We all know that WOTC is trying to get rid of the OGL 1.0a and put their boot on the necks of content creators. We don't have to wait for them to slowly intimidate and sue everyone into oblivion. We can prepare for the inevitable move to enforce their new licensing bullshit and make it easier for small companies and independents to fend them off.
First, one of the biggest expenses in a legal case is legal research. Statutes, case judgements, court motions, and transcripts need to be gathered and annotated for relevancy. There's a long history of law suits in the creative world of art and gaming. Laws and cases need not be explicitly about games but rather about contracts, product compatibility, marketing, and public licensing.
Second, we can gather all the published statements made my WOTC and their representatives on the meaning and value of the OGL 1.0a going back as far as we can, it can show the intent at the time it was written, thereby increasing our ability to see it protected.
Third, If we can put together a careful timeline of information being released by WOTC and leakers on OGL 1.1, we may be able to show an intentional deception by WOTC in the lead up to it's release.
If we can present the advocate of a besieged creator with a gift wrapped encyclopedia of relevant laws and judgments, it will bolster the chances of winning considerably.
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Or you could play something else.
Are you aware of how much of "something else" is still tied into the OGL 1.0a? Several non D&D games use it. One that comes to mind is CoC. There's lots of things like Pathfider and a lot of OSR material that uses the OGL as well. This is far more than just a 5E tard problem.
>Are you aware of how much of "something else" is still tied into the OGL 1.0a?
>Lists even more kinds of D&D
Yes, I am, actually.
I did mention Call of Cthulhu. They have been using OGL for almost 20 years now. Off the top of my head, that's the only one I can think of but I know that there are others.
If we head them off at the pass, not only will we preserve things covered by OGL 1.0a but we can protect our rights as small time creators from any corporate overreaches in the future. Do you really think that other publishers like, idk, FFG wouldn't follow suit if WOTC gets away with this?
frick "preserving" a joke document that simply does not fulfill the legal definitions of a "license"
OGL 1.1 is not just a scam, it's doubling down on the scam that OGL 1.0 already was. Or in a better light, OGL 1.0 was a corporations pinky promise to not act like c**ts, which is not nothing PR-wise, but legally this whole OGL-thing has been more or less meaningless from the start.
I'm not trying to preserve 1.0a but rather the games and materials published using them. If we can show that 1.1 is a violation of laws and case president, then those who go into court because WOTC decide to sue them can fend off the law suit without paying for thousands of hours of legal research.
Also, If we can hold the line here we can prevent overreach like this in the future by preventing it from ever happening.
Stop role-playing as a Hasbro employee you fricking useless moron.
Don't need to roleplay when you're actually here taking on the real world hasbro-shill role. You are pathethic.
Quoted a wrong post. I've meant to call-out this fricking moron
I think you're hopelessly naive to be so bullish that litigation would go your way.
>would go your way
I'm not playing your gay e-roleplay I'm not pretending to be a developer. Suck my fricking dick.
You both agree Hasbro sucks and it's bad to be a corporate shill, why the frick are you arguing with each other? Now is not the time for this!
kek
Implied contracts are a thing.
To make a really shitty analogy: by publishing a Open Breathing License where you license people opting-in to enjoy continued vital functions you are not actually creating a real license, because you're not giving people any rights they didn't already have even if you manage to fool people to believing they need this license to breathe.
But submitting to the OBL allows me to copy their patented way of breathing (the entire text of SRD rules)
Remember when WotC sued Cryptozoic for making a TCG that was -too- similar to Magic?
That is factually incorrect, even in this analogy. You are always allowed to copy the way of breathing (rules), you aren't (copyright) allowed to copy the specific way these rules are explained in their publications. You cannot copyright mathemathical concepts or rules.
Well naturally you can create a new system that is very similar, but:
a) it's much more convenient for small and large creators to just make use of the SRD ruleset and instantly gain a large potential player base with the "5e compatible" label
b) avoid risking an actual lawsuit (maybe borderline intimidation/bullying tactic by WotC, but legal)
https://www.engadget.com/2014-05-20-wizards-of-the-coast-sues-cryptozoic-over-hex-tcg.html
>Wizards accuses Cryptozoic of copying cards, plot, elements, circumstances, theme, mood, creatures, pace, play sequence, and flow from Magic.
