One point to keep this discussion in the area of beneficial discourse rather than angry lines being drawn is to remember
When people say " removing the OGL or SRD" they usually mean stop updating them. Let's try not to nitpick either side but rather get to the core concepts being presented.
Did you watch the video that spawned this thread? Because the guy in the video and the document that he's reading from both incorrectly state that the OGL has never been updated. So, no, "what most people mean when they say get rid of the OGL" definitely means literally getting rid of the OGL. At least in the case of this thread.
It sounds like Generally we all think that not having an update to account for one dnd as part of a new SRD is not a smart and will make it less appealing.
However, there's little evidence either way if wotc will make a one SRD.
There is no evidence that they won't make one. And, yes, while it might be a shame and a bit of a pain to not have a OneD&D SRD, it would definitely not be the end of the world for 3rd party publishing or necessary for creating self-published OneD&D content.
It would be a giant pain in the patoot for folks like me who are currently sitting on a product waiting for ‘24 so it can be updated to the next edition and released.
Note: I am someone who will procrastinate amost anything, so take this line of thought with a grain of salt.
Why are you sitting on a product? If it is working for 5e it should be put out. If updates are needed for 24 it can be better done when more details are set in stone (especially if there's chance of huge changes)
If it's a solely one dnd product, I wouldn't really describe it as "sitting on a product" but rather a "speculation product." Mostly Semantics I know but building a dependent project is always has a risk of cancelation or parent product issues. It's the nature of the game so to speak.
I do not believe they will have nothing to replace the srd But the company will at least discuss to what degree.
However, the company can't even have that discussion until their product is closer to ready.
3rd party content is something i use so regularly that if i couldn't do that with OneDnD, I wouldn't pick it up. Furthermore, I'd tell everyone I know who plays to not play it if it didn't have it.
One point to keep this discussion in the area of beneficial discourse rather than angry lines being drawn is to remember
When people say " removing the OGL or SRD" they usually mean stop updating them. Let's try not to nitpick either side but rather get to the core concepts being presented.
Did you watch the video that spawned this thread? Because the guy in the video and the document that he's reading from both incorrectly state that the OGL has never been updated. So, no, "what most people mean when they say get rid of the OGL" definitely means literally getting rid of the OGL. At least in the case of this thread.
It sounds like Generally we all think that not having an update to account for one dnd as part of a new SRD is not a smart and will make it less appealing.
However, there's little evidence either way if wotc will make a one SRD.
There is no evidence that they won't make one. And, yes, while it might be a shame and a bit of a pain to not have a OneD&D SRD, it would definitely not be the end of the world for 3rd party publishing or necessary for creating self-published OneD&D content.
It would be a giant pain in the patoot for folks like me who are currently sitting on a product waiting for ‘24 so it can be updated to the next edition and released.
Sure. It is a pain. But not much harder than what we currently have to do, and definitely not the complaint that these videos and threads are about.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
In context, 'under-monetized' means 'we think we can get money from people who aren't DMs'. Which pretty clearly tells us that they aren't targeting the 3PP market for adventures, sourcebooks, and so on, because all of those things target DMs just as much as Wizards' products do. If I had to pick a couple products that I think are likely to be threatened by Wizards' plans, I would pick Talespire and HeroForge. Neither of which uses the OGL in the first place.
In context, 'under-monetized' means 'we think we can get money from people who aren't DMs'. Which pretty clearly tells us that they aren't targeting the 3PP market for adventures, sourcebooks, and so on, because all of those things target DMs just as much as Wizards' products do. If I had to pick a couple products that I think are likely to be threatened by Wizards' plans, I would pick Talespire and HeroForge. Neither of which uses the OGL in the first place.
It also means "we think we can get money from people that have never played the game". That's why they're making the D&D movie. They want to expand the audience of the D&D franchise beyond the players of the game, like how more people watch the MCU movies than ever read the comics.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I'm a full time professional GameMaster running 8 paid D&D games per week, and all of them use third party content extensively. Most of my games are set in Kobold Press's Midgard, or in Eberron, which is mostly supported by third parties in this edition, apart from one thin book that revised a now-obsolete thin book. 3/4 of my monsters are not from the Monster Manual, and when I use modules/ published adventures they are almost always from either Kobold Press or someone on DMs Guild.
I'm looking forward to Paizo's 5e conversions of their adventure paths next year; their plotlines and stories are richer and better constructed than anything WotC has put out. The half-assedness of Spelljammer has left me not even interested in looking at Dragonlance. 5e as a system is solid, its marketing and bringing new players into the TTRPG hobby is first rate, but its adventure design hasn't been good since they let all the good designers go (and those designers now have their own third party companies).
