D&D Tools Website Closed

A few people have dropped me emails to tell me that the D&D Tools website has been closed. In its place is a message which indicates that WotC sent them a Cease & Desist request, with which they appear to have complied. I'm not very familiar with the site, but it contained a lot of 3.x era D&D official content.

Looking at snapshots from Wayback Machine, it does appear that the site included plenty of material not covered by the Open Gaming License. The note below says it was serving 1M pages per week, or 4M per month, which puts it on par with some of the biggest RPG websites (that's similar to EN World), so it was a pretty big deal.

The full closing letter is shown below.

D&D Tools – End of an Era...
Hello everyone,

TGG here. As you have probably gathered, we have received a Cease and Desist letter from WotC (well, from a law company under WotC rule). I'd like to take some time now to comment on this.

I started D&D tools some five years ago as a tool for me to find "all the feats that affect criticals". From then, it grew up a lot, both in content and audience.

At the time of this letter, the site served roughly 1.000.000 pages a week.

100 races.

500 items.

1.000 classes.

3.000 feats.

5.000 spells.

Everything was interlinked with each other. Feats listed requirements as links. You could find what a class had for prerequisite and click it right away. Wanted to know what spells are there available for a class in campaign settings? No problem. Lots and lots of filtering and searching.

At November 14, 2014, I've received a letter requesting that we put the site down. As of now I have to comply, since I have neither time nor law skills nor resources to do otherwise. Also, I'm not allowed to post the letter itself here.
... about future?

First of all, the site itself is open source project. The sources are my intellectual property and I'm free to share them as I wish. About a year ago I created a repository at github – https://github.com/dndtools/dndtools. The setup notes might not be up to date, but it's possible to get it running with OGL contents. Since it was there long before the C&D letter, I feel free to share the knowledge.

Second, there is also great mobile app for android a Google Play (sorry iPhone users). It comes with full OGL contents. If you are friends with Uncle Google or Web Archive, you might even find a more interesting database for it. I myself cannot claim to be the creator of it, so please do give some love to the author on the app page!

Third, since the sources codes are available for public use and the database itself was distributed among users, there is nothing in my power to prevent others to try to resurrect the site.
Final words

I want to thank very much to all the people who put a lot of effort to see the site grow! Without you, it could never have grown into what it did. Thanks!

I'd also like to say something to WotC. The game you created is great. I spend a lot of time playing it. You have moved to 4e and then 5e. Why do you try to destroy what your fans have created? Things that can help players, that encourages them to play more? (I'm talking about all the sites that went down over the years) You'd better invest the money into creating something yourself than to spend it on law companies...

tgg out.

PS: Oh and if you want to say hello or something, you can find me at dndtools.eu at gmail.com.

​

I sympathize with how it must feel to have a company request that you take your website down. I've had letters from WotC's legal folks before, too, due to content on EN World, although I've always found that communication is a great way to resolve these issues and everything got handled amicably.

Below is a screenshot of the site from January or so. You can click on it to go and see the final page.

​

 

[delericho]

That's a shame, as that site was incredibly useful at times. But, to be honest, my only surprise is that this didn't happen ages ago - that site was hosting a lot of WotC IP, and it seems they did so without approval from WotC themselves.

 

[3catcircus]

If it is on the wayback machine, it can easily be reached by almost any semi-savvy web user.

It isn't dead, just a bit more difficult to access...

Considering that a lot of the 3.x pages on wotc's own site are missing, I'd think a small licensing deal might allow him to reopen his site.

 

[Jester David]

This does highlight the problem with WotC's legal policy of C+D first, talking to people second.

Not everyone knows you can negotiate after a C+D as it's a warning of legal action and not legally binding. And not everyone is just going to contact the legal team without a lawyer, as common C+D advice online is always "talk to your lawyer."
WotC is sending out C+D to unaware non-lawyers, who are in some cases foreigners who may be completely ignorant of the details of American legal policy (such as the above gent or Ema of the so named character sheets). Especially the C+D letters are usually sent out for a small infraction but demand the removal of the entire site. They don't sound like they're phrased as an invitation to open a discussion since, by definition, a "Cease & Desist" is a commanding order. It's aggressive and adversarial.