"Play sequence", "pace" and "elements" could be described as "mathematical concepts or rules", and yet the lawsuit happened.
a) maybe, but it's beside the point
b) this is the core of the issue in reality
also: "Cryptozoic responded to the lawsuit that "Although we take all pending litigation seriously, we do not find any merit to the allegations in the complaint."[8] On Sep 24, 2015, Wizards of the Coast, Cryptozoic Entertainment and Hex Entertainment settled the lawsuit with undisclosed terms."
Who knows what they agreed. One thing we still know for sure though: you cannot copyright rules.
>you cannot copyright rules
Could be. But honestly I think people's hands are tied. One guy no one's heard of made some stat blocks to prove a point. But no publisher is gonna risk their business (potential lawyer fees) by not "playing ball" with WotC. It's difficult to succeed in the industry as is. And everyone wants to stay on WotC's (and by extension, other big names) good side, otherwise they can lose out on a partnerships, licenses, promotions, etc. It's like mafia. And I'm not even talking about OGL 1.1 here.
OGL 1.0 was non-moronic enough that it made sense to play ball even when this song and dance with wotc wouldn't really have been necessary in the first place. And it must have been nice to know they weren't actively going to jerk you around with lawsuits if you bent the knee. So it was kinda whatever apart from being nice PR for wotc.
(Leaked) 1.1 OGL is an absolute shitshow and you would have to be moronic to agree to it's terms. It's a game changer to an already unnecessary game. WoTC overplayed their hand even if they try to sneak some shit in by doing the ol' 2-steps-forward-1-step-back at this point.
>WoTC overplayed their hand
I agree, even if this was a try to have the big ask before scaling back to something more "reasonable" there's no going back. Many publishers are already moving to dump the SRDs and create their own things. This is ultimately a good thing.
It seems clear that they're doing this to further squeeze extra money wherever they're able. I can actually see some publishers doing the math and switching to something else. Maybe they'll make a big public statement about "integrity" while doing so, which would be bad for WotC PR.
What baffles me is that they're trying to market this as an "open" license while it's clearly not one in any way.
You're such a homosexual
not much, there's a starwars, a world of warcraft, a diablo, and the rest is all D&D
>/tg/ come personal army for me!
>if you don't dnd may manage to get even worse!
Ooooohhhh noooooo I'd be sooooo sad if you morons had a performative little cry and then right back to sucking WotC's wiener as they charge you for every drop of cum. This whole ordeal is so pathetic, Wizards could come and put out an official statement that they hate you and hope everyone who plays DnD drops over dead and you homosexuals would beg to pay them for a chance to change their minds.
>this is about more than DnD, it's also about DnD, old DnD, and for some reason Call of Cthulhu!
CoC is fricking fine, not even WotC is greedy enough to try and copywrite the idea of poorly word vomiting 1000 skills onto a character sheet. The death of every ttrpg that hasn't distinguished itself from DnD's awful mechanics would be incredible for the hobby; the only downside would be a bunch of brainrotted homosexuals suddenly trying to ruin every other game before they get told to frick off and kill themselves.
What games do you actually like? Just curious. Story games?
post the games you play Black person. I'm sick of D&D hating morons on this board always being cagey about whatever gurps tier bullshit they play. Surprise me.
Not that guy, but a lot of the DnD hatred isn't even based the game itself, but the willingness of DnDgays to suck WotC wiener. They can't play a tabletop game without an online subscription to the rules and a VTT that automates everything.
Why does it matter if they "patched" the rules? How do writers patch a TTRPG, paste a new section over the old one in your book? Well DnDgays don't have a book, their game can be "hotfixed" by WotC changing the website and they just have to live with it.
