It is time to forgive WOTC and get back onboard.

[Imaro]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's the Skaff Effect in action.

So a hypothetical justification created by the person who implemented the OGL to tout its virtues... Yep no bias there.

 

[Scribe]

All of this conveniently ignores the fact that they were the 800lb gorilla in the hobby without the OGL. It ignores the fact that before the OGL D&D was the gateway into the hobby and that even then most other games were ignored (with the exception of WoD for a limited time and look where that's at now) by most ttrpg players. In other words maybe the OGL helped them keep the position they had already garnered... maybe it didn't really affect the ecosystem all that much... but your logic doesn't necessarily follow.

I'm not ignoring anything. I'll make it more plain.

CR has done more to establish a brand, and its not even remotely close, than the D&D team has.

 

[Imaro]

Actually, to re-answer this... most corporations wouldn't actually benefit from sharing their IP. Gaming is different, in part, at least, because it's additive. You can use non-WotC D&D books with a WotC-D&D game, and vice versa, and you can't really do that with most other... anything, really.

Like, one of the 3pp products I have bought was the Humblewood RPG. I was planning on taking one of the Humblewood races and playing it in a Realms-based game a friend was proposing for some point in the future when they finished their current game, with the idea of a dwarf who was reincarnated as a luma (pigeon-folk) by well-meaning druids, absolutely hated it, and was now a transmuter wizard in the hopes of being able to reverse the condition. I have no idea if they're going to still going to run this game in D&D or will switch to a different system--they actually started gaming with 5e and have barely played anything else. If they do decide to run this game in D&D, well, that's what I'll play.

And this game of theirs would be a D&D game using D&D material they bought. It was actually beneficial for WotC to open their IP because it created less competition for them. If I were to run a purely Humblewood game, I'd still need the PHB and probably several other books for spells, monsters, class archetypes, and other information. WotC benefits from me running a 5e 3pp.

So it wasn't some great act of charity to allow people to use their IP. It was actually in their best interests as an RPG company.

And it wasn't a great act of humble contrition that caused them to reverse course. It was also in their best interests.

Where I see this logic breaking down is... doesn't this in turn apply to any other fantasy game built on the OGL system... say Pathfinder or 13th AGE or any other. So why does this benefit D&D and WotC specifically?

 

[Alzrius]

So a hypothetical justification created by the person who implemented the OGL to tout its virtues... Yep no bias there.

Or a well-reasoned measure put forward by multiple people (i.e. it wasn't just Dancey, since Elias Skaff is the one who put forward the effect named after him) who were in a position to know best via due to having access to the underlying data.

Plus, you know, history proving it correct and all.

 

[Imaro]

I'm not ignoring anything. I'll make it more plain.

CR has done more to establish a brand, and its not even remotely close, than the D&D team has.

I disagree... D&D is their brand and it is still known and recognized by more people than Critical Role.

EDIT: In fact the danger is that the brand of CR becomes synonymous with D&D (a bigger and more recognizable brand) and thus begins to exert control, and influence over it which is honestly probably one of the reasons WotC wants to pull stuff inward.

 

[Imaro]

Or a well-reasoned measure put forward by multiple people (i.e. it wasn't just Dancey, since Elias Skaff is the one who put forward the effect named after him) who were in a position to know best via due to having access to the underlying data.

Again... I don't see any bias there whatsoever. Nope none at all.

 

[Scribe]

I disagree... D&D is their brand and it is still known and recognized by more people than Critical Role.

Oh? Who are the D&D characters? What are the D&D stories? What is the most populous D&D realm, or city? What is the history of that place?

Oh, and while you are at it, dont mention anything pre-5e.

 

[Alzrius]

Again... I don't see any bias there whatsoever. Nope none at all.

Is that your unbiased opinion as someone who's staked a position as being firmly on the other side of this debate?

Also, the issue of bias is orthogonal to whether or not they're right (and history strongly suggests that they were).

EDIT: Furthermore, Ryan Dancey still finds merit in the Skaff Effect now, despite not having worked with WotC for quite a few years.

 

[Enrahim2]

First, there are procedures in the law to abandon or put IP completely in the public domain. And there are procedures that allow you to license IP to, say, one entity. The reason that we have seen these variations and issues and iterations with various licenses and contracts from the late 80s onward (original GPL was '88 or so, and based on prior licenses in the 80s) is that what is trying to be accomplished is actually kind of tricky because the law doesn't like things that are perpetual and irrevocable that somehow allow the grantor/offeror/licensor to retain some rights and are provided to the world. Combine that with jurisdictional issues and changes in the law and treaties and ... it's a thing. You try to make these short and simple documents, but it's a lot of work to make things simple that also hold up.

I think this is the crux of what I think went wrong. My claim was that there was "significant" lawyer resources put into this. From my understanding there was a dedicated lawyer working closely with a business representative trying to make a draft based on very exotic requirements determined by committee between potential competitors. In addition I got the impression that those potential competitors also had their lawyers scrutinize it and got a thumbs up. This appear to be more resources than what the average indie developer could pour into trying to make a custom license for their system, and hence "significant".

However as you point out the quest they embarked on was very far from trivial, and it is in hindsight quite obvious that the amount of lawyer resources put into it was far from adequate if the intention had been to build a legally solid foundation for an entire industry. However my impression is that that was not the ambition for the OGL. Rather it appear mostly as a truce and a legal framework allowing for some cross use. You can hardly blame the initial drafters and approvers for failing to account for what sort of runaway success the license would be, or that WotC would completely neglect the responsibility put on them for updating the license as needed.

