It is time to forgive WOTC and get back onboard.

[Micah Sweet]

No, I can distinguish between them, but WOTC far and away has the most 5E content, and the most customers. WOTC 5E material also dominates the market of fan content and 3rd party creators leverage that.

If you are not buying WOTC 5E content then you are also not watching optimization videos on that content, buying stuff from DMs Guild that leverages that content or playing in paid games that include that content and that will hurt those 3rd party creators.

For example, watching a video on optimizing an artificer is pretty useless if you refuse to buy the product that includes the Artificer class and are therefore not watching that video, when you otherwise would - that hurts 3rd party creators.

Sorry but if you restrict yourself only to the SRD and 3rd party 5E material you are hurting many 3rd party creators

Hard, hard disagree, but I really don't know how to respond to that. No one needs to keep buying WotC products to support 5e, and ignoring them doesn't hurt 3pp. I don't watch videos about D&D at all, never have. My lack of eyeballs on YouTube does no harm to anyone.

Incidentally, Level Up has an artificer class, compatible with subclasses produced by WotC and others, to reference your example. I don't need WotC to support 3pp.

 

[ECMO3]

who? I have not heard that refuted

Linda Codega is the person who broke the story and they called it a "draft" in their very first article that started the reporting on this debacle. They were questioned a bit later on if it was actually, truely a draft and here is their statement:

"I have said this elsewhere but yes it was a draft. However it was as close to a press to go draft as I have ever seen. Stuff missing was like 'email here' and 'link here'" (note that is similar to what I said above)

Treantmonk in his "measured takes" stated it was not a contract at all, but a term sheet and further stated that the claims that it was not a draft were a result of lack of investigation by people making those claims. Now you can say he is wrong, and his statements were certainly controversial, but some of the other controversial things Treantmonk said at the time like "WOTC does read playtest feedback" turned out to be true even when the community and many of the same people screaming "not draft" were claiming otherwise.

The statement I made in the post above is reflective of Linda's statement, because that is where I got it from.

Now you can believe these or not, but I put as much credibility in those two sources as any others considering their track record as compared to others. As far as I can tell Linda was only wrong one time in this whole episode and Treantmonk was only wrong twice, one of those before the OGL 1.2 was even leaked.

 

[ECMO3]

If all you make are videos, then the easiest solution is to not exclusively make 5e content.

Only if there is a comparable market for non-5E material in the same volume as 5E and there won't be, at least not in one place.

If they did not exclusively focus on 5e, the whole hobby would be better for it anyway, so that is a win-win in my book.

It is not a win-win if your business relies on 5E.

You can say they shouldn't rely on 5E and it will be a win-win for them to diversify .... but then if that was true it would have been true when deauthorization was a threat as well.

I mean if it is totally cool and easy for creators to move away from 5E why did the fight against deauthorization even need to happen?

 

[ECMO3]

Hard, hard disagree, but I really don't know how to respond to that. No one needs to keep buying WotC products to support 5e, and ignoring them doesn't hurt 3pp. I don't watch videos about D&D at all, never have. My lack of eyeballs on YouTube does no harm to anyone.

Incidentally, Level Up has an artificer class, compatible with subclasses produced by WotC and others, to reference your example. I don't need WotC to support 3pp.

Ok tell me what fan content I can support by looking for Level Up Artificier optimization build videos online.

Moreover, tell me how I can continue to support D4 Deep Dive and Treantmonk when they are doing mostly (or entirely) WOTC 5E content. Moreover tell me how they are not going to be hurt if I stop supporting them.

Tell me how the DM i game with is not going to be hurt if I stop playing in his games (since he still uses WOTC material).

Finally if the Level Up Artificer is compatible with WOTC Artificer subclasses, then I need WOTC product to play those subclasses because those subclasses are not legally available in the CC, OGL 1.0a or anywhere other than buying WOTC content.

 

[Greg K]

Not many of them. If you watched videos from Treantmonk, Ginny Di, Dungeon Dudes, D4 Deep Dive and Pack Tactics during the worst part of this - Several of them explicitly said they would not move away from 5E and all of them expressed concern over what this meant for them going forward to include potential business failure.

This is in addition to the many, many small time guys.

I saw several if not all of those you listed (except Pack Tactics which I have never seen) and others (e.g. Dungeon Coach) say that they will be expanding what they cover to include other games.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ok tell me what fan content I can support by looking for Level Up Artificier optimization build videos online.

Moreover, tell me how I can continue to support D4 Deep Dive and Treantmonk when they are doing mostly (or entirely) WOTC 5E content. Moreover tell me how they are not going to be hurt if I stop supporting them.