>not that guy but a lot of D&D hatred isn't even the base game itself
Yes I'm aware that your hatred is literally irrelevant because you don't have a real alternative, none the less I am an oldgay so I am willing to give that anon the benefit of the doubt and spill what system he's using that is so much better than the rusty piece of shit I drive for fun.
>Call of Cthulhu
They have their own open game license which is not connected to the WotC OGL. It's just based on it. Hasbro has no way to void a license between Chaosium and a third party.
Thank frick for that. Call of Cthulhu is awesome.
Aren't their sanity rules lifted directly from the WOTC Arcanum book?
Do you mean the 80s game Arcanum? Because the answer is no. Also Call of Cthulhu was the first rpg to have a sanity system so also no. Maybe there was a new sanity system written for Arcanum, whatever the hell that is, but it was most likely adapted from CoC and therefore not WotC creative content.
13th Age by Fire Opal Media.
Blades in the Dark by One Seven Design.
Castles & Crusades by Troll Lord Games.
Dungeon World by Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel.
Eclipse Phase by Posthuman Studios.
Fate by Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment.
Fudge System Reference Document by Grey Ghost Games.
Gumshoe System by Pelgrane Press.
Labyrinth Lord by Goblinoid Games.
Legend by Mongoose Publishing.
OpenD6, based on the D6 System originally published by West End Games.
OSRIC by Stuart Marshall and Mathew Finch.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game by Paizo.
Traveller by Mongoose Publishing.
...plus the entire retroclone industry.
Is this list real? Half of these games have no business being tied to the OGL lmao
These are all the games I could find running an OGL, but it would take further research to confirm that it's Hasbro's OGL in particular. For example, this thread shows Call of Cthulhu uses its own version of the OGL.
It was an easy way to support themselves and 3rd parties and have a
healthy and flourishing environment.
This is why people like this
cretin have no clue about the implications. They only feel joy from the misery of others.
>Is this list real?
lolno not at all, but of course D&D players are too moronic to actually read anything so they'll blindly accept whatever they're told. The gay literally copy pasted a years old list from Wikipedia.
>13th age
Yep. Shit D&D clone.
>Blades in the Dark
Nope. Has its own licensing agreement for other people to make Forged in the Dark games though.
>Castles and Crusades
Nope, Troll Lord games have already put out a statement that they will not be effected by this.
>Dungeon World
Nope, creative commons license.
>Eclipse Phase
Nope, creative commons license.
>Fate
Yep, Open Game License v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
>Fudge
Yep, Open Game License v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
>Gumshoe
Nope, creative commons license.
>Labyrinth Lord
Yep. Shit D&D clone.
>Legend
Shit D&D clone but under the basic roleplaying system so not effected. The wikipedia page doesn't even have a citation listed for this one and the moron still said "good enough for me!"
>OpenD6 originally published by West End Games
West End games doesn't even exist anymore, and the games it's talking about for the OGL are from the early 2000s. Oh God, but what if they make a new splatbook!?!?!?!
>OSRIC
Yep, Open Game License v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
>Pathfinder
LMAO
>Traveller
Nope, open content ruleset called "the Cepheus Engine"
>LoL, wat a reetord, this list not reel
>Goes on to confirm half of it
So it is a real list then, you just don't like the games on it. What do you want, a job at Hasbro?
>5/14 is 50%
Frick I'll even play along and say that pathfinder isn't just D&D, that's 6/14. Still not half, and buddy you realize that being 50% wrong is failing right? If I say that oranges are orange and that you swallow more cum than the entire adult population of Singapore are you gonna tell me I'm right because I know about fruits?
Nah not an oldschool trog, just following up on the Wikipedia list another Anon was trying to hawk as real. Thanks for the clarification! The most recent thing I can find about OpenD6 was a Zorro kickstarter from 2019-2020, and has no mention of the OGL or WotC there or in the book.
Why should I care? I said the list needed further research to check the OGLs were not explicitly Hasbro's OGL, and I couldn't be bothered doing it. You did it for me. I got you to do it for me, and I didn't have to do shit. I call that a W 😀
>Legend
>Under BRP
Oh you are an actual troglodyte, Legend by Mongoose is not BRP, it's Mongoose's RuneQuest 2 without RuneQuest in the name when they lost the license
And about OpenD6, nope, some company still owns OpenD6 and apparently there is new West End Games
Fate is also CC-BY
>"NO"
>"well i mean half of it is"
kek
How, and most importantly, why is openD6 even tied to OGL?
