D&D General OGL, Pinkertons and WOTC Oh My!

[AlViking]

What does WotC/Hasbro get for releasing 3.X to the CC in a practical sense? As people have mentioned... pretty much nothing except generating goodwill.

But of course... for a lot of people (including many here on ENWorld)... that goodwill means nothing because it doesn't matter what WotC/Hasbro does... they will never be forgiven by those people for anything they do. The bridges have been burned and not being rebuilt.

Which makes the need/desire to finally get around to doing it even less of a priority. That's the problem with the idea of perpetually complaining about things... you do yourself no favors because you are not inspiring the other person to actually change.

What percentage of the gaming population would realize they had done it or care? Would even any publishers care?

This isn't even cleaning out and reorganizing that shelves on my garage level of priority, it's cleaning out that shoebox that's not getting in the way that I forgot was there priority.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I wanted to create one thread where people can discuss to their hearts content about the OGL changes proposed by WOTC in late 2020. I'm going to break this up into 3 posts - 2 about the OGL and 1 about the Pinkertons. This first post is my attempt at a neutral description of what happened, if you want to add details that I missed let me know and I'll edit. If you want to complain that I'm not providing a vehemently angry quick summary or want to to talk about the impact the change would have had on the community please don't respond to this first post.

In any case, a brief version of what happened:
In December of 2022 WotC sent a proposed new version of the OGL to third-party publishers requiring them to report their gross revenue from D&D-related products. Anyone earning over $750,000 would owe WotC a percentage of their profits. This clashed with the original OGL, which allowed perpetual use of the core rules at no charge and without oversite. The new version of the OGL was leaked in January of 2022.

After significant backlash from third-party creators and the D&D community, WotC reversed course. They cancelled the changes to the OGL and placed the core rules under Creative Commons. In further developments D&D Beyond now supports third-party product sales.

More details here: Wizards of the Coast Walks Back Leaked OGL 2.0 Draft

edit - wrong year.
edit - changed dollar amount.
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This seems pretty unhelpful to me, given it still contains incorrect details even after you've been corrected. You offer to add things, but will you? There are several important factual issues you didn't cover which were major problems with the OGL. I can list them but AFAIK you've added nothing despite saying you would.

I also think it's extremely bad form to spend the first few posts giving your opinions on the subject. That really makes this whole thing look like it's not intended to help people with the facts or to discuss it, but to merely try and control the discussion.

 

[mamba]

This isn't even cleaning out and reorganizing that shelves on my garage level of priority, it's cleaning out that shoebox that's not getting in the way that I forgot was there priority.

you are not exactly someone they need to generate goodwill with though. Trying to do that for you is definitely wasted effort on their part

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm just repeating what a lawyer said. Have an issue with it take it up it them.

His response is completely valid, and "take it up with them" is not appropriate response given you brought up the singular lawyer who thought the OGL was revocable, as compared to the relatively larger number who thought it was not.

I note that it has not been revoked and probably never will be. I think that might be instructive.

 

[AlViking]

Pretty disingenuous and bad form to do say you want to do that as if it was neutral and helped everyone then use the first few posts to push your hot takes lol.

"I want everyone who discusses this to have to read my perspective FIRST because it's MOST IMPORTANT and I'm RIGHT" lol incredible energy.

Also lumping the Pinkerton thing in is deeply weird and seem like you don't want people to be allowed to discuss that lol. Your summary of the issues with the OGL in 2022 is pretty incredibly inaccurate too, which is also very bad form. You clearly didn't even try to accurately summarize it.

Honestly thank goodness @Whizbang Dustyboots was here to give us some actual links, which you neglected.

As for "please tell me what details to add", well looks like you haven't added any details despite them being provided, and still have a 2020 in there despite it being 2022 (which you corrected in other places), so I'm wondering how serious you are about this. I'm happy to tell you what to add, but will you? You didn't for anyone else.

I tried to keep the first post as neutral as possible and have fixed a couple of mistakes. I'll fix the last year entry.

My goal was never to provide a detailed analysis, history or thesis. I wanted one place to direct people when yet another thread that has anything to do with WOTC business practices gets derailed by this topic. Which I thought I made clear.

Since I was the one to create the thread, of course I had the first opportunity to post my thoughts.

If you have any other issues with my brief high level summary let me know. If you want to discuss the topic in more detail feel free.

 

[AlViking]

you are not exactly someone they need to generate goodwill with though. Trying to do that for you is definitely wasted effort on their part

Its likely wasted on people who still mention it as well.

 

[AlViking]

His response is completely valid, and "take it up with them" is not appropriate response given you brought up the singular lawyer who thought the OGL was revocable, as compared to the relatively larger number who thought it was not.

I note that it has not been revoked and probably never will be. I think that might be instructive.

I'm not a lawyer. I'm not going to pretend to be one. If there's details from a different lawyer that could potentially add to the conversation please provide it. Other than that you aren't contributing anything.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm not a lawyer. I'm not going to pretend to be one. If there's details from a different lawyer that could potentially add to the conversation please provide it. Other than that you aren't contributing anything.

They were already provided to you in the post you dismissed with the post I quoted! You cannot reasonably talk about "not contributing" when you ignored what you're asking for. Is this a bad joke?

The majority of lawyers who commented thought that it was unlikely that attempts to revoke the OGL would succeed. That one lawyer thought they would is interesting but not probative of anything but "sometimes lawyers disagree".

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If you have any other issues with my brief high level summary let me know. If you want to discuss the topic in more detail feel free.

You said:

if you want to add details that I missed let me know and I'll edit

Will you? Because you haven't so far. But if you will, I can probably provide like 4 one-sentence(ish) bullet-points that can shed a lot of light on the actual issues with the OGL (the decision to attempt to extract money merely being one of them). If you wouldn't, I feel we'd be better off with a more genuinely neutral thread that doesn't start with the opinions of the guy making it lol.

 

[AlViking]

They were already provided to you in the post you dismissed with the post I quoted! You cannot reasonably talk about "not contributing" when you ignored what you're asking for. Is this a bad joke?

The majority of lawyers who commented thought that it was unlikely that attempts to revoke the OGL would succeed. That one lawyer thought they would is interesting but not probative of anything but "sometimes lawyers disagree".

No links have been provided.