WotC Shannon Appelcline the layoffs and the OGL fiasco.

[Blue]

I'm not sure I give credit to Hasbro for 3.5 though. Monte Cook has said that as soon as 3E was out the door they started working on it. Just my 2 cents.

That's both true yet not the whole story. Yes, it was planned from the beginning - to come out several years after it actually did.

Archived Topics REVIEWS

Access game designer Monte Cook's previous content from this archive page.

web.archive.org

EDIT: @delericho I saw in a later comment you were looking for Monte Cook's "review" of 3.5. Is this the one you were thinking of?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I agree with you that this isnt about loss of institutional knowledge. It may be about failure to listen to institutional knowledge, but that's a separate kind of failure.

But, as an aside - You say "within the first seven years" as if that was fast.

We have seen the company try to ditch the OGL again, fail, try to sell an entire chunk of itself (eOne) do that badly, and try to manage the damage of that by letting go of a full 20% of its workforce, all in one year.

But trying to make a license change seven years later is supposed to seem like fast action? That doesn't hang together.

Well, I think that it is instructive that the first major edition change that occurred after the Hasbro takeover ditched the OGL.

And I also think it's instructive that they started 4e in 2005, which is only five years after the launch of 3e, and certainly pretty darn quick for such a massive change. Especially given that there was nothing particularly "old" about 3e at that time.

In other words, Hasbro inherited the already-in-motion 3e and OGL, and by the time they really started paying attention, they chose to move on to the OGL. I think that a case can be made that the two times that the "powers that be" ever really thought about D&D in terms of monetization, they wanted to ditch the OGL.

 

[Blue]

I'm actually all for WotC/Hasbro changing the business model that D&D relies on. There is far too little money in the TTRPG market to fund the number of creatives the industry could otherwise support.

Exactly. Spend money on them so that they can actually hire and pay people for full-time jobs at reasonable wages and benefits. Re-using content from 30 years ago, not buying 'new' stuff from publishers and sharing pdf content does not put food on anyone's table. It does not allow the industry to grow, and until it grows there is no way all of these creatives we say we support will actually be able to make a living in the industry.

Instead of rallying around a Go Fund Me when someone gets sick, put that money into buying product that can build a sustainable business that can afford to hire full-time people and provide good benefits for them.

This is part of why I'm happy that WotC raised the cost of their products to bundle DnDBeyond with them. I don't use DnDBeyond, but if they raise their book prices, all of the other TTRPG publishers can as well.

 

[darjr]

When you look at a link posted below in the comments, this myth gets debunked by Chris Sims and Owen Stephens.

Not really. Lisa Stevens her self contradicts Chris Sims and Owen was never in a position to know the numbers.

 

[Blue]

Truth be told, WotC probably have succeeded in killing off the OGL - nobody with any sense would tie the fate of their business to that license now. I think we're extremely lucky that they got spooked, capitulated totally, and released under Creative Commons.

We're a bit over two weeks away from changing that to "...lied about capitulating totally...". Kyle talked about having the 3.x SRDs in CC by the end of 2023. Once the public was pacified though I haven't heard anything at all about that. There are a lot of older games that rely on that material and are still vulnerable to OGL shenanigans.

EDIT: It has been pointed out that it is in their D&D Community Update they have this still listed as a to-do. So it's not forgotten, and they are still saying they will do it. Not as good for people looking for 3.x in CC for new expansions or reprints of their 3.X SRD based games early next year, but much better then just swept under the rug now that the public furor has passed.

 

[Blue]

Well, I think that it is instructive that the first major edition change that occurred after the Hasbro takeover ditched the OGL.

And I also think it's instructive that they started 4e in 2005, which is only five years after the launch of 3e, and certainly pretty darn quick for such a massive change. Especially given that there was nothing particularly "old" about 3e at that time.

In other words, Hasbro inherited the already-in-motion 3e and OGL, and by the time they really started paying attention, they chose to move on to the OGL. I think that a case can be made that the two times that the "powers that be" ever really thought about D&D in terms of monetization, they wanted to ditch the OGL.

From wikipedia: "In early 2005, Wizards of the Coast's R&D team started to develop Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, prompted mainly by the feedback obtained from the D&D playing community and a desire to make the game faster, more intuitive, and with a better play experience than under the 3rd Edition."

Behind the scenes I'm sure both the GSL and the software tools were also factors. Do we have any indication that moving away from the OGL was a big push for the timing of 4e?

And once having switched to the GSL, why bring back the OGL for 5e? That doesn't support the narrative that they have actively been trying to kill the OGL.

 

[Aldarc]

Not really. Lisa Stevens her self contradicts Chris Sims and Owen was never in a position to know the numbers.

Citations? Was Lisa Stevens herself citing the ICv2 figures that Owen talks about?

Also, when you check the tweets on the link, Owen says that he was in a position to know the numbers, so that contradicts your claims. I'm more inclined to believe Owen K.C. Stephens. Their statements are corroborated by others at WotC.

 

[darjr]

Citations? Was Lisa Stevens herself citing the ICv2 figures that Owen talks about?

Also, when you check the tweets on the link, Owen says that he was in a position to know the numbers, so that contradicts your claims. I'm more inclined to believe Owen K.C. Stephens. Their statements are corroborated by others at WotC.

Check when he was there. He wasn’t at WotC very long and unless WotC broadcast those numbers to all employees his position didn’t involve working with those numbers.

There is a thread already covering this which links. I’m headed to a graduation ceremony so otherwise it’ll take me a while.

So he may have seen or heard numbers but I’m not sure we can claim they were authoritative source for him.

 

[Aldarc]

Check when he was there. He wasn’t at WotC very long and unless WotC broadcast those numbers to all employees his position didn’t involve working with those numbers.

If he was the only one saying this, that would be one thing but he's not. Again, it's Chris Sims, Trevor Kidd, and Greg Bilsland.

 

[Parmandur]

We're a bit over two weeks away from changing that to "...lied about capitulating totally...". Kyle talked about having the 3.x SRDs in CC by the end of 2023. Once the public was pacified though I haven't heard anything at all about that. There are a lot of older games that rely on that material and are still vulnerable to OGL shenanigans.

No, they keep bringing it up in their Community Update timeline, so it's still on the agenda.