D&D General Ray Winninger on 5e’s success, product cadence, the OGL, and more.

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That's incorrect--the parent company is Roll20 LLC.
I thought they were renamed to Wolves of Freeport

“In 2023, OneBookShelf merged with Roll20 to become Wolves of Freeport.”


Guess I misunderstood what was being renamed

“DriveThruRPG.com is operated by Roll20, LLC for Wolves of Freeport, Inc.

Please direct all questions regarding the content of the site or the processing of orders to Roll20, LLC.

Roll20, LLC / Wolves of Freeport, Inc.(formerly Onebookshelf Inc.)”

 

Has anyone probed the limits of what DMsG’s “perpetual exclusive right to publish your content” actually means? Can I, for instance, publish an OGL “mass battle system” on DTRPG and simultaneously publish a subset of that system that includes army lists for proprietary D&D settings like Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, et. al. via the DMsG? After all, those are certainly not the same product. What if the DMsG product shares the same system, but doesn’t incorporate the actual text of the DTRPG product? What if the DMsG product is just the army lists and customers need to purchase the DTRP product to use them?
Dude, you ran the D&D team. You tell us! 😀

I kid, but maybe you can give us insight into how WOTC thinks about this internally. Several creators I know feel like WOTC is one “eye-beast” away from sending the Pinkertons to their door. They feel like the eye of Sauron is always on them watching for them to go out of line. It's one of the reasons a CC SRD is so valuable. Many argue that we don't really need the SRD to make compatible products as long as we're not lifting big chunks of text out of the core books. But with an SRD released under the CC, there isn't any question about it. We explicitly know we can take from the SRD as long as we follow the CC (which is super easy to do).

My point is, very few small publishers want to spend the effort to see what we might get away with when we feel like we're one C&D away from losing the work we've done.

I think I’ve seen a couple of creators write adjacent products in and out of the Guild but many just don’t want to rock the boat.

BTW, thank you and @mearls again for hanging out here and talking to us about this. It's an insight few of us have.
 


DMsG creators sign an agreement with R20, not WotC.
This is important to highlight, and I think a lot of creators are confused by this.

Obviously, WOTC will act to stop gross violations of it's IP, but (I strongly suspect) they have no interest in the nuances of the DMs Guild agreement. That is a contract between you and Roll20, and it's up to Roll20 to flag any possible violations. And I don't get the impression that the DMG is even a very high priority for Roll20 at the moment.
 

Dude, you ran the D&D team. You tell us! 😀

I kid, but maybe you can give us insight into how WOTC thinks about this internally. Several creators I know feel like WOTC is one “eye-beast” away from sending the Pinkertons to their door. They feel like the eye of Sauron is always on them watching for them to go out of line. It's one of the reasons a CC SRD is so valuable. Many argue that we don't really need the SRD to make compatible products as long as we're not lifting big chunks of text out of the core books. But with an SRD released under the CC, there isn't any question about it. We explicitly know we can take from the SRD as long as we follow the CC (which is super easy to do).

My point is, very few small publishers want to spend the effort to see what we might get away with when we feel like we're one C&D away from losing the work we've done.

I think I’ve seen a couple of creators write adjacent products in and out of the Guild but many just don’t want to rock the boat.

BTW, thank you and @mearls again for hanging out here and talking to us about this. It's an insight few of us have.

When you upload to DMsG, you sign an agreement with Roll20/OBS, not WotC. (For some reason, I can’t find the actual agreement online.) I’m sure WotC approved that agreement at some point, but—during my time anyway—that relationship was more hands-off than you might imagine. It also true that everyone involved in setting up the Guild is long gone.

To try to answer your Q, at one point, the bosses at Hasbro (not the D&D team!) were not happy that 3P publishers were “profiting” off D&D. That culminated in the attempt to revoke the OGL, and as we all know, Hasbro/WotC quickly recognized they made a bad call and retreated. The current regime learned an important lesson during that affair, and I believe it’s quite unlikely they’ll interfere with 3P publishers any time soon. We have to give them credit for taking affirmative steps to “future proof” 3P publishing by releasing the SRD through Creative Commons.

Of course, a future regime can re-assume a hostile posture at any time, but WotC’s ability to harass 3P publishers is greatly diminished. I rate the risk to 3P publishers as “quite low” for the foreseeable future and, probably, beyond.

A few things you can do to further reduce any possible exposure:

Read the licenses and follow them to the letter. If you endeavor to be a serious publisher, it’s worth spending a couple hundred dollars to get appropriate legal advice.

Think twice about being deliberately provocative. Lots of young people play D&D. If a 3P publisher was pushing something like The Book of Erotic Fantasy or The Complete Nazi Sourcebook, or something, there’s a real chance WotC would evaluate its options.

Be careful about art. While the SRD allows you to include various D&D monsters in your 3P product, it doesn’t allow you mimic WotC’s visual designs for these creatures. Make sure there is plenty of daylight between your depictions of monsters and the official WotC illustrations.
 

it doesn’t allow you mimic WotC’s visual designs for these creatures. Make sure there is plenty of daylight between your depictions of monsters and the official WotC illustrations.

Tell that to MCDM (who, by the way, got Flee Mortals on D&D Beyond "eye beast" and all!) =)

We have to give them credit for taking affirmative steps to “future proof” 3P publishing by releasing the SRD through Creative Commons.

Oh I absolutely do. I think its fantastic and I'm really looking forward to the 5.2 SRD which I keep hearing is coming out soon after the Monster Manual release. Someone in WOTC was a real hero getting the 5.1 SRD out under the CC. I hope one day to find out who that was and I imagine it's a different group than those who fought to revoke the OGL. Maybe we on the outside will never know.

I still see the SRD as an open handshake agreement between Hasbro and other 5e publishers on what Hasbro considers acceptable to include in a product. Independent publishers can't afford even a couple of hundred bucks for a lawyer (I'm doubtful most products on the DMs Guild bring in a couple of hundred bucks at all). The SRD shows those who pave a path outside of the Guild what is explicitly allowed and that's useful for a lot of folks.

Read the licenses and follow them to the letter. If you endeavor to be a serious publisher, it’s worth spending a couple hundred dollars to get appropriate legal advice.

Think twice about being deliberately provocative. Lots of young people play D&D. If a 3P publisher was pushing something like The Book of Erotic Fantasy or The Complete Nazi Sourcebook, or something, there’s a real chance WotC would evaluate its options.

Good advice!
 

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