How important is it to stick to the D&D franchise? Why are third parties married to something like the OGL?
I understand D&D is to RPGs what Windows is (or used to be) to operating systems. But unlike an operating system, D&D's grasp on roleplaying is more fragile. There are plenty of RPG systems that are (subjectively) better and owe nothing to D&D's imaginary setting or rules. In fact, the largest innovation happens outside the D&D franchise.
There are very innovative "lite" RPGs like Trophy Dark or Risus, but also heavier and "crunchy" systems that owe nothing to D&D. Why risk your business by tying it to a franchise owned by a competing business?
(Again, I understand riding the success of D&D's popularity. But unlike with computers and hardware, the "vendor lock-in" pitfall is easier to avoid with something as intangible as an RPG)
I imagine the logic was that someone at Hasbro saw Critical Role, Dimension 20, etc making millions and felt it was "unfair" they're not getting any money.
But there's a quote attributed to Bill Gates that feels relevant here: "A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the value of the company that creates it."
DnD is a platform now. That's really cool for them, and long term will benefit them a ton, even if they aren't able to "optimize" their revenue right now.
But Critical Role is also great advertisement. If Hasbro goes after them, Critical Role can just switch to another system and give them free advertisement instead. I guarantee that every single RPG creator would love for Critical Role to pick their system.
> DnD is a platform now. That's really cool for them, and long term will benefit them a ton, even if they aren't able to "optimize" their revenue right now.
Assuming they don't tank their platform, which it very much looks like right now.
Ah so this is why my hobby open-source project of 6+ years has been getting a surge in traffic :) https://github.com/opendnd
Totally unrelated to this of course, but very cool to see all the same. The OGL has been a cornerstone of innovation in this space and without it a lot of us would be dead in the water.
I was a tabletop gamer for 25 years before I played my first sit-down D&D session. GURPS, Paranoia, Cyberpunk 2020, WHFRP, TOON, Amber, World of Darkness...you name it. To say, "Wizards of the Coast wants to dismantle the tabletop industry," feels like hyperbole when there's a rich history of alternatives, but I sympathize with the content creators. There's a cultural battle as much as there is a commercial one being waged here.
That said you gotta be _asleep_ to not see the tightening of the reins coming from these mega-companies sitting on fertile creative IP. Marvel Cinematic Universe only made — what? — $28B worldwide while making Rocket-fucking-Raccoon a household name. Games Workshop put the screws to content creators leading to the launch of Warhammer+ and r/grimdank is still hitting the front page of Reddit. Not to mention Uber-nerd Henry Cavill is hooking up with Amazon to bring 40K to streaming.
The strategy works and I suspect it's driven entirely by folks — all grown up and with deep pockets — thirsty to see their marginalized childhood hobbies hit the mainstream. I'm conflicted. As much as I want to say, "Fuck WotC. Fuck Games Workshop" there's visceral appeal in hoping for good Drizzt Do'Urden movie or the Drop Site Massacre becoming as much a cultural touchstone as the The Red Wedding.
I can't express just how much I want the Horus Heresy saga to receive the high-production-value HBO/Netflix/Amazon treatment. The animated content on Warhammer+ is good and all, but that would be a dream.
Hasbro CEO, also the former WoTC CEO, has ramped up monetization of the Magic the Gathering brand significantly in recent years, partly at the expense of cashing in on the secondary market.
WoTC choking the OGL is consistent with them looking to pump up their profits.
I used to play MtG back in the early 90's, but got out because I needed money for college books, not cards.
My son got interested recently through some friends and I started looking about getting him into it around the time WotC released the $1000 old-school proxy packs. Needless to say, it turned me off.
It’s not like TSR were the good guys either. I wrote off DnD until CR precisely because it has a reputation of being owned by assholes. They just slowed down for a while but here we are again
Maybe I'm missing something here but this summary feels pretty FUD-y. WotC has the right to re-license their own content, and we are free to disagree with that decision, but surely they have no legal means to force other creators to switch their own content to the new license version simply because they are using a license text that was drafted by WoTC? Plenty of OSS projects have stuck with GPLv2 in similar circumstances.
