C&Ds for Online D&D 5E Character Generators

Ed Friedlander reports that WotC has asked him to remove his D&D character generators. Ed ran the generators at his site, Pathguy.com, including a D&D 5E character generator. His Pathfinder RPG character generator is still running. Thanks to Slayyne for the scoop (who also reports that at least one other site has also closed). [Update: while the actual request has not been shared, others have reported that these are very amicable requests].

You can see his closing note here.

"After almost two decades, Wizards of the Coast has asked me to remove my online character generators. I appreciate the many people who have written and thanked me for my work, and I hope you will continue to enjoy the hobby.

As a physician and gamer, I've supported and defended the hobby, and helped concerned families understand its value.

The "Dungeons and Dragons" phenomenon has encouraged young people to study other cultures. It is a game in which people work together to accomplish a meaningful goal. Characters even define themselves in terms of their good morals and their ethics. On one level, it simulates the spiritual warfare described in the Christian scriptures and in the Arthurian legends on which the game is based. I am proud that I was able to make a contribution.

My generator for Pathfinder will of course remain online. Click here for more information about this role-playing game.

May your dice come up 20s.

Ed Friedlander MD"

Back in November, the D&D Tools website suffered a similar fate, as have a couple of spellcard websites. While WotC appears to be largely easygoing as far as fan creations are concerned, they do take action when content from their products is copied or distributed.

Ed's character generator created characters by selecting a number of options, and output a character sheet similar to below. I'm not all that familiar with it, so I don't know what text, if any, it may have borrowed from the official rules.

As yet, there's no license (Open Gaming or otherwise) for D&D 5th Edition (although WotC does intend to do so), although a number of publishers have published books anyway using the older Open Gaming License for D&D 3E and 3.5.

What is interesting to hear is that some people who have received such requests describe them as very amicable. Toxic Rat says "Speaking from personal experience, I received a very nice email asking that I take down particular content owned by WotC. No threats, no warnings of legal action, just a request to honor their copyright." That's great to hear.

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[Bugleyman]

My sense is that Hasbro/Wotc is just not a software company. Their focus is on other things, so they are inept at doing the software thing. My 2c though.

Exactly. But for some reason that is a very contentious position to take on this board.

 

[Sacrosanct]

First of all, that's not what you said. You said "experiences working on projects in a corporate environment."
l.

Um...there's not much difference in what I said, at least in how it impacts my point. Whether you managed projects yourself, or were directly involved in the project is what I was getting at. I.e, having at least some experience in how the project management process goes. And if you work with the project managers on a daily basis, than I'm assuming you're more than familiar with the project lifecycle, whether your company followed Integrated Methodology or some other process. In my experience, regardless of the "official" process you follow, they're all pretty much the same, from inception, to requirements drafting, to BRDs, FSD, MDDs, etc. all the way up to production rollout. And since I'm assuming you know all this (since you said you interact with them on a daily basis), you must know just how lengthy and detailed a process like that is.

And to be honest, if we're going to go by what people said, you clearly were talking about things other than just PDFs. In fact, the first two things on your list were an OGL and software like a character generator.

Fixing it would be simple and fast:

1. OGL 5E.
2. License Lone Wolf (with very modest fees) to do an a 5E package for Hero Lab.
3. Release 5E PDFs on D&DClassics.com.

Then you also made several posts after that talking specifically about tools like a character generator, and not PDFs. I'll also note that in my post you quoted, I was talking about OGL and software, and not things like PDFs, so why you chose to ignore what you posted earlier and what I was replying to and instead focus only on PDFs is a bit odd to me. It addresses nothing I said for one. Secondly, it appears to me as massive goal post shifting, from "here's a list of things" to "here's just one thing".

So you're accusing them of dropping the ball massively, but haven't been able to refute anything I've said regarding two of the most important things on your list as to why they actually haven't in fact, "dropped the ball"---licensing and software.

 

[Bugleyman]

I chose to elaborate on PDFs because they're the low-hanging fruit. In other words, I was picking the easiest thing for them to get right. And yet they haven't. I literally don't know how to more clearly articulate the argument for why this represents a failure than I've already done upthread (repeated below for your reference). If you'd believe there is a flaw in my argument, by all means let's discuss it, but otherwise I have nothing more to say on the matter.

