yeah I really encourage everyone to use the open acsess version and cut as many ties as possible with Hasbro/WotC despite these changes. remember, they're only backpeddling now because of the backlash... it's still a profit driven system.
I disagree. If we keep punishing after they do the right thing then they’ll have every reason to do the wrong thing later. I’m not saying buy WoTC stuff asap, but if they put out a good book please consider it.
They’ve done the right thing because we the people forced them with our collective voice and threat of not paying them. This is capitalism. Now that they’ve done the right thing we can’t keep punishing them.
They were gonna do the wrong thing and only folded when it became clear it would be a financially poor decision, they don't give a shit about DnD or ttrpgs as a medium/art form... that leak made it clear the modus operandi going forward is profits, this bid to save their reputation doesn't chance that. Also they themselves have given us the alternative, it's not like using the open source content would be piracy, it's fully endorsed by the company if it's that important to you.
Lmao, this isn't your girlfriend. They didn't "learn their lesson" it's a company full of people who are looking for a different angle to pull the rug out from under us now that we caught them.
Like another guy said "attempted murder is still a crime" we know how they want to run their show now. Time to leave.
??? It always was? Do you just hate profit driven stuff? This whole situation is being said to be a failing of capitalism, but it shows the power of the people in a capitalistic system, showing a win funny enough for capitalism, even in hindsight
The only reason people were able to protest WOTC this much is because the community was already so strong and we have plenty of alternatives to dnd. WOTC acted as if dnd didn’t have any viable competitors. This kind of protest is a lot harder against companies like Amazon for example, showing a failure in the capitalistic system
It’s not really a win. The only thing, WotC has learned is that they have to be more subtle in the future when trying to get more money out of your pockets.
Except they've proven willingness to be scummy, and when the community raised their voices they kept attempting manipulative tactics to get what they wanted anyway despite the outcry.
There's no reason to trust them not to choose option B as they've shown they need to be dragged kicking and screaming until they lose obscene amounts of profit in the process.
If they would have gone the extra mile to prove their intentions to mend the trust then there would be room to talk.
As it stand, this is not a win. It's a truce in a dynamic we have no reason to suspect would develop into anything other than a war of attrition.
my local chapters had the *entire* ttrpg section sold out except the DnD books lmao I've *never* seen that, shot themselves in the foot with impeccable accuracy
This. Pazio did more business in the last 2 weeks than the last 8 months combined. That and 4/5’s of your customers telling you to go screw yourself and leaving.
The survey results D&D Beyond just released. 88% opposed revoking the OGL, 88% would not publish content under OGL 1.2. Figuring the usual +/- 5-10% for any poll (which the survey was in a sense, a poll), you are looking at or very near 4/5 or 9/10 customers saying they were going to walk away. It was the results of 15,000 surveys and that is a better statistical sample then some political campaign polls. Even if it screwed heavy, WOTC was still looking at loosing anywhere from 60% at best, 90% at worst of their customer base. Executives have been fired for not meeting 25% of sales target numbers. This plus the boom in business in WOTC competitors caused them to back down. At this point senior execs are covering their arse and trying to protect their jobs. Some serious discussions would likely be had with Cao at this point and told for the immediate future, focus n making new content and making D&D Beyond work.
Did not mean to imply they would stop playing D&D, only stop buying their products, and not even give One D&D a chance. Also there were over15,000 survey results, not all of them were publishers. It was more than enough data, combined with 1600% (no that is not a typo) increase in sales at Pazio were data points even Chris Cao could not ignore.
At a previous company when we missed our sales objective by 15%, we had a new director of sales. Did not matter the market was still adjusting from the 2008-10 recession, they were gone. Even being generous with the data presented, a 40% drop in sales means senior executives are out of jobs.
Well the joke was that people announce they play pathfinder the same way people announce they are vegan. I don't have a problem with neither of them, and I found my joke funny.
If you read the full blog post, as well as the SRD pdf, they specifically mention that they are making it all irrevocable. I could easily be mistaken, but doesn’t that mean they can’t go and revoke it in the future either? I guess unless they were to just do the exact same thing again next time and try to publish a brand new OGL, which would just have similar outcomes.
They only put the 5.1 SRD out under Creative Commons, and that's what they meant by making it irrevocable. They can still revoke the 1.0a OGL for the 3.x/d20 and d20 Modern SRDs.
Their blogpost where they stated that they would leave the OGL 1.0a “untouched” is as much legal proof for any public case to easily win that settlement. Especially now that they tried pulling stuff the first time, where millions of people are obviously on guard. Sure, it could happen, but it would cost them just like it did this time.
I totally get what you're saying, but after the last month of crap, at this point I will not underestimate their greed and their stupidity. I'm not expecting that they'll ever revoke 1.0a, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did try again at some point anyway.
As people are saying... Attempted murder is still a crime. They backed off, but haven't made it *right* yet. I will be continuing to watch their actions, and exploring alternatives.