Because they thought it was a general purpose distribution license like GPL or some other FOSS license, because that's what WOTC said it was for 22 years - especially since this shenanigans wasn't tried against PF1 during the 4e era.
And nothing of value was lost.
That post has been deboonked already. The only games on their that could be in danger are literal copies of D&D.
Good thing you and me are Gankerners. We like obscure stuff and that makes us special! Not like the rest of the world with their D&Ds and their pumpkin spice. We are exactly the same! You and me, bud! Special!
labyrinth lord and osric are top tier
>Several non D&D games use it.
>Pathfinder
>OSR
>not D&D
Frick off moron, also CoC isn't OGL.
>critiques of capital are communism
Why are rightoids so stupid?
stop engaging in d&c
Correction, Call of Cthulhu is OGL, it's just not Wizard's OGL.
I just don't get are people on this board moronic or what? Just download the books and print them out and play whatever you want? Preferably an older better system like 3.5/Pathfinder? Why would you even want to play new shit for mongoloids?
This change effects all the systems that use the 1.0a license, including older versions of D&D and a lot of other systems that adopted the OGL as a way to open up their material for sharing.
>>This change effects all the systems that use the 1.0a license, including older versions of D&D and a lot of other systems
Dude it's all on the internet lmfao just download it.
>_<
If all you want to do is play stuff that's been already published, ok.
However, there's a thriving OSR community that is still producing cool new stuff that excites me. Cepheus is revitalizing the 2d6 system and is offering a lot of cool new ways to play old classic Traveller. There's a lot of indies that are using the 3/3.5 system to create new settings and mechanics for game ideas that are worth playing. Even if you don't play all of new stuff, surely some of it adds to your table. By choking out the indie creatives, we, the community, loose a lot. I don't care for 5e and I'm going to care less for 5.5 but I understand how menacing allowing this license to stand is.
, there's a thriving OSR community that is still producing cool new stuff that excites me.
And they can't do this because...?
Necrotic Gnome uses the OGL 1.0a to publish their rule set. Did they need to? Maybe not. But how are they going to do when WOTC decides to sue them for using a D&D rule set and spends $10mil on crushing them?
After WOTC wins that case, now Mongoose can go after the Cepheus community and they don't need to get 1/10 of the money to do it because WOTC already won precedence for them.
Gnome uses the OGL 1.0a to publish their rule set.
So like, are they selling it? Is this an addition to something that already exists? Use words dumbass, how the frick would I know what the frick kind of self-publisher drivel your cousin is grifting on?
Yes, Necrotic Gnome sells Printed and PDF copies of their OSE as Basic Fantasy and Advanced Fantasy. They also sell several adventures and assorted supplements.
>literal who with a game no one even plays
They may not be playing it but they are buying it. They can't get the books printed fast enough to keep up with demand.
>Yes, Necrotic Gnome sells Printed and PDF copies of their OSE as Basic Fantasy and Advanced Fantasy. They also sell several adventures and assorted supplements.
So this is only a problem for grifters then? Like, just download their shit if you're a player, if you're trying to make money off of the game, frick you in the first place.
>NO YOU CAN'T JUST MAKE THINGS FOR PROFIT ONLY WOTC GETS TO DO THAT
homosexual
it's their game their brand. if you're such a little commie then let me live in your house and frick your girlfriend
>calling everyone who doesn’t like the OGL change a commie
100% Hasbro employee
the OGL breeds competitors for WotC, it's a terrible business decision to let that continue.
You are acting like they have the power to decide.
Newsflash: they don't. No matter how much you fanboy them.
cope
>ONLY WOTC GETS TO DO THAT
If you're dumb enough to buy their shit, but I hope you're not?
