D&D 5E Will you continue to give WotC D&D your $$$

[Mind of tempest]

I might buy the giant book they said they would put out this year but only if it is good otherwise I am looking into the moving system to something else depending on local area preferences and such.

why the giant book you ask? I have never been able to come up with a good setting use for them so I will see if it has anything in it worth stealing assuming it is good.

 

[David Britten]

If Pathfinder would take inspiration from Free League on presenting a modern RPG I would have jumped long ago. I just can't stand reading their books.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think there is an alternative to 1.0a being reinstated which would be WotC agreeing that people could essentially transfer their OGL 1.0a OGC (including WotC's earlier SRDs) to ORC or similar, but it's messy and would be far more straightforward to just stop trying to be bad.

It is actually actively irritating that WotC behaved like this because I was literally about to buy Shadow of the Dragon Lords when this all started, and Keys from the Golden Vault and Planescape were extremely interesting (also I'd probably have hate-bought the Giant book lol), though I still suspect Planescape will be a monumental let-down (but I always did - that was forgivable though!).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If Pathfinder would take inspiration from Free League on presenting a modern RPG I would have jumped long ago. I just can't stand reading their books.

This makes me think I should look at Free League's books (I see they have a bundle on Humble right now), are they particularly well-presented in terms of explaining rules, setting, etc.?

 

[clearstream]

My first poll; So exciting!

By all means continue to use the books you have, and enjoy what you and your group are doing. Nothing wrong with that.

That being said; Given the current OGL kerfuffle...

I felt more than one concern is conflated into the second option, but I chose it because to me the first option is to me an unnecessarily black and white position.

On the one hand, I think there are possible future OGL versions that could even be improvements on the original. And on the other hand, I think if Hasbro just said - look, going forward it's our IP and we want a walled garden - then they would just be making a commercial decision not dissimilar or any more immoral than any company that decides to ringfence its IP. If they were to try and revoke the OGL, there are versions of that, that might be fair and equitable to those who have relied on it.

And on the other hand, my view is not really as simplistic as - doesn't affect my table, will give money to a corporation if I like their product regardless of what they do. But on that, there is a long list of things I will not sustain a company from my own pocket to do, and licensing shennanigans are pretty far down that list. Commercial conflicts are not the same as criminal conflicts, and typically amoral rather than immoral.

 

[David Britten]

This makes me think I should look at Free League's books (I see they have a bundle on Humble right now), are they particularly well-presented in terms of explaining rules, setting, etc.?

Symbaroum is a work of art from start to finish. The system is refreshing (though can get unbalanced if you aren't very careful), the art exquisite and the books are just quality.

 

[Oofta]

On the corporate evil scales, what is being proposed barely registers. I think, even if the revocation of 1.0a is enforceable, the OGL 2.0 would have effectively zero impact on anyone.

There's a whole lot of hyperbole and some theories verging on tinfoil hat conspiracy territory. In theory WOTC could shut someone down. There's no indication that they would unless someone was publishing something vile. In theory they could copy someone's work, but unless you mark your content as PI (which from my understanding is not simple and rarely done), they could have always copied it. Very little published under the OGL is marked as PI and other than a couple of monsters many years ago they've never directly copied anything. Ideas and concepts are copied by most TTRPGs all the time, of course which is why we have products like Strixhaven.

But the actual impact? If I'm wrong and WOTC starts copying and pasting text verbatim, shutting down product left and right? Then I'll change my mind. I also suspect it would make this controversy look like a tempest in a teapot. It's not the end of the world or the third party marketplace as we know it. It's some HASBRO exec who doesn't understand the industry with an uninformed grasp of the marketplace that pushed a monumentally bad idea. Not only was it unnecessary* but also gave companies momentum to break away from D&D's long shadow.

*Even the royalties thing they dropped didn't make a lot of sense from a financial perspective, it seems like the overhead costs WOTC could have incurred would have outweighed the income, especially considering that the big producers had a much lower rate.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I'm glad the poll included IF THEY MAKE SOMETHING I LIKE... (which I highly doubt at this point, but maybe they will surprise me).

