Ginny Di interviews WotC's Kyle Brink

Continuing the D&D executive producer's interview tour, gaming influencer Ginny Di asks a WotC's Kyle Brink about the OGL and other things.

​

 

[Dausuul]

really? I had the opposite impression, not that I checked the 3e ones, simply based on the discussions here they seem far more complete

The 3E ones are indeed far more complete. However, they have also been carefully scoured for references to product identity, and those references removed, in a way that was not done with the 5E SRD.

 

[Parmandur]

I suppose WotC could become super duper scrutinizes of everything that uses that cc license and become letigous about anything that crosses the line by even a hair. And still leave the cc intact.

I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t do that. Really, I dint think for a second they’d do that. I do actually trust them that they won’t. But I never thought they’d go after the OGL either.

Honestly no bottom line benefit for it: trusting corporate greed, cowardice, and laziness is a much easier sell for me than their collective virtue.

 

[JEB]

We need to make sure we don't release things we don't intend or that aren't necessary for playing 3.0 or 3.5...

Interesting - are they actually thinking about putting the 3.0 SRD under CC in addition to the 3.5 one? I figured we'd just get 3.5.

(The d20 Modern SRD would also be awful nice, simply because it contributed to games like Mutants & Masterminds and True20.)

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Was pleased to see that she shared my opinion on what the morality clause was tossed in.

I generally share her scepticism.

 

[darjr]

Honestly no bottom line benefit for it: trusting corporate greed, cowardice, and laziness is a much easier sell for me than their collective virtue.

There wasn’t for trying to deauth the OGL either. The license fees would have been a tiny invisible fraction.

 

[Haplo781]

Interesting - are they actually thinking about putting the 3.0 SRD under CC in addition to the 3.5 one? I figured we'd just get 3.5.

(The d20 Modern SRD would also be awful nice, simply because it contributed to games like Mutants & Masterminds and True20.)

I think (hope) he was using it as shorthand for all the previous SRDs yeah.

 

[Parmandur]

There wasn’t for trying to deauth the OGL either. The license fees would have been a tiny invisible fraction.

So I would have thought: that, more than trusting the honesty of a guy I hadn't heard of a month ago, is why I give quite a bit of credence to the stated fear of megacorp and ideological interlocutors being the real target of all this..because brand protection makes more dollars and cents than nickel and dimeng 3PP.

 

[Arnie_Wan_Kenobi]

A Churchill quote comes to mind

“You can always rely on America to do the right thing -- once it has exhausted the alternatives.”

Laughing: this was exactly my reaction. It's a pleasure to see I'm not the only one.

 

[Retreater]

I liked Ginny Di's commentary and cutting to the point of the interview. Well done.
And I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in my concerns.

 

[TerraDave]

I liked Ginny Di's commentary and cutting to the point of the interview. Well done.
And I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in my concerns.

It was the more concise, higher gloss version of these interviews.

Her conclusions were good ones: trust community commons, but WotC, no quite so much.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Literally just publishing the extant 4e SRD, useless as it is, under a CC license would be a huge improvement.

100% disagree. That would be the worst thing they could do. Even worse than nothing, really, because as long as they haven't done anything, they still might do something else. If they just published the 4E SRD as is under CC-BY, it's almost certain that's all you're getting ever. Better not to give them that "out" and keep demanding a proper SRD.

 

[Haplo781]

100% disagree. That would be the worst thing they could do. Even worse than nothing, really, because as long as they haven't done anything, they still might do something else. If they just published the 4E SRD as is under CC-BY, it's almost certain that's all you're getting ever. Better not to give them that "out" and keep demanding a proper SRD.

Perfect is the enemy of the good.

 

[overgeeked]

Now that so much has passed, for good, ill, or (most likely) in between, this is why I keep coming back to these threads on Kyle's interviews. I want 4e D&D put into CC so much I can taste it.

Can you imagine. They put out 4E as OGL and CC-BY…then someone swoops in with the VTT support 4E needed and it takes off. D’oh.

 

[BlueFin]

The Big Question - "how are you planning to regain our trust"? The answer to this is to stop lying to us, but he/they continue to do just that. This is the third interview with KB that I have either watched or read a summary of. His answers are total BS, and completely incongruent. In this interview for example he states "1.2 was a significant departure from 1.1" - that is a total lie. 1.2 was for the most part the same, but far worse because it was an attempt to have the same control, but the mechanisms for that control were more hidden - the whole document was far more insidious.

You can actually say that 1.1 was at least an honest document in so far as it was clear in its intent. 1.2 was just an attempt to hide that intent.

To further make the point, he states "Saying irrevocable probably isn't good enough, cause people might not even take our word for that." - well of course not, because again, wotc was completely disingenuous in 1.2 when it tried to use the word "irrevocable" but change the meaning to be something that was nothing to do with what the community was asking for.

