It is time to forgive WOTC and get back onboard.

mamba

Legend
It's funny you claim this seeing as how Mongoose Publishing was literally able to release their own PHB for 3.5 (at a cheaper price point) using the SRD and OGL. I would also note the numerous retroclones (literally WotC's previous games) as well as new games (many which are fantasy... Pathfinder) that have all been created using the SRD and OGL. But yeah I guess they aren't actually giving their product away.
I am talking about SRD 5.1, the 3e / 3.5 SRD is irrelevant for WotC. Also, the creation of Pathfinder added a lot of stuff and is proving my point, that the SRD exists to create compatible products, not to play the game.

I didn't comment on revoking the OGL... I was speaking to whether the OneD&D SRD would be open, so I'm not sure what you are addressing here.
you wrote "do we expect all market leaders to continuously give away their product for open use" which can as well mean keeping the current SRD available as releasing a new one with 1DD.

Also, to me WotC is the biggest beneficiary of releasing the SRD so yes, I do expect them to continue doing so, but then they have shown that they do not actually realize that this benefits them most, so who knows
 

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Scribe

Legend
For me, this has been one of the main oddities of 5E's attitude to settings.

They've been peculiarly bad at selling people on what's cool about existing settings. The only two existing-setting books which were unqualifiedly "good" and sold the setting well were Eberron and Wildemount. I don't think it's any coincidence that both were created by the original authors of the setting, not WotC people.

SCAG was a rushed mess, and whilst it roughly serves its purpose, it is definitely not a book that is likely to sell one on how cool/special the FR is, and before anyone gets dismissive about that, I would say that can be done, and that indeed in 1E (Grey Box), 2E (FR Adventures) and 3E (errrr... the main FR book) it was done well. All of those had a kind of magic to them that made the FR feel distinct from "generic fantasy". SCAG is missing that. It's slapped together and slipshod, and lacks that spark of the weird that really enlivens fantasy settings (and that previous FR books did have). I kind of get it, because a lot about 5E's release looks super-rushed, and presumably it was a victim of this, but still.

VRGtR doesn't feel rushed out, but feels like it has to rush, because it doesn't have the page count to do what it's setting out to - which is really to both lay out a new vision of Ravenloft (and one I quite like), whilst also addressing horror in D&D in general, and also whilst creating a new (sadly failed) attempt approach race/species, and on top of all that, jamming in a totally needless and frankly not-very-good and not even that Ravenloft-y adventure (should have been a PDF or free on D&D Beyond). No part of what VRGtR is really done justice except maybe the mediocre adventure, and who knows, if that had more space maybe it'd have been better too. At least VRGtR touches on what makes Ravenloft special, but I really question how many DMs would feel like they should and could run Ravenloft from that. I suspect far more DMs have run Ravenloft thanks to Strahd than VRGtR.

Spelljammer is this whole thing taken to a new level, with equal-lowest page count, and the entire setting, all the new character rules (including several new and weird races and their whole deals!), and a bunch of ship combat rules, together with detailed ship plans, all jammed into 64 pages! A bizarre approach, and again, I don't think it really sells Spelljammer particularly well. Adding to the bizarreness is that part of the Bestiary is stuff that's clearly Dark Sun monsters with serial numbers filed off, and that the adventure is aimed at levels 5-8, and you're supposed to run the free adventure on D&D Beyond first, which is just mind boggling. Absolutely insane stuff. Surely if you're willing to force people to use Beyond to get a usable adventure you should be putting the 5-8 one there? Or putting both, and using those expensive real-book pages to detail the actual y'know, setting.

I don't think there's a lot of point covering the mini-settings attached to campaigns, but I will note it was pretty damn peculiar that Strixhaven went from a pretty edgy and cool setting in MtG to a setting so "comfy" that it makes Harry Potter look like a Cormac McCarthy novel by comparison. I don't think they've really fluffed any of the other MtG settings though MtG fans feel free to correct me.


Quite. Whilst it was clearly well-intentioned, we wouldn't have gotten into this whole mess if it had been better drafted. On the flipside, it might not have been as beneficial to the industry as it's possible that a more corporate approach might have convinced Dancey et al to back down on its generosity. Like a lot of important legal documents of history, it's kind of a mess.

Yep!

And from a certain angle, I can get some of the defense of this behavior. "Dont tell us how to run a setting, just let us play!" types and all that. "Canon hurts me" and so on. Sure, whatever.

But I dont want to hear about "IP" when the current approach by the D&D team has been to do anything BUT develop an IP.

No joke, 100%, nay 2000%, CR does their job better. 2 Streaming shows, live streams, 2 (I think) novels, merch, characters with names and history and story, and 2 (i think?) settings books?

Absolutely bodies anything Wizbro has done in almost 10 years. Its laughable, its factually hilarious, how poorly the D&D has done to 'brand' their IP.

Without the D&D name, Wizbro has done exactly nothing. They should be thankful they had MtG to carry them around in a backpack all these years.
 

