It is time to forgive WOTC and get back onboard.

[billd91]

This is a vile misrepresentation of the facts.

I'm not seeing at particularly vile. Cap'n Kobold's first paragraph is pretty much right on the money. I might quibble about the characterization of them trying to reel back some of the rights on their territory - it struck me more like a hostile eviction of the squatters (I'd bet Hasbro considers them leeches) in favor of more constrained and tenuous tenants.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In what way?

Wizards absolutely expected the OGL to mean people made all kinds of products and that “people” would include substantial corporations.

The recent debacle as more akin to a landlord trying to quietly revoke a lease agreement without cause, than the gross analogy of the TTRPG community as squatters bullying wizards out of protecting themselves.

It presents wizards as a hapless victim when the truth is they knew exactly what they were getting into and put out the OGL with that knowledge, and then updated it and put out a 5th edition SRD years later. And then new management didn’t like an open ecosystem, and tried to quietly force the entire ecosystem to come into thier walled garden or move on to other things, after 20 years of an industry depending on a license that everyone (including wotc) understood as non-revocable.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm not seeing at particularly vile. Cap'n Kobold's first paragraph is pretty much right on the money. I might quibble about the characterization of them trying to reel back some of the rights on their territory - it struck me more like a hostile eviction of the squatters (I'd bet Hasbro considers them leeches) in favor of more constrained and tenuous tenants.

You just reworded the same act, but even your change is still wrong.

3pp have not been wotc’s “tenents” for 20 years.

Wotc ceded land for public use, in a good faith gesture, understanding fully that it would lead to both contributors and competitors, and then 20 years later new management tried to send out a lease agreement to charge rather hefty rents on land that everyone (including wotc) had spent 20 years assuming could not be taken back.

 

[Umbran]

They weren't expecting people to build large commercial properties competing with them on their own land when they did so.

Ryan Dancey's basic reason to create the OGL in the first place was to ensure that the game couldn't be closed off to die by any corporate concern. So, like, Hasbro couldn't decide to shelve the D&D brand, and have nobody selling the game.

That implies understanding that, at some time in the future, someone other than WotC might be the main torchbearer of the game, if not the brand - that at some time n the future, someone would be selling more of the game than WotC. Indeed, it was to ensure this possibility.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

They did have the intention to do it eventually since they did it. People yelled and they did it.

No, they had intentions of releasing an absurdly restrictive license that we even saw drafts of it. Their 180 is 100% due to their customer base before mad. You can't really argue that they had the intentions from the start to be the good guys and release the SRD under CC, it just wasn't the case.

They talked about breaking promises, planned to break promises, but they did not attempt to break promises or break any promises.

Well, they did send contracts to 3rd party creators to lock them in early, so yes they demonstrated that it wasn't only show. And promise or not is irrelevant, they broke the trust. Some consumers will not care, and that is OK. Others will and have moved on, and that is OK too.

You can't charge someone who did that with murder, or attempted murder

Nobody is charging them with murder, but many sure as hell won't hang out with them anymore now that they've revealed they are willing to hurt us to out of nowhere. It's common sense.

well beyond what is in the SRD but you can't freely use that content in your own works, you can only use what is in the SRD.

Which is... exactly the same as with WotC? Except that Paizo's SRD are multiple times larger in time of content.

I don't see how you can argue that when a simple google search shows you the mind-blowing difference in the SRDs. WotC SRD is mainly focused around the Player's Handbook which released almost a decade ago. Paizo's SRD include most of the content of every book they've released. And that's after 4 years of Pathfinder 2E. Once again, we're not even discussing Pathfinder 1E and Starfinder.
5th Edition SRD
PF2 SRD

 

[Imaro]

Wizards absolutely expected the OGL to mean people made all kinds of products and that “people” would include substantial corporations.

Wait so you think WotC expected people to create competing games, clones of their older games and derivative games when the OGL was drafted. Is there anything to support this, because I was always under the impression that they expected publishers to support their game with adventures and more niche products.

The recent debacle as more akin to a landlord trying to quietly revoke a lease agreement without cause, than the gross analogy of the TTRPG community as squatters bullying wizards out of protecting themselves.

Eh the truth probably lies somewhere in-between.

It presents wizards as a hapless victim when the truth is they knew exactly what they were getting into and put out the OGL with that knowledge, and then updated it and put out a 5th edition SRD years later. And then new management didn’t like an open ecosystem, and tried to quietly force the entire ecosystem to come into thier walled garden or move on to other things, after 20 years of an industry depending on a license that everyone (including wotc) understood as non-revocable.

