D&D 5E Protection from Chaos Part XI: The D&D Next Online Playtest Agreement

[Matt James]

My attorney, and fellow super-geek, has put up a new article as it pertains to the D&D Next Online Playtest agreement. It's a very good read and probably one of his best articles. As he specializes in intellectual property, copyrights, patents, trademarks, and the like, it is pretty well informed.

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As one of the go-to legal geeks in the Twitterverse, I was asked to review the Online Playtest Agreement (“OPTA”) for D&D Next, explaining the legalese in plain English. As a license, it's subject at least in part to state laws, so I’m making some broad statements that might not apply in your state, using Virginia law only as an example. I probably can’t address the OPTA’s impact on your playtest thoroughly. Nevertheless, I’m willing to try because I'm reporting what I suspect to be what WotC is thinking. Also, the OPTA isn't the whole story. Most of what's going to govern your playtest is federal copyright law, and that applies to everyone almost uniformly.

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[Erudite Frog]

its hard to tell if the lawyers at wotc do this stuff on purpose or if they just think no one will read it anways. you know just to scare people in believing they will get in trouble

 

[JeffB]

Thanks. Great article.

You would think in order to market the crap out of 5e, and get people excited -including lapsed WOTC customers like myself, and TSR era holdoutss/OSR fans, also a group I belong to - they would want us to talk non stop about the new game and playtest to anyone who would listen. :shrug:

 

[Matt James]

Thanks. Great article.

You would think in order to market the crap out of 5e, and get people excited -including lapsed WOTC customers like myself, and TSR era holdoutss/OSR fans, also a group I belong to - they would want us to talk non stop about the new game and playtest to anyone who would listen. :shrug:

Well, it's weird because the assumption is that in an open playtest, people would talk about it. Either way, the actual R&D staff are very open about letting people get excited about the game. They are no doubt getting a ton of critical feedback about the game system. Can you imagine if this happened during the 4e develoment phase? I think kudos should be given where they are due. In this case, they are definitely due. The legal stuff sounds like something produced by a section that has little to do with the R&D staff on a personal level.

 

[JeffB]

Indeed I appreciate and think the open playtest is a great idea. Simply some of the particulars of it are wonky...if they really want to unite the fanbase, they need to stop interjectiing mega corp legalese and attitudes, as it erodes the good faith that R&D strives for in bringing together all D&D gamers.

I am not one of the WIZBRO haters, i dont take my fantasy make believe so seriously,but there are a significant # of gamers who do hate them because of their corporate actions and stances in the gaming community (real, exaggerated, or imagined they may be).

 

[Hussar]

Thanks for this. Interesting read.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Sweet! I'm glad someone did the legal-eye-view on this thing.

It sounds like they are asking us to agree to something they have no intent of enforcing, or ability TO enforce, which is problematic for me. But it's interesting to see that even if some bad actor was to use these documents to create "D-and-D BEST(tm)", WotC couldn't do nerts about it.

 

[TerraDave]

Thanks as well.


But back to online play....saying that you can't do play by chat or that sort of thing, when it really hinders some playtesting and has so little grounding in, well, anything...is interesting.

 

[TerraDave]

...But it's interesting to see that even if some bad actor was to use these documents to create "D-and-D BEST(tm)", WotC couldn't do nerts about it.

They could do what they could do anyways: sue them for violating copyright (and trademark if they use D and D). The agreement doesn't really change that.

 

[I'm A Banana]

They could do what they could do anyways: sue them for violating copyright (and trademark if they use D and D). The agreement doesn't really change that.

Since game rules can't be copyrighted, all they'd have to do is explain it in their own words and tweak the name a bit. Pretty much the same way someone could make a 4e Clone.

The fact that someone hasn't already done that is probably more a function of how little RPG rules actually sell more than any legal issue.