Battlezoo Shares The OGL v1.1

Battlezoo, the YouTube channel which shared the initial leak of the new Open Game License, has shared the PDF of the OGL v1.1 draft which is currently circulating. This draft is, presumably, the same document obtained by Gizmodo last week. It's not currently known if this is the final version of the license.

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[Reynard]

Which is funny because PF2 is basically a union of 4e and PF1.

People say that sometimes, but I don't know 4E well enough to know if it is an accurate assessment.

 

[Torquemada]

EDIT: Disregard this table please, nothing to see here but my own lack of understanding... move along...

* Bad table was deleted, because it was bad *

 

[Charlaquin]

If Hasbro pushes ahead with this, I wonder if we will get a repeat of Pathfinder? Another company coming along making 'Totally not DnD' but with anything WotC can claim scrubbed out (and not using the OGL).

I expect that‘a exactly what will happen if it ends up being ruled that WotC can’t revoke the OGL 1.0, but they still decide to move forward with the OGL 1.1 anyway, just saying you can’t keep using 1.0 if you sign 1.1. On the other hand, if they are able to revoke 1.0, I don’t think anyone’s going to be able to make a 5.0 clone that captures the feel closely enough to pull off a Pathfinder. Not that folks won’t try, but without the OGL they’ll all have to stray too far from 5e’s mechanical basis to fill the same niche for a large enough portion of the fan base. We’re more likely to see lots of new fantasy heartbreakers with no clear frontrunner to take 5e’s place.

Preferably designed to snatch up 5e players which Pathfinder 2e still struggles with somewhat.

Pretty sure PF2 is published under OGL 1.0, so if that goes away, maybe PF3 will become the go-to refuge for WotC boycotters.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I'm not an expert, especially not in US law, but there are many parts that sound really unprofessional to me:

XI. INDEMNITY. If You get in legal trouble, or get Us in legal trouble, here’s what will
happen:
A. If We are on the receiving end of any legal claims, fees, expenses, or penalties related to Your Licensed Works, You are responsible for paying all Our costs, including attorneys’ fees, costs of court, and any judgments or settlements.
B. If a claim is raised against You in connection with a Licensed Work, and You aren’t defending such a claim to Our satisfaction, We have the right, but not the obligation, to take over the defense of that claim against You. If We do so, You will reimburse Us for Our costs and expenses related to that defense.

"Legal trouble"? "Here's what will happen"? "Receiving end"? Is that really considered proper legal language?

Honestly just the use of "You" as opposed to "the licensee" or some such, is weird for an American contract-adjacent document.

I would posit that, since it involves active participation by many very small-time creators, they anticipated that many people would have to read and comprehend the document without the help of legal counsel and so they dispensed with those legal formalisms that they did not deem actually necessary to making the document do what they wanted. Unlike most other legalese thrown in front of laypeople (like, say, an end-user license agreement on software) they don't want the licensees to just skip over it and be bound by it; there are parts they need licensees to actually understand and actively comply with.

The toxic terms of the document and problematic goals of the endeavor aside, the style decisions, in principle at least, actually show an unusual level of self-awareness, practicality, and flexibility on the part of their lawyers. Whether in execution it works is an open question, but getting a lawyer to make any effort to make a legal document comprehensible to non-lawyers is a win.

 

[Haplo781]

People should play more BRP... $50K is not 25% of $1M.

Your Revenue	Wizards' 25% cut	You're left with...
$745,000	$0	$745,000
$750,000	$187,500	$562,500
$800,000	$200,000	$600,000
$900,000	$225,000	$675,000
$1,000,000	$250,000	$750,000

They take 25% of revenue above 750k. So if you make $750,001, their cut is 25¢.

 

[Haplo781]

I expect that‘a exactly what will happen if it ends up being ruled that WotC can’t revoke the OGL 1.0, but they still decide to move forward with the OGL 1.1 anyway, just saying you can’t keep using 1.0 if you sign 1.1. On the other hand, if they are able to revoke 1.0, I don’t think anyone’s going to be able to make a 5.0 clone that captures the feel closely enough to pull off a Pathfinder. Not that folks won’t try, but without the OGL they’ll all have to stray too far from 5e’s mechanical basis to fill the same niche for a large enough portion of the fan base. We’re more likely to see lots of new fantasy heartbreakers with no clear frontrunner to take 5e’s place.

Pretty sure PF2 is published under OGL 1.0, so if that goes away, maybe PF3 will become the go-to refuge for WotC boycotters.

The top dog will be "whatever Critical Role switches to" which might just be their own system.

 

[Greg Benage]

People should play more BRP... $50K is not 25% of $1M.

Qualifying Revenue, to which the royalty applies, is only the amount over $750,000.

 

[Charlaquin]

People say that sometimes, but I don't know 4E well enough to know if it is an accurate assessment.

Not really. PF2 definitely did take some good ideas from 4e, but “a cross between PF and 4e” is overstating the case I think.

 

[Reynard]

People should play more BRP... $50K is not 25% of $1M.

Your Revenue	Wizards' 25% cut	You're left with...
$745,000	$0	$745,000
$750,000	$187,500	$562,500
$800,000	$200,000	$600,000
$900,000	$225,000	$675,000
$1,000,000	$250,000	$750,000

This is the same mistake people make when complaining about taxes.

 

[Staffan]

Which is funny because PF2 is basically a union of 4e and PF1.

Kinda sorta.

Thing is, 3.5e has a bunch of issues. Some of them, generally the lesser ones, were fixed by PF1, but they doubled down on others, so by and large PF1 has the same issues 3.5e has.

4e was meant to fix the issues of 3.5e. It makes sense that PF2, which was meant to fix the issues of PF1, which in turn were largely the same ones as 3.5e, will in some cases fix them in similar ways – or at least provide solutions to the same problems, like PF2's focus spells serving the same role as 4e's encounter powers.