The YouTube channel 3 Black Halflings spoke to WotC's Kyle Brink (executive producer, D&D) about the recent Open Game License events, amongst other things. It's an hour-plus long interview (which you can watch below) but here are some of the highlights of what Brink said. Note these are my paraphrases, so I encourage you to listen to the actual interview for full context if you have time.
OGL v1.1 Events
There was a concern that the OGL allowed Facebook to make a D&D Metaverse without WotC involvement.
Re. the OGL decisions, WotC had gotten themselves into a 'terrible place' and are grateful for the feedback that allowed them to see that.
The royalties in OGL v1.1 were there as a giant deterrent to mega corporations.
Kyle Brink is not familiar with what happened in the private meetings with certain publishers in December, although was aware that meetings were taking place.
When the OGL v1.1 document became public, WotC had already abandoned much of it.
The response from WotC coinciding with D&D Beyond subscription cancellations was a coincidence as it takes longer than that to modify a legal document.
The atmosphere in WotC during the delay before making an announcement after the OGL v1.1 went public was 'bad' -- fear of making it worse if they said anything. The feeling was that they should not talk, just deliver the new version.
Brink does not know who wrote the unpopular 'you won but we won too' announcement and saw it the same time we did. He was not happy with it.
'Draft' contracts can have dates and boxes for signatures. Despite the leaked version going to some publishers, it was not final or published.
There were dissenting voices within WotC regarding the OGL v1.1, but once the company had agreed how to proceed, everybody did the best they could to deliver.
The dissenting voices were not given enough weight to effect change. Brinks' team is now involved in the process and can influence decisions.
The SRD release into Creative Commmons is a one-way door; there can be no takeback.
One D&D
The intention is that all of the new [One D&D] updates they are doing, "the SRD will be updated to remain compatible with all of that". This might be with updted rules or with bridging language like 'change the word race to species'.
Anything built with the current SRD will be 100% compatible with the new rules.
Brink does not think there is a plan to, and does not see the value, in creating a new OGL just for One D&D. When/if they put more stuff into the public space, they'd do it through Creative Commons.
WotC doesn't think of One D&D as a new edition. He feels it's more like what happened with 3.5. They think 5E is great, but coud be better and play faster and easier with more room for roleplay, so there is stuff they can do to improve it but not replace it.
Inclusivity
WotC is leaning on the community to discourage bad actors and hateful content, rather than counting on a legal document.
They are working on an adaptable content policy describing what they consider to be hateful content which will apply to WotC's work (no legal structure to apply it to anybody else).
They now have external inclusivity reviewers (as of last fall) who look over every word and report back. They are putting old content through the same process before reprints.
Previously cultural consultances were used for spot reviews on things they thought might be problematic, but not everything (e.g. Hadozee).
The problematic Hadozee content was written by a trusted senior person at WotC, and very few people saw it before publication.
'DnDShorts' video on the internal workings and management culture of WotC is not something Brinks can talk on, but it is not reflective of his team. Each team has its own culture.
In the last couple of years the D&D team hiring process has made the team more inclusive.
When asked about non white-CIS-men in leadership positions at WotC, Brinks referred to some designers and authors. He said 'guys like me, we're leaving the workforce, to be blunt' and 'I'm not the face of the hobby any more'. It is important that the creators at WotC look like the players. 'Guys like me can't leave soon enough'.
Virtual Tabletops (VTTs)/Digital Gaming
Goal is to make more ways to play ('and' not 'instead') including a cool looking 3D space.
Digital gaming is not meant to replace books etc., but to be additive.
The strategy is to give players a choice, and WotC will go where the player interests lie.
Right. There's an entire generation of gamers who already hate Bargle. All they have to do is make a movie with him as the villain and they'll fill seats and/or sell books. They're sitting on dozens of worlds each with casts of thousands of characters. And the best they can come up with is "gotta protect the non-copyrightable mechanics from...lol...Disney."
VTT is only meant to be additive. Will not replace books.
Rebuild trust through actions. Watch what we do, not what we say. Enjoy your game - you don't need us. You don't need to trust WotC to play D&D, you can enjoy it without WotC.
Yup, been there, done that. The remarkable thing based on my own experience is how fast and how hard the political winds inside Hasbro changed here. Usually I would expect this to have gone longer and lower.
That suggests to me that the person who pushed the idea was on shaky ground to begin with with their higher-ups. Or possibly that the amount of blow up they got was so unexpected that it became obvious even to the person whose idea it was that they'd misjudged the whole market.
I really do think that ultimately it stems from video game people thinking that a video game paradigm applied to RPGs. And it really doesn't - you can shove CCGs and Board Games both into a video game model if you try hard enough, but the dynamics of the (much smaller) RPG market and the way that RPGs are played are both so different that lessons learned from video games are going to be much harder to apply and need a lot more nuance. Especially with the fact that "community licenses" for RPGs are now more the norm in the industry than the exception and have been for over 2 decades.
edit to add: I've copied the transcript into the following spoiler block. Please note it's google youtube transcript straight from the video so caveat emptor. Do not take it as verbatim. Listen to the section of the podcast your interested in before diving into commenting. You can do that by pulling up the transcript in youtube and clicking on the text you want to hear and the video will be moved to that bit.
