My chief objection … my two chief objections ... my three chief objections:
1) It revokes 1.0a and allows only SRD 5.1. In other words, it bans new content for 3e, 3.5e, PF1, and anything else built on OGL 1.0a, probably including OSR variants and smaller games. 3.5e is my favorite edition, so they are banning content for me.
2) They are gaslighting the D&D community, setting us up to pretend this is gamergate. “We’re only against them because we’re hateful” is the spin they’re planning. You saw it already in this thread. Like the NFT thing, it’s a red herring.
3) The precedents of they can change it at will is set. This is the lull us draft part, before the slink back and do it again part.
… and an almost fanatically devotion to supporting the 3rd party community!
While I very much appreciate the humor (albeit with some chagrin at how applicable it is), we are getting a chance to address these concerns. We can, both publicly and privately, tell WotC that them being the sole arbiter of such things is not acceptable for a variety of reasons. Further, we can push for just that little bit more to be put into the Creative Commons, so that it no longer matters what WotC chooses to do or what hypothetical dark futures, be they abusive or absent (e.g. WotC collapses and the rights go into copyright hell)--I don't begrudge WotC seeking to protect stuff like spells (a lot of those are pretty clearly tied to D&D specifically, such as the "named wizard" spells), monsters (many of which were Product Identity under OGL 1.0a), and cultural/setting details. Having a clear "safe haven" for the really ultra-fundamental stuff, though, one that is genuinely and
permanently free of the fear that WotC could bring suit that a little publisher could never afford to defend even if they'd almost certainly win, would be enough of an olive branch that I could accept some of the other terms.
If someone did the work of drafting up all their own spells, subclasses (and new base classes), monsters, backgrounds, non-baseline species, etc., and gave them all their own genuinely distinct cultures and contexts etc., that sounds like doing all the real
design work and simply borrowing an effective framework for doing so. I, personally, see the inclusion of the really really basic classes and races in the Creative Commons as perfectly cromulent, and realistically, a recognition of the already existing state of affairs. As I said...I dunno if it was in this thread or another, but D&D has already failed to enforce a claim on many of its classes and races anyway, particularly classes: Druids as
shapeshifters is a quintessentially D&D concept, but World of Warcraft has been doing that for nearly 20 years and there's been nary a peep about that being a problem. Same goes for things like Paladins and Warlocks, but even a few other things like dragon-people (which WoW has like...five variations thereof), friendly dark elves, human(oid)s that can shift between human and beast form, etc.
Recognizing that these things have become part of the RPG cultural zeitgeist is simply being practical about it. That doesn't mean WotC should give up their copyright on things like Arkhosia (much as I would LOVE for that to become Creative Commons, I know it never will) or the history of Shifters in Eberron or the unique twists of (say) minotaurs in Krynn. Just means that the fundamental ideas like "dragon person who breathes fire/ice/whatever" or "person who can use magic because great-granddad had a fling with a dragon" have grown bigger than WotC and become part of the general lexicon in the same way that the concept of a "feat" which provides a hefty chunk of well-defined mechanical benefits is sufficiently generic that anyone should be able to use it.
Maybe 20 years in the future the society is more conservative.
We don't even need to speculate. As I said in another thread, we have examples
literally right now where, in other media things, ANY depiction of LGBTQ+ characters is portrayed as being
inherently obscene, corrupting the youth, etc. It doesn't take more than a couple people in leadership positions to have things suddenly take a very, very dark turn.
Even if I believed the WotC of today would genuinely never,
ever abuse this "we have sole absolute discretion to determine whether you or any of your employees have done wrong, and if you have, to terminate your license permanently, and you can never challenge or appeal these determinations" power, I cannot trust that there will never be a future WotC that
would abuse it. And because the proposed license is irrevocable and (for all but a couple relatively trivial sections) unalterable, we'd be handing over this power permanently and without ANY ability to fix it if something goes wrong.
Or, if people would like a real-world, TTRPG example: What would you do if Hasbro went belly-up, and the rights to D&D got bought by White Wolf Games--you know, the people who literally included "neo-Nazi" as an example for characters of Clan Brujah (with some
at the very least incredibly unfortunate gaffes...if not dogwhistles) or the use of the anti-gay pogroms in Chechnya as a
plot point? (Note: this is mostly old news, Paradox basically fired most if not all of the employees of White Wolf once they stopped having a hands-off policy regarding WW's game development, and WW is now just a holding company for the license.) There are way too many plausible ways for someone to be crappy and abuse the power given by the proposal as written.
That doesn't mean I'm totally opposed to WotC having remedy for people using their game content to make horrible things. I just want the determination to come from a court of law, not one of the two participants nor a closed-door arbitration (which almost always amounts to the same thing as just letting the powerful corporate participant dictate the terms themselves, just with more steps.)