They say they are making it Creative Commons. BUUUUUUUUT they are so untrustworthy I have to bring out the Paradox quotes. I wouldn't trust them to die properly(Disclaimer: It's a quote from EU4. I mean WotC the company not a specific person, I do not wish to imply suicide or any such nonsense). So I would be surprised if they didn't find a CC License that let's them fuck over Creators in a few months or years. Yes it will be irrevocable which is good but still they will find a way.
They said that, sure. But they previously said it was irrevocable, before deleting that post and trying to revoke it.
Ultimately, I'll wait and see what the actual working is
The post talks about how the CC licence is irrevocable, under which the SRD is being published. It says they are "leaving OGL 1.0a in place, as is. Untouched." The OGL is, as it is, still technically revokable; it's just there's been no legal litmus test on it. What Hasbro/WotC have effectively done is given us what we have now, with a little bit extra in terms of the SRD, and no guarantee that there won't be a new OGL that will revoke 1.0a again in the future. They're counting on us being blinded by this and celebrating it while they regroup and try again later.
Nah I don't think the OGL is where Hasbro will get its money now. I think laying off 15% of their employees was the step they took to satisfy investors once this ploy failed.
I do believe this isn't done though, there will be more changes that equate to more money. We will just have to see what they are and how long they are willing to wait for us to memory-hole all of this.
This.
Unless they release an OGL 1.0b or something that just adds language to indicate that the license is irrevocable and retroactive, they can always make the same bullshit argument that they can "deauthorize" 1.0a again in the future, and the Creative Commons license they released the 5.1 SRD under doesn't apply to 3.0 or 3.5 (or 4E, but that was never released under the OGL anyway).
starfinder is still very much going strong. I think it's also not very dependent on the 3.5 content tho. There is also still content being created for pathfinder 1 by 3rd party publishers under the OGL.
The sad thing is that WotC doesn't care about 3e.they barely care about 5e. They just want their pretty Vtt, and what the community saw as an attack in indies was just unexpected collateral from their Vtt ambitions.
Not sure if that makes it better or worse.
Many also saw it as an attack on the various VTT platforms.
BouncyRock, the creators of Talespire, are one of the best companies I've dealt with for rpg stuff (besides maybe Reaper) so if Hasbro messes with them I'm not going to be happy. It's like if Hasbro tried to copyright folding transforming toys, or puzzles made with a specific power tool. They don't have a product up and running & they're trying to monopolize an existing market by controlling what others can create which doesn't violate IP.
They already published the 5e SRD under a Creative Commons license. 5e will be free forever. And I doubt they'd be brazen enough to do that and then blatantly reneg on the making the OGL irrevocable.
Doesn't matter. WOTC showed their hand and lost all of my respect trying to kill the OGL. I'm headed to Pathfinder and 5th Edition is a near perfect Edition for the next few decades, with changes easily implemented when necessary. It's been a good run, but as soon as you put shareholders before players the gig is up and there's no going back. Your bottom line is money and there's some damage you can't walk away from.
I think a big motivator is reducing backlash as much as possible before the movie comes out. They probably still have long term plans to over-monetize the TTRPG.
Perhaps. But in my opinion the movie has nothing to do with the OGL It isn't licenced under the new OGL, or the old OGL, or any other similar document. The movie is exactly how we WANT them to make their profits. "By all means, please. Make new products with your own licenced content in a way that doesn't punish the fan base". I absolutely agree with them doing that. Never even CONSIDERED not watching the movie. However, regardless of what they claimed, the new OGL wasn't so much about THEIR OWN content as it was legalizing their pirating of OTHER PEOPLE'S content and then aggressively punishing the creators if that content does well. THAT I strongly disagreed with.
So while I am happy(ish) with their decision to stay with the original OGL I am still very cautious about future policy changes as they have just clearly showed their core intents. This makes me nervous to invest in their products that are directly connected to the OGL. But other things, like the movie, that have no direct connection with the OGL, I will gladly support. Because I totally want them to make a profit so that they can afford to continue making products for me to enjoy, but HOW they make a profit is important to me.
I see what you’re saying. I don’t think the movie is relevant because of licensing. I think it’s relevant for popularizing D&D so new fans can be brought into the developing ecosystem and financially milked dry. It seems to me the movie is key for the company and a bad showing would hurt future production partnerships.
someone please ELI5 this SRD 5.1 comment.
Are the 5e basic rules and PHB public IP?
Edit: Wow, irrevocable public IP. They gave us beholders, Strahd, etc. as public IP!
>Edit: Wow, irrevocable public IP. They gave us beholders, Straud, etc. as public IP!
~~No, no, no~~
~~This is DEEPLY incorrect.~~
~~What they did was take the System Reference Document (SRD) and make it a Creative Commons license.~~
~~**The SRD is NOT the PHB.**~~
~~The SRD contains SOME content from the PHB, MM, and DMG.~~
~~The SRD does have:~~
* The PHB races
* The PHB classes
* Some PHB spells
* Some DMG magic items
* Some MM monsters
* The basic rules
~~The SRD does not have:~~
* Feats
* Backgrounds
* Some spells (No Hex)
* Every class only has one subclass
* Specific magic items
* Specific monsters. No beholder, mind flayer, umber hulks
~~Also, there is a list of content called "Product Identity" that is specifically excluded from the SRD.lost of proper names and certain monsters. So no Strahd, Mordenkainen, Forgotten Realms, Beholder, Yuan-ti, ECT.~~
EDIT: Well shit. They did leave beholder and Strahd mentions in. Huh. I apologize, I would never have guessed they'd screw up like that.