Did they... technology, advancements, etc. have moved beyond what was commonly covered when the OGL was introduced (2 decades ago)?? I also am not sure your assumption they knew the ways in which the OGL would be utilized outside of support (and still can be) is accurate. Also it being "non-revocable" is something no one is certain of and, when/if the time comes would have to be decided in a court of law.

 

[Umbran]

Undecided is unchanged.

No, it isn't.

Say you have a goal. You are heading toward it. You come to a fork in the road, with one sign listing your original goal, and another, pointing down another path. The path you were going to go down looks a lot rockier than you expected. You stop and consider, unsure of which path to take.

It is not valid to say your goal remains unchanged. At the moment, your goal is up in the air, neither one nor the other.

 

[darjr]

No, it isn't.

Say you have a goal. You are heading toward it. You come to a fork in the road, with one sign listing your original goal, and another, pointing down another path. The path you were going to go down looks a lot rockier than you expected. You stop and consider, unsure of which path to take.

It is not valid to say your goal remains unchanged. At the moment, your goal is up in the air, neither one nor the other.

The company remains unchanged.

And like you said, internally they could have made a wombat the boss.

 

[billd91]

Wotc ceded land for public use, in a good faith gesture, understanding fully that it would lead to both contributors and competitors, and then 20 years later new management tried to send out a lease agreement to charge rather hefty rents on land that everyone (including wotc) had spent 20 years assuming could not be taken back.

Good faith gesture? I think those are some rose-colored glasses. From the corporate perspective, I'd bet that, at best, it was certain degree of enlightened self-interest because they fully believed that it would drive the sale of core rulebooks more than spawn competitors that used the system really innovatively in ways that didn't require core D&D rulebooks like Mutants and Masterminds.

The fact is, Ryan Dancey pitched it with two different motivations to different stakeholders in D&D. It would entice content creators to make D&D-based stuff and grow the D&D brand and WotC's market - the corporate owner pitch. And it would free the 3e rules and anything else derivable from the SRD from IP limbo if anything like TSR's fate befell D&D's owner. Whichever pitch you prefer and latch onto depends on which side you belong to. But the fact is he set expectations at both ends.

I guarantee, nobody expected a Paizo to rise and threaten WotC dominance in the D&D sphere in traditional game shops. Nobody expected a Paizo to be able to drive a million unit selling D&D sphere computer game. Particularly not when D&D, as a property, wasn't in IP limbo due to the financial collapse of its owner. Not even Ryan Dancey. Paizo didn't even expect it until they were forced into that position in order to survive.

 

[Alzrius]

Wait so you think WotC expected people to create competing games, clones of their older games and derivative games when the OGL was drafted. Is there anything to support this, because I was always under the impression that they expected publishers to support their game with adventures and more niche products.

In Dragon Annual #6, released in 2001 (around December, I believe), Ryan Dancey wrote an article titled "What the Heck is a d20 System?" In it, he talks about the genesis of the both the eponymous game engine itself, and the OGL and d20 STL. As part of the article, he says:

We've created a system that will allow anyone to publish rules and extensions, or even whole new games, based on the d20 System.

Later on, he says:

You could even use the System Reference Document to publish an entirely new roleplaying game!

Now, to be fair, he also admits:

The reason Wizards of the Coast is taking this unprecedented action is that it believes that by providing access to the network of players who use its rules, it will create a market for the lots of interesting game products that will enhance the value of the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game, and other roleplaying games that Wizards of the Coast publishes. Rather than by just a small team of dedicated staff who work exclusively for Wizards of the Coast, now, products for the d20 System can be created by thousands of independent designers, and even competing publishers! The result will be an explosion of exciting new products that all work to strengthen the whole player community. And the stronger that community is, the more core rulebooks Wizards of the Coast sells. The more core books sell, the more new players there are, and the larger the market becomes for all other products on the market. This process creates a "virtuous circle," where everyone benefits from the constant and continuous growth.

So while there was certainly an expectation that these network externalities would ultimately benefit WotC (i.e. the Skaff Effect that Dancey mentions elsewhere, albeit not in that article), there was very much an understanding that entirely new RPGs could be created from what WotC had made available under the OGL.

For what it's worth, the bio at the end of the article mentions Dancey no longer being with WotC, so it seems like he wrote that after leaving the company.