Three Black Halflings interview Kyle Brink
hello hello
Halflings it's me oh Jeremy Cobb but Andrew V calls me Jeremy
not Renner Cobb because they already call their other friend Jer bear and the only other Jeremy on their radar was
Hawkeye so you know and Andrew V also sent us a super nice message on patreon so shout out to them for that thank you
Andrew V and I am joined today bye hello hi my name is Olivia Kennedy but
you can call me Linda yes hi yes uh so Jeremy yeah today's episode is is a
little bit of a serious one uh or like oh it's actually a very serious one because we are talking about something that is very important uh and has
affected this community more so than anything in a good long time uh if you
thought the hadozi was a big deal good Lord um where you're talking about the ogl uh
in this episode we will be in very shortly uh interviewing Mr Kyle Brink uh
who is the uh d d let's see the d d team's executive producer that's his
official title um it's uh it's yeah we are here he's he's here to talk about the ogl he has
said that nothing is off the table in terms of questions Liv how you feel about this uh it's gonna be interesting
it's gonna be great I think we should dive straight into it and because I we know the people waiting for it we are here with Kyle Brink D teams executive
producer Kyle first of all thank you so much for being here yeah sure
um happy to be here yes uh I guess my first question yes uh my first question is
in your own words why are you here uh because what's happened in our
community has affected uh creators and the Community First and hardest so
that's where I needed to go first okay um well I guess on the subject of things
affecting the community well uh this entire conversation is obviously in the wake of the ogl
controversy so uh my first question would be why is it that uh management
feels the need to change the ogl in the first place or at least felt the need to change the Ojo in the first place
yeah uh so we still have a lot of real concerns about um big media corpse moving into the d d space
um new technologies that weren't considered when the Ojo was first written um the emergence of some hateful
content that's coming around out there uh when you have a bigger Community you have a bigger Duty and uh we're just
worried about the impact of some of these things and that was the origin I will say that I've been at Wizards for a
couple years now and this was in process when I got here so these concerns have been a concern that Wizards for a long
time uh and uh I was part of the team that picked up the ball and and continued forward with it but that was
the those were the motivations behind it is is worries about and when I say big media corpse I don't mean wizards big I
mean like meta big I mean like Disney big that's the kind of stuff we were actually worried about so specifically
uh like in what way were you worried about a a company like Disney uh like
somehow interfering with d and d so under the Ogo 108 is written you know
there's quite a bit of things you could do with the SRD and um just as a for instance this wasn't a specific concern
but you asked for an example uh let's say that you were a large um social media company that had built an amazing
social media platform and then you would use those dollars to make um a virtual reality meta verse you
might say let's say you were some unnamed company that had done all those things and then you decided to make a d
d virtual reality space where people could come and play D D in VR well as
written we wouldn't be there at the table to talk with them about what's true to d d and what's not
um and we would be very concerned about where a company like that that has not had a great track record honestly with
how it manages its community and what it allows people to do on its platforms what they would do with DND
um and so we were looking for ways to be at the table when those conversations take place
okay uh so even aside from that though when it was released uh it obviously
there were the the the the reach uh the potential reach of the ogl stretched far
beyond anything like a megacorp like Disney can you provide an overview of the decision making process that went
into the original wording that was uh leaked yeah so the the things that we're in 1.1
uh and that was a terrible way to approach the goals we had in mind uh
which is why it was such an easy so it was easy for us to do a U-turn and abandon those right away because it was
one of those things where um piece by piece it seems like you're making a good decision and then you end
up in a terrible Place uh and uh we're grateful to all the feedback that was so strong and so clear that allowed us to
uh see for ourselves where we had gotten ourselves to uh the because the mission
was never about hurting the community the second the community was hurt we dropped it like a hot rock because we
didn't want that wasn't our mission um I you know the the people ask why are royalties in there well that's the idea
was if you're a giant corporation that would be a huge deterrent to you and the thinking was you can see in the the
numbers that were in there that there was supposed to be this area where it didn't matter where if you were a small Creator it would be fine that's all by
the wayside though it's very clear that that all that stuff in there was a huge problem for creators so we just we
dropped it and left because that's not what we're there for okay so you're saying that like over the course of the years that you guys spent developing the
document you lost sight of the overall scope of what who it might affect
I would say it's more that we um we lost sight I would say we lost sight of the impact of what the impact could
be on the people we weren't concerned about you know our Focus so much is on who we were concerned about uh that we
lost sight of who we were not concerned about who we wanted to thrive who wanted to help and so we accidentally as
collateral damage really really uh did it a lot would have fortunately it was
never published and never will be published but that document would clearly have done a lot of harm and you
didn't have anybody in place to oversee this before it was scheduled to be released
we had a number of people in the room uh my team was uh and and this is this is my fault was underrepresented I was
trying to protect the team from distractions like discussing a licensing agreement so we can make the game so we
can make cool supplements and books uh and I should have had more of my team in the room and that's being corrected
going forward um okay I I guess as a yes or no question
oh did you have something you wanted to jump in with um I just wanted to uh this might be
something that we'll get on to later but um there have been rumors going around in the community that
um a meeting took place between Wizards of the Coast and a number of like large d d and ttrpg creators where wizard of
the coast told them that there would be plans for the new orgl and allowed some of them to do the opt-in for like better
deals in terms of the monetization of like um their uh actual play shows or
whatever shows they're producing um and it was also confirmed by John Ritter of Kickstarter like did can you
tell us did this meeting occur who was present and what kind of deals were offered or discussed uh I wasn't present
for any meeting like that uh I mean unfortunately for this conversation I I
make the game so there are things that I'm not part of um and so that would have been another set of people at Wizards having those
conversations so I can't speak to first-hand knowledge of this just to set that table um I was aware that we were speaking to
creators because we wanted input we were doing staged feedback where we talked to some of the largest creators first to
get their feedback and then moving forward and we were going to bring it to the community for their feedback as well stage wise so that by the time we
brought it to the community it would hopefully be in a better State than it was and some of those conversation I
wasn't in those conversations but I could see how some of those conversations might have been about would you know what would a better deal
look like um but again I wasn't there so I can't speak to those specifics I could certainly see how conversations like
that could be seen as a big meeting offering sweetheart deals but once again
I wasn't present I do know that we were talking to creators ahead of time and we were soliciting their input on what a
better deal would look like did anybody well go ahead oh go ahead Jeremy oh I
was just gonna say did anybody internally uh sorry there's a little bit of a delay uh did anybody internally at
Wizards then later inform you of who these people were that were being spoken
to uh and perhaps what the specifics of any of those because you're aware that they did happen uh you know has anyone
since said who they were meeting with and what kinds of terms were discussed I
know uh I know who we were meeting with because we talked about hey who should we be reaching out to who should we talk to First about this who are the people
who are having the biggest impact in the space and would therefore have the best perspective on all this um and so you know people like
Kickstarter and and some of the larger creators you know yes I'm aware of you know who we talked to First the priority
order in which we were talking to people um but I don't know beyond that like the specifics of of the the conversations
that they had it what would come back to the the room that I was in was General like feedback that we were getting on
hey this is a problem this is a problem this is a problem so we would know what to do to fix it by the time um the 1.1
uh version of the document was made public we had already abandoned a lot of
the things that were problematic because the feedback we were getting we just hadn't published that update yet so
nobody could see it that's partly why 1.2 is so quick to come out after 1-1 because we'd already been heading in
that direction based on what we're hearing um okay well on the subject uh I I guess
put a pin on the subject of who was spoken to for a second but you mentioned uh the quickness the swiftness of the of
the response speaking of somebody who was watching the situation as it unfolded it actually
seemed like there was quite a long delay between the initial leaking and the response of over a week so my question
