The Playtest Agreement

[UngainlyTitan]

You haven't. Now, go back and read some of the other posters. We're seeing it already. "Losing goodwill" and all that. What goodwill is being lost here? Well, apparently people are insulted that WOTC doesn't want their group to play in the playtest, so I suppose that's some good will.

OTOH, it's a playtest. Getting insulted because WOTC has put around some limitation on how you can playtest seems a bit thin skinned. But, that's just me. If someone doesn't want my feedback? Ok, no skin off my nose. Move on.

Not really seeing the issue here.

I don't care about whatother posters said, you replied to my post and said:

What is the point of allowing playtesters that cannot actually report their playtest experience? Color me silly, but, isn't the entire point of this exercise to get that feedback?

Again, as Mudbunny says, this is 4 days into the playtest. And, as usual, the usual suspects are going to try stirring the pot to paint anything and everything WOTC does as Teh Evil.

Good grief, you cannot participate in a playtest online. OH NOES!! WOTC is killing kittehs now!

Strongly implies I am one of the usual supects and the last line is pretty blunt about it.

As for loosing goodwill, well they are, wheither it is fair or just is beside the point. The world is neither fair or just and WoTC's handling of ip protection is clumsy and often done in a way that ruffles feathers without, in my opinion, adding much to Wizards hold on their ip.

 

[IronWolf]

My usual mantra is to not assume malice where there is evidence of foolishness, and I think this is certainly more about the latter. I don't think people should get angry about this, I think they should get loud about it (specifically to WotC), and certainly be aware of it and talk about it.

This isn't sour grapes, for me. It's problem-solving. The problem being this weirdness in the agreement, the solution being to try and persuade WotC, as much as possible, to stop asking us not to eat the apple if they fully expect us to eat the apple.

Agreed. I am not angry about this, but I do think mentioning some of these issues with the agreement as perceived by the end user is important. I have said that WotC is well within their rights to do what they want with the playtest agreement, it doesn't mean it makes sense and that I have to agree with it. And I can disagree without getting angry.

I disagree that the online play market isn't important for the game. More and more people only have time to play online.

Totally. Online play is growing quite quickly judging from the various places I hang out. This is not the time to ignore online play. In several ways I think DDN is well suited for online play, though I can't report playtest results. They should embrace that, not prohibit it.

I think maybe the no online thing was more about actually getting the playtests done, as games tend to take much longer online.

This is true for PbP games, but for Skype, MapTool, Tabletop Forge, etc an online game moves at a pretty good clip. I know people get Pathfinder Society Scenarios completed in about the approximate time they should take when playing online.

I know I could get some good playtesting done via online tools in a reasonable time frame.

 

[I'm A Banana]

IAANAL (the extra "a" is "also" ), but I don't think that is "creating a derivative material". I think by that they mean "derivative work". You can tell your player, "Use two themes." If you rewrite the playtest rules to say that the fighter gets two themes, that's where there are problems.

I feel this is something like two children debating how one would perform open-heart rocket surgery, but I don't see how adding a theme to a fighter is distinct from creating a "derivative work." It seems like it would fall under the category of something that includes major, copyright-protected elements of the underlying works (namely, everything ELSE on the character sheet). What do you see that I'm missing there? If he's encouraging you to take the character sheet and write on it: "Also: Devender Theme," it still seems to me that he's asking you to create a derivative work of the original character sheet, which the agreement prohibits.

f you can cite a precedent where a court has found a similar activity to constitute a derivative work, then we have something. Or if someone who knows copyright law would like to pipe up and say "yeah that's totally derivative work" then that would make me sit up too.

Well, aside from the shifting goalposts, what we have here is part of the problem. If even WE can't agree on what the thing is saying (as not-incurious interested parties), how is any normal person signing up for this supposed to understand it? Are we all expected to be trained copyright lawyers, or to have them readily available, so as not to incriminate ourselves?

And I'm not personally really trying to "prove" anything to you. If you aren't concerned about this, it's no sweat off my back. If you are trying to persuade ME not to be concerned about this, it will take a lot more than "I think what the designers say is correct," because even if they never SAID to print off the character sheets, I can't realistically imagine that everyone play this game gathered around the computers they all downloaded the documents onto crowded into one room (not playing online). The terms of the agreement seem to prohibit very normal things that people do in the course of playtesting.

I don't think it's objectionable, in law, to set up rights that you expect people to violate and that you don't intend to enforce in many of those cases. In fact, in a rights-based social system, that can sometimes be the only reasonable way of ordering your affairs.

It's objectionable to me, in life, to ask people not to do things you have every intention of having them do.

The way that WotC generates the right to control its playtest materials is to get those to whom they distribute them to enter into a contract.

I'd like to discuss what it takes to improve these conditions, but the first step is to not ask people not to do things that they fully expect us to do. The next step is to give specific and limited rights that let us do the things they expect us to do.

 

[Kaodi]

I don't think it's objectionable, in law, to set up rights that you expect people to violate and that you don't intend to enforce in many of those cases. In fact, in a rights-based social system, that can sometimes be the only reasonable way of ordering your affairs.

