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<blockquote data-quote="Prime_Evil" data-source="post: 8909728" data-attributes="member: 11984"><p>They are within their rights to introduce a new license for 1D&amp;D. Nobody disputes that. The issue is the extent they are disrupting existing publishing arrangements. I think they have lost sight of the value of the OGL to their business. Back in the 1980s and 1990s there was a proliferation of different fantasy RPGs. But the OGL encouraged a large portion of the industry to standardise on D&amp;D. This helped WotC to sell more books. D&amp;D used the d20 trademark license to prevent abuse of their IP. This introduced additional restrictions beyond those in the OGL - including community standards prohibiting racism, sexism, etc. The OGL does not allow publishers to indicate compatibility with any game system without a seperate agreement. The value of being able to label your work as D&amp;D compatible via the d20 trademark was so great that most publishers signed up to the additional restrictions willingly. I can't see why WotC can't use the same model for 1D&amp;D - offer a core SRD via the OGL and allow publishers additional material and possibly an &quot;official&quot; badge if they sign up to the extra restrictions. That seems like a more reasonable trade-off. They can add whatever extra terms they like to the trademark agreement. And publishers can assess whether they are willing to accept them. If not, they can only use the core content. But WotC need to understand this isn’t a one-way street. They benefit too from having an entire ecosystem of third-party publishers driving consumers towards their game system. It's a classic case of network externalities. The value of any game system is in the network of players who participate in it. A rising tide lifts all boats.</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="Prime_Evil, post: 8909728, member: 11984"] They are within their rights to introduce a new license for 1D&D. Nobody disputes that. The issue is the extent they are disrupting existing publishing arrangements. I think they have lost sight of the value of the OGL to their business. Back in the 1980s and 1990s there was a proliferation of different fantasy RPGs. But the OGL encouraged a large portion of the industry to standardise on D&D. This helped WotC to sell more books. D&D used the d20 trademark license to prevent abuse of their IP. This introduced additional restrictions beyond those in the OGL - including community standards prohibiting racism, sexism, etc. The OGL does not allow publishers to indicate compatibility with any game system without a seperate agreement. The value of being able to label your work as D&D compatible via the d20 trademark was so great that most publishers signed up to the additional restrictions willingly. I can't see why WotC can't use the same model for 1D&D - offer a core SRD via the OGL and allow publishers additional material and possibly an "official" badge if they sign up to the extra restrictions. That seems like a more reasonable trade-off. They can add whatever extra terms they like to the trademark agreement. And publishers can assess whether they are willing to accept them. If not, they can only use the core content. But WotC need to understand this isn’t a one-way street. They benefit too from having an entire ecosystem of third-party publishers driving consumers towards their game system. It's a classic case of network externalities. The value of any game system is in the network of players who participate in it. A rising tide lifts all boats. [/QUOTE]

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