"Quality Standards" in the d20 System Guide

[Henry]

You guys are worried that WOTC will use the new rules against people like Mongoose. That's bunk. They will only use the new rules against people like Valar. Period.

Here's my concern: THe new rules are made with the existing people and situations in mind. Even if the current trademark license is made with the sincerest intentions and purposes in mind, leadership at WotC is VERY fluid (there's been a new manager of Tabletop every year now since 2001). Using a "very discretionary license," what's to stop them from pursuing an anti-competitive vendetta against any other d20 publisher, regardless of content?

Public opinion? It didn't stop them on this.

Stable leadership? As I noted above, stability is not a watchword for the management of Tabletop nor R&D.

In short, nothing.

I don't deny it's their license, and their right to change it, but I publically believe it's a VERY bad PR move on their part, and a serious step backward to the kind of policies that caused TSR to be deaf and cause their own demise through lack of customer acknowledgement.

The thing about an RPG fanbase is that it's extremely fickle. Tick off your customers, and they'll go elsewhere, and survive on your previous products for years on end.

This license change not only causes them more administrative heartache for little return, but also destroys licensee goodwill, and undermines the still-nascent d20 license.

 

[jmucchiello]

You guys are worried that WOTC will use the new rules against people like Mongoose. That's bunk. They will only use the new rules against people like Valar.

You may be right. Today. Can you guarentee this will be true tomorrow? Next week? Next year? How about when Hasbro has another corporate shuffle and a new Pointy Haired Boss oversees WotC and thinks they should be enforcing the d20 license more strictly because his son comes home with a d20 licensed product from Mongoose?

 

[KDLadage]

Hmmm....this sounds like one of those news pieces that rankle everyone at first, and then fade to nothingness after a while.

I disagree. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that this will rankle everyone; and to a degree, I agree with you that there will come a day that this is not discussed any longer.

But I feel that it will not be discussed any longer because I feel that a group of d20 System Publishers will devise their own logo to identify games as being "the d20 system" and will stop using the d20 STL all together.

As the publisher of UMBRAGIA, I know that this is what I intend to do. I know, I know, this is not going to put a wrinkle in WotC's pants or anything... but I figure I am not alone. Many others will do the same.

WotC wants you to avoid having bare female nipples -- yet Monster Manual II has pierced nipples all over the freakin' cover.

WotC wants to ensure that your book is wholesome -- yet they publish the Book of Vile Darkness.

WotC wants to have the ability to pull any product off the shelf without cause, by simply citing a clause in a license that is written in such a way as to make any and every product that they do not like for any reason (up to and including "it takes too much market away from our competing product") without any real reprecussion -- who would publish under such conditions?

I want to eventually print and distribute UMBRAGIA... I will more than likely be using my own money to do it. I simply cannot afford to risk it under the license that WotC is providing me these days. And now that I know that they will resort to this sort of edits in a retroactive license -- I will not trust them. They may or may nor recind this stuff; they may or may not expand this stuff. I don't know. I do not have so much money laying about that I can afford to take risks like that.

 

[Anubis the Doomseer]

Precisely. They didn't do this because they are mean and nasty. They did this because they are protecting their image from a few profiteers who couldn't play nice and forced their hand.

It's a little thing called free market capitalism, maybe you heard of it. You make a product and if there is consumer demand you make money. Obviously there is demand for things a bit off the beaten track than the standard fare you get from Hasbro/Wizards.

Now that the "won't someone think about the children" crowd are in epilectic fits, let explain how other games also violate the clause - real world religion (no more Testament or Rapture d20), nothing political (Afghanistan d20), depictions of historical facts like slavery and the like are also verboten.

There is also the problem that Hasbro has opened the door to any liability that may be associated with a product. Did Billy claim he shot up his school because his character died? Well, before this Hasbro could say "that's too bad, but he was using a third party product licencing our system. We have no responsibility since we cannot control the content of 3rd party books." The parents don't sue 3rd party books because it's a micropublisher, three undergrads working out of their dormrooms using a start-up business loan and their laptops - no deep pockets. NOW, however, Hasbro is claiming control over these products - open door for frivolous lawsuits (on top of the quite legitimate ones from third party publishers who get dinged by this clause).

Hasbro also has the onus to make clear what standards it is using when it exercises "sole discretion". It also opens up all sorts of very nasty arguments over why killing imaginary people is okay, but enslaving imaginary people or having sex with imaginary people is bad. While not by the strict definition hypocrites on this, their moral authority to censor is undermined by their "mature" line of books, including the ever-so-loving nipple clamps of exquisite pain (Book of Vile Darkness).

 

[KDLadage]

I support WotC's decision. I believe it is their right to not have pornography (such as the BoEF) associated with their trademark. Do you really think that WotC will be able to say that BoEF isn't associated with D&D and have people actually believe that? No way. Hasbro's corporate image IS at stake here and they have a right to take action to defend it.

