Umbran asked what actions would it take for WOTC to 'make it right' for me. Here ya go!...

[Dungeonosophy]

So, the question is... if you screwed up, and the folks you wronged came back with pony wishes for demands to make it right... what do you do? You know you can't please them, so... do you try anyway?

Looking at those eight things, they can all be announced within two weeks, and easily done within six months, at no great expense.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Your OP gave the distinct impression that these were a set of things you required to resume making purchases. In which case, as soon as you hit the first that they wouldn't/couldn't provide, the rest of the list can be ignored - if you need all and they can only offer all but one then there's no deal.

Wow delericho, you're laying it on thick, like a court of law.
Okay, let's unpack the list and my motives a little bit more.

FIRST OFF, I already began the lifetime boycott several days ago. I've already grieved the D&D-brand and moved on. I'm happy and looking forward to supporting ORC-allied games.

The biggest sorrow for me is actually that I won't be purchasing any D&D digital audiobooks--ye can't buy them used. But I'll look for audiobooks from the vast world of non-D&D fantasy novels, including Margaret Weiss's and R.A. Salvatore's non-D&D/non-WotC novels.

So my OP is not an expression of me 'pining', wishing and praying for WOTC to pwease, pwease do those eight things. I'm not hostage to my former love of D&D.
So f*** em.
It was just an exercise (prompted by @Umbran) in considering what it would actually take to not only restore the neutral status quo (action #1 and #2), but also what actions of amends it would take for me to consider..."Hey, these dishonest, backstabbing, ignorant, malicious, overpaid, greedy, gaslighting Microsoft executives and lawyers can actually make wise and humane changes. It's amazing! I'm astonished! Well, now I will really rethink my lifetime D&D boycott."

Please note, that just restoring OGL 1.0 and backing off the other twisted provisions of OGL 2.0 are by no means enough for me to return to D&D. And there are thousands of people like me. Not just on ENWorld, but on other forums as well.

I've already moved on.

But if I've misunderstood, and it's a list of wants, some of which are negotiable, I apologise.

Dang man, like I said, you're a hard bargainer!
Okay, let's say #1 through #5 were enacted. That'd be huge. SRDs for every edition of D&D! All editions open for community creation on DMs Guild? Pretty cool.
Would I return to D&D? Probably not.

I'm miffed about their use of "inclusiveness" as a "progressive-flavored" smokescreen for their own greed. It's really f***ing distasteful. My thread about WOTC's GAZ10: Orcs of Thar is one of the most salient and comprehensive researches into the actual racism in WOTC products (which are still in their storefront!) So having endured the slings and arrows of that thread, and the total silence from WOTC on that, I have a specific 'karma' on that issue which you or other readers in this thread may not have experienced.

Same for #7, though not quite as intense as #6: WOTC's quick flipflop on approving the simple posting of Jeff Grubbs (completed!) World of Mystara worldbook for AD&D2E. (The squelching of the original worldbook was the reason that Jeff quit TSR back in the day.) I worked for months behind the scenes to get that approval. Conversations with Jeff Grubb and Shawn Stanley (holder of the manuscript, and webmaster of the Official Mystara Fansite), with Shawn reaching out to WOTC. Our petition got lots of signatures and supporters, such Ann Dupuis (one of the leading authors of TSR's Mystara) and Jolly Blackburn. And, my understanding is that a WOTC rep approved the posting. Then, just as it made the ENWorld newspage, some 'higher up' in WOTC sent a note saying that they changed their mind, and we can't post it. D*mn it! Jeff Grubb was ready to write a new essay introducing the worldbook and everything. It's just a vaporware, unformatted document from the 1990s for goodness sakes! Why dicker with us and pull the rug out?

Okay, as for #8 (opening the World of Aebrynis to the Public Domain, as a gift to the aficionados)...yeah, if WOTC enacted numbers #1 through #7, but didn't do #8, I imagine I'd still consider ending my lifetime boycott. So yeah, delericho: "ya caught me." For #8, I was only giving a helpful example of extra-magnanimous actions which could be taken to regrow the burning of ten years of goodwill to the ground. Apparently the overpaid blockheads at WOTC need some help with envisioning.

Fair enough. If we're talking 'wants', I'll add two more (neither of which I think is remotely likely):

• Add the mechanical bits of SWSE (the condition track, and the system behind the Force powers) to the OGL - these are potentially useful to 3pp (and the Force system could well form the basis for an alternate psionics system). Obviously, they'd need scrubbed of Lucasfilm IP!

Now we're talking! Yeah, that'd be a fitting addition: A "Saga Edition" SRD. Good idea.

• Realize that the OGL as it stands is a good thing for their IP, and therefore embrace its use - release the eventual One D&D under the OGL 1.0b we've been discussing.

This is not so much an action, as an epiphany. But yeah, it would be good if the tens-of-thousands of voices calling for this did sink in.

