Hello, I am lawyer with a PSA: almost everyone is wrong about the OGL and SRD. Clearing up confusion.

[Greg Benage]

While you're right, proving that the OGL is irrevocable will require a legal battle against Hasbro.

Proving that a modified Pathfinder 2e does not infringe on Wizards' copyrights might also require a legal battle against Hasbro. The lawyers' point is that the irrevocability of 1.0a is a stronger case with fewer uncertainties. Moreover, it's not at all clear that Wizards is finished retreating. All that said, I wish Paizo and the others had kept their powder dry and forced Wizards to pony up a final, completed license for them to evaluate, before very publicly firing up the ORC van.

 

[Maxperson]

While you're right, proving that the OGL is irrevocable will require a legal battle against Hasbro. And while WotC never officially said they're killing the safe harbour, they refused to clarify the situation with deauthorisation despite the community pleading that they do for weeks. For all we now, the deauthorisation is still underway, it's just that the replacement will be a (slightly) sweeter deal.

So given that, isn't it understandable for 3PPs to no longer consider the harbour safe and move to an actually irrevocable license that will be stewarded by a nonprofit group? And even though the ORC cannot be put back in the bottle now, Paizo said they are willing to challenge the irrevocability of the OGL if things get there, so they are going to do what you said anyway.

That is not a sure thing. Paizo isn't going to sue WotC over a deauthorization. That's not how it works. WotC will have to sue someone who continues to use OGL 1.0a after they "deauthorize" it. If Paizo switches away from OGL 1.0a and works on a new OGL, then there's nothing for WotC to sue them over and it never gets hashed out. At least not by Paizo.

 

[Justice and Rule]

To my mind, it seems to be "the community" that is killing the OGL, by leaving the safe harbour as soon as the weather has become rough.

That might be the most sensible move - maybe the market for D&D-adjacent RPGs has collapsed - but my point is that it is not WotC who is actually making that move. All they've done is issue a couple of press releases and circulate some draft documents.

"Look, all the Persians are doing is saying they want earth and water. It's really the Greeks who are escalating this whole thing. Maybe that's the right choice, but Xerxes really hasn't made a move yet."



Announcing intentions is very much a move, especially when you are the titan of the industry, and especially when what you are announcing is either going to make a bunch of companies vassals completely dependent on the good will of Wizards or threaten them with extinction. That they did not do this in public does not matter; it was announced and made clear to many with their new OGL draft along with the contracts.

 

[Greg Benage]

"Look, all the Persians are doing is saying they want earth and water. It's really the Greeks who are escalating this whole thing. Maybe that's the right choice, but Xerxes really hasn't made a move yet."

He's saying the Greeks aren't "escalating," they're preemptively evacuating the earth and the water.

 

[Justice and Rule]

He's saying the Greeks aren't "escalating," they're preemptively evacuating the earth and the water.

The example was less direct on what the 3PP people are doing as much as what WotC is doing doesn't constitute "a move". But point taken.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

He's saying the Greeks aren't "escalating," they're preemptively evacuating the earth and the water.

That is what won the second Persian war (the one with Thermopylae in it), ultimately.

The Greek armies retreated, reorganised, and struck back, ultimately defeating the forces the Persians had left behind.

I know this doesn't really matter lol.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Announcing intentions is very much a move

Absolutely it is. And this really was an "earth and water" deal with the 1.1 OGL particularly. WotC clearly thought this was just what they were owed, that obviously the 3PPs would kneel before them and accept their oh-so-gracious offer.

Like, let's be clear, I don't think the Persians were as much the bad guys as history (especially slightly or extremely racist history) sometimes suggests, and the Spartans were most assuredly not any kind of good guys, but in terms of positioning? Absolutely. WotC definitely big "god king" vibes with the 1.1 OGL, magnanimously granting you stuff you could already do and defining stuff they already couldn't claim as tribute.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That is not a sure thing. Paizo isn't going to sue WotC over a deauthorization. That's not how it works. WotC will have to sue someone who continues to use OGL 1.0a after they "deauthorize" it. If Paizo switches away from OGL 1.0a and works on a new OGL, then there's nothing for WotC to sue them over and it never gets hashed out. At least not by Paizo.

Unless they think Paizo's non-OGL product is insufficiently separate from WotC no-longer-authorized SRD material.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Absolutely it is. And this really was an "earth and water" deal with the 1.1 OGL particularly. WotC clearly thought this was just what they were owed, that obviously the 3PPs would kneel before them and accept their oh-so-gracious offer.

Like, let's be clear, I don't think the Persians were as much the bad guys as history (especially slightly or extremely racist history) sometimes suggests, and the Spartans were most assuredly not any kind of good guys, but in terms of positioning? Absolutely. WotC definitely big "god king" vibes with the 1.1 OGL, magnanimously granting you stuff you could already do and defining stuff they already couldn't claim as tribute.

Yeah, the problems with who have coopted that history aside (Which is why I avoided using a gif for this ), there's really no better example of a veiled threat of annihilation out there.

 

[Maxperson]

Unless they think Paizo's non-OGL product is insufficiently separate from WotC no-longer-authorized SRD material.

I doubt they'd sue Paizo for that. Paizo is one of the few that can afford to fight. Better to pick on a "weakling" who can't defend himself properly and try to force concessions or win that way.