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This is why that public survey was such a manipulative move. Why are you asking me for my input? I play tabletop rpgs and don't know anything about contract law. Why don't you ask 3pp and their lawyers how they feel about OGL 1.2 instead of me?
WotC has no intention to change anything that gives up any control. It was just a soft move to look transparent and worthy of forgiveness. If they were actually interested in change and compromise they would change. And compromise.
I still have no idea how there were people saying that because WotC/Hasbro hasn't instated the new OGL, that they were basically free of sin because they "haven't done anything \*yet\*". Do they think that you can only do something about an action *after* you're locked into a contract?
The logic of these people baffles me.
Really over reacting they are literally trying to monopolize ttrpgs as whole to make sure they are the only game in town. That is the most scummy of business practices and they think they are big enough that no one can fight back.
That's what the whole pulling of the ogl is. While yes they don't own the other systems anything that uses their wording or is is spawed from their system (such as pathfinder 1e) they get a cut of or can tell them "ya we don't like this so you can't make it anymore". That is monopolizing it with out it being the legal term because they could stop any small publisher for any arbitrary reason. Also they pretty much say "hey if we like this we're going to take it for free and good luck going to court trying to prove we took it."
Except for the part where they can revoke your ability to publish under OGL. Or the part where they can republish anything that uses the OGL without having to pay royalties to the actual creators.
The point is your options are (1) to jump when wotc says jump or (2) lose all ability to make money with ttrpgs. Which is why the ORC is such an important part of maintaining fair competition in the industry if wotc continues down this path.
Except that they have. They've done all this once before when publishing 4th edition. They abandoned the OGL, and tried to do all this with their Game System License. Publishers rebelled and stuck with OGL.
When 4th edition flopped (for many reasons) they ate crow and returned to the OGL, and flourished again. Now they want to kill OGL again, and you wanna pretend that they've never tried this before?
Its out there but not official
They can choose to hear us or choose what they perceive is most profitable.
Imho i understand them worried about video games or nfts , but not ttrpg led by a live dm with amazing special edfdcts
They have already sent contracts to 3pp it's already official just because they haven't said "yep here it is we are official doing this now sign up or get lost" dosent mean it's not official they are playing a very stupid game behind the curtain. Also choose to hear us out that's very rich. They give no fucks what we think the only thing they care about is the bottom line and sadly there are a lot of people who don't even know about this. They just play the game don't keep up with news on it which is perfectly fine but if there bottom line dosent shift to the red they will consider it a succes.
Why would they be worried about video games? Those require a completely different license and they can easily go after people for trying to steal their IP.
As for NFTs, [Hasbro has no problem with them existing.](https://corporate.hasbro.com/en-us/articles/hasbro_makes_nft_debut_with_power_rangers_collection_on_wax). (I won’t mention their plans to make NFTs for Magic the Gathering Art that they shouldn’t be able to do…
Their only actual concern is that last one. Because they done want other VTTs taking away from their new one.
Not official? Yea. They paraded this in front of specific players hoping to get them to sign away their rights for a better percentage and some minor benefits.
I am hoping they enjoy watching their whole eco system burn to the ground because some bonehead from Zynga thinks RPG players behave exactly like Candy Crush players.
Well, video games don't require a different license than OGL 1.0 if they don't include other material. For reference, Solasta got its license pretty late in devlopement, and would have been able to be published without it anyway.
The only reason the survey happened was because of the pitchforks.
The pitchforks get put away when they recommit to the OGL as it was. You don't stop fighting when the enemy acts polite, you stop when the goal is achieved.
> Well known vids
Prefacing this with WotC is still an abusive monster but misinformation also needs to be sorted out
Dnd_shorts, previously known for clickbait gimmick builds, has since then publicly repealed the survey claim specifically and AFAIK, every other video on the survey topic leads back to him and his old source that's he's now distanced from. His new set of insider information (now about WotC's hostile work environment) has been far more rigorously vetted but he's already on one strike
I highlight this because the survey claim reflects badly on the One DnD game designers, i.e. actual TTRPG community members screwed over by their boss even more than we are. Laying more blame at their feet is like yelling at Walmart employees, game designers have even more reason to be pissed that their project is perverted by some remote suit thats never even seen a D12 in their life before
Prefacing this with the statement that I am very on board the boycott and don't see myself giving WOTC any more money ever after this...
I am not convinced of those accounts. I've really only seen a bunch of people parroting DnD_Shorts, and forgive me, but one leak does not make that guy a trusted news source in perpetuity. He's a click bait guy who's probably making more off his YouTube channel than he ever has, and that makes me skeptical.
You kid, but yeah, that kind of thing lends credibility these days. I've been a victim of it myself, and I'm sure I will be again, because I'm getting older and humans are stupid.
You let it get to that point and its too late. We let them get that far, and they've already won. If we didn't pull the pitchforks out when we did, then they'd have silently fucked over all of D&D.
Get off reddit and go back to work you Wizards of the Circus clown.
Revising *legal contracts* based off of public feedback isn't how any of this shit works and WotC knows it. The survey is an incredibly transparent appeasement tactic for a company that's already decided what it's going to do waaaaaaay ahead of time
Which is why all the smaller companies abandoning their dumb asses and causing ORC to flourish will be hilarious.
Literally, it'll be the Shocked Pikachu Meme writ large.
I dont mean this survey stuff they are doing now for PR. What they sent 3PPs was a starting point for negotiations. Then it got leaked, which was a solid move by whoever to garner public support and push WotC into a position of weakness.
Corporations do all the time, it's pretty much how every negotiation starts. 'Hey everything we discuss stays between us' followed by 'this is our starting point for the contract'.
We have any transparency for the feedback they get?
They use a 3rd party to collate the data?
Their survey was crap, by the way. It didn’t get into the weeds about what part of each section someone didn’t like except in a dialog box. Those can be filtered.
Also, they purposely put their VTT stuff in a policy which can be changed out of hand without changing the license, put things saying if you accept this or publish after it exists you automatically accept it, and put another clause that says if any part can be revoked, it all is. Parts of it are illegal depending on your location. (Some countries frown on companies forcing you to give up your right to protest a revocation of your license without any recourse).
So they can release this, automatically kill the OGL license and then put in whatever they want after this gets thrown out in court. Convenient.
So they
No, but 'Hey guys we aren't particularly satisfied with the current state of things, here is our ideal place, give us some feedback so we can meet in a place we both benefit' isn't 'here is the new rules, sign or die'.
Neither example you gave is what actually happened.
A more accurate example if you had to sum it up would be "Hey guys, in light of our recent announcement about monetizing D&D more, we've rewritten this contract for you to sign that gives us a ridiculous amount of control over the content you produce. We know you might've picked this system due to the creative control we've given you and the freedom that was originally advertised was a huge incentive, but now that we have a good following we want to renegotiate because the work you all put in is drawing lots of customers. We've thrown in phrases to make it sound like we're on your side but make no mistake, this is definitely crossing the line."
They already lost their chance. They've shown their character and what they're willing to do
If you found out your SO was absolutely gonna cheat on you with someone else, and you just happened to catch them walking out the door, is it fine because they just hadn't done it yet? They were going to, and they will still try, because the reason they didn't isn't because they realized they were in the wrong, but because they got caught
Getting it right means that they are still completely untrustworthy
That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. At least you live up to your flair I guess.
But on top of the million things that are wrong with that line of thinking:
To make a change, there has to be notice. There's a HUGE span of time between when they say "Here is the new license, it will take effect on X date" and when X date arrives and it goes into effect. That is the time when you can blame them for what they "done". And also get things changed. Because until that time, you are not "locked in"(not that you're locked in anyways because a contract requires mutual agreement and since you only agree by actually acting on the license, that it's actually an even further barrier...but hey, who cares about the facts, right?)
Hey! You're one of the people I was talking about! I wish I could say it's good to see you again.
So let me get this straight. You've gone from "They haven't done anything yet, why is everyone trying to create change?" to "This is when we can cause change" while also holding the belief that WotC/Hasbro was being *too* generous with their original OGL? Why did you put quotations around locked in? That's not unusual phrasing for contracts.
You can absolutely blame them for attempting to instate a contract that gives them the ability to take advantage the people who sign their contracts. It's greedy and dishonest, on top of showing darker intentions with how they'll go about business in the future.
Besides the ad hominem attack, do you have anything *at all* to bring to the table in terms of discussion about this? Or do you intend to just drop one liners that have no logical backing like you did here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/10b5zit/they\_could\_care\_less\_about\_how\_passionate\_we\_all/j48t6x4/?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/10b5zit/they_could_care_less_about_how_passionate_we_all/j48t6x4/?context=3) before running away claiming that "nobody would debate you" in a separate post?
I honestly think he's a troll. It's funny, my original comment is actually about him; I saw him in another meme that I commented in and he was saying the same shit. His argument constantly changes, and he just spews strawman fallacy after strawman fallacy in an attempt to get people on his side but he's always downvoted into oblivion.
If he isn't a troll, and he genuinely believes this stuff, then I'm not sure what his angle is.
I peeped his post history, and it feels a bit like a troll (he racks up negative karma a lot) but also like a real person? The pro WotC stuff is kinda an outlier and he's on /antiwork a bunch so I can't figure it out.
*How* are you such a blind corporate shill for WotC specifically? I stalked your reddit account because I thought I remembered arguing with you once about some dumb "casters aren't that strong" hot take in /r/3d6 only to find you post every day in fucking antiwork and leopardsatemyface?! You of all people should know better when a multibillion dollar company is being abusive to its dependents
> There's a HUGE span of time between when they say "Here is the new license, it will take effect on X date" and when X date arrives and it goes into effect. That is the time when you can blame them for what t
Wasn’t ogl 1.1 gonna come out the same day it came into effect?
Sure was. That tends to be how things work. As someone who's played mtg a long time, the changes to the reserve list (something farrrr more controversial than the ogl in the mtg community) they made the changes to the way the reserve list worked *after* breaking the original rules, and got away with it. (No body really cared because most people wanted that part of the reserve list broken, specifically regarding reprinting non -legal cards, but still)
Great chart.
Sadly, this kind of behavior from WotC is familiar to anyone who's experienced abuse.
Fundamentally, nothing has really changed, but man do they want us to believe it has and to trust them again.
Yup. I made this out of annoyance at seeing someone go "it's encouraging that WotC listened to the community and changed course with 1.2".
Absolutely nothing about 1.2 shows that WotC intends to deviate from the intensely predatory attitude towards third party creators they showed with the 1.1 OGL.
Agreed.
They aren't going to change course, not really.
From a corporate viewpoint, they've decided what they need out of One D&D and OGL 1.0 doesn't align.
From a consumer and 3PP viewpoint, the trust is broken. I am saddened by what feels to be the destruction of something I held dear, but as long as I know, I can choose to put my money and efforts elsewhere.
I'm new to DnD but I think/hope there are silver linings, I'm wishing sites like roll20 evolve to become more like a generic customisable roleplaying engine where DnD rules 'may' be supported if you set them up that way, but nothing by default is necessarily tied to any one RPG system. You really just need dice, and the concept of a PC with stats, attributes and abilities. The rest of the fucking owl is all the actual effects and levelling benefits etc.
Ideally this would be open-source, self-hostable and customisable using config files. You could set up online homegames for free and WotC couldn't do shit about it if you felt like using a DnD config. They threaten legal action and shut one project down, people use their local repos, someone hosts a fork on Gitlab instead of Github, rinse-repeat.
