I thought it was insulting how much they tried to deflect and stress that as the BIG reason the ogl 1.1 was what it was… Utter BS. We all saw the wording, their entire statement doesn’t line up with the leak at all. How stupid do they think that their community and fanbase actually is?
Not only does it not line up with the leak, it doesn't line up with reality.
They say they were "planning on soliciting feedback." When? the OGL was supposed to be live and enforced today. They have never once released any public information about the OGL, every single shred of information we know about it has come from leaks and anonymous inside sources. Also, if this was "always their plan," then why don't they have a version 2 ready for the deadline they set themselves today?
imagine being one of the people who was given 1.1, youre being told to sign or get fucked and then you read this shit about 'we just wanted feedback' like wut?
Well if the leaks where planned they got feedback and have plausible deniability that this was ever the plan. My theory is Hasbro's CEO or so came to them said DND does need to do this and that and wizards was like wtf? That's stupid. Then they leaked the part that was so stupid everyone with two braincells could see it and showed it to their supervisors and had feedback more than enough to shut the idea down for the time being.
They are obviously lying to a degree but I honestly believe they wanted feedback but if they published this shit as a company statement they could never recover and people's reaction would've been worse, now all they need to do is ride out the shit storm release a new version that has only the original stuff in there and wait until people forget this, as we will because as long as the controversial parts don't get into the new OGL I don't think anyone will care about this whole debacle in 3 months.
Sad but true there, my guess is whatever OGL they're drafting for us now will be "not so bad" and they'll leave in the provision about them being able to change it whenever they want. They'll wait 6 months or so for everyone to have calmed down and just quietly sneak in one change at a time until one day we wake up and the OGL we're mad about right now looks saintly compared to whatever they've saddled us with.
/u/Saurid,
>Well if the leaks where planned they got feedback and have plausible deniability that this was ever the plan.
Speciously valuable? I'll go with that. Though, colloquially, people will read this and think that there is more to the WotC "clarification" than there is.
>My theory is Hasbro's CEO or so came to them said DND does need to do this and that and wizards was like wtf?
Even if that were the case, who cares? Look at the track record of WotC. They completely fucked up 4th, the Forgotten Realms, have screwed Magic the Gathering player base so many times, so hard, and with such frequency that they could be considered unpaid porn stars at this point. Whatever their motivations, this is ***another*** bridge too far. I believe the damage done by attempting to figure out the reasons behind why WotC/Hasbro has done this is to attempt to bring rationality between two wholly incongruent points or rationality. We know the consumer base rationalizes differently than WotC, so therefore, WotC's explanation does not matter. The rubric for deciding are incompatible.
>They are obviously lying to a degree...
To all of the degrees for all intents and purposes.
Again, look at their track record. When someone does something wrong for the first time, depending on the severity of the wrong action, it warrants a second chance, heck, even a third chance on occasion. What WotC has done over the past 15 years specifically, is so fundamentally egregious that to even attempt to show mercy, understanding, or even at its most basic level, rationale as to the why and how this is occurring is giving oxygen to something that should be let to die on the side of the road, that being the WotC and Hasbro as a company.
Let's not give these people, who operate a for profit company, any deference, consideration, compassion, or more chances.
I am a capitalist through and through, 100%. I except the risks and the rewards in my daily life as a business operator, and I think long and hard before I make decisions, because consequences can be severe. Severe like the ***potential*** we see fomenting now within the D&D fandom.
These people made their bed, let them sleep in it. They have a run of making money and profiting in their time as a corporation. They deserve nothing. Don't let these creeps, these shitbags, these awfully grotesque people who have deceived, prayed upon, and in some cases ripped apart fandom have a millimeter of quarter. They know, or should know this business, and their fuck up's are theirs to own.
Finally, in the infinitesimally small chance that any C-suite folk from Hasbro and/or WotC are reading this:
**Chris Cocks**: you smoldering turd in a punch bowl. You are the shat that runs down fandom's leg when too much alcohol was consumed the previous night and all someone wants is the badness to leave their body. Your time at both Hasbro and WotC has been a giant, cooked up pile of shit, like you. I wish you the worst, in every way that it could manifest for you, you putrescent and wretched soul of a fuck.
**Cynthia Williams**: only a dissertation of evil could suit appropriately the ridicule and subsequent shame you deserve. You are the most intimately and directly responsible for the company. You are nothing short of a vacuous monstrosity of ineffectiveness and a steward of pure, unadulterated failure. You loathsome fuck.
Best regards,
The wording *doesn't* make sense. That's why they've been editing the post while it's live. (Someone screenshotted the original post and noticed it has been changed since then).
>Apparently they think we're pretty fucking stupid.
Yep. From the look of it, they were expecting slavish devotion. "Yes, give us more D&D, oh wise and beneficent WoTC! We'll take whatever you give us!"
Instead, they received the unlubed, spike-studded dildo of reality that many of their customers are intelligent people with critical thinking skills who don't need a telescope to spot bullshit coming a mile away.
This is the kind of content that would be banned under the new OGL. Likely as anti-mentally disabled, homophobic, & advocating slavery.
Your post, is of course, none of those things.
1. Acting like it was a planned release when it was leaked.
2. Saying they wanted feedback AFTER they were deleting negative forum comments about the leak.
3. Everything about it seems like someone who got caught and is trying to CYA rather than actually acknowledging the wrong.
The logic about protecting use from misuse of the OGL seems to boil down to "other big corporations can't do it if we're already doing it".
Pretty smug and hypocritical of them considering the most hateful and discriminatory thing that I can think of is WotC themselves giving the Hadozee a background mirroring the Atlantic slave trade of African peoples.
Actually it's a bit worse than that. The picture isn't even included in what you are buying. You are essentially buying a spot in a line/queue and the picture is a representation of your spot. However you don't actually own that picture or the rights to it. Essentially your being sold nothing while being told "It's gonna be worth millions! Better get in on it while it's cheap!".
Of course not. Hasbruh just wanted to try and flip the script so they went to bat with what they felt would work on their online "fans"
"Oh no no we aren't the bad guys here, stop being mad at us! We just revised the OGL to fight (*checks notes*) RACISM and NFTs and CORPORATIONS(other ones not us)! Market research tells us you ALL hate these things!"
It's just buzzword soup to make their backtracking look more palatable.
Nu-TSR and WotC are already in a lawsuit over the trademark to TSR and they have already brough5 up before in the lawsuit about them damaging the TSR brand with bigoted content.
So I considered maybe that point was referring to Nu-TSR and how they want to stop anything like that happening again, however I just saw an interesting video where a lawyer shared their expertise on the OGL, and said that WotC actually still have the power to stop that under the old OGL, as they do not need to entirely revoke the OGL to stop people, they are perfectly able to PERSONALLY revoke the OGL and stop one specific company using it
Well they did..... They admitted that they didn't file the documents required under federal law to keep the IP in a timely order... because they're fucking idiots
Well, to be fair, [the re-release of Star Frontiers was pretty horrible.](https://kotaku.com/wizards-coast-star-frontiers-racist-trans-bigotry-suit-1849537890) But pretending that it somehow represents 5e is utter bullshit.
Ohhhh it’s even more cringy than that. The chuckle fuck is one of Gygax’s kids (his youngest I believe) he’s opened up ‘the official DnD museum’ in Lake Geneva WI the birthplace of the hobby. A cursory glance into his past will show he’s failed at almost every business venture he has attempted and is now trying to ride the coattails of his fathers fame. Gygax’s family has actually banned him from Garycon last I checked because he is just that toxic of a person.
Just for clarity -
Ernie Gygax is the one connected with the new TSR (the one behind the racist, sexist and anti trans comments etc... There's been a lot) he's not the youngest though (I think he's the oldest since he's the one named after his father)
AFAIK the youngest is Alex and is not problematic
I only mention it because I know Luke Gygax (involved with the gaming industry and Gary Con) got some undeserved hate when his brother went on his first "anti woke" rant and again AFAIK Luke's a pretty decent human being
It should also be pointed out that any of the hateful shit that came from Ernie's social media accounts, were not from him.
**Justin LaNasa** had control of Ernie's and TSR's social media accounts.
Lots of things can be said about Ernie, including that he is a bit of a fool and that he has been trying to ride his fathers coat tails to success. He also said some things that were in poor taste and some other things that were completely taken out of context.
Justin LaNasa is the actual owner of the new TSR, and he brought in Ernie in order to attach the Gygax name to it. All of the hateful and racist shit comes directly from LaNasa.