>people should write rpg books for me for freeeeeee
Actually 99% of the people who do it shouldn't be doing it at all because it's shit.
Anyway there's so much material already out that I really don't get why you're complaining. It's all going to be fed into the AI so you can generate your own soon.
>soon
A little overtuned, but god damn, I like it.
And that's game mechanics.
It's even better at writing fluff, and it can even make encounters.
There you go, so the entire topic is completely moot, content grifters are going to be out of business due to AI anyway.
lmao are you the same c**ts who’ve been spamming AI threads for weeks?
Nope, never even tried it, I didn't even know it was this good already. But clearly you can feed into it the entirety of everything in human history just like they did with paintings, so you can easily produce your own stuff literally as you play. It will replace most of the DM's job too, you can just ask it to write you encounters and plot points and shit in real time.
Not that there's anyway to prove otherwise, but no.
It's the second time ever I've used chat-GPT.
Also, you quoted 2 people.
I know, right?
I was impressed too.
There might still be good things about humans. Unlike battling with alien cultures the AI will not be competing for the same niche as us, and my even be symbiotic if it did theoretically develop sentience. Anons need to be humble and bask in the glory of their reorganization in the bounty of God's creation. There now I made everyone uncomfortable equally.
>implying the AI-spamming c**ts aren't also AI
Thats actually suprisingly good
It’s dogshit and the fact you can’t immediately tell that indicates you should not be designing games. It’s a cleric with no utility who relies on bonuses to only weapon attacks and does not get the extra attack ability. It sucks. Guided Strike is one of the worst abilities I’ve ever seen. You forgo your entire action for advantage on an attack next turn and some extra damage. The fact you thought this was overtuned is genuinely embarrassing, and everyone who thinks it’s well designed is brain dead.
Are you handicapped? The utility is in the entire cleric spell list. The channel divinity and guided strike is a direct upgrade on the official war cleric, and you get spiritual weapon you absolute fricking downie. For the love of god actually play a game
No, impressively, this is actually worse than the already bad official War Cleric, because at least the +10 bonus that gives out is either no action to yourself or a reaction to an ally. Spiritual Weapon doesn't benefit from your War Priest extra damage either, not would you be able to apply Guided Strike to it.
Warding Strike and Avatar of War are the only decent abilities in that class, and both are still pretty mid because Warding Strike requires a full action and Avatar of War only really kicks off if you can wade into a ton of enemies.
That's probably true, although I suspect most of what this will be used for is to auto-generate and then tweak what's generated.
It's genius in that if you need to have a degree in game design to figure out that it is shit, and the average dunce thinks it is over tuned, then you can get there will be thousands of people who get exited enough to pay $1.50 to use it on WotC's VTT, and if it takes twelve seconds to generate and can be sold to thousands of people then you are onto a winner.
It's not about how good it plays, its about how good it sells for the effort put in. Even a novice game designer knows that.
Bro I want the people who make content I like to keep making it.
"content"
Hallmark of a brainwashed tardolio.
You will never get to play my 100 page masterpiece, because nobody cares enough to pay for it. How does that feel, loser?
> inb4 idc
Cope and seethe?
And how much money has your friend made on it? If its worth 10 million to shut down then congrats, but also next time dont make a derivative product
You could argue that all TTRPGs that aren't D&D are D&D derivatives.
yeah, no you cannot
NTA but he’s right. D&D spawned the whole industry.
If you special ed homosexuals would ever read anything you'd know im refering to the legally defined term "derivative work" from the original OGL. if you used the OGL you signed that you are a derivative work of D&D.
not even the first ttrpg
Oh? What was before D&D?
>all first person shooters are DOOM derivatives
Technically, but come on.
Ah yes, chainmail is quite D&D derivative. have a nice day before your moron genes spread any further
You're a fricking tard.
Chainmail was the war gaming rule set that OD&D was based on. The modern iterations of Chainmail are some kind of mutant that no one really understands what it's for.
So... Death to 5e?
You clearly dont know WHY d&d was based on chainmail so your opinion is worthless
Chainmail was the rule set that Arneson was using when he was running players through his early iterations of Blackmoore. Either learn to communicate better or learn to read.
