mamba
Hero
mission accomplished, yes. This won’t happen overnight anyway, people will migrate during the process and if we lose some along the way, fine. TTRPGs will recover, WotC will not
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New OGL - what would be acceptable? (+)
- Thread starter Umbran
- Start date
1. It survived for almost half a century as a niche product
2. Nobody is advertising chess or checkers or tic-tac-toe and we've all heard of them. Not being beholden to a corporation helps with this
3. Having mass market appeal is not the same as being a quality product
mamba
Hero
no, we absolutely do not. They offered a free, perpetual, unrevocable license, and now they want to strong-arm and lie their way out of that
we are the ones pumping the money in via sales. If we all move on to whoever wants us, nothing changed except for that not being WotC
Yes. The point of the idea is to retaliate against Hasbro's abuses, and that means harming their business
Survived yes.
But all these 3pps, youtube creators, tikitok creators, D&D sites, and others would disappear.
The $$$ faucet would be turned down and the revenue stream would go away. People would have to get nonD&D jobs. Big publishers would have to downsize. You wouldn't get much new.
You're not going to get the 2020s D&D market without a huge mainstream injection. We will all lose.
As I understand it, that’s how things were interpreted for a while, but U.S. courts have found in a few cases recently there’s a line that can be crossed where mechanics go from idea to expression (and can be protected by copyright). Unfortunately, that line has not been established yet for tabletop RPGs, so who knows, but if it’s true that Hasbro is out for blood, we may find out.
You must be young
Youtube was around for years before everyone on it started selling out like they do today. We don't need the professional Youtubers either.
There was a period around the turn of the century where we had basically everything we do today in terms of content, but it was all free, done by people who were in it for the sake of art and community. I'd actually be pretty happy to be rid of the people who ruined those communities by turning them into a business.
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mamba
Hero
that is the boycott part, the offer is not to do it
There are no lost profits. WotC wasn't going to make those adventures, settings and splatbooks anyway.
Clint_L
Hero
I think they mean going forward, not recompensing them for any potential lost profits in the past.
That's what this is really about: going forward, Hasbro wants a royalty from folks making more than a certain amount of money off D&D.
Composer99
Hero
Not to mention the existence of those products as 5e-compatible would cause at least some of their customers to buy 5e core books who wouldn't have otherwise.
Depends if late 30s is young.
The point is that the explosion of 5e's profits is due to the mainstream visibility and ease of learning of the edition. WOTC has the means to jank up the visibility. Which would screw up the 3pps and creators. The main people affected by OGL 1.1.
If you want to go back to a D&D economy of 1985 or 1995? Fine. But I can tell you how much money I spent on TTRPG products in 1985 and 1995.
That was, in fact, the OGL's primary purpose besides ensuring D&D's survival.
I question how many people brought 5e 3pp books before the 5e core books.
We already have 5 perfectly playable games, we don't need anything new.
So what the complaint?
You either want the new or you don't. That's Step 1 in the negotiations.
Scars Unseen
Hero
That's some major hyperbole you go going on there, not to say more than a little /r/hailcorporate. The OGL cat is out of the bag, and it massively grew the industry. As long as the OGL stands, we're not going back to the days where the industry hangs by D&D's thread. At worst, we'd go back to the 4E days where official D&D is outshined by someone who came in to pick up the slack when WotC dropped the ball hard trying to control the market. Like they're apparently trying to do now.
If the 1.1 is true, we are not ging back to 4e. Because WOC will just sue the next Paizo/PF. Then everything halts until the case finishes or is settled.
WOTC is much bigger than the rest and the OGL 1.1 if true means they are in "make a deal, quit, or we sue you" mode. And D&D is still a little too niche for the mainstream to care or even see it.
I'm not hailing it. I'm afraid.
:raises hand (edit: did it with 3e too). I still have not bought the core books despite having bought several 3pp. Was, recently, considering it, but not at the moment given what is going on.
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Steel_Wind
Legend
The issue concerning software is a matter where I have some difficulty with.
If the software is a computer or video game meant to be played without moderation? I have no difficulty with that. Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, NW Online -- Solasta, even. I am okay with that. Agreed.
But when it comes to VTT software, or even character creation software, or character illustration software, or a variety of adjacent utilities -- I am not okay with that. No, whether it is commercial software should not be the test.
I don't like the idea of exclusivity concerning these edge cases; this gives us poorer digital products and chokes off technological innovation. In many respects, the only thing being protected are game mechanics which in the vast majority of cases are not capable of copyright protection. You cannot copyright an idea - that is the function of patents - and that ship has sailed.
Anyways -- to go too far with this is not in any gamer's interest. I would argue that it is not even in WotC's long-term interest, for that matter.
As for TV/Movies/Radio I am not okay with any aspect of that, to be honest. That isn't the subject matter of copyright, it is the role of trade-mark law. WotC has full control over its marks and those should not be (and are not) covered by any OGL. It can enforce its marks to the fullest extent of the law; that far and no further.
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