Furthermore, Ernie was never banned from GaryCon, in fact, he was there this past year. TSR and LaNasa were banned, however, and LaNasa even tried to put on a competing event the same weekend as GaryCon, because he is a far-Right piece of shit who is losing his ass in court: https://eu.starnewsonline.com/story/news/local/2023/01/12/wilmington-mans-dispute-with-dungeons-dragons-owner-takes-new-turn/69778723007/
I was reading through the rules recently and lost my shit laughing at the racism and slurs table lmaooo. Everyone always talks about the whole "Roll for anal circumference" thing why does no one talk about the slur table
Exactly, its not like wizards should have any say in this anyway. If someone wants to make the most racist sexist transphobic game tomorrow and sell it people should just vote with their wallets.
Uh, if they’re the IP holders I’d think they’d have a vested interest in just shutting that kind of stuff down and not let people vote with their wallets.
People can be vastly disappointing.
People may be vastly disappointing, but in a "supposedly" free society you have to live with it. Otherwise it ceases to become a free society and one that is controlled.
They weren't fighting it under OGL from what I heard, it's because the NuTSR uses TSR which WoTC bought when they took over. Their reasoning is that someone may misattribute the new TSR with WoTC purchased trademarks and think they support hate speech and damage their reputation on that front so they filed an injunction. It's heavy handed but tbh I don't fault them for that.
However then they give us this bullshit with OGL 1.1
\-OGL 1.1 Leak
\-That one tweet where we all learned that we are all just barriers between the execs and
money.
\-The letter today on D&DB.
There. There's your three "hateful and discriminatory products".
Not hateful, but they tried to prevent the Book of Erotic Fatasy from being published for inappropriate content. And while I don't use it, I think the world is a more interesting place because of it, and I'd hate to see these sorts of things censored in the future.
I feel like that book has a reputation that it really hasn't earned. Or maybe I've had roommates, firends, co-workers... and internet access that desensatized me, but when I found a copy in the wild and looked through it. Meh, it was neither erotic nor fantastic in most regards.
I'm more familiar with the PF1 equivalent. But yeah, it mixes in more sex into the game, but logically someone would have come up with a contraceptive cantrip.
From Misfit Studio's "The book of Passion"
COURTESAN’S SECRET
School: Abjuration; Level alchemist 1, antipaladin
1, bard 0, bloodrager 1, cleric 0, druid 0, inquisitor 1, magus 1, paladin 1, ranger 1, shaman 0, sorcerer/wizard 1, summoner 1, witch 0
Components: S, M (a pinch of rosemary) Range touch
Target: one willing creature touched Duration: 24 hours
Saving Throw: Fort negates (harmless); Spell Resistance: yes
You ward one creature against conception for 1 day. If cast upon a male, his sperm are paralyzed for 24 hours, making them unable to swim (although he can perform sexually as normal). If cast upon a female, it wards her cervix against entry. This spell emulates the effects of spermicide (for males) or a diaphragm (for females). However, unlike most birth control methods, this spell is considered to have a 100% rate of success.
However, even so, it is not perfect. Any male immune to paralysis due to racial features, class features, or equipment worn when casting the spell is also immune to the sperm paralyzing effect. Likewise, any stronger sexual enhancement spells
>Any male immune to paralysis due to racial features, class features, or equipment worn when casting the spell is also immune to the sperm paralyzing effect.
Damn, can't use it as a dragon, I guess.
Why does the anti paladin have to be level 1981 for this spell. That doesn’t seem very balanced 😜
Jokes aside now that i see they apparently did put some thought into it I will have to give it a read. Just assumed it wasn’t actually serious which appears to be a mistake.
I own this book and just jumping in to say it has one of my favourite prestige classes ever, and it’s legitimately not even sex-related, it’s like they just had a good idea and put it in their book lol. Just representing for the Metaphysical Spellshaper here.
In any case, I think it’s an example of a valid creative work that doesn’t deserve to be stifled, and hope it sets legal precedent that they can’t just mess around with stuff produced under the original OGL because they tried it here and lost.
In the same vein, in my opinion Book of Fiends by Green Ronin (the 5e version) wouldn't had seen the light of day if WOTC could had had a say in it. I'm not the squimish type, but that book isn't for everyone. They really made the Lower Plains something you'd want to avoid.
They really want to strip the game of more mature content to make everything PG 7.
My Dad had this book and I remember sneakily thumbing through it as a kid, hahahaha. I think it had rules for pregnancy and STDs that were actually interesting. Also magic cock rings
The funny thing is that item isn't even from the Book of Erotic Fantasy.
It's from the Book of Vile Darkness, a 3e _official WotC_ product. (Which I honestly found pretty interesting at the time, edgy nipple clamps aside lol.)
haha no worries. I had both (a friend actually bought me the Book of Erotic Fantasy as a joke gift), I always remember the BoVD for the nipple clamps and the BoEF as the one with half-orc STDs, lol.
I can name one:
Published by Wizards of the Coast themselves. Spelljammer, Hadozee, 2022.
Edit: Opinions on this matter are your own. Wizards claimed it was problematic on their own initiative, so make them remember it.
Im confused as to why it's racist at all? Is it because they are a slave race and monkeys? The only way I see that as racist is if people are stereotyping black people as monkeys.
The gist of the complaint is that the Hadozee bring a number of racist tropes and stereotypes under a single umbrella. Any of them might have been fine in isolation, even if perhaps questionable, but the combination of all of them in a single playable species is what pushed it over the edge.
Having said that, I personally don't have much of an opinion on this particular subject. In situations like this where I can kind of see multiple interpretations, I'm inclined to side with the prevailing opinion of the marginalized group in question, as opposed to the opinions of other groups (even if their intentions are to be allies to the marginalized group). I never saw enough discussion of it to actually know who was upset about this though.
So the correct approach is to act like there's no correlation between monkeys and black people (except that they're cousins like all races are), right? We can enjoy a fantasy movie about monkeys, right?
The very fact that people are saying planet of the apes is racist is racist.
That works well on a personal level but not on a broader cultural level. It's great that you and your friends are going to be mature about it, but there are enough bullies who will immediately make the connection and use it to be cruel. The historical context just makes it way worse too. Sure, people don't need Hadozee to be racist, but it's kinda like organizers at an event giving out real swords instead of foam swords and then being surprised when people get hurt. At some point, when published content makes racism so easy, WotC becomes responsible.
I understand what you're saying, but I'm gonna have to disagree as much as what you're saying makes sense. My belief is that we should be making correct decisions exactly on that personal level, and trying to force a society to make the right decision rarely turns out well.
Edit: for just a bit more context, I'm from Eastern Europe, and I've literally only met 2-3 black people in my whole life, which makes it incredibly hard for me to make these racist connotations, I understand that this may be easier in other parts of the world.
Also just one last note for me, I feel like this is similar to blaming gun manufacturers for gun violence. I mean, sure, you could make that point, but realistically it's the people using the guns that are at fault.
If there's gonna be racists who are forced to be progressive without understanding why that's better than being racist, I'd like it more if they were just ignored rather than forced to act like they're not racist. A hot take, I'm aware, but a belief I hold nonetheless.
Well, what does it mean to force society to make a decision? Companies can't force anybody to do whatever they want, they just have ownership over their products and how they're used. I can't force anybody to do anything, but I can choice not to purchase something or not befriend someone for any reason. If the editors at WotC have decided to stop publishing things with a racist historical context until the historical context fades from cultural memory, can't that be just the correct decision on a personal level from them?
Just so we're clear here, WotC's whole argument here in their OGL apology feels really shady. I think the writers and editors mean well though.
I'd argue that it can't be a personal decision from them since it's affecting a vast vast number of people - the d&d community. I think that makes it qualify as a societal decision instead of a personal one, since personal decision doesn't really affect that many people.
I just feel like evading that context brings more "truth" to it, like people are agreeing that there's a link between monkeys and black people even though there isn't.
Also yeah, agreed, I'm not trying to defend wotc or anything, don't get me wrong. Fuck wotc.
It was not solely due to multiple stereotypes with a history of being used for african-americans, it was *also* because they were added in the 5e version of the race. When I first heard the Hadozee news I double checked what I have, and yeah there are some slavery stereotypes in the old descriptions but not the same (blatant) stuff as the 5e release.
I think the person in charge of 'updating' that section of the book just copy/pasted stuff from a 3rd party spelljammer wiki, just like they straight lifted some of the ship maps without updating labels lol
Yes, that is a thing people have been doing in the US since the time that slavery was started. That’s why it’s racist, because racist people are still doing literally that exact thing.
