D&D 5E So, 5e OGL

[Nylanfs]

Fair Use, Copyright, and Trademarks are all completely different.

 

[prosfilaes]

I think there will be a license. I do not think it will be the OGL. It's entirely possible that WotC might invoke some kind of non-commercial fan license. Or some kind of electronic-product only license. Yes, companies are still capable of creating work-arounds via the OGL, but either of those would satisfy 50-90% of the audience that actually cares and correspondingly cut down on the number of people who need a work-around. You're not likely to get many first-tier game companies interested in that sort of thing either. No AEG, no Green Ronin, no Paizo, no Fantasy Flight or White Wolf.

A non-commercial fan license is neither here nor there; half the RPG companies have them, and with the exception of Palladium and maybe one or two others, the rest have a rather free de-facto non-commercial fan license.

None of those companies you mentioned at the end are going to be in the least bit interested in an electronic-product-only license. Even if you don't actively plan to produce print products, it prevents you from enabling print-on-demand, or doing some product that demands print: no Rappan Athuk, no Ptolus, no Tome of Horrors Complete, no Free RPG Day product.

A whole stream of companies lived and died by D20; I think current companies are going to avoid playing this time around, pretty much no matter what the license. The history of D20/OGL is scary; if the new licenses aren't as friendly as the old, that doesn't encourage people to put work into it, especially when Pathfinder is right there. (I guess the Kickstarter is over, so it's not a plug anymore, but Designers and Dragons: the 00's has a lot of information on how turbulent those waters were, and how WotC putting out 3.5 did so much damage to everyone else at the time. It's scary reading for anyone looking to jump in on 5E.)

 

[Nellisir]

A non-commercial fan license is neither here nor there; half the RPG companies have them, and with the exception of Palladium and maybe one or two others, the rest have a rather free de-facto non-commercial fan license.

Yep.

None of those companies you mentioned at the end are going to be in the least bit interested in an electronic-product-only license. Even if you don't actively plan to produce print products, it prevents you from enabling print-on-demand, or doing some product that demands print: no Rappan Athuk, no Ptolus, no Tome of Horrors Complete, no Free RPG Day product.

Yes, that's what I said. So you've shut off maybe a handful of companies; ten tops. So what? Those are the ones that WotC could do separate licenses with anyways.

A whole stream of companies lived and died by D20; I think current companies are going to avoid playing this time around, pretty much no matter what the license. The history of D20/OGL is scary; if the new licenses aren't as friendly as the old, that doesn't encourage people to put work into it, especially when Pathfinder is right there. (I guess the Kickstarter is over, so it's not a plug anymore, but Designers and Dragons: the 00's has a lot of information on how turbulent those waters were, and how WotC putting out 3.5 did so much damage to everyone else at the time. It's scary reading for anyone looking to jump in on 5E.)

Yes, and I don't think there's going to be the same amount of turmoil this time. It's a totally different climate.

A fan-license or electronic-only are possibilities. I don't think either of them in their simplest form is actually what WotC is going to do.There are any number of other ways WotC can put the brakes on* 3rd-party products other than a sunset clause. I suggest different ones each time I write this stuff out; I'm kinda tired of it actually.

*I don't mean stop, and I don't mean WotC wants to kill 3rd-party products. I suspect that WotC actually wants a lively amateur/low-pro ecosystem. They just want it a little more restrained than last time.

 

[am181d]

As an example of why something akin to an OGL is handy, it occurs to me that ENWorld is hosting quite a bit of 5e fan created material without a license, so WotC could shut this website down

This is not something that would happen. Even if WotC decided to send a cease and desist letter to ENworld over hosting fan content, all that would happen would be that ENworld would remove the content (and WotC would earn some ill will in the fan community).

 

[Morrus]

This is not something that would happen. Even if WotC decided to send a cease and desist letter to ENworld over hosting fan content, all that would happen would be that ENworld would remove the content (and WotC would earn some ill will in the fan community).

I doubt it would create ill-will. The thing they'd likely be concerned about is folks reproducing the text from the books, and I certainly wouldn't find it unreasonable if they asked for that to be removed if they saw it here. I hope folks here know not to do that, and self-police themselves, but there's report buttons and things around the site.

 

[Jester David]

This is not something that would happen. Even if WotC decided to send a cease and desist letter to ENworld over hosting fan content, all that would happen would be that ENworld would remove the content (and WotC would earn some ill will in the fan community).

An important thing to always remember when discussing WotC is that they are the MtG company. First and foremost. That's what makes the money; an order of magnitude larger than D&D's profit. So the staff will primarily be focused around MtG and think with that game in mind.
If the lawyers saw a MtG fan site hosting an entire set worth of cards and encouraging people to post their own cards they'd shut it down. WotC has been firm about that. Someone with that mindset who spends most of their time thinking along those lines might easily think the same of D&D. And that causes problems for us.

I'm not saying they're likely to do so, but I'm saying we need to be cautious at the moment until they make their policy clear. And that websites (like ENWorld) need to protect themselves and monitor the content being produced. For example, ENWorld doesn't even have the standard "xxx and yyy is the Trademark of WotC, and this site is not endorsed or sponsored by WotC Inc" disclaimer at the bottom.

 

[ThirdWizard]

If the lawyers saw a MtG fan site hosting an entire set worth of cards and encouraging people to post their own cards they'd shut it down. WotC has been firm about that. Someone with that mindset who spends most of their time thinking along those lines might easily think the same of D&D. And that causes problems for us.

I'm not sure how you can say that with all the M:tG card generators, fan created card websites, and spoiler sites. Yes, there was that kerfuffle with MTGSalvation years ago, but I think that WotC lets them do their thing now? Honestly, I can't see any indication that WotC has anything against people using their card trademarks in non-commercial ways in practice, even if their site says not to.

 

[Morrus]

An important thing to always remember when discussing WotC is that they are the MtG company. First and foremost. That's what makes the money; an order of magnitude larger than D&D's profit. So the staff will primarily be focused around MtG and think with that game in mind.
If the lawyers saw a MtG fan site hosting an entire set worth of cards and encouraging people to post their own cards they'd shut it down. WotC has been firm about that. Someone with that mindset who spends most of their time thinking along those lines might easily think the same of D&D. And that causes problems for us.

I'm not saying they're likely to do so, but I'm saying we need to be cautious at the moment until they make their policy clear. And that websites (like ENWorld) need to protect themselves and monitor the content being produced. For example, ENWorld doesn't even have the standard "xxx and yyy is the Trademark of WotC, and this site is not endorsed or sponsored by WotC Inc" disclaimer at the bottom.

It's also not endorsed by Paizo, FFG, Monte Cook, Pelgrane, Green Ronin, Gen Con, the LotR movies, Honda, Apple, the BBC, or anybody else!

 

[Trickster Spirit]

It's also not endorsed by Paizo, FFG, Monte Cook, Pelgrane, Green Ronin, Gen Con, the LotR movies, Honda, Apple, the BBC, or anybody else!

Well, it's beholden to Reptilians from Alpha Draconis, but who isn't these days?

 

[Mark CMG]

Well, it's beholden to Reptilians from Alpha Draconis, but who isn't these days?

I, for one, welcome our reptilian overlords . . .