is if in fact the ogl 1.2 was already in progress of being developed why did it
why was there such a long delay for any kind of communication uh from Wizards or
D and D yeah this was a thing that got me personally involved more I mean I was
part of the group but this is you know as you saw very quickly afterwards I became um very personally involved in the in
the response cycle because it was killing me that it was taking so long uh and it was uh I described it as a long
delay built out of many small good decisions um we were working on this document we thought you know what at this point
people need to see action they don't need to see words so let's give them the new version okay well let's make sure this is the version we were on release
okay well I have one edit to make here I got one tweak to make here I got one and there's you have enough stakeholders each wanting to make it a little bit
better that perfect got in the way of good perfect got in the way of done and so that the silence was because we
didn't want to just say words at a time when words weren't going to cut it and the thing to release took too long to
perfect that it just it compounded into the silence and no time did anyone say you know what we should do let's not say
anything for a week and a half like that decision was never made it's what occurred because of all the small
decisions we were making minute by minute day by day because we're also watching what people were saying in the
community and we would see a new uh concern arise oh we have to make sure to address that in this too all right let's make sure to build that in and so you
just get caught in this infinite Loop of iteration and you can never publish because you're not quite ready yet you're still not quite ready you're
still not quite ready yet it's um it was it was a terrible situation to be in uh okay I have I guess two or
three responses we'll see if the third one fully materializes the first uh response is did no one at any point
during that period seeing the public outcry that was getting worse and worse
suggest even saying anything to even saying hey we are actively working on
this this was any sort of announcement essentially what yes why did nothing
happen because it's one thing to be like oh we we were delaying the big announcement but it and I guess to fully
and elucidate that point uh there have been reports from people internally uh
who have from Secret sources uh who apparently are verified uh employees of
Dungeons and Dragons and wizard of the coast who have said that there the delay was because uh they that management was
essentially waiting to see how much of a financial impact this was actually going to have and whether or not the whole
thing was going to blow over no that was not the reason for the delay definitely um seem like that just because it seemed
as though from a creative perspective and a fan perspective that nothing actually changed until the decline in d
d Beyond subscriptions like that can't be a coincidence surely well it it also can because it takes a
long time to actually modify a legal document when you have a lot of stakeholders it you can't turn on a dime and so it can't it actually couldn't
have been turned around in response to the decline in subscriptions because that would have been too fast it would have been too short a time period for a
corporation our size to pull that off with a legal document with a bunch of stakeholders um and so we were already working on
that document before the uh the um folks who decided to stop uh
subscribing decided to stop doing that it's uh the main reason that we weren't ready sorry I want to get to your uh
Jeremy I want to get to your first question about um the event did no one say we should say something yes yes we did however in
that environment where there was already such a lack of trust and already such concern over our motives every word we
knew would be scrutinized and could be radioactive and there was honestly a fear of making it worse honestly a fear
of saying the wrong thing and throwing gas on the fire I mean it was at
um you're kind of you know we felt like we were screwed if we spoke and we were screwed if we were silent and so we figured the best thing we could do is
just deliver here give you a thing that was better um and in hindsight obviously that
wasn't the right decision but that's that was the mindset at the time was we needed to Simply show you what we meant
by giving you something better rather than try to say oh we're working on it because we felt like in that environment
that was as likely to make it worse is better uh I guess what when that response
eventually occurred you're saying that there was a lot of uh thought and preparation put in and that any words that you said uh could backfire
enormously prior to this conversation I Googled the phrase I didn't even type it
really I just typed the words onto Google I typed the words they won and then put a space and the third suggested
result without having pressed enter was they won and so did we in light of the response to that and uh
I guess my question is if if in fact there was so much work being put into that initial response uh how did we end
up with what we got like who wrote that and who signed off on that I uh I
honestly don't know um everything I signed by the way I wrote so if my name's on it I typed the words now that doesn't mean I didn't
take input while I was typing but everywhere if I put my name on it I wrote it
um and I honestly don't know who contributed to the unsigned statement before I started posting the thing that
I was working on was the deliverable 1.2 the actual thing and the process for how
we were going to move forward from this and you know bringing the the feedback process and the play test process to the table to get the community involved as
soon as possible that was what I was working on uh for all this I I the the statement that came out on the Friday
um I read it around the same time you did
okay so essentially this was not communicated go ahead yeah go ahead live sorry uh I just wondered how did you
feel when you when you read that what did you think of it I was not pleased with what we had
posted um I you know this is this is one of the things that inspired me to take a personal uh to put myself into this by
name and take ownership of this because I that was not acceptable for me that's not us that's not who we should be
um and I felt like this this needed to you know be less of a committee thing and uh more of a more of a d d thing
um um well there were other aside from just that specific phrasing there were other
issues that folks had flagged up uh the biggest of which is that the leaked uh
version of the ogl that people saw was always intended to be a draft and that
Wizards of the Coast had always intended to ask for Community feedback can you speak to why if this was the
case that the leaked ogl included a place to actually sign it that it
included as I understand it mention of specific dates as to when things would go into effect dates that had already
passed by the time that the I think by around the time that Wizards even responded and uh not only that but why
if this was explicitly a draft why a simple like even if uh why it
could not have been released immediately a statement immediately saying uh this is just a draft what you are all seeing
is not at all representative of what we had planned uh we are currently working on it and maybe set a due date any sort
because that could have fit under the the banner of communication uh so just to reiterate
um why uh why was the ogl uh worded the way it was including having places to
sign in specific dates specified and why then if that is the case did Wizards the coast say nothing because I I personally
find that very difficult to believe uh given the apparent progress that had already been made to the ogl 1.2
so every document that isn't published is to some extent a draft right until
it's published then that's the final version so when I'm when we're making a book for example we have draft versions of the books that don't get published
because we're making changes and those are all drafts until they're published and with a legal document it looks every
bit like the final one because any version could be the final one but isn't until it's final and published one one
was never final was never published it did contain the things that it would need when it would eventually be
published such as dates which were changed as we continued edit the document and places to sign because
ultimately there would be a need for people to agree to it um and so those those things are all
present in a final document they are also president present in a draft because they draft if approved if
everybody likes it becomes the final and so that's I mean that's it's to me it's maybe I don't know it seems a
little bit um I like a weird thing to get hung up on because of how drafts work but I'm in
the book business so I see draft all the time so maybe that's why I see it that way um uh and what about the second part of
the question uh why there was in light of the fact that it was apparently a draft why was there no response
well I think that gets back to the conversation we were just having earlier about what was hanging up our responses
um the the immediate reaction the strength of the reaction uh caused people to be concerned about anything we
said be incredible or not we're adding fuel to the fire or making it worse and I think that caused some hesitation
um do you think that the hesitation paid off given what happened when it was
originally released in hindsight I would have much preferred to take a much more active communication
stance on that uh and to be much more responsive and to you know get the conversation going
um much sooner and much more um responsibly than we were and yeah you know hindsight 2020 uh at
the time as it was unfolding it was a combination of is is this as
bad as it's going to get is it going to get worse will we make it worse if we talk will we not we'll make it better if we talk
it was it was a tough spot um because we care so much about the
community and everybody who was being hurt by this and at the same time so we were like how do we make this better is
it better if we say something that's better if we don't say something let's just deliberate let's just give them the the new one that's not that doesn't have