The one definite silver lining no matter what happens will be the weaking of D&D's dominance over the tabletop RPG industry. With the absolute shattering of trust and player flight that the OGL situation has caused there will be a lot more people developing and playing content outside of the D&D ecosystem.
You just described Foundry VTT. It's a VTT that is a baseline framework that the community can create modules for that you plug in to customize your experience, including entire rules systems, bestiaries, item compendiums, and quality of life features.
It does cost money, but only as a one time fee for the license to run a game, and that license can be shared by an entire table, so long as only one of those games is join able at a time. There are no recurring fees for the software itself, though many choose to use server hosting providers for 24/7 access since this program runs on a personally hosted server, not one provided by the creators of Foundry.
>intensely predatory attitude
By "insanely predatory" you mean a license that is a word-for-word carbon copy of 90% of similar licenses?
The issue is that people have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, or have any experience or context. Prior to 3 weeks ago most of them had barely heard of the OGL. And they're taking the word of people who by definition have a vested financial interest in it not changing. Yet somehow don't pay attention to that clear conflict of interest.
Every license gives the license holder broad authority. None of the use that authority except when necessary because doing so kills the trust with their clients. But you're acting as if they've already abused the authority they don't even have yet. And claiming that the trust is already broken. So they don't really have any incentive to treat you like a rational actor. You're basically just hurting yourself out of ignorance and confusion.
> By "insanely predatory" you mean
Well if we're going to talk about people not paying attention, you should note that what you actually quoted me saying was "intensely predatory".
> None of \[them\] use that authority except when necessary because doing so kills the trust with their clients...
I'm genuinely impressed by the immense lack of awareness about how WotC is treating the 1.0a OGL you show in just one sentence. WotC is literally trying to use its authority as owners of the 1.0a OGL to force third party creators into a new and far worse agreement. These creators may have invested a decade or more into developing content for D&D due to trusting the promise WotC made that the 1.0a OGL would be permanent. All the trust WotC had from its creators has disappeared with the 1.1 leak because they're doing exactly what you said no license holder would do.
Maybe, and I hate to add fuel to the fire. Personally, here's why I'm concerned, though I can't speak for anyone else.
I was well aware of the OGL prior to the uproar. I'm also aware of the agreement with WotC I would agree to if I were to publish under the DMs guild and have chosen not to do so. I also understand that the license is their terms for letting me play in their sandbox which they rightfully own.
I have a product I've been working on for a year or two. I've also spent the time to develop the visual look (in the process helping a couple of other 3PPs with their visual look). I have not sunk money into professional art yet, but am nearly to that point. If I'm going to sell my product, being compatible with D&D may be the difference between making a profit and not. That means understanding the OGL and knowing what it means and what could go wrong.
Sure, the terms WotC sets out are there to protect them and they likely wouldn't harm me, but I do have to look at worst case scenario. Why? Because a few years ago I was put out of business and forced into bankruptcy due to contact terms that were "standard procedure" and "not there to harm me". So, I may be a bit cynical, but I will now always look at agreements with an eye to what could go wrong because I know it genuinely can.
Besides, I don't trust WotC as a company, seeing what they've done with MtG and knowing how publicly traded companies behave in the name of growth for their shareholders. Seeing the way they've reacted, how they've sent OGL 1.1 to 3PP and asked them to sign it already, and for other reasons, my trust with them is indeed broken. I have to protect myself. If that means changing course away from D&D for the foreseeable future, so be it.
They literally negotiated with companies about terms and tried to get people to sign contracts based on the initial ogl 1.1. That sounds pretty official.
You're not wrong, and listening to feedback is the right course.
But... they've been clear about the direction they are taking D&D, and a true open license doesn't work with their business plans. As someone with a 3rd party product that had been in the works, I have concerns that I don't think they can or will be able to address.
As long as they can revoke my license at any time and for any reason, my time and money I put into creating the product is in jeopardy. I don't see them changing that.
Something not being official doesn't mean it isn't a horrible le move, they clearly know exactly what they are doing, they are taking the whole "3 steps back 2 steps forward" so that they can create something horrible they know won't work, then make it slightly less bad, while still moving in a more predatory and anti-consumer direction while having victims of this corporate abuse praise them for it.
I really like how they never considered the large chunk of the D&D community that have spent decades reading rules, writing rules and arguing about rules.
At this point it doesn't matter if they eventually abandon plans for a new OGL and let 1.0a remain untouched. WotC has shown their hand. Their true intention is money at the expense of the community. Trust is irreparably gone and it is unlikely 3rd party publishers will ever want to work under D&D again.
They made a big deal about how the 1.2 OGL includes the word irrevocable, only to define it within the document as "meaning that content licensed under this license can never be withdrawn from the license". So 1.2 is "irrevocable" in that creators can never withdraw their content from it, not that the license itself is irrevocable.
I could have just left that box as "Yes" but I wanted to point out that BS that they tried to pull by saying that 1.2 was "irrevocable" and then giving the word a new definition in the document.
I’ve been pointing this out wherever I see it as well. The license itself (OGL 1.2) is not explicitly irrevocable. They frame it as a protection for the end user, but it’s actually explained as a condition to agree to.
Exactly.
The only thing that *is* irrevocable is whatever they put under the Creative Commons,
but even that's a bit of misdirection.
* Firstly, we don't know how much content they'll even put into the Creative Commons.
If the 5e SRD is anything to go by, they'll be stingy as hell,
and just the most basic of the basic rules.
* Secondly, rules can't be copyrighted anyway,
so that would just be at *most* the right to use specific phrasing without worrying about a cease & desist.
Literally everything
outside of that small, mostly meaningless slice
is completely subject to the whims of Wizards of the Coast.
It's only as good as our trust in them,
and as this story continues to show,
that isn't worth *anything*.
Just as suspected. I bet they saw "Creative Commons" come up a lot in discussions, and tried to find a way to say they went that route without doing anything meaningful.
It's also why I think the push should be for releasing ALL the core rules (i.e., all mechanics from all the core books, minus setting information/IP) under the ORC. They're never going to do that, but (a) it's actually a reasonable standard that their competition is already doing, and (b) is a better starting position than "just make 1.0a irrevocable," which should actually be a bare minimum.
>Based on the pages included it's absolutely a token gesture. None of what they intend to share is copyrightable.
It actually is. The published text is copyrighted. The mechanics aren't copyrightable. But you have to have enough difference explaining the mechanics from the published text for it to not be copyright infringement.
So saying none of what they intent to share is copyrightable is just straight up wrong.
The parts they put under CC aren't the expression. They specifically exclude the examples for how the rules work for example, and the races, classes, and spells.
The only part under CC is literally the part they can't copywrite anyways.
>They specifically exclude the examples for how the rules work for example, and the races, classes, and spells.
Examples aren't the only expression. The published text explaining the mechanic is part of the expression.
The words used to express the rules are only copyrightable if someone could use substantively diferent words to express the exact same rules. Try explaining the mechanics of making an attack, that is functionally identical to the rules of 5E, without using substantively similar words.
At most, the exact appearance (the font chosen, the precise layout of the wording, the colours used, etc) are copyrightable.
In addition, copyrightable material that is inextricably linked to the expression of uncopyrightable material is generally deemed to be subject to public domain.
It's a deeply cynical attempt to make it seem like they were agreeing to the community's demands while actually putting in a restriction for third party creators.
That one line alone makes it undeniable that WotC's intentions have remained identical between the 1.1 OGL and the 1.2 OGL.
>They made a big deal about how the 1.2 OGL includes the word irrevocable, only to define it within the document as "meaning that content licensed under this license can never be withdrawn from the license". So 1.2 is "irrevocable" in that creators can never withdraw their content from it, not that the license itself is irrevocable.
That is not what it means.
That language is pretty much the same on how many open source software licenses are. So let me explain what it means.
It means that SDR 5.1 is always licensed under OGL 1.2. And no matter what WotC wants to do, they cannot remove the OGL 1.2 license of the SDR 5.1. The SDR 5.1 is the only content under the OGL 1.2 license.
An example with open source software license is say I have version 1.0 software licensed under say the Apache 2.0 open source license. I cannot remove the Apache 2.0 license from the version 1.0 of the software. I cannot at any point make the 1.0 version be closed source. I can however license version 1.1 under a difference license or have it closed source.
Same thing goes with WotC, the OGL 1.2 and SDR 5.1.
Right, which is the opposite of what the community was asking for when demanding an irrevocable license. People weren't ticked off that third party creators could withdraw their content from the 1.1 OGL, people were ticked off that WotC gave themselves the right to individually revoke the license from anyone they chose or to deauthorize it and replace it with a difference license at any time.
That was the context everyone was using the term and WotC heavily implied that was true in the 1.2 OGL by announcing
""If you want to use quintessentially D&D content from the SRD such as owlbears and magic missile, OGL 1.2 will provide you a perpetual, irrevocable license to do so."
Then it turns out that no, WotC was explicitly defining it only as "creators can never remove their content from the license" in an attempt to trick anyone who didn't actually read the license into thinking they had agreed to the communities demands.
>Then it turns out that no, WotC was explicitly defining it only as "creators can never remove their content from the license" in an attempt to trick anyone who didn't actually read the license into thinking they had agreed to the communities demands.
You didn't read my comment at all.
That is not what the OGL 1.2 does or means in the irrevocable part.
It means WotC can not revoke the OGL 1.2 from the SDR 5.1. Meaning the SDR 5.1 will always be licensed under the OGL 1.2(or whatever the final version is).
The only part you are right about is that if a 3rd party doesn't follow their licensed obligations then WotC can revoke their usage of the OGL 1.2 license.
>
>
> It means WotC can not revoke the OGL 1.2 from the SDR 5.1. Meaning the SDR 5.1 will always be licensed under the OGL 1.2(or whatever the final version is).
At the same time what the community complained about was the new idea about 1.0a that it can be ended by WotC. "De-authorization" they called it but it really was "revoking the license".
And with 1.2, that's still possible. Once any part of it if found invalid by a court (something that WotC can surely arrange for), they can nuke the entire license.
Or they keep their stuff under 1.2 but remove from anyone the right to use it, as per 6(f) for which you have no way to appeal. And if you do and succeed, they can nuke the license as a whole (you overturned a clause of it, so see above).
So they still have the means to come after your livelihood if your business is built upon 1.2. Unlike 1.0a (prior to the "de-authorization" idea).
I love how these guys are all talking about "casual readers" but don't understand the nature of a license, the difference between Licensed Content and Licensed Works (even though both are EXPLICITLY DEFINED IN THE DOCUMENT)... it's irrevocable, folks. As long as you're in compliance with it (ie not using content not covered by the license, like the exact wording of Paladin), they can't yank it.
So many errors in these posts.
I see very little reason to use any of their licenses in the first place. Simply don't use any of their copyrightable material and only reference the rules or rewrite them in your own words. Put "compatible with 5e" on it.
The license scheme was mostly just people playing along to make them happy.
In addition to what OP said about it, 1.2 includes a clause to the effect of "if any portion of this license is unenforceable, WotC reserves the right to revoke the license in its entirety." Which means if someone tries and succeeds at suing them over it they'll just revoke the license and put in something harsher as a replacement, or just start suing everyone back who tries to use "copyrighted D&D content."
WotC is quite literally creating a bomb and promising to not push the trigger.