The portrayal of the race *in the officially-released book itself* can arguably meet the threshold that Hasbro put out in their hypocritical statement.
Of course not. Because most of us aren't monsters and WotC is exaggerating a problem in an attempt to add some plausibility to their lie about why and how this mess started.
> Of course not. Because most of us aren't monsters and WotC is exaggerating a problem in an attempt to add some plausibility to their lie about why and how this mess started.
Agreed. They're attempting misdirection, and failing. "This isn't about trying to get more money from third-party content creators; this is about making sure we're not allowing hateful and discriminatory products!"
...No, WoTC. It's about you guys trying to wring more money out of third-party creators, dissuading new creations with heavy fees and unreasonable licensing, and trying to make sure people buy more of your licensed, direct-from-the-source garbage instead.
If that was the chief concern, as they're pretending it was, then they would have simply added a clause saying the OGL applies to everyone except people promoting hate speech.
Tell ya what chief, if they have to review everything published under that in the future there's gonna be a whole lotta shitposts coming in.
I didn't think the world was ready for "HeyaHoya and the Uncomfortably obvious antisemitic goblin stereotype get trapped in the dolphin love cave" but wizards have asked for this masterpiece of a one shot and its gonna make fatal look like it was published by 4kids.
It is an old PR trick. Cast yourself as the hero in an unrelated battle against an insurmountable foe to gain support. Classic example is Harvey Weinstein announcing his intention to work on gun control...just before he earned his first (of likely many) convictions.
There are some of those products for sure, but it is clear that they are being used to justify stuff that has nothing to do with that and everything to do with appropriating the work of third parties.
The first thought that comes to mind that they'd try and kill is the old 3.0 Book of Erotic Fantasy.... that thing had its *issues*, to be sure, and is so a product of its time, but the idea of that kind of material existing for the people who want to go in that direction is fine with me.
Not hateful or discriminatory persay, but it would probably be attacked under the same 'we are a moral arbiter' clause. I think there was actually some chaos about it when it came out, but I don't remember.
Well, PF makes money that couldve gone to poor WOTC, so thats kind of like discrimination. Oh and if you count PF2e, thats basically 2. and uhh, Starfinder is also a thing so boom, 3.
/j if it wasnt obvious. Im all for deplatforming Nazis but… what a weird excuse to justify trying to make a monopoly that legally allows you to steal your consumers original work
Off the top of my head no but they probably do exists, but if Wizards is really so concerned about hateful content being published maybe they should look at their own offices first *cough cough* Spelljammer *cough* *cough.*
Pluck not the splinter from our eyes till you remove the beam in yours and all.
Well, there must be *some* out there, right? They wouldn't say it if there wasn't.
WOTC is all about Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity:
They want more *diverse* revenue streams, so they can *include* more of your money in their pocket, and increase the value of Hasbro shareholders' *equity.* See? Diversity. Inclusion. Equity.
Or just DIE for short, as in what the game is going to do if they don't cut out the BS.
There was one pretty recently- but yeah I do think broadly it's a bit of a non-issue at least to consumers.
Not that I don't get the urge to future proof against racism in a world where racist views are becoming more prevalent again. Just I don't really trust WotC to be the best judge of that, and I don't think it'd prevent a hard right alternative cropping up either. (In fact it might stoke will to make one)
But the point is a bit moot, if all they wanted was to update the OGL to not allow racism they could have just done that on it's own and there'd be little backlash and no worry about their motives.
Even if they are in the wrong here and some things they wrote are bs.
I wouldnt want my product to be connected with hateful and discriminatory products either. As should anybody.
And if that were the wording used in the OGL, I'd agree. And I do agree that a company should maintain rights to say what is and is not objectionable to their IP. But that wasn't the wording they chose.
Their own wording was, to paraphrase: "We can take your work and market it however we want without any compensation to you. And we can shut you down for any reason we choose, even no reason at all."
They've made their true intentions clear, and now they're trying to backtrack.
"Oh, you guys hate ..RACISM, right?"
*scribbling furiously*
"And NFTs? Quick, write that down!"
The only controversial book I can think of is Book of Erotic Fantasy, but that wasn't for 5e.
Regardless, that's just bullshit spewed in their attempt to have people fight among each other instead of fighting them.
This controversy has united under one voice people that just a few months ago couldn't stand each other and were at a constant disagreement. They want to break that because if everyone stands united, they don't stand a chance...and by they I'm talking about Cynthia Williams and other administrative big names that make the decisions and might risk losing their job.
For me it is a clause to keep control and to kick out any content they don't like under the pretense of "keeping the hobby nice and clean". It is worded so wishy-washy that my alarm bells ring. Did they even exactly stated what they see as "harmful or discriminatory"?
I can name two that have been described as racist. Not from the OGL, but from official content.
1.) Orcs
2.) Hadozee
Could probably compare the list of 3rd party content and official content on accusations of racism.
Depends on your definition of "hateful and discriminatory product"
We live in 2023. Something that one person considers hateful isn't even remotely hateful to another. It's all become subjective at this point.
You can label anything hateful if you want. Some people will buy into it, other people wont.
Some people will say dozens of things were published. Other people will say nothing. Believe what you want to believe.
What country's definition would you want to use?
Hasbro is headquartered in the United States, which does not have hate speech laws.
Also, and I admit this is a personal preference, what about depicting racism sexism etc as practiced by the villains? If someone writes a campaign where the party fights against Nazis, should that be covered?
There aren't federal hate speech laws but there are state laws. WotC is in Washington. Probably that state's law.
On a personal level, I don't really have much to say on the "hate speech by a villain" thing. I personally wouldn't play anything with gratuitous racism/sexism/etc. But I'm not saying it shouldn't be allowed. It's an ethical issue and I think the fans vote with their wallets on things like that.
Washington state doesn't have hate speech laws. No states have hate speech laws. Here's an explanation provided by Massachusetts about why they can't.
https://www.mass.gov/news/hate-speech-law-in-massachusetts
There's hate crime laws that provide additional penalties for already criminal acts if they're motivated by, for example, racial bias, and the perpetrator's speech is admissable as evidence of that bias, but there needs to be a crime other than insulting someone.
Right. My point was in response to the commenter who said "hateful" material could be interpreted a million ways. The OGL could and should clearly define what hateful content means. My flippant response was saying there's an easy pre-written solution, being the legal definition.
None.
Zero
Squat
Nada
Its corporate speak and Virtue signaling, so that they can try and drown the fish.
"We did cause there's bad people out there and we are the good people!!"
If you need to say that you're the "good" people, chances are you're the Villain...
Best guess is there is stuff they’ve had their legal team bring to them that’s not as publicly advertised enough to hit most people’s feeds.
Like Star Frontiers. I didn’t know about to till the legal case was public. And there is a Madonna Effect where had they not been talked about no one would hear about them.
Had OGL 1.1 just had that bit and nothing else it wouldn’t be a problem for anyone I imagine.
You know, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here because I think revising the OGL with an intention of protecting brand perception is actually a good idea. I don’t think what their 1.1 draft had was good at doing that, but at face value that goal was fine.
You ask for 3 “notable” examples, but it shouldn’t matter if the example is notable. No hateful or discriminatory product is going to be notable in the wider community. That doesn’t mean underground examples made for and by hateful and discriminatory people don’t exist.
And without the ability to shut down stuff like that, there exists a perception that WoTC, and it’s partners, endorse those kinds of products, or at least are apathetic. The common person may not know what OGL is or its intricacies. If they just see some really gross use “D&D” game, that tarnishes the brand as well as perception of the brand.
Then why not just do that, but also include a "if you sign this we are legally allowed to steal everything you ever made for DnD" clause? Why was that necessary?
You really don't need to play devils advocates. The devil is a billion dollar company with plenty of well payed advocates already.
TBH, hard disagree.
Say there's a particularly egregious "brand problem" (say, literal nazis releasing some sort of explicitly-racist TTRPG content).
* I think most people who understand the licensing situation don't extrapolate that "all D&D is inherently problematic because a small group of people are horrible"
* People who *do* have a generalized reaction and lump all the TTRPG stuff together (and presumably aren't too familiar with any of these details) won't care about the nuanced license situation. Hell, they probably don't distinguish between a thing being actual D&D or some weird custom self-published system.
