Ray Winninger comments on the OGL

[GMforPowergamers]

that is certainly not the metric Musk is using however, he is after profit…

As to WotC, I haven’t seen anyone saying they are not allowed to increase sales and profit, the objection is with how they intend to do so

Yeah, it does seem like it's a lose lose though... you buy something you love and run it into the ground trying to make it what you wanted... fail. You have something everyone loves and take a step no one likes to get more money and control.. fail

I do recognize there is a happy medium, but I find it funny that profit and revenue is a way to measure success but if you get it 'the wrong way' it's just as bad... god knows I am as guilty as anyone of think it , just funny.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Just filling out some character sheets can be a PITA and some of these tools like an SRD can make it a breeze. Its really about convivence and not about total restriction. Though, there is no distinction for some folks.

I also just use fillable PDF sheets, and I dare say for games more complicated than those typical for the D&D-sphere (at least at the start of character creation).

Again, nothing I didn't do face to face.

(Now, if you want to argue that even face to face its really good to have some automation, I think that's at least an argument, but its not how this is usually framed).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, it does seem like it's a lose lose though... you buy something you love and run it into the ground trying to make it what you wanted... fail. You have something everyone loves and take a step no one likes to get more money and control.. fail

I do recognize there is a happy medium, but I find it funny that profit and revenue is a way to measure success but if you get it 'the wrong way' it's just as bad... god knows I am as guilty as anyone of think it , just funny.

I think the best way to see it is that people consider the success of an RPG company (and to at least some extent, with a business that's measured in profit) a virtue--but its not the only virtue, and if its reached by methods they consider vices, the net result may not be viewed as a virtue at all.

 

[mamba]

I do recognize there is a happy medium, but I find it funny that profit and revenue is a way to measure success but if you get it 'the wrong way' it's just as bad... god knows I am as guilty as anyone of think it , just funny.

if there were no wrong way, we wouldn’t need half the laws

 

[schneeland]

I don't want to burst anyone's bubble, but if Twitter can survive Musk, D&D will survive this OGL flap.

I tend to agree. Inertia, or let's maybe call it habits are a big factor and big brands don't die easily.
However, just like pre-Musk Twitter was more enjoyable for me than post-Musk Twitter, I feel pre-OGL 1.1-D&D will fare better than post-OGL 1.1-D&D.

 

[ilgatto]

I agree that WotC can make D&D less convenient to play than it is now. But they can't delete content from the physical books I own, shut down VTTs that don't integrate the rules (or doing anything at all to groups playing via tools like Discord and Zoom), silence people who are talking on platforms they do not own (have you noticed there'a a lot of discussion about this online right now?), etc.

WotC can certainly do many consumer-unfriendly things. Like invalidate the digital purchases people like me made on sites like Roll20. Would be the first time I lost access to a digital material. But even that would only makes my current campaign slightly less easy to run.

Well said, I say. From a players-and-DM point of view, why would you let anything WotC says or does spoil your game? Isn't D&D about using some rule set and then your imagination? About adventures in the mind's eye rather than on some 1D&D-interwebbery? About rescuing fair maidens strapping lads pers lamps from the clutches of the evil dragon? About telling stories and living them as they develop? About living the lives of your PCs and sharing their fortunes and misfortunes? About friends enjoying themselves at the table?

In the words of one famous player:

 

[Maxperson]

Oh dear god, Elon Musk is going to try and buy D&D

Well, we know that the first thing he would do is fire everyone at Hasbro and WotC, so there's that.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

if there were no wrong way, we wouldn’t need half the laws

my buddy jokes (I hope) all the time that he would be so rich if he didn't have to pay people to work in his store...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Well, we know that the first thing he would do is fire everyone at Hasbro and WotC, so there's that.

not to mention the broken clock theory states he will do something right one of these times...

 

[Charlaquin]

I just don't see how it's only NOW that WotC has lost its way. Seems to me that HasbrotC has "lost its way" a number of times in the past. And heck... it's not like TSR never screwed the pooch for their game or its players either.

Yeah, what's happening now sucks for a lot of people. But let's not suggest that its the end times either-- somewhere down the line it's quite probable that D&D will return to form like it always seems to do. Heck, all you'd need to do would be to show an 'Anti-GSL' person back in 2008 where the game was in the summer of 2022 to know that turnarounds can happen and that nothing is set permanent.

Yeah, I could see this being a continuation of the “even edition curse,” which will be recovered from in whatever they call the next iteration of the rules after 1D&D.