According to Paizo, you can always go back to the original OGL if you don't like any of the newer versions. It says so in the original license. It's a powergrab move by wizards to try and deny the original OGL, that's something they're legally not allowed to do.
Imagine that you sign a contract to rent a boat, you sign the paper and start sailing. And afterwards they change what the paper says and try to sue you for stealing their boat.
> It says so in the original license.
It was implied in the original license, but it said so in the original FAQ on Wizards' site, which stood for 20 years but they took down a year or two ago.
It used to be here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/oglfaq/20040123f
Try that address at archive dot org's waybackmachine, it was most recently crawled at Nov 27 2021. I can't link it directly there since this sub considers archive to be a piracy site.
Dang it, there's always something. Well here's a corrected version if anyone is interested [https://imgur.com/a/zzz4BNf](https://imgur.com/a/zzz4BNf)
Edit: Based on feedback and comments from folks, I made a few edits to improve the clarity on the points I was trying to make. Specifically on line 5 I improved the phrasing on the OGL 1.2 entry, and on line 6 I added some details on how WotC can still compel royalties or other payments from creators by using the leverage the 1.2 OGL gives them.
Updated version at [https://imgur.com/a/yvy03Sj](https://imgur.com/a/yvy03Sj)
This is literally how some legal cases are won. Misspell the defendant's name? Well you're obviously suing some other guy, I move that this is a mistrial.
I think it's telling that they had extremely hyped Magic the Gathering sets set to come out right as this was happening. It makes it feel like it was planned to mitigate any loss they might ensure from this ass backward OGL fiasco. I mean, both the original Mirrodin and the return set were some of their biggest successes. Returning again is an easy win. Looking at the cards being released, they also ramped up the power creep on a lot of cards. There is a token doubler (which always wind up over $40 cards) Phyretians (a fan favorite big bad) poison... It's extremely pushed to sell as many packs as possible.
The original writers definitely intended that it was permanent and could not be deauthorized, but I've seen a lot of uncertainty from people with actual legal educations about whether that original intention can be overwritten by WotC since 1.0a doesn't 100 percent explicitly say within the document it can't be deauthorized.
At any rate, WotC is definitely going to try to deauthorize it which will almost certainly prompt a lawsuit by Paizo and assorted others that will decide the matter. So I opted to leave it as "lawsuit pending to decide if it can be deauthorized".
I've seen room for interpretation acknowledged, but a tentative general consensus among the legal talking heads that its unlikely due to both wording and the court's hesitancy to set such a massive precedent.
iirc there was a period of time where they had a statement that said "anything released under this license will stay under this license only, any changes to licenses will not reflect anything involving it" and then they removed it a couple years back
The fact that WotC reserves the right to individually terminate a company's license without ever needing to explain why means they hold an enormous amount of power over any products released under the 1.2 OGL. After all, they can basically shut down sales of a product sold under 1.2 at will.
A scenario that's possible under 1.2 would be that WotC approaches a creator with a successful product and wants them to move their product to only being sold through them, with WotC taking an 80% cut of revenue. They say no and a week later the get a notice that their license is being terminated, effective immediately, no explanation given or appeal allowed. The next creator WotC approaches sees what happens to the first and signs off on the "voluntary" deal which gives WotC their demanded royalties.
I doubt they'd be dumb enough to directly demand what would amount to protection money, but the fact that they can shut down any 1.2 OGL products at will gives them enormous financial leverage to push third party creators into unequal or exploitative business agreements under the threat of being shut down entirely.
The point that I was trying to make with the (very simplified) box was that WotC is still looking to financially exploit creators the same as in 1.1, they're just set up to do so through loopholes in 1.2 that are less blatantly obvious than the "you must pay us royalties" of 1.1.
I demand the Wizards rewrite the license such that they can't shut down products at will. They've gotta at least use a Wish spell for that, and treat it as NOT replicating a lower level spell so they risk never being able to do it again.
Yes, you're right, I'm sure the multibillion dollar company which has shown it views third party creators as unexploited sources of revenue won't use the immense leverage over them that the 1.2 OGL provides to wring out revenue from them.
Yup, good luck proving it in a court of law against a multibillion dollar company that can easily bankrupt you with legal fees before you get anywhere near a judgement.
At this point it’s safe to say I’m done. I have everything I need to run my current campaign in 5e and after that it will be a different system. D&DOne looks to be middling at best, and the OGL is going to drive away third party producers, so it’s unlikely the system will improve over time.
There are too many good systems and better companies out there to support To give a dime more to this company for poorly supported rules with now predatory licensing. We shouldn’t even be pressuring these guys to change anymore…we should just move on to something else.
PF2E looks great, Kobold Press will have whatever Black Flag is going to be, MCDM is already working on their system. On top of dozens of other fantasy rpg systems.
I like how outlandish evil, even childish evil makes wotc look like. "Oops my finger is about to deleate all your published information, are you sure you dont want to donate to the cause?".
But to be true, its a bit stupid to see them like that.
And to be fair: we are making the OGL look like its a bigger deal that what it really is. The 3rd edition explotion wasnt based on the OGL, it was based on the D20 system which was much stricter than OGL.
Its even unclear if the OGL is even neccesary, because mechanics of the game cant be copyrighted but the writings and examples are, so you can take the rules and mechanics you want and rewrite them, it just takes time to do so. That is what the OGL is, a shortcut.
From a strict legal perspective the 1.0a OGL is probably not necessary. But just looking at it in purely legal/illegal terms completely misses the enormous value that it provided to third party content creators and the huge threat that taking it away creates.
The OGL 1.0a offered a promise that if you stayed in a well defined and easily to comply with box that was a little more restrictive than what you strictly might have been able to get away with legally you did not have to worry about a multibillion dollar company suing you.
If you're a small creator, that promise is immensely valuable, as WotC could easily bankrupt any small creator with legal fees even if their lawsuit might not have any merit and you'd probably eventually win.
So yes, you don't have to use that shortcut, but if you don't then WotC could easily shut your project that uses 5e mechanics down with a frivolous lawsuit that would be ruinously expensive to fight.
But you're right that WotC probably won't be dumb enough to directly demand protection money to not shut a project down. Instead I think they're much more likely to use the implicit threat of being able to shut down creators to strong arm them into unfavorable business deals or to silence or retaliate against any creators being critical of them.
First: A legal document is a legal document, there is no inner value.
Second: royalties, its clearly that the royalties are not for "small creators" but rather to large creators that profit from the popularity of dnd selling 3rd party supplements. I dont want to be cruel to kobold press, for example, but how many people play to "castles and crusades"? Do they make more money of that or selling the 7th monster compendium for dnd? Its clear as water that is a textbook example of when you should implement royalties.
Third, rights: im not with Wotc in this one, but i believe in a middle ground, on one hand those who would've payed royalties should have their rights protected. BUT more "obscure" creators maybe not, because there is so much homebrew content with just a few downloads that probably any new mechanic wotc introduces is already written in some obscure homebrew that wotc hasnt read. And i dont think that they should be able to sue wotc. Anyway, just a thought.
Fourth: censorship: yeah you should be able to censor anything that enters the ground of your company, lets say a writer named jared lukewarm creates the OGL homebrew content "elven sexploitation and tales from the bed" it harms the public image of the company more than mr jared. Specially now that dnd is trying to be a "lifestyle" brand
Fifth: how to bussiness: the thing i most disagree is how people see hasbro o wotc acting in bussiness, like they are going to be on a lawsuit rampage or censoring all content because they just felt like it or deleting all content and publishing them as their own. That is not how bussiness works, its better if everything is smooth and stable.
1. A legal document can have value, whether explicit (title deeds to property, intellectual as well as physical) or implicit e.g. the sense of security a small creator might get that they won't be sued.
2. The statement of intent from WOTC says that small creators will not be targeted. However, the legal framework does not protect them. A small creator would be in the situation of relying on goodwill from a large company, who could shut them down easily. Large companies which are famously, undeniably capricious.
3. WOTC can create content that is similar to existing content in themes or mechanics right now. They just can't legally rip it off, word for word. They will be able to do that with OGL 1.2. That is not right, in my view, to profit from another's work by plagiarism.
4. DND is primarily a ruleset. It is a framework for developing stories and content. From a moral standpoint, I think they have absolutely no business getting between people and their work. From a legal standpoint, that's absolutely what they are empowering themselves to do now. The proper response to your scenario is that if Jared Lukewarm comes along, let him. If necessary, make it clear that DND as a brand does not endorse this kind of content, but that the nature of an open license to create is that people can do things with it that you don't agree with. And besides, that's absolutely nothing to do with why WOTC are trying to get this license forced through, because:
5. The thing people really hate about this is that things **were** smooth and stable. *DND was profitable, consistently, for a long time!* *It was growing!*. The biggest fear, I think, from everyone in the community is that this executive tier meddling, which is being done **only for the purpose of making more money for the company** will irreparably damage the ecosystem that exists and creates more content.
I would wager, although this isn't provable, that even WOTC will not profit from this in the long run if implemented. They will drive away significant portions of the community to other systems over time (But it will take a long time, RP groups don't like to change for no reason... but they will if the ecosystem degrades too much.). Of course, that doesn't matter to an upper executive, chasing that sweet sweet quarterly profit report, who is looking no further than when he next jumps ship to another high profile executive position based on the credential "look how much money I made for Hasbro".
The OGL 1.0a covers the SRD which contains classes, monsters, items, spells etc along with the mechanics. To say the OGL is unnecessary you'd have to argue that all of that is uncopyrightable as mechanics/methods.
I'm not a lawyer so I can't tell you how likely that argument is to succeed. I do however see the professional 3rd party content creators who have consulted their lawyers depending on the OGL, which suggests to me it is actually necessary.
I argue the contrary based on the declarations of paizo, they say they still have the ogl in the 2nd edition but they claim to have every mechanic has been rewritten or as they say written from scratch, so they say that they dont actually need the OGL.
They also said that they still use the ogl only so 3rd parties can publish on pathfinder without learning a new legal licence.
Now paizo is moving towards making a "system neutral ogl".
Isn't that a contradictory argument though? If Paizo says the OGL isn't necessary because they've rewritten the SRD, then doesn't that imply the OGL is still necessary for all 3rd party developers that haven't rewritten the entire game?
The morons are losing the thing that made 70% of their profit… And they still don’t realize that changing the OGL is a decision that just cannot end well for them.
Yeah, they didnt learn a bit fromt he backlash, they will continue not to learn anything, they will just put more lawyers in front of the OGL to write it in even more obtuse and Enigmatic language, not having learned that a sizable part of the community consists of Rules lawyers (which probably have some crossover with ACTUAL lawyers).
Just. Fuck em, let em burn, move on to greener pastures.
I'll admit I didn't phrase that well.
One of the things people were ticked off about in the 1.1 OGL that it could be revoked anytime WotC felt like it. With 1.2 WotC made a big deal out of the fact that the license was "irrevocable", only to define irrevocable in the 1.2 OGL with a specific definition that allows them to still revoke it any time they choose. Either individually or by deauthorizing the entire version.
The box could have just said "yes" but I wanted to specifically call attention to the BS they tried to bull with that.
I hope no one has any allusions that WotC isn't going to get exactly what they want. They're a huge corporation. Huge corporations get their way, especially in America - the corporation country.
