What WotC's OGL Statement DIDN'T Say - and What Now?

[@nickmanzo8459]

When I read this statement, I read it in the voice of The Mouth of Sauron, and heard Gandalf in my head saying “Behind the walls of Hasbro, our enemy is regrouping…”

[@alanvillarreal7781]

Well said. I think it's really unfortunate that they've made the future so uncertain for creators such as yourself. They're really shooting themselves in the foot. Even just regular players are upset about this and thinking about other options.

[@Han-rw9ev]

Once you sign up, YOU'RE agreeing that the ORIGINAL OGL is 'deauthorised' as far as YOU'RE concerned. (that's a nasty little trick they're playing on you). Of course, there's also the lovely part where they can change the rules anytime they feel like and steal EVERYTHING from you. . And they WILL try again. And again. And again. START PACKING. It is time to MOVE.

[@RicardoPM777]

WOTC has that corporate arrogance that only a monopoly can give " we win"... that's unacceptable, they will still alter OGL. DnD should be boycotted, competition is key for better services and respecting the costumers. And DnD greatest opponent Paizo, is 270x smaller than Hasbro and has a net revenue of 1/3 the earnings of DnD alone in 2021. They do not need money, they need competition. They will not stop producing books, even if they lose most of what they have, that's the cheapest part for them, after all paizo produced twice the books they did , and with the same quality, even, having considerably less money.

[@Enriqueguiones]

Of course not. The very idea of ​​trying to deauthorize an older version of the OGL is totally abhorrent. And by the way, WotC is making more money than ALL other companies in the RPG market COMBINED. The idea that D&D is "undermonetized" is a repulsive, greedy, corporate, monstrous lie.

[@magnuspendragon1938]

I've always wanted to enter the 3rd party community of creator's. I have some campaigns and mechanics that i wanted to post, but to be honest i don't want to deal with the OGL. I will probably wait for the ORC license and see if it is a good license and start making content for Pathfinder. It's sad. The royalty thing, i think they will end up with a upfront fee instead of a royalty. Anyway, great video, and i hope everything goes well for you after this.

[@mooseymoose]

Why do people “trust” corporations to begin with? The hell is wrong with people?

[@Kconv1]

What we did win is time, time for the ORC to come into play, time for the court case to be formed and heard. We are the players, we are the creators, wotc needs us, we dont need wotc #wedontneedwotc

[@neurolancer81]

Very well analysed. I am a grognard and I play ful!y digital due to the plague. I am not going to give them one more cent. They have lost my trust and that is important to me.

[@brianjohnson5272]

In short you win but we retain the rights and legally can swap it right to 1.1 ogl the second you arent looking with 30 days motice.

[@aaronjung5502]

If “we both won” then nobody has won. The victor is not victorious until the vanquished considers himself so, to quote the romans.

[@txg8878]

Very well said. Thank you for the video.

[@JB-wc9cr]

We do what we do, create our own worlds and creatures

[@storyrant]

Man, I love physical books. I hate reading on a screen so damn much (except while editing my own work, but that's different!) I've already committed to not supporting WoTC in the future, but this response and the promise of the digital only future really is the nail in the coffin.

[@TheValarClan]

They know that most people on the web have an attention span of maybe two weeks. After that period of time they will sneak it in. anyone who’s watched or read animal farm Will be familiar with the concept of sneaking and changes to the rules and agreements.

[@devildham]

But it won't matter if no 3rd Party Publishers will make supplemental content for them. If they try to de-authorize 1.0a people are already geared up to take them to court and if they don't try to do it then all this is pointless for them because it'll be 4e all over again. Aaaaaaaaand if they sit on their hands TOO long hoping to gain back some goodwill then the ORC license will be released with third parties big and small releasing content under it and other big names will start dropping systems and the community will start moving into the next generation of TTRPGs.

[@TheValarClan]

@@devildham You are familiar with the term DEATH BY LAWYERS? Some states have protections against this, but it still requires a lawyer to stop frivolous multiple lawsuits, and you still end up having to pay court fees, time in court, and lawyer fees. As much as a lot of simps think this is a nothing burger, it really is round one from Hasbro. We got luck in the fact they are stupid. My recommendation is to NEVER sign the new OGL no matter how they change it. It will in all certainty have language opening the door to allow them to hook those who were foolish to sign anything, to allow them to change or cancel the previous. Basically, D&D needs to die to save it. And you are talking to someone who is friends to one of the Co-creator to the game.... David Arneson worked out the agreement with Gary the CEO and head of TSR needs to be a person passionate about the Hobby first. Hasbro has no concept much less passion about the game. They just see wallets they want moved to their bank accounts. IN essence you are right on many levels, but they Ramped it up a who lot and their non-apology/graphology is a laughable bag of lies, and shows their manipulation even in it.

[@NevisYsbryd]

The OGL handling was extremely clumsily handled. Their best move would have been to implement those features gradually and incrementally and to only actually target genuine competitors and to implement lax features on anyone who towed the line. They were in an extremely advantageous position, and while they still are, they lost a significant bit of that advantage unnecessarily. I think, in terms of strategizing around developing and reinforcing a monopoly, it would have been better for them to have not implemented anything remotely as strong until close to or after the launch of their vttrpg. All they really needed to do was to deny service of ONE D&D on alternative platforms in order to establish a walled garden. I think this was a semi-concession. Mostly, it delays things, and prompted some competition and lost costumers that they would not have had otherwise. I think the overall trajectory is still looking pretty similar, though. Digital books like likely phase out gradually rather than an immediate stop. I am extremely skeptical of ORC, though. I do not trust the companies involved, nor do I expect them to have enough success with the casual market to act as a true competitor, and being split up across multiple diverging systems critically undermines their prospects of reproducing a 4e-Pathfinder 1e situation with casuals, low-investment or high-accessibility-dependent players accounting for so much more of the playerbase now than during the 4e/PF1e years.