Good try but no
Ah, so you're a overly pedantic autist that wants to derail the convo into something where you can feel superior. Got it.
>he says, while claiming every ttrpg in existence is derivative of D&D
Point to the line that says
>"this is a perpetual lisence to publish your thing"
and then point to the line that says
>"if you agreed to this licence you can use whatever version of it you want"
And then say
>pay my legal fees when you lose
The real question is why would WOTC even bother dropping ten million dollars to kill some literal who with a game noone even plays?
>perpetual
>perpetual
>perpetual
Perpetual in contracts means it doesn't have a specified expiration date.
If it doesn't also have "irrevocable" attached to it, it ends once revoked. And all perpetual licenses are revocable by default if they don't specify. Hasbro's lawyers will laugh and point.
hasbros lawyers could have revoked pathfinder during 4e when they already killed OGL for that edition. it wouldn't matter anyway.
>And all perpetual licenses are revocable by default if they don't specify. Hasbro's lawyers will laugh and point.
On multiple occasions, a representative of WotC has stated that the license is irrevocable. A good argument can be made that this is an informal amendment to the agreement, if publishers attest that this statement (or similar statements made elsewhere) played a part in them agreeing to the terms of the license.
>something said by someone
Those were the old owners. And they were probably lying.
Corporations don't have owners, they have officers. The corporation is its own entity and any statements made by the corporation are by and of the corporation, in perpetuity.
>Those were the old owners.
No, it was a WotC representative for sure, acting at a time when Hasbro already owned the property. WotC can be held to any statements made by representatives in the past regarding how the license will be utilized.
The trick is to convincingly argue that these informal statements acted as a verbal contract by proxy. Even if they never had any intent of following that promise, if it stood as part of why people agreed to the OGL, it can be argued as an informal addendum.
My goal is to pitch potential tort arguments that any lawyers working for any relevant company could potentially research and pursue as litigative tactics against WotC. I encourage you to also consider any other arguments that could be made to make the de-authorization of the OGL indefensible in court, and pitch them to the crowd for similar consideration.
>I encourage you to also consider any other arguments that could be made to make the de-authorization of the OGL indefensible in court, and pitch them to the crowd for similar consideration.
I'm really curious to hear what Dancey has to say tomorrow. He's been reserved, rightfully so, since his initial statement that the OGL was never meant to be revoked. There are so many variables in play beyond actually going to litigation and I hope he's gonna bring it to the table.
>I'm really curious to hear what Dancey has to say tomorrow.
Me too. I'm almost certain he'll side against WotC considering he very much visualized the OGL as a promise to the market that WotC would not stand in other people's way with regards to publishing their own material. Everything they're doing flies in the face of the original goals of the license.
>There are so many variables in play beyond actually going to litigation and I hope he's gonna bring it to the table.
Agreed. Arguments need to be brought to the table and consolidated so lawyers involved in the situation can coordinate what their arguments in court will be.
There's no revocation clause which means there's no delineation of the consequences of revocation. The onus is on the licensor (WotC) to present clear, unambiguous language or else the interpretation is in favor of the licensee.
You can not legally deauthorize a license when it does not have provisions for the effects of its deauthorization.
>Uninformed
Established case law: https://elrlaw.com/perpetual-contracts-are-actually-terminable-at-will/
Even if no termination clause is specified, perpetual contracts can be terminated at will by either party.
The words on twitter don't matter, they were never part of the ogl. OGL 1.0 was never made irrevocable.
That cites termination after a breach which there hasn't been. You should probably actually read the blogs you consult for legal advice and not just rely on the title.
>make sure that your contracts contain clear and unambiguous language regarding how they can be terminated, whether that is a date certain, specific notice provisions, a specified event, or some other occurrence that makes clear to both parties that their business relationship has ended.
Not contained in OGL1.0a
Checking quickly, it looks like the OGL 1.0a does say:
>13. Termination: This License will terminate automatically if You fail to comply with all terms herein and fail to cure such breach within 30 days of becoming aware of the breach. All sublicenses shall survive the termination of this License.
