WotC Shannon Appelcline the layoffs and the OGL fiasco.

[Velderan]

No, they keep bringing it up in their Community Update timeline, so it's still on the agenda.

The last update was in September when it was still an upcoming initiative, as opposed to the 2024 core rulebook initiative being in progress. So as of September according to their own communications, they haven't started it.

That being said, I don't remember if Kyle actually said "we will have it done before the end of the year" or something closer to "it would be great if we had it done by the end of the year". I'm not accusing anyone in this thread of making stuff up, but sometimes people remember things slightly differently and as more time passes, a different meaning gets attached to what was actually said. I guess we'll see whenever they post another community update.

 

[Parmandur]

The last update was in September when it was still an upcoming initiative, as opposed to the 2024 core rulebook initiative being in progress. So as of September according to their own communications, they haven't started it.

Several of the "upcoming" items have already been completed in the past 3 months, so it isn't necessarily the case thst it hasn't been started. However, I do tend to think finishing the new Core books have priority.

That being said, I don't remember if Kyle actually said "we will have it done before the end of the year" or something closer to "it would be great if we had it done by the end of the year". I'm not accusing anyone in this thread of making stuff up, but sometimes people remember things slightly differently and as more time passes, a different meaning gets attached to what was actually said. I guess we'll see whenever they post another community update.

I do believe he was firm on wanting to get it done, but a little less firm on the timeline.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Only a rare few have been able to make a decent living doing solely rpg stuff after leaving WotC.

It is very difficult tome a living doing RPGs

 

[Velderan]

Several of the "upcoming" items have already been completed in the past 3 months, so it isn't necessarily the case thst it hasn't been started. However, I do tend to think finishing the new Core books have priority.

You may be right, it might not take them long to review the old SRDs. Considering they didn't remove a mention of Strahd from the previous CC SRD, there was probably some level of rush to get the job done and maybe that's the case again here. Who knows!

 

[Parmandur]

You may be right, it might not take them long to review the old SRDs. Considering they didn't remove a mention of Strahd from the previous CC SRD, there was probably some level of rush to get the job done and maybe that's the case again here. Who knows!

Yeah, stuff like that tmeans that they probsvly need to take their time to go over any further SRD release witha. Fine tooth comb. And right now, the PHB and DMG are in layout, and honestly that is more important.

 

[jgsugden]

Such as?

Well, I'll start in one in compensation: Professional sport contract limitations. Teams used to give these massive bonus contracts to players to get them to come and play for their team for a year: Deion Sanders and the 49ers / Cowboys. This led to these dysfunctional patterns starting where a team would go all in for one year, then (some of) the best players would jump to the next team, etc... This resulted in limitations on compensation that forced the compensation to be spread out over several years - giving the teams (which stand in for the corporations) a chance to develop a franchise rather than focus all their spending onone year and then watch others take their talent the next year. There were a lot of other factors involved - but the basic idea: Limit compensation in a way that promotes the capability of the organization to prosper in a more prolonged way - is a core.

Outside of that arena, you'd be looking at other situations in which there are limitations on use/benefit in one area to promote use/benefit over the long period (or to promote society overall). I can draw lines in trash/recycling charges (you see your trash charges go up, but recycling charges go down - unless you get fined for putting the wrong thing in recycling ... we make the quick and easy option with the negative ramifications harder, encourage better longer term responsibility...) and vaccine mandates (you have the option to not get vaccinated - but if you don't, you can't do a lot of things ... which discourages people from their perceived short term benefit of not getting a vaccine (which they believe to be a benefit, at least ...) and use limitations to encourage what was widely considerd to be more responsible long term wider spread benefits).

Make it harder to do the stupid thing for personal gain. Make it more advantageous to do the thing that creates longer term benefits. Heck - it is basic game theory (Prisoner's Dilemma vs Repeating Prisoner's Dilemma - force the long term valuation into relevancy to adjust the personal benefit of the short term solution).

 

[LordEntrails]

From wikipedia:

Umm, does anyone consider Wikipedia athoratative? If the article is well written, it will be sourced and you can use that source, otherwise it's pretty much hearsay.

Well, I'll start in one in compensation: Professional sport contract limitations. <snip>

Thanks. This example is pretty much self-regulation i.e. the US government didn't put laws in place, the NFL did it for itself. There are a few, far to few imo, companies that self-regulate for the long term. But publicly traded companies are driven to the quarter by the architecture of the stock market.

Outside of that arena, you'd be looking at other situations in which there are limitations on use/benefit in one area to promote use/benefit over the long period (or to promote society overall). <snip>

So make individuals (and the companies they run or chose to invest in) behave in a certain way. Sure, we do that today, but so far have pretty much limited it to health and safety, not job security in the US. Some European countries have more restrictive labor laws, such as companies inability to layoff people or even close down locations that would result in job loss. But that too comes at a price, often times foreign investment in those countries is poor, because having to employee a set number of people for decades after your venture has failed is a big liability to risk.

Make it harder to do the stupid thing for personal gain. Make it more advantageous to do the thing that creates longer term benefits. Heck - it is basic game theory (Prisoner's Dilemma vs Repeating Prisoner's Dilemma - force the long term valuation into relevancy to adjust the personal benefit of the short term solution).

I would think some sort of fundamental change to the stock market that de-emphasized the quarterly earnings report would be ideal. But not sure how you get there. Investors want to make profit, and the cost to move an investment from one company to the next is pretty low. Meaning if a company does "perform" in a single quarter, they lose investment dollars.

I just don't know how you make the changes you are talking about without taking away the fundamental aspect of a free market; investors getting to chose where they invest their money.

 

[mamba]

True,but the "OGL doesn't do what they thought it did" lawyers seemed to have the better case.

not to me, it basically boiled down to ‘the wording ‘irrevocable’ back then used to also mean perpetual, but sometime later the language was changed to make that clearer by including both terms’

That still would mean it was perpetual, just like the GPL only includes ‘irrevocable’ and no one managed to show this not also meaning ‘perpetual’

The real eye row raiser was that one IP lawyer Podcaster who laid out that game mechanics are probably protective IP, after all.

eh, that would be interesting, they probably can manage to successfully claim some of it as IP, but winning 10% and losing 90% is not a great outcome, and unless you are thinking of a different one than me, that is what I concluded from it

 

[mamba]

Until it's tested in court, it's not really worth arguing. And if Roe v Wade can be overturned, all bets are off.

agreed, but since there is a lot less political motivation here, I’d say WotC was on very shaky grounds at a minimum, but yes, you can always find an incompetent judge and win, even when the odds are slim

Truth be told, WotC probably have succeeded in killing off the OGL - nobody with any sense would tie the fate of their business to that license now.

more importantly, no one needs to, the CC is the much better option out of the two, so yes, the OGL is irrelevant now. That in itself was not the goal however

 

[billd91]

Umm, does anyone consider Wikipedia athoratative? If the article is well written, it will be sourced and you can use that source, otherwise it's pretty much hearsay.

People have been studying Wikipedia's accuracy compared to Encyclopedia Britannica for a while now (nearly 20 years) and it holds its own. And it's far more likely to cover topics like D&D in depth to boot. There are caveats, of course, considering Wikipedia's accessibility and vulnerability to vandalism, but the crowd and mods ends up policing it pretty well. So it's always preferable to use it as a starting point in research, not the final source.
In the case of that particular article, it cites its sources. Bill Slavicsek stated they were considering design issues for 4e back in early 2005 in Wizards Presents Races and Classes.