We All Won – The OGL Three Years Later

[Some Dude]

Give some examples of actively hostile to other games.

-Lawsuits against Mayfair/Role Aids. Continued legal dickery which eventually resulted in Mayfair selling the line to TSR, who promptly buried it.
-The OGL, as I previously stated.
-Removing Cthulhu from Deities & Demigods, despite being told they could use it as long as they gave credit, because they didn't want to mention another game publisher (Chaosium) in one of their products.
-Using predatory loan practices to acquire SPI, so they could kill Dragonquest and Universe.
-Widespread C&Ds to numerous D&D (and even Ars Magica) fan sites in the early internet days.


This isn't even all of them.

 

[Deset Gled]

I am not sure what you see as whataboutism here. No one said ‘yeah WotC bungled that OGL thing, but look at how badly X handled their license’

The OP wants us to look at how good the market is going, and claims it means we "won" the OGL thing. What about this success? What about that product doing well?

Can you explain how the success of Pathfinder 2e was a result of the OGL fiasco? Is there a reason to connect any of the games OP listed to the OGL thing, or are we just celebrating bread and circuses? Is the guy selling epoxy dice and 3d printed minis at the local craft fair also "winning" the OGL thing, or is he just there because he's following changes in the market? Personally, I don't see the connections.

For the record, I like the circus. And I've got more than my food pyramid's worth of gluten in my diet. I just prefer to be a bit more realistic about it. Daggeheart is successful because of Critical Role, not the OGL fiasco. Shadowdark owes more to Kelsey Dionne's web and convention presence than anything WotC has done for her. We didn't win those things from WotC. We bought them.

 

[Reynard]

-Lawsuits against Mayfair/Role Aids. Continued legal dickery which eventually resulted in Mayfair selling the line to TSR, who promptly buried it.
-The OGL, as I previously stated.
-Removing Cthulhu from Deities & Demigods, despite being told they could use it, because they didn't want to mention another game publisher (Chaosium) in one of their products.
-Using predatory loan practices to acquire SPI, so they could kill Dragonquest and Universe.
-Widespread C&Ds to numerous D&D (and even Ars Magica) fan sites in the early internet days.


This isn't even all of them.

Most of this is them protecting their IP and trying to sell D&D.

I.thought you meant real hostility, like leveraging control over distribution channels or trying to trademark or patent things already in the public domain.

Telling people they can't use your trademark without a license hardly seems hostile.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think it is nearly the same thing.

The toxic parts of the new OGL they were pushing applied no matter how you published.

Instead, they went to CC, so in traditional channels you can do anything you want. It is only within D&DB that there is control.

You figure that folks who run stores and adapt things to their electronic platforms shouldn't have the right to curate what is on their platforms? It is "evil" for them to do so?

I mean, I get it, but I really don't find the fact that they essentially operate Beyond as "invite-only" to be reputable or cool, really.

Also, I don't think we should use the term "curate" unless actual curation (which is a serious activity and would involve subjecting every product of a "Nintendo Seal of Quality"-style process) is going on, and I don't perceive that as being the case with Beyond. I don't think it's common at all now - in fact, Nintendo even gave up on it - their store is full of worst slop imaginable. I'm not saying WotC should go that far, but I do think they should have a straightforward process for 3PPs to get on Beyond.

I just prefer to be a bit more realistic about it. Daggeheart is successful because of Critical Role, not the OGL fiasco. Shadowdark owes more to Kelsey Dionne's web and convention presence than anything WotC has done for her. We didn't win those things from WotC. We bought them.

I think that's actually being less realistic and more rhetorical - "We didn't win those things from WotC. We bought them." is absolutely rhetoric!

But I think if we are being realistic we see that OGL 1.1/2.0 debacle was not the sole cause of the success of those products, but certainly part of the picture, and maybe a significant part. It caused a lot of publishers and designers to think more seriously about their relationship with WotC, and a lot of fans to question exactly what they were supporting.

I think it genuinely damaged hype for D&D 2024 too, and caused people to look at 2024 in a more cynical way (perhaps unfairly).

 

[Reynard]

I mean, I get it, but I really don't find the fact that they essentially operate Beyond as "invite-only" to be reputable or cool, really.

Also, I don't think we should use the term "curate" unless actual curation (which is a serious activity and would involve subjecting every product of a "Nintendo Seal of Quality"-style process) is going on, and I don't perceive that as being the case with Beyond. I don't think it's common at all now - in fact, Nintendo even gave up on it - their store is full of worst slop imaginable. I'm not saying WotC should go that far, but I do think they should have a straightforward process for 3PPs to get on Beyond.


I think that's actually being less realistic and more rhetorical - "We didn't win those things from WotC. We bought them." is absolutely rhetoric!

But I think if we are being realistic we see that OGL 1.1/2.0 debacle was not the sole cause of the success of those products, but certainly part of the picture, and maybe a significant part. It caused a lot of publishers and designers to think more seriously about their relationship with WotC, and a lot of fans to question exactly what they were supporting.

I think it genuinely damaged hype for D&D 2024 too, and caused people to look at 2024 in a more cynical way (perhaps unfairly).

DMs Guild definitely seems to operate under the "Offocial Seal of Quantity" paradigm.

 

[Morrus]

You figure that folks who run stores and adapt things to their electronic platforms shouldn't have the right to curate what is on their platforms? It is "evil" for them to do so?