They can protect their trademark... but like Ryan Dancy stated -- they just opened a whole can of worms with this move. They had other options that would have been just as protective of the trademark without creating a quagmire of legal responcibility.

And provided real proof of the company's hypocracy.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Actually, they are in violation of the license in the role of licensee. HOWEVER, as the licensor they have to file any related lawsuits - they can't be filed on their behalf. And I don't imagine WotC suing themselves

IANAL. Talk to Orcus if you want a lawyer.

IANAL either, but they don't need to use the d20 STL to use the d20 logo on their own products, so they wouldn't be violating it anyway. (That is, they had rights to use the logo before they released the license, and they can use either the license or their preexisting right to use it.)

 

[Michael Morris]

If you feel really strongly about this then I urge you to talk in the language that companies listen in....money. Don't send off an email saying you don't like this, and then go buy the latest WotC book. If you want to make an impact on a company then don't buy their products, tell your friends not to buy their products, inform them why you aren't buying their products anymore. While people may have gotten boycott crazy, it's still the surest way to get a company to change it's point of view on a topic.

A boycott won't work because 1) It takes to long to notice and 2) It requires the type of solidarity you won't get by just calling for it on a messageboard.

Email campaigns have worked on WotC on the past. The Art director of MtG removed Rebecca Guay from future products until the dogs came to call - 10,000 emails later he relented and even published an apology.

Somebody at WotC made this decision. We need to find out who and start filling up their mailbox.

 

[Brisk-sg]

Actually, I was one of the first to call them hypocrits and I'll stick to that characterization. I know they aren't bound by their own trademark license. I just think if they wanted to reduce the amount of bare female nipples associated with the d20 logo, they should avoid including them in their own books. If they don't want the d20 logo to be associated with risque material, they should not put their d20 logo on books like BoVD.

They didn't have to include the logo on their mature product line book. But they did. If BoVD did not have the d20 logo on it, I would have no reason to complain since they would have obviously shielded the logo from similar material in their own products.

This is not in defense of the changes to the d20 license, but...

I just thought I would point out that BoVD doesn't use the D20 Logo. It uses the Dungeons & Dragons Logo. When is the last time you saw the D20 logo on a WoTC product? I don't think I have ever seen it on a WoTC release.

Granted, I do not have the book in front of my right now to verify this.

Also, while it might be hypocrosy due to BoVD being released last year, I have not seen any hint at WoTC releasing comparibly products in the future. BoVD was released while D&D was under Anthony Valterra, who is publishing the likely target of this change to the d20 license.

 

[DaveMage]

I believe the whole purpose behind the d20 license is to sell more Player's Handbooks.

If companies begin to abandon the d20 license (and only publish OGL), then the free advertising for Player's Handbooks on products will decrease.

However, I don't think that will occur. Many of the d20 publishers rely on that logo/trademark for sales, so if they go in a different direction, sales will likely fall. Also, unless you want to reinvent the wheel, with using only the OGL you'd have to provide a source for character creation rules since you will not be allowed to show compatibility with the Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook.

I do think WotC has the right to do what they're doing, but the results may be unfortunate for all concerned.

As a consumer, I'd prefer that WotC let 3rd party publishers do what they wish, but if WotC is concerned that the release of a product like BoEF will somehow hurt them (legally, morally, whatever), I guess they have the right to do what they feel is necessary since the company name "WotC" will appear on the cover of any book under D20.

 

[heirodule]

Actually, I was one of the first to call them hypocrits and I'll stick to that characterization. I know they aren't bound by their own trademark license. I just think if they wanted to reduce the amount of bare female nipples associated with the d20 logo, they should avoid including them in their own books. If they don't want the d20 logo to be associated with risque material, they should not put their d20 logo on books like BoVD.

They can be forgiven for this apparent hypocricy, mainly because Valterra was the driving forced behind getting the "mature line" and the Book of Vile Darkness up and running anyway. Obviously WOTC and Valterra didn't see eye-to-eye on everything or he'd probably still be there. So he convinced them some nipples would sell well and not hurt their image. For all I know, Vile Darkness is their worst selling product (compared to cost to develop) and has given them the most headaches. So they've woken up from their binge and don't want Valterra thumbing his nose at them any more.

Valterra doing the "big-type" DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS requirement trick really is the icing on the cake. He worked at WOTC and should know that all the other publishers have had the decency to avoid making a requirement that's supposed to help WOTC into one that promotes himself.

What I'm suprised at is that WOTC never mooted these problems before the fact. "What if somebody takes this Player's Handbook statement and puts D&D in 40 point type?" "what if somebody makes a d20 Nazi porn book?"

Did Dancey think about these issues before? Did they come up in dicussions? Did he try to convince people it wouldn't ever happen? Or that it wouldn't matter if it did?

At least some WOTC people seem to dislike Valterra personally, based on my observation of disgusted eye-rolling on the part of some after Valterra chatted with them about something at origins and then took off.

Paul