It’s too corporate an answer, too carefully crafted to not be a real one. “Continuing to evolve” could mean extinction. Probably not but we just don’t know. What they should have said if they wanted to assure us would be “guys, look, digital age, people playing entirely online now, some parts of this are gonna have to change, but there will be an OGL for 1D&D.” But they couldn’t even commit that much, and while I think we won’t see them make the same fatal mistake as 4e, that was still BS from people who didn’t really want to answer.
I'm mostly concerned they will stop homebrew tools from existing.
I buy a lot of dnd things. Every single official book even though I don't use 90% of the content, and roughly 3-4 3rd party books a year.
What I do consistently use are tools that help me modify and adjust. Could I do it myself without the tools? absolutely, but I'm less likely too if it adds too much time to my game prep. Over the past couple of decade I have used such tools pretty much every week to make new things for the campaign I run.
So much of the story I've been thing for almost 20 years now was made possible through such tools and I would rather stop supporting WotC and stick with either what I already have system wise, or move to a more open system, if they stop such tools from being made.
The whole unsubstantiated, speculative, baseless rumors and fictional conjecture video designed for manufacturing outrage, really was an unsubstantiated, speculative, baseless rumors and fictional conjecture video designed for manufacturing outrage.
If you’re making commercial content, relatively little is going to change for most creators. For most of you who are selling custom content, here are the new things you’ll need to do:
Accept the license terms and let us know what you’re offering for sale
Report OGL-related revenue annually (if you make more than $50,000 in a year)
Include a Creator Product badge on your work
When we roll out OGL 1.1, we will also provide explanatory videos, FAQs, and a web portal for registration to make navigating these requirements as easy and intuitive as possible. We’ll also have help available to creators to navigate the new process.
If you’re making commercial content, relatively little is going to change for most creators. For most of you who are selling custom content, here are the new things you’ll need to do:
Accept the license terms and let us know what you’re offering for sale
Report OGL-related revenue annually (if you make more than $50,000 in a year)
Include a Creator Product badge on your work
When we roll out OGL 1.1, we will also provide explanatory videos, FAQs, and a web portal for registration to make navigating these requirements as easy and intuitive as possible. We’ll also have help available to creators to navigate the new process.
I don't know much about the OGL's from previous editions. How does this compare to what came before?
Uh, you're doing something very similiar to those that spouting hate without enough info.
They've given bare bones info about the new OGL and even then, that info points to it no longer being an Open Game License in the traditional sense, and they're increasing legwork + much else.
Overall, great to see them post more information, but it was still lacking.
Anyway, no one should be all doom and gloom about it, the worst that happens to people who hate it is to switch systems.
From discussions going on elsewhere, it seems like people can opt to use the 1.0a license (the current one) instead of 1.1 license. So, right now, there's no real, functional difference for anyone publishing.
The big difference will be if their VTT takes off, and that would probably force the more successful groups, like Kobald Press, to pay royalties to use that. At least, that's the impression I'm getting.
The whole unsubstantiated, speculative, baseless rumors and fictional conjecture video designed for manufacturing outrage, really was an unsubstantiated, speculative, baseless rumors and fictional conjecture video designed for manufacturing outrage.
Well...they are charging third parties new royalty fees of an unknown percentage, it's just limited in scope to the larger publishers.
"For the fewer than 20 creators worldwide who make more than $750,000 in income in a year, we will add a royalty starting in 2024. So, even for the creators making significant money selling D&D supplements and games, no royalties will be due for 2023 and all revenue below $750,000 in future years will be royalty-free. "
The whole unsubstantiated, speculative, baseless rumors and fictional conjecture video designed for manufacturing outrage, really was an unsubstantiated, speculative, baseless rumors and fictional conjecture video designed for manufacturing outrage.
Well...they are charging third parties new royalty fees of an unknown percentage, it's just limited in scope to the larger publishers.
"For the fewer than 20 creators worldwide who make more than $750,000 in income in a year, we will add a royalty starting in 2024. So, even for the creators making significant money selling D&D supplements and games, no royalties will be due for 2023 and all revenue below $750,000 in future years will be royalty-free. "
The standard royalty percentage is between 2-15%. And, yeah, 15% of 750K is $112.5K. That's not insignificant. I don't think it'll be anywhere near that, but it could be. And it'll give creators a chance to brace for and alter their business practices. They aren't doing this for 2023.