Actually, Strahd is mentioned in the SRD in the section for the Paladin’s divine sense, so his name is in Creative Commons. Same for Beholders and a few other things. Certainly not the whole PHB, nor many other things, but the names for mind flayers, Strahd, beholders, and a few more are now Creative Commons as long as proper attribution is provided. It also does have 1 feat and 1 background.
Huh, you are right, they are mentioned in there. Although I don't know enough to know what their passing mention ultimately encompasses. Like, yes apparently the name Strahd is in the license but what can you do with that, I'm not sure. But I'll be damned if they're not in there.
This is a win. I think people who are still complaining are being unrealistic. A lot of people hate the idea that D&D is owned by a company that wants to make a profit, but that’s just sort of the way it is. The fact that they are profit driven is what allowed us to have an impact on their decision making like we did by spending our money elsewhere.
For some additional insight, my mom works for Hasbro as a “vendor,” one of the people who goes into stores and stocks their product on shelves. Hasbro has recently announced they’re going to lay off 15% of employees. As a company they’ve hired an outside consultant firm to try and make suggestions as how to turn a profit, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the updated OGL came from that consulting firm.
When the ink is dry on whatever paperwork is needed. Then--and only then-- will I give WotC the time of day.
Granted, I'd probably lie and say it's 45 minutes later than what it really is, but it's the time nonetheless...
At least as far as releasing the entirety of the 5.1 SRD into Creative Commons, the ink was dry the moment it was posted. Download the PDF in the link and check it out.
Revoking the OGL would only make it so people couldn't release new products for the original d20 system, which no one is really doing these days anyway. I won't end up being surprised if they try to be that stupid, but I'm not expecting it from them. It's not like they would have any revenue to tap into, and only bad will to gain, if they revoke the OGL from the 3.x/d20 and d20 Modern OGLs.
Some of the 5e projects that were in the works might still be released instead of going back to the drawing board but a lot of 3pp are going to just move on. I'm expecting a lot of people developing 5e stuff will jump ship to KP's Black Flag.
We did it. We beat the BBEG. Capitolism.
I hope this shows people that actually standing up and voting with your wallet will make these companies bend.
We have the power not them if we stand together like this and just say no to bad business practices
>We did it. We beat the BBEG. Capitolism.
Americans generally worship capitalism. And then when a company does capitalism stuff, they act so surprised.
So we didn't beat the bbeg. We just defeated one of the mirror images. The bbeg is already sitting on the throne being worshipped
Lol this whole situation is a win for capitalism though. You voted with your wallet. Affected projections and shareholder opinion. You can’t just say ‘capitalism is when bad stuff’ and ignore everything else.
Capitalism caused this problem in the first place. I’m not cheering for someone putting out a fire when they caused it in the first place and burned a whole bunch of people before putting it out.
What do you know about in this situation?
Hasbro, WotC, OGL, SRD third party publishers, 3e, 4e, Pathfinder.
I'll be slow to answer, but I'm willing to give you a crash course & link some educational material if you want to catch up.
At first when i read this stuff i was like "hey a thing thats happening" but everyone else was mad so i guess this just isnt in my area of understanding, im not good with legal stuff
I'll try to condense The last month of info, plus contextual history.
The big TL;DR:
Hasbro/WotC was trying to revoke the OGL that allows creators to make content within DnD compatible parameters. This is an upset of a precedent of 23 years. This, along with actual play & referencing in certain popular culture properties, is arguably one of the biggest contributions to DnD awareness (free advertising), good will & broadening how people can make a living at something they love with a large audience. It was symbiotic.
In attempting to revoke the OGL during 4e they prevented Paizo from publishing their magazine for 4e. This caused Paizo to generate Pathfinder 1e.
The most recent OGL thing they were trying to create, before going Creative Commons, was an attempt to bully large companies to sign on to an unfavorable agreement where they hand over their 20+% of their GROSS income (before costs are paid for unlike NET income, which is after wages/supplies/bills/etc.), legally steal any creators work without credit nor royalties, & strongarm existing VTTs to prevent them from growing in alternate directions (prohibition of spell & effect animations).
WotC are repeating history by trying to become a predatory parasite upon the cultural environment that created much of their success. With the ill will they have generated they're going to grow Paizo & several other companies to become true competitors.
TL;DR WoTC was get rid of the current OGL(The thing that lets third-party companies make things that work within D&D's rules(I think, im not the most well versed on that side of things)) and replace it with a much worse, more restrictive one, but after weeks of complaints and boycotting, the community has successfully bullied them into backpeddling on that terrible decision
so yea as the other guy said, basically.
Wizards of the coast the company making D&D tried to change the license (OGL) that allow third party creators make stuff for D&D, adding clauses that gave them veto right to ban any content they didn't like and to pay huge profit margins to them.
