It is time to forgive WOTC and get back onboard.

[mamba]

First off, I am not sure you understand the term revisionist history, because it seems that you are misusing it.

I was not using it at all, this was not my post, as I am now pointing out for the second time

EDIT: I started using it after both of you already had... and to me putting a spin on events is very much what revisionist history is,

• "historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account". A spin to me is a reinterpretation.
• "historical revisionism consists of revisiting the sources of a historical record or period with a different perspective". Same, a spin is a different perspective

In terms of innocence it matters what we are talking about and at the end of the day I don't think WOTC did any harm to the game or the community and in fact I think the community is better off now than we were before this debacle.

I very much disagree with the 'no harm' take

 

[UngeheuerLich]

they are not squatters, they are people you share a house with (not yours, just a house…). that you invited in and told them they are welcome to live in it forever

At first the people you invited in were modest and only occupied the smaller rooms. Then even mkre people came. In the end the house became crowded. Some of the people started to occupie some store rooms you wanted to use elsewhere without asking, because at the time you invited them, using a storeroom to live in was not at anyones mind. Only when people in other houses started to use them, it became a problem.
Also, when you wanted to renovate your party rooms and you emptied to do it, a few of the people took the opportunity and just moved their things in and started their own parties. A few people even played hip hop in those rooms...
So at some points, you decide that your hospitality was exploited and you wanted to add some new rules that won't allow to freely occupy rooms when you leave it and ask politely and pay a small fee of they occupy a lot more room than most. And you ban music in your house that most people don't want. And because the house is too big, and you want to protect all as fast as you can, you want to decide alone, what music is acceptable and which not.
But people from in and outside the house protested, because they really liked the parties of some of the big occupiers and found a house with different parties woth different kinds of music more attractive than one where every room plays the same. And a few people feared that the owner at some point might not like their music anymore or just tell them that their music sucks to evict them. So they started a protest and the owner ceased the attempt to make a new contract and even sold a big part of the house to a 3rd party that offers free housing for everyone.

So an analogy that also fits and does not make them totally evil.
(I forgot to add the bullies they send to the other parties).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

@Scribe I edited my post a bit. So make sure your emote is still correct.
Also I hope the laughing smiley is not used to mock, but because you thought the story is funny.

It was just meant as a funny spin off of another story. Not THE TRUE story.

 

[mamba]

first the people you invited in were modest and only occupied the smaller rooms. Then even mkre people came. In the end the house became crowded.

yeah, the house analogy has its limits, for one a house has a fixed size, the market grew.

Also, no one did anything that the designers of the OGL had not anticipated / expected, so your whole post is moot / wrong

Finally, many did exactly what you expected, were perfect guests that even renovated the house, mowed the lawn and washed the dishes, i.e. created products for D&D and helped it become as huge as it is today, growing rapidly and going from record year to record year.
So wrong on all counts as far as I am concerned

 

[Aldarc]

In all honesty, I don't think many of us really need to vent as much as we are very annoyed by what seems like rewriting of something we just experienced. I'm fairly sure most of the people in this thread would not really be talking about this matter if it weren't for people trying to recolor the entire series of events and essentially sweep it under the rug as a positive thing for the hobby rather than something that required a community uprising to turn around.

Yeah, the rate at which we went from 'this literally happened' to revisionist history has been something else.

There's a word for that.

 

[ECMO3]

• "historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account". A spin to me is a reinterpretation.
• "historical revisionism consists of revisiting the sources of a historical record or period with a different perspective". Same, a spin is a different perspective

Spin and perspective are not the same thing, and I am not reinterpreting this from a different perspective. I am using the same perspective I used while it was going on, and as I noted in another post I was pretty active in fighting WOTC prior to the announcement they were not deauthorizing.

In fact, very early in this drama I actually had a mod ban me from a thread on this forum because they will not condone what I said we should do if WOTC if they went through with this. I am using the same perspective now that I was using then.

I very much disagree with the 'no harm' take

How did WOTC harm the game?

Did telling people they were going to change the OGL harm the game? - Nope

Did seeking to get creators to sign on to the new OGL harm the game? - Nope

Did the gaslighting and lying harm the game? - Nope

Did the so-called "playtest" harm the game? - Nope

Did putting the SRD in creative commons harm the game? - Nope

Did agreeing not to deauthorize the OGL 1.0a harm the game? - Nope

Which of WOTC's actions "harmed" the game?

Important to this discussion; I will note many creators and some of the very sources that broke this story originally claim WOTC's actions made the game stronger because it brought the people playing it together. If you believe this line, WOTC's actions actually helped the game.

 

[Alzrius]

I don't necessarily give WOTC credit for not revoking OGL 1.0a, but I do in fact give credit to WOTC for putting the entire SRD into CC. That makes the game more open than it was a month ago.

To extend the use of the gun analogy, the takeaway can be (as I see it) thought of like so:

If someone points a gun at you, pulls the trigger only for it to jam, tries to clear the jam but can't, and finally gives up and gives you $50 to make up for it before walking away, do you say "Awesome! I'm $50 richer than I was an hour ago!" or do you say "That guy just tried to shoot me! And he thinks $50 will make up for it?!"

The first reaction isn't wrong – you are indeed $50 richer than you were before, with that being the only overall change – but I think the latter is easier to understand, since someone else just tried to do you serious harm. Now, obviously, you can disagree as to the appropriateness of the analogy in general (i.e. how much harm would have really been inflicted), but the way a number of publishers are reacting suggests to me that they perceived this to be a very real threat to their livelihood, which I'm sympathetic to (and agree with).

 

[Micah Sweet]

They did not "try" to cancel the OGL 1.0a. They intended to cancel OGL 1.0a, they tried to get a number of publishers to agree to cancel it and they tried to convince the community that this would be ok once this was leaked and they failed at both of those things.

To use the point a gun at your head analogy that everyone has thrown around - Pointing a gun at someone's head is not the same as killing someone and it is not the same as "trying" to kill someone and you can't trutfully say they murdered you or someone or attempted to murder you if they point a gun at you.

As for me, I remember clearly what happened. I signed both petitions, sent an email to DNDbeyond, stopped using DNDbeyond in games, filled out their survey, got about 10 players in my gaming groups to fill out the survey and finally I actually typed up letters to 3 WOTC employees (Brink, Cao, Williams) and 1 Hasbro employee (Cox), bought envelopes, stuck stamps on them and mailed them to the WOTC and Hasbro headquarters respectively.

Can you tell us what you meant by "getting back on board with WotC" in the OP? I asked about that a couple times a while back.

 

[glass]

harm the game

"The game" is either an abstract construct or a commercial product, depending on context Either way, it is pretty irrelevant. WotC's actions harmed people, and that is what matters (that is pretty much all that ever matters).

 

[mamba]

Spin and perspective are not the same thing, and I am not reinterpreting this from a different perspective. I am using the same perspective I used while it was going on

yes, and that was a spin I disagreed with then too, I grant you that nothing has changed in that regard, you have the same spin now you had two weeks ago already

How did WOTC harm the game?

I was talking about the community, you wrote

I don't think WOTC did any harm to the game or the community and in fact I think the community is better off