D&D 5E Don't Throw 5e Away Because of Hasbro

[AlViking]

Between the OGL disaster, which sucks since I'm an OGL/OSR referee, and 5e itself I think we have the perfect storm that makes me mostly uninterested in what the official D&D game is doing these days. Which in one sense is kind of a bummer but its been that way since 4e so I'm used to it. And there is such a thriving OSR scene.

The ogl disaster that was reversed and resulted in the core rules being put into creative commons? Why does that matter two years after they reversed direction?

 

[Micah Sweet]

The ogl disaster that was reversed and resulted in the core rules being put into creative commons? Why does that matter two years after they reversed direction?

Does reversing it mean that they never tried to do it, and were strong-armed into changing their action? Does it mean anything other than they got caught, and wouldn't try again if they thought they could get away with it?

No, it does not.

 

[AlViking]

Does reversing it mean that they never tried to do it, and were strong-armed into changing their action? Does it mean anything other than they got caught, and wouldn't try again if they thought they could get away with it?

No, it does not.

Were actual changes to policy made other than to put the core rules into creative commons? No they were not. It was a bad idea but it was never implemented and I don't see why it matters given the changes they've made over the past two years.

 

[mamba]

The ogl disaster that was reversed and resulted in the core rules being put into creative commons? Why does that matter two years after they reversed direction?

Trust broken, and they needed to be strongarmed into not breaking the law. That is why.

Let's see what they do with the 3e SRD and the 2024 one before anything is even close to being settled here

 

[mamba]

Were actual changes to policy made other than to put the core rules into creative commons? No they were not.

precisely that is the issue... no one was held accountable and whether they learned anything from it is doubtful at best

It was a bad idea but it was never implemented and I don't see why it matters given the changes they've made over the past two years.

what changes, you just said there weren't any one sentence before

 

[AlViking]

precisely that is the issue... no one was held accountable and whether they learned anything from it is doubtful at best


what changes, you just said there weren't any one sentence before

I said other than putting the core rules in creative commons so I don't know if you just didn't bother reading the entire sentence or I'm just misunderstanding your issue.

 

[mamba]

I said other than putting the core rules in creative commons

I saw it, the problem is that they did that to appease everyone, not because it is what they considered the right thing to do. The jerk who was intent on breaking the OGL contract is still in charge of Hasbro and I do not believe that he 'saw the light' here.

So what he got with the CC is a truce, no more. If he wants to gain back more than that, he will have to do more, we still do not have the 3e SRD in CC and the 2024 is still out too (the latter is easily explained though), so let's see how that goes first

 

[AlViking]

Trust broken, and they needed to be strongarmed into not breaking the law. That is why.

Let's see what they do with the 3e SRD and the 2024 one before anything is even close to being settled here

They never considered breaking the law in any way since the ogl was not actually a license and was never enforceable. Even if they had enacted the new version there's no reason to believe it would have been legally binding since the original ogl was more of a gentleman's agreement to not bother suing everybody like tsr threatened back in the day. I spent a couple minutes looking it up and Part 3: The Damage Done by the Otherwise Ineffectual Open Gaming License #DnD #copyright #iplaw #ogl has a detailed explanation better than I can give of the legalese side of things. Short version is that nobody has ever established whether or not you can legally protect game rules and the ogl did not do that.

I agree that it was an incredibly stupid move but the end result was that they actually listened to feedback and changed to creative commons which is something many companies would not have done. They've also opened up dndbeyond to third party materials which is something I never thought we'd ever see.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They never considered breaking the law in any way since the ogl was not actually a license and was never enforceable. Even if they had enacted the new version there's no reason to believe it would have been legally binding since the original ogl was more of a gentleman's agreement to not bother suing everybody like tsr threatened back in the day. I spent a couple minutes looking it up and Part 3: The Damage Done by the Otherwise Ineffectual Open Gaming License #DnD #copyright #iplaw #ogl has a detailed explanation better than I can give of the legalese side of things. Short version is that nobody has ever established whether or not you can legally protect game rules and the ogl did not do that.

I agree that it was an incredibly stupid move but the end result was that they actually listened to feedback and changed to creative commons which is something many companies would not have done. They've also opened up dndbeyond to third party materials which is something I never thought we'd ever see.

Judging by that article's title it seems rather blatantly biased against the OGL.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

The ogl disaster that was reversed and resulted in the core rules being put into creative commons? Why does that matter two years after they reversed direction?

I suppose. But again, that is one element of the Hasbro machine I find distasteful, and they only stopped due to public outcry. I don't view them as a company I would like to support even if they put out a game I found entertaining, which they don't. Which is ultimately why I threw away 5e...I ran it for a while and found it just mediocre at best. Habro just helps push me farther away.