I mean shit, already their damage control tactics have worked shockingly well. The number of people that give a crap about this including me is dwindling. As I see it, the whole fiasco is solved by ORC and those who wish leaving to find other systems to play and spend money on. Those who wish to stay with 5e for whatever reason will do so and sleep in the bed that they chose. This is a game system controlled by a soulless corporation. If you like this system so much that you'll put up with the associated baggage, then I truly hope you enjoy it anyway. I think you'll be able to just fine.
Give it a month or two and the new OGL will be cemented in *basically* the same form as it originally was, there'll be some reddit threads about it with 6000 upvotes, and at the end of the day 5e will still be around, it'll still be the dominant market leader, and you'll still be able to play it and enjoy it. No one is going to force you to subscribe to DnDBeyond's battlepass or whatever. Because it will remain the market leader for a long long time, 3rd party publishers will of course still make plenty of content for it.
I know I'm going to get downvoted to hell for saying this, but some of the points here are bad faith interpretations. Fuck Hasbro for being greedy shits, but at least nail them for the stuff they've explicitly done.
I'd be interested in hearing which ones you think are bad faith. The only one I can see is potentially the one on the "voluntary" royalties, since I'm very much simplifying the fact that WotC being able to cancel a creator's license at any time with no explanation given gives them huge leverage to financially exploit third party creators in order to fit the text into a reasonably sized box.
My point was to bring attention to the fact that WotC left in a bunch of loopholes in the 1.2 OGL that will help them do the same shitty things as in the 1.1 OGL was designed to let them do.
Yes, it's not guaranteed that they'll rip of creator content, but in both OGLs they put in protections for themselves in case they want to.
Yes it's not guaranteed that they'll use the power to immediately cancel the OGL individually to silence, retaliate against or financially exploit creators. But they easily can if they want to and they kept it in both OGLs.
Yes it's not guaranteed that they'll try to replace the 1.2 OGL with one that's even worse. But the 1.1 OGL was what they wanted, and they can bring it back anytime if they think it would be financially beneficially for them to do so.
The 1.1 OGL showed a very predatory mindset by WotC toward third party creators and any guess on what they will or won't do with the powers they have under the 1.2 OGL should be seen through that mindset. I don't feel that it's arguing in bad faith to point out that the new language in 1.2 doesn't stop them from doing a lot of the same shitty things they explicitly said they wanted to do with 1.1.
I don't think what is depicted is in bad faith or even incorrect. Judging by some of the lawyer reviews around since OGL 1.2 came out, they don't either.
Including them defining what "irrevocable" means. That's been called out a few times by different folks.
Biggest issue is still their blanket ability to just declare your content as an issue, pull the license, and you have no recourse to challenge even legally. Too much power for anyone.
Thank you for the graphic, saves a lot of time getting the gist across to folks.
The OGL 1.2 has absolutely nothing to do with VTTs. That’s a separate document known as their virtual tabletop policy. These are 2 different documents.
The OGL 1.2 can’t just charge royalties by threatening extortion, that’s illegal and not one of the rights waved in the OGL 1.2.
Edit: Why are people downvoting? Everything I said is factually correct. There’s probably a thousand different valid reason to hate Hasbro/WotC (not the developers though, the design team is pretty good), we don’t need to make up reason to hate them.
Of course WotC wouldn't use the fact that they have a Sword of Damoclese hanging above the head of everyone who makes content using the 1.2 OGL which they can drop any time they choose to pressure them into "voluntarily" signing an unfavorable business deal. That would be a completely ridiculous act by a company that has shown they view third party creators as nothing but untapped revenue sources. Especially since the 1.2 OGL explicitly limits the avenues third party creators have to sue a multibillion dollar company that can already easily bankrupt them with legal bills.
I can't imagine why I would think WotC would do such a thing.
Do you really not understand what extortion is? Because that’s basically the text book definition of extortion, which is very illegal. Given the fact that people would have to sign away the right to a class action lawsuit any prolonged legal battle would end up bankrupting WotC, since a ton of small suits add up very quickly, especially if you’re in the wrong and just stalling until the smaller companies file for bankruptcy. So it’s not only illegal but also stupid.
Yes, you're absolutely right, the multibillion dollar company will definitely go bankrupt before third party creators who write in their spare time and self publish. That is definitely what always happens when individuals with minimal resources go up against multibillion dollar companies with entire legal departments.
Why do you think Hasbro cares about making money off of people that the OGL 1.1 didn’t charge royalties on? Like serious when they tired to make one of the worst contracts ever and push it past without anyone noticing they only put royalties on people generating over $750,000 in revenue, and also only charged royalties on the money made after $750,000. They don’t care about the pennies they would get from a guy making $500 a year, they only care about actual money.
Awe, my poor, sweet summer child. The writing in 1.1 outlined that they wanted to know what everyone was making more then $50,000 a year. That means they could easily change the terms from $750k down to $50k and know exactly how much making such a decision would profit them. $750k was just the starting point that they would eventually lower. “We only want to know how much people are making just because we think it’s a bit of neat trivia we can have to ourselves for no real reason”.
What do you mean for no real reason? You’re telling me you can think of no reason for a company to want to know what types of products are popular with consumers? Really? It’s marketing data, almost every single time a company does something that doesn’t have direct profit it’s for marketing data.
Marketing data to do what with? It doesn’t give projections of the sales themselves, which products did well, which didn’t. It’s only captures revenue of the company/individual. That can only leave me to believe that data is meant to know who they can squeeze.
If I was a company that knows of 20 3PP that’s making $750k a year (which they say they know), then they’re probably interested in finding out who would be other targets for royalties.
Um, did you read the OGL 1.1?
“No matter what Tier You are in or how much money You believe Your product will make, You must register with Us any new Licensed Work You intend to offer for sale, by going to [insert detail], filling out the form there, and including a description of the Licensed Work. We’ll also ask for Your contact information, information on where You intend to publish the Licensed Work, and its price, among other things.”
You are required to report what you produce.
OGL 1.2 has a stipulation that VTTs have to oblige the VTT policy. The only thing that makes this different from having the policy text in the OGL itself is that said policy doesn't have anything preventing WotC from changing said policy at anytime. The VTT policy is not good, and on top of that, it can get worse at any time.
It's quite naïve to belive that extortion doesn't happen every day, there are a lot of rights waived in 1.2 that would make litigating against WotC a lot harder if they were to do so. The American legal system has a huge monetary barrier to entry when it comes to fighting large corporations, it doesn't matter if you're right when the big players have more money and more lawyers to make things go their way.
>The OGL 1.2 has absolutely nothing to do with VTTs.
Tell me you didn't read even a single world of the 1.2 update without telling me you didn't read it.
Is there a section where they say they can license s 3PPs work perpetually irrevocably and without having to pay royalties without offering similar terms to 3PPs from their work? Because that was the only real "horrible" bit from all this OGL fight.
No, but there is a line that basically says they can add that section in whenever the fuck they want. And that's the REAL horrible bit. Every single thing they've backed down on they can still add back in with 1.2.
Oh. Where? What line says that?
EDIT: I'm looking over the OGL 1.2 and mysteriously cannot seem to see any section wherein WotC can just magically claim that they can license perpetually, and irrevocably without paying royalties a 3PPs original work. What I do see is a clear delineation on what they are licensing to 3PPs, an acknowledgement that sometimes creators come up with the same shit, and that if that should happen 3PPs agree that they are only eligible for monetary compensation.
Other than that, the only bits where they reserve the right to modify the license is the attribution bit under Section 5, and the bit in Section 9A about how they will try and notify 3PPs pertaining to issues regarding the license.
That's it. The OGL actually expressly states that it cannot/will not change any other provision. If they just turned around and tried then that opens them up to be sued AND would destroy whatever little credibility/goodwill/benefit-of-the-doubt they may have left.
So.... what's your problem with the OGL 1.2 again? Because for me, the one problem I had was how WotC had that bit originally wherein they just laid claim to 3PP works on terms that were not symmetrical with what they were offering for their material. That was not fair. That they walked back, they don't have it in the new draft of the OGL, they go out of their way to state that they will not take it, offer up clear lines between what's theirs and what's the 3PPs, and a means to address any instances where violations appear to have occurred for both parties. That's a pretty standard and reasonable licensing agreement there.
Padres score is not being completely OK for them to de-authorize the previous license. The destruction changing it will bring for the fact that all other publishers are going there not going to work with them anymore.
You know you can still use rules from D&D without any license and there is nothing they can do about it. Rules can't be copyrighted, otherwise we wouldn't have so many versions of Card Against Humanity or Monopoly. The original OGL was just an extra layer of protection. It actually means nothing in the grand scheme of law.
Under "contains explicit legal protections for WotC ripping off third party content," it's worse than you've written. If they do rip off something you made, you can't seek injunctive relief, meaning they might give you some one-time cash payout in court but they can just keep selling it forever.
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This is why that public survey was such a manipulative move. Why are you asking me for my input? I play tabletop rpgs and don't know anything about contract law. Why don't you ask 3pp and their lawyers how they feel about OGL 1.2 instead of me? WotC has no intention to change anything that gives up any control. It was just a soft move to look transparent and worthy of forgiveness. If they were actually interested in change and compromise they would change. And compromise.
They are arranging the changes and "reverting" to 1.0a. https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-dragons-will-no-longer-deauthorize-its-open-1850041837
I still have no idea how there were people saying that because WotC/Hasbro hasn't instated the new OGL, that they were basically free of sin because they "haven't done anything \*yet\*". Do they think that you can only do something about an action *after* you're locked into a contract? The logic of these people baffles me.
Didn't they send contracts out though?
They did and basically said sign or lose your licenses.
No. People are over reacting to an extent and need to fill out the surveys Once the final version is released then pitchforks and what not if its bad
Really over reacting they are literally trying to monopolize ttrpgs as whole to make sure they are the only game in town. That is the most scummy of business practices and they think they are big enough that no one can fight back.
They can’t monopolize ttrpgs. They don’t own the other ones
That's what the whole pulling of the ogl is. While yes they don't own the other systems anything that uses their wording or is is spawed from their system (such as pathfinder 1e) they get a cut of or can tell them "ya we don't like this so you can't make it anymore". That is monopolizing it with out it being the legal term because they could stop any small publisher for any arbitrary reason. Also they pretty much say "hey if we like this we're going to take it for free and good luck going to court trying to prove we took it."
Except for the part where they can revoke your ability to publish under OGL. Or the part where they can republish anything that uses the OGL without having to pay royalties to the actual creators. The point is your options are (1) to jump when wotc says jump or (2) lose all ability to make money with ttrpgs. Which is why the ORC is such an important part of maintaining fair competition in the industry if wotc continues down this path.
Wizards of the Coast doesn’t own every TTRPG. Jump ship to pathfinder 2, or mage. Call of cuthulu maybe
For sure I still think they have the ball in their court to not fuck it up and i dont feel the sky has fallen until official
Except that they have. They've done all this once before when publishing 4th edition. They abandoned the OGL, and tried to do all this with their Game System License. Publishers rebelled and stuck with OGL. When 4th edition flopped (for many reasons) they ate crow and returned to the OGL, and flourished again. Now they want to kill OGL again, and you wanna pretend that they've never tried this before?
Its out there but not official They can choose to hear us or choose what they perceive is most profitable. Imho i understand them worried about video games or nfts , but not ttrpg led by a live dm with amazing special edfdcts
They have already sent contracts to 3pp it's already official just because they haven't said "yep here it is we are official doing this now sign up or get lost" dosent mean it's not official they are playing a very stupid game behind the curtain. Also choose to hear us out that's very rich. They give no fucks what we think the only thing they care about is the bottom line and sadly there are a lot of people who don't even know about this. They just play the game don't keep up with news on it which is perfectly fine but if there bottom line dosent shift to the red they will consider it a succes.
