Why We Should Work With WotC

[Dausuul]

Perhaps, you also have to factor in whether anybody trusts WOTC to abide by an agreement they made into perpetuity. Because nobody wants to be here again in another 20 years. That's the bigger factor, I think.

If a court rules that the OGL 1.0a is not revocable, then you don't have to trust Wizards. They don't get endless bites at the apple. Frivolous litigation is a thing. (I think frivolous litigation is what would apply in the case that Wizards kept hoking up increasingly outlandish excuses to challenge the OGL in court, but IANAL.)

This is why I suspect Wizards will think long and hard before filing any lawsuit that could result in such a ruling. The threat that they could sue serves them almost as well as if they'd filed suit and won, without the risk that they might lose, or the storm of bad publicity that would hit them either way. Per our resident lawyers, there seems no plausible way for a 3PP to take the initiative here -- Wizards merely announcing "We have deauthorized 1.0a" doesn't give anyone else a cause of action to haul them into court. So Wizards can hold that threat suspended over everyone's head as long as they want to. Maybe toss out a C&D here and there to keep anyone from getting complacent.

Of course, if there is a big 3PP that is publicly and loudly defying Wizards, that forces their hand. If they don't file suit, they are revealed as a paper tiger and the threat loses force. But most of the big 3PPs are extricating themselves from the OGL. Wizards can deal with the little fish at its leisure or not at all.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You know what I love about Rifts? I can't remember anything about South America other than vaguely that there were vampire gods or something, but now that you've said it, I 100% believe that there were psychic cats running around, and I find the idea of them being anthropomorphic cats and just normal cats with psychic abilities equally plausible.

Rifts: Vampire Kingdoms - aka Mexico - is actually a third and separate book (with the vampire gods and so on - it went pretty hard!).

And absolutely re: the cats. Even after I wrote that I was like "Oh it sounds like they might just be normal cats", and then I was like "You know what, in one of the books they probably were so..."

I still love the friendly psychic worms from Rifts: Atlantis and am sad I never got to play one.

 

[Lanefan]

And, yeah, I'm arguing we should negotiate. Because I want this to end well. And it's not going to end with the 1.0a OGL still in effect.

Conceding on your end goal before even beginning negotiations somehow doesn't seem like a winning strategy. Just sayin'...

 

[Lanefan]

Was there ever a period when most players got their D&D books from gaming stores?

During the 3e era, I'd say, yes.

Even in the 1980s when D&D was smaller there weren't that many stores selling RPG products. We had to look for them at bookstores, comic book stores, toy stores and even hobby stores like Michael's. The place I got the Monster Manual in 1980 was a train hobbyist store at a mall.

That's because in the early 80s there were very few if any dedicated gaming stores. There were comic book stores, some of which branched into D&D and other games, and for a while in the mid 80s D&D products could be found everywhere (I once bought a module off a rack of modules in what was otherwise a greeting card shop), but the dedicated gaming store wasn't really a common thing until Magic broke.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Was there ever a period when most players got their D&D books from gaming stores? Even in the 1980s when D&D was smaller there weren't that many stores selling RPG products. We had to look for them at bookstores, comic book stores, toy stores and even hobby stores like Michael's. The place I got the Monster Manual in 1980 was a train hobbyist store at a mall.

Walden Books was were I got most of my 2e books... for 3e we got our first gaming store... we have gone through 4 or 5 now each lasts about a year. Now my buddy owns a comic shop and I get half there and half from amazon...

 

[Lanefan]

Even if D&D mechanics were somehow patentable (an assertion I do not concede), it's far too late for that. The public disclosure grace period of one year, and the patent duration of 20 years, has seen to that. Patents are off the table, whether by applicability or by calendar. All that leaves is trade mark, product identity and copyright.

And as for US-centric views... Hasbro is a US corporation.

Hasbro is a US corporation, true, but I'm in Canada thus if I were to publish something a bit too D&D-adjacent it's Canadian law I'd have to answer to, not American; and here the rules are - while similar - different enough to matter.

So yes, the post saying that not all countries view this stuff the same makes a valid point.