One might object on anarchist grounds, or socialist grounds, or other sorts of grounds that you can't talk about on ENworld. But assuming a person has no general objection to contemporary systems of private law, I don't think they can have much of an objection to the type of private legal ordering that WotC is creating here.

I never studied the philosophy of law in school, so I am not aware if there is some well oiled philosophical justification for this sort of lawmaking (though I suppose I could find out if I asked around). But there does seem to be, to me, something intuitively objectionable about making laws you expect (or even desire) people to break. I am not sure how strong this objection ought to be, as there are plenty of laws around that are completely unenforced, but I do not think it relies at all on any sort of anarchist or socialist grounds, merely the philosophical ones.

 

[Lwaxy]

Yeah true about chat/VTT based games. But I think the majority still played PbP. In any case, allowing VTTS wouldn't hurt anything.

 

[Fifth Element]

People are forgetting something. You can complain until you're blue in the face to WotC, that won't help. The lawyers come from the giant, faceless corporation that is Hasbro, and they are about as likely to listen to us as an elephant would a gnat.

Hasbro and WotC are not the same thing. WotC wants to have an open playtest, big brother Hasbro sends in the lawyers and tells them how it's going to be. Then WotC sends it out as ordered, all with that wink and nudge.

<citation needed>

We have no idea whose lawyers came up with this. Hasbro might well have said "don't bother us with your pittances, just make us the money." Just because WotC is a subsidiary of Hasbro does not mean they do not have their own manaegement and legal teams.

 

[Agamon]

<citation needed>

We have no idea whose lawyers came up with this. Hasbro might well have said "don't bother us with your pittances, just make us the money." Just because WotC is a subsidiary of Hasbro does not mean they do not have their own manaegement and legal teams.

It's all speculation of course. But we have evidence of an open and friendly WotC when Adkinson owned it and odd lawyer-y behavior when Hasbro bought them. The point is that lawyers will not be persuaded by whiny gamers if they can't be dissuaded by the designers themselves.

 

[SkidAce]

I never studied the philosophy of law in school, so I am not aware if there is some well oiled philosophical justification for this sort of lawmaking (though I suppose I could find out if I asked around). But there does seem to be, to me, something intuitively objectionable about making laws you expect (or even desire) people to break. I am not sure how strong this objection ought to be, as there are plenty of laws around that are completely unenforced, but I do not think it relies at all on any sort of anarchist or socialist grounds, merely the philosophical ones.

I happen to agree with KM about intent.

However, from my studies and degree...it would appear as this;

You need a baseline law or regulation or code that "can" be applied to everyone equally. You may choose to not enforce it in some cases.

As say, the property owner you choose not to enforce it, its your call. But if it didn't exist in the first place (with signs, warnings, EULAs etc.) then you have nothing to apply when you do choose to enforce it.

AND if you are arbitrary or discriminatory in your application, it can be challenged.

This applies in most cases to civil laws and private owners, criminal law in 99.9infinity cases you cant choose, i.e. murder...this is a criminal act and you can't "choose" not to enforce it.


Having said all that without going and getting my law book, I still agree with KM in the most part. They had to have known they would not enforce this in most cases. So I feel they could have come up with a different method for reserving their rights.

"But" I also don't know what part of their legal stuff they are trying to protect with "don't play online" so the answer may not be apparent to me.

Because IANAL, I am a cop. Different point of view.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Agreed. I am not angry about this, but I do think mentioning some of these issues with the agreement as perceived by the end user is important. I have said that WotC is well within their rights to do what they want with the playtest agreement, it doesn't mean it makes sense and that I have to agree with it. And I can disagree without getting angry.

Agree with this. My objections are strictly practical. As far as things like suggestions for OGL and the like, I don't care--or at least the ways in which I do care are more about pique about people complaining about not getting a free ride on some other company's work, than about whatever WotC may or may not do with their licensing.

I've seen (and said) since 3E that there is an element in WotC working at cross-purposes--the left hand doesn't seem to know what the right hand is doing, and vice versa. This is ultimately a management problem (whatever the departmental source of friction), and it leads to all kinds of unnecessary trouble that makes a game less than it could be. If WotC arranged a cross-country skiing trip, someone in that company would make the team haul a boat anchor along, just in case. (This is also, I should say, entirely too much like my last few years of real life. Perhaps it will bother me less at WotC when I finally manage to fight my way clear.)

 

[Agamon]

I feel this is something like two children debating how one would perform open-heart rocket surgery, but I don't see how adding a theme to a fighter is distinct from creating a "derivative work." It seems like it would fall under the category of something that includes major, copyright-protected elements of the underlying works (namely, everything ELSE on the character sheet). What do you see that I'm missing there? If he's encouraging you to take the character sheet and write on it: "Also: Devender Theme," it still seems to me that he's asking you to create a derivative work of the original character sheet, which the agreement prohibits.

Okay, but then isn't simply writing a name beside NAME also creating a derivative work by your definition? We can be as pedantic as we like, the idea is we aren't allowed to make a derivative work of the rules and pawn it off as our own. Pretty sure no one cares if we make notes in the margins of our copy.