And I'm less clear on this point, but are they even able to change the license terms under which third-parties have used WotC content that was already published under the old license? Couldn't these third parties continue using the existing content so long as they forgo new additions which are published under the more restrictive license? Or can they really revoke that licensing on previously published content?
> Or can they really revoke that licensing on previously published content?
It depends entirely on your definition of "can".
If you mean, is this action supported by law, then no. If you mean, is this action supported by WotC's own historic interpretation of their own license, then no. If you mean, can they force the hand of smaller creators by threat of litigation, then certainly they can.
It's likely that Hasbro and WOTC are betting on the threat of litigation being a meaningful deterrent from actually seeing whether their attempts to retroactively nullify 1.0 holds up.
In general, I agree. I think we're seeing a "hobby" community freak out when the owners of the brand turn away from the "ideals" of the hobby in question. This mainly effects people who are making money using the DnD brand. Something that Hasbro owns. Whether they also own the past of that brand, and can alter its licensing, seems like the real ambiguity that Hasbro are hiding behind the curtain.
A nuance: they might not be able to revoke existing OGL 1.0 licenses for anyone that has already used it to publish derivates, but they can likely cancel the offer, even for existing OGL 1.0 content, for anyone that hasn't yet relied on the OGL to ship WotC IP. Which would in turn limit all future derivates to existing OGL 1.0 license holders, which would practically achieve Hasbro's rumored goals.
WotC owns or controls all the places those creators sell their stuff. So they definitely have the economic means to force creators to abandon the old license. They will also probbaly just threaten people with their odd legal interpretation of their actual legal means as well, and plenty of people will comply.
I played D&D for about 27 years, but I never thought it was particularly good. It was just the lingua franca, the kernel a relatively small community could come together around.
I don't think D&D has to be the default tabletop RPG anymore, nor should it be. Partly due to the OGL and its knock-on effects, lots more people entered the community. Maybe they want different things than just a miniatures combat-oriented pastiche of Tolkien, Howard, and Vance. You can publish books more easily, distribute them more easily, market them more easily. I think the tabletop industry could sustain a community without D&D if it had to, and maybe it has to. I wonder if maybe that's a good thing.
WoTC's decision was selfish, tone-deaf, destructive; all that stuff. It will hurt people with existing businesses built around OGL content. That sucks. But, I don't think it will (as this open letter states) dismantle the tabletop industry. On the contrary, I hope it frees it from its dependence on a capricious IP owner with a brittle license. For the players, maybe it frees them from a mediocre system and the most generic, uninteresting fantasy setting ever. There's a lot more out there, maybe this is a good opportunity to explore some of it.
I agree that D&D doesn't need to be the default tabletop RPG anymore. But you bet I want the freedom to borrow everything I liked from every version of it I played (which doesn't include anything recent, by the way). I want to be able to talk about it online too, hell, even PLAY it online.
And if Hasbro are so desperate to prevent that from happening that they'll call in the shit-flinging lawyers - the kind who don't even try to have a solid argument, they just try to make engaging with them maximally unpleasant to everyone involved - then I will be most pissed with Hasbro.
You too, will have to live in fear of attracting their attention. The whole point of this sort of litigation is that they're signaling, they're not going to be reasonable. Are you SURE you're not infringing in the shit-flinging lawyers' eyes?
That doesn't sound like a good opportunity to explore to me.
I think they actually did a really good job with the 5e rules. I started in 3.5e 15+ years ago. I very strongly dislike 4e. I haven't yet been convinced by any alternatives that the d20 system isn't optimal.
D&D 5th edition obviously has problems but, like other comments say, it is the current "lingua franca" of the space and it's difficult to conceive of any realistic open replacement that isn't essentially just "D&D 5e with some relatively minor tweaks".
In another place and time, a similar circumstance is what led Blizzard to unintentionally provide the tools for inspiring the MOBA genre, which spawned League of Legends and DOTA2. That altered games forever. You'll notice few games ship with map editors anymore, and game UGC is very tightly locked down. Blizzard leaders have stated that letting MOBA get away from them was their biggest miss.