As I read it the itention for the legalese was at that stage mainly a tool to build sufficient trust for various companies daring to work together on the business side. And for this it appear to have been quite successful. And if the legal document is good enough to fulfill it's intention, why throw more legal resources on it?

 

[mamba]

Added a lot of stuff to what? A competing product... Pathfinder is it's own game...you're proving my point.

I guess we disagree on that... sure it is a competing product, but the whole point of the SRD was to allow for this as well as D&D products

They don't produce 3.x anymore so they wouldn't be giving their actual product away by keeping the OG 1.0a active.

not sure what that has to do with anything, the SRD 5.1 is the current SRD. I have never been talking about old SRDs yet you keep bringing them up and then point out that they do not matter...

Lol... Claiming they are the 'biggest" beneficiary is a pretty bold claim when multiple businesses and even competitors have been built around using the ruleset they released... care to explain how you arrived at that conclusion?

sure, it also gives them a huge ecosystem that produces D&D compatible products, which draws customers to D&D and virtually ensures that they will always be the largest game around by far, because many of what otherwise be competitors are now producing D&D content instead.

Given that D&D has been growing year over year and had the best 5 or so years of its entire history in the last 5, going from record sales to record sales, please demonstrate how the OGL has hurt D&D

 

[darjr]

All of this conveniently ignores the fact that they were the 800lb gorilla in the hobby without the OGL. It ignores the fact that before the OGL D&D was the gateway into the hobby and that even then most other games were ignored (with the exception of WoD for a limited time and look where that's at now) by most ttrpg players. In other words maybe the OGL helped them keep the position they had already garnered... maybe it didn't really affect the ecosystem all that much... but your logic doesn't necessarily follow.

Well yes, sorta. Vampire was a 600 lbs gorilla.

Also all the gorillas were starving and about to die.

 

[Alzrius]

Well yes, sorta. Vampire was a 600 lbs gorilla.

Also all the gorillas were starving and about to die.

<scribbles down notes for a BBEG who's a 600 lb. vampire gorilla>

 

[mamba]

So a hypothetical justification created by the person who implemented the OGL to tout its virtues... Yep no bias there.

or he can be right and there was more of a reason than just altruism in creating the OGL....

 

[mamba]

Where I see this logic breaking down is... doesn't this in turn apply to any other fantasy game built on the OGL system... say Pathfinder or 13th AGE or any other. So why does this benefit D&D and WotC specifically?

because the others are too small to attract an ecosystem around them the way WotC does, it is a self-perpetuating market dominance

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

As I read it the itention for the legalese was at that stage mainly a tool to build sufficient trust for various companies daring to work together on the business side. And for this it appear to have been quite successful. And if the legal document is good enough to fulfill it's intention, why throw more legal resources on it?

I will answer this with a very general answer, which I hope everyone remembers.

A contract is never drafted for when people agree.* Because ... obvious here .... people are in agreement. The reason you draft legal documents is for when things go sideways. When things blow up.

To borrow a phrase, the legal document is there to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real.

In other words, the document worked because everyone was in agreement, and because there was no pressure on it. As soon as there was pressure on it ... now, people don't trust it ... which is why the CC option is being used.

This is a common feature of business negotiations- the businessman want to get the thing done because the see the upside of the transaction. The lawyers? They are paid to write the contracts knowing that things can (and do) fall apart.


*I am generalizing here. Yes, terms of the contract are used to provide clarity as to the parties' conduct.

 

[Imaro]

Oh? Who are the D&D characters? What are the D&D stories? What is the most populous D&D realm, or city? What is the history of that place?

Oh, and while you are at it, dont mention anything pre-5e.

None of those things define a brand...

@ValamirCleaver and @Scribe : You're laughing and yet the D&D Brand with this edition is stronger than it's ever been with, by your own admission, none of those things. If they are intrinsic and neccessary...How?

 

[mamba]

None of those things define a brand...

but they define an IP you want to branch out into movies and TV. If Marvel only had the name and no heroes and stories, there would not be an MCU.

 

[Alzrius]

Where I see this logic breaking down is... doesn't this in turn apply to any other fantasy game built on the OGL system... say Pathfinder or 13th AGE or any other.

Personally, I think it does benefit those other OGL-based fantasy games; they're near the top of the metaphorical food chain in that regard, so they also see some benefit. WotC and D&D just see more, because their loftier position gives them a broader reach. Playing Pathfinder 1E, for instance, kept you within D&D 3.5's orbit in terms of compatible products.

 

[Imaro]

because the others are too small to attract an ecosystem around them the way WotC does, it is a self-perpetuating market dominance

Ding ding ding... and it is WotC's brand recognition that allows this. Sure WotC benefits from 3pp in niche stuff but it has been proven the vast majority of those playing D&D use WotC materials only... so when you claim that WotC benefits just as much or more from the OGL as 3pp I think you are vastly overestimating exactly what and how much they gain... I think WotC has a better handle on this and is in fact why they were willing to terminate the OGL... I'd bet it's not benefitting them to the extent hardcore gamers on a D&D focused forum seem to think it is.

 

[Imaro]

Personally, I think it does benefit those other OGL-based fantasy games; they're near the top of the metaphorical food chain in that regard, so they also see some benefit. WotC and D&D just see more, because their loftier position gives them a broader reach. Playing Pathfinder 1E, for instance, kept you within D&D 3.5's orbit in terms of compatible products.

I didn't say it didn't benefit them... my whole argument has been it benefits them more than WotC. My question was moreso asking that why haven't 3pp or other publishers moved to one of these other games as their main support... why do they stick with D&D vs. Pathfinder, 13th AGE, etc. Because they benefit way more from D&D's brand recognition, reach, media awareness, etc than WotC doers from them.