all these things in it that they're worried about uh so which you know in hindsight is
maybe not the right thing would it be fair to say then uh that at
the very least there may have been too many uh well I guess you've already I guess the
better question is were there dissenting voices about the uh oh the ogl one point
uh I guess the 1.1 prior to the leaks uh which indicated that there were
um were those voices from within Wizards to the coast or without Wizards of the Coast or both
both for sure both um and in the in any large group of people in order to get something done
you have a vigorous debate and then at some point you reach a point of commitment as a group and if you know if
for example I still disagree at that point my job is to say okay I disagree and I'm committing because we need to
move forward and that doesn't mean I stopped disagreeing but it does mean that we are going to proceed and I will
do the best I can to deliver this thing that we've decided to deliver and I and I think the flaw there was that the
dissenting voices were not given enough of a microphone we're not given enough of a presence in the room uh we're not
given enough weight to change the decision but they were certainly present we certainly heard them we certainly had
a debate going on both from our internal and our external feedback and as I said we were already changing the document
when it leaked so the feedback was moving then it was moving the ball it was moving the needle and then the
document became published or public I should I should say it was never published um became public while we were still
moving it Forward based on that input input and that input was very strong from the folks who who voiced it
um you know there's people on my team whose opinion I respect very much who were quite against it uh and it you know
moving moving the opinion of large groups unfortunately is not a fast thing um and it just it took us a while to
move it and in the meantime uh it went public does that mean that the dissenting
voices were the minority in Wizards at the time so the majority of of everyone
was well we didn't we didn't we didn't pull everybody of course
um so I would say that uh the the each person had a different perspective so
there might be people who are mostly focused on protecting rip um and there might be people who are mostly focused on hey I came from a
third party Creator Community I'm going to go back to it when my job here is done I need to make sure that that's still a healthy Community this is bad
you can't do this and different you know so different people come at it from different perspectives hey it's my job I'm in legal I'm supposed to give us all
the tools we can we have as an organization to protect us okay so I'm going to give you the strongest language I can so everybody had their point of
view at the table that was legitimate and was coming from a good place uh and so your question was it a minority I
would say it wasn't loud enough in the room and that's what's changing is we're giving much more of a voice to
the folks on my team myself included who are closer to the community and would be able to catch this kind of thing in
future and have enough volume to prevent it and how are you uh enacting that like
how are you giving them a voice well it's a couple things first of all by moving everything into the Creative
Commons we've just taken this whole discussion off the table I mean that's a one-way door we can't unring that Bell so there's no there's
no taking back the SRD and the openness of d d it's out there it's done so this
literal example can never happen again because we can't we we didn't even
decide to do it with language we just did it mechanically like you don't have to take our word for it that's just how the license works
um and so this particular problem literally can't happen again um now should we in future be looking at
corporate strategies company strategies that would impact the d d Community now
folks like me and my and the leaders of my creative team are in are in the conversation
so you've essentially been given authority to be able to influence these decisions is what you're saying you and
your team have been getting I was greater Authority in order to influence these decisions I would say greater
respect um because Authority for each decision needs to rest with a different person depending on what kind of decision we're making uh that being said uh being heard
and being respected is important uh and I will say um to to her credit I know she's gotten
a lot of um you know bad uh Cynthia has gotten a lot of um you know negative opinion
about her but she listens and she does change based on information and she's one of the most empathetic c-suite
people I've ever worked with uh by a country mile so um I am confident that when she says she's going to listen
she's going to listen mm-hmm okay um before I move on to a topic that uh
you uh actually just started to touch on I did want to ask can you give specifics
on who was being met with beforehand uh before like uh because I'd put a pin
in that jumping back to the pin and pulling it out uh can you give specifics on who those meetings were taking like
who those meetings were with uh any of them um I don't have that list in front of me
of exactly who we were talking to but it you know the it's the the biggest creators out there I know that was one
of the criteria was like what's what's Their audience size you know uh I mean we we spoke to Piezo we spoke to kobold
we you know spoke to critical role I mean and each conversation was different it was because each Creator is different
each person's each each group's thing that they create is different and so it's not like everybody got the same
conversation because not everybody was in the same place or had the same questions uh so there were I mean but it
was like that it was like okay who are the ones that are the top Publishers out there who are who are have large audiences that they're serving because
those are the ones who are going to really have the best sense of what's right okay um all right well I want to touch on
what you mentioned when uh you were talking about how the you were acknowledging how the the Creative Commons now covers all of the SRD 5.1 uh
here's my question is it the intention of Wizards of the Coast to add one D and
D content to this SRD we are I mean one DND isn't finished
right now so I can't really tell you what all the content is yet because we haven't finished writing it uh but I will say the intention to add the
content yeah the intention is that um all of the new up rules updates that
we're doing um including the stuff we're publishing in 2024 this being called one DND right now uh all of that will remain the SRD
will be updated to remain compatible with all of that now exactly how that compatibility is maintained is something
that I'm going to leave with the Jeremy Crawford and Crawford and the rules designers maybe it's we put the exact rules language into the SRD maybe it's
we do some bridging language like for example the new rules update will refer to species not race well so the SRD
still uses race so we might put some language in there that says hey where you see the word race use the word species and you know that's what I mean
by bridging language just to connect the dots for how stuff works in SRD versus how to work in the rules update but
it'll be some combination of those things the one thing I can guarantee right now is it'll be 100 compatible anything you build with the SRD will
work with the new rules okay uh is there are there plans to potentially introduce
a new ogl that is specific to one DND I don't think so I don't see the value
in it if you know the I mean Creative Commons is such a great open license I think if uh you know at such time as we
decided to um put more stuff out into the uh out into the public space we'd do
it through probably Creative Commons I think you know the I'm no interest in getting into the Ojo business I'd rather
be in the D D business okay so there's uh just to be clear there's no plans for us one d d
essentially becoming like a closed system where it's like well uh what everything that was five uh fifth
edition and everything prior is now covered by that we're cutting that free y'all can have it and we're building our
own thing and this is our new Venture no no we yeah we don't even think of it as a different Edition we think of it as an
evolution of fifth edition um that's why we call it one d d instead of putting a number on it um we don't I mean people like to call
it six Edition they're gonna call it another Edition they might even call it 5.5 I don't know because it feels a little bit more like what happened as
three got evolved into 3.5 but really what we're doing is we think fifth edition is great and we think it
could be better we think it could play faster it could play Easier it could provide more room for role play so
there's stuff like that we want to do to improve it but we're not trying to replace it
okay um so at the beginning of this we talked about how the the oh the new ogl was
designed in order to try and combat like big corporations uh big media
corporations specifically or new various new technologies um and that this has been planned for a
while well obviously since the new ogl is no longer happening what plans does Wizards then have to try
and address those issues we're leaning hard on the community honestly um we looked at it and said all
right there's I mean there's some things that one can do through Creative Commons like we can say hey you can't you need
to pull our attribution you know so you can't like put d d the name d d on it or whatever so there's
some small things we can do that might discourage some Bad actors but really um what we're counting on especially for
things like the hateful content stuff we were worried about we're counting on the community um because you know it's uh demonstrated
it's been demonstrated time and time again not least of which just now that this is a strong and vocal and active
Community uh and so rather than counting on a legal document to give us personally the room to act we're going
to be counting a lot on the strength of the community and supporting the actions of the community to combat things that
try to come in and take over the space or try to scam people um you know through nfts or whatever I