Which given the blog post he links to says:
>The agreement was not terminable at-will, however, because it contained language that one party could exclusively (not permissively) terminate the contract after a breach by the other
and
>The result of this exclusive termination language, then, was that the contract at issue in Burford overcame the presumption that it was terminable-at-will.
is interesting. It means that by specifying a circumstance in which the license may be terminated, that it's possible the license can only be terminated when that clause is triggered. That is, rather than being revocable at will, it can only be revoked when the terms aren't complied with. You'd probably need a court to decide.
Though speaking of the license being revocable, this is probably also related to why WotC is "updating" the OGL and saying that 1.0a is "no longer an authorized license agreement". If the OGL can be revoked at will, then why isn't WotC just revoking it? Why not say "the OGL is revoked" or "the OGL is terminated" and tell everyone to use 4e's GSL? Probably because that termination clause doesn't say they can terminate the license in that manner. And especially that "All sublicenses shall survive the termination of this License." bit. They could arguably terminate the OGL for the SRDs. But everything made using them would likely be considered a sublicense and be fine.
So they need to declare OGL 1.0a "not authorized" if they want to stop people from continuing to publish under it. If they say it's revoked or terminated, they may be the ones in breach of the license.
>So they need to declare OGL 1.0a "not authorized" if they want to stop people from continuing to publish under it. If they say it's revoked or terminated, they may be the ones in breach of the license.
Exactly. Furthermore if they wanted achieve protecting their creative content going forward they could have deauthorized the 3.5/5.1 SRDs for future use and released a 5.5 SRD for the commercial license. But no, they decided instead illegal deauthorization and jeopardizing all existing properties was the better move. Malice or incompetence? You decide.
>But how are they going to do when WOTC decides to sue them for using a D&D rule set and spends $10mil on crushing them?
There's 0 chance of this happening and you are outing yourself as low income and lacking life experience. No company is spending 10 million dollars to possibly lose a lawsuit against a company no one has ever heard of.
What kind of stuff are they producing, give concrete examples and how they will be stopped.
Is this about not being able to make money on your fanfics and shit?
I love new stuff. But if you are by your own admission derivative works of D&D you're at best only half new and half stale, and i dont care to play you anyway because D&D is shit
>However, there's a thriving OSR community that is still producing cool new stuff that excites me.
I heard someone was planning on releasing a high-lethality gonzo fantasy hexcrawl with an edgy tone and some sex jokes thrown in. So creative.
everyone is a currently embarassed millionaire that was going to release that killer app adventure module, but now they can't!!
Well, they still can be a temporarily embarrassed 749,999aire
>are people on this board moronic or what
Yes. This whole meme only affects the industry, and only the parts of the industry that was incestuous enough and lazy enough to all tie themselves into D&D. WOTC had an open lisence to maximize market share, and now they have a new open lisence to maximize market share. Everyone else is free to make whatever original shit they want, and presumably keep making new derivative shit for old editions too if they ever published anything under the original OGL. And yes its derivative. They signed that their works were derivative when they agreed to the v1.0a OGL. So really what did they possibly expect to happen, a free lunch subsizided by WOTC forever?
>So really what did they possibly expect to happen, a free lunch subsizided by WOTC forever?
Yes, because that's what SRD3 under OGL 1.0a did. It used language common in FOSS licenses in the late 90s exactly so that D&D as a game could outlive whatever company happened to own the IP; and the lawyers and idea guys have said as much.
It's clearly what the legal department thought from 2008-2014 because they didn't "unauthorize the OGL" to frick over their biggest competitor, the OGL-reliant clone of 3.5 that was Pathfinder.
them being mad at Pathfinder this whole time is incredible.
nothing NOTHING stopped them from continuing to support 3rd edition. history is repeating itself with a new edition, a new license, and this time they want to unplug OGL from competitors.
F N Scared.