That’s not the argument though. The argument as I understand it is that in trying to make a near-monopoly they then exercise undue market power on the industry. If — and it’s a big if — industry wide consumer acceptance of a product is reliant on an invitation from the market leader, that’s a problem.

Whether one agrees with that is another matter, but that’s the reasoning. And obviously we’re not currently in that position, but the fear is that that’s the destination.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Telling people they can't use your trademark without a license hardly seems hostile.

That's obviously a rather crude over-simplification of the issue. You may find that compelling, but I think it actually significantly weakens your argument. The entire rhetorical device of "let's over-simplify something to try and make it look good" is kind of DOA since "Wow so it's illegal to make plans with friends now".

The reality is that TSR was quite hostile towards other games, and doing what it could to mess with them, but there was a limit to what it could do. WotC haven't been as hostile, but have definitely never had a "rising tide lifts all boats" attitude to other RPGs except when D&D itself is looking kinda down.

trying to trademark or patent things already in the public domain

Pretty sure TSR tried at that least once.

Most of this is them protecting their IP and trying to sell D&D.

Neither of which is a blank cheque for rubbish behaviour, even though some people inexplicably insist both are.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

DMs Guild definitely seems to operate under the "Offocial Seal of Quantity" paradigm.

Does it? I was under the impression products on there weren't curated meaningfully, they just had to meet certain requirements, by which logic the Steam or Nintendo stores would be "curated", but neither is.

 

[SlyFlourish]

But the OP didn't even ask us what our opinion was

Read the first line of my post again please.

Let me save you the click "I'm working on a show topic for my Lazy RPG Talk Show tomorrow and thought I'd share the notes here to get people's thoughts."

More specifically, the harmed they caused was the fracturing of what used to be a consistent safe common harbor, so some legal effort to repair that would have been much more ameliorative than chucking the SRD in the CC and wiping their hands.

It turns out it was weak enough that the company who published the license thought they could deauthorize it. That's why releasing in the CC was necessary. People think it was weak because, it turns out, it is weak. Now, today, it's probably fine to keep using it because we know it'll be a long time before WOTC tries something like that again but it's not impossible. The CC feels a lot safer.

It's certainly possible that WotC can't actually repair the damage they did, but they didn't really try.

They did lots of things. Tons of videos, tons of interviews, releasing ten different SRDs in five languages for two systems in the CC. Supporting other competing VTTs with their flagship RPG. Of course, all of these moves help them too, but those are definitely things that tried to repair the damage.

This thread reminds me that WotC kept making noises about putting previous SRDs under CC, but has never actually made any movement in that direction. I would go so far as to suggest they were always lying and never intended to put the 3.0 or 3.5 SRD into CC.

To my knowledge, and someone can go get me a quote if I'm wrong, they only promised the 3.5 SRD in the CC which they haven't done. I think they should do so. They promised to do so. But I don't think it's that important really because almost anything you would want to do with the 3.5 SRD you can do with the 5.1 SRD. Shadowdark wouldn't care. OSE doesn't care. Only, I suppose, if you were going to simply republish the entiire 3.5 SRD in a new product would it matter but I think you can do a lot of reverse engineering to make a 3rd style game with the 5.1 SRD. I think the same is true with a 4e clone if you wanted to.

IANAL of course.

When WotC proposed the original version of the OGL that started the uproar three years ago, did it actively threaten the ability of ENWorld Publishing, Draw Steel, Kobold Press, Darrington Press, Arcane Library and the like to publish their games?

Were those publishers satisfied with the changes that came after that uproar?

@Ruin Explorer's post covers it really well. Yes, it actively threatened just about every 5e publisher at the time because it wasn't clear what they were going to do about older products already published under the OGL 1.0a.

Not everyone was satisfied as seen in this thread, but most of us were literally jumping up and down with joy to hear the 5.1 SRD would be released in full in the CC BY. I was on a video call when we got the word and another publisher I was talking to literally stood up and started doing karate punches.

Now, legally, the consensus from people who weighed in (including actual lawyers) was that WotC probably couldn't do that, because the OGL was explicitly designed to prevent that, but that they could cause significant legal problems for publishers that might dissuade them from using it.

One major publisher talked to their lawyer about fighting it and their lawyer said it would probably cost about a million dollars in legal fees with a 50% chance of success to prove in court that they couldn't deauthorize the OGL.

There’s definitely a difference between whether I feel like we as a community of fans won versus how third party publishers may feel, and I think they’re the ones who matter the most.

I think those who just love the hobby (and I count myself among that group) can look at the incredible range of RPGs from different publishers with different styles can see how great the hobby is right now and I think some of that came from breaking away from the central pillar of D&D 5e. At the time, so much attention was paid to publishing material just for 5e and so many of those publishers are now publishing their own systems or for other systems. That variety is, in my opinion, fantastic. I have no shortage of 5e material to run and also no shortage of just about any other RPG I want to run.

I think that's great.

I think the people who really take umbrage with my "we all won" take is that it somehow defends WOTC for their actions. That's certainly not how I see it. They made a huge mistake acting out of hubris, greed, and an attempt at control and it bit them in the ass. I think things are way better now. I think WOTC is behaving a lot better now. But what WOTC did back then can never be undone. Jerks on Youtube will keep bringing it up every year....

 

[Reynard]

Does it? I was under the impression products on there weren't curated meaningfully, they just had to meet certain requirements, by which logic the Steam or Nintendo stores would be "curated", but neither is.

Maybe you need to reread my post?