feel pretty confident that this community is going to catch on to that and make noise and we would rather be
with you uh making that noise again something bad then uh than trying to put it in a legal document
okay um so I know that there were a number of concerns uh with the uh the ogi I think
even the ogl 1.2 that had been proposed that there were Provisions in there that
talked about uh potentially uh I guess shutting down a a project if
it does not align with Wizards values uh the concern by much of the community I
mean many of our some of our Show members as many many of our fans fit into uh numerous minority groups uh
there has been a fear raise that if hypothetically there was turnover at Wizards of the Coast and I say a heavily
conservative leadership took over uh and suddenly say Pro lgbtq Plus content is
now considered harmful and defensive uh is that a is is the kind of action that
was proposed in the ogl 1.2 still a possibility is that still something that Wizards is looking towards having that
sort of authority and if so what protections are being put in place to prevent something like that happening
that's a similar response to the what about outside actors and new technologies coming in and making a mess
um the community are the ones who tell us when we publish something hateful or racist so that we can take action on it
and we expect that they will tell other people the same thing and so we're going to count on that community and support
that community in in helping all content creators to keep the game ever more
inclusive ever more open ever more welcoming so we won't be doing it through legal language we'll be doing it by supporting the voices who are calling
out for improved inclusivity and improved openness we're working on a Content policy because people asked hey
what what do you even consider hateful so we feel like we should publish something that says what we consider hateful and something that is adaptable
and something that can grow with time as Society wakes up and opens its eyes and
that will only apply to us of course because we don't you know we're not we're we don't have a legal structure in
place to apply to anybody else but we feel like you should know what our standards are and we feel like you should be able to participate in helping
us improve our standards so we're working on a Content policy to open the doors on that sum but that those two
things together are how I'd answer your question we're counting on the community and we're going to show you where our heads at on all those
um I think counting on the community is is definitely you know all well and good you know feedback is great but is there
any kind of intent to you know reflect on these things before they are put out to the community so
that the community doesn't have to kind of be relied on um for this information are you going to
have maybe like Community leaders who can like take a look over things like for example you had
um the what was the the monkey race that was in the hadozi yeah yeah like you
know stuff like that is there going to be somebody there who can just like Point things out that may get kind of
like overlooked like without it getting to the community point and then everything blows up yeah yeah so for our
own for things that we publish um I mean we can't really exercise oversight over anybody else we just got
to keep an eye on our house um and so for the things that we publish we have a thorough inclusion review
process right now where we have uh external uh inclusion reviewers
um inclusivity reviewers multiple two or three usually look over every word that we publish give us a complete report on
the things that we need to to take action on we figure out what we're going to take action on WE advise some of the
things we're how we're taking action on their feedback and then we publish it and so we do have already
I would I say already as of last fall but going forward it is an established
policy now for everything we published and we're also going back and anything we reprint we're going through all our old content as we reprint it and putting
it through that same rigor so um you know when you see the the reprint of course estrad when it comes out we
have some things that we need to do to that to make it better and we're going to do it based on these outside experts
who've advised us on this uh so that's that's our approach internally um and then also in the content policy you see
coming forward we have some some ways for the community as well to to officially advise us of things so it's
it's both we do it before we even publish it get some experts you know and take it very seriously and I will say
the reports that I've seen in the action plans that I've seen for the things we're publishing are pretty open I am
not seeing much resistance to any of the feedback the team is uh happy to have
the feedback and excited to be able to do something to make the game better uh okay I I wanted to jump in then and
when asked when did uh d d start using cultural consultants for its projects
and then I guess my next question would be why were they not using it sooner
because I I'm I mean the indication even what you just said is that they didn't start until at least last fall or the
very least last year whereas other major Outlets including I think some of the
ones that you mentioned have been uh when you the people that uh d d was Consulting with about the ogl 1.1 were
have you been using and publicly openly recommending the use of cultural consultants and so forth for years uh
why the slow movement on that well we were using them it just wasn't thorough it wasn't that every word went
past a reviewer and now the difference is every word goes past a reviewer and
in fact every word goes past multiple outside reviewers uh so there were spot reviews done of things that we thought
might be problematic um for example the the vastani in cursorstrad have already been revised
heavily once with advice of of uh cultural Consultants so we have used them in the past
um what we were not doing is 100 percent with you know at least two Consultants
every word we publish that's the difference going from sum to all uh like with the hadozi for example
there was there wasn't suspicion based on the past of that particular race that there may be some red flags to be to pay
attention to there are a couple things that went on with that one um so short version is it
was not run by a cultural consultant of any kind um to catch that and that partic the
particular uh the there was a particular paragraph in there that really
um made the connection that to to past depictions that we really didn't intend to that
um got in there by kind of a uh and outside the normal flow thing a senior person who is very trusted wrote it and
very few eyes got on it before it got into the final draft and so that was so it's two it was two breakdowns in
process one we were not reviewing everything and so nobody had reviewed it and it even got in there outside the
normal process so we've corrected both of those things we have a much greater rigor on our basic processes and we've
also layered in multiple independent uh inclusivity reviewers on everything we publish
um uh it seems to me that uh we did uh an app I say this because we did an
episode actually about the previous version of the hadozi from like 3.5 Edition and uh even I have my dad knows
nothing about d d uh so I just with him I described to him the the general way
that the previous version had existed uh and as I kept going his face went more
and more from quizzical to uh deeply horrified and I guess in light of that
with how uh kind of undeniably the previous editions had the hadozi
situated is essentially a parallel or metaphor for like the American slave trade
it just seems like a big oversight to let one person then be responsible for
writing a significant portion because it's not like the backstory was long that was published in the new version to
be responsible for published for writing in a specific uh a significant portion of the new lore the new official lore
for the race and not having that checked over yeah uh that's correct that that was a
mistake it was taken very seriously and some internal actions were taken as a result we did take it extremely seriously uh the other thing is we we
have a d d has a long history it's got a long and deep lore that goes back to
some really troubling stuff uh and so we're in the a place where we want to
acknowledge and bring forward some of the cool Nostalgia but also fix the
broken stuff fix the stuff that was wrong about it and uh it's it's in that space it's very possible for somebody
meaning well to make what they think is a nostalgic callback that actually dredges up with that hook a whole big
wad of terrible stuff that we did not want in the in there in the first place uh so while I can understand how the
mistake was made that does not mean the mistake was forgiven and it's not me the mistake was not acted on
um so yeah we took it very seriously and uh um it's not something that can happen
again with the current structure uh we'll I guess uh speaking of Wizard's
internal structure uh there was I'm sure you're aware uh that the popular Tick
Tock and YouTube Creator d d shorts published a video uh very recently claiming to have verified Insider
communication from employees at Wizards of the Coast and among the most disturbing uh leaks were repeated
indications that Wizards of the Coast isn't a safe work environment for employees uh they've specifically named
Chris KO I hope I'm pronouncing his last name correctly as someone who routinely has uh quote outbursts and verbally
attacks employees I can actually I I wrote down the quote it says KO verbally attacked many individuals across the
company to my knowledge almost every person he attacked has now left the company since it was clear neither the
leadership nor HR were going to do anything about it uh which also follows on earlier statements and leaks from
past years concerning unsafe work environments and lack of diversity such as Orion blacks statements back in 2020
which Wizards in fact publicly apologized for uh what are you doing as
an executive to ensure that your employees of all different backgrounds have a safe work environment
so there's a number of things first of all uh just in my personal space on my own team
the place that where I have the most influence uh my Approach is always to take the phrase that I always give
