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That's nice. But unless you're willing to add any information to the conversation, such as the actual cost of printing & shipping, then that doesn't really further the discussion. You're basically just saying "nuh-uh."

What's the hit-to-miss ratio for great 5e 3PP? How many truly great products that WotC would never have produced have been released in the last decade? How many have seen use at your table for more than one or two encounters?

Ballparking based on the "20/20/20/40" rule where you spend 20% on printing, 20% on distribution, and the store/ retailer gets 40% with the publisher getting 20% to offset costs. Because it's a good baseline. With a $50 book that's $10 to Paizo and $10 to the printer. Not precisely accurate, at...

Do you know the best way to make a small fortune in tabletop gaming? Start with a large fortune. They're not some mom-and-pop but they're also not a huge corporation with $100 million just collecting dust in the vaults. Employees cost money. Staff salaries alone likely cost Paizo half-a-million...

Right. But this is a legal issue, not a debate. "Compelling evidence" isn't a logical argument or straight facts, but a precedent set by a judge regarding a related case. Hasbro's lawyers seem to think they can argue this point and win.

Right. Over a hundred employees. Paizo likely has some decent cash reserves. Probably stretched after the shippocalypse and due to the pandemic. But they can probably coast for a few months. But six? A year? All while paying for office space in Redmond, Washington and the full salaries &...

#NotALawyer of course. But if they published something using the OGL they're using copyrighted/ derivative text. If the OGL 1.0a goes away, then they no longer have permission to do so. At which point, selling that material becomes a violation of copyright. Stores might be able to get away with...

It is being talked about. But the main subreddit is really full of fans, who aren't pausing their art, cosplay, maps, and table stories. So the OGL discussion gets buried. The other ones are smaller and have less traffic so the OGLs stay on the top longer. But even then, internet outrage is...

What's your reasoning? They'll need money for a protracted legal battle with Hasbro lawyers. They might not be able to sell existing products, and any "fundraiser" items would have production costs to make, reducing the total funds available for lawyers. Collection donations from the fans...

It's one thing to shut down an extension or app. It's another to ban thousands of users and take away the books they paid for.

But the extension doesn't have to sign the ToS. In that instance, dndbeyond wouldn't target the extension but the users, locking accounts.

Doing something once isn't the same as doing it five or six times. Especially given the 3PP glut in the early 2000s and the waves of low quality products that flooded the market. They might be hesitant to repeat that mistake.

I think they're hoping/ expecting Paizo and the others will just roll over and not fight. I think this is more Hasbro and upper WotC management that doesn't care much about D&D beyond the numbers. And they likely expected 99% of fans to just shrug and say "whatever." Especially as it's a...

Use of the D&D name would weaken the WotC trademark. And WotC doesn't want unofficial books being mistake for official ones. Launch day products are nice, but that's a short term perk, and most tend to be low quality as the 3PP can't keep up with official changes. But all these perks really...

There's the lawyer here and the reporter at Gizmodo who stated that the new license explicitly de-authorizes the old. WotC clearly believes they can touch the old OGL. Whether or not all the fans agree is largely irrelevant...

Critical Role is largely safe, as they could make an in-house system. They'd benefit from a lighter ruleset. Which would be quick and easy to make. Pathfinder and Paizo is in a harder place. Making a new ruleset takes a loooong time. They spent a year playtesting PF2 and likely another year or...

How does it matter? D&D is making hundreds of millions. They paid $146 million for dndbeyond.com Why would they care about upsetting a 3rd Party Publisher that needed Kickstarter to raise <$400k? I think the content bringing gamers into D&D is Critical Role and Stranger Things. The vast, vast...

Was that WotC? It's stopped working a few times, but I believe that was following Roll20 updates. I'm unfamiliar with that story. Can you provide a link to a breakdown? Also, Beyond20 works on the Foundry.

They're not trying to kill them. They're trying to get the fifteen or twenty successful ones to share money with them. And kill Pathfinder. And prevent another Pathfinder in the future. (I.e. Critical Role doing their own D&D clone.) But, really, all this is likely just a bonus compared to the...

This is very true. It's probably worth keeping in mind that the OGL was big news for the 2000s and the 3.X generation. I.e. the audience of this site. But for anyone under 20 and anyone who got started with D&D in the last five years, 3PP are probably less of a "thing." The high school and...