D&D (2024) New leak looks real bad

[Steel_Wind]

If Blizzard was launching WoW now and/ or could get away with increasing prices, do you still think they'd be charging $15?

No. I think it would be $20.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There is no way they can replicate the kind of games I play with an AI DM. In TTRPGs most of the game is off script. Not some of it or a significant portion but most.

You need to get into a house with 2 guards standing at the front door. There are probably scripted responses if you try to sneak past the guards, bribe the guards, quietly take out the guards maybe even if you teleport to the second story balcony or cast disguise self to look like the homeowner. There is not a scripted response for "I go down to the bar at the end of the street and pay a couple sailors to stage a fight to get the guards to leave their posts." Now a DM might rule they don't leave their posts, but might give you advantage on your stealth to sneak past them or the DM might have them do an insight check and if they succeed they realize it is staged and are extra alert so stealth is at disadvantage or not possible. These are the kinds of things a DM does that AI will not be able to do for a long, long time.

Even in combat there are tons of improvised actions and they are used very often in the games I play, not every round or even every combat, but at least every adventuring day if you are having 6 combats. I misty step up to the flying dragon and grab on to him as my action. I cast command and say "land" to the flying Dragon (both actual in game examples from the last month). The command spell in particular can be any verb in the dictionary and the AI DM needs to figure out how to rule on this. In addition to "land" I have personally used the following in game for command - "surrender" (my response when an enemy asked me to surrender during a standoff) - "daydream" (to make someone stop concentrating) - swim (made someone get in the water and start swimming).

Clearly the kind of game you play is not what they have in mind, and thusly you are not WotC's target audience.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Based on my game tonight, I wonder how they will deal with interparty sabotage/shenanigans and part of the party trying to team up with the bad guys to thwart the other part.

They won't. If the AI thing even happens, it will likely be used to run WotC adventures and players will have extremely limited choice outside of the railroad.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Playing devil's advocate here but personally not sure what is "Really Bad" about this leak. $30 top tier isn't something I would want to pay, but it is all the content, if you are getting the equivalent of a book a month, plus the VTT with all the bells as whistles, then it seems reasonable.

Roll20's top tier "only" is $9.99 a month, but if you say throw Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen (at $29.99) in then you are over $30. We don't know the prices of any of the other tiers besides presumably a free one. Of course WotC would want everyone to be on the $30 tier, I would like a 30% pay rise, it's not going to happen but I can dream.

As for AI Dungeon Masters there are more players than DMs there needs to be some solution, seems to me AI is getting to a point where it could be trained on particular modules, and probably do an okay job. It's not ideal but I can imagine some players willing to pay for a AI to run them through a game rather than not play at all.

No homebrew on the base tier which is likely to be $0 if they want to compete with other VTTs. This makes sense to protect your investment in what you've put into the other tiers. If folks could just copy it in "homebrew", why would they pay?

The Deauthorize OGL 1.0a is the only real concern there, even that I can understand, as you can't patch problems in the old license if people can continue to use it. The old OGL has issues, legally it could leave WotC possibly liable for content third parties produce. So if they are going to make an irrevocable license it probably needs to be cleaned up first. Just don't be adding royalties and other clauses that are going to piss everyone off. Try to stay true to the old OGL's gentleman's agreement not to take people to court for supporting your brand.

Sure the OGL 1.1 was a cock-up of epic proportions, the apology hasn't been much better (it really seems the people involved do not understand the purpose of the original OGL or the benefits the OGL has given WotC), but I can understand their reasons for a change and can believe not all of them are motivated by greed (although it does seem a lot are), some are clearly about protecting the brand.

Protecting the brand  is about greed. The more control you have, the more money goes to you and not someone else.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So despite my little shadowplay earlier, there is a real nagging question about the AI DMs:

How are they being trained?

AI's as they exist now... aren't. They're not intelligent and sapient. They don't generate their own thoughts, they construct responses based on scenarios they've been fed previously.

That means, to get an AI DM, you need to feed it thousands of D&D sessions and adventures.

So... where are those games coming from?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Here's what $30 a month looks like in terms of content.

• Full digital access to every book released for D&DUno.
• 2 hardcover copies per year of D&DUno books you select.
• A huge selection of prerendered 3d figures inside the VTT.
• Access to a selection of 3d model files to 3d print your own minis at home.
• A massive library (30+) of prerendered adventures in the VTT, including all 3d locations in each scenario. New adventures added quarterly.
• A large library of music and sound effects tracks.
• 50 gb of your own online storage for everything.
• An online web campaign tracker that fully integrates notes into scenes in the VTT.
• Every 2d map they've ever produced in digital format.
• A highly refined homebrew scenario builder, including 3d mapmaker.
• Customized digital dice of every conceivable color and texture.
• Premium discounts to partner conventions (GenCon, Pax, etc.).
• Access to "AI GM" mode.
• Exclusive access to "collector's item" physical minis, merch, etc., that is only available to subscribers.
• Discount vouchers to lots of media (movies, streaming services)

when was this announced?

 

[Parmandur]

To you.

Them doing the OGL 1.1 was not breaking any promise they made in my opinion. A bunch of you just decided that.

It is going back on a lot of the smoke WotC blew up peoples stack over the years: Openijg Arguments second podcast points out that if WotC had ever represented the OGL as "Open Source" that was a lie...and yeah, that was always a lie.

 

[Parmandur]

Their own FAQ has said for the past two decades that if they change the OGL in a way you don’t like, you can keep using the previous version. The majority of 3rd party publishers would never have started publishing D&D content in the first place if they hadn’t believed that was true.

They probably should never have believed that? It was always a corporate trap.

 

[Parmandur]

So despite my little shadowplay earlier, there is a real nagging question about the AI DMs:

How are they being trained?

AI's as they exist now... aren't. They're not intelligent and sapient. They don't generate their own thoughts, they construct responses based on scenarios they've been fed previously.

That means, to get an AI DM, you need to feed it thousands of D&D sessions and adventures.

So... where are those games coming from?

WotC has thousands of detailed session reports from their playtesting network, is my understanding. Though thisbis probably just a galf-baked concept.

 

[Velderan]

To you.

Them doing the OGL 1.1 was not breaking any promise they made in my opinion. A bunch of you just decided that.

So we're now ignoring the FAQ they had posted on their site for years now?

7. Can't Wizards of the Coast change the License in a way that I wouldn't like?

Yes, it could. However, the License already defines what will happen to content that has been previously distributed using an earlier version, in Section 9. As a result, even if Wizards made a change you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there's no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway.

And I'm sure you'll say they backed off revoking OGL 1.0a, except they didn't. They claim content already released will be fine for 6 months after the new OGL, which is not even remotely the same thing as "you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option".