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

[Maxperson]

You can see that from how they've fallen back from the initial position. If that really was their goal, one thing they would have stuck to was the royalties.

In the face of all of those cancelled and deleted accounts? They might have just caved a bit.

 

[Thomas Shey]

One might think that with these problematic provisions gone, the fervor would die down. But yet it hasn't. And the reason is, people see it as a trust issue. People who don't even use the OGL to make product, who would not be personally affected by changes in it, are saying they no longer trust WotC, and don't want to play its D&D anymore, unless WotC clearly makes 1.0 irrevocable. That's amazing. WotC are essentially saying, "It's not personal, it's just business." And its customer base (or at least a significantly large and vocal part of it) is saying, "For us, business is personal."

Well, perhaps more to the point, a lot of them are now saying "You say you're not going to try to revoke old uses of the OGL this week; what about next?" It doesn't matter if its personal or not for at least some people, it matters that they no longer trust WOTC (and Hasbro) not to conduct an abusive legal maneuver if they think its convenient.

To some extent, contract law is always about trust, because as noted by a couple people, it has no intrinsic force. All it does is provide you a (potential) hammer if other people in the agreement misbehave, but using that hammer is not an effort and cost free process, and no one really wants to do it (unless they're abusing process themselves and getting that hammer was the whole point).

As such, damaging trust of potential people who might want to make deals with you has a price.

 

[Maxperson]

notice the ‘basically everyone’

WotC can scare almost everyone away, and they already have. All those that ran will not come back without using the OGL either, so this all rests on Paizo now.

If the court decides 1.0a is irrevocable then people will use it again.

If the court decides it can be revoked and draws some line about what falls outside of copyright, then maybe some people will try to stick to that part and return to publishing for D&D.

If this goes to court, and it's a really big if, it would take several years to finish. First it would take a long time to even make it to court. A year or two most likely. Then WotC would delay, and it's pretty easy to delay. Then regardless of who wins, it will be appealed and that will take a while. The appeals court might remand the case back down to the state level and instruct the judge to consider something or other and then make another ruling, or they could remand it back down for a whole new trial. The new decisions would probably be appealed, and so on.

By the time the case is truly decided, the number of 3PP still around or willing to come back might be somewhere close to none. They'd likely have moved on to ORC or something else completely.

Or if they really want to scare folks away and keep them away, don't go after Paizo and the other big 3PP. Just pick off little fish who can't afford to fight you and the other little fish will scatter.

 

[Iosue]

Well, perhaps more to the point, a lot of them are now saying "You say you're not going to try to revoke old uses of the OGL this week; what about next?" It doesn't matter if its personal or not for at least some people, it matters that they no longer trust WOTC (and Hasbro) not to conduct an abusive legal maneuver if they think its convenient.

To some extent, contract law is always about trust, because as noted by a couple people, it has no intrinsic force. All it does is provide you a (potential) hammer if other people in the agreement misbehave, but using that hammer is not an effort and cost free process, and no one really wants to do it (unless they're abusing process themselves and getting that hammer was the whole point).

As such, damaging trust of potential people who might want to make deals with you has a price.

Sure, but my point is, that's a perfectly reasonable stance to expect a 3PP to take. It's unusual for that to be the stance the end-user takes. Or at least, a significantly large and vocal subset of it.

 

[Maxperson]

You are missing the point @pemerton and I were making. You said switching to ORC is fine because the license protects the 3PPs. Well guess what, so did the OGL, yet here we are.

Dollars to donuts ORC will say irrevocable in it somewhere. If the OGL 1.0a had said it irrevocable, you'd see a hell of a lot more confidence by 3PP providers.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'd tend to think the reverse. I don't think most people understand that so many products out there exist only because of the safe harbor that the OGL was providing, and this is not only for WotC OGC (which is the obvious one) but for many other open systems that use the OGL as well.

More importantly, IMO, is the paradigmn shift that has occurred among ttrpgs because of the OGL in which the very idea of 'lets share and make cool stuff by setting some easy-to-understand ground rules!" has taken full root. Prior to the OGL, the idea was absent in the industry, IMO - all "sharing" was combative instead of cooperative.

I think it's the most important single thing to have happened to ttrpgs since their creation, and I think it more likely that people underestimate it than over.

joe b.

I'm not sure whether the effect is what people think though, or what you imply. Back in the '80s, for example, games built on each other in a TECHNICAL sense, but each game kind of needed to be distinct in terms of IP. So, sans some sort of deal, you wouldn't likely produce a lot of material for someone else's game system, or base your new game system on some existing one. I mean, there WERE a fair number of such deals, or at least games changed hands fairly often, but there were a LOT of one-off kind of unique systems.

Today you get a lot of BitD spin-offs, PbtAs, or d20/5e spin offs, etc. Which is better?

 

[mamba]

No, but it basically says people's idea of the status quo is distorted. At best you can say something like Pathfinder wouldn't exist without the OGL allowing access to D&D3e, but most of the other biggest companies in the biz are not dependent on D20 derivation for their success. As I argued upthread, I'd in fact argue that the D20 boom damaged other parts of the hobby by pulling some of the oxygen out of the room.

oh, I agree that it helped D&D and took from others, but now and then, the non-TSR/WotC market was relatively small most of the time.

The difference is that now the overall market is larger, and do is WotC’s share of it, unfortunately

 

[mamba]

By the time the case is truly decided, the number of 3PP still around or willing to come back might be somewhere close to none. They'd likely have moved on to ORC or something else completely

agreed, imo the 3pp market for D&D is dead unless WotC releases a 1.0b with the word irrevocable pretty soon

A new one might spring up again once this is settled, assuming the license is deemed irrevocable

 

[mamba]

Dollars to donuts ORC will say irrevocable in it somewhere. If the OGL 1.0a had said it irrevocable, you'd see a hell of a lot more confidence by 3PP providers.

confidence yes, but how many that run now would fight then? Not many more can financially afford it I guess, and while it is unfortunate that it comes down to money, that still holds true tomorrow, so I am not sure how much safer they are then

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sure, but my point is, that's a perfectly reasonable stance to expect a 3PP to take. It's unusual for that to be the stance the end-user takes. Or at least, a significantly large and vocal subset of it.

Online fans tend to be a bit more plugged into the whole ecosphere than the random player.