So how do we respond?

[MichaelSomething]

 

[Mecheon]

Also I just remembered from the last time I was in a community where we had a big problem like this (The Skyrim Paid Workshop drama, for those who know), there are websites out there that let you send faxes to numbers at no charge to yourself

Now, I'm not saying find these webites and send quite a few faxes to WotC over the weekend to make your opposition to what they're doing absolutely clear. I'm also not saying "Hey, there are ways to absolutely flood a fax machine and waste the ink, causing more income wasted on that behalf"

But I am saying that people definitely did do that during the Skyrim mod debacle, and doing so was probably one of the reasons Valve had to respond in downright quick speeds to that

 

[Aldarc]

Are you absolutely sure about that?

A lot og games you might expect aren't connected to it actually are, like FATE.

Fate also uses the Creative Commons License, so changes to the OGL won't really have any effect on Fate.

 

[Clint_L]

Also I just remembered from the last time I was in a community where we had a big problem like this (The Skyrim Paid Workshop drama, for those who know), there are websites out there that let you send faxes to numbers at no charge to yourself

Now, I'm not saying find these webites and send quite a few faxes to WotC over the weekend to make your opposition to what they're doing absolutely clear. I'm also not saying "Hey, there are ways to absolutely flood a fax machine and waste the ink, causing more income wasted on that behalf"

But I am saying that people definitely did do that during the Skyrim mod debacle, and doing so was probably one of the reasons Valve had to respond in downright quick speeds to that

Can we maybe not advocate for DDoS attacks?

 

[Dausuul]

I checked out the text of that license, and it looks significantly worse than OGL 1.0a. It contains the same maybe-a-loophole that Wizards is currently trying to exploit (the absence of the word "irrevocable"), and it also contains a clause forbidding the following:

"Racist, homophobic, discriminatory, or other repugnant views; overt political agendas or views; depictions or descriptions of criminal violence against children; rape or other acts of criminal perversion; or other obscene material."

Even though I agree with many of the goals of this clause, it absolutely does not belong in an open license; in the hands of a bad actor such as Hasbro has just demonstrated itself to be, it could be abused in any number of ways.

Turns out that it's rather tricky to write an open gaming license that is both truly open and legally rock solid.

 

[mamba]

I checked out the text of that license, and it looks significantly worse than OGL 1.0a. It contains the same maybe-a-loophole that Wizards is currently trying to exploit (the absence of the word "irrevocable"), and it also contains a clause forbidding the following:

"Racist, homophobic, discriminatory, or other repugnant views; overt political agendas or views; depictions or descriptions of criminal violence against children; rape or other acts of criminal perversion; or other obscene material."

I am not sure that makes it significantly worse, that just means the creator of the original IP does not want their game to be dragged into controversial topics and have the reputation tarnished.

Sounds like good reasons to revoke the license

For a generic open license the following is more problematic

“The Work must include the phrase “Compatible with the Cypher System” or the “Compatible with the Cypher System” logo on the cover of the Work.”

 

[Dausuul]

I am not sure that makes it significantly worse, that just means the creator of the original IP does not want their game to be dragged into controversial topics and have the reputation tarnished.

Sounds like good reasons to revoke the license

What constitutes "repugnant" views? What is an "overt political agenda?" Think of this clause in the hands of, say, NuTSR, and imagine them wielding the power to make these decisions about your game.

An open license is open. That means you have to be okay with the idea that people are gonna publish stuff you won't like. If you're not okay with that, you shouldn't attach your name to an open license.

(And this, by the way, is why Wizards chose to separate the OGL from the d20 STL, and put all the stuff granting access to trademarks and logos and compatibility notices in the latter.)

 

[mamba]

What constitutes "repugnant" views? What is an "overt political agenda?" Think of this clause in the hands of, say, NuTSR, and imagine them wielding the power to make these decisions about your game.

I understand where you are coming from, but as I said, having to say that your product is for the Cypher system is a much bigger issue for a truly open license.

Look at it this way: how much of the OGL licensed content could live with the former but not the latter…

Ultimately why reinvent the wheel at all, use CC-BY-SA, that seems to be what the OGL intended to be. Just leave your PI out of what you license under it, much like it is not covered under the OGL

 

[SteveC]

But people very clearly are contributing to WotC. I mean, that's precisely why they're the successful 900 lb gorilla that they are.

Unlike many creators and small publishers that could be wiped out by the license "update", WotC is absolutely not suffering financially by the current OGL. Arguably, WotC's immense success is largely because of the OGL1.0 and the creators it has enabled, not despite it.

I think this is the point. I was just on Amazon and I see that the D&D PHB is #125 in all books right now. Why would that be the case? What is WotC doing to bring people into gaming at the moment compared to the dozens of people streaming games and talking about dungeons and dragons. If you took away the third party people who are incredibly enthusiastic about the game, what do you have? It has been a long time since WotC actively participated and made content to bring people into gaming. Do they still have anything to do with Acquisitions Inc?

I'm not the target market for D&D anymore, that's been pretty clear to me for some time now, but the people who do interact with it as a lifestyle are doing so through the exact people who will be negatively affected. Maybe WotC has plans to bring in new streamers, but when I think about this, I just have a "hi there, fellow gamers!" sort of meme in my head.

And for what it's worth: I had been planning on picking up DandDone and if my online group used the WotC service to play, I would have subscribed to that too just to keep playing. That online group, who are the target market, is unhappy right now and talking about other games.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm having a conversation with my best friend deciding if stopping to use our 5e content and using 5e as our system is the ''good'' thing to do (knowing full well that it wont change a thing for anyone but us).

I fear dropping D&D will just cause my group to stop playing 'cause they dont want to try new things.

What a dilemma!

Just my two cents, but I wouldn't get hung up on this. You can keep playing 5E forever without giving Hasbro a dime; whatever tiny contribution you make to sustaining the "mindshare" of D&D is not worth worrying about.

If you stop buying anything from Wizards, and let them know you're doing that and why, that will send the message you want to send. (Particularly if you have an existing DDB subscription and cancel it -- that proves you are a current customer who really does feel strongly enough to become an ex-customer.)