Ray Winninger comments on the OGL

[Greg Benage]

What work? You just click to roll the dice and handle everything analog like you would at the table. A character sheet that automatically calculates things and has a button to press to roll this skill or that attack absolutely is a helpful extra.

Nah. It dramatically speeds up play compared to trying to play analog in a virtual environment, especially if you have one or more players who don’t know the rules that well.

The paid stuff is some of the best money I’ve spent on the hobby - and it’s a hobby that offers a lot of value, so that’s saying something. Character builder, premade tokens linked to NPC/monster sheets, dynamic lighting…I consider all that stuff “core” these days. Hard to go back to the Dark Ages.

Different strokes, but for me, digital rules.

 

[JEB]

While I don't see them pulling the classic B/X, 1e, 2e, whatever things. Is there any reason at all they would leave the 2014 5e stuff up? (Partially wondering if my son and his friends want to continue using 5e but not ONE if I should go get some used 5e PHBs for people who might join in the future).

My guess:

• I think we can be certain the 5E SRD and the Basic Rules will no longer be freely available from Wizards after One D&D is released.
• The 5E Basic Rules will probably get legacy support on D&D Beyond. But they may not be available for new users, free or otherwise.
• I can see a possibility for the 5E rulebooks to find their way onto the DM Guild as PDFs, though no free option (i.e. the Basic Rules) is likely to be available. Mind, this also assumes the DM Guild continues to exist in its current, PDF-based form in the One D&D era.

As for non-Wizards hosting of the 5E SRD (or any Wizards-produced SRD), that depends entirely on whether OGL 1.1 would grant them legal cover to demand other people cease and desist. If it does, they very well might demand that other sites remove it. (As I said in another thread, such an effort would fail to erase it entirely... but they may still try.)

 

[UngainlyTitan]

My guess:

• I think we can be certain the 5E SRD and the Basic Rules will no longer be freely available from Wizards after One D&D is released.
• The 5E Basic Rules will probably get legacy support on D&D Beyond. But they may not be available for new users, free or otherwise.
• I can see a possibility for the 5E rulebooks to find their way onto the DM Guild as PDFs, though no free option (i.e. the Basic Rules) is likely to be available. Mind, this also assumes the DM Guild continues to exist in its current, PDF-based form in the One D&D era.

As for non-Wizards hosting of the 5E SRD (or any Wizards-produced SRD), that depends entirely on whether OGL 1.1 would grant them legal cover to demand other people cease and desist. If it does, they very well might demand that other sites remove it. (As I said in another thread, such an effort would fail to erase it entirely... but they may still try.)

The current state of play would suggest that the 5E SRD ceases to become Open Content under the OGL 1.0a and instead is content covered by the "OGL" 1.1 (which is not open) and why on earth would they pull the Basic Rules? That is marketing.
No PDFs that seems to be a WoTC thing has been for a very long time. At least no pdfs of current material.

Actually for the smaller players, ignore the OGLs entirely and move any 5e Support to DMsGuild exclusively as long as it exits would be a good strategy.
I do not understand your last sentence.

 

[JEB]

The current state of play would suggest that the 5E SRD ceases to become Open Content under the OGL 1.0a and instead is content covered by the "OGL" 1.1 (which is not open) and why on earth would they pull the Basic Rules? That is marketing.

My prediction is that the 5E SRD and Basic Rules will no longer be freely available after One D&D is released. You're correct that it makes no sense to remove them now, before they have a new ruleset to replace them; also, the leaked OGL 1.1 draft explicitly references the 5E SRD.

However, I assume that in 2024 they'll update OGL 1.1 again (OGL 1.2?) to replace those references with whatever One D&D's SRD equivalent is. And then remove free access to the obsolete 5E rules from their web site (and possibly D&D Beyond as well, except as Legacy Content).

I also wouldn't bet on any publicly available One D&D SRD or Basic Rules; those will be strictly on D&D Beyond and only accessible to subscribers.

No PDFs that seems to be a WoTC thing has been for a very long time. At least no pdfs of current material.

