Remathilis
Legend
Total surrender is WotC giving back everything 1.0a had and adding "irrevocable" as a just for thinking they could amend it. WotC believes it has the power to amend it. Whether it does is a question for the courts. But I see no path forward where WotC does not get something from this negotiation.Just to be clear, "total surrender" is "move back to where everyone in the world including Wotc though was how it goes have been for the past 20 years".
Everything authorized, OGL irrevocable. It may take a 1.0b to do that, but no other changes.
And then, if they want to come out with a new version of OGL, go for it. Every 3PP and OGL game is protected,a nd they have plenty of clout to bring people to their new OGL promising carrots like having it on their VTT and DnDBeyond.
Putting it as "total surrender" really is using emotional language to bias towards one side of this. Gamers aren't looking for a whit more than what has been the status quo for decades.
The OGL community have already won the bigger victory; ORC will come out and guarantee free and open gaming for eternity, written into a modern contract that can reflect on 20 years of experience with the OGL. And it won't be beholden to any single company. That is OGL 1.0b in essence, with the exception of the lack of WotC's SRDs in it. WotC already fumbled its biggest bargaining chip. We already won.
The question now is what are people and WotC willing to negotiate to use WotC's OGC. That's the fight over 1.x now. WotC wants people to only use their 5.x SRD to make certain D&D compatible products within certain parameters. We get to tell WotC if that's reasonable or no dice. That's how we move forward with WotC. Sticking our heels in the dirt and demanding not only that WotC gets no ground but also that we demand more ground seems counterproductive.
I too would have loved WotC to leave well enough alone. But that didn't happen. So now, knowing ORC is going to be the backbone of the open RPG community and not WotC, we can negotiate a deal that is amicable to both gamers and Hasbro. We're not going to get there by demanding blood.