Premise 1: Releasing PDFs (at a minimum) is the RPG industry norm for digital support.
Premise 2: It is reasonable to expect the industry leader (WotC) to provide product offerings which (again, at a minimum) match the industry norm.
Premise 3: There are no (legal) PDFs, despite ample time and opportunity (and a pre-existing distribution channel) to release them.
Conclusion: WotC has failed to meet reasonable expectations (aka "they have dropped the ball").

As for me, I think I've explained that I do, in fact, have at least some knowledge of how corporations operate; specifically how publishing companies operate. I'm sorry, but your assumption to the contrary was mistaken. In any event, how about we focus on the topic, instead of on each other?

 

[BoldItalic]

How did we get from "WotC issued a C&D" to "WotC haven't put out a PDF of the PHB" as the bone of contention?

I can see an argument that, if the PDF were available it would result in WotC having to issue more C&D's because it made it easier for people to copy the text and violate their copyright, but I fail to see how it would lead to fewer, if that is what people are advocating.

 

[Mistwell]

Bottom line: WOTC is failing at each step of this product.

So, record sales, and a product you like a whole lot, but they're failing at each step?

This is the FIRST time they've released an edition without any sense from the fans that they're being heard or communicated to.

This sentence, to me, looks like it's written in a bizzaro world. This was the largest playtest ever, for any RPG game, in the history of RPGs. It's the MOST fan feedback any company has ever had on an RPG. But in your view, you think this is the first edition with no sense of being heard?

I can't tell if this is normal internet exaggeration for effect, or if you really have an alien viewpoint relative to my own. I mean, I understand either way - you're either really frustrated and so figured exaggeration will bring attention to the thing you're frustrated about, or else you have a perspective totally different than mine. But...I am not really understanding your view right now. If I were WOTC and I saw your view, as you wrote it, I would dismiss you as someone impossible to satisfy - they can't spend that much time and money on a playtest that large and then do anything meaningful with comments like that which claim it's the first edition where there is no sense of the fans being heard.

 

[Mistwell]

I chose to elaborate on PDFs because they're the low-hanging fruit. In other words, I was picking the easiest thing for them to get right. And yet they haven't. I literally don't know how to more clearly articulate the argument for why this represents a failure than I've already done upthread (repeated below for your reference). If you'd believe there is a flaw in my argument, by all means let's discuss it, but otherwise I have nothing more to say on the matter.

Premise 1: Releasing PDFs (at a minimum) is the RPG industry norm for digital support.

The easy response is, in an industry with essentially only 2 players, there is no industry standard.

I mean, if Pepsi, RC cola, and Joe's grape flavored soda all sell their drinks at a large movie theater chain but Coca Cola does not, does that mean Coca Cola is failing to meet an industry standard? No...there's really only two genuine players in that market, and there is no real industry standard if one decides to do something different from the other.

 

[Morrus]

Oh, for goodness' sake. They're under pressure from retailers and distributors to delay electronic releases. How is this not obvious?

If anyone literally thinks WotC is not selling PDFs because they just don't feel like it right now, then I don't know what to say to them.

 

[Bugleyman]

Morrus; they pulled the 4E PDFS FIVE YEARS AGO. At the time, they explicitly stated it was due to piracy. I don't think they're not selling them because "they don't feel like it." And further, I think you know that. I believe they're not selling them because their executives don't get digital. At all. I've seen it at my own company...they're scared, and so they cling to an antiquated business model.

As for pressure from retailers, I honestly don't understand how the on Wizards is any different than the pressure on Paizo, or Troll Lord, or Pinnacle, or Green Ronin, or Evil Hat, or Pelgrane Press, or anyone else. Yet somehow, every single one of those companies sells PDFs day and date.

Look, I get that this is your site. But if you don't want people questioning what WotC does, why don't you just say that?

 

[Mistwell]

Morrus; they pulled the 4E PDFS FIVE YEARS AGO. At the time, they explicitly stated it was due to piracy.

And then they started selling PDFs again later. Now you can buy a whole ton of PDFs from WOTC at dndclassics.com, and I think it's been that way for 2 years now. So, your point seems rather outdated.

 

[Bugleyman]

Ans then they started selling PDFs again later. Now you can buy a whole ton of PDFs from WOTC at dndclassics.com. So, your point seems rather outdated.

Actually, it isn't. You *still* can't buy the 4E core books there, let alone the 5E ones. If you could, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

...but you already knew that. So how about we both stop beating our heads against a brick wall and agree to disagree?