people is I need good information not good news and what and that that is that's an important thing to State and
it's important thing to demonstrate it's important when someone brings me something that's a concern my first response is thank you I need that
information in order to make things better rather than getting defensive rather than you know shutting it down I
need the information please give me the information tell me the things so that I can do things about it and that approach
permeates throughout the team and so I think certainly not on the digital team which is Chris Ko's team so I can't
speak for my my actions on my team are not liable to make a huge impact on that team's work environment it's a you know
it's a big group and each team sort of has its own local culture and in my own local culture on on the on the dungeon
the dragons you know core Studio team where we make all the books and game and stuff uh it's always about being open I
have multiple conversations with the team I have an open lunch every week that people can just drop in and tell me
whatever they want and the more they see that that is actually true that there are no repercussions from it I've only
been in this job for a few months so I have to build a track record I have to create I can't just declare it to be
safe I have to demonstrate it to be safe and so I'm doing that and my intent is that over time people will go all right
he means what he says when I raise an issue he acts on it he doesn't shut me down he doesn't retaliate great and
that's I think the responsibility of every senior leader especially if we're going to grow as a society to keep that
door open especially to marginalized folks and in addition we have Anonymous feedback channels whereby people can can
raise issues if they don't feel safe doing so um but I I take this extremely
personally I have gotten in trouble at other workplaces for uh maybe going too far as a leader in going after these
things so it's um yeah it's not something that can be trivialized we cannot do our best work
as creators if we don't feel safe and we cannot do our best work as members of society if we can't address the hard
things um um I well you mentioned that uh there
are separate teams and each team essentially has their own individual culture uh that's fair but is there not
an overall system in place to prevent that kind of mistreatment from
continuing or give employees um reliable ways to have action taken
because the indication at least in the quote is that whatever systems may be in
place simply are not working yeah there are systems in place for that um now I've not having been in the loop
uh on exactly what was raised to whom and how that fed into the process that we have in place for addressing these
concerns I can't speak to exactly how that person's particular concerns were raised and uh not addressed or addressed
but I can say there is a system in place there are investigations that are conducted when um you know issues like
this issues of you know a hostile workplace and harassment and those things come up uh those those are always
confidential by their very nature uh and so I I am not allowed to know what's
going on with that but I can say the the processes exist and I have been party to some that have uh reached some pretty
significant conclusions and uh have resulted in real action so I do know that that feedback and the system that
handles it does result in real action uh I can't speak to what's going on what
the particular person's um own experience was but I can't say there is a system and I have seen it
work um so uh thinking about the lack of
diversity that we mentioned earlier one of the things that we couldn't wrap our
heads around when we were talking about the herdosi is the fact that there was nobody internally who would have picked
up on that kind of thing like the very fact that there has to be an external kind of audit kind of says that you know
maybe there should be some more diversity in the company as it is do you think that's something that you can
speak on like are there any plans to be more inclusive with your hiring process yeah we we're pretty aggressive actually
in in pursuing uh inclusivity in our hiring process and I'm happy to say that uh certainly in the last couple of years
of hiring uh We've made a difference um on the D D team in particular and part
of that honestly is that the d d audience has been growing and becoming more diverse which is great because I you know D D players and creators exist
on a spectrum right every player is a Creator we make a stuff up at the table that's the whole point of the game um and then you know hey then maybe I'm
a DM and I write a world and I don't want to published world and eventually I'm a big you know uh you know none of cobalt plus right I'm uh uh critical
role or whatever so everybody in our community is a Creator and when we hire people onto our team we hire from that
pool of creators and so as the pool of players becomes more diverse so too does the pool of creators become more diverse
and that makes it more and more possible for us to hire top quality creators who are also from diverse backgrounds um and
uh you know and and have all kinds of things to bring to the table I think in the in the case of the hadoops in particular again a big part of it was
that our internal process also wasn't followed so even the people on our team who would have seen it didn't see that
text they didn't get a chance to go hey that's a problem before it was live and so that was so we had an internal
breakdown of our existing process as well as needing to get some outside eyes on it
uh in terms of hiring diversity um this actually speaks to one uh one
thing that Orion black said in their statements which is that they believed that they were essentially A diversity
hire which look we're all here we're all in favor of diversity But ultimately I think what makes the difference in a
company like this is if you have minority people in positions of power and while I'm sure that there have been
numerous hirings of people from a variety of different minorities at least in the case of racial minorities
I've met a number of people who including yourself who are fairly high
up in D and D uh and I think every single one of them has been white and
also I think all of them have been CIS men not to say that everybody there is a CIS man but it seems to be consistently
that we have white CIS men still at the top of these groups can you identify any
specific positions of like significant power um because you've got you got I mean
even on the D D team you still got uh you've still got Jeremy Crawford uh you still got uh Mike Merles and so forth
what can you identify any specific uh positions that have like higher
ranking positions that have been filled by people of say racially diverse backgrounds uh I think if you look at
the the credits of our books um you'll see some lead designers there who are are uh not CIS men uh you will also see
a lot of primary authors on sources uh these are folks who are coming up
through the ranks and proving themselves and earning their respect not because of
who they are but because of how they are as professionals which is the best kind of respect right you know you don't want
to be respected because you're the diversity hire you want to be respected because you're awesome at your job and that's uh and that's happening more and
more um this you know look guys like me we're we're leaving uh the workforce to
be blunt and we're also not this is not the face of the hobby anymore I'm not the majority of this hobby anymore uh
and I I and so it's important to me that my team of creators look like my players
and have the lived experience that my players do and I think there's been mistakes made in years past where people
assumed that d d players were all you know white dudes in a basement
um which is which has been a faulty assumption for a lot of years and gets more and more false every day and so
it's in my viewpoint honestly guys like me you can't can't leave soon enough um for this Hobby and we owe you good
games we owe you good products and so we need to make sure that everybody working on it is real good at it and that means
not just hiring but also developing right when we bring people in who are good we need to empower them give them
more room to run give them guidance on what we learned when we were creating stuff so that they can create great
stuff too and then you know I always hire people smarter than me so that I can get out of their way that's my
Approach uh and so as as long as we stay on this trajectory yeah this is this is the face of d d
will literally change okay um I we're I know I see we're running
relatively low on time so I got two uh big questions that I wanted to get to uh
the first is that many people suspect that one DND is going to be uh strongly
it's gonna be at least with the release of One D there's going to be a very strong focus on digital platforms like
vtts that one d d could in could end up being kind of what many spec fourth
edition was originally supposed to be uh as I'm sure you know fourth edition was supposed to have a vtt that it came with
it that didn't end up happening and that caused you know further difficulties in terms of playing the game uh it's their
strong suspicions especially with the announcement of the vtt and the the clips that were shown or the images that
were shown in the in the announcement that uh one d d is going to be like a heavily online game and that Wizards
focus is Shifting more toward primarily producing online content in that uh I
think the phrase that was used in in D shorts videos that books would then be like collector items or like special
things that you could buy uh but that were not uh key to the experience and that everything else was going to be
digital in terms of physical books rather we're going to be like collector's items so our our goal is to give you more ways
to play so it's and not instead uh we're gonna keep making the game as we do
today uh and that's also why we love all the work that's being done by all the vtts out there uh we think that's great
it's been essential for people to be able to play that way and we think that's going to continue to be true we would also like to offer a cool looking
3D space if people want to play in that too but it's not ever meant to replace it's just meant to be additive here's