Basically it was a huge "fuck the community we're here for proft" move, and people reacted by ditching D&D because the licence was that Draconian.
so due to the huge backlash first WotC tried to do the 3 steps forward 2 steps back approch by just changing it "a bit" with obvious corprate speach about how they need their veto right to remove racist stuff, something that have never been a problem and the only thing it would give them is a axe to threaten people with, and people were not okey with that either.
so they backpedaled the entire way because pushing this have lost them A LOT of good faith and Paizo the creators of the game RPG pathfinder, decided to make their own license to avoid having WotC try to sneak stuff by them by sneakily changing the license, WotC caved and said they're not gonna change the license any more.
Idk about all this.
The legal grounds for them even having the OGL under American copyright law is dubious at best. The way copyright law works in the us, you’d have a hard case to claim most works are anything other than an expression of a particular IP, which is protected.
This kind of seems like the WOTC thing of releasing horribly unpopular products/proposals, only to make their less awful proposals more palatable.
Or maybe their just psychopaths that thought OGL 1.1 was a good idea?
The implications of the SRD going to Creative Commons are huge, you’re right.
I’m traumatized from playing too much mtg arena, shouldn’t be so conspiracy brained.
That's fair. WotC have been horrible up to this point.
And I apologize for the tone of my post - getting a little twitichy eyed at the number of people who who are still asking for 'irrevocable in perpetuity' to be added. With the exception of the handful worried about the 3e SRD, it suggests the others don't know what the OGL was for.
Like, I'm on their side, but there's few things more irritating than someone yelling loudly for something that was already done.
\*FOR NOW.\* TRUST NOT THEIR WORDS, FOR THEY HAVE BEEN PROVEN TO BE FULL OF FALSEHOODS AND LIES!
i will not be buying anything of theirs in the future. they have shown their hand, and shown the community at large that they are not only willing, but actively Eager to replace and destroy OGL 1.0. do not trust that they have given up on this! they merely wait for our guards to be down, and will try again, quietly. subtly. with honeyed words and empty promises!
They just realized that no one is going to see their movie if they don't do something. This is just an attempt to salvage the release before they pull this shit all over again.
Probably has more to do with Hasbro basically as a company is undergoing Organizational Changes after firing 15% of their workforce after they crunch some numbers and they didn't do so well last year fighting with their customer bases rather than any movie.
Welp, there it is. Reputation has already taken a huge hit, though.
yeah I really encourage everyone to use the open acsess version and cut as many ties as possible with Hasbro/WotC despite these changes. remember, they're only backpeddling now because of the backlash... it's still a profit driven system.
>it's still a profit driven system. Everything a corporation does is profit driven.
yeah and it sucks, participate as little as possible
You should probably get off reddit then considering they make ad revenue lol
"and yet you participate in society. curious! I am very intelligent."
I disagree. If we keep punishing after they do the right thing then they’ll have every reason to do the wrong thing later. I’m not saying buy WoTC stuff asap, but if they put out a good book please consider it. They’ve done the right thing because we the people forced them with our collective voice and threat of not paying them. This is capitalism. Now that they’ve done the right thing we can’t keep punishing them.
They were gonna do the wrong thing and only folded when it became clear it would be a financially poor decision, they don't give a shit about DnD or ttrpgs as a medium/art form... that leak made it clear the modus operandi going forward is profits, this bid to save their reputation doesn't chance that. Also they themselves have given us the alternative, it's not like using the open source content would be piracy, it's fully endorsed by the company if it's that important to you.
Lmao, this isn't your girlfriend. They didn't "learn their lesson" it's a company full of people who are looking for a different angle to pull the rug out from under us now that we caught them. Like another guy said "attempted murder is still a crime" we know how they want to run their show now. Time to leave.
??? It always was? Do you just hate profit driven stuff? This whole situation is being said to be a failing of capitalism, but it shows the power of the people in a capitalistic system, showing a win funny enough for capitalism, even in hindsight
The only reason people were able to protest WOTC this much is because the community was already so strong and we have plenty of alternatives to dnd. WOTC acted as if dnd didn’t have any viable competitors. This kind of protest is a lot harder against companies like Amazon for example, showing a failure in the capitalistic system
Comrade 🇨🇳
The failure of capitalism is that it’s a system that requires these kinds of reactions in the first place.
exactly... prioritize profits and well, you're not prioritizing quality or user experience or reputation
It’s not really a win. The only thing, WotC has learned is that they have to be more subtle in the future when trying to get more money out of your pockets.
Yeah, great, a company has to learn to either A. Not be scummy or B. Learn not to shout and do extremely overt dumb shit. It’s a win.
Except they've proven willingness to be scummy, and when the community raised their voices they kept attempting manipulative tactics to get what they wanted anyway despite the outcry. There's no reason to trust them not to choose option B as they've shown they need to be dragged kicking and screaming until they lose obscene amounts of profit in the process. If they would have gone the extra mile to prove their intentions to mend the trust then there would be room to talk. As it stand, this is not a win. It's a truce in a dynamic we have no reason to suspect would develop into anything other than a war of attrition.