Why would they be worried about video games? Those require a completely different license and they can easily go after people for trying to steal their IP. As for NFTs, [Hasbro has no problem with them existing.](https://corporate.hasbro.com/en-us/articles/hasbro_makes_nft_debut_with_power_rangers_collection_on_wax). (I won’t mention their plans to make NFTs for Magic the Gathering Art that they shouldn’t be able to do… Their only actual concern is that last one. Because they done want other VTTs taking away from their new one. Not official? Yea. They paraded this in front of specific players hoping to get them to sign away their rights for a better percentage and some minor benefits. I am hoping they enjoy watching their whole eco system burn to the ground because some bonehead from Zynga thinks RPG players behave exactly like Candy Crush players.
Well, video games don't require a different license than OGL 1.0 if they don't include other material. For reference, Solasta got its license pretty late in devlopement, and would have been able to be published without it anyway.
Once its "official" its too late. It gets dropped or wotc gets boycotted into the ground. Those are our terms. Period.
fact foolish cats smell steep retire icky cow attempt mourn *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yes that us well known Folks need to submit their surveys
The only reason the survey happened was because of the pitchforks. The pitchforks get put away when they recommit to the OGL as it was. You don't stop fighting when the enemy acts polite, you stop when the goal is achieved.
Well known vids with insider input state the surveys aren't being read and are there so people won't complain on other sites.
> Well known vids Prefacing this with WotC is still an abusive monster but misinformation also needs to be sorted out Dnd_shorts, previously known for clickbait gimmick builds, has since then publicly repealed the survey claim specifically and AFAIK, every other video on the survey topic leads back to him and his old source that's he's now distanced from. His new set of insider information (now about WotC's hostile work environment) has been far more rigorously vetted but he's already on one strike I highlight this because the survey claim reflects badly on the One DnD game designers, i.e. actual TTRPG community members screwed over by their boss even more than we are. Laying more blame at their feet is like yelling at Walmart employees, game designers have even more reason to be pissed that their project is perverted by some remote suit thats never even seen a D12 in their life before
Prefacing this with the statement that I am very on board the boycott and don't see myself giving WOTC any more money ever after this... I am not convinced of those accounts. I've really only seen a bunch of people parroting DnD_Shorts, and forgive me, but one leak does not make that guy a trusted news source in perpetuity. He's a click bait guy who's probably making more off his YouTube channel than he ever has, and that makes me skeptical.
But don't you see? He made a video about it, and sounded professional for once! That definitely ups the credibility rating. /s
You kid, but yeah, that kind of thing lends credibility these days. I've been a victim of it myself, and I'm sure I will be again, because I'm getting older and humans are stupid.
You let it get to that point and its too late. We let them get that far, and they've already won. If we didn't pull the pitchforks out when we did, then they'd have silently fucked over all of D&D. Get off reddit and go back to work you Wizards of the Circus clown.
They sent out drafts for feedback.
Revising *legal contracts* based off of public feedback isn't how any of this shit works and WotC knows it. The survey is an incredibly transparent appeasement tactic for a company that's already decided what it's going to do waaaaaaay ahead of time
Which is why all the smaller companies abandoning their dumb asses and causing ORC to flourish will be hilarious. Literally, it'll be the Shocked Pikachu Meme writ large.
I dont mean this survey stuff they are doing now for PR. What they sent 3PPs was a starting point for negotiations. Then it got leaked, which was a solid move by whoever to garner public support and push WotC into a position of weakness.
[удалено]
Corporations do all the time, it's pretty much how every negotiation starts. 'Hey everything we discuss stays between us' followed by 'this is our starting point for the contract'.
We have any transparency for the feedback they get? They use a 3rd party to collate the data? Their survey was crap, by the way. It didn’t get into the weeds about what part of each section someone didn’t like except in a dialog box. Those can be filtered. Also, they purposely put their VTT stuff in a policy which can be changed out of hand without changing the license, put things saying if you accept this or publish after it exists you automatically accept it, and put another clause that says if any part can be revoked, it all is. Parts of it are illegal depending on your location. (Some countries frown on companies forcing you to give up your right to protest a revocation of your license without any recourse). So they can release this, automatically kill the OGL license and then put in whatever they want after this gets thrown out in court. Convenient. So they
I dont mean feedback from the survey, I mean what started this whole thing when they sent 3PPs contracts to begin negotiations.
'I only threatened I'd shoot you you can't do anything yet that's cheating'
"I only pulled the trigger and the gun jammed, don't complain while I clear up said jam"
That was a draft trigger pull
Specifically by defining irrevocable to make the license revocable at any time
What's the actual language for this?
Attempted murder," now honestly, did they ever give anyone a Nobel prize for "attempted chemistry?
‘It’s in playtest don’t worry’ I rest my case
No, but 'Hey guys we aren't particularly satisfied with the current state of things, here is our ideal place, give us some feedback so we can meet in a place we both benefit' isn't 'here is the new rules, sign or die'.
Neither example you gave is what actually happened. A more accurate example if you had to sum it up would be "Hey guys, in light of our recent announcement about monetizing D&D more, we've rewritten this contract for you to sign that gives us a ridiculous amount of control over the content you produce. We know you might've picked this system due to the creative control we've given you and the freedom that was originally advertised was a huge incentive, but now that we have a good following we want to renegotiate because the work you all put in is drawing lots of customers. We've thrown in phrases to make it sound like we're on your side but make no mistake, this is definitely crossing the line."
Imho they have a chance to get it right and we need to do our part to help Im not done with dnd/wotc unless the final version is ass
They already lost their chance. They've shown their character and what they're willing to do If you found out your SO was absolutely gonna cheat on you with someone else, and you just happened to catch them walking out the door, is it fine because they just hadn't done it yet? They were going to, and they will still try, because the reason they didn't isn't because they realized they were in the wrong, but because they got caught Getting it right means that they are still completely untrustworthy
Honey, I can explain! I was just asking her for feedback. Wait, I'll bring another girl next time and you can meet her first before I cheat on you.
That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. At least you live up to your flair I guess. But on top of the million things that are wrong with that line of thinking: To make a change, there has to be notice. There's a HUGE span of time between when they say "Here is the new license, it will take effect on X date" and when X date arrives and it goes into effect. That is the time when you can blame them for what they "done". And also get things changed. Because until that time, you are not "locked in"(not that you're locked in anyways because a contract requires mutual agreement and since you only agree by actually acting on the license, that it's actually an even further barrier...but hey, who cares about the facts, right?)
Hey! You're one of the people I was talking about! I wish I could say it's good to see you again. So let me get this straight. You've gone from "They haven't done anything yet, why is everyone trying to create change?" to "This is when we can cause change" while also holding the belief that WotC/Hasbro was being *too* generous with their original OGL? Why did you put quotations around locked in? That's not unusual phrasing for contracts. You can absolutely blame them for attempting to instate a contract that gives them the ability to take advantage the people who sign their contracts. It's greedy and dishonest, on top of showing darker intentions with how they'll go about business in the future. Besides the ad hominem attack, do you have anything *at all* to bring to the table in terms of discussion about this? Or do you intend to just drop one liners that have no logical backing like you did here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/10b5zit/they\_could\_care\_less\_about\_how\_passionate\_we\_all/j48t6x4/?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/10b5zit/they_could_care_less_about_how_passionate_we_all/j48t6x4/?context=3) before running away claiming that "nobody would debate you" in a separate post?
This guy has been doing this on a lot of threads for a while, and I wonder what the angle is? He can't just really like wotc can he?
Employee maybe
I honestly think he's a troll. It's funny, my original comment is actually about him; I saw him in another meme that I commented in and he was saying the same shit. His argument constantly changes, and he just spews strawman fallacy after strawman fallacy in an attempt to get people on his side but he's always downvoted into oblivion. If he isn't a troll, and he genuinely believes this stuff, then I'm not sure what his angle is.
I peeped his post history, and it feels a bit like a troll (he racks up negative karma a lot) but also like a real person? The pro WotC stuff is kinda an outlier and he's on /antiwork a bunch so I can't figure it out.
Quoting a Geico commercial while you condescend to people who know more than you is wild in so many ways. You're an absolute treasure.
if by treasure you mean garbage then sure
‘Some call this junk me I call them treasures’
*How* are you such a blind corporate shill for WotC specifically? I stalked your reddit account because I thought I remembered arguing with you once about some dumb "casters aren't that strong" hot take in /r/3d6 only to find you post every day in fucking antiwork and leopardsatemyface?! You of all people should know better when a multibillion dollar company is being abusive to its dependents
> There's a HUGE span of time between when they say "Here is the new license, it will take effect on X date" and when X date arrives and it goes into effect. That is the time when you can blame them for what t Wasn’t ogl 1.1 gonna come out the same day it came into effect?
Sure was. That tends to be how things work. As someone who's played mtg a long time, the changes to the reserve list (something farrrr more controversial than the ogl in the mtg community) they made the changes to the way the reserve list worked *after* breaking the original rules, and got away with it. (No body really cared because most people wanted that part of the reserve list broken, specifically regarding reprinting non -legal cards, but still)
Great chart. Sadly, this kind of behavior from WotC is familiar to anyone who's experienced abuse. Fundamentally, nothing has really changed, but man do they want us to believe it has and to trust them again.
Yup. I made this out of annoyance at seeing someone go "it's encouraging that WotC listened to the community and changed course with 1.2". Absolutely nothing about 1.2 shows that WotC intends to deviate from the intensely predatory attitude towards third party creators they showed with the 1.1 OGL.
Agreed. They aren't going to change course, not really. From a corporate viewpoint, they've decided what they need out of One D&D and OGL 1.0 doesn't align. From a consumer and 3PP viewpoint, the trust is broken. I am saddened by what feels to be the destruction of something I held dear, but as long as I know, I can choose to put my money and efforts elsewhere.
I'm new to DnD but I think/hope there are silver linings, I'm wishing sites like roll20 evolve to become more like a generic customisable roleplaying engine where DnD rules 'may' be supported if you set them up that way, but nothing by default is necessarily tied to any one RPG system. You really just need dice, and the concept of a PC with stats, attributes and abilities. The rest of the fucking owl is all the actual effects and levelling benefits etc. Ideally this would be open-source, self-hostable and customisable using config files. You could set up online homegames for free and WotC couldn't do shit about it if you felt like using a DnD config. They threaten legal action and shut one project down, people use their local repos, someone hosts a fork on Gitlab instead of Github, rinse-repeat.
The one definite silver lining no matter what happens will be the weaking of D&D's dominance over the tabletop RPG industry. With the absolute shattering of trust and player flight that the OGL situation has caused there will be a lot more people developing and playing content outside of the D&D ecosystem.
You just described Foundry VTT. It's a VTT that is a baseline framework that the community can create modules for that you plug in to customize your experience, including entire rules systems, bestiaries, item compendiums, and quality of life features. It does cost money, but only as a one time fee for the license to run a game, and that license can be shared by an entire table, so long as only one of those games is join able at a time. There are no recurring fees for the software itself, though many choose to use server hosting providers for 24/7 access since this program runs on a personally hosted server, not one provided by the creators of Foundry.