My big takeaway is this will result in minor changes for the majority of creators. The eyecatcher for me is custom content. That's a legal term with some serious ramifications. If I'm reading this correctly, it means the OGL is opening up D&D. More than the hashtag ever could.
As in letting 3rd parties create Dungeons and Dragons-branded content. We've seen limited partnerships in the past with Penny Arcade and Critical Role, but they were still published by WotC. This could potentially allow these companies to publish their own stuff, on their own dime and timetable, outside of the usual release schedule.
If you’re making commercial content, relatively little is going to change for most creators. For most of you who are selling custom content, here are the new things you’ll need to do:
Accept the license terms and let us know what you’re offering for sale
Report OGL-related revenue annually (if you make more than $50,000 in a year)
Include a Creator Product badge on your work
When we roll out OGL 1.1, we will also provide explanatory videos, FAQs, and a web portal for registration to make navigating these requirements as easy and intuitive as possible. We’ll also have help available to creators to navigate the new process.
I don't know much about the OGL's from previous editions. How does this compare to what came before?
All three of those things will be brand new to the OGL.
I'm interested that no-one has commented on the change stating that the OGL only applies to 'printed media or static electronic files'. No OGL video games (I think they may be annoyed with Solasta), no OGL VTTs (not sure if this is a meaningful group -- I'm not sure if there's any VTTs that implement the OGL and nothing more), no DM/player tools that implement the SRD, etc.
The whole unsubstantiated, speculative, baseless rumors and fictional conjecture video designed for manufacturing outrage, really was an unsubstantiated, speculative, baseless rumors and fictional conjecture video designed for manufacturing outrage.
Well...they are charging third parties new royalty fees of an unknown percentage, it's just limited in scope to the larger publishers.
"For the fewer than 20 creators worldwide who make more than $750,000 in income in a year, we will add a royalty starting in 2024. So, even for the creators making significant money selling D&D supplements and games, no royalties will be due for 2023 and all revenue below $750,000 in future years will be royalty-free. "
The standard royalty percentage is between 2-15%. And, yeah, 15% of 750K is $112.5K. That's not insignificant. I don't think it'll be anywhere near that, but it could be. And it'll give creators a chance to brace for and alter their business practices. They aren't doing this for 2023.
But as I read it, the first 750K is royalty-free, so on dollar 750,001, they pay. Then, even if its 15%, that means 15 cents, since they only pay on the 1 dollar over 750k. To end up paying the 112, they'd have to earn more like $1.5M. Still a lot of money, but not nearly as punishing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Note: I am someone who will procrastinate amost anything, so take this line of thought with a grain of salt.
Why are you sitting on a product? If it is working for 5e it should be put out. If updates are needed for 24 it can be better done when more details are set in stone (especially if there's chance of huge changes)
If it's a solely one dnd product, I wouldn't really describe it as "sitting on a product" but rather a "speculation product." Mostly Semantics I know but building a dependent project is always has a risk of cancelation or parent product issues. It's the nature of the game so to speak.
I do not believe they will have nothing to replace the srd But the company will at least discuss to what degree.
However, the company can't even have that discussion until their product is closer to ready.
3rd party content is something i use so regularly that if i couldn't do that with OneDnD, I wouldn't pick it up. Furthermore, I'd tell everyone I know who plays to not play it if it didn't have it.
Sure. It is a pain. But not much harder than what we currently have to do, and definitely not the complaint that these videos and threads are about.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
In context, 'under-monetized' means 'we think we can get money from people who aren't DMs'. Which pretty clearly tells us that they aren't targeting the 3PP market for adventures, sourcebooks, and so on, because all of those things target DMs just as much as Wizards' products do. If I had to pick a couple products that I think are likely to be threatened by Wizards' plans, I would pick Talespire and HeroForge. Neither of which uses the OGL in the first place.
It also means "we think we can get money from people that have never played the game". That's why they're making the D&D movie. They want to expand the audience of the D&D franchise beyond the players of the game, like how more people watch the MCU movies than ever read the comics.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I'm a full time professional GameMaster running 8 paid D&D games per week, and all of them use third party content extensively. Most of my games are set in Kobold Press's Midgard, or in Eberron, which is mostly supported by third parties in this edition, apart from one thin book that revised a now-obsolete thin book. 3/4 of my monsters are not from the Monster Manual, and when I use modules/ published adventures they are almost always from either Kobold Press or someone on DMs Guild.