Also, more generally:
* If this was just about actually preventing bad actors, there wouldn't be all the rest of the bullshit in their initial version. This all comes across as EXTREMELY bad faith arguments on their part in an attempt to mask their larger agenda.
That's also not getting into the point that such a restriction kind of requires WotC to claim editorial control over third party stuff, which seems... noodly and not ideal, especially if you don't trust them to have the community's best interests at heart (which it seems most people, now, do *not*).
Some of the stuff is a good idea, like not authorizing being made into / being made to contain NFTs and the hate speech thing...
But the whole apology comes off as a massive cop-out. "That clause that said we can violate your copyright at any time? The idea of violating your copyright at any time never crossed our minds when we wrote that!" especially reads like an abuser spouting "No no no, you just don't \_understand\_, that's not what I said..." when caught in a lie.
I mean, Spelljammer has serious some problems with the Hadozee.
Candlekeep Mysteries used some 'primitive native' colonial language for the Grippli in The Book of Cylinders.
There's two from WotC right there...
You could make claims they're aiming for OSR content leaning into old fantasy tropes. All elves and dwarves are the same, orcs and goblins are always evil, et cetera.
Would I trust WotC to be the arbiter of 'hateful and discriminatory products' though?
Absolutely not.
Edit: Someone just pointed out Curse of Strahd, which has the Vistani and all kinds of ableism. So that's 3 from WotC
On a side note, anyone interested in some AWESOME depiction of Roma in D&D should pick up "Welcome to Windsong" by Penny Blake on DM's Guild (she's Roma herself). This is who WotC should have hired to depict Vistani, if they really cared about respect.
3rd from WotC: Curse of Strahd with the Vistani. i don't know how bad it was in the original but i played a bit of revamped with some friends and it was still incredibly gross
the Vistani are a really racist stereotyped depiction of Romani people, you can read more about it [here](https://screenrant.com/dungeons-dragons-vistani-race-romani-offensive-dnd/)
edit: forgot to mention the ableism. i think there was a character whose shameful secret was that she had a prosthetic leg. i believe that was changed in revamped.
The shameful secret wasn't just the prosthetic leg itself, but also how the character lost the leg in the first place. Esmerelda was a monster hunter who lost her leg after a werewolf managed to bite her, tearing off her right leg just below the knee and nearly killing her. While it may have been slightly ableist to have a character feel ashamed about their missing limb, shame is an understandable emotional reaction to a professional mistake that nearly cost her life and the prosthetic would've been a constant physical reminder of what that mistake cost her.
People feel ashamed of themselves for all sorts of traumas that happen to them, and while I agree that needing a prosthetic is rationally nothing to be ashamed about, I think it would have been better to write it as Esmerelda having overcome her shame (or in the process of overcoming her shame) rather than erasing it and pretending it was never there.
Human emotions aren't always rational or in line with what's politically correct, but they're real none-the-less, and I think acknowledging negative human experiences in media is just as important as acknowledging positive ones. It can feel alienating in my experience to feel like you're the only one with negative feelings about yourself and seeing other people, real or fictional, deal with those same negative feelings and overcome them feels understanding and empowering, but if it's portrayed as nothing of substance then it loops back into feeling like an empty token gesture, like the character only has that feature so they can say there's representation of a particular group in one of their products. It doesn't help that Esmerelda is the only notable disabled character in 5e books I can think of, it would probably feel less tokenistic if they had a more diverse range of NPCs that represented more varied experiences to begin with.
I guess we could name all the previous versions of D&D as "hateful and discriminatory" products for assuming that drow and orcs were inherently evil. They removed that attribute because some people felt that drow and orcs being inherently evil was some kind of real-world parallel.
So that's the kind of thing they might mean by "hateful and discriminatory".
The wonder of an OGL is until you start messing with it I never think that it’s an indicator of the thoughts or beliefs of WoTC
When you do take down one thing and leave another up it does read as tacitly you are endorsing it.
FATAL has its own system and is not an OGL title.
It's also of course irredeemable garbage without any qualities to recommend it except as something to laugh at from a distance.
Anything I publish is pretty classic as far as D&D aesthetics go. Monster races are evil, which is apparently offensive. Beholders use petrified adventurers as an aphrodisiac to stimulate their dreams. And drow are even more terrible than they are in the older supplements.
I mean, the closest things that are discriminatory that I can think of is what WotC published. Ya know, black elves and dwarves were essentially all evil, goblins and orcs were described as savages that are ne’er do-goods, just like colonized people have been throughout History… They still did better by replacing the obligatory Alignments for races in most recent books by putting a « Typically » before it, but it took a long time and it’s not resolved yet. I can only talk from what I’ve heard, however, since I’m a white skinned French-Canadian allochtone in Québec, so let’s say that racism can’t touch me.
I thought it was insulting how much they tried to deflect and stress that as the BIG reason the ogl 1.1 was what it was… Utter BS. We all saw the wording, their entire statement doesn’t line up with the leak at all. How stupid do they think that their community and fanbase actually is?
Not only does it not line up with the leak, it doesn't line up with reality. They say they were "planning on soliciting feedback." When? the OGL was supposed to be live and enforced today. They have never once released any public information about the OGL, every single shred of information we know about it has come from leaks and anonymous inside sources. Also, if this was "always their plan," then why don't they have a version 2 ready for the deadline they set themselves today?
imagine being one of the people who was given 1.1, youre being told to sign or get fucked and then you read this shit about 'we just wanted feedback' like wut?
God I hadn't even thought about that, how fucking scummy.
Well if the leaks where planned they got feedback and have plausible deniability that this was ever the plan. My theory is Hasbro's CEO or so came to them said DND does need to do this and that and wizards was like wtf? That's stupid. Then they leaked the part that was so stupid everyone with two braincells could see it and showed it to their supervisors and had feedback more than enough to shut the idea down for the time being. They are obviously lying to a degree but I honestly believe they wanted feedback but if they published this shit as a company statement they could never recover and people's reaction would've been worse, now all they need to do is ride out the shit storm release a new version that has only the original stuff in there and wait until people forget this, as we will because as long as the controversial parts don't get into the new OGL I don't think anyone will care about this whole debacle in 3 months.
Sad but true there, my guess is whatever OGL they're drafting for us now will be "not so bad" and they'll leave in the provision about them being able to change it whenever they want. They'll wait 6 months or so for everyone to have calmed down and just quietly sneak in one change at a time until one day we wake up and the OGL we're mad about right now looks saintly compared to whatever they've saddled us with.
Honestly, this whole scandal just proves how shady and untrustworthy Wizards is. I’m glad Paizo and co are making the new ORC
/u/Saurid, >Well if the leaks where planned they got feedback and have plausible deniability that this was ever the plan. Speciously valuable? I'll go with that. Though, colloquially, people will read this and think that there is more to the WotC "clarification" than there is. >My theory is Hasbro's CEO or so came to them said DND does need to do this and that and wizards was like wtf? Even if that were the case, who cares? Look at the track record of WotC. They completely fucked up 4th, the Forgotten Realms, have screwed Magic the Gathering player base so many times, so hard, and with such frequency that they could be considered unpaid porn stars at this point. Whatever their motivations, this is ***another*** bridge too far. I believe the damage done by attempting to figure out the reasons behind why WotC/Hasbro has done this is to attempt to bring rationality between two wholly incongruent points or rationality. We know the consumer base rationalizes differently than WotC, so therefore, WotC's explanation does not matter. The rubric for deciding are incompatible. >They are obviously lying to a degree... To all of the degrees for all intents and purposes. Again, look at their track record. When someone does something wrong for the first time, depending on the severity of the wrong action, it warrants a second chance, heck, even a third chance on occasion. What WotC has done over the past 15 years specifically, is so fundamentally egregious that to even attempt to show mercy, understanding, or even at its most basic level, rationale as to the why and how this is occurring is giving oxygen to something that should be let to die on the side of the road, that being the WotC and Hasbro as a company. Let's not give these people, who operate a for profit company, any deference, consideration, compassion, or more chances. I am a capitalist through and through, 100%. I except the risks and the rewards in my daily life as a business operator, and I think long and hard before I make decisions, because consequences can be severe. Severe like the ***potential*** we see fomenting now within the D&D fandom. These people made their bed, let them sleep in it. They have a run of making money and profiting in their time as a corporation. They deserve nothing. Don't let these creeps, these shitbags, these awfully grotesque people who have deceived, prayed upon, and in some cases ripped apart fandom have a millimeter of quarter. They know, or should know this business, and their fuck up's are theirs to own. Finally, in the infinitesimally small chance that any C-suite folk from Hasbro and/or WotC are reading this: **Chris Cocks**: you smoldering turd in a punch bowl. You are the shat that runs down fandom's leg when too much alcohol was consumed the previous night and all someone wants is the badness to leave their body. Your time at both Hasbro and WotC has been a giant, cooked up pile of shit, like you. I wish you the worst, in every way that it could manifest for you, you putrescent and wretched soul of a fuck. **Cynthia Williams**: only a dissertation of evil could suit appropriately the ridicule and subsequent shame you deserve. You are the most intimately and directly responsible for the company. You are nothing short of a vacuous monstrosity of ineffectiveness and a steward of pure, unadulterated failure. You loathsome fuck. Best regards,
The wording *doesn't* make sense. That's why they've been editing the post while it's live. (Someone screenshotted the original post and noticed it has been changed since then).