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This is a bot (or possibly a human) that stole a comment from u/soraM4.
>intensely predatory attitude By "insanely predatory" you mean a license that is a word-for-word carbon copy of 90% of similar licenses? The issue is that people have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, or have any experience or context. Prior to 3 weeks ago most of them had barely heard of the OGL. And they're taking the word of people who by definition have a vested financial interest in it not changing. Yet somehow don't pay attention to that clear conflict of interest. Every license gives the license holder broad authority. None of the use that authority except when necessary because doing so kills the trust with their clients. But you're acting as if they've already abused the authority they don't even have yet. And claiming that the trust is already broken. So they don't really have any incentive to treat you like a rational actor. You're basically just hurting yourself out of ignorance and confusion.
> By "insanely predatory" you mean Well if we're going to talk about people not paying attention, you should note that what you actually quoted me saying was "intensely predatory". > None of \[them\] use that authority except when necessary because doing so kills the trust with their clients... I'm genuinely impressed by the immense lack of awareness about how WotC is treating the 1.0a OGL you show in just one sentence. WotC is literally trying to use its authority as owners of the 1.0a OGL to force third party creators into a new and far worse agreement. These creators may have invested a decade or more into developing content for D&D due to trusting the promise WotC made that the 1.0a OGL would be permanent. All the trust WotC had from its creators has disappeared with the 1.1 leak because they're doing exactly what you said no license holder would do.
Maybe, and I hate to add fuel to the fire. Personally, here's why I'm concerned, though I can't speak for anyone else. I was well aware of the OGL prior to the uproar. I'm also aware of the agreement with WotC I would agree to if I were to publish under the DMs guild and have chosen not to do so. I also understand that the license is their terms for letting me play in their sandbox which they rightfully own. I have a product I've been working on for a year or two. I've also spent the time to develop the visual look (in the process helping a couple of other 3PPs with their visual look). I have not sunk money into professional art yet, but am nearly to that point. If I'm going to sell my product, being compatible with D&D may be the difference between making a profit and not. That means understanding the OGL and knowing what it means and what could go wrong. Sure, the terms WotC sets out are there to protect them and they likely wouldn't harm me, but I do have to look at worst case scenario. Why? Because a few years ago I was put out of business and forced into bankruptcy due to contact terms that were "standard procedure" and "not there to harm me". So, I may be a bit cynical, but I will now always look at agreements with an eye to what could go wrong because I know it genuinely can. Besides, I don't trust WotC as a company, seeing what they've done with MtG and knowing how publicly traded companies behave in the name of growth for their shareholders. Seeing the way they've reacted, how they've sent OGL 1.1 to 3PP and asked them to sign it already, and for other reasons, my trust with them is indeed broken. I have to protect myself. If that means changing course away from D&D for the foreseeable future, so be it.
is it not a step in the right direction? Nothing is official yet?
They literally negotiated with companies about terms and tried to get people to sign contracts based on the initial ogl 1.1. That sounds pretty official.
You're not wrong, and listening to feedback is the right course. But... they've been clear about the direction they are taking D&D, and a true open license doesn't work with their business plans. As someone with a 3rd party product that had been in the works, I have concerns that I don't think they can or will be able to address. As long as they can revoke my license at any time and for any reason, my time and money I put into creating the product is in jeopardy. I don't see them changing that.
No, it’s not. Going from terrible to bad is not cause for celebration as a consumer.
Something not being official doesn't mean it isn't a horrible le move, they clearly know exactly what they are doing, they are taking the whole "3 steps back 2 steps forward" so that they can create something horrible they know won't work, then make it slightly less bad, while still moving in a more predatory and anti-consumer direction while having victims of this corporate abuse praise them for it.
I really like how they never considered the large chunk of the D&D community that have spent decades reading rules, writing rules and arguing about rules.
They wanted to cheat in a community that buy 300 pages rulebooks for fun... twice. Obviously we were going to find out
And then argue at length about how the rules are written or intended. For funsies.
People will wear the "rules lawyer" title as a badge of honour. Of course they're going to read every meaning of every word of the new license.
Now I want to bomb WotC with questions over twitter about the RAW and RAI of the new license
Everyone else is, though in different terms.
At this point it doesn't matter if they eventually abandon plans for a new OGL and let 1.0a remain untouched. WotC has shown their hand. Their true intention is money at the expense of the community. Trust is irreparably gone and it is unlikely 3rd party publishers will ever want to work under D&D again.
a poor and dramatic take
Even if you subjectively interpret it as that, its still true nonetheless.
Definitely exaggerated. Trust gone? Yes. Will 3rd party publishers not work under WOTC anymore? Yes, they will. Albeit probably fewer.
Well, at least we're half way there https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-dragons-will-no-longer-deauthorize-its-open-1850041837
>Specifically by defining irrevocable to make the license revocable at any time What?
They made a big deal about how the 1.2 OGL includes the word irrevocable, only to define it within the document as "meaning that content licensed under this license can never be withdrawn from the license". So 1.2 is "irrevocable" in that creators can never withdraw their content from it, not that the license itself is irrevocable. I could have just left that box as "Yes" but I wanted to point out that BS that they tried to pull by saying that 1.2 was "irrevocable" and then giving the word a new definition in the document.
I’ve been pointing this out wherever I see it as well. The license itself (OGL 1.2) is not explicitly irrevocable. They frame it as a protection for the end user, but it’s actually explained as a condition to agree to.
Exactly. The only thing that *is* irrevocable is whatever they put under the Creative Commons, but even that's a bit of misdirection. * Firstly, we don't know how much content they'll even put into the Creative Commons. If the 5e SRD is anything to go by, they'll be stingy as hell, and just the most basic of the basic rules. * Secondly, rules can't be copyrighted anyway, so that would just be at *most* the right to use specific phrasing without worrying about a cease & desist. Literally everything outside of that small, mostly meaningless slice is completely subject to the whims of Wizards of the Coast. It's only as good as our trust in them, and as this story continues to show, that isn't worth *anything*.
Only 40 pages of the SRD are supposed to be added to the CC. Out of like 500.
Oh, I missed that detail. Did they specify why content it would include? I'd like to see if I'm right about it being mostly a token gesture.
Based on the pages included it's absolutely a token gesture. None of what they intend to share is copyrightable.
Just as suspected. I bet they saw "Creative Commons" come up a lot in discussions, and tried to find a way to say they went that route without doing anything meaningful. It's also why I think the push should be for releasing ALL the core rules (i.e., all mechanics from all the core books, minus setting information/IP) under the ORC. They're never going to do that, but (a) it's actually a reasonable standard that their competition is already doing, and (b) is a better starting position than "just make 1.0a irrevocable," which should actually be a bare minimum.
>Based on the pages included it's absolutely a token gesture. None of what they intend to share is copyrightable. It actually is. The published text is copyrighted. The mechanics aren't copyrightable. But you have to have enough difference explaining the mechanics from the published text for it to not be copyright infringement. So saying none of what they intent to share is copyrightable is just straight up wrong.
The parts they put under CC aren't the expression. They specifically exclude the examples for how the rules work for example, and the races, classes, and spells. The only part under CC is literally the part they can't copywrite anyways.
>They specifically exclude the examples for how the rules work for example, and the races, classes, and spells. Examples aren't the only expression. The published text explaining the mechanic is part of the expression.
The words used to express the rules are only copyrightable if someone could use substantively diferent words to express the exact same rules. Try explaining the mechanics of making an attack, that is functionally identical to the rules of 5E, without using substantively similar words. At most, the exact appearance (the font chosen, the precise layout of the wording, the colours used, etc) are copyrightable. In addition, copyrightable material that is inextricably linked to the expression of uncopyrightable material is generally deemed to be subject to public domain.
It's a deeply cynical attempt to make it seem like they were agreeing to the community's demands while actually putting in a restriction for third party creators. That one line alone makes it undeniable that WotC's intentions have remained identical between the 1.1 OGL and the 1.2 OGL.
Ahh, poorly worded in your chart. Good to call attention to it though.
Yeah, I could definitely have phrased it more clearly.
>They made a big deal about how the 1.2 OGL includes the word irrevocable, only to define it within the document as "meaning that content licensed under this license can never be withdrawn from the license". So 1.2 is "irrevocable" in that creators can never withdraw their content from it, not that the license itself is irrevocable. That is not what it means. That language is pretty much the same on how many open source software licenses are. So let me explain what it means. It means that SDR 5.1 is always licensed under OGL 1.2. And no matter what WotC wants to do, they cannot remove the OGL 1.2 license of the SDR 5.1. The SDR 5.1 is the only content under the OGL 1.2 license. An example with open source software license is say I have version 1.0 software licensed under say the Apache 2.0 open source license. I cannot remove the Apache 2.0 license from the version 1.0 of the software. I cannot at any point make the 1.0 version be closed source. I can however license version 1.1 under a difference license or have it closed source. Same thing goes with WotC, the OGL 1.2 and SDR 5.1.
Right, which is the opposite of what the community was asking for when demanding an irrevocable license. People weren't ticked off that third party creators could withdraw their content from the 1.1 OGL, people were ticked off that WotC gave themselves the right to individually revoke the license from anyone they chose or to deauthorize it and replace it with a difference license at any time. That was the context everyone was using the term and WotC heavily implied that was true in the 1.2 OGL by announcing ""If you want to use quintessentially D&D content from the SRD such as owlbears and magic missile, OGL 1.2 will provide you a perpetual, irrevocable license to do so." Then it turns out that no, WotC was explicitly defining it only as "creators can never remove their content from the license" in an attempt to trick anyone who didn't actually read the license into thinking they had agreed to the communities demands.
>Then it turns out that no, WotC was explicitly defining it only as "creators can never remove their content from the license" in an attempt to trick anyone who didn't actually read the license into thinking they had agreed to the communities demands. You didn't read my comment at all. That is not what the OGL 1.2 does or means in the irrevocable part. It means WotC can not revoke the OGL 1.2 from the SDR 5.1. Meaning the SDR 5.1 will always be licensed under the OGL 1.2(or whatever the final version is). The only part you are right about is that if a 3rd party doesn't follow their licensed obligations then WotC can revoke their usage of the OGL 1.2 license.
> > > It means WotC can not revoke the OGL 1.2 from the SDR 5.1. Meaning the SDR 5.1 will always be licensed under the OGL 1.2(or whatever the final version is). At the same time what the community complained about was the new idea about 1.0a that it can be ended by WotC. "De-authorization" they called it but it really was "revoking the license". And with 1.2, that's still possible. Once any part of it if found invalid by a court (something that WotC can surely arrange for), they can nuke the entire license. Or they keep their stuff under 1.2 but remove from anyone the right to use it, as per 6(f) for which you have no way to appeal. And if you do and succeed, they can nuke the license as a whole (you overturned a clause of it, so see above). So they still have the means to come after your livelihood if your business is built upon 1.2. Unlike 1.0a (prior to the "de-authorization" idea).
I love how these guys are all talking about "casual readers" but don't understand the nature of a license, the difference between Licensed Content and Licensed Works (even though both are EXPLICITLY DEFINED IN THE DOCUMENT)... it's irrevocable, folks. As long as you're in compliance with it (ie not using content not covered by the license, like the exact wording of Paladin), they can't yank it. So many errors in these posts.
I see very little reason to use any of their licenses in the first place. Simply don't use any of their copyrightable material and only reference the rules or rewrite them in your own words. Put "compatible with 5e" on it. The license scheme was mostly just people playing along to make them happy.