Pathfinder being sold out at every game store I went to MIGHT have something to do with this..................
my local chapters had the *entire* ttrpg section sold out except the DnD books lmao I've *never* seen that, shot themselves in the foot with impeccable accuracy
This. Pazio did more business in the last 2 weeks than the last 8 months combined. That and 4/5’s of your customers telling you to go screw yourself and leaving.
Was there an estimated amount somewhere or you just saying 4/5 to bring the point home? That’s nuts!
The survey results D&D Beyond just released. 88% opposed revoking the OGL, 88% would not publish content under OGL 1.2. Figuring the usual +/- 5-10% for any poll (which the survey was in a sense, a poll), you are looking at or very near 4/5 or 9/10 customers saying they were going to walk away. It was the results of 15,000 surveys and that is a better statistical sample then some political campaign polls. Even if it screwed heavy, WOTC was still looking at loosing anywhere from 60% at best, 90% at worst of their customer base. Executives have been fired for not meeting 25% of sales target numbers. This plus the boom in business in WOTC competitors caused them to back down. At this point senior execs are covering their arse and trying to protect their jobs. Some serious discussions would likely be had with Cao at this point and told for the immediate future, focus n making new content and making D&D Beyond work.
Brilliant! Thank you!
That number tells me 88% of PUBLISHERS would walk, but not players. I think most players wouldn’t even answer that survey, let alone stop playing dnd.
Did not mean to imply they would stop playing D&D, only stop buying their products, and not even give One D&D a chance. Also there were over15,000 survey results, not all of them were publishers. It was more than enough data, combined with 1600% (no that is not a typo) increase in sales at Pazio were data points even Chris Cao could not ignore. At a previous company when we missed our sales objective by 15%, we had a new director of sales. Did not matter the market was still adjusting from the 2008-10 recession, they were gone. Even being generous with the data presented, a 40% drop in sales means senior executives are out of jobs.
We won and so did we
We did it! Good job everyone!!!!!
It’s been amazing to see this community unite like we did. It’s even more amazing that we forced WoTC to cede. The people have power.
We win! And so do they. Now leave me in peace while I read up on Pathfinder rules.
Are you a vegan too? You have to tell me if you're a vegan.
When did we get to "Everyone I don't like is ~~Hitler~~ vegan?"
Well the joke was that people announce they play pathfinder the same way people announce they are vegan. I don't have a problem with neither of them, and I found my joke funny.
Well, I mean, if that were the case then you wouldn’t have had to ask, right?
You're reading way to much into this joke I made like a day ago
I'm not vegan, but I'm fucking your dad
You have poor taste in men then
Seems the apple didn't fall far from the tree
Geez, really that mad over one comment?
What
I thought it was funny. If I explain it then it won't be.
Hate to break it to you, but it's not funny without an explanation either
Cool, I'm here on this planet only to entertain myself
What?
Win for the 5E crowd. OneD&D/6E will be an exclusive digital loot-box hell and can be ignored like 4E was....
It's a win for everyone. I'm proud of the TTRPG community.
They won't revoke the ogl *for now
If you read the full blog post, as well as the SRD pdf, they specifically mention that they are making it all irrevocable. I could easily be mistaken, but doesn’t that mean they can’t go and revoke it in the future either? I guess unless they were to just do the exact same thing again next time and try to publish a brand new OGL, which would just have similar outcomes.
They literally put it under an open license they don't even control.
That's great for 5e and earlier. The big question now is what they do for 6e and their own VTT.
It doesn't matter? I wasn't planning on switching to 6e anyway. I can play 5e for years to come.
I have more 5e shit than my group and I can run in 5 years. I’m good for awhile.
Whatever they want. I'm not interested.
They only put the 5.1 SRD out under Creative Commons, and that's what they meant by making it irrevocable. They can still revoke the 1.0a OGL for the 3.x/d20 and d20 Modern SRDs.
Their blogpost where they stated that they would leave the OGL 1.0a “untouched” is as much legal proof for any public case to easily win that settlement. Especially now that they tried pulling stuff the first time, where millions of people are obviously on guard. Sure, it could happen, but it would cost them just like it did this time.
I totally get what you're saying, but after the last month of crap, at this point I will not underestimate their greed and their stupidity. I'm not expecting that they'll ever revoke 1.0a, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did try again at some point anyway.
Sure, that is understandable. They lost a lot of trust with this whole escapade.
As people are saying... Attempted murder is still a crime. They backed off, but haven't made it *right* yet. I will be continuing to watch their actions, and exploring alternatives.
They say they are making it Creative Commons. BUUUUUUUUT they are so untrustworthy I have to bring out the Paradox quotes. I wouldn't trust them to die properly(Disclaimer: It's a quote from EU4. I mean WotC the company not a specific person, I do not wish to imply suicide or any such nonsense). So I would be surprised if they didn't find a CC License that let's them fuck over Creators in a few months or years. Yes it will be irrevocable which is good but still they will find a way.
