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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 8896251" data-attributes="member: 2067">Ooh, update me Content Daddy.They say they want to be good stewards of the game, and reasonably that means making sure that people can't be stinky ghouls about making an adventure where George Soros is the lord of the 4th layer of the Nine Hells and putting it on Kickstarter for One Million Money or making different ability score rules for women or putting it on the blockchain or whatever other nefarious ghoul garbage our broken culture is cooking up today. And that sounds like a Good Thing. Who wants a bunch of stinky garbage ghoul humans mucking up our Weird Elf Game? NOT ME!There is a conflict between this good thing and another good thing, though. That other good thing is: People can take OGL'd D&D content and do what they want with it. Whatever they want. Without having to ask Content Daddy first. And that's the conflict. Being open means you're open to a lot of awful ghouls. Wanting to not let the ghouls in means you can't really be open. At the basic level, it's the paradox of tolerance.And this problem isn't new, right? I remember this kind of thing when the Book of Erotic Fantasy came out (Pun intended? Or am I just broken inside? Porque no los dos?). WotC suddenly very nervous that the Brand, in all its PG-13 Glory, was right up next to pictures of prominent nudity and naughty spells that made me feel funny inside. Being open means having this kind of...exposure...sometimes. Not ideal. Not great. Not something you want to pop up in Google when Timmy's Puritanical Mom looks up your Brand because of the buzz about the hip new movie.So I put on my glasses from They Live!, and I see the mewling corporate homunculus at the core here, what it's saying to me is that it's real hard to turn a profit when your Brand might get sniped by garbage ghouls of ill intent, and yeah, I'm sympathetic.Only, hold up a tick, DM's Guild already does do this kind of content moderation. What with the Oliver Darkshire's sexy vampire adventure and the Eat the Rich compilation having their stuff censored. (and probably more, but those are the ones I've heard about, so I know they Already Do This Stuff).So, WotC already owns some storefronts and can set some standards there, which is tighter control and tighter association than the d20 System License was in the 3e days. It's not just OGL stuff, it's just D&D stuff. So it would seem that this problem is addressable without de-authorizing the OGL. Maybe not completely, maybe not without risk, maybe you've gotta ramp up your intolerance of intolerance in different places, but, dang, if you can already stop someone from selling an adventure with sexy vampire pictures in it, I think you have the kind of control you say you're looking for here. Just empower that a bit more.It sounds to me like it's totally possible for D&D to have continued brand integrity while risking the occasional bad actor. You can't protect yourself from all the ghouls and have an open system, and while the ghouls are rank and disgusting and weird, maybe this is something where the perfect is the enemy of the good. I guess that's not super clear-cut, and there's probably reasonable people who would disagree there. I am definitely for letting that risk be a risk, though, and protecting against it where you can in ways that don't destroy an industry.Don't get cute on me. You are in big trouble, Mister. Paizo and I have been talking, and we are not happy with your recent behavior.Good. You can be a good steward of the game by protecting it from NFTs in other ways, and avoiding the royalty thing will remove a headache for you and for others.Okay, I'm willing to forgive the clumsy legalese here. I'm familiar with some of the nuances of legal language and "hit that risk with the biggest f'n hammer we can muster" is definitely standard corpo legal practice (Read your ELUA sometimes, folks). Hope they get better at vetting this BS, though. This language should've never gone out. The D&D audience is many things, but one of the things we all are is giant nerds. You know, the kind of people who read the fine print.The promise to do better is never sufficient on its own, but it's also always a necessary first step.</blockquote>

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