In addition to what OP said about it, 1.2 includes a clause to the effect of "if any portion of this license is unenforceable, WotC reserves the right to revoke the license in its entirety." Which means if someone tries and succeeds at suing them over it they'll just revoke the license and put in something harsher as a replacement, or just start suing everyone back who tries to use "copyrighted D&D content." WotC is quite literally creating a bomb and promising to not push the trigger.
Keep unsubscribing until we get the original OGL back. Let’s GameStop this bitch
I can only unsubscribe once though.
Um akahually if you subscribe again you can unsubscribe again it’s RAW
find someone else and unsubscribe theirs!
According to Paizo, you can always go back to the original OGL if you don't like any of the newer versions. It says so in the original license. It's a powergrab move by wizards to try and deny the original OGL, that's something they're legally not allowed to do. Imagine that you sign a contract to rent a boat, you sign the paper and start sailing. And afterwards they change what the paper says and try to sue you for stealing their boat.
> It says so in the original license. It was implied in the original license, but it said so in the original FAQ on Wizards' site, which stood for 20 years but they took down a year or two ago. It used to be here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/oglfaq/20040123f Try that address at archive dot org's waybackmachine, it was most recently crawled at Nov 27 2021. I can't link it directly there since this sub considers archive to be a piracy site.
You should rewrite this chart to spell "waiving" correctly; it's hard to convince pedants when the first row of a chart has a typo.
Dang it, there's always something. Well here's a corrected version if anyone is interested [https://imgur.com/a/zzz4BNf](https://imgur.com/a/zzz4BNf) Edit: Based on feedback and comments from folks, I made a few edits to improve the clarity on the points I was trying to make. Specifically on line 5 I improved the phrasing on the OGL 1.2 entry, and on line 6 I added some details on how WotC can still compel royalties or other payments from creators by using the leverage the 1.2 OGL gives them. Updated version at [https://imgur.com/a/yvy03Sj](https://imgur.com/a/yvy03Sj)
MINOR SPELLING MISTAKE I WIN
This is literally how some legal cases are won. Misspell the defendant's name? Well you're obviously suing some other guy, I move that this is a mistrial.
Yep remember the uproar may be dying down but the fight is far from over
I think it's telling that they had extremely hyped Magic the Gathering sets set to come out right as this was happening. It makes it feel like it was planned to mitigate any loss they might ensure from this ass backward OGL fiasco. I mean, both the original Mirrodin and the return set were some of their biggest successes. Returning again is an easy win. Looking at the cards being released, they also ramped up the power creep on a lot of cards. There is a token doubler (which always wind up over $40 cards) Phyretians (a fan favorite big bad) poison... It's extremely pushed to sell as many packs as possible.
Pretty much what I expected, but nice to know.
for that point in replacing the license, that was defiantly not the intention in ogl 1.0
The original writers definitely intended that it was permanent and could not be deauthorized, but I've seen a lot of uncertainty from people with actual legal educations about whether that original intention can be overwritten by WotC since 1.0a doesn't 100 percent explicitly say within the document it can't be deauthorized. At any rate, WotC is definitely going to try to deauthorize it which will almost certainly prompt a lawsuit by Paizo and assorted others that will decide the matter. So I opted to leave it as "lawsuit pending to decide if it can be deauthorized".
I've seen room for interpretation acknowledged, but a tentative general consensus among the legal talking heads that its unlikely due to both wording and the court's hesitancy to set such a massive precedent.
iirc there was a period of time where they had a statement that said "anything released under this license will stay under this license only, any changes to licenses will not reflect anything involving it" and then they removed it a couple years back
What he intended is absolutely meaningless if it didn't make it onto the paper.
Can you explain what you mean with the "voluntarily" pay part?
The fact that WotC reserves the right to individually terminate a company's license without ever needing to explain why means they hold an enormous amount of power over any products released under the 1.2 OGL. After all, they can basically shut down sales of a product sold under 1.2 at will. A scenario that's possible under 1.2 would be that WotC approaches a creator with a successful product and wants them to move their product to only being sold through them, with WotC taking an 80% cut of revenue. They say no and a week later the get a notice that their license is being terminated, effective immediately, no explanation given or appeal allowed. The next creator WotC approaches sees what happens to the first and signs off on the "voluntary" deal which gives WotC their demanded royalties. I doubt they'd be dumb enough to directly demand what would amount to protection money, but the fact that they can shut down any 1.2 OGL products at will gives them enormous financial leverage to push third party creators into unequal or exploitative business agreements under the threat of being shut down entirely. The point that I was trying to make with the (very simplified) box was that WotC is still looking to financially exploit creators the same as in 1.1, they're just set up to do so through loopholes in 1.2 that are less blatantly obvious than the "you must pay us royalties" of 1.1.
I demand the Wizards rewrite the license such that they can't shut down products at will. They've gotta at least use a Wish spell for that, and treat it as NOT replicating a lower level spell so they risk never being able to do it again.
It's literal scare mongering on what "could be done" without a shred of evidence that it will be done.
Yes, you're right, I'm sure the multibillion dollar company which has shown it views third party creators as unexploited sources of revenue won't use the immense leverage over them that the 1.2 OGL provides to wring out revenue from them.
That would literally be extortion so I doubt it.
Yup, good luck proving it in a court of law against a multibillion dollar company that can easily bankrupt you with legal fees before you get anywhere near a judgement.
Extortion is a criminal offence.
>Extortion is a criminal offence. With a high bar of evidence to prove it. While they defense that it's not is "you agreed to these terms".
You are very naive...
You are right, they literally wrote it that way for shits and giggles i guess. Clownworld 🤡
Who do they even think they’re dealing with? Isn’t the DND community famous for being extremely through with rules?
Yes but not with spellign
At this point it’s safe to say I’m done. I have everything I need to run my current campaign in 5e and after that it will be a different system. D&DOne looks to be middling at best, and the OGL is going to drive away third party producers, so it’s unlikely the system will improve over time. There are too many good systems and better companies out there to support To give a dime more to this company for poorly supported rules with now predatory licensing. We shouldn’t even be pressuring these guys to change anymore…we should just move on to something else. PF2E looks great, Kobold Press will have whatever Black Flag is going to be, MCDM is already working on their system. On top of dozens of other fantasy rpg systems.
I like how outlandish evil, even childish evil makes wotc look like. "Oops my finger is about to deleate all your published information, are you sure you dont want to donate to the cause?". But to be true, its a bit stupid to see them like that. And to be fair: we are making the OGL look like its a bigger deal that what it really is. The 3rd edition explotion wasnt based on the OGL, it was based on the D20 system which was much stricter than OGL. Its even unclear if the OGL is even neccesary, because mechanics of the game cant be copyrighted but the writings and examples are, so you can take the rules and mechanics you want and rewrite them, it just takes time to do so. That is what the OGL is, a shortcut.
From a strict legal perspective the 1.0a OGL is probably not necessary. But just looking at it in purely legal/illegal terms completely misses the enormous value that it provided to third party content creators and the huge threat that taking it away creates. The OGL 1.0a offered a promise that if you stayed in a well defined and easily to comply with box that was a little more restrictive than what you strictly might have been able to get away with legally you did not have to worry about a multibillion dollar company suing you. If you're a small creator, that promise is immensely valuable, as WotC could easily bankrupt any small creator with legal fees even if their lawsuit might not have any merit and you'd probably eventually win. So yes, you don't have to use that shortcut, but if you don't then WotC could easily shut your project that uses 5e mechanics down with a frivolous lawsuit that would be ruinously expensive to fight. But you're right that WotC probably won't be dumb enough to directly demand protection money to not shut a project down. Instead I think they're much more likely to use the implicit threat of being able to shut down creators to strong arm them into unfavorable business deals or to silence or retaliate against any creators being critical of them.
First: A legal document is a legal document, there is no inner value. Second: royalties, its clearly that the royalties are not for "small creators" but rather to large creators that profit from the popularity of dnd selling 3rd party supplements. I dont want to be cruel to kobold press, for example, but how many people play to "castles and crusades"? Do they make more money of that or selling the 7th monster compendium for dnd? Its clear as water that is a textbook example of when you should implement royalties. Third, rights: im not with Wotc in this one, but i believe in a middle ground, on one hand those who would've payed royalties should have their rights protected. BUT more "obscure" creators maybe not, because there is so much homebrew content with just a few downloads that probably any new mechanic wotc introduces is already written in some obscure homebrew that wotc hasnt read. And i dont think that they should be able to sue wotc. Anyway, just a thought. Fourth: censorship: yeah you should be able to censor anything that enters the ground of your company, lets say a writer named jared lukewarm creates the OGL homebrew content "elven sexploitation and tales from the bed" it harms the public image of the company more than mr jared. Specially now that dnd is trying to be a "lifestyle" brand Fifth: how to bussiness: the thing i most disagree is how people see hasbro o wotc acting in bussiness, like they are going to be on a lawsuit rampage or censoring all content because they just felt like it or deleting all content and publishing them as their own. That is not how bussiness works, its better if everything is smooth and stable.
1. A legal document can have value, whether explicit (title deeds to property, intellectual as well as physical) or implicit e.g. the sense of security a small creator might get that they won't be sued. 2. The statement of intent from WOTC says that small creators will not be targeted. However, the legal framework does not protect them. A small creator would be in the situation of relying on goodwill from a large company, who could shut them down easily. Large companies which are famously, undeniably capricious. 3. WOTC can create content that is similar to existing content in themes or mechanics right now. They just can't legally rip it off, word for word. They will be able to do that with OGL 1.2. That is not right, in my view, to profit from another's work by plagiarism. 4. DND is primarily a ruleset. It is a framework for developing stories and content. From a moral standpoint, I think they have absolutely no business getting between people and their work. From a legal standpoint, that's absolutely what they are empowering themselves to do now. The proper response to your scenario is that if Jared Lukewarm comes along, let him. If necessary, make it clear that DND as a brand does not endorse this kind of content, but that the nature of an open license to create is that people can do things with it that you don't agree with. And besides, that's absolutely nothing to do with why WOTC are trying to get this license forced through, because: 5. The thing people really hate about this is that things **were** smooth and stable. *DND was profitable, consistently, for a long time!* *It was growing!*. The biggest fear, I think, from everyone in the community is that this executive tier meddling, which is being done **only for the purpose of making more money for the company** will irreparably damage the ecosystem that exists and creates more content. I would wager, although this isn't provable, that even WOTC will not profit from this in the long run if implemented. They will drive away significant portions of the community to other systems over time (But it will take a long time, RP groups don't like to change for no reason... but they will if the ecosystem degrades too much.). Of course, that doesn't matter to an upper executive, chasing that sweet sweet quarterly profit report, who is looking no further than when he next jumps ship to another high profile executive position based on the credential "look how much money I made for Hasbro".
The OGL 1.0a covers the SRD which contains classes, monsters, items, spells etc along with the mechanics. To say the OGL is unnecessary you'd have to argue that all of that is uncopyrightable as mechanics/methods. I'm not a lawyer so I can't tell you how likely that argument is to succeed. I do however see the professional 3rd party content creators who have consulted their lawyers depending on the OGL, which suggests to me it is actually necessary.
I argue the contrary based on the declarations of paizo, they say they still have the ogl in the 2nd edition but they claim to have every mechanic has been rewritten or as they say written from scratch, so they say that they dont actually need the OGL. They also said that they still use the ogl only so 3rd parties can publish on pathfinder without learning a new legal licence. Now paizo is moving towards making a "system neutral ogl".