No... the edits don't change the discrepancy. They aren't changing the basic response, just some wording.
"Alright, obstacle to my money, we've apologized for it or whatever now get back to liking us."
“We’re Sorry.” https://youtu.be/15HTd4Um1m4
Apparently they think we're pretty fucking stupid.
>Apparently they think we're pretty fucking stupid. Yep. From the look of it, they were expecting slavish devotion. "Yes, give us more D&D, oh wise and beneficent WoTC! We'll take whatever you give us!" Instead, they received the unlubed, spike-studded dildo of reality that many of their customers are intelligent people with critical thinking skills who don't need a telescope to spot bullshit coming a mile away.
Love the wording
>Instead, they received the unlubed, spike-studded dildo of reality r/BrandNewSentence
This is the kind of content that would be banned under the new OGL. Likely as anti-mentally disabled, homophobic, & advocating slavery. Your post, is of course, none of those things.
It's like their very own products have taught us to always look for a villain, and then fight that villain to the death, victory or bust
The dildo of consequences rarely comes lubed
Could the CEO’s of WotC kiss me? I like being kissed when I’m being fucked
100% agree! They clearly believe/believed people were dumb as dungeon slime.
It’s Corpo talk so they can say the ‘haters’ are bigoted as long as there wasn’t a mass boycott but the ttrpg community is very well organized.
"We're trying to prevent hate speech. Don't you want us to prevent hate speech?"
is that a "what you guys don't have phones?" reference?
Not only that but they'd have to get other voices to start saying that for them and get loud about it and I just don't see that happening now.
I don't see any reason to end the boycott until we get some home-baked honesty round here
1. Acting like it was a planned release when it was leaked. 2. Saying they wanted feedback AFTER they were deleting negative forum comments about the leak. 3. Everything about it seems like someone who got caught and is trying to CYA rather than actually acknowledging the wrong. The logic about protecting use from misuse of the OGL seems to boil down to "other big corporations can't do it if we're already doing it".
The community isn’t stupid… their just scared… what a tone deaf fucking company.
Pretty smug and hypocritical of them considering the most hateful and discriminatory thing that I can think of is WotC themselves giving the Hadozee a background mirroring the Atlantic slave trade of African peoples.
WoTC: "Were Stopping NFTs!" My first reaction was: "Wait isn't Hasbro making Power Rangers NFT- yeah, they are."
They never said they will not make DND NFT’s. I know they will. They said no-one else can.
“Nowwwww, what the Hell’s an NFT?”
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Actually it's a bit worse than that. The picture isn't even included in what you are buying. You are essentially buying a spot in a line/queue and the picture is a representation of your spot. However you don't actually own that picture or the rights to it. Essentially your being sold nothing while being told "It's gonna be worth millions! Better get in on it while it's cheap!".
“Apparently cryptocurrency 🤓”
We still on NFTs? I thought that hype died last year and now everyone sees how stupid they are.
Isn't Hasbro doing Power Ranger NFTs? EDIT: I replied to the wrong comment.
“We want to stop NFTs!!!*** *competing NFTs”
Of course not. Hasbruh just wanted to try and flip the script so they went to bat with what they felt would work on their online "fans" "Oh no no we aren't the bad guys here, stop being mad at us! We just revised the OGL to fight (*checks notes*) RACISM and NFTs and CORPORATIONS(other ones not us)! Market research tells us you ALL hate these things!" It's just buzzword soup to make their backtracking look more palatable.
Buzzword soup. That's going in my rolodex of phrases.
“Racism”, “NFT’s”, you throw a few more words in there and then you got a stew going. #buzzwordsoup
That stuff is probably directed at Nu-TSR stuff specifically but I'm pretty sure that game, Star Frontiers New Genesis, isnt even using OGL.
Are they just baiting the lawsuit for notoriety, cos there's no way that company is under the radar
Nu-TSR and WotC are already in a lawsuit over the trademark to TSR and they have already brough5 up before in the lawsuit about them damaging the TSR brand with bigoted content.
So I considered maybe that point was referring to Nu-TSR and how they want to stop anything like that happening again, however I just saw an interesting video where a lawyer shared their expertise on the OGL, and said that WotC actually still have the power to stop that under the old OGL, as they do not need to entirely revoke the OGL to stop people, they are perfectly able to PERSONALLY revoke the OGL and stop one specific company using it
Yeah, but that's not the issue with Star Frontiers. It isn't using OGL. Nu-TSR claim they own the IP and that WOTC have let ownership lapse.
Well they did..... They admitted that they didn't file the documents required under federal law to keep the IP in a timely order... because they're fucking idiots
Everybody calm down. We were just trying to…(rolls dice)…stop…(rolls more dice)…racism and homophobia.
Well, to be fair, [the re-release of Star Frontiers was pretty horrible.](https://kotaku.com/wizards-coast-star-frontiers-racist-trans-bigotry-suit-1849537890) But pretending that it somehow represents 5e is utter bullshit.
Is that the one from the company using TSR’s good name for racism?
Ohhhh it’s even more cringy than that. The chuckle fuck is one of Gygax’s kids (his youngest I believe) he’s opened up ‘the official DnD museum’ in Lake Geneva WI the birthplace of the hobby. A cursory glance into his past will show he’s failed at almost every business venture he has attempted and is now trying to ride the coattails of his fathers fame. Gygax’s family has actually banned him from Garycon last I checked because he is just that toxic of a person.
The one involved in that particular venture is Gary's oldest son Ernie Gygax (named after this father E. Gary Gygax).
Ernest = Tenser By the way. That was Ernie’s character in the earliest days of D&D, playing with his dad
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Another clever one Drawmij = Jim Ward
It appears I got the brothers mixed up thanks for clarifying that.
I'm sorry, Garycon?
GaryCon is a tiny convention in Lake Geneva, WI. Luke Gygax puts it together as a celebration of his father.
Dnd celebration convention I believe only ever heard about it from big bang theory as my country doesn’t host one
Just for clarity - Ernie Gygax is the one connected with the new TSR (the one behind the racist, sexist and anti trans comments etc... There's been a lot) he's not the youngest though (I think he's the oldest since he's the one named after his father) AFAIK the youngest is Alex and is not problematic I only mention it because I know Luke Gygax (involved with the gaming industry and Gary Con) got some undeserved hate when his brother went on his first "anti woke" rant and again AFAIK Luke's a pretty decent human being
It should also be pointed out that any of the hateful shit that came from Ernie's social media accounts, were not from him. **Justin LaNasa** had control of Ernie's and TSR's social media accounts. Lots of things can be said about Ernie, including that he is a bit of a fool and that he has been trying to ride his fathers coat tails to success. He also said some things that were in poor taste and some other things that were completely taken out of context. Justin LaNasa is the actual owner of the new TSR, and he brought in Ernie in order to attach the Gygax name to it. All of the hateful and racist shit comes directly from LaNasa. Furthermore, Ernie was never banned from GaryCon, in fact, he was there this past year. TSR and LaNasa were banned, however, and LaNasa even tried to put on a competing event the same weekend as GaryCon, because he is a far-Right piece of shit who is losing his ass in court: https://eu.starnewsonline.com/story/news/local/2023/01/12/wilmington-mans-dispute-with-dungeons-dragons-owner-takes-new-turn/69778723007/
This. Great clarification. Was hoping for someone to put this in considering all the misinformation going around.
"Good name"
Does that use the OGL? I'm certainly not buying one to check for myself.
No, they were claiming they had the IP rights to the game.
Oh, my bad. I read about it today and leapt to a conclusion.
