Quick question: does the prohibition on online play affect your playtest?

[Cerebral Paladin]

If I get on skype or irc or whatever voice or text chat of my choice and play a session of the playtest, how would WotC ever know?

Aren't unenforceable contracts supposed to be invalid?

Standard disclaimers apply: I'm not your lawyer, this isn't legal advice, etc. But that's not what an unenforceable contract means.

People all the time agree in contracts to do or not do things that are hard to prove. That's perfectly legal, and those contracts are in general enforceable (i.e. you could get a court to issue an order enforcing the contract if you proved a breach of contract). People can find out about a breach of contract in all sorts of ways. You could tell them; someone else who witnessed it could tell them; they could suspect a breach for other reasons and sue you and then depose you and otherwise gather evidence about your actions; you could sue them for breach and they could depose you and conduct other discovery (i.e. did you send any e-mails about your IRC/Skype session? Those could and likely would get discovered if there were litigation). Now, obviously litigation about the playtest agreement is extremely unlikely, unless someone does something totally stupid ("$25 for a Next Generation playsystem book! Buy it now!") But in terms of contract law, it could be enforced in theory.

"Unenforceable contracts" just mean contracts that have some legal flaw in them so they can't be enforced. For example, if i promise to mow your lawn every week, and you promise nothing in return, that would be unenforceable, because contracts have to benefit both sides in some way, so even if I had signed a big formal document, you couldn't sue me to make me mow your lawn (or to pay you money damages). That would be an unenforceable contract. Or contracts can be void as against public policy. If I hire you to commit a crime, that's an unenforceable contract, because contracts to commit crimes violate public policy. But there's no obvious reason why a contractual requirement to not use information over an internet communication technology would violate public policy. It's a bad policy on Wizards' part, but they can include it in a contract if they want, and that's probably enforceable as a legal matter. (Again, it may not be practical, and they may choose to not enforce it, but that's a different matter--people breach contracts all the time as well.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Ayup. Got a maptools game that can't officially do jack.

FWIW, I've got a quick summary of all the Do's & Don'ts over on another thread. The consensus over there seems to be that the OPTA doesn't prohibit online play, really....but then the FAQ does. So it's SUPER UNCLEAR, if you want to run this by-the-book.

Of course, by-the-book, you can't make new monsters, swap race and class, print copies for your group, or do a lot of things I'm sure DM's all over will be doing anyway.

It'd just be nice if WotC didn't make me promise not to do something that it clearly expects me to do. Leaves me feeling very...exposed...legally-speaking.

 

[dd.stevenson]

It certainly applies to me, as all my gaming is done over skype/hangouts.

Whether I intend to let it affect me is a different question entirely...

 

[Kzach]

Absolutely not. I'm not about to let some pissy little 'rule' stop me from playtesting online. There's nothing they can or will do to stop it and there's nothing morally wrong about breaking the rule so I'm not inclined to pay it any mind.

Heck, the playtest is even available as a torrent now (I got mine legally, just saying) and I think that's a FANTASTIC thing for WotC. Hasbro would be stupid to try to take it down as it's only serving to promote their brand and increase market penetration and awareness.

Honestly, I think the only reason they even included such a ridiculous limitation was to cover their legal behinds. They're not about to chase people down who run PBP games (unless they're posting material) or VTT games. To do so would just be a massive waste of resources, cause major bad publicity and prevent them from getting a portion of feedback. Why bother?

 

[Andor]

Ayup. Got a maptools game that can't officially do jack.

FWIW, I've got a quick summary of all the Do's & Don'ts over on another thread. The consensus over there seems to be that the OPTA doesn't prohibit online play, really....but then the FAQ does. So it's SUPER UNCLEAR, if you want to run this by-the-book.

*shrug* As I said, when you signed up you agreed to the OPTA document. That specifically cites 3 other documents and provides links to them.

The FAQ is not on that list, nor does it claim to be an official and binding part of the Playtest. I, personally, don't intend to sweat the FAQ.

I will, now that this has been brought to my attention, double-check the OPTA for an update before allowing my Skype player to join Sunday. If nothing has changed, she's in. If they have amended the OPTA to exculde Skype players, for whatever gods-forsaken reason, I will abide by the new rule.

 

[Mercutio01]

Yes. I don't have a face-to-face group. I do play in an every-other-week game via MapTool, but I think I'm the only one who cares about 5E at all. That leaves PBP as my primary source of gaming. With no local group (and no real time to find one), and a prohibition against online play, and a prohibition against playing with people who haven't signed the OPTA, that means I literally have no means of actually playing the system. All I can do is run mock battles against myself, and that's in no way a legitimate playtest.

And I'm far from the only one. At ORP, where I do most of my gaming, at least three other people have the rules and would like to try them out, and they're in sort of the same boat. That's four people that would like to test out the game who actively sought out the material but that are prohibited from doing so.

 

[MoonSong]

Well sure it does, from the beginning I was planning to playtest with my group and also to find another group via my pbp service of choice (which is pretty good and has great tools to protect information from casual onlookers, mainly because it has lock options to run adult rated games, and confirmation of eleigible players could easily be done through the Wizards forum itself, however, having such a cool service is it's own undoing as they are extremely likely to put a hard banning on Next playtest games just to follow suit with wizards FAQ).

With the ban on playing with non-signed people -whihc I don't question at all- pbp was one of my few remaining options (as my players aren't that likely to sign-up to the playtest). None the less it also reduces greatly my chances to find a group, all other people that I know would be interested in actually signing up are scattered by all corners of the state and playtesting by skype would be the only chance I could have to gather a new group. (there is also a certain centric hobby store, but they don't have open tables in the weekends and nobody I know-including myself- has the time during the weekdays)

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I was also going to play it online using Wizards own VTT. Now probably not.
I am pretty cheesed off at this, I was looking forward to this.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Regardless of whether I actually run this or not, it won't be online.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

One thing to note, if one want to be a bit Jesitucal on the FAQ, while third party apps/sites is strictly forbidden the question on the Wizards VTT only relates to play on the VTT for people that have not signed up on the playtest agreement.

I have submitted a query to Customer service on the topic.
I will post the reply.