It sounds like if Morrus was less ballsy and didn't contact WotC directly, ENWorld would have been shut down over the years as well.
(I also wonder if the visibility of ENWorld made the legal team more receptive to talking, and if his experiences were representative or not. I guess we won't know until someone else chooses to discuss their C+D and negotiation and doesn't just shut down their site.)

 

[Morrus]

A C&D is just a letter. It's written by lawyers, sure, so sounds stern, but it's just a letter. It can be a prelude to a lawsuit, but it's not a lawsuit itself. Most anybody who sends one is open to discussion, though some much larger companies might not be. Usually you just fix what's wrong, or talk to them about it if you think they've misread something.

An entire site which simply reproduces non-open IP, though, is harder to open discussion on.

A C&D might even end up being the start of a conversation about licensing.

Always reply to a C&D and be amicable in the way you do it. You can't make things worse!

My experience with WotC is that various management regimes there have approached things differently. Some drop you a friendly request first, some start with the C&D.

I'd also note that there's nothing really preventing him from sharing the letter, even if the letter demands he not do so. Though it's not a polite thing to do!

Anyway: not legal advice, etc. etc. Checking with a lawyer is a good idea, and if it's something you've worked on for 5 years, the cost of a quick consultation really shouldn't stop you.

 

[Matt James]

I think many people would be surprised to know that WotC is under no requirement to submit a C&D letter to anyone. A company can file suit and have the courts sort it out. It is what it is, but WotC has an obligation, legally, to defend their IP. If they don't, the IP weakens. I never used that site, but if it was storing their IP, it makes sense for him to take his site down.

 

[Morrus]

I think many people would be surprised to know that WotC is under no requirement to submit a C&D letter to anyone. A company can file suit and have the courts sort it out. It is what it is, but WotC has an obligation, legally, to defend their IP. If they don't, the IP weakens. I never used that site, but if it was storing their IP, it makes sense for him to take his site down.

Matt, I don't think anybody thinks a C&D is non-voluntary. Defence of trademarks, though, can take many forms. A C&D is one choice. Not the most friendly one, but it's a choice. It's also totally OK to just talk to somebody. A C&D, in diplomacy terms, is the worst way to open communications.

 

[kenmarable]

Matt, I don't think anybody thinks a C&D is non-voluntary. Defence of trademarks, though, can take many forms. A C&D is one choice. Not the most friendly one, but it's a choice. It's also totally OK to just talk to somebody. A C&D, in diplomacy terms, is the worst way to open communications.

He can probably speak for himself, but my impression of Matt's point is that there is in fact a worse opening move - going straight to the lawsuit first. In that light, a C&D is a bit of a middle ground, but, yeah, it would be nice if there could be more diplomatic handling of these situations.

A site full of WotC IP - useful, but yeah I'm surprised it lasted this long or that the owner didn't expect this sooner or later. Same thing but either OGC only or some agreement for older material only? That'd be nice, but we'll see.

 

[RotGrub]

Many 3.5e gamers I know are very upset with this turn of events. They were using that site exclusively for their games. In fact, I think it was all 3.5e had going for it to compete with PF online.

It's too bad that WotC can accept that there is a great need for a site like that. IMO, they need to fix their licensing before they can even hope to compete with PF.

 

[Morrus]

Many 3.5e gamers I know are very upset with this turn of events. They were using that site exclusively for their games.

3.x gamers tend to have a reputation for expertise at optimisation.

May I suggest that telling WotC that many of you *exclusively* use an illegal website, combined with the site owner's declaration that 1,000,000 page views are served per week, are *severely* suboptimal strategies? I mean, really. Given what I assume are your goals, those two things are the *worst* possible things you could say!

Optimize, man! As far as tactics go, you just dump-statted!