Definitely no PDFs of One D&D material, agreed. And yes, it's more likely they'll just leave 5E rules solely accessible to D&D Beyond subscribers. But there is a tiny chance we'll see 5E PDFs on DM Guild. (Very, very tiny.) Assuming they're still in the market of selling PDFs of their older-edition material at all by 2024; they may decide it's no longer of value to the brand.

I do not understand your last sentence.

Putting it more simply: they could potentially use OGL 1.1 to shut down OGL 1.0 sites like the Hypertext d20 SRD, or at least make the attempt. But we don't know for sure yet.

 

[S'mon]

How? By what mechanism short of Hasbro ceasing to exist (not bloody likely) would this lead to Hasbro losing D&D?

1. Other companies make use of non-protected game mechanics to clone the heart of D&D.
2. The public comes to use D&D as a generic term for these kinds of games, rather than as a badge of origin.
3. Ultimately, a court rules that 'D&D' as a term has become genericised.

While I don't think this is super likely, I don't think it's exactly impossible, either.

 

[Remathilis]

1. Other companies make use of non-protected game mechanics to clone the heart of D&D.
2. The public comes to use D&D as a generic term for these kinds of games, rather than as a badge of origin.
3. Ultimately, a court rules that 'D&D' as a term has become genericised.

While I don't think this is super likely, I don't think it's exactly impossible, either.

Considering that Kleenex and Google still have their trademark, you have a very long wait before for that to happen. Maybe our grandkids might play generic D&D, but not us.

 

[mhd]

I think it's closer to people not talking about "Doom" anymore and "FPS" being a common-place word. For a while, of course, this will mean that "RPG" is still equated with a limited subset ("D&D-alikes"), but, well, baby steps.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

My prediction is that the 5E SRD and Basic Rules will no longer be freely available after One D&D is released. You're correct that it makes no sense to remove them now, before they have a new ruleset to replace them; also, the leaked OGL 1.1 draft explicitly references the 5E SRD.

However, I assume that in 2024 they'll update OGL 1.1 again (OGL 1.2?) to replace those references with whatever One D&D's SRD equivalent is. And then remove free access to the obsolete 5E rules from their web site (and possibly D&D Beyond as well, except as Legacy Content).

I also wouldn't bet on any publicly available One D&D SRD or Basic Rules; those will be strictly on D&D Beyond and only accessible to subscribers.


Definitely no PDFs of One D&D material, agreed. And yes, it's more likely they'll just leave 5E rules solely accessible to D&D Beyond subscribers. But there is a tiny chance we'll see 5E PDFs on DM Guild. (Very, very tiny.) Assuming they're still in the market of selling PDFs of their older-edition material at all by 2024; they may decide it's no longer of value to the brand.


Putting it more simply: they could potentially use OGL 1.1 to shut down OGL 1.0 sites like the Hypertext d20 SRD, or at least make the attempt. But we don't know for sure yet.

Ok, I will disagree on the first point. The Basic Rules are not open content but WoTC IP and a marketing effort to encourage play. I really do not expect that to change. The SRD will also become closed content except to people that sign up for OGL 1.1 (assuming they go ahead with it in something close to current form.)

So Public rules only behind the free D&DBeyond subscription, that I could see.

I would doubt that the current 5e rules will appear as pdf in the lifetime of the new revision.

As to your last point. I would say that the original purpose was to do that. At the very least frighten places hosting OGC content under OGL 1.0 in to believing that they could force such a takedown. If they have such power is part of what we are debating.

 

[Thomas Shey]

What work? You just click to roll the dice and handle everything analog like you would at the table. A character sheet that automatically calculates things and has a button to press to roll this skill or that attack absolutely is a helpful extra.

I tend to agree, but there are people who consider it an absolute necessity these days, and arguing with them about it is mostly pointless.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Nah. It dramatically speeds up play compared to trying to play analog in a virtual environment, especially if you have one or more players who don’t know the rules that well.

I run mostly analog in a virtual environment all the time, and see no difference at that end from playing face to face. You may have the issue you mention about people who can't be arsed to learn the rules to play their character, but that'd be just as much a problem face to face.