A proposal for a multi-tiered license structure

[Clint_L]

Then a lot of us aren’t coming back to D&D. Doesn’t matter what the new license looks like, if they revoke the OGL (and you may be right that it’s unavoidable), we leave them behind. End of story.

If that happens in significant numbers, most 3PP are done.

Preserving the old OGL isn't enough, unless OneD&D is really, truly backwards compatible. Nor, obviously, is simply having to rely on Hasbro's good faith going forward. So whatever happens next will ideally keep access to D&D for 3PP, but in ironclad terms.

That's why I keep coming back to preserving the OGL as is, no morality clause, but going forward create a licensing option to allow 3PP onto DnDBeyond. Hasbro can control their walled garden that way while expanding rather than contracting the market available to 3PP. They're trying to eat their cake and have it too, right now.

 

[Charlaquin]

If that happens in significant numbers, most 3PP are done.

Preserving the old OGL isn't enough, unless OneD&D is really, truly backwards compatible. Nor, obviously, is simply having to rely on Hasbro's good faith going forward. So whatever happens next will ideally keep access to D&D for 3PP, but in ironclad terms.

That's why I keep coming back to preserving the OGL as is, no morality clause, but going forward create a licensing option to allow 3PP onto DnDBeyond. Hasbro can control their walled garden that way while expanding rather than contracting the market available to 3PP. They're trying to eat their cake and have it too, right now.

Sure, if the OGL 1.0 remains intact, we do want to make sure the new license they create for 1D&D has acceptable terms too. I’m just saying, if the OGL 1.0 goes, so do a lot of us as customers.

 

[Umbran]

Tier 2: Open Gaming License version 2.0 (OGL 2) - This would cover the specific rules elements such as race, class, spell, and monster stat blocks - but not the fictional concepts behind them. So a Mind Flayer's Tentacle attack, Mind Blast power, and Decerebrate ability would fall under this, but the concept of a Mind Flayer itself, along with the depiction of a purple squid-headed humanoid with 4 tentacles around a toothy maw, would not. This license would also be irrevocable but with more restrictions on how the content can be used.



What do you all think?

I don't see a great selling point here for them to release the mechanics of a mind flayer, without the concept along with it. Just save the Product Identity mechanics and lore for the next level up of license. The list of monsters that they've traditionally kept as Product Identity is short enough that there's plenty left for the OGL 2 level.

 

[Umbran]

Then a lot of us aren’t coming back to D&D. Doesn’t matter what the new license looks like, if they revoke the OGL (and you may be right that it’s unavoidable), we leave them behind. End of story.

The optimist in me notes that this can be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Like, if they kill the old OGL, and issue a new one that's good for Print, pdf, VTT, and actual play media, but not commercial videogames or movies, is irrevocable, and they release the current 5.1 SRD under it... are you going to walk away from that?

 

[Haplo781]

The optimist in me notes that this can be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Like, if they kill the old OGL, and issue a new one that's good for Print, pdf, VTT, and actual play media, but not commercial videogames or movies, is irrevocable, and they release the current 5.1 SRD under it... are you going to walk away from that?

The perfect and the enemy of the good, name a more iconic duo.

 

[TheSword]

I think the problem with the ‘Wizards of the Coast’ lied objection, is that that while I totally get why it is a deal breaker for the people affected by it directly (folks producing under the old system and big fans of 3pp materials), it isn’t going to persuade anyone outside of that group. A process story about how wizards went about things isn’t going capture and hold the wider publics sympathy if other people are using the new system.

We’ll reach the point where phrases like ‘WotC are liars’ and ‘I don’t trust WotC’ don’t garner as much support or sympathy.

 

[Umbran]

I think the problem with the ‘Wizards of the Coast’ lied objection, is that that while I totally get why it is a deal breaker for the people affected by it directly (folks producing under the old system and big fans of 3pp materials), it isn’t going to persuade anyone outside of that group. A process story about how wizards went about things isn’t going capture and hold the wider publics sympathy if other people are using the new system.

We’ll reach the point where phrases like ‘WotC are liars’ and ‘I don’t trust WotC’ don’t garner as much support or sympathy.

By the time others are using the new system, the license issue will be resolved, one way or another. And I don't know that "the wider public" cares or will be meaningfully influenced anyway. You aren't going to get a significant number of people who don't play D&D to, say, boycott the movie over license issues.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

And once they've operated in bad faith and tried to weasel word themselves out of one agreement that became inconvenient to them, what reason should I have to trust in any new promises they make?

As a player. No reason. But dors not matter a lot.

As a 3pp, you need to decide: use the new OGL and profit from using D&D or doing other things that might be way less profitable.

In a different thread a 3pp said, that one of their books was sold 20 times as often with 5e as the same book with alternate rules.
I also do a guess and say LevelUp sold more often than WOIN.

So the question is: are the new conditions good enough to use or not.
I understood Morrus, that he wants OGL 1.0 or nothing, and I think he might be in a good position. Big publishers also should be able to do their own thing.

I don't think every small publisher will be in an equally good position.

 

[Enrahim2]

By the time others are using the new system, the license issue will be resolved, one way or another. And I don't know that "the wider public" cares or will be meaningfully influenced anyway. You aren't going to get a significant number of people who don't play D&D to, say, boycott the movie over license issues.

No, as long as main stream media keep reporting on it as wizards merely trying to update a licensing agreement, there is no chance.

If media had been reporting on wizards breaking promisses, former microsoft execs going after an open source community, and their disttastefull use of minority issues as a smoke screen for trying to establish a monopoly.. Then I think even people never having heard of D&D before might take up arms.

 

[Charlaquin]

The optimist in me notes that this can be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Like, if they kill the old OGL, and issue a new one that's good for Print, pdf, VTT, and actual play media, but not commercial videogames or movies, is irrevocable, and they release the current 5.1 SRD under it... are you going to walk away from that?

Yes. I believe that revoking the OGL is illegal and unethical, and I won’t be buying D&D products any more if they do it. I know I’m far from alone in this.