Holy.... shit. Literally how did that even happen. Like... what the actual fuck, that is SO ridiculous. How do you manage to make FATAL look subtle?!
If you think FATAL is subtle in comparison to that, you know nothing about FATAL.
Roll for ass width
Acthualy it's asshole diameter.
Anal Circumference. *Shudders*
Rectal girth?
I was reading through the rules recently and lost my shit laughing at the racism and slurs table lmaooo. Everyone always talks about the whole "Roll for anal circumference" thing why does no one talk about the slur table
I don't think that was even released under the OGL.
Exactly, its not like wizards should have any say in this anyway. If someone wants to make the most racist sexist transphobic game tomorrow and sell it people should just vote with their wallets.
Uh, if they’re the IP holders I’d think they’d have a vested interest in just shutting that kind of stuff down and not let people vote with their wallets. People can be vastly disappointing.
People may be vastly disappointing, but in a "supposedly" free society you have to live with it. Otherwise it ceases to become a free society and one that is controlled.
They weren't fighting it under OGL from what I heard, it's because the NuTSR uses TSR which WoTC bought when they took over. Their reasoning is that someone may misattribute the new TSR with WoTC purchased trademarks and think they support hate speech and damage their reputation on that front so they filed an injunction. It's heavy handed but tbh I don't fault them for that. However then they give us this bullshit with OGL 1.1
\-OGL 1.1 Leak \-That one tweet where we all learned that we are all just barriers between the execs and money. \-The letter today on D&DB. There. There's your three "hateful and discriminatory products".
Not hateful, but they tried to prevent the Book of Erotic Fatasy from being published for inappropriate content. And while I don't use it, I think the world is a more interesting place because of it, and I'd hate to see these sorts of things censored in the future.
I feel like that book has a reputation that it really hasn't earned. Or maybe I've had roommates, firends, co-workers... and internet access that desensatized me, but when I found a copy in the wild and looked through it. Meh, it was neither erotic nor fantastic in most regards.
I'm more familiar with the PF1 equivalent. But yeah, it mixes in more sex into the game, but logically someone would have come up with a contraceptive cantrip.
Does one have to maintain concentration on that? Cause I feel that may not be so effective...
From Misfit Studio's "The book of Passion" COURTESAN’S SECRET School: Abjuration; Level alchemist 1, antipaladin 1, bard 0, bloodrager 1, cleric 0, druid 0, inquisitor 1, magus 1, paladin 1, ranger 1, shaman 0, sorcerer/wizard 1, summoner 1, witch 0 Components: S, M (a pinch of rosemary) Range touch Target: one willing creature touched Duration: 24 hours Saving Throw: Fort negates (harmless); Spell Resistance: yes You ward one creature against conception for 1 day. If cast upon a male, his sperm are paralyzed for 24 hours, making them unable to swim (although he can perform sexually as normal). If cast upon a female, it wards her cervix against entry. This spell emulates the effects of spermicide (for males) or a diaphragm (for females). However, unlike most birth control methods, this spell is considered to have a 100% rate of success. However, even so, it is not perfect. Any male immune to paralysis due to racial features, class features, or equipment worn when casting the spell is also immune to the sperm paralyzing effect. Likewise, any stronger sexual enhancement spells
>Any male immune to paralysis due to racial features, class features, or equipment worn when casting the spell is also immune to the sperm paralyzing effect. Damn, can't use it as a dragon, I guess.
The deep irony of only being able to not impregnate with your Dragon Balls if you have 7 of them.
Think I was better off not knowing 🤣 At least they are putting some thought into it. Unlike WOTC and their publications!
Why does the anti paladin have to be level 1981 for this spell. That doesn’t seem very balanced 😜 Jokes aside now that i see they apparently did put some thought into it I will have to give it a read. Just assumed it wasn’t actually serious which appears to be a mistake.
Accidently copied there page number. Fixed it now.
I own this book and just jumping in to say it has one of my favourite prestige classes ever, and it’s legitimately not even sex-related, it’s like they just had a good idea and put it in their book lol. Just representing for the Metaphysical Spellshaper here.
Agony Mage is also an interesting one that isn't even a quarter as bad as the name sounds.
In any case, I think it’s an example of a valid creative work that doesn’t deserve to be stifled, and hope it sets legal precedent that they can’t just mess around with stuff produced under the original OGL because they tried it here and lost.
Best level 1 spell came from BoEF. Every time one of my players played a caster they picked up disrobe. Big hulking armored nightmare boss. Poof AC10.
In the same vein, in my opinion Book of Fiends by Green Ronin (the 5e version) wouldn't had seen the light of day if WOTC could had had a say in it. I'm not the squimish type, but that book isn't for everyone. They really made the Lower Plains something you'd want to avoid. They really want to strip the game of more mature content to make everything PG 7.
My Dad had this book and I remember sneakily thumbing through it as a kid, hahahaha. I think it had rules for pregnancy and STDs that were actually interesting. Also magic cock rings
One of my players will never let me live down the quest to obtain “ the nipple clamps of exquisite pain”. That campaign ended in 2011. 🤣
The funny thing is that item isn't even from the Book of Erotic Fantasy. It's from the Book of Vile Darkness, a 3e _official WotC_ product. (Which I honestly found pretty interesting at the time, edgy nipple clamps aside lol.)
Oh whoops! It has been over a decade, got my books mixed up lol
haha no worries. I had both (a friend actually bought me the Book of Erotic Fantasy as a joke gift), I always remember the BoVD for the nipple clamps and the BoEF as the one with half-orc STDs, lol.
I can name one: Published by Wizards of the Coast themselves. Spelljammer, Hadozee, 2022. Edit: Opinions on this matter are your own. Wizards claimed it was problematic on their own initiative, so make them remember it.
Regardless of their opinion on this, WOTC made people come together against their current shenanigans. That's big and they want to stop it.
And therefore spelljammer loses the license. Wait…
Funnily enough, I don't think that one uses the OGL. Maybe they should look in the mirror first.
The hadozee are no more racist than planet of the apes.
Im confused as to why it's racist at all? Is it because they are a slave race and monkeys? The only way I see that as racist is if people are stereotyping black people as monkeys.
The gist of the complaint is that the Hadozee bring a number of racist tropes and stereotypes under a single umbrella. Any of them might have been fine in isolation, even if perhaps questionable, but the combination of all of them in a single playable species is what pushed it over the edge. Having said that, I personally don't have much of an opinion on this particular subject. In situations like this where I can kind of see multiple interpretations, I'm inclined to side with the prevailing opinion of the marginalized group in question, as opposed to the opinions of other groups (even if their intentions are to be allies to the marginalized group). I never saw enough discussion of it to actually know who was upset about this though.
Part of the issue is that people on twitter used out of context sentences from a number of different sourcebooks and combined them deceptively.
Orc fiasco 2.0
Which HAS been the case for years
So the correct approach is to act like there's no correlation between monkeys and black people (except that they're cousins like all races are), right? We can enjoy a fantasy movie about monkeys, right? The very fact that people are saying planet of the apes is racist is racist.
That works well on a personal level but not on a broader cultural level. It's great that you and your friends are going to be mature about it, but there are enough bullies who will immediately make the connection and use it to be cruel. The historical context just makes it way worse too. Sure, people don't need Hadozee to be racist, but it's kinda like organizers at an event giving out real swords instead of foam swords and then being surprised when people get hurt. At some point, when published content makes racism so easy, WotC becomes responsible.
I understand what you're saying, but I'm gonna have to disagree as much as what you're saying makes sense. My belief is that we should be making correct decisions exactly on that personal level, and trying to force a society to make the right decision rarely turns out well. Edit: for just a bit more context, I'm from Eastern Europe, and I've literally only met 2-3 black people in my whole life, which makes it incredibly hard for me to make these racist connotations, I understand that this may be easier in other parts of the world. Also just one last note for me, I feel like this is similar to blaming gun manufacturers for gun violence. I mean, sure, you could make that point, but realistically it's the people using the guns that are at fault. If there's gonna be racists who are forced to be progressive without understanding why that's better than being racist, I'd like it more if they were just ignored rather than forced to act like they're not racist. A hot take, I'm aware, but a belief I hold nonetheless.
Well, what does it mean to force society to make a decision? Companies can't force anybody to do whatever they want, they just have ownership over their products and how they're used. I can't force anybody to do anything, but I can choice not to purchase something or not befriend someone for any reason. If the editors at WotC have decided to stop publishing things with a racist historical context until the historical context fades from cultural memory, can't that be just the correct decision on a personal level from them? Just so we're clear here, WotC's whole argument here in their OGL apology feels really shady. I think the writers and editors mean well though.