Imaro

Legend
I am talking about SRD 5.1, the 3e / 3.5 SRD is irrelevant for WotC. Also, the creation of Pathfinder added a lot of stuff and is proving my point, that the SRD exists to create compatible products, not to play the game.

Added a lot of stuff to what? A competing product... Pathfinder is it's own game...you're proving my point.

you wrote "do we expect all market leaders to continuously give away their product for open use" which can as well mean keeping the current SRD available as releasing a new one with 1DD.

They don't produce 3.x anymore so they wouldn't be giving their actual product away by keeping the OG 1.0a active.

Also, to me WotC is the biggest beneficiary of releasing the SRD so yes, I do expect them to continue doing so, but then they have shown that they do not actually realize that this benefits them most, so who knows

Lol... Claiming they are the 'biggest" beneficiary is a pretty bold claim when multiple businesses and even competitors have been built around using the ruleset they released... care to explain how you arrived at that conclusion?
 

Scribe

Legend
Lol... Claiming they are the 'biggest" beneficiary is a pretty bold claim when multiple businesses and even competitors have been built around using the ruleset they released... care to explain how you arrived at that conclusion?

The logic path is pretty simple.

By releasing the SRD's, outside of the time they (Wizards) tried to reinvent the wheel, they have kept the market share firmly in their court.

The majority of 3PP are built on top of a single rule set, which keeps people looking at D&D, instead of other rule sets in a type of "vendor lock".

The barrier to entry is higher than most care to embrace, in terms of leaving the 5e pool, for arguably better systems.

Its what makes this all the more amusing to me.

They have essentially a hostage user base, unwilling or able to move out to other systems.
They have the biggest name in the game, and its not close.
They had supporting budget that obliterates anyone else.
They had decades of history and strength.

And they have done less with that, squandered that position or outright abandoned it, than what an outfit of voice actors who just goof around has done in a few short years.

Embarrassing GIF
 




Imaro

Legend
The logic path is pretty simple.

By releasing the SRD's, outside of the time they (Wizards) tried to reinvent the wheel, they have kept the market share firmly in their court.

The majority of 3PP are built on top of a single rule set, which keeps people looking at D&D, instead of other rule sets in a type of "vendor lock".

The barrier to entry is higher than most care to embrace, in terms of leaving the 5e pool, for arguably better systems.

Its what makes this all the more amusing to me.

They have essentially a hostage user base, unwilling or able to move out to other systems.
They have the biggest name in the game, and its not close.
They had supporting budget that obliterates anyone else.
They had decades of history and strength.

And they have done less with that, squandered that position or outright abandoned it, than what an outfit of voice actors who just goof around has done in a few short years.

Embarrassing GIF

All of this conveniently ignores the fact that they were the 800lb gorilla in the hobby without the OGL. It ignores the fact that before the OGL D&D was the gateway into the hobby and that even then most other games were ignored (with the exception of WoD for a limited time and look where that's at now) by most ttrpg players. In other words maybe the OGL helped them keep the position they had already garnered... maybe it didn't really affect the ecosystem all that much... but your logic doesn't necessarily follow.
 

Scribe

Legend
So people are not free to go elsewhere?
Play the games they want?
Maybe people just like D&D and want to stay there... bit it could be Stockholm Syndrom... hmmm..

I mean they can, just like vendors can get all their data reimplemented in a new ERP.

Unless your position is there is no barrier to entry, and having the largest player base, and DMs running the same system has no value or bearing?
 

Faolyn

(she/her)
And yet most corporations wouldn't have shared the IP to begin with, or reversed course so completely. So, again, not sure what more we should want at this point. A pound of flesh? At what point do we take "yes" for an answer?
Actually, to re-answer this... most corporations wouldn't actually benefit from sharing their IP. Gaming is different, in part, at least, because it's additive. You can use non-WotC D&D books with a WotC-D&D game, and vice versa, and you can't really do that with most other... anything, really.

Like, one of the 3pp products I have bought was the Humblewood RPG. I was planning on taking one of the Humblewood races and playing it in a Realms-based game a friend was proposing for some point in the future when they finished their current game, with the idea of a dwarf who was reincarnated as a luma (pigeon-folk) by well-meaning druids, absolutely hated it, and was now a transmuter wizard in the hopes of being able to reverse the condition. I have no idea if they're going to still going to run this game in D&D or will switch to a different system--they actually started gaming with 5e and have barely played anything else. If they do decide to run this game in D&D, well, that's what I'll play.

And this game of theirs would be a D&D game using D&D material they bought. It was actually beneficial for WotC to open their IP because it created less competition for them. If I were to run a purely Humblewood game, I'd still need the PHB and probably several other books for spells, monsters, class archetypes, and other information. WotC benefits from me running a 5e 3pp.

So it wasn't some great act of charity to allow people to use their IP. It was actually in their best interests as an RPG company.

And it wasn't a great act of humble contrition that caused them to reverse course. It was also in their best interests.
 

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