D&D 5E I'll make my own Fifth Edition.

[Dire Bare]

Well, when one of the leaders of the Free Culture 'movement' says, "the United States should follow the example of the Soviet Union: it should eliminate copyrights and nationalize the production of speech." I am not sure you can separate it from communism.

Not saying that "free culture" isn't communist. Just saying that we're using some charged language, which is hard not to do when conversations stray into politics. Which is why we have the "no politics" rule.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

The PHB is a big, pretty book that took a lot of talented people a lot of work to make. Artists, designers, writers, editors. I'm sure most of them love their jobs, but they also love food on the table.

This is all true. I'm not against 5E. I mostly like what I see about 5E. I like the D&D artists, designers, writers, and editors who I've met through their interviews and articles.

I do discern some systemic qualities in Hasbro, as an organization, which has negatively bent the unfolding of D&D since 3.5E, and which suggests caution on my part before investing in 5E. I'm not opposed to anyone being enthusiastic about 5E.

So you might want to hold off on your demands that everything is free forever until after the socialist revolution has alleviated their need to get paid.

It's not about socialism (Big Government). It's about a Threefold Evolution:

1) a transparent, state-free associative economy made of benefit-corporations
2) a human-centered governance, freed from monied influence
2) a state-free, commercial-free free culture

I do look forward to game designers' basic needs being met.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

It's never the HAVE people wanting everything to be free it's always the HAVE NOT's. As soon as the HAVE NOT's create wonderful works from their own imaginations by there own sweat and toil they suddenly HAVE and dislike the idea of it being stolen or themselves being unable to use their hard work to get ahead.

HAVES and HAVE NOTS is an inherently divisive framework, similar to the "Makers" and "Takers" frame.

I think you take my suggestion of Free Culture too far. I don't want everything to be free. I want only cultural services and cultural objects to be free and priceless. For economic services and commodities, I want them to be fairly-and-truly priced, so that the producers receive a dignified livelihood.

I'm not demanding or forcing Hasbro to do anything. From the economic perspective of Hasbro, I'm a customer and consumer. As a consumer, I'm voicing that I prefer that these mythologies be intentionally released one step beyond the Open Game License. And I offer some evidence as to why this would be not just good for me, and good for the game, but also beneficial to Hasbro's core rulebook, worldbook, and novels sales.

If the HAVE NOT's were personally devoted to Free Culture from the start, and made their path to success along the Free Culture path, then more would remain true to their values once they reached their goal.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

It makes no sense. If it wasn't for profit, D&D wouldn't exist today. It would have remained as some insignificant obscure house rules for wargaming in Gary Gygax's home. There would never have been TSR or AD&D.

That's a good point. However, the Free Culture, Creative Commons, Open Source movement didn't exist yet in the 1970s.

In our decade, there are now things which have come into being which wouldn't have existed if it weren't for the Free Culture movement; for example: Linux, all the 3E-based RPGs such as MnM and Pathfinder (the d20 System and OGL weren't bought or sold), and Wikipedia. Others could name more.

It'd be like saying in the year 2000: "Wikipedia makes no sense. If it wasn't for profit, Encyclopedia Britannica and Microsoft Encarta wouldn't exist today." (Encyclopedia Britannica and Microsoft Encarta stuck to the corporate profit model, and now barely exist.)

The OGL was intentionally modeled on the GNU open software license, which is part of the Free Culture movement. Now Free Culture advocates are aiming for complete, voluntary decommodization of cultural services and cultural objects into the Public Domain.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Isn't 'Free Culture' just a new name for communism?

Free Culture is a triangulated opposite from both Communism and Corporatism.

Free Culture is both state-free (free from government funding, since "he who pays the piper is apt to call the tune") and free from commercial influence and commoditization.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Lead by example.

Show us how to do it! I encourage you to blaze this path!

Thank you Morrus. I take your words to heart.

I'm grateful for the good-naturedess of the EN World community.

 

[Evenglare]

Thank you Morrus. I take your words to heart.

I'm grateful for the good-naturedess of the EN World community.

To be fair, there are hundreds of people that release there stuff for free every day for every system, hell ENworld has their own board for such a thing. I think saying "Do it for yourself and show us!" is a bit passive aggressive and prodding. There are clearly, as said before, hundreds of people who show that there is viability for that model to work. AncientSpirits made the Radiance RPG which uses the 3.5 OGL and makes the game FANTASTIC it's one of the best incarnation of the D&D 3.5 rules I have ever seen and it's completely free! So good on you OP, I believe in you, and It's most certainly doable as is shown by many here.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

You're speaking of two different elements here: the right of an artist to make a living of his art (the commercializing of art) and the rights of the artist to retain control of his art. These are separate issues that have traditionally gone hand-in-hand, but need special addressing.