I'm looking forward to Paizo's 5e conversions of their adventure paths next year; their plotlines and stories are richer and better constructed than anything WotC has put out. The half-assedness of Spelljammer has left me not even interested in looking at Dragonlance. 5e as a system is solid, its marketing and bringing new players into the TTRPG hobby is first rate, but its adventure design hasn't been good since they let all the good designers go (and those designers now have their own third party companies).
It’s too corporate an answer, too carefully crafted to not be a real one. “Continuing to evolve” could mean extinction. Probably not but we just don’t know. What they should have said if they wanted to assure us would be “guys, look, digital age, people playing entirely online now, some parts of this are gonna have to change, but there will be an OGL for 1D&D.” But they couldn’t even commit that much, and while I think we won’t see them make the same fatal mistake as 4e, that was still BS from people who didn’t really want to answer.
I'm mostly concerned they will stop homebrew tools from existing.
I buy a lot of dnd things. Every single official book even though I don't use 90% of the content, and roughly 3-4 3rd party books a year.
What I do consistently use are tools that help me modify and adjust. Could I do it myself without the tools? absolutely, but I'm less likely too if it adds too much time to my game prep. Over the past couple of decade I have used such tools pretty much every week to make new things for the campaign I run.
So much of the story I've been thing for almost 20 years now was made possible through such tools and I would rather stop supporting WotC and stick with either what I already have system wise, or move to a more open system, if they stop such tools from being made.
WOW.
The whole unsubstantiated, speculative, baseless rumors and fictional conjecture video designed for manufacturing outrage, really was an unsubstantiated, speculative, baseless rumors and fictional conjecture video designed for manufacturing outrage.
WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED THAT.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1410-ogls-srds-one-d-d
No matter where you go, there you are.
Trevor Valle - Paleontologist - DM
This just dropped:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1410-ogls-srds-one-d-d
I am not a content creator. Were there royalties involved in past OGL's?
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
This was the part of it that caught my eye:
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I don't know much about the OGL's from previous editions. How does this compare to what came before?
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Uh, you're doing something very similiar to those that spouting hate without enough info.
They've given bare bones info about the new OGL and even then, that info points to it no longer being an Open Game License in the traditional sense, and they're increasing legwork + much else.
Overall, great to see them post more information, but it was still lacking.
Anyway, no one should be all doom and gloom about it, the worst that happens to people who hate it is to switch systems.
From discussions going on elsewhere, it seems like people can opt to use the 1.0a license (the current one) instead of 1.1 license. So, right now, there's no real, functional difference for anyone publishing.
The big difference will be if their VTT takes off, and that would probably force the more successful groups, like Kobald Press, to pay royalties to use that. At least, that's the impression I'm getting.
Well...they are charging third parties new royalty fees of an unknown percentage, it's just limited in scope to the larger publishers.
"For the fewer than 20 creators worldwide who make more than $750,000 in income in a year, we will add a royalty starting in 2024. So, even for the creators making significant money selling D&D supplements and games, no royalties will be due for 2023 and all revenue below $750,000 in future years will be royalty-free. "
The standard royalty percentage is between 2-15%. And, yeah, 15% of 750K is $112.5K. That's not insignificant. I don't think it'll be anywhere near that, but it could be. And it'll give creators a chance to brace for and alter their business practices. They aren't doing this for 2023.
My big takeaway is this will result in minor changes for the majority of creators. The eyecatcher for me is custom content. That's a legal term with some serious ramifications. If I'm reading this correctly, it means the OGL is opening up D&D. More than the hashtag ever could.
As in letting 3rd parties create Dungeons and Dragons-branded content. We've seen limited partnerships in the past with Penny Arcade and Critical Role, but they were still published by WotC. This could potentially allow these companies to publish their own stuff, on their own dime and timetable, outside of the usual release schedule.
If true, that's a massive win for the community.
All three of those things will be brand new to the OGL.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I'm interested that no-one has commented on the change stating that the OGL only applies to 'printed media or static electronic files'. No OGL video games (I think they may be annoyed with Solasta), no OGL VTTs (not sure if this is a meaningful group -- I'm not sure if there's any VTTs that implement the OGL and nothing more), no DM/player tools that implement the SRD, etc.
But as I read it, the first 750K is royalty-free, so on dollar 750,001, they pay. Then, even if its 15%, that means 15 cents, since they only pay on the 1 dollar over 750k. To end up paying the 112, they'd have to earn more like $1.5M. Still a lot of money, but not nearly as punishing.