D&D is having a similar moment where companies that were built on D&D are becoming bigger than them, and WotC wants to compete more directly now that digital is becoming a priority for TTRPGs. Once you decide to do that, you no longer want to be a platform for your competitor. In a way, this is similar Apple banning apps that directly compete with built-in iOS features. While also an unpopular move, you can hardly blame them.
Really hope this doesn't affect OGL 1.0a the way some people are saying it will, particularly regarding non-DnD systems. I've been working on a project for several years that's based on the Cepheus Engine RPG system which was published under OGL 1.0a (as it's based on the Traveller SRD which was also used OGL 1.0a), which requires me to publish under that license as well. Now that's all up in the air, what happens if OGL 1.0a becomes 'unauthorized' in this case? If this ends up killing Cepheus I will have wasted thousands of hours of my time.
The Traveller SRD is (c) Mongoose Publishing. It seems implausible that the OGL 1.0a could be construed to give Hasbro any control over intellectual property that isn't derived from their own. It should be possible for the rights owners to simply relicense Traveller, Fudge, etc. It's Paizo that is in a difficult spot, because their SRD still explicitly references material from Hasbro products.
This is disappointing, but not surprising. I don't play Magic anymore, but it's been clear for years that WotC is prioritizing profit over game health.
Devil's advocate: if they've been doing this for years (and I do agree wholeheartedly with you personally) then has it really been detrimental to game health? Presumably they have metrics indicating positive growth or they wouldn't be pushing in this direction.
Maybe it just means old players like us are no longer the target and it's to the long-term benefit of the game to tell us to pound sand as they have for years.
Yep, this is an all-too-normal letdown from WotC. They really are trying to milk their franchises, without concern for their longevity. That's too bad.
For me, this is more reason to continue with the D&D 3.5 and pathfinder ecosystems for my RPGs.
Gosh, yeah, this'll definitely stop all those content creators from doing a find and replace to make their content fit for Pathfinder 2 or any non-OGL-tainted system on the planet.
This might actually do good for tabletop gaming in general, if Hasbro's cancerous behavior causes people to flee their IP and show interest in other things.
I really don't think this is going to work out the way these braindead business executives seem to think it will. People will move their content to a different platform because DnD has never been anything more than a storytelling/content framework.
Hasbro mad cuz community content better than their own. Go back to ruining ponies.
Why do we not crowdfund some excellent game designers to make a truly open set of RPGs?
Some that would be amenable to making into Computer RPGs.
Some that maybe that would be nearly impossible to automate. (That's fine, too.)
Under some licenses like CC BY / CC BY-SA / CC BY-NC?
I _like_ buying RPG books. I would continue to do so, even if the license was CC BY. I also like getting searchable PDFs, and turning dungeons into a Wiki for the DM to make it easy to find content.
Truly open RPGs already exist. Fudge, for example. And Fate (based on Fudge, because it's open and they can). And if Pathfinder 2 is indeed free from any old d20 content (I don't know), then that one counts too.
The big problem is that there's not a single one that everybody agrees to use as the new standard. D&D is the standard. Like Windows. Everybody knows it sucks, but nobody can agree on a single alternative, and the market stays with what people know.
> Why do we not crowdfund some excellent game designers to make a truly open set of RPGs?
Why are you waiting for someone else to do this? Do it yourself!
Something that bothers me more than most things is when people demand others act to solve a growing problem. Sure, you're not the most qualified person to do it, but actual execution trumps qualifications every time.
Get out there! Get in touch with some excellent game designers, ask them what it would take to get their help. Come up with a plan based on their feedback and execute it!
Or at least if you're not going to do it, recognize that your reasons for not doing it are probably exceedingly similar to everyone else's reasons for not doing it, and stop asking the question.
GUMSHOE, FATE, Forged in the Dark, Dungeon World, Quest, and Trophy are all available under CC BY licenses. Many of those are fairly popular (if you don’t compare them to D&D) — six figure Kickstarter revenue, for example. Creative Commons has been a reasonably common choice for game designers who want open content for a decade or so.
In case someone wanders into this conversation later, Paizo just announced that they are doing something exactly like what I hoped for.
