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.
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.