The astonishing thing is their complete lack of understanding of their own community and our ability to pull apart their BS.

But now it seems to be working. What's going to happen here is that he is going to have all these interviews, say the same thing everytime, and eventually most customers will just accept it as true simply because they have heard it repeated enough times, and I think that is what they are relying upon. It is a well established tactic of marketers and politicians.

So it's up to you folks, whether you end up accepting what he is saying simply because he is saying it over and over again, or whether you continue to consider what he is saying critically and with a healthy dose of skepticism.

 

[BlueFin]

A Churchill quote comes to mind

“You can always rely on America to do the right thing -- once it has exhausted the alternatives.”

Oh wow, I had never heard this quote before, and now I will never forget it. Perfect for many occasions.

 

[Aldarc]

Can you imagine. They put out 4E as OGL and CC-BY…then someone swoops in with the VTT support 4E needed and it takes off. D’oh.

I would definitely be curious to see if someone could do for 4e what Necrotic Gnome and OSR, in general, did for B/X and give it a nice polish.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The Big Question - "how are you planning to regain our trust"? The answer to this is to stop lying to us, but he/they continue to do just that.

Snip

So it's up to you folks, whether you end up accepting what he is saying simply because he is saying it over and over again, or whether you continue to consider what he is saying critically and with a healthy dose of skepticism.

We already know, that corporate speech is corporate speech, and compared to that standard we have gotten a lot out of him, even some promises for the future.
Thinking that other people can't think for themself, even if they draw different conclusions is arrogant.

We also know that the attempt of killing the competition resulted in the opposite.

So we can just accept that we have to leave behind what happened, and go on with our lives.

 

[BlueFin]

Thinking that other people can't think for themself, even if they draw different conclusions is arrogant.

That's your interpretation of what I wrote, and it's incorrect. I am posing the question as to whether people are arriving at their conclusions after applying at least some level of critical thought, or willingly accepting what KB is saying as truth without consideration. I am not saying one way or another is right or wrong (but given that's the conclusion you jumped to, the issue is yours).

I can understand if people just want to move on, I just hope they have actually thought it through and realise the potential consequences. And I am seeing a lot of comments (here and elsewhere) that suggest people are willing to just accept what he is saying, and assume his answers are truthful, kind of like this one (because there is nothing written in the post that suggests any kind of questioning consideration, whereas in my post where I made an accusation regarding KB, I provided an example) -

So we can just accept that we have to leave behind what happened, and go on with our lives.

That's not a position I am willing to take (yet) because what I see is a corporate mouth piece telling everyone what they want to hear, while dodging some important questions with "oh I wasn't there so I can't comment" (which in my view is a completely unacceptable response if he wants to be taken seriously - given the role he is fulfilling, he should have found out the answers to those questions).

But in terms of "going on with our lives", I never stopped

We also know that the attempt of killing the competition resulted in the opposite.

This remains to be seen. The energy is still high and plans of certain 3PPs appear to be going forward, and I certainly hope they get finished ... but whether they do actually go the distance remains to be seen.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That's your interpretation of what I wrote, and it's incorrect. I am posing the question as to whether people are arriving at their conclusions after applying at least some level of critical thought, or willingly accepting what KB is saying as truth without consideration. I am not saying one way or another is right or wrong (but given that's the conclusion you jumped to, the issue is yours).

I am giving a cautious thumb up, allthough I still find the assumption people take what is said without critical thought flawed.
But I think you mean it as general advice which is good.

And yes, after being asked about the same topic in different interviews, he should have some answers in the next.
But if he does not, I won't make him responsible personally, but accept, that at some point, he might not be allowed to go into more detail... and which we need to accept as a corporate decision, even if we don't like it.

 

[BlueFin]

And yes, after being asked about the same topic in different interviews, he should have some answers in the next.
But if he does not, I won't make him responsible personally, but accept, that at some point, he might not be allowed to go into more detail... and which we need to accept as a corporate decision, even if we don't like it.

Agreed, I don't make KB personally responsible either. But what you have gone on to describe here is the very reason why for me, they aren't rebuilding trust. I think they need to be painfully honest. No-one, for example, would want to take ownership of that first response on D&D beyond, but someone should. Whatever executive authorised that piece of dross should come out and say so, and say they messed up. Should they lose their job? I don't know. I can say that I personally don't need or expect them to lose their job. But I want to see real honesty, and so far, I don't believe we are.

Another important example to me is in the first interview with 3BH where KB stated that -

1. by the time 1.1 was leaked, they had already moved on from it, but,
2. they were afraid (I think that's the word he used) to say any response.

I find these answers to be completely incongruous, because if No 1 was true, then it would be the most obvious thing in the world to come out immediately and say "no, no, please don't worry, we know 1.1 was wrong and we have moved on. We'll have a new version soon".

So you see, to me, pretty much everything he says in relation to "the saga", is complete BS.