WotC D&D Historian Ben Riggs says the OGL fiasco was Chris Cocks idea.

[Parmandur]

eh, yes, a table could create their homebrew, that does not mean WotC cannot become a monopoly, a monopoly does not require 100% market share.

A stronger case against them becoming a monopoly is that other TTRPGs exist. They could be the only ones offering D&D (via DDB and VTT), and it still might not be enough to make them a monopoly rather than just the biggest fish in the pond

Forget a homebrew, Kobold Press made a while game already.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I agree with all of this except for two things

1) I don’t think the fear of anyone creating a D&D killer based on the OGL stuff was ever rational

From our street-level view, I think you are absolutely on the money here.

The only problem is... I have ZERO idea what the view is from the corporate towers that all of these people work and live in. And I daresay I could not begin to even imagine the kinds of ghosts and/or actual threats to the corporate well-being that these highest-level executives are fighting against all the time. So I personally am unwilling to dismiss this potential concern out of hand.

Yes, absolutely from where we sit it seems a completely ridiculous concern-- someone trying to buy out the rights to Dungeons & Dragons!?! of all things-- but from way up on high? I mean who knows who have been trying to jam their foot into the Hasbro take-over door all these years-- with or without claiming Dungeons & Dragons as a prize along with it.

 

[Parmandur]

Oh believe me, I don't blame these companies for going where the money is... but I just find it funny that it is occurring even after all the talk from everybody the past couple years about how "bad" it is that WotC controls the D&D / 5E space, and that everyone should be breaking away from WotC in case they ever tried to do another OGL type of revocation again, or that WotC has broken the trust of the entire gaming populace etc. etc. etc.

At the end of the day it's always about money. It's why so many people hitched their wagon to D&D / 5E / OGL in the first place, and why so many people will get back into bed with WotC and D&D Beyond (and probably the VTT) even after all the supposed horrible actions the company took against them.

No one HAS to make 5E-adjacent material or use DMs Guild or anything like that. People are free to make completely independent and separate RPGs that have nothing to do with the D&D / 5E sphere. But they all know they ain't going to make any real money at all if they do. So they bite the bullet and strap on their waterskiis to follow along in WotC's wake-- hoping they can hold on for as long as they can and make as much money as possible before they fall off.

I don't think it is rven necessarily cynical: I don't think itnis an accident that 3 of the main Beyond partners are also the publishers of the 3 most notable post-OGL new TTRPG lines: making a new game and working with WotC aren't even mutually exclusive.

 

[Parmandur]

From our street-level view, I think you are absolutely on the money here.

The only problem is... I have ZERO idea what the view is from the corporate towers that all of these people work and live in. And I daresay I could not begin to even imagine the kinds of ghosts and/or actual threats to the corporate well-being that these highest-level executives are fighting against all the time. So I personally am unwilling to dismiss this potential concern out of hand.

Yes, absolutely from where we sit it seems a completely ridiculous concern-- someone trying to buy out the rights to Dungeons & Dragons!?! of all things-- but from way up on high? I mean who knows who have been trying to jam their foot into the Hasbro take-over door all these years-- with or without claiming Dungeons & Dragons as a prize along with it.

Well, it's not a takeover even that Brinks said was the concern: the concern was a big company coming in and taking over the D&D space with the OGL itself as LaNassa wanted to do with no talent or resources. They were concerned that a large third party who wanted to make an "anti-woke D&D" or something else that would reflect on WotC.

That's why their final resolution was to pit the game in Creative Commons, so anyone who tried that would use that instead of the OGL, and clearly not be associated with WotC.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't think it is rven necessarily cynical: I don't think itnis an accident that 3 of the main Beyond partners are also the publishers of the 3 most notable post-OGL new TTRPG lines: making a new game and working with WotC aren't even mutually exclusive.

Heh heh... I don't even consider what I said as being cynical... I see it as complete and utter common sense.

Anyone who puts a pricetag on their creativity isn't doing so "for the love of the game"... they are doing it to earn money. If they weren't... they wouldn't charge people for it, nor care if anyone used it.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I mean, clearly they’re going for their own walled garden and IMO, that’s fine - it’s a good product. But definitely know what you’re getting into. I prefer to not go down that rabbit hole and just stay pencil and paper.

I don't associate 'walled garden' with 'good' anything.

 

[mamba]

Forget a homebrew, Kobold Press made a while game already.

yes, that is basically the point of my 2nd paragraph. Doesn’t even have to be a 5e ‘clone’.

As long as they do not abuse the position they have thanks to owning DDB, I see no problem there. For some creative ways of abusing one’s position, take a look at MS…

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Almost as shocked as I am that anyone thinks a different CEO would make a difference. Or that we should ever trust corporations to do anything other than worry about their bottom line.

That's always been the thing that I found most odd about some people's reactions to the OGL debacle. The idea that they "no longer trust WotC".

I've NEVER trusted WotC, and I've been in business with them for 30 years!

Like you say: The only thing that you can "trust" is that they'll do whatever they think is best for them, and sometimes, they'll screw that up.

 

[MoonSong]

I'm glad the scandal happened, it's getting us SRDs for previous editions and 1D&D which likely would never happened otherwise and got it put in CC.

Not saying I trust Ben's word on this, but if it's true things turned out for the best.

I'm not exactly glad. The whole debacle hurt the trust in creating OGC. Yes, the srds in CC are fine and the ORC is dandy, but a lot of game content is stuck as OGC, and the loss of confidence in the OGL may make it harder to defend in the future.

 

[Oofta]

I'm not exactly glad. The whole debacle hurt the trust in creating OGC. Yes, the srds in CC are fine and the ORC is dandy, but a lot of game content is stuck as OGC, and the loss of confidence in the OGL may make it harder to defend in the future.

The OGL was always kind of weird. In the first place, it was more of a gentleman's agreement and whether it was legally enforceable to begin with was always debatable. It was more of a "follow a few restrictions and nobody has to spend a bunch of money on lawyers" because it's not clear how much of the rules even could be legally protected. Specific names, location details, sure. Roll a D20, add a number and compare to a target? Even if you used the same terminology it's unknown what would happen if it ever went to court.

But it also feels like the OGL stifled competition, companies jumped on the D20 bandwagon instead of developing their own systems. Sadly, without an alternate world simulator we'll never know.