WotC Third party, DNDBeyond and potential bad side effects.

[mamba]

That's certainly where my disconnect is, because I can't even imagine what "stewards of the hobby" is supposed to mean.

I mean, "stewards of the D&D game," I can get my head around. Honor its long history, try to make the current version the best version for today's market, keep it in print. I can even see, since the OGL is part of that history, honoring its intent, and keeping the game available for third-party expansion.

But "of the hobby?" How is that even supposed to work? Why would the commercial company who happens to own the D&D IP be the appropriate steward for all of role-playing gaming?

My take on this is to mostly do things that are good for D&D as well, and not be a jerk to the competition.

Much like the founders of the OGL said, what benefits roleplaying ultimately benefits D&D, so bringing more people into the hobby, making it easier to join and play, more accessible, more ubiquitous, and doing so with an eye on the ecosystem, so bringing attention to 3pps, like they recently did on DDB. Have 3pps on DDB, while also continuing to make D&D available for other VTTs than their own.

Looking a bit ahead, release an SRD for 2024, maybe even include a bit more in it, if Paizo can have everything available for free and LU can have pretty much everything in an SRD, then I do not see why WotC cannot be more permissive as well.

If you wan to look to the digital side, have the equivalent to the CC SRD for the VTT side. As I said before, create some open formats for data exchange to support integration across different VTTs, or at least provide APIs in their own VTT for third parties to hook into.
This would probably even benefit WotC more than the competition, because if I can access my DDB modules on any VTT, then I buy on DDB while the others miss out on the sales. The benefit to the users is that they know they can freely move between VTTs instead of being locked into one. So yeah, there are some moves that I consider good even though they have the potential to negatively affect the competition, the difference is that they are being done to open things up, not to lock people in.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'd really have to see the circumstances. A non-exclusive contract is pretty low risk. I do expect that, by the time they'd ask me, I bet it's not a lot of money left on the table. I don't know if it'd be worth the conversion time at that point.

I also write products that work well regardless of what platform people use. I don't write character options. I don't write monsters or magic items or spells. I like to either write advice, which they can just read, or adventures, which run just fine off of the PDF.

So the answer is, I don't know. It would depend on the circumstances.

That sounds reasonable. Thanks for indulging me.

 

[Clint_L]

I think the disconnect lies Between the concepts of unfettered capitalism and stewards of the hobby. They can’t be both.

As stewards of the hobby they put 5e, which they spent a great deal of time and money developing, into Creative Commons, which is pretty remarkable. Making the SRD public back with 3e was pretty remarkable.

As I posted previously, I feel like there is a lot of conflation of D&D with 5e or, in this case, "the hobby," which is being used to pillory WotC for protecting their control over D&D. In fact, I feel that there is a huge double standard - WotC has gone much further than most companies ever do in sharing access to their IP, and yet it seems like it is never enough, like some folks expect them to just put D&D into the CC.

They might be partial "stewards of the hobby" - that's debatable. They are the owners of Dungeons and Dragons.

 

[SlyFlourish]

As stewards of the hobby they put 5e, which they spent a great deal of time and money developing, into Creative Commons, which is pretty remarkable. Making the SRD public back with 3e was pretty remarkable.

As I posted previously, I feel like there is a lot of conflation of D&D with 5e or, in this case, "the hobby," which is being used to pillory WotC for protecting their control over D&D. In fact, I feel that there is a huge double standard - WotC has gone much further than most companies ever do in sharing access to their IP, and yet it seems like it is never enough, like some folks expect them to just put D&D into the CC.

They don’t put out 5e PDFs. Every other RPG company does. Morrus put just about all of A5e into the CC – way way more than the 5.1 SRD. Kobold Press puts out almost everything they publish in the OGL. Lots of companies are doing more than WOTC.

 

[Clint_L]

They don’t put out 5e PDFs. Every other RPG company does. Morrus put just about all of A5e into the CC – way way more than the 5.1 SRD. Kobold Press puts out almost everything they publish in the OGL. Lots of companies are doing more than WOTC.

Are they? Depends how you measure. Which of those things is worth the most? Almost all of it is derived from what WotC originally put out there.

 

[Parmandur]

They don’t put out 5e PDFs. Every other RPG company does. Morrus put just about all of A5e into the CC – way way more than the 5.1 SRD. Kobold Press puts out almost everything they publish in the OGL. Lots of companies are doing more than WOTC.

How many of those ate large publicly shared corporations...?

 

[SlyFlourish]

That's certainly where my disconnect is, because I can't even imagine what "stewards of the hobby" is supposed to mean.

I mean, "stewards of the D&D game," I can get my head around. Honor its long history, try to make the current version the best version for today's market, keep it in print. I can even see, since the OGL is part of that history, honoring its intent, and keeping the game available for third-party expansion.

But "of the hobby?" How is that even supposed to work? Why would the commercial company who happens to own the D&D IP be the appropriate steward for all of role-playing gaming?

I thought Sly Flourish's previous observation that, with the release of the 5e SRD to the Creative Commons, WotC was now just one of many 5e publishers, to be a very astute one. But now, when they seek to differentiate themselves from their competitors through use of digital tools, it's bad for the hobby?

I'm reminded of the legal podcast that did episodes on the OGL debacle, and how there was a critical disconnect in that they could not grok a commercial company willingly giving its IP up in such a way, that a competitor could create the exact same game. They thought that that must be an unintended outcome resulting from a very poorly drafted license. Our hobby such as it is, is in a really weird space.

So, as near as I can tell, WotC, as "steward," is expected to:

• allow any number of variants of their game to be developed by competitors, allowing those competitors to at best feed off their customer base, and at worst to siphon customers off from it;
• not to compete through provision of their own digital tools, but rather allow other third-party entities to profit from providing digital tools using their IP;
• well, OK, they can have their own digital tools, but they can't be too good, or too exclusive, because that would be "bad for the hobby";
• within these strictures, make enough revenue to a) justify its existence, and b) get investment from Hasbro, because it would be bad for the hobby for D&D to be mothballed.

I'm not one for "unfettered capitalism," but is WotC not allowed (figuratively speaking) any exclusivity of its product? Any differentiation in service or customer experience from its competitors?

It sounds like you’re agreeing that WOtC cannot be trusted (and does not have the charge) to be continual good stewards of the larger 5e hobby. I agree.

And yet, they’re building a growing gravity well for 5e that cuts out hundreds of publishers and thousands of products.

You’re correct, this isn’t WOTCs problem. It’s ours. But we can ask WOtC for things that strengthen the larger hobby and we can work to ensure our happiness with 5e doesn’t depend on the whims of WOTC or D&D Beyond. Thats what I’m recommending.

 

[mamba]

How many of those ate large publicly shared corporations...?

none, but if a small one can afford to do it, I do not see why a large one cannot. I understand that they can be more greed driven and short-sighted than idealistic or long-term focused, but that does not mean that I have to excuse that, let alone justify / defend it

 

[Parmandur]

none, but if a small one can afford to do it, I do not see why a large one cannot. I understand that they can be more greed driven and short-sighted than idealistic or long-term focused, but that does not mean that I have to excuse that, let alone justify / defend it

It doesn't need justification, it just is. Given the nature of large corporations, thst stuff like Creative Commons happened is nigh miraculous. Can't be compared to small hobbyist shops, even great ones.

 

[mamba]

It doesn't need justification, it just is. Given the nature of large corporations, thst stuff like Creative Commons happened is nigh miraculous. Can't be compared to small hobbyist shops, even great ones.

still doesn’t mean that I have to like it / not look / ask for improvements

They were idiotic with their OGL shenanigans, from my perspective they are short-sighted here