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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 8896075" data-attributes="member: 2013">Oh, hey, this account still works! Here's my take on the situation.I think WotC is probably genuine about wanting to make sure D&D isn't associated with content they find distasteful and I suspect this isn't just the suits - it's probably the rank & file as well. I can't say I particularly blame them; I probably wouldn't want my work associated with content I find distasteful either. However, as others have pointed out, that desire, no matter how well-intentioned, varies in terms of "what is distasteful" not just from person to person, but can vary in the same person over time. More importantly, though, I think it's a mistake to try to exert that sort of control via the Open Game License. First of all, the idea is somewhat antithetical to the concept of "open" but secondly, the OGL has been around so long and used for so many products that as of November 1, 2022 (before WotC started making noises about revisions to the OGL) I don't think much of fandom made the association "OGL product = D&D product." For instance, I don't know if Thirsty Sword Lesbians is an OGL product or not, but even if it was and OGL release, I certainly wouldn't associate it with D&D. I definitely think there's some Streisand Effect going on NOW, though.But I think the bigger thing here is simple. Money. We've heard the rumors of comments that "D&D is under-monetized" and I can certainly believe execs feel that way. Think about the traditional TTRPG business model - I write a book, I sell you the book, you take the book and play with it over and over again. Even if I charge you a lot, it's a single-sale model, and it puts a ceiling on what I can earn because once we've come to an agreement on a price one time, you can get enjoyment out of the product in perpetuity. (And of course, the Doctrine of First Sale means you can resell the book if you ever want to quit, so now you can transfer the ability to play the game to someone else so I can't collect revenue from that someone else.What has changed over the twenty years since the release of the OGL 1.0a? Companies big and small have tried to shift from a "sell goods" to "sell services" model, because the "sell services" model provides a steadier stream of revenue. Instead of charging me one big price for a thing I then own and can use as much as I want, companies are trying to sell "the right to use a thing the company retains ownership of for a certain time period" especially in the Intellectual Property industry. The other thing that has happened to enable this is the rise of the internet which makes this much easier for IP products. Instead of buying a DVD for $20 and watching a movie as many times as you want, instead pay $5 to stream a movie one time.People here have mentioned the failing of 4E as being due to it being licensed under the restrictive GSL instead of under the OGL, and I think that's partly true. But I think Matt Colville did a great job of explaining that originally the plan was to simultaneously release an electronic toolset for playing 4E - a VTT or at least a proto-VTT when the VTT was still more or less in its infancy (yes, I know Fantasy Grounds started in 2004, but functionality of VTTs was still rather limited in 2008 when 4E released because of the limitations of internet speeds, et al. He also mentioned that 4E was rushed out the door before the electronic toolset could be put together properly and it never materialized. My read on what Hasbro as an institution learned from the 4E launch failure was (1) change the game too much and your customer base won't like it and (2) exert too much control with the license and publishers won't support your product. When 5E was getting ready for launch, WotC did not have a viable VTT, so there was no reason at the time for them to attempt to lock their content behind the GSL... it was wiser to try to harness the "Skaff effect" by releasing under the OGL and re-capture the third-party support that had helped 3E become dominant. Of course, this time, "killer app" that the internet brought to help explode the growth of RPGs, the Virtual Tabletop, was much more ready for primetime. With the rise of the VTT, you are no longer limited to gaming with people in your immediate geographic vicinity. The problem of "I would love to play, but can't find anyone to DM" is all but eliminated. Furthermore, the VTT offers an RPG company the holy grail of revenue stream - it can be sold on a subscription basis! No longer do I have to sell a static book or PDF and let you enjoy it as much as you want; instead, I can charge you a little bit each month for access to the VTT. I would posit that the pandemic helped speed the move to VTTs, but the paradigm shift was that around the time 5E was released, the internet had developed the bandwidth to support high-quality VTTs and there was some competition among VTTs with FantasyGrounds, Roll20, and later comers like Foundry pushing for innovation in the VTT experience.I'm sure WotC gets that the VTT is their dream revenue stream - the subscription-based model. You don't think they paid $146 million for D&D Beyond last year just to offer you a great way to organize your stuff? No, we know OneD&D is expected to have a significant VTT element. They're pivoting into this space. Without even worrying about whether or not microtransactions will be a thing, if they can get people locked into their VTT, they can finally back off releasing physical books and move to a service-based model - you're paying them every time you play D&D. To maximize profits, WotC has to find a way to shut out competing VTTs to avoid having their revenue stream split and there are only two avenues to do that: (1) make OneD&D incompatible with 5E or (2) prevent competing VTTs from using the material that was released as OGC in the 5E SRD.So now they're staring down the choice... make OneD&D incompatible with 5e (remember, they learned "change the game too much and your customer base won't like it") or prevent competing VTTs from using OGC from 5E (they also learned "exert too much control with the license and publishers won't support your product"). They don't dare make it incompatible, so they tried - and are still trying - to choke off competing VTTs from accessing the material that was released as OGC in the 5E SRD. I think it isn't Paizo, MCDM, Kobold Press, or any of these other publishers that they're worried about as their competition (as most of the community has assumed). They're looking at Fantasy Grounds and Foundry and Roll20 and possibly even Steam, World of Warcraft, and the like. The rest of the TTRPG industry publishers? They're just collateral damage. I suspect they'd be happy to say third-party publishers can continue to use OGC - even stuff from the 5E SRD - in static electronic format and books - in perpetuity. They don't need royalties from others, so they're happy to drop those while they backpedal. The VTT is the thing.After all, these are SOFTWARE people at the head. They're not looking at D&D the game. They're looking at "how can we change D&D from book sales into a subscription service?" I think they have misread the room, not because gamers are creative or smart or any other number of traits, but because most gamers in the VTT space have already formed significant brand loyalty to Fantasy Grounds or Roll20 or Foundry or their VTT of choice - and often feel affinity toward their favorite third party content creators that are getting caught in the blast radius - far more than their brand loyalty to D&D itself.D&D Beyond may eventually become an excellent VTT, but it can't just be a "good" VTT - it will have to be so much better than the alternatives it overcomes the ill will of VTT users toward them. And with the TTRPG community looking like it's going to splinter again like it was in the 90's where you had Vampire/Werewolf, Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Palladium/Rifts, and several other systems I'm probably forgetting taking significant market share from D&D, I don't think "our VTT is the one that runs D&D" will be enough.TL;DR: I don't think this isn't about TTRPGs. I think it's all about the VTT space, but I don't see a path forward for WotC that lets them get where they want to go other than "extreme sustained excellence" (which I haven't seen for quite some time so I'm not holding my breath).</blockquote>

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