another way you could play if you like that here's another way you could play if you like that uh and you know I could certainly see if people were trying to
make forward-looking discussions they might say well what if everybody started playing that way we ever make books and then you know I could see somebody
saying from that well maybe then books would become Collectibles that's not the strategy though the strategy is to give
you all the choice and then we go where your interests lie we go where your choices lie I mean we're we're here to
make a game for the players and so what we want to do is put as many things on the table for you as we can and lean
into the things that you like best okay uh Liv did you have anything to jump in with before I go to the final
question um oh I think the final question deserves a lot of time so yeah let's let's jump
onto that okay uh finally how does uh how does d d in Wizards of the Coast in
uh plan on rebuilding trust with the community uh through actions I mean you you behave
your way out of a trust problem you don't talk your way out of it so I mean obviously we'll have conversations like this this is important and talking is
itself in action I'm not denying that or setting that aside and it's the actions that are going to count what do we do
and that's why we started with the strongest possible action we could which is all right here you go it's in
Creative Commons now um go to town uh no clear signal we could send about our
intentions here uh and uh as more concerns get raised we take action on them as well so Arc it is on us now to
be responsive and good actors in the space and that's so some of this some of
this our plans for the future is going to be like well we're going to be watching to see what you all need
um and acting on that uh you know we want to make a game that you all want to play and uh that includes making it an a
community and an environment where people feel happy playing where people aren't
um you know uh concerned about what's going to happen to their favorite Creator or their favorite stuff down the
road so uh yeah it's for us it's all about actions not words at this point
um and we intend to be active okay uh do you have I guess um if
there's a message that you could give to those who were whose trust was broken I know that there are many within the
community who have who no longer really feel comfortable playing the game because of they feel as though uh
Wizards of the Coast and d d kind of or at least the corporate figures in those organizations kind of showed their hand
on that there's not very much that the focus is ultimately on uh on profits and
not on the people and not on the fans and the creators who have helped boost the game uh to the heights that it has
been and the heights that has reached uh and make the game so special do you have
a message to those who feel uh betrayed essentially by what has happened with
this whole situation watch what I do not what I say and
decide for yourself if what we're doing is enough for you to trust us and either way play your game with your friends you
don't need to have us at the table if you don't want to you know your game is for you
um we'll make stuff for it and if you want it we'll be over here making it you can come get it um but honestly we should not be messing
up your game you should be playing your game you don't you don't honestly you
shouldn't need to trust Wizards of the Coast to play dungeon the dragons I I guess is what I'd really say uh so
we have work to do to build back that trust but I don't I would hate for a lack of trust in me
and our team to get in the way of you having fun with your friends because it's your friends didn't break
this you didn't break this very true uh well I guess there you have it uh
thank you very much Kyle uh for joining us in for answering these questions uh
yeah it's we I guess we will see how things go on we will continue I can I
can assure you we will continue to be watching uh your actions uh and and uh I
guess we will judge from there but thank you very much for what you said yeah I really appreciate the time thank you so much yeah thank you
okay so that was our uh interview with Kyle
um and now we're here to chat about um you know what we thought about what
went on yeah well uh I felt like Kyle had uh I could
but we said this just before starting to record this outro I think it's fair to say Kyle had for the most part all the
right answers and I'm doing quotes around right answers um I think that there were a lot of
cases where he he dodged having to give answers that
might have otherwise been uncomfortable so such as the questions about Chris Ko's Behavior where he's like he
essentially said I'm not on that team and if you notice he never mentioned him by name he only ever said to that
individual uh and so forth which I I think was in reference to the situation with Chris uh it seemed as though it was
very much like oh you know I'm just over here and all the teams are separate things to do with me and it's like
but if you you must you you must know this dude
must have a reputation yeah yeah um so yeah there was a few instances
like that where there was some obfuscation um but uh yeah we were told not to hold
back and I don't think we did I think that we asked every question that we meant to ask but um
I don't know I feel like that we yeah we just didn't get straight answers particularly yeah um which is a little
bit disappointing but what are you gonna do I guess yeah and I think we got some straight answers
I mean there were some things that it's like oh okay this is an unequivocal statement that you're making you're there are currently no plans for uh one
DND to become its own closed system there are no uh plans for one DND to have its own new ogl apparently uh there
are no like there it's all going into the old one okay there's no plans for basically any of the stuff that people
were freaking out about with ogl 1.1 and 1.2 okay that's a pretty clear stance that
he's taking that if in fact down the line we see is not true then you know we
will be able to say hey that was a lie yeah I would like to yeah yeah there were specifics uh as you said there were
some things where it's like okay I'm glad that we at least got him to say which uh some at least some of the
groups that they spoke to ahead of time yeah I wasn't expecting actual names but
I'm glad that you pushed on that because I don't think we would have gotten it otherwise um yeah it
it the the answers that were given were you know they all made sense but it just it
just it makes it's hard to believe that they weren't all thoroughly examined beforehand and these
and like every question that we asked was anticipated and you know they had an
answer set in place for each of them you know they wouldn't have done this if they didn't have that advice yeah
um yeah they yeah um they they absolutely and actually they had asked for the questions ahead
of time which we did not send them the questions ahead of time uh they said that this was specifically so that they
could uh I'm not gonna quote them uh but because I have the email in front of me but I believe they said it was so that
they could make sure that they had all the informations because if sometimes people are raising legal issues and so
forth and since he's not part of the legal team he can't really speak to that uh so
it as yeah it could that could be the case if we take them at their word then sure that was the reason why they were
asking it could also be because they were trying to uh be prepared for specific questions and know maybe the
tone of the interview so that they could be prepared um but they didn't even need that because
they definitely discussed everything that we offered to them yeah I I'm with
you live I remain unconvinced on a number of topics uh specific basically everything about the ogl 1.1 I'm like um
like okay look maybe there was in fact some work on a later I don't know on
later changes that wasn't I'd still it still to me does not make
sense that they could not have publicly said acknowledged but I don't really know it felt like uh in
for full transparency we only had an hour to speak with him we had a lot of different topics that we wanted to get
to and so we had to start making decisions about what we were we're going to push on what we weren't going to push
on that sort of thing like if it was and that became a thing where it's like well he's given an answer
look I'm not really sure what else to say except I don't believe you yeah no
it it just it just felt very I don't know artificial it made the team sound really
incompetent in a number there were a number of instances where his answer was basically like yeah we just didn't have
it together man like it but stated in a very uh a much more eloquent way
official roundabout way I agree no um yeah it just it just felt
yeah it felt placating in a way uh which
I mean yeah that was the goal yeah it was a damage control interview yeah um
we have not really talked much about uh our individual responses or our
responses a show um there's a there's a good chance that we will be talking more about our
responses to show down the line but uh I feel comfortable to at least say where
I'm coming from do you want me to say first liver do you want to say where you're coming from or what we've talked about at the show okay
um essentially in my opinion what uh the ogr that we have and had and
continue to have is like such a unique thing for a large corporation to have in
place that I was amazed that it even existed and uh in my opinion uh
ultimately they were we had a great thing we continue to have a great thing thankfully but they were within their
rights to change it sure because it's their thing yeah but the way in which
they were going about changing it the the fact that the leaked document would
have given a week for creators to sign and agree to it uh the fact that
I still don't buy that it was a draft I still don't
it's just yeah to me that's like the fact that it look the fact that they've
been working on it for years and the fact that it was posted uh or that they had approached people with it indicates
to me that if there were changes to be made they were probably going to be pretty minor yeah because why why would
they have not gone straight to the community in a case like that it just doesn't make sense