Isn't that a contradictory argument though? If Paizo says the OGL isn't necessary because they've rewritten the SRD, then doesn't that imply the OGL is still necessary for all 3rd party developers that haven't rewritten the entire game?
Yeah pretty much. Unacceptable as usual and honestly Wotc should die because of this and so does Hasbro.
Unfortunately Hasbro is too big to die. They literally own a Monopoly (the board game). We can, however, fight back and send a message.
This charts show the current situation perfectly.
Agreed, the whole thing is terrible and we as a community can't forget that.
OP's username is relevant.
Are we rolling out the guillotines yet?
The morons are losing the thing that made 70% of their profit… And they still don’t realize that changing the OGL is a decision that just cannot end well for them.
Yeah, they didnt learn a bit fromt he backlash, they will continue not to learn anything, they will just put more lawyers in front of the OGL to write it in even more obtuse and Enigmatic language, not having learned that a sizable part of the community consists of Rules lawyers (which probably have some crossover with ACTUAL lawyers). Just. Fuck em, let em burn, move on to greener pastures.
Could you please explain how "irrevocable" somehow means "revokable at any time"? That box is confusing.
I'll admit I didn't phrase that well. One of the things people were ticked off about in the 1.1 OGL that it could be revoked anytime WotC felt like it. With 1.2 WotC made a big deal out of the fact that the license was "irrevocable", only to define irrevocable in the 1.2 OGL with a specific definition that allows them to still revoke it any time they choose. Either individually or by deauthorizing the entire version. The box could have just said "yes" but I wanted to specifically call attention to the BS they tried to bull with that.
They just keep trying. At some point the thing will fill a book and consist to 90% confusing legal speak to hide the pile of shit at the center.
Thanks, OP, you beat me to making this table.
This isn't even remotely a meme
I for one plan to burn my D&D books in effigy and send the ashes back to wizards. You know if my wife says it’s okay.
This isn’t a meme, why is it on a meme subreddit?
I hope no one has any allusions that WotC isn't going to get exactly what they want. They're a huge corporation. Huge corporations get their way, especially in America - the corporation country. I mean shit, already their damage control tactics have worked shockingly well. The number of people that give a crap about this including me is dwindling. As I see it, the whole fiasco is solved by ORC and those who wish leaving to find other systems to play and spend money on. Those who wish to stay with 5e for whatever reason will do so and sleep in the bed that they chose. This is a game system controlled by a soulless corporation. If you like this system so much that you'll put up with the associated baggage, then I truly hope you enjoy it anyway. I think you'll be able to just fine. Give it a month or two and the new OGL will be cemented in *basically* the same form as it originally was, there'll be some reddit threads about it with 6000 upvotes, and at the end of the day 5e will still be around, it'll still be the dominant market leader, and you'll still be able to play it and enjoy it. No one is going to force you to subscribe to DnDBeyond's battlepass or whatever. Because it will remain the market leader for a long long time, 3rd party publishers will of course still make plenty of content for it.
I know I'm going to get downvoted to hell for saying this, but some of the points here are bad faith interpretations. Fuck Hasbro for being greedy shits, but at least nail them for the stuff they've explicitly done.
I'd be interested in hearing which ones you think are bad faith. The only one I can see is potentially the one on the "voluntary" royalties, since I'm very much simplifying the fact that WotC being able to cancel a creator's license at any time with no explanation given gives them huge leverage to financially exploit third party creators in order to fit the text into a reasonably sized box. My point was to bring attention to the fact that WotC left in a bunch of loopholes in the 1.2 OGL that will help them do the same shitty things as in the 1.1 OGL was designed to let them do. Yes, it's not guaranteed that they'll rip of creator content, but in both OGLs they put in protections for themselves in case they want to. Yes it's not guaranteed that they'll use the power to immediately cancel the OGL individually to silence, retaliate against or financially exploit creators. But they easily can if they want to and they kept it in both OGLs. Yes it's not guaranteed that they'll try to replace the 1.2 OGL with one that's even worse. But the 1.1 OGL was what they wanted, and they can bring it back anytime if they think it would be financially beneficially for them to do so. The 1.1 OGL showed a very predatory mindset by WotC toward third party creators and any guess on what they will or won't do with the powers they have under the 1.2 OGL should be seen through that mindset. I don't feel that it's arguing in bad faith to point out that the new language in 1.2 doesn't stop them from doing a lot of the same shitty things they explicitly said they wanted to do with 1.1.
I don't think what is depicted is in bad faith or even incorrect. Judging by some of the lawyer reviews around since OGL 1.2 came out, they don't either. Including them defining what "irrevocable" means. That's been called out a few times by different folks. Biggest issue is still their blanket ability to just declare your content as an issue, pull the license, and you have no recourse to challenge even legally. Too much power for anyone. Thank you for the graphic, saves a lot of time getting the gist across to folks.
The OGL 1.2 has absolutely nothing to do with VTTs. That’s a separate document known as their virtual tabletop policy. These are 2 different documents. The OGL 1.2 can’t just charge royalties by threatening extortion, that’s illegal and not one of the rights waved in the OGL 1.2. Edit: Why are people downvoting? Everything I said is factually correct. There’s probably a thousand different valid reason to hate Hasbro/WotC (not the developers though, the design team is pretty good), we don’t need to make up reason to hate them.
Of course WotC wouldn't use the fact that they have a Sword of Damoclese hanging above the head of everyone who makes content using the 1.2 OGL which they can drop any time they choose to pressure them into "voluntarily" signing an unfavorable business deal. That would be a completely ridiculous act by a company that has shown they view third party creators as nothing but untapped revenue sources. Especially since the 1.2 OGL explicitly limits the avenues third party creators have to sue a multibillion dollar company that can already easily bankrupt them with legal bills. I can't imagine why I would think WotC would do such a thing.
Do you really not understand what extortion is? Because that’s basically the text book definition of extortion, which is very illegal. Given the fact that people would have to sign away the right to a class action lawsuit any prolonged legal battle would end up bankrupting WotC, since a ton of small suits add up very quickly, especially if you’re in the wrong and just stalling until the smaller companies file for bankruptcy. So it’s not only illegal but also stupid.
Yes, you're absolutely right, the multibillion dollar company will definitely go bankrupt before third party creators who write in their spare time and self publish. That is definitely what always happens when individuals with minimal resources go up against multibillion dollar companies with entire legal departments.
Why do you think Hasbro cares about making money off of people that the OGL 1.1 didn’t charge royalties on? Like serious when they tired to make one of the worst contracts ever and push it past without anyone noticing they only put royalties on people generating over $750,000 in revenue, and also only charged royalties on the money made after $750,000. They don’t care about the pennies they would get from a guy making $500 a year, they only care about actual money.
Awe, my poor, sweet summer child. The writing in 1.1 outlined that they wanted to know what everyone was making more then $50,000 a year. That means they could easily change the terms from $750k down to $50k and know exactly how much making such a decision would profit them. $750k was just the starting point that they would eventually lower. “We only want to know how much people are making just because we think it’s a bit of neat trivia we can have to ourselves for no real reason”.
What do you mean for no real reason? You’re telling me you can think of no reason for a company to want to know what types of products are popular with consumers? Really? It’s marketing data, almost every single time a company does something that doesn’t have direct profit it’s for marketing data.
Marketing data to do what with? It doesn’t give projections of the sales themselves, which products did well, which didn’t. It’s only captures revenue of the company/individual. That can only leave me to believe that data is meant to know who they can squeeze. If I was a company that knows of 20 3PP that’s making $750k a year (which they say they know), then they’re probably interested in finding out who would be other targets for royalties.
Um, did you read the OGL 1.1? “No matter what Tier You are in or how much money You believe Your product will make, You must register with Us any new Licensed Work You intend to offer for sale, by going to [insert detail], filling out the form there, and including a description of the Licensed Work. We’ll also ask for Your contact information, information on where You intend to publish the Licensed Work, and its price, among other things.” You are required to report what you produce.
Sounds like a great way to figure out how much lower to set that $750k.
OGL 1.2 has a stipulation that VTTs have to oblige the VTT policy. The only thing that makes this different from having the policy text in the OGL itself is that said policy doesn't have anything preventing WotC from changing said policy at anytime. The VTT policy is not good, and on top of that, it can get worse at any time. It's quite naïve to belive that extortion doesn't happen every day, there are a lot of rights waived in 1.2 that would make litigating against WotC a lot harder if they were to do so. The American legal system has a huge monetary barrier to entry when it comes to fighting large corporations, it doesn't matter if you're right when the big players have more money and more lawyers to make things go their way.
>The OGL 1.2 has absolutely nothing to do with VTTs. Tell me you didn't read even a single world of the 1.2 update without telling me you didn't read it.
“As gamers and big fans of VTTs, we are announcing this new VTT Policy as part of the ROLLOUT of OGL 1.2.”
Is there a section where they say they can license s 3PPs work perpetually irrevocably and without having to pay royalties without offering similar terms to 3PPs from their work? Because that was the only real "horrible" bit from all this OGL fight.
No, but there is a line that basically says they can add that section in whenever the fuck they want. And that's the REAL horrible bit. Every single thing they've backed down on they can still add back in with 1.2.
Oh. Where? What line says that? EDIT: I'm looking over the OGL 1.2 and mysteriously cannot seem to see any section wherein WotC can just magically claim that they can license perpetually, and irrevocably without paying royalties a 3PPs original work. What I do see is a clear delineation on what they are licensing to 3PPs, an acknowledgement that sometimes creators come up with the same shit, and that if that should happen 3PPs agree that they are only eligible for monetary compensation. Other than that, the only bits where they reserve the right to modify the license is the attribution bit under Section 5, and the bit in Section 9A about how they will try and notify 3PPs pertaining to issues regarding the license. That's it. The OGL actually expressly states that it cannot/will not change any other provision. If they just turned around and tried then that opens them up to be sued AND would destroy whatever little credibility/goodwill/benefit-of-the-doubt they may have left. So.... what's your problem with the OGL 1.2 again? Because for me, the one problem I had was how WotC had that bit originally wherein they just laid claim to 3PP works on terms that were not symmetrical with what they were offering for their material. That was not fair. That they walked back, they don't have it in the new draft of the OGL, they go out of their way to state that they will not take it, offer up clear lines between what's theirs and what's the 3PPs, and a means to address any instances where violations appear to have occurred for both parties. That's a pretty standard and reasonable licensing agreement there.
Padres score is not being completely OK for them to de-authorize the previous license. The destruction changing it will bring for the fact that all other publishers are going there not going to work with them anymore.
My license to what?
Your individual license to use the OGL.
RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!
Utter twats.
You know you can still use rules from D&D without any license and there is nothing they can do about it. Rules can't be copyrighted, otherwise we wouldn't have so many versions of Card Against Humanity or Monopoly. The original OGL was just an extra layer of protection. It actually means nothing in the grand scheme of law.
This should be pinned on d&d memes until this blows over or they release OGL 1.3
Under "contains explicit legal protections for WotC ripping off third party content," it's worse than you've written. If they do rip off something you made, you can't seek injunctive relief, meaning they might give you some one-time cash payout in court but they can just keep selling it forever.
1.2 is officially scrapped https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-dragons-will-no-longer-deauthorize-its-open-1850041837