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<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 8542584" data-attributes="member: 19857">Wizards ca 2022 has the lessons of Wizards ca 2015 to fall back on.&nbsp; Trying to untangle 4e from the OGL and coming up with a new more restrictive license to release things under was a terrible idea in retrospect (it was a terrible idea IMO even at the time, but it became obvious to even the most blind brand manager in retrospect how bad it was).&nbsp; The dirty secret of D&amp;D is that the brand matters far more than the rules and the community of players matters more than either of them (and in fact is why the brand is so important).&nbsp; Rules are already of questionable copyrightability in many ways (you can't copyright a rule, you can copyright an expression of a rule, but if I can express that rule with different language there are no copyright issues).&nbsp; There is no OGL game that is competition for D&amp;D. The only time one has ever managed it is Pathfinder - which basically slid into the D&amp;D area of the ecosystem with both players and publishers largely because IMO of Wizards decision to not OGL 4e and all of the related corporate culture around Wizards at the time that surrounded that really lousy decision (that decision didn't come in a vacuum - you need a culture to make a choice like that - they also pushed 4e out before it was fully baked and that decision was part of the same culture issue).A shift in culture could lead them to try to make that same kind of dumb decision again.&nbsp; Likely it would backfire on them again. Even with DM's Guild there as an outlet.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jer, post: 8542584, member: 19857"] Wizards ca 2022 has the lessons of Wizards ca 2015 to fall back on. Trying to untangle 4e from the OGL and coming up with a new more restrictive license to release things under was a terrible idea in retrospect (it was a terrible idea IMO even at the time, but it became obvious to even the most blind brand manager in retrospect how bad it was). The dirty secret of D&D is that the brand matters far more than the rules and the community of players matters more than either of them (and in fact is why the brand is so important). Rules are already of questionable copyrightability in many ways (you can't copyright a rule, you can copyright an expression of a rule, but if I can express that rule with different language there are no copyright issues). There is no OGL game that is competition for D&D. The only time one has ever managed it is Pathfinder - which basically slid into the D&D area of the ecosystem with both players and publishers largely because IMO of Wizards decision to not OGL 4e and all of the related corporate culture around Wizards at the time that surrounded that really lousy decision (that decision didn't come in a vacuum - you need a culture to make a choice like that - they also pushed 4e out before it was fully baked and that decision was part of the same culture issue). A shift in culture could lead them to try to make that same kind of dumb decision again. Likely it would backfire on them again. Even with DM's Guild there as an outlet. [/QUOTE]

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