It is time to forgive WOTC and get back onboard.

[Scribe]

They did not "try" to cancel the OGL 1.0a. They intended to cancel OGL 1.0a, they tried to get a number of publishers to agree to cancel it and they tried to convince the community that this would be ok once this was leaked and they failed at both of those things.

To use the point a gun at your head analogy that everyone has thrown around - Pointing a gun at someone's head is not the same as killing someone and it is not the same as "trying" to kill someone and you can't trutfully say they murdered you or someone or attempted to murder you if they point a gun at you.

As for me, I remember clearly what happened. I signed both petitions, sent an email to D&D beyond, filled out their survey, got about 10 players in my gaming groups to fill out a survey and finally I actually typed up letters to 3 WOTC employees (Brink, Cao, Williams) and 1 Hasbro employee (Cox), stuck stamps on them and sent them to the WOTC and Hasbro headquarters respectively.

So, lets try and different path.

So what? What exactly are you attempting to convince me of?

 

[mamba]

Ok tell me. You claimed "this literally happened"

no I did not, that was not my post

Most of the replies on this forum are either hyperbole or they are interpretations of things and not things that "literally" happened

If you throw around words like that you should be able to back them up. So provide examples.

If you want my take on what happened anyway

1) WotC sent out a revised OGL 1.1 to be signed within a week by the parties they sent them to (so not a draft despite what WotC still keeps claiming, and not 'not an attempt to break promises' like you do) with conditions so bad that none of the 3PPs they sent them to signed on

2) when the terms leaked, it set the D&D community ablaze and resulted in many 3PPs speaking out that under those terms they could not create D&D products, followed by ongoing kickstarters and those not having completed their product yet reaching out to their backers and saying they might have to change course and not be D&D compatible in order to maintain their own IP instead of handing it over to WotC under the new terms. Planned kickstarters were delayed and planned projects were announced to shift from D&D to generic / a different system to avoid having to use the OGL 1.1

3) WotC's customers revolted too, resulting in the cancellation of 10s of thousands of DDB accounts, youtubers covered the whole thing and moved away from being D&D channels to being RPG channels, threatening (indirectly, not explicitly) to cut off WotC from attracting a considerable amount of new customers (the way these channels did in the past)

4) because of the backlash, cancellations and potential threat to WotC's future plans with the movie and VTT, after over a week, WotC finally was open to an actual conversation, releasing an OGL 1.2 draft and asking for community input. At the time this was often seen as a stalling tactic, but I believe in hindsight we can assume it was an honest outreach. The survey was planned to be open for two weeks

5) because of the overwhelming feedback (high number of contributors and clear direction of a vast majority of answers), WotC closed the survey after about a week and said that it was now clear what the community wanted, which essentially was for OGL 1.0a to not be revoked. So they ended up not revoking it and as a sign of goodwill / atonement they also released it under the CC, which is more clearly not revocable.

6) throughout all of this, other publishers started organizing and working an a competing license, the ORC. This license is still being worked on, so we will have to see what becomes of it, esp. after the sudden and unexpected move by WotC to release their SRD under the CC.
Personally I am very interested in what becomes of it.

7) with the release of the SRD under the CC, things have quieted down, as hoped for / intended by WotC, but there are still people upset about the whole episode and figuring out what it means to their relation with WotC and D&D, so there probably is some permanent damage done to WotC's reputation and bottom line, the question is how much (no one will know, but likely not all that much ultimately)

 

[mamba]

Ok but they did not revoke the OGL.

To be clear what WOTC actually DID:

1. Posted online there would be changes to the OGL

2. Tried to get a small number of creators a contract to sign with awful terms (and failed).

3. Made a post explaining/gaslighting while they tried to convince the fans this was a good idea.

4. Backtracted, apologized and started a "play test" then followed through and cancelled their plans as a result of that.

What they did not do is cancel OGL 1.0a.

That pretty much sums it up, did I miss anything specific?

not much, tracked mostly with what I wrote after this.

Here is the thing though, the way you phrase it, it sounds like you give WotC credit for not revoking 1.0a when they would definitly have gone through with it / attempted it (with a court having to decide whether this is even possible). That WotC ultimately backed away from attempting to revoke the OGL 1.0a is thanks to the community fighting WotC over the step, nothing else.