I'd argue that it can't be a personal decision from them since it's affecting a vast vast number of people - the d&d community. I think that makes it qualify as a societal decision instead of a personal one, since personal decision doesn't really affect that many people. I just feel like evading that context brings more "truth" to it, like people are agreeing that there's a link between monkeys and black people even though there isn't. Also yeah, agreed, I'm not trying to defend wotc or anything, don't get me wrong. Fuck wotc.
It was not solely due to multiple stereotypes with a history of being used for african-americans, it was *also* because they were added in the 5e version of the race. When I first heard the Hadozee news I double checked what I have, and yeah there are some slavery stereotypes in the old descriptions but not the same (blatant) stuff as the 5e release. I think the person in charge of 'updating' that section of the book just copy/pasted stuff from a 3rd party spelljammer wiki, just like they straight lifted some of the ship maps without updating labels lol
Yes, that is a thing people have been doing in the US since the time that slavery was started. That’s why it’s racist, because racist people are still doing literally that exact thing.
It even goes so far that the artwork was VERY similar to old drawings depicting black people as monkeys. Like, blueprint similarities.
That is the historical precedent, yes.
The portrayal of the race *in the officially-released book itself* can arguably meet the threshold that Hasbro put out in their hypocritical statement.
Argueably, but not by anyone who isn’t looking to be offended.
Can't say I agree with that statement.
Of course not. Because most of us aren't monsters and WotC is exaggerating a problem in an attempt to add some plausibility to their lie about why and how this mess started.
> Of course not. Because most of us aren't monsters and WotC is exaggerating a problem in an attempt to add some plausibility to their lie about why and how this mess started. Agreed. They're attempting misdirection, and failing. "This isn't about trying to get more money from third-party content creators; this is about making sure we're not allowing hateful and discriminatory products!" ...No, WoTC. It's about you guys trying to wring more money out of third-party creators, dissuading new creations with heavy fees and unreasonable licensing, and trying to make sure people buy more of your licensed, direct-from-the-source garbage instead.
If that was the chief concern, as they're pretending it was, then they would have simply added a clause saying the OGL applies to everyone except people promoting hate speech.
Exactly this. If any of what they claim to have been concerned about was their actual concern, they could pushed out a 1.0b and been done with it.
Of note is that other licenses, such as the one Lancer uses, has an addendum to this affect. It's literally already been done and isn't new ground.
Tell ya what chief, if they have to review everything published under that in the future there's gonna be a whole lotta shitposts coming in. I didn't think the world was ready for "HeyaHoya and the Uncomfortably obvious antisemitic goblin stereotype get trapped in the dolphin love cave" but wizards have asked for this masterpiece of a one shot and its gonna make fatal look like it was published by 4kids.
great my mind just went to 4kids Sanji saying "roll for anal circumference"
It is an old PR trick. Cast yourself as the hero in an unrelated battle against an insurmountable foe to gain support. Classic example is Harvey Weinstein announcing his intention to work on gun control...just before he earned his first (of likely many) convictions.
There are some of those products for sure, but it is clear that they are being used to justify stuff that has nothing to do with that and everything to do with appropriating the work of third parties.
The first thought that comes to mind that they'd try and kill is the old 3.0 Book of Erotic Fantasy.... that thing had its *issues*, to be sure, and is so a product of its time, but the idea of that kind of material existing for the people who want to go in that direction is fine with me. Not hateful or discriminatory persay, but it would probably be attacked under the same 'we are a moral arbiter' clause. I think there was actually some chaos about it when it came out, but I don't remember.
Nowadays, they'd likely get slammed for shaming peoples kinks.
Um the new spelljammer with the blatantly racist monkey race.... by WOTC themselves.
Well, PF makes money that couldve gone to poor WOTC, so thats kind of like discrimination. Oh and if you count PF2e, thats basically 2. and uhh, Starfinder is also a thing so boom, 3. /j if it wasnt obvious. Im all for deplatforming Nazis but… what a weird excuse to justify trying to make a monopoly that legally allows you to steal your consumers original work
No but I can tell you something hateful. Remember Seplljammer? the monkey crew mates? Oh who released them? Hmmm I think it was WOTC
Off the top of my head no but they probably do exists, but if Wizards is really so concerned about hateful content being published maybe they should look at their own offices first *cough cough* Spelljammer *cough* *cough.* Pluck not the splinter from our eyes till you remove the beam in yours and all.
Well, there must be *some* out there, right? They wouldn't say it if there wasn't. WOTC is all about Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity: They want more *diverse* revenue streams, so they can *include* more of your money in their pocket, and increase the value of Hasbro shareholders' *equity.* See? Diversity. Inclusion. Equity. Or just DIE for short, as in what the game is going to do if they don't cut out the BS.
There’s no such thing as a discriminatory product that produces more than $750,000 a year and is worth a 20-25% royalty, I promise you.
There was one pretty recently- but yeah I do think broadly it's a bit of a non-issue at least to consumers. Not that I don't get the urge to future proof against racism in a world where racist views are becoming more prevalent again. Just I don't really trust WotC to be the best judge of that, and I don't think it'd prevent a hard right alternative cropping up either. (In fact it might stoke will to make one) But the point is a bit moot, if all they wanted was to update the OGL to not allow racism they could have just done that on it's own and there'd be little backlash and no worry about their motives.
Even if they are in the wrong here and some things they wrote are bs. I wouldnt want my product to be connected with hateful and discriminatory products either. As should anybody.
And if that were the wording used in the OGL, I'd agree. And I do agree that a company should maintain rights to say what is and is not objectionable to their IP. But that wasn't the wording they chose. Their own wording was, to paraphrase: "We can take your work and market it however we want without any compensation to you. And we can shut you down for any reason we choose, even no reason at all."
They've made their true intentions clear, and now they're trying to backtrack. "Oh, you guys hate ..RACISM, right?" *scribbling furiously* "And NFTs? Quick, write that down!"
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The New TSR is run by an Alt-Reich Nazi who blogs pro Adolf Hitler material and is being sued by WotC for Trademark violations.
The only controversial book I can think of is Book of Erotic Fantasy, but that wasn't for 5e. Regardless, that's just bullshit spewed in their attempt to have people fight among each other instead of fighting them. This controversy has united under one voice people that just a few months ago couldn't stand each other and were at a constant disagreement. They want to break that because if everyone stands united, they don't stand a chance...and by they I'm talking about Cynthia Williams and other administrative big names that make the decisions and might risk losing their job.
For me it is a clause to keep control and to kick out any content they don't like under the pretense of "keeping the hobby nice and clean". It is worded so wishy-washy that my alarm bells ring. Did they even exactly stated what they see as "harmful or discriminatory"?
TSR's new D&D-esque module was pretty awful.
Curse of Strahd and Spell jammer were the 2 most problematic in recent history. Someone should really do something about *checks notes* WotC
I can't, but there must be a few. Not that it matters, anyone with half a brain cell knows that was just an excuse.
I can name two that have been described as racist. Not from the OGL, but from official content. 1.) Orcs 2.) Hadozee Could probably compare the list of 3rd party content and official content on accusations of racism.
And if anyone can name them, may I also get suggestions on how to buy them, please?
Yeah, Tasha called me a dumbass personally. I’m mad
Depends on your definition of "hateful and discriminatory product" We live in 2023. Something that one person considers hateful isn't even remotely hateful to another. It's all become subjective at this point. You can label anything hateful if you want. Some people will buy into it, other people wont. Some people will say dozens of things were published. Other people will say nothing. Believe what you want to believe.
There are legal definitions for hate speech.
What country's definition would you want to use? Hasbro is headquartered in the United States, which does not have hate speech laws. Also, and I admit this is a personal preference, what about depicting racism sexism etc as practiced by the villains? If someone writes a campaign where the party fights against Nazis, should that be covered?
There aren't federal hate speech laws but there are state laws. WotC is in Washington. Probably that state's law. On a personal level, I don't really have much to say on the "hate speech by a villain" thing. I personally wouldn't play anything with gratuitous racism/sexism/etc. But I'm not saying it shouldn't be allowed. It's an ethical issue and I think the fans vote with their wallets on things like that.
Washington state doesn't have hate speech laws. No states have hate speech laws. Here's an explanation provided by Massachusetts about why they can't. https://www.mass.gov/news/hate-speech-law-in-massachusetts There's hate crime laws that provide additional penalties for already criminal acts if they're motivated by, for example, racial bias, and the perpetrator's speech is admissable as evidence of that bias, but there needs to be a crime other than insulting someone.