Sure, I'll still buy their stuff then. I got into a discussion with a player yesterday about all this. He's with many of you about stopping the corporate monster, etc. but frankly it is their property, so why shouldn't they receive a royalty form others who use it to make money themselves?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There's a whole lot of hyperbole and some theories verging on tinfoil hat conspiracy territory. In theory WOTC could shut someone down. There's no indication that they would unless someone was publishing something vile. In theory they could copy someone's work, but unless you mark your content as PI (which from my understanding is not simple and rarely done), they could have always copied it. Very little published under the OGL is marked as PI and other than a couple of monsters many years ago they've never directly copied anything. Ideas and concepts are copied by most TTRPGs all the time, of course which is why we have products like Strixhaven.

Dude, lawyers have looked at that section. Even the lawyers who did a hit piece of on Linda Codega agreed that that section you're describe was so legally messed up that in their legal opinion, no-one should ever have signed the OGL 1.1. The wording was not normal or okay, even if we believe the intention was fine.

So you coming here and saying "OH TINFOIL HATS THE LOT OF YOU!!!" is just silly at this point.

WotC themselves completely walked it back.

Also note that WotC couldn't copy things under the OGL 1.0a in the same way at all, even if they weren't marked PI. Why you ask? Because the PI clause bit only matters where something that might be considered OGC is also PI. WotC could only ever have copied stuff that was OGC and not PI. Which was never a significant amount of the 3PPs, it's just the mechanics, in general.

But the actual impact? If I'm wrong and WOTC starts copying and pasting text verbatim, shutting down product left and right? Then I'll change my mind.

Maaaan, come on.

Please, I'm begging you, keep up to date if you're going to post about this! Weren't you the guy who didn't even know they'd dropped the royalties until yesterday?

Guess what the other thing they dropped at the same time as? That ENTIRE CLAUSE that you're saying is "fine". The dropped it. They promised it won't come back! We already beat them on that! If does come back, the firestorm will reignite on it because they specifically said it wouldn't!

Your post is from minutes ago. WotC dropped that stuff 2 days ago.

*Even the royalties thing they dropped didn't make a lot of sense from a financial perspective, it seems like the overhead costs WOTC could have incurred would have outweighed the income, especially considering that the big producers had a much lower rate.

100% agree.

But why did they ever include it? It was perverse and insulting. But they did include it, and indeed in the OGL 2.0, they only dropped it to 20% (for everyone, not just KS), before finally dropping it entirely in the Friday letter. The fact they're doing actively dumb stuff like that is why people are so upset with them.

On the corporate evil scales, what is being proposed barely registers. I think, even if the revocation of 1.0a is enforceable, the OGL 2.0 would have effectively zero impact on anyone.

This is absolutely this:


The only reason it "barely registers" is because they screwed it up so bad, and the likely end result is just that people will publish stuff that say "For the world's most popular RPG", or "For 5E" or even (according Legal Eagle, this is probably fine - note consult a lawyer before doing though) "Compatible with Dungeons & Dragons", entirely without the OGL (probably with ORC or the like, but they don't even NEED that).

You can't say you're not evil because you got caught before you could murder the wealthy heiress, nor because your gun jammed, or your knife turned out to have been swapped with a fake knife.

And no, it won't "have no effect on anyone". The biggest impact will be that anyone who was publishing under OGL 1.0a, and using OGC, will have to basically go back and re-licence all their books, if they even can, and risks WotC coming after them in court because the legal safe harbour provided is gone.

Now you can say "Hahaha WotC aren't that dumb", but did you just see what happened? WotC are now 150% that dumb.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yes.

I do not put moral failings onto non-human things. Any issues I might have with the OGL would be the result of certain people within Wizards of the Coast and thus any personal feelings of mine would be directed at them, not for the entity that employs them. But as I cannot direct my feelings towards those people specifically because I do not know who was responsible... I choose not to paint everyone within that company with the same brush-- especially those who have no say or part in the issue that has occurred.

I'm not going to hold the whole house responsible when Mr. Boddy is found dead... I'm going to wait until we figure out Colonel Mustard killed him, and then wag my finger at him specifically. And if the cops don't figure out it was him? The other five house guests still don't have to worry about me yelling at them as they leave the mansion.