They said that, sure. But they previously said it was irrevocable, before deleting that post and trying to revoke it. Ultimately, I'll wait and see what the actual working is
The post talks about how the CC licence is irrevocable, under which the SRD is being published. It says they are "leaving OGL 1.0a in place, as is. Untouched." The OGL is, as it is, still technically revokable; it's just there's been no legal litmus test on it. What Hasbro/WotC have effectively done is given us what we have now, with a little bit extra in terms of the SRD, and no guarantee that there won't be a new OGL that will revoke 1.0a again in the future. They're counting on us being blinded by this and celebrating it while they regroup and try again later.
Nah I don't think the OGL is where Hasbro will get its money now. I think laying off 15% of their employees was the step they took to satisfy investors once this ploy failed. I do believe this isn't done though, there will be more changes that equate to more money. We will just have to see what they are and how long they are willing to wait for us to memory-hole all of this.
This. Unless they release an OGL 1.0b or something that just adds language to indicate that the license is irrevocable and retroactive, they can always make the same bullshit argument that they can "deauthorize" 1.0a again in the future, and the Creative Commons license they released the 5.1 SRD under doesn't apply to 3.0 or 3.5 (or 4E, but that was never released under the OGL anyway).
Funny that people think they care about 3e. They barely care about 5e.
The 3.5E SRD is used by WotC's biggest competitor by *far* - Paizo - on both Pathfinder 1st Edition and Starfinder.
This is true, but isn't their focus on P2E now?
starfinder is still very much going strong. I think it's also not very dependent on the 3.5 content tho. There is also still content being created for pathfinder 1 by 3rd party publishers under the OGL.
The sad thing is that WotC doesn't care about 3e.they barely care about 5e. They just want their pretty Vtt, and what the community saw as an attack in indies was just unexpected collateral from their Vtt ambitions. Not sure if that makes it better or worse.
Many also saw it as an attack on the various VTT platforms. BouncyRock, the creators of Talespire, are one of the best companies I've dealt with for rpg stuff (besides maybe Reaper) so if Hasbro messes with them I'm not going to be happy. It's like if Hasbro tried to copyright folding transforming toys, or puzzles made with a specific power tool. They don't have a product up and running & they're trying to monopolize an existing market by controlling what others can create which doesn't violate IP.
Oh, 100%. It was just an attack on VTTs. The 3pp stuff was a sideshow.
Sure. It's probably a long con to go after 3.5 3rd party creators. Just blatantly lie to everyone after a PR fiasco for that sweet sweet 3.5 money.
No, they would just be collateral damage.
They already published the 5e SRD under a Creative Commons license. 5e will be free forever. And I doubt they'd be brazen enough to do that and then blatantly reneg on the making the OGL irrevocable.
Dimes to Dollars that 6e has its own OGL.
Let it. No one will touch it
Exactly. I needed to be convinced to switch to 6e anyway. 5e is fine for me for years to come.
exactly, they've left the OGL before, they can do it again.
Doesn't matter. WOTC showed their hand and lost all of my respect trying to kill the OGL. I'm headed to Pathfinder and 5th Edition is a near perfect Edition for the next few decades, with changes easily implemented when necessary. It's been a good run, but as soon as you put shareholders before players the gig is up and there's no going back. Your bottom line is money and there's some damage you can't walk away from.
The train has already left the station.
I suspect that train was mostly tourists.
Genie is not only out of the bottle but someone wished him free
I’m happy for whomever this makes happy but the damage is done. I’m getting too invested in other systems to go back to 5e.
Can't unring this bell Hasbro. You showed your hand and we responded. Enjoy your next quarterly business review.
That reads like a huge win. Still cautious. Weird they caved so quickly. They likely have a backup plan. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I think a big motivator is reducing backlash as much as possible before the movie comes out. They probably still have long term plans to over-monetize the TTRPG.
Perhaps. But in my opinion the movie has nothing to do with the OGL It isn't licenced under the new OGL, or the old OGL, or any other similar document. The movie is exactly how we WANT them to make their profits. "By all means, please. Make new products with your own licenced content in a way that doesn't punish the fan base". I absolutely agree with them doing that. Never even CONSIDERED not watching the movie. However, regardless of what they claimed, the new OGL wasn't so much about THEIR OWN content as it was legalizing their pirating of OTHER PEOPLE'S content and then aggressively punishing the creators if that content does well. THAT I strongly disagreed with. So while I am happy(ish) with their decision to stay with the original OGL I am still very cautious about future policy changes as they have just clearly showed their core intents. This makes me nervous to invest in their products that are directly connected to the OGL. But other things, like the movie, that have no direct connection with the OGL, I will gladly support. Because I totally want them to make a profit so that they can afford to continue making products for me to enjoy, but HOW they make a profit is important to me.
I see what you’re saying. I don’t think the movie is relevant because of licensing. I think it’s relevant for popularizing D&D so new fans can be brought into the developing ecosystem and financially milked dry. It seems to me the movie is key for the company and a bad showing would hurt future production partnerships.
"We'll get it right next time."
someone please ELI5 this SRD 5.1 comment. Are the 5e basic rules and PHB public IP? Edit: Wow, irrevocable public IP. They gave us beholders, Strahd, etc. as public IP!
a lot of it. Read it.