> In addition to Paizo, Kobold Press, Chaosium, Legendary Games, and a growing list of publishers have already agreed to participate in the Open RPG Creative License, and in the coming days we hope and expect to add substantially to this group.
> Why do we not crowdfund some excellent game designers to make a truly open set of RPGs?
No need to even do that, there is plenty of alternative RPG and game systems out there already. It's not about money. It's about principles. But people wants to play "D&D", Hasbro's IP, Hasbro rules and business practices...
But also let's not forget how some conferences managed to shut down and shun the competition by forbidding them to attend the conferences to promote their alternative creations, insuring Hasbro/WotC prominent market shares... There is a lot to say about that "community", a lot of corrupt individuals...
The only thing that the gaming industry needs to do is to boycott the new edition of D&D, and evolve the games which were originally based on OGL 1.0 content (e.g. "3.5" D&D) on a parallel track, ignoring all the OGL 1.1 things, explicitly foregoing any compatibility with D&D 6th edition (or whatever it will be called), and building up a thriving ecosystem of content which they are definitely capable of doing separately from WotC.
I am not a lawyer and please correct me if I'm wrong but as I understand it rules and mechanics are not copyrightable. What is copyrightable is the flavor text and specific compilation of the rule set into the "Rule Book". The rule book becomes a copyrightable work. This means that your are within your legal right to make a game called "Dragons & Daggers" where all the combat mechanics, rules, etc are identical to Dungeons & Dragons as long as the "glue" text and flavour text is original content. It seems to me like a community fork licensed under CC that plays exactly the same is not impossible.
For a little bit of flavor. After I saw this post (I don't follow D&D or Wizards or Hasbro news) I thought immediately of BFRPG. Found this post in Basic Fantasy's forum, so this move by WotC is definitely going to have an impact.
WotC/Hasbro has named their next release "One D&D". They clearly want to clear the field of other compatible rules-sets, and have just a singular system that they control, manage, and profit from. My guess is that they see the profits that Apple and Google make from their App Store, and want all future add-on content to D&D to be paying them 25% of revenues, rather than 0% right now.
[+] [-] dang|3 years ago|reply
Dungeons and Dragons’ new license tightens its grip on competition - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34264777 - Jan 2023 (203 comments)
[+] [-] mijoharas|3 years ago|reply
Wizards of the Coast Trying to Retroactively Cancel OGL 1.0a - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34271687 - Jan 2023 (233 comments)
[+] [-] the_af|3 years ago|reply
I understand D&D is to RPGs what Windows is (or used to be) to operating systems. But unlike an operating system, D&D's grasp on roleplaying is more fragile. There are plenty of RPG systems that are (subjectively) better and owe nothing to D&D's imaginary setting or rules. In fact, the largest innovation happens outside the D&D franchise.
There are very innovative "lite" RPGs like Trophy Dark or Risus, but also heavier and "crunchy" systems that owe nothing to D&D. Why risk your business by tying it to a franchise owned by a competing business?
(Again, I understand riding the success of D&D's popularity. But unlike with computers and hardware, the "vendor lock-in" pitfall is easier to avoid with something as intangible as an RPG)
[+] [-] gkoberger|3 years ago|reply
But there's a quote attributed to Bill Gates that feels relevant here: "A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it, exceeds the value of the company that creates it."
DnD is a platform now. That's really cool for them, and long term will benefit them a ton, even if they aren't able to "optimize" their revenue right now.
[+] [-] mcv|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sebb767|3 years ago|reply
Assuming they don't tank their platform, which it very much looks like right now.
[+] [-] sleepybrett|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drewry|3 years ago|reply
Totally unrelated to this of course, but very cool to see all the same. The OGL has been a cornerstone of innovation in this space and without it a lot of us would be dead in the water.
[+] [-] deleted_account|3 years ago|reply
That said you gotta be _asleep_ to not see the tightening of the reins coming from these mega-companies sitting on fertile creative IP. Marvel Cinematic Universe only made — what? — $28B worldwide while making Rocket-fucking-Raccoon a household name. Games Workshop put the screws to content creators leading to the launch of Warhammer+ and r/grimdank is still hitting the front page of Reddit. Not to mention Uber-nerd Henry Cavill is hooking up with Amazon to bring 40K to streaming.