Opening the old editions on the Guild is much more likely that providing SRDs for those editions.

I think both would be a good idea. SRD would be more on the amends/community-healing side, the other (opening to DMs Guild) would also have a business angle. But they would be synergistic.

But still extremely unlikely, I think. I may be wrong, of course.

My OP is in no way a prophesy of how WOTC execs may or may not act. I'm not into prognostication and prediction. (And among ENWorlders, posts about 'prediction' are often used as a snarky cynical dampening of the envisioning process.)

Rather, I am sensing and stating what personally amendatory actions are necessary, in order to heal the very real, lifetime-arcing rift between me and D&D/WOTC.

Yet I'm over it. And I was over it before I posted the list. I just did it because @Umbran (who I appreciate as a moderator and thinker) inspired me to give it a shot.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

• What does '"Corpor-UwU-tist"' mean?

It's my version of a word which Matt Colville used for the languaging of OGL1.1:


I had to look up "UwU" myself:

uwu - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Aldarc]

-Travis Henry, Dungeon Master since 1983
CEO of Twelvefold Works Publishing
Creator of the "Malice of the Three-Headed Giant" meme:

The not so subtle misogynistic attempts to depict Cynthia Williams as the second coming of the Lorraine Williams, who herself is frequently discussed almost like the anti-Christ, actually makes me more sympathetic to Cynthia Williams.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

The not so subtle misogynistic attempts to depict Cynthia Williams as the second coming of the Lorraine Williams, who herself is frequently discussed almost like the anti-Christ, actually makes me more sympathetic to Cynthia Williams.

There are two men and one woman in the photo. All three are professional agents of this OGL debacle.

And one of those persons has a last name which figures prominently in TSR history. My image does not refer to any specific criticism of Lorraine Williams, and I am not responsible for how any aficionados have portrayed her in the past.

I’m glad my image evokes human sympathy and empathy.

 

[Aldarc]

There are two men and one woman in the photo. All three are professional agents of this OGL debacle.

And one of those persons has a last name which figures prominently in TSR history. My image does not refer to any specific criticism of Lorraine Williams, and I am not responsible for how any aficionados have portrayed her in the past.

I’m glad my image evokes human sympathy and empathy.

The whole "Lorraine" bit in the image feels like an unnecessary extraneous smear against Cynthia Williams who is only guilty in this regard of having the same last name as Lorraine Williams.

 

[Umbran]

The whole "Lorraine" bit in the image feels like an unnecessary extraneous smear against Cynthia Williams who is only guilty in this regard of having the same last name as Lorraine Williams.

Yeah, but unless you can make a very clear case that is being done because she's a woman, maybe don't publicly accuse people of misogyny?

 

[ThorinTeague]

I'm tired of businesses being seen as unassailable entities which cannot be held accountable for the harm they did simply because they were doing it in the name of profit. We ain't Ferengi.

I feel like when corporations separate the realm of profit from the realm of production... both are losers. I feel like, hey man, make all the money in the world, go for it. Make billions, get yourself an olympic size swimming pool, fill it with money so you can swim in it Scrooge McDuck style.

It's just... when there's people whose sole purpose is to make money--indeed they can't not make money, they'll lose their jobs if the company grows less than about 6% per year, and these people have nothing to do with the product or the customers, this creates problems. Especially when said people are given basically free reign over the steering wheel at the expense of all other considerations. But also I guess that's the price you pay when you put your business out there for public trade. Investors aren't just giving corporations free money.... they have expectations...

 

[ThorinTeague]

I’m pretty certain none of that is going to happen.

I'm pretty sure you're right. Or at least most of it. None of this really matters to me. Hasbro (and therefore WoTC) is a publicly traded company, meaning they could be bought out tomorrow and all expectations, motivations, and plans of the current leadership are out the window. Current leadership could give us every demand in our wildest dreams then sell the company tomorrow to investors who roll it all back again. D&D does not belong in the hands of a publicly traded company in my view. Too few investors and too little of the board really appear to understand their product or the community around it.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm pretty sure you're right. Or at least most of it. None of this really matters to me. Hasbro (and therefore WoTC) is a publicly traded company, meaning they could be bought out tomorrow and all expectations, motivations, and plans of the current leadership are out the window. Current leadership could give us every demand in our wildest dreams then sell the company tomorrow to investors who roll it all back again. D&D does not belong in the hands of a publicly traded company in my view. Too few investors and too little of the board really appear to understand their product or the community around it.

The problem is you can say that about nearly any property with significant fan investment. You can say that about Star Wars or DC comics or Chevy Trucks. Everyone cares more about the line going up rather than the community, the artistic purity or anything else the "fans" care about.

The best thing that could've happened was that D&D is partially in the Commons. Even if WotC ruins it, D&D will survive in some format. IMHO, there are a lot more properties that deserve to be in the Commons as well for the good of the culture.