 

[ECMO3]

So, lets try and different path.

So what? What exactly are you attempting to convince me of?

That this "revisionist" history people speak of is the actual history of what happened and what people largely claim "literally" happened did not in fact happen in a fashion consistent with the definition of the word "literally".

 

[mamba]

To use the point a gun at your head analogy that everyone has thrown around - Pointing a gun at someone's head is not the same as killing someone and it is not the same as "trying" to kill someone and you can't trutfully say they murdered you or someone or attempted to murder you if they point a gun at you.

I think Monte Cook's take was very accurate "Say person A pointed a gun at person B and pulled the trigger, but the gun jammed. Person A then gave a half-hearted apology. Should person B accept the apology? Should they trust person A ever again?"

It was more than pointing a gun, they sent the contracts, expecting them to be signed. This was pulling the trigger. What happened after that was the gun jamming.

 

[mamba]

That this "revisionist" history people speak of is the actual history of what happened and what people largely claim "literally" happened did not in fact happen in a fashion consistent with the definition of the word "literally".

sorry, your history is a revision, because you portray WotC as much more innocent and much more to be thanked for what they ended up doing than they actually deserve. We agree on the facts, but we disagree with your spin.

 

[Scribe]

That this "revisionist" history people speak of is the actual history of what happened and what people largely claim "literally" happened did not in fact happen in a fashion consistent with the definition of the word "literally".

Lets say, in broad strokes, I agree with your list. Lets then also say, that the proposal that we 'thank and/or forgive' WotC and 'get back on board' is still laughable.

What then?

 

[ECMO3]

Here is the thing though, the way you phrase it, it sounds like you give WotC credit for not revoking 1.0a when they would definitly have gone through with it / attempted it (with a court having to decide whether this is even possible). That WotC ultimately backed away from attempting to revoke the OGL 1.0a is thanks to the community fighting WotC over the step, nothing else.

Probably.

I am not sure I agree with the word "definitely" because it is not clear that a court would side with them and I think it is possible they would not have went through with it unless they had a reasonable belief they would not have to take it to court. I would suggest they probably would have though.

The word definitely means it is unequivocal. That is the sort of language that people were using regarding the VTT and video games - that it is impossible for WOTC to compromise on these and that turned out not to be true. I would prefer to use "almost certainly" or "likely".

Other than that though I largely agree with what you put here. I don't necessarily give WOTC credit for not revoking OGL 1.0a, but I do in fact give credit to WOTC for putting the entire SRD into CC. That makes the game more open than it was a month ago.

 

[ECMO3]

sorry, your history is a revision, because you portray WotC as much more innocent and much more to be thanked for what they ended up doing than they actually deserve. We agree on the facts, but we disagree with your spin.

First off, I am not sure you understand the term revisionist history, because it seems that you are misusing it.

In terms of innocence it matters what we are talking about and at the end of the day I don't think WOTC did any harm to the game or the community and in fact I think the community is better off now than we were before this debacle.

WOTC did do harm to their reputation and probably their bottom line, but that is hardly something I am going to hold against them.

 

[mamba]

Probably.

I am not sure I agree with the word "definitely" because it is not clear that a court would side with them and I think it is possible they would not have went through with it unless they had a reasonable belief they would not have to take it to court. I would suggest they probably would have though.

ok, so potentially they were bluffing is what you are saying here, still not something they deserve credit for in my book

The word definitely means it is unequivocal. That is the sort of language that people were using regarding the VTT and video games - that it is impossible for WOTC to compromise on these and that turned out not to be true. I would prefer to use "almost certainly" or "likely".

ok, can we say 'definitely, assuming the expected they had a reasonable chance of actually achieving it' ? Still nothing to give them credit for then

Other than that though I largely agree with what you put here. I don't necessarily give WOTC credit for not revoking OGL 1.0a, but I do in fact give credit to WOTC for putting the entire SRD into CC. That makes the game more open than it was a month ago.

agreed, I do give them credit for that step. But if you compare the credit they lost for the attempt / idea of revoking 1.0a against the credit they gained for that step, they lost a lot more than they regained with me.