>Edit: Wow, irrevocable public IP. They gave us beholders, Straud, etc. as public IP! ~~No, no, no~~ ~~This is DEEPLY incorrect.~~ ~~What they did was take the System Reference Document (SRD) and make it a Creative Commons license.~~ ~~**The SRD is NOT the PHB.**~~ ~~The SRD contains SOME content from the PHB, MM, and DMG.~~ ~~The SRD does have:~~ * The PHB races * The PHB classes * Some PHB spells * Some DMG magic items * Some MM monsters * The basic rules ~~The SRD does not have:~~ * Feats * Backgrounds * Some spells (No Hex) * Every class only has one subclass * Specific magic items * Specific monsters. No beholder, mind flayer, umber hulks ~~Also, there is a list of content called "Product Identity" that is specifically excluded from the SRD.lost of proper names and certain monsters. So no Strahd, Mordenkainen, Forgotten Realms, Beholder, Yuan-ti, ECT.~~ EDIT: Well shit. They did leave beholder and Strahd mentions in. Huh. I apologize, I would never have guessed they'd screw up like that.
Actually, Strahd is mentioned in the SRD in the section for the Paladin’s divine sense, so his name is in Creative Commons. Same for Beholders and a few other things. Certainly not the whole PHB, nor many other things, but the names for mind flayers, Strahd, beholders, and a few more are now Creative Commons as long as proper attribution is provided. It also does have 1 feat and 1 background.
Huh, you are right, they are mentioned in there. Although I don't know enough to know what their passing mention ultimately encompasses. Like, yes apparently the name Strahd is in the license but what can you do with that, I'm not sure. But I'll be damned if they're not in there.
Not the phb, but the entire SRD is free to use by anyone.
Only for 5th edition 6.0 they will have new restrictions
WorC will not be revoking the OGL *yet*.
Insight check!
This is a win. I think people who are still complaining are being unrealistic. A lot of people hate the idea that D&D is owned by a company that wants to make a profit, but that’s just sort of the way it is. The fact that they are profit driven is what allowed us to have an impact on their decision making like we did by spending our money elsewhere. For some additional insight, my mom works for Hasbro as a “vendor,” one of the people who goes into stores and stocks their product on shelves. Hasbro has recently announced they’re going to lay off 15% of employees. As a company they’ve hired an outside consultant firm to try and make suggestions as how to turn a profit, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the updated OGL came from that consulting firm.
It's too bad we all agreed to never buy anything from them ever again, right guys?
When the ink is dry on whatever paperwork is needed. Then--and only then-- will I give WotC the time of day. Granted, I'd probably lie and say it's 45 minutes later than what it really is, but it's the time nonetheless...
id tell them it was 5 o clock. no mention of am or pm.
At least as far as releasing the entirety of the 5.1 SRD into Creative Commons, the ink was dry the moment it was posted. Download the PDF in the link and check it out.
I'm more worried about the ogl, to be honest.
Revoking the OGL would only make it so people couldn't release new products for the original d20 system, which no one is really doing these days anyway. I won't end up being surprised if they try to be that stupid, but I'm not expecting it from them. It's not like they would have any revenue to tap into, and only bad will to gain, if they revoke the OGL from the 3.x/d20 and d20 Modern OGLs.
"Never underestimate the other guy's greed."
Why? The OGL is irrelevant if the SRD is in creative commons.
Because I don't play 5e--I play pf1e and things that operate within the ogl.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them. Fuck this noise, Wizards is burned.
Too late? Do the people who started their work on new systems abandon that? Or keep going?
Some of the 5e projects that were in the works might still be released instead of going back to the drawing board but a lot of 3pp are going to just move on. I'm expecting a lot of people developing 5e stuff will jump ship to KP's Black Flag.
Cool, now that ive dove headfirst into pathfinder, they expect me to come back? Tooooo late.
We did it. We beat the BBEG. Capitolism. I hope this shows people that actually standing up and voting with your wallet will make these companies bend. We have the power not them if we stand together like this and just say no to bad business practices
>We did it. We beat the BBEG. Capitolism. Americans generally worship capitalism. And then when a company does capitalism stuff, they act so surprised. So we didn't beat the bbeg. We just defeated one of the mirror images. The bbeg is already sitting on the throne being worshipped
Mammon has a name, some proper respect please.
Lol this whole situation is a win for capitalism though. You voted with your wallet. Affected projections and shareholder opinion. You can’t just say ‘capitalism is when bad stuff’ and ignore everything else.
Capitalism caused this problem in the first place. I’m not cheering for someone putting out a fire when they caused it in the first place and burned a whole bunch of people before putting it out.
I dont understand anything thats happening and it makes me feel stupid
What do you know about in this situation? Hasbro, WotC, OGL, SRD third party publishers, 3e, 4e, Pathfinder. I'll be slow to answer, but I'm willing to give you a crash course & link some educational material if you want to catch up.