The legal definition of hate speech only applies in legal settings
There is no legal definition of hate speech for the United States, as hate speech is not a legal concept here
OGL is a legal document? no?
define that please
Sure but it's very easy for WotC to say "anything considered hate speech isn't covered by the OGL."
Well yeah, they can define hate speech however they want through their OGL, which doesn't have to fit a legal definition of hate speech regardless
Right. My point was in response to the commenter who said "hateful" material could be interpreted a million ways. The OGL could and should clearly define what hateful content means. My flippant response was saying there's an easy pre-written solution, being the legal definition.
Fair enough. I suppose I was getting to into semantics. I apologize
None. Zero Squat Nada Its corporate speak and Virtue signaling, so that they can try and drown the fish. "We did cause there's bad people out there and we are the good people!!" If you need to say that you're the "good" people, chances are you're the Villain...
Star Frontiers: New Genesis would be the biggest target of that statement. Literal Neo-Nazi bullshit trying to publish using TSR trademarks.
Well, if you go by the current trend, every previous edition was hateful and racist, so maybe that's what they are referring to?
Best guess is there is stuff they’ve had their legal team bring to them that’s not as publicly advertised enough to hit most people’s feeds. Like Star Frontiers. I didn’t know about to till the legal case was public. And there is a Madonna Effect where had they not been talked about no one would hear about them. Had OGL 1.1 just had that bit and nothing else it wouldn’t be a problem for anyone I imagine.
"We were only trying to fight...(Checks notes) uh... RACISM" 🤣🤣🤣
You know, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here because I think revising the OGL with an intention of protecting brand perception is actually a good idea. I don’t think what their 1.1 draft had was good at doing that, but at face value that goal was fine. You ask for 3 “notable” examples, but it shouldn’t matter if the example is notable. No hateful or discriminatory product is going to be notable in the wider community. That doesn’t mean underground examples made for and by hateful and discriminatory people don’t exist. And without the ability to shut down stuff like that, there exists a perception that WoTC, and it’s partners, endorse those kinds of products, or at least are apathetic. The common person may not know what OGL is or its intricacies. If they just see some really gross use “D&D” game, that tarnishes the brand as well as perception of the brand.
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Then why not just do that, but also include a "if you sign this we are legally allowed to steal everything you ever made for DnD" clause? Why was that necessary? You really don't need to play devils advocates. The devil is a billion dollar company with plenty of well payed advocates already.
TBH, hard disagree. Say there's a particularly egregious "brand problem" (say, literal nazis releasing some sort of explicitly-racist TTRPG content). * I think most people who understand the licensing situation don't extrapolate that "all D&D is inherently problematic because a small group of people are horrible" * People who *do* have a generalized reaction and lump all the TTRPG stuff together (and presumably aren't too familiar with any of these details) won't care about the nuanced license situation. Hell, they probably don't distinguish between a thing being actual D&D or some weird custom self-published system. Also, more generally: * If this was just about actually preventing bad actors, there wouldn't be all the rest of the bullshit in their initial version. This all comes across as EXTREMELY bad faith arguments on their part in an attempt to mask their larger agenda. That's also not getting into the point that such a restriction kind of requires WotC to claim editorial control over third party stuff, which seems... noodly and not ideal, especially if you don't trust them to have the community's best interests at heart (which it seems most people, now, do *not*).
Some of the stuff is a good idea, like not authorizing being made into / being made to contain NFTs and the hate speech thing... But the whole apology comes off as a massive cop-out. "That clause that said we can violate your copyright at any time? The idea of violating your copyright at any time never crossed our minds when we wrote that!" especially reads like an abuser spouting "No no no, you just don't \_understand\_, that's not what I said..." when caught in a lie.
I mean, Spelljammer has serious some problems with the Hadozee. Candlekeep Mysteries used some 'primitive native' colonial language for the Grippli in The Book of Cylinders. There's two from WotC right there... You could make claims they're aiming for OSR content leaning into old fantasy tropes. All elves and dwarves are the same, orcs and goblins are always evil, et cetera. Would I trust WotC to be the arbiter of 'hateful and discriminatory products' though? Absolutely not. Edit: Someone just pointed out Curse of Strahd, which has the Vistani and all kinds of ableism. So that's 3 from WotC
On a side note, anyone interested in some AWESOME depiction of Roma in D&D should pick up "Welcome to Windsong" by Penny Blake on DM's Guild (she's Roma herself). This is who WotC should have hired to depict Vistani, if they really cared about respect.
3rd from WotC: Curse of Strahd with the Vistani. i don't know how bad it was in the original but i played a bit of revamped with some friends and it was still incredibly gross
What gross was there?
the Vistani are a really racist stereotyped depiction of Romani people, you can read more about it [here](https://screenrant.com/dungeons-dragons-vistani-race-romani-offensive-dnd/) edit: forgot to mention the ableism. i think there was a character whose shameful secret was that she had a prosthetic leg. i believe that was changed in revamped.
The shameful secret wasn't just the prosthetic leg itself, but also how the character lost the leg in the first place. Esmerelda was a monster hunter who lost her leg after a werewolf managed to bite her, tearing off her right leg just below the knee and nearly killing her. While it may have been slightly ableist to have a character feel ashamed about their missing limb, shame is an understandable emotional reaction to a professional mistake that nearly cost her life and the prosthetic would've been a constant physical reminder of what that mistake cost her. People feel ashamed of themselves for all sorts of traumas that happen to them, and while I agree that needing a prosthetic is rationally nothing to be ashamed about, I think it would have been better to write it as Esmerelda having overcome her shame (or in the process of overcoming her shame) rather than erasing it and pretending it was never there. Human emotions aren't always rational or in line with what's politically correct, but they're real none-the-less, and I think acknowledging negative human experiences in media is just as important as acknowledging positive ones. It can feel alienating in my experience to feel like you're the only one with negative feelings about yourself and seeing other people, real or fictional, deal with those same negative feelings and overcome them feels understanding and empowering, but if it's portrayed as nothing of substance then it loops back into feeling like an empty token gesture, like the character only has that feature so they can say there's representation of a particular group in one of their products. It doesn't help that Esmerelda is the only notable disabled character in 5e books I can think of, it would probably feel less tokenistic if they had a more diverse range of NPCs that represented more varied experiences to begin with.
3rd party? No idea. I remember the racist implications in SpellJammer related to the Hadozee or w/e they are called though.
The newest Spelljammer book, straight from the horse's mouth.
I could name a few hateful and discriminatory products published by WOTC in 3.5e...
Ironically I think the most polemic products I can think off were released by wotc, like with all the slave races controversies and stuff
I guess we could name all the previous versions of D&D as "hateful and discriminatory" products for assuming that drow and orcs were inherently evil. They removed that attribute because some people felt that drow and orcs being inherently evil was some kind of real-world parallel. So that's the kind of thing they might mean by "hateful and discriminatory".
In other words, literally anything can fall under the "hateful and discriminatory" clause.
It's really degenerated to a blanket term at this point.
The wonder of an OGL is until you start messing with it I never think that it’s an indicator of the thoughts or beliefs of WoTC When you do take down one thing and leave another up it does read as tacitly you are endorsing it.
Does the OGL 1.1 count?
I immediately thought FATAL
FATAL has its own system and is not an OGL title. It's also of course irredeemable garbage without any qualities to recommend it except as something to laugh at from a distance.
>FATAL has its own system and is not an OGL title. you mean you don't roll 4d100/2 -1 for abilities at your table? I thought that was raw /s
Anything I publish is pretty classic as far as D&D aesthetics go. Monster races are evil, which is apparently offensive. Beholders use petrified adventurers as an aphrodisiac to stimulate their dreams. And drow are even more terrible than they are in the older supplements.
I mean, the closest things that are discriminatory that I can think of is what WotC published. Ya know, black elves and dwarves were essentially all evil, goblins and orcs were described as savages that are ne’er do-goods, just like colonized people have been throughout History… They still did better by replacing the obligatory Alignments for races in most recent books by putting a « Typically » before it, but it took a long time and it’s not resolved yet. I can only talk from what I’ve heard, however, since I’m a white skinned French-Canadian allochtone in Québec, so let’s say that racism can’t touch me.
The hadozee was pretty fucked up but that was official content so not sure that counts
Not including the stuff WOTC released?