The strategy works and I suspect it's driven entirely by folks — all grown up and with deep pockets — thirsty to see their marginalized childhood hobbies hit the mainstream. I'm conflicted. As much as I want to say, "Fuck WotC. Fuck Games Workshop" there's visceral appeal in hoping for good Drizzt Do'Urden movie or the Drop Site Massacre becoming as much a cultural touchstone as the The Red Wedding.
[+] [-] ropable|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anakha|3 years ago|reply
Hasbro CEO, also the former WoTC CEO, has ramped up monetization of the Magic the Gathering brand significantly in recent years, partly at the expense of cashing in on the secondary market.
WoTC choking the OGL is consistent with them looking to pump up their profits.
[+] [-] phaedryx|3 years ago|reply
My son got interested recently through some friends and I started looking about getting him into it around the time WotC released the $1000 old-school proxy packs. Needless to say, it turned me off.
[+] [-] hinkley|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wolverine876|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghostly_s|3 years ago|reply
And I'm less clear on this point, but are they even able to change the license terms under which third-parties have used WotC content that was already published under the old license? Couldn't these third parties continue using the existing content so long as they forgo new additions which are published under the more restrictive license? Or can they really revoke that licensing on previously published content?
[+] [-] johnday|3 years ago|reply
It depends entirely on your definition of "can".
If you mean, is this action supported by law, then no. If you mean, is this action supported by WotC's own historic interpretation of their own license, then no. If you mean, can they force the hand of smaller creators by threat of litigation, then certainly they can.
[+] [-] beezlebroxxxxxx|3 years ago|reply
In general, I agree. I think we're seeing a "hobby" community freak out when the owners of the brand turn away from the "ideals" of the hobby in question. This mainly effects people who are making money using the DnD brand. Something that Hasbro owns. Whether they also own the past of that brand, and can alter its licensing, seems like the real ambiguity that Hasbro are hiding behind the curtain.
[+] [-] brigade|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freshhawk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karaterobot|3 years ago|reply
I don't think D&D has to be the default tabletop RPG anymore, nor should it be. Partly due to the OGL and its knock-on effects, lots more people entered the community. Maybe they want different things than just a miniatures combat-oriented pastiche of Tolkien, Howard, and Vance. You can publish books more easily, distribute them more easily, market them more easily. I think the tabletop industry could sustain a community without D&D if it had to, and maybe it has to. I wonder if maybe that's a good thing.
WoTC's decision was selfish, tone-deaf, destructive; all that stuff. It will hurt people with existing businesses built around OGL content. That sucks. But, I don't think it will (as this open letter states) dismantle the tabletop industry. On the contrary, I hope it frees it from its dependence on a capricious IP owner with a brittle license. For the players, maybe it frees them from a mediocre system and the most generic, uninteresting fantasy setting ever. There's a lot more out there, maybe this is a good opportunity to explore some of it.
[+] [-] vintermann|3 years ago|reply
And if Hasbro are so desperate to prevent that from happening that they'll call in the shit-flinging lawyers - the kind who don't even try to have a solid argument, they just try to make engaging with them maximally unpleasant to everyone involved - then I will be most pissed with Hasbro.
You too, will have to live in fear of attracting their attention. The whole point of this sort of litigation is that they're signaling, they're not going to be reasonable. Are you SURE you're not infringing in the shit-flinging lawyers' eyes?
That doesn't sound like a good opportunity to explore to me.
[+] [-] shuntress|3 years ago|reply
D&D 5th edition obviously has problems but, like other comments say, it is the current "lingua franca" of the space and it's difficult to conceive of any realistic open replacement that isn't essentially just "D&D 5e with some relatively minor tweaks".
[+] [-] Karawebnetwork|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] madrox|3 years ago|reply
D&D is having a similar moment where companies that were built on D&D are becoming bigger than them, and WotC wants to compete more directly now that digital is becoming a priority for TTRPGs. Once you decide to do that, you no longer want to be a platform for your competitor. In a way, this is similar Apple banning apps that directly compete with built-in iOS features. While also an unpopular move, you can hardly blame them.
