Going Nuclear:1D&D

[FrogReaver]

For real. “I don’t like the OGL so nobody should be able to have D&D” is a terrible take.

Do you like the new OGL 1.1?

 

[Michael Linke]

Do you like the new OGL 1.1?

I literally don't care about the new OGL.

 

[eyeheartawk]

I literally don't care about the new OGL.

Fair enough.

If you don't care about all the people hit in the pocket book by this and the general cynical monetization of our hobby as a whole, that's your prerogative.

Nobody can force you to care about others, be it directly or indirectly. If all you care about is official products by WOTC and literally nothing else, yeah, I can see how this would all be just noise.

 

[Michael Linke]

Fair enough.

If you don't care about all the people hit in the pocket book by this and the general cynical monetization of our hobby as a whole, that's your prerogative.

Nobody can force you to care about others, be it directly or indirectly. If all you care about is official products by WOTC and literally nothing else, yeah, I can see how this would all be just noise.

The ones that were doing it well will adapt. Nobody ever needed the OGL to publish gaming content, the OGL just made it easier to do so without needing careful scrutiny by the lawyers. It's sad that WotC is taking away the safe harbour, but the companies that don't want to deal with the 20% royalty can probably spend less than that on legal advice and keep doing what they've been doing with minor changes.

 

[FrogReaver]

The ones that were doing it well will adapt. Nobody ever needed the OGL to publish gaming content, the OGL just made it easier to do so without needing careful scrutiny by the lawyers.

For many needing careful scrutiny by lawyers and all the potential risks implied by getting it wrong does in fact exclude a sizable number of content creators/publishers.

It's sad that WotC is taking away the safe harbour, but the companies that don't want to deal with the 20% royalty can probably spend less than that on legal advice and keep doing what they've been doing with minor changes.

This isn't just about the Paizo's though. Nor the royalties.

 

[Michael Linke]

If you don't care about all the people hit in the pocket book by this and the general cynical monetization of our hobby as a whole, that's your prerogative.

Ironically, the guy with the Patrick Bateman avatar is trying to gaslight me into looking like the cynical and unsympathetic one. Can't we just assume we're dealing with reasonable people and not assume the people who disagree with us must feel that way because they don't care about others?

Edit: yes, i'm aware of the tautological circle of accusing someone of doing the thing thing I'm asking them to stop accusing others of doing. Ironically indeed.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Ironically, the guy with the Patrick Bateman avatar is trying to gaslight me into looking like the cynical and unsympathetic one. Can't we just assume we're dealing with reasonable people and not assume the people who disagree with us must feel that way because they don't care about others?

 

[Michael Linke]

For many needing careful scrutiny by lawyers and all the potential risks implied by getting it wrong does in fact exclude a sizable number of content creators/publishers.


This isn't just about the Paizo's though. Nor the royalties.

Desktop publishing wasn't quite as prevalent when the orignal OGL was introduced. WotC didn't have to compete with every single person who ever wanted to put out a product, they only had to compete with the people who could invest in publishing the material.

Given that the cost of publishing and distributing content is nearly negligible, i don't think it's the end of the industry if small publishers have to take the money they're saving on distribution and publishing and put it toward legal advice.

The companies that were doing this well and producing great content will continue to do so. The semi-professional fans who were putting out stuff of limited interest and selling a few hundred copies aren't ever going to have to worry about royalties as they're unlikely to be hitting that $750k revenue threshold.

I'm really skeptical of the idea that there are a lot of companies who are above that $750k threshold and yet somehow completely incapable of designing their way out of this mess and producing original content that's not reliant on strict compatibility with another company's ip.

 

[Michael Linke]

Desktop publishing wasn't quite as prevalent when the orignal OGL was introduced. WotC didn't have to compete with every single person who ever wanted to put out a product, they only had to compete with the people who could invest in publishing the material.

Given that the cost of publishing and distributing content is nearly negligible, i don't think it's the end of the industry if small publishers have to take the money they're saving on distribution and publishing and put it toward legal advice.

The companies that were doing this well and producing great content will continue to do so. The semi-professional fans who were putting out stuff of limited interest and selling a few hundred copies aren't ever going to have to worry about royalties as they're unlikely to be hitting that $750k revenue threshold.

I'm really skeptical of the idea that there are a lot of companies who are above that $750k threshold and yet somehow completely incapable of designing their way out of this mess and producing original content that's not reliant on strict compatibility with another company's ip.

I'm not sure if @Morrus has already talked about this, but did WOIN actually rely on any of the OGC, or was the OGL included to permit others to produce WOIN content?

 

[Morrus]

I'm not sure if @Morrus has already talked about this, but did WOIN actually rely on any of the OGC, or was the OGL included to permit others to produce WOIN content?

Latter.