Tell me how the DM i game with is not going to be hurt if I stop playing in his games (since he still uses WOTC material).

I couldn't tell you. Like I said, I don't watch D&D videos, and I don't read optimization guides. Please tell me now all about the 3pp content creators I'm causing harm to.

 

[mamba]

Linda Codega is the person who broke the story and they called it a "draft" in their very first article that started this debacle. They were questioned a bit later on if it was actually a draft and here is their statement:

"I have said this elsewhere but yes it was a draft. However it was as close to a press to go draft as I have ever seen. Stuff missing was like 'email here' and 'link here'"

I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, no idea about Treantmonk, never heard of them. But even if I believe her, this does very much only sound like a draft for some technicality and not because the final 1.1 would have contained different terms. This also does not really mesh with WotC given the 3pps one week to sign.

So yeah, maybe it technically was a very late stage draft, but the terms were the official terms, and that is more important to me than whether you could still call it a draft based on some technicality. Sounds like a similar technicality as to why maybe 1.0a can be de-authorized... I do not deal in technicalities, I care for the intent, and that was clear.

 

[mamba]

Only if there is a comparable market for non-5E material in the same volume as 5E and there won't be, at least not in one place.

that is why I said that this is you hedging your bets. Yes, your non-5e videos will probably not get as many views initially, but if you are afraid that your focus on 5e might kill you, then sticking to making 5e content only is not a smart move, even if your other videos have less viewers.

I do not owe anyone to watch their videos if their content does not interest me (not even if it does...). I am not watching any of those guys you listed regularly (and that is an understatement, I have not watched most of them at all, and a few videos of two of them) and that will continue to be the case, regardless of what they do.

I am more likely to watch you if you do not produce exclusively 5e content however at this point... I watch Mike Shae pretty regularly, he recently renamed his D&D show to RPG show and that suits me just fine. This is not me hurting youtubers, this is youtubers refusing to follow the market and hoping it stays where they are when branching out is so easy for them, compared to pretty much any other 3pp (because the investment per video is not high...)

It is not a win-win if your business relies on 5E.

if you stick to 5e exclusively despite fearing that it might doom you, then that is on you

You can say they shouldn't rely on 5E and it will be a win-win for them to diversify .... but then if that was true it would have been true when deauthorization was a threat as well.

yes, it was true then as well, this just means they can better afford not to. Also, the OGL does not cover these youtubers, so I was not fighting for their 'right' to create 5e content in the first place.

 

[EthanSental]

How about comparing YouTube views from paizo or other PF creators….how does that compare to WoTC and 3pp 5e content. Just moving to create 3pp PF content doesn’t mean the creator can make a living like they do for 5e. Let Morrus make pf2e level up and see how it sales. 3pp need 5e adjacent stuff to make a living, it’s not there for other game systems.

 

[ECMO3]

that is why I said that this is you hedging your bets. Yes, your non-5e videos will probably not get as many views initially, but if you are afraid that your focus on 5e might kill you, then sticking to making 5e content only is not a smart move, even if your other videos have less viewers.

I do not owe anyone to watch their videos if their content does not interest me (not even if it does...). I am not watching any of those guys you listed regularly (and that is an understatement, I have not watched most of them at all, and a few videos of two of them) and that will continue to be the case, regardless of what they do.

I am more likely to watch you if you do not produce exclusively 5e content however at this point... I watch Mike Shae pretty regularly, he recently renamed his D&D show to RPG show and that suits me just fine. This is not me hurting youtubers, this is youtubers refusing to follow the market and hoping it stays where they are when branching out is so easy for them, compared to pretty much any other 3pp (because the investment per video is not high...)


if you stick to 5e exclusively despite fearing that it might doom you, then that is on you


yes, it was true then as well, this just means they can better afford not to. Also, the OGL does not cover these youtubers, so I was not fighting for their 'right' to create 5e content in the first place.

But the OGL controls the market. The OGL affords the content that those youtubers talk about. Now if you don't care about them as creators, fine.

People have rightly said many times 5E grew because of the publishers, fan community (including youtubers) and WOTC working together. That is true and WOTC profited greatly from OGL 1.0a, more than any other entity. But they grew together and if that relationship is fractured they will all suffer. I would argue that 3rd party creators will suffer the worst, followed by WOTC and then the fan community the least.

We can all move on to other games, but other games are not going to be as easy to find. Sure if your family and neighbors are all you care about and if you can convince them to move on then you personally won't suffer, but if the community that is 5E today fractures it is going to be much tougher to find games with people you don't know.