[@BW022]

All agreements are based on trust. It doesn't matter what it says on the contract, licensing agreement, etc. as soon as one side says they are going to cancel, replace, or invalidate it, it's over. You can't trust them. It doesn't matter what they pinky swear to, say, etc. No one should risk their business with that.

[@CzerwonyRymcer]

With books is true. Wotc denied translate licence and fobid print foreign lanuguages books. And it is 5 years now. Xanathars was last :(

[@Channel-ww1od]

Remember that HASBRO/wotc only understands FINANCIAL PAIN! The community is already planning to BOYCOTT the DND MOVIE!! #StarvetheDragon #SnubtheSub #DnDBegone #OpenDnD

[@Aurora-fz6sq]

At this point, I’m not sure wotc can ever earn back back my trust. I agree that we can’t let our guard down until we see what language will actually be used in their ogl, but even if wotc goes back to 1.0a, I’ll be sticking with 3rd party publications from here on out.

[@aldaron1021]

Can someone explain why they can keep the old OGL since they are releasing a new version of it, it does not make any sense to keep both documents outlining the same thing.

[@colbyboucher6391]

Nope! It doesn't. Which is one of many reasons why their intent is obvious.

[@ratbou]

1.0 had language that if a newer license one comes out you can choose to use whichever version you want. That is important because you can not easily change that in physical media. Because of that WotC has to "deauthorize" 1.0 or else nobody would need to use 1.1. If they do not deauthorize 1.0 they could still release 6e SRD under 1.1 with a statement that anything that uses it has to be under 1.1 or newer. But since 6e is supposed to be fully compatible with 5e, the 3rd party creators could just keep on using 5e SRD to make contend for 6e and never use ogl 1.1. Because of that, WotC needs to get rid of OGL 1.0 or at least find a way to stop new contend created with it.

[@aldaron1021]

@@ratbou Thank you kindly for the comment, I now better understand the situation. It seems that if both OGLs exist at the same time that will be a huge problem for Wizards so since this is what the content creators are requesting I don't see how this is going to happen at all. Also it was a pretty dump to write an OGL with this sentence included as things change, it is like writing a new Law and stating that it can never be changed.

[@vodamiinurl1337]

WOTC are not the consumer of the product, the opinion of their executives should be irrelevant. But they have allowed the irrelevant opinions of people just looking at numbers with no context to steer every decision.

[@allones3078]

Well maybe this will get DnD players to actual try other games for a change. but we both know they won't.

[@ameliaward7429]

As long as you are logging in to ANYTHING WotC, you are losing.

[@winkles2314]

Never go back to DnD

[@TheDarkplace]

We have won the most important thing time. We now have time to move away from Wotc and look at our options.

[@tabletopgamingwithwolfphototec]

No one needs a OGL as companies can't copyright ideas & game mechanics. This is law and due to all the cases original TSR lost trying to sue 3rd party companies back in the 80s.

[@EventyrGames]

Those cases were settled, AFAIK, not lost. Unfortunately, things would be more clear if it was otherwise :/

[@MrDavidKord]

I actually do think we've won, but haven't seen the proof yet. Their statement, despite the teeth gnashing from content creators, was a strong one. We've proven they can't take a normal corporate model for this game without destroying themselves, and they'll HAVE to change the OGL 1.1 MASSIVELY in order to survive.

[@dyproxus1806]

We don’t win until we bring them to court and force them to employ 1.0a forever.

[@javvyjavvy]

Your not going to win the war. Its not your property. Just move on and play a different game. Pray they dont make tons of money. If they do every other game company will follow suit. This has been happening in the video game space forever. It was only a matter of time before it spilled over here. Fact is content creators make alot of money and wotc/hasbro get nothing. They want a taste.

[@EventyrGames]

You're missing some key nuances here - maybe a topic for another video :)

[@javvyjavvy]

@@EventyrGames i hope your right sir. Look at what Blizzard did with map building in Warcraft 3 . Look at what Bethesda did with the Creation Club. If they can get away with it what is gonna stop wotc/hasbro. Its just another form of the same thing. If your not familiar with these two topics go look them up. You will throw up in your mouth.

[@magnuspendragon1938]

The thing is that in video games you are using not only the game systems but also the game itself to make content. Since ttrpg only use ge mechanics and it is easy for the community to go away and use the same content but with a different name. In the end D&D is big because of the 3rd party community and the other way around. The ttrpg community may look similar to the video game community but they are nearly the opposite. With the backlash and annoucement of paizo and the other 3rd party creators i don't think D&D will make a lot of money with those business practices. They honestly can't control that much their own ip and in fact can even loose more control over it after these whole drama.

[@EventyrGames]

Magnus touches on my thoughts nicely, it's not entirely the same thing (albeit WotC might erroneously think it is, which just makes it even worse)

[@javvyjavvy]

@@EventyrGames you purchased the handbook that had the ogl in . Your not supposed to use the book if you cant agree to the terms listed inside. Its not any different from a terms of service in a video game. Im guessing that is what wotc/hasbro wants to happen. I dont like it anymore than you do but im not sure what you can do about it. They make the rules. I dont play most new video game titles because of all this rediculousness. Honestly shocked anyone would want to create content after reading whats in that new or old ogl. I would run for the hills. Only thing i know is i never thought i would see people buy into microtransactions on the videogame space and now its like people cant get enough of it. Whats going to happen when dnd goes completly online and you cant buy a book anymore. The writing is on the wall. Its sad. Im not missing anything this stuff is terrifying. Big business is getting its fingers into everything.