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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 8896548" data-attributes="member: 2067">I mean, don't just take my word for it. WotC and Hasbro think the risk of brand damage from unseemly OGL products is big enough that they've revisited the topic repeatedly in their revisions of the OGL and consider it a big part of their next iteration. They want to address it, and are investing considerable resources in doing so. It makes sense to me that they'd do that - moral panics aren't reasonable things, pretty much by definition, and they're something D&D has faced in the past, and something that has actively changed D&D as a game (Tanar'ri, anyone?).If they didn't think it was reasonable, if it is indeed so fanciful to imagine, why is it a consistent theme in each iteration of their licensing work?Hm, looks like there's some confusion. Lets see if I can clarify.It doesn't matter that the OGL and D&D are distinct from the perspective of the general public. They'll judge D&D based on an OGL product, easy.It doesn't matter if D&D says they have no ownership of some potential offending product. People will still judge them, and there can still be consequences for individual employees based on that judgement if the offense is big enough/loud enough/affects the bottom line enough, even if WotC and Hasbro had no hand in the product.The OGL won't protect WotC from the court of public opinion. It seems like, because of that, because of wanting to be "good stewards of the game," they want an OGL that lets them exercise some kind of editorial control - to exclude things that would hurt the brand.I don't know if that's going to work (I think it's not really a great idea, personally!), but it sounds like that's what they're working towards.This is part of why I don't think the OGL is the best mechanism for this. WotC has other venues where they exercise more editorial control already. The risk they're exposed to is real, but it's also something they can mitigate, prepare for, and work through. Using the OGL to lock down on this potential threat isn't the right tool for the job.</blockquote>

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