no he doesn't sorry yeah you can yeah and as such
um I have nothing against the game of d d uh I generally believe I get the
impression at least that Chris may have been telling the truth not Chris uh that Kyle may have been telling the truth uh
when he was talking about his love for the game and so forth I I don't I
obviously can't know for sure but it seems that he does genuinely love the game of d d and does overall seem to
have positive um intentions towards at least uh the game
um but I my my trust in Wizards of the Coast and d d has an organization is
certainly shaken and so I'm not I'm still playing d d like in
private games I don't necessarily have a problem with that I commend anybody who is switching
um I personally feel uh I can say uh that one thing that is unequivocal two
things is number one my trust in this system is broken uh in their corporation uh they have I to me they have still
shown their hand and now they are trying to fix that but to me it's still going to take a lot of effort and work to
build back that trust I'm gonna need to see a lot more than even just an interview if the things he's saying in the interview are carried through the
attitude that he brought forth in the interview is actually followed then I'm like great but that's gonna be that's gonna need to be months of activity or
years of activity for me to really yeah that as you said it remains to be seen that is one thing the other thing is
this it is not healthy for the ttrpg landscape to have one uh one giant game
controlling so much of the space and I it's it I mean just by how big a deal
this was does and how many creators were affected by this and it wasn't just oh D
and D makes up a section of my sales for a lot of these people it's like the main thing or the only thing that they do and
even on our show it's almost the only thing that we play and so that's that tells me that it is time to start
boosting uh an even more proactive role in trying to boost other games and other creators
in the space and so my intention is going forward for uh future actual plays
to feature D less often um
exactly and we already have at least one uh I think two two recordings scheduled
that will explicitly help promote other ttrpgs uh there are a couple of of
actual play things that we have already recorded or at least partially recorded that use D and D that happened prior to
the ogl nonsense we're gonna keep those like if it's already done recording we're not going to re-record it and if
it's already partially recorded we're not going to force the cast to learn a new system and then re-record the whole
Adventure uh so that stuff will stay with d d but there's a good chance that
a lot of other games and planned series that we had for this year as well as uh more one shots that we plan uh we'll be
focusing on things other than BNB down the line absolutely um yeah no I I mean on dice breakup uh
which is uh the channel I do in my day job um we've discussed like the idea of like
maybe we like possibly would to lean more into d d just like kind of overall but then it was always like a resounding
no because um like it just it just goes to show that you
can't rely on one system you really can't um and there are so many so many out
there that you know people really need to pay more attention to um but yeah everything you said Jeremy I
completely agree with um it's yeah it this whole thing has been a
bit of a fiasco but at least it was a wake-up call so yeah you know yeah
that's that's good and I will say uh we have had talks about the degree to which the show will be focusing on DND content
going forward even aside from actual play uh but in terms of discussion uh I feel comfortable to publicly say that
I'm in favor of taking less of a focused
role we'll see what ends up happening this is not me saying this is a decision this is me letting you know uh just as a
Creator I guess I am in favor of not I mean we'll probably finish the class
deep I'm in favor of that but we'll see about the rest for me yeah you have one
class left that's why it's just a sorcerer one it's not the sorcerer's
fault um but yeah like I got ttrpg it's coming out the Wazoo like you know we
can we can learn other systems it's great it'll be it'll be fun it's going to be a brand new chapter for 3bh I'm
very excited about it so yeah um with that I guess let us know what you think about this and let us know
what your thoughts are out there in in our Discord on Twitter and patreon let us know because look we don't know
everything uh that's partly why it's taking us so long to respond because we were there's a lot of waiting to see
when it first was first broke I was like is it as bad as people are saying I was waiting to hear from like lawyers and
hear more details about it and you know as we heard more leaks and lawyers came to weigh in a lot of times the lawyers
didn't even agree with each other or the lawyers would miss aspects that were specific to D and D like where they're
like well you can't you can't uh you can't copyright rule systems so what was the ogl originally doing and then people
will come in who actually write stuff and they're like well actually the the language used is something you can
copyright and that is very big to the deed like the whole idea the stat block and specifics of how things are written
the style is something you can and that is a big thing that was that people had access to that sort of thing
um so yeah for me I tend to try and be cautious because I know that jumping in
and just guns are blazing on the wrong side can sometimes do a lot more harm
than good the [ __ ] yeah um also with pointing out that um the questions that we asked uh to Kyle in
this interview a lot of them were prompted by uh patrons and uh Discord
members so it's worth checking those out because we do go to our community you
know as as a source uh very often so yeah if you're interested in that just uh check check them out I'm sure
there'll be links around yeah and in fact yeah not only that there were instances where multiple people had
asked versions of the same question so I just sort of collapsed them into one and in some cases I would literally put in
parentheses this these people specifically had wanted to know about this thing or this many people upvoted
this particular question and that helped to boost in some cases which questions were being asked uh we had our own
questions as well obviously but yeah um with that is there anything else we need to touch on I think you've done a
lot I can Jeremy we should do plugs shouldn't we bugs we can plug yeah yeah live you got something to plug yeah I'll
plug myself that's always sounds so weird um
it's a treat for me um I'm at the stock Magic on Twitter and
I'm Olivia does stockmagic on most other things I'm also on YouTube now I'm hopefully releasing a new video tonight
we'll see maybe um so yeah go ahead and subscribe if you'd like but also subscribe to three
back halflings on YouTube and you can also find me on youtube.com forward slash dicebreaker if you want more ttrpg
stuff that's not just D and D that's all right there yeah yeah uh and uh you can
follow me on Twitter at Jeremy cobb1 that's Cobb with two B's in the number
one uh but you can also follow follow me because I've reached the threshold I'm
going to look up my username on air I've reached 150 followers yeah can I tell you what it is because I know what it is
please do yeah it is the cob Meister oh okay follow me at the cob Meister on
Instagram I'm going to be posting something possibly today as of this recording or just very soon uh thank you
Liv uh the cob Meister I mean I've been uh looking at it for just like oh there he is
see you um yeah no I I've double checked it is correct yes yes uh and even more
importantly than following me on the cob Meister uh there is a new show it's either coming out this week or next week
uh I'm doing with Andrew Coons of the first watch friend of the show uh he has been on three black halflings I know
we've done a couple of Kickbacks with him that I don't think have been released yet uh and I think we also did
a shire folk Spotlight with him that I think has been released already um go check out the quantum reactor it
is a sci-fi movie review show uh we're we've recorded I think three episodes so far we talk about sunshine the 2007
movie we talk about everything everywhere all at once uh the movie came out last year 2022 Masterpiece uh we
also talk about Moon which is 2009 film a very very good movie all three of
those I would say each episode gets better as we solidify our style uh but
yeah go check it out go follow us you can follow us on uh Twitter at Q reactor
show and I think we will also be posting to YouTube but I I think actually no I
think on YouTube we are also Q reactor show so go check that out yeah uh you can't do it yeah go go support go
support and we also I always have a Discord I don't know where the link to that's going to be but keep stay tuned
stay tuned for that um yeah with that uh go follow the show
on patreon uh specifically three black halflings now uh patreon.com TV halflings if you want to uh help and get
behind the scenes help support the show get behind the scenes stuff get Kickbacks uh like the one that Liv and I
just recorded last week which I thought was a great conversation that we had yeah we had a fun time we just had a nice chat and we really enjoyed it so if
you want to be a part of that you go ahead and take a listen yeah um follow us on Twitter Instagram and
Facebook at three this is number three black halflings and I think that's just
about it we will see you all next time so long Shire folk so
It’s a really egotistical position to take. And kinda self-delusional on WotC’s part. If Disney had any interest whatever in their IP, through the incredibly limited and limiting OGL, they have had 23 years to exploit it. And haven’t done so. WotC’s IP released into the OGL just isn’t that unique.
Or they’d go to the same sources that TSR/WotC…borrowed from…and option those rights. Way cheaper to option the film rights to displacer beasts from the original author or their estate for a few million than to outright buy Hasbro or WotC for a few billion.
Or they’d go to the same sources that TSR/WotC…borrowed from…and option those rights. Way cheaper to option the film rights to displacer beasts from the original author or their estate for a few million than to outright buy Hasbro or WotC for a few billion.