[+] [-] cpv|3 years ago|reply
So in case some genius comes with another successful custom map (or whatever), the company has new ideas to work on, for free.
[+] [-] coffeebeqn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cheeseomlit|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djur|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xavdid|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xtirpation|3 years ago|reply
Maybe it just means old players like us are no longer the target and it's to the long-term benefit of the game to tell us to pound sand as they have for years.
[+] [-] pclmulqdq|3 years ago|reply
For me, this is more reason to continue with the D&D 3.5 and pathfinder ecosystems for my RPGs.
[+] [-] thefurdrake|3 years ago|reply
This might actually do good for tabletop gaming in general, if Hasbro's cancerous behavior causes people to flee their IP and show interest in other things.
I really don't think this is going to work out the way these braindead business executives seem to think it will. People will move their content to a different platform because DnD has never been anything more than a storytelling/content framework.
Hasbro mad cuz community content better than their own. Go back to ruining ponies.
[+] [-] VikingCoder|3 years ago|reply
Why do we not crowdfund some excellent game designers to make a truly open set of RPGs?
Some that would be amenable to making into Computer RPGs.
Some that maybe that would be nearly impossible to automate. (That's fine, too.)
Under some licenses like CC BY / CC BY-SA / CC BY-NC?
I _like_ buying RPG books. I would continue to do so, even if the license was CC BY. I also like getting searchable PDFs, and turning dungeons into a Wiki for the DM to make it easy to find content.
I mean... Come on...
[+] [-] mcv|3 years ago|reply
The big problem is that there's not a single one that everybody agrees to use as the new standard. D&D is the standard. Like Windows. Everybody knows it sucks, but nobody can agree on a single alternative, and the market stays with what people know.
[+] [-] SpeedilyDamage|3 years ago|reply
Why are you waiting for someone else to do this? Do it yourself!
Something that bothers me more than most things is when people demand others act to solve a growing problem. Sure, you're not the most qualified person to do it, but actual execution trumps qualifications every time.
Get out there! Get in touch with some excellent game designers, ask them what it would take to get their help. Come up with a plan based on their feedback and execute it!
Or at least if you're not going to do it, recognize that your reasons for not doing it are probably exceedingly similar to everyone else's reasons for not doing it, and stop asking the question.
[+] [-] wincy|3 years ago|reply
Just because you bottled lightning once, doesn’t mean you can do it ever again.
[+] [-] Jtsummers|3 years ago|reply
I don't know if there are others or not.
[+] [-] scruple|3 years ago|reply
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Fantasy_RPG
[1]: https://www.basicfantasy.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4596...
[+] [-] BryantD|3 years ago|reply
GUMSHOE, FATE, Forged in the Dark, Dungeon World, Quest, and Trophy are all available under CC BY licenses. Many of those are fairly popular (if you don’t compare them to D&D) — six figure Kickstarter revenue, for example. Creative Commons has been a reasonably common choice for game designers who want open content for a decade or so.
[+] [-] VikingCoder|3 years ago|reply
> In addition to Paizo, Kobold Press, Chaosium, Legendary Games, and a growing list of publishers have already agreed to participate in the Open RPG Creative License, and in the coming days we hope and expect to add substantially to this group.
https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si7v?Paizo-Announc...
[+] [-] throw_m239339|3 years ago|reply
No need to even do that, there is plenty of alternative RPG and game systems out there already. It's not about money. It's about principles. But people wants to play "D&D", Hasbro's IP, Hasbro rules and business practices...
But also let's not forget how some conferences managed to shut down and shun the competition by forbidding them to attend the conferences to promote their alternative creations, insuring Hasbro/WotC prominent market shares... There is a lot to say about that "community", a lot of corrupt individuals...
[+] [-] paxys|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PeterisP|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] etchalon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeremycw|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cstever|3 years ago|reply
https://basicfantasy.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4596
[+] [-] secabeen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kubb|3 years ago|reply