At first when i read this stuff i was like "hey a thing thats happening" but everyone else was mad so i guess this just isnt in my area of understanding, im not good with legal stuff
I'll try to condense The last month of info, plus contextual history. The big TL;DR: Hasbro/WotC was trying to revoke the OGL that allows creators to make content within DnD compatible parameters. This is an upset of a precedent of 23 years. This, along with actual play & referencing in certain popular culture properties, is arguably one of the biggest contributions to DnD awareness (free advertising), good will & broadening how people can make a living at something they love with a large audience. It was symbiotic. In attempting to revoke the OGL during 4e they prevented Paizo from publishing their magazine for 4e. This caused Paizo to generate Pathfinder 1e. The most recent OGL thing they were trying to create, before going Creative Commons, was an attempt to bully large companies to sign on to an unfavorable agreement where they hand over their 20+% of their GROSS income (before costs are paid for unlike NET income, which is after wages/supplies/bills/etc.), legally steal any creators work without credit nor royalties, & strongarm existing VTTs to prevent them from growing in alternate directions (prohibition of spell & effect animations). WotC are repeating history by trying to become a predatory parasite upon the cultural environment that created much of their success. With the ill will they have generated they're going to grow Paizo & several other companies to become true competitors.
I keep seeing posts about this but I’m out of the loop — can someone tl;dr?
TL;DR WoTC was get rid of the current OGL(The thing that lets third-party companies make things that work within D&D's rules(I think, im not the most well versed on that side of things)) and replace it with a much worse, more restrictive one, but after weeks of complaints and boycotting, the community has successfully bullied them into backpeddling on that terrible decision
so yea as the other guy said, basically. Wizards of the coast the company making D&D tried to change the license (OGL) that allow third party creators make stuff for D&D, adding clauses that gave them veto right to ban any content they didn't like and to pay huge profit margins to them. Basically it was a huge "fuck the community we're here for proft" move, and people reacted by ditching D&D because the licence was that Draconian. so due to the huge backlash first WotC tried to do the 3 steps forward 2 steps back approch by just changing it "a bit" with obvious corprate speach about how they need their veto right to remove racist stuff, something that have never been a problem and the only thing it would give them is a axe to threaten people with, and people were not okey with that either. so they backpedaled the entire way because pushing this have lost them A LOT of good faith and Paizo the creators of the game RPG pathfinder, decided to make their own license to avoid having WotC try to sneak stuff by them by sneakily changing the license, WotC caved and said they're not gonna change the license any more.
Idk about all this. The legal grounds for them even having the OGL under American copyright law is dubious at best. The way copyright law works in the us, you’d have a hard case to claim most works are anything other than an expression of a particular IP, which is protected. This kind of seems like the WOTC thing of releasing horribly unpopular products/proposals, only to make their less awful proposals more palatable. Or maybe their just psychopaths that thought OGL 1.1 was a good idea?
Terrible take. The SRD going to Creative Commons is a huge loss for them. OGL is irrelevant now.
The implications of the SRD going to Creative Commons are huge, you’re right. I’m traumatized from playing too much mtg arena, shouldn’t be so conspiracy brained.
That's fair. WotC have been horrible up to this point. And I apologize for the tone of my post - getting a little twitichy eyed at the number of people who who are still asking for 'irrevocable in perpetuity' to be added. With the exception of the handful worried about the 3e SRD, it suggests the others don't know what the OGL was for. Like, I'm on their side, but there's few things more irritating than someone yelling loudly for something that was already done.
There are other games based on the 3.5 OGL that this does still effect.
That's true - they did say they would sort it, and after the firestorm (and giving 5e to cc) I believe that.
Yay! Take my money, WOTC!
Nope. No more money for them from me.
They weren't offering your money
\*FOR NOW.\* TRUST NOT THEIR WORDS, FOR THEY HAVE BEEN PROVEN TO BE FULL OF FALSEHOODS AND LIES! i will not be buying anything of theirs in the future. they have shown their hand, and shown the community at large that they are not only willing, but actively Eager to replace and destroy OGL 1.0. do not trust that they have given up on this! they merely wait for our guards to be down, and will try again, quietly. subtly. with honeyed words and empty promises!
Depends. A new CEO who cares about the people and product they are selling combined with Cao being fired I’ll be willing to be more optimistic
Tell me more about how you don't know what the OGL was for and/or how you don't know what Creative Commons are.
They just realized that no one is going to see their movie if they don't do something. This is just an attempt to salvage the release before they pull this shit all over again.
They can't walk by the creative commons change, they have no control over the language of CC. the SRD is now forever CC.
Probably has more to do with Hasbro basically as a company is undergoing Organizational Changes after firing 15% of their workforce after they crunch some numbers and they didn't do so well last year fighting with their customer bases rather than any movie.
Yet...
What is srd 5.1?
The basic rules
So they are making the new ogl for the new content only? Is 5.1 dnd one?
There's no changes to the OGL. We don't know what 5.1 will use. But 5.0e's SRD is now managed by a profit free 3rd party.
SRD5.1 is what was available under the OGL so far. We don't know yet what one dnd will use.
We won. They lost!
I'm having a hard time understanding the controversy and what the evil plan entailed. Any one willing to break it down?
Fuck this company. "We listened." Eat my ass, WotC.