D&D Tools Website Closed

A few people have dropped me emails to tell me that the D&D Tools website has been closed. In its place is a message which indicates that WotC sent them a Cease & Desist request, with which they appear to have complied. I'm not very familiar with the site, but it contained a lot of 3.x era D&D official content.

Looking at snapshots from Wayback Machine, it does appear that the site included plenty of material not covered by the Open Gaming License. The note below says it was serving 1M pages per week, or 4M per month, which puts it on par with some of the biggest RPG websites (that's similar to EN World), so it was a pretty big deal.

The full closing letter is shown below.

D&D Tools – End of an Era...
Hello everyone,

TGG here. As you have probably gathered, we have received a Cease and Desist letter from WotC (well, from a law company under WotC rule). I'd like to take some time now to comment on this.

I started D&D tools some five years ago as a tool for me to find "all the feats that affect criticals". From then, it grew up a lot, both in content and audience.

At the time of this letter, the site served roughly 1.000.000 pages a week.

100 races.

500 items.

1.000 classes.

3.000 feats.

5.000 spells.

Everything was interlinked with each other. Feats listed requirements as links. You could find what a class had for prerequisite and click it right away. Wanted to know what spells are there available for a class in campaign settings? No problem. Lots and lots of filtering and searching.

At November 14, 2014, I've received a letter requesting that we put the site down. As of now I have to comply, since I have neither time nor law skills nor resources to do otherwise. Also, I'm not allowed to post the letter itself here.
... about future?

First of all, the site itself is open source project. The sources are my intellectual property and I'm free to share them as I wish. About a year ago I created a repository at github – https://github.com/dndtools/dndtools. The setup notes might not be up to date, but it's possible to get it running with OGL contents. Since it was there long before the C&D letter, I feel free to share the knowledge.

Second, there is also great mobile app for android a Google Play (sorry iPhone users). It comes with full OGL contents. If you are friends with Uncle Google or Web Archive, you might even find a more interesting database for it. I myself cannot claim to be the creator of it, so please do give some love to the author on the app page!

Third, since the sources codes are available for public use and the database itself was distributed among users, there is nothing in my power to prevent others to try to resurrect the site.
Final words

I want to thank very much to all the people who put a lot of effort to see the site grow! Without you, it could never have grown into what it did. Thanks!

I'd also like to say something to WotC. The game you created is great. I spend a lot of time playing it. You have moved to 4e and then 5e. Why do you try to destroy what your fans have created? Things that can help players, that encourages them to play more? (I'm talking about all the sites that went down over the years) You'd better invest the money into creating something yourself than to spend it on law companies...

tgg out.

PS: Oh and if you want to say hello or something, you can find me at dndtools.eu at gmail.com.

​

I sympathize with how it must feel to have a company request that you take your website down. I've had letters from WotC's legal folks before, too, due to content on EN World, although I've always found that communication is a great way to resolve these issues and everything got handled amicably.

Below is a screenshot of the site from January or so. You can click on it to go and see the final page.

​

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A C&D letter is about as diplomatic as it gets without just making a personal phone call. However, I think WotC missed an opportunity here.

I did use that site. It was crash-prone at times, but overall, it was extremely well done. Good cross referencing, linking and sorting tools. And you could see the 3Ed AND 3.5Ed versions of most of the stuff they had on that site.

It was well enough done that, were I in WotC's shoes, I'd have floated them an offer to come into the fold as an alternative to the C&D. Yes, fees would be involved, and they'd have to find a way to make the site earn some revenue, but...

 

[Nebulous]

I don't know why they would care at this point, so many years later, but i do agree that it's probably not fair to have all of the IP property posted like that, even though it seems like a ridiculously useful resource for 3.x players. Maybe there's some compromise they can reach.

 

[Frankie1969]

The problem with suggestions about licensing or compromise is that WotC does not WANT useful resources for 3.x players. They want people to stop playing 3E (or PF, or OSRIC, or even 4E) and rejoin their party in 5E.

 

[delericho]

The problem with suggestions about licensing or compromise is that WotC does not WANT useful resources for 3.x players. They want people to stop playing 3E (or PF, or OSRIC, or even 4E) and rejoin their party in 5E.

That used to be true, but I think WotC's emphasis has changed. Yes, they would prefer us to play 5e, of course. But it does appear that, if we decide 5e isn't for us, then they'd rather support us in playing 3e (or 4e, or another edition) than lose us entirely.

It's not so clear whether they'd prefer us to play Pathfinder than not play at all. I suspect that might depend on whether we use "Hoard of the Dragon Queen" when doing so. (If nothing else, it's probably easier for them to recapture Pathfinder players than ex-players.)

It would be really good if WotC could buy that site and take it in-house. That's probably the quickest way they could get a 3e equivalent to 4e's very useful Compendium. But I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, I think WotC's PDF support for earlier editions shows that they'd rather have you playing an old edition they were selling than not at all; although their preference is for you to play 5E, they want you to play 3E or 2E over a totally different game.

 

[Umbran]

Matt, I don't think anybody thinks a C&D is non-voluntary. Defence of trademarks, though, can take many forms. A C&D is one choice. Not the most friendly one, but it's a choice. It's also totally OK to just talk to somebody. A C&D, in diplomacy terms, is the worst way to open communications.

Diplomacy is for when you want to negotiate, when some middle ground needs to be found.

By description, WotC was solidly within their rights. It isn't like their position is weak, that negotiation is the best way to get what they want.

Do you figure that WotC would be somehow okay with a half-measure, or actively sought a licensing deal? If not, why do they need to negotiate over it?

 

[Morrus]

Diplomacy is for when you want to negotiate, when some middle ground needs to be found.

By description, WotC was solidly within their rights. It isn't like their position is weak, that negotiation is the best way to get what they want.

Do you figure that WotC would be somehow okay with a half-measure, or actively sought a licensing deal? If not, why do they need to negotiate over it?

They don't need to do anything. Any yes, they are within their legal rights. And yes, they might reject any attempt at negotiation.

Then again, they are a decent bunch of folks who many of us know. They're not ogres, and may well be open to discussion. If they're not, they're not.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

[Duplicate post]

 

[Sword of Spirit]

In my anecdotal experience, the people I know who referenced that site have libraries of 3.x material and their referencing tended to be a quick alternative to looking up what they already had, lead to putting books on their shopping list--or was referencing material in books they were never going to buy anyway.

It was functionally advertising.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Diplomacy is for when you want to negotiate, when some middle ground needs to be found.

By description, WotC was solidly within their rights. It isn't like their position is weak, that negotiation is the best way to get what they want.

Do you figure that WotC would be somehow okay with a half-measure, or actively sought a licensing deal? If not, why do they need to negotiate over it?

The simple answer is "goodwill"- a happy customer base has real economic value.

FWIW, I am the kind of guy in Sword of Spirit's anecdote. I own most of the expansions for 3Ed/3.5Ed, and used the site largely as a convenience at the gaming table. It was easier to have it up & running than have a stack of books around the table for me to use. And, of course, there's stuff in the books I don't have that I simply didn't know existed until I found their site.

I always intended to make a spellbook for my most recent PC- for which their site was an invaluable aid- I may now have to revise his spell & feat list if I can't find the stuff in my library.