledging good work. Your move today surprised me, which isn't easy to do. I'm a cynic, I'm jaded, and I can only think of a community ground swell such as this working once before in my life and that was the New Coke debacle that Coca-Cola pulled back in the 80s/90s. So, good job, you ultimately did the right thing, more over you went past that by adding 5.1 to the CC license and for that I'm actually impressed.
But, I'm not naïve, and I know the reasons you acquiesced wasn't out of a sense of altruism, you're in full on damage control because your profits were being directly impacted after a disastrous Q4 2022 report, because you were being openly criticized on twitter by Alta Fox, and because you were already hemorrhaging money from poor decisions regarding MtG. So, yeah, you listened because an average of 83% of your responding customer base was pissed at you and that correlated to direct loss of future revenue.
So, you've taken a step in the right direction, albeit a big step, but it was just ONE step. In just a few months you burned down what took you over 20 years to build, trust and goodwill. I for one don't have much to spare for most people and a hell-of-a-lot less for companies. You have a long way to go to rebuild even a semblance of trust and goodwill with the community and especially old schoolers like myself.
To do that, I strongly urge your board of directors to consider replacing Hasbro CEO, Chris Cocks; WotC CEO, Cynthia Williams, and executive producer, Chris Cao. These three individuals are responsible for what has happened with MtG and D&D. Either they spearheaded the events or, at the very least, were complacent. These three should stick to their video games and leave us the hell alone.
And as a note to you three directly, the video game community just saw what we did. I would be willing to place a small wager that this particular rejection is going to spread to that hobby as well.
Unfortunately at this point on this journey leaving 1.0a untouched is no longer a feasible resolution. A 1.0b revision removing all ambiguity, in line with existing customer expectations, needs to be produced.
"I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members."
Leaving OGL 1.0 untouched was literally a very vocal demand from the community.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Thank you!
Hasbro's intent was to protect the brand of Dungeons and Dragons more than its intent was to protect marginalized people.
If Hasbro wanted to protect marginalized people, they wouldn't have written an OGL that would have pushed marginalized third party creators out of the market.
It's textbook performative activism from a capitalist corporation, championed when they can profit, ignored when they can't profit, and turned against when turning against is more profitable.
Thankfully, the tabletop roleplaying game community saw through the façade.
How about you stop pretending there isn't a LONG and storied history of morality clauses and morality laws being weaponized against marginalized and vulnerable people. That there isn't a history of the simple existance of certain people being considered obscene. I don't know how you can watch what is happening to queer people, especially trains people, in the US right now and not understand how hard the reactionary pendulum is swinging, and how, if Wizards is allowed to become the sole arbiter of morality, all it would take is one change in management, or one pearly clutching stock holder to see that morality clause turned into a way to ban "undesirables" like queer people, or sex workers, or people of color, or anyone with an arrest record from working on any OGL project.
Is there going to be hateful content in the TTRPG hobby. Yes. It sucks, but it has always sucked, because it's been there pretty much since the start. There is hateful content in every medium you care to name. WotC/Hasbro and TSR before them are responsible for some of that hateful content. I suspect at some people in the future, they will be again. Is it possible that some third party will use the SRD content in one of their hateful projects. Yes. Is it possible they will try to associated it with WotC/Hasbro and/or DnD. If they do, WotC/Hasbro will sue them into oblivion for both violation of the license, and for violation of the trademarks and copyrights, which they are *not* allowed to use under the OGL or the CC license.
Hateful content sucks. As someone who can't go a single freaking day without seeing some public figure spewing hatred in the direction of people like me, I would love it if there were some way to shut it down. But their isn't, and every time someone tries to use morality or obsceneity rules, they just end up handing the bigots new tools to use against marginalized people.
That is, effectively, what CC-BY-4.0 is.
I agree. I smell Hasbro intervention here.
/tinfoil hat back on
Just sayin it is a bit weird how this all got resolved just as the community was about to have a big spotlight on the board of directors and shareholder Alta Fox's Free the Wizards pitch about putting new qualified people on the board that understand the MTG and DnD communities.
... just sayin
Not to mention a movie release on the way...
Um... I'm not sure what great conspiracy anyone is seeing here. The reality is, this whole situation did damage to the D&D brand, and Doing Something is kind of expected behavior from upper management. I would not be surprised to see someone get fired (or resign under pressure), given that they did a bunch of damage to their brand and didn't actually gain anything of value.