That's true that those are two separate issues.In either case, I'm not so much speaking of the "right" per se. I'm not advocating that copyright be taken from any recent works. However, I do advocate a rollback of copyright law from 120 years to 18 years.Rather, my essay is asking, as a participant in the D&D culture, and "customer" of the D&D business, that Hasbro voluntarily free the 5E SRD and out-of-print books, both for my own desire, and as fuel for sales of Hasbro's own 5E rulebooks, worldbooks, and novels.

Moreso, giving something to the Public Domain means you no longer control its destiny. Anyone can create their own vision of your art and you have no control over it.

That's one way of putting it. It's a persuasive perspective...yet how does it sound if "invention" replaces the word "art"?: "Anyone can create their own vision of your invention and you have no control over it."Inventions are still thought of as something which it is good to be spread and shared throughout humanity. Inventions are meant to be used and improved. What about artworks? From the Free Culture perspective, it's a good that that artistic images are reproduced, and borrowed, and elements taken and included in other artworks (the mixing culture of hip-hop is the most manifest example)...and even improved. The art world has become divorced from life.I agree that artists need a livelihood.

Wizards has had a dickens of a time combating Pathfinder, a creation of the OGL with its stiff restrictions. Imagine what Paizo could have done if they could have lifted the name "D&D" to go along with it!

If it weren't for Hasbro's corporatist dickering, Paizo would've shifted to 4E (along with perhaps still continuing a line of 3.5E books). 3.75E would've never existed if Hasbro had stuck with the Open Game.Given the quality and resources of the Hasbro/WotC team, they would've remained top-dog. Now they are second-dog.

Now, if we lived in a world where all artists were given stipends from the people directly to sit and create stuff, I could see the tables turning.

That, my friend, is the goal. But "the people" doesn't mean the Goverment, but rather, stipends through perpetual kickstarters (=micro-grants from "the people") and from game-designer associations.Imagine Paizo, Monte Cook Games, Green Ronin, Pelgrane Press, and other independent game companies forming an association which provides a living stipend to all its associates, so that they can write gamebooks and game fiction full time, and be fully immersed in the love of the game, in exchange for all their moneys (including kickstarters) going to the association. Yes, it'd have to have a culture of integrity for it to work. It'd be the Mondragon of the rpg world. (the largest worker-owned co-operative association of corporations)

Alas, we don't. So its not fair to ask them to give away their fruits for free, esp without stipulation on its use.

Well, someone has to step forward. Amanda Palmer, MC Matre (through his Gifted platform), Jimmy Wales from Wikipedia, and the scientists who are shifting their work to open scientific journals, are examples of cultural practitioners who are finding ways...even within our heavily economicized and governmentalized system...to be economically supported without commoditizing or bureaucratizing their fruits.

Oh, and I'd be real careful mucking around with Tolkien's work: Chris will sue for derivatives that hew too close to his father's work faster than you can say "hobbit, ent, and balrog". Gygax learned that the hard way.

I'm conceiving something along the lines of Fantasy Flight Game's Midnight setting.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Your view of history seems a little off there. Biologicaly modern humans have existed for hundreds of thousands of years. Some culture must have existed for a long time but the reason history seems to start with the agricultural revolution is that for the first time in history there was enough excess food for populations to grow large enough that individuals could specialize in creating culture and the technology to record that culture. Because artists could make a living at their work as specialists, we suddenly had much more art.

You are completely right about this.

A call for art to be free is a call to return to the time when artists spent their days picking berries like everyone else.

I am not simplistically saying that culture/art/games should just be monetarily free. Rather, that it is healthy for artistic creativity to be supported by patrons who freely receive and freely supportthe artist. So as to de-commoditize the cultural service (a long-time goal of the artistic world), the exact persons who are receiving do not have to be the same persons who are supporting. The widow who drops in the penny is receiving the same cultural service and same cultural attention as the wealthy patron. This is known as dana in Eastern tradition. This tradition goes back to the mists of time too.

I'm striving for a dana-based, co-operative TRPG sector whose primary purpose is the love of the game. As an earlier poster suggested, the TRPG hobby is poised to be on the forefront of Free Culture, since we have a long history of kit-bashing and self-publishing, which has further blossomed through the Dancey's and Adkinson's OGL and through the possibility of PDF publishing.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

double post