Is WotC playing 4d Chess with the 5.1 SRD CC?

[Burt Baccara]

IANAL, though I see two possible strategies that might be at work here:

First, they split the party. Most of the power in the recent revolt came from the number of 5e players that joined in. Releasing the 5.1 SRD in CC, may defuse this contingent, leaving only Pathfinder, OSR, indie RPGs, etc. and their fans.

Second, if 5e content creators move to the 5.1 SRD, the tapestry of open game content that hand from the OGL 1.0a starts to unravel. ORC and other licenses, as well-meaning as they are, maybe playing into this, helping to accelerate the unraveling. Look at an OGL statement in the back of your favorite TTRPG or product and see the long list of copyright holders and IP the work relies on, this is the tapestry of open game content that content creators and designers have been weaving for the last 20+ years, and is a huge part of what makes the OGL 1.0a so dear.

There may be more that our lawyer friends or those more experienced with the OGL may be able to point out.

 

[Sidhanei]

Honestly, I believe the reason they put it under CC is twofold and little more:
1) Community goodwill. They needed it. This objective comes from the suites that were seeing some of their whales swim away.
2) If D&D can't make the numbers needed to be a big tent IP, it will likely be mothballed. So while we might still see a 5.5/6e officially, it will be very similar to 5e's launch and then some. Far fewer releases of both splat and adventures. Less design work (lower design hours spent on it due to fewer designers on staff). Layoffs as they scale the teams back down. Less errata and support for products once released. In short, you will see much more brand management than brand and product development. This objective arguably comes more from the designers because that will keep D&D alive until Habro looks to develop its smaller IPs in the future. On the corporate side, community engagement is cheap—especially if you can get them to develop content for your brand and put their labor in so you don't have to. It does require renewed trust, so we'll see how that goes.

But Hasbro has already set the bar of what the D&D IP needs to make a year, and now it is clear that they cannot make that. Even a very successful movie will only allow the brand to make that mark for one year at most.

 

[Burt Baccara]

Honestly, I believe the reason they put it under CC is twofold and little more:
1) Community goodwill. They needed it. This objective comes from the suites that were seeing some of their whales swim away.
2) If D&D can't make the numbers needed to be a big tent IP, it will likely be mothballed. So while we might still see a 5.5/6e officially, it will be very similar to 5e's launch and then some. Far fewer releases of both splat and adventures. Less design work (lower design hours spent on it due to fewer designers on staff). Layoffs as they scale the teams back down. Less errata and support for products once released. In short, you will see much more brand management than brand and product development. This objective arguably comes more from the designers because that will keep D&D alive until Habro looks to develop its smaller IPs in the future. On the corporate side, community engagement is cheap—especially if you can get them to develop content for your brand and put their labor in so you don't have to. It does require renewed trust, so we'll see how that goes.

But Hasbro has already set the bar of what the D&D IP needs to make a year, and now it is clear that they cannot make that. Even a very successful movie will only allow the brand to make that mark for one year at most.

Their only hope of making the bank they were talking about to investors is by:

1. Growing the market, which means more RPG players or redefining what the brand is and who it targets.
2. Getting players to be bigger payers, closer to DMs. Pretty sure someone at WotC is at a whiteboard working on this one right now.
3. License like mad, is part of option 1, but also means turning the property into more than a game, just like Marvel is not really a comic company anymore.

 

[Dreamscape]

Less playing 4D chess, more stumbling around blindfolded in a china shop.

 

[Alzrius]

Less playing 4D chess, more stumbling around blindfolded in a china shop.

I was going to say that at this point I don't trust WotC to play 2D chess competently, but your analogy works just as well.

 

[Maxperson]

2) If D&D can't make the numbers needed to be a big tent IP, it will likely be mothballed. So while we might still see a 5.5/6e officially, it will be very similar to 5e's launch and then some. Far fewer releases of both splat and adventures. Less design work (lower design hours spent on it due to fewer designers on staff). Layoffs as they scale the teams back down. Less errata and support for products once released. In short, you will see much more brand management than brand and product development. This objective arguably comes more from the designers because that will keep D&D alive until Habro looks to develop its smaller IPs in the future. On the corporate side, community engagement is cheap—especially if you can get them to develop content for your brand and put their labor in so you don't have to. It does require renewed trust, so we'll see how that goes.

But Hasbro has already set the bar of what the D&D IP needs to make a year, and now it is clear that they cannot make that. Even a very successful movie will only allow the brand to make that mark for one year at most.

I don't think Hasbro will mothball D&D in any case. You don't mothball a very successful brand just because you wanted it to be even more successful and it didn't get there. Hasbro is going to sigh and wish they got more, but will continue to accept the many millions of dollars D&D is bringing in.

 

[Umbran]

It may have been a clever move that defused the issue. But that move was a move, not the original plan.

So, no, WotC is not playing 4D chess. Pretty much nobody plays 4D chess - while our fictional narratives lead us to believe in the super-intelligent schemer who can successfully plan and execute a Xanatos Gambit, the real world is too chaotic and unpredictable for that to happen.

Second, if 5e content creators move to the 5.1 SRD, the tapestry of open game content that hand from the OGL 1.0a starts to unravel.

I don't know that this "tapestry" is nearly so valuable, or as fragile, as you make it out to be. If content providers generally switch to easily accessible licenses like the CC, they all just need to re-issue their works under the new license, and the tapestry is maintained.

Look at an OGL statement in the back of your favorite TTRPG or product and see the long list of copyright holders and IP the work relies on

So, this is a misleading statement, using a common tactic - it suggests and implies that there is a "long list", without actually establishing that this is true, in general. The burden of proof is pushed to the reader.

 

[Dausuul]

Any time I see suggestions that someone is playing 4D chess, I assume that isn't the case unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary.

I'll assume that your focus is specifically on Friday's announcement and that you aren't claiming their entire strategy over the last month has been calculated and deliberate. Even so, however, I'm not seeing the motive. Yes, the 5E CC release could have the effect of isolating OSR and 3E fans... but what is WotC's interest in doing that? With all due respect to the OSR, it's a tiny sliver of the fanbase. There's no money there on the scale that would interest Wizards, and no prospect of making any.

Everything I've seen suggests that WotC's original goal was to establish tighter control over the current edition of the game, with an eye to stifling the development of rival VTTs (and probably also heading off any attempt to create a Pathfinder-equivalent for 5E). The 5E CC release pretty well shuts down any chance of accomplishing that.

I do think there was a little bit of regular chess-playing involved... but it was the pro-OGL faction within Wizards doing it. They saw an opportunity to put 5E out of reach of the anti-OGL crowd for good, and seized it. That's why they made a point of putting the Creative Commons-licensed PDF right there in the announcement, so the anti-OGL folks would have no way to walk things back or undercut them.

 

[Jer]

Less playing 4D chess, more stumbling around blindfolded in a china shop.

Agreed. This is a "New Coke to Classic Coke" move, not 4d chess. They might be able to turn those lemons into lemonade, but it doesn't change the fact that they went out to pick apples and brought back a basket of lemons in the first place.

 

[delericho]

Less playing 4D chess, more stumbling around blindfolded in a china shop.

This. Has anything about the past month given any indication that they know what they're doing, never mind that they're geniuses?