>I think there's a very, very strong business case that can be made for the idea of embracing the ideas at the heart of the Open Source movement and finding a place for them in gaming. [...] One of my fundamental arguments is that by pursuing the Open Gaming concept, Wizards can establish a clear policy on what it will, and will not allow people to do with its copyrighted materials. Just that alone should spur a huge surge in independent content creation that will feed into the D&D network.[2]
You my friend appear to have been misled. Its been market building from day 1. You can go check out the OGL if you want, check out what it actually says
>3.5
>Good
Is this where /tg/ is at in 2023
>CoC (not Hasbro ogl)
>pathfinder (literally same thing as DnD)
So, it's just DnD games, got it.
https://twitter.com/BadWritingTakes/status/1612911642353737729
>It's only been one day since "Wind power made the trans-Atlantic slave trade possible" and we've already reached "Suggesting people play a game other than D&D is what got us the Trail of Tears"
>The Main Characters are returning to Twitter. Nature is healing.
Doing 5th edition lolcows work for them.
>yeah that's going to be a nah.
The OGL 1.0 was never a real license to begin with in the legal sense. The "license" granted you, or anyone, absolutely zero rights they already didn't have, on the contrary: by agreeing to the OGL you waived *away* some of your rights.
Goddamnit why are nu-nerds such pussies that can be scared silly with some badly worded legalese.
I'm not baiting or bullshitting; google the lawyer who had stat blocks or something up on his website which WoTC sperged out over. He simply told them to go frickthemselves and didn't remove them. He also explains why the OGL is bullshit to begin with.
to put it simply: YOU NEVER ACTUALLY NEEDED OGL OR ANY SHIT LIKE THAT TO PUBLISH AND SELL 3RD PARTY CONTENT FOR D&D (as long as you didn't use shit like forgotten realms etc.)
it's was always a scare tactic
What's worse, people have been using the OGL even for making stuff totally unrelated to D&D, making their independent product dependent on a revocable license owned by their competitor for no reason. LOL.
Okay Questing Beast. Did you know that collections of non-copyrightable elements can become copyrightable - and copies like idk games calling themselves clones - could be infringing? And that it would take an extremely expensive civil case to settle that question of fact?
questing what? is this some e-celeb reference?
And yes, that's always been the thing here: wotc doesn't have to be in the right, legally speaking, they just need to drown small timers in a swamp of litigation or hold the threat of that over their heads.
Greatest justice system in the world.
They might actually be in the right. That's a question for the court. If you show them an AD&D character sheet and an OSRIC character sheet, there's a convincing argument that the collection and arrangement of those individually non-copyrightable elements is infringing. If you look at lawsuits over musical melodies, you shouldn't be confident the court will rule in our favor.
It's not 100% you're wrong, but it seems likely. I'm not going to start going through legal arguments on /tg/, but feel free to knock yourself out by checking this guys legal opinions on the OGL, even prior to this 1.1 debacle. On the blog he pretty much says he's willing to call the bluff of wotc and go to court over OGL being bullshit if they are stupid enough to sue him: https://gsllcblog.com/
Okay, and he's not a very good lawyer if he thinks anything is guaranteed once it hits the courtroom. I point you towards music lawsuits about infringing melodies and the stupidity that laymen (to include judges) can be persuaded of.
Everybody has been linking this homosexual's blog for the last few week, but I don't think his argument is actually a slam dunk. I'd give it 60-40 in his favor; but there is a massive, nontrivial case that his case would lose.
At least he put his money where his mouth is and actually called out WoTC and stood for his legal arguments by keeping the stat blocks online. He practically goads them to sue, though pretty politely. So far I have not seen any legal arguments more compelling than, as you say, this homosexual's.
Plenty of wienery lawyers eat shit when the judge just isn't buying their argument no matter how good, or well supported it is.
If your point is "you can't know the courts decision beforehand"...yes, and? I still haven't seen a better legal argument for this. It is pretty thorough.
>i mean go for it but i forsee the little guy losing, because OGL has been a thing maintained by WotC for a long time. if they want to update it it's their right.
He already went for it. WoTC just pussied out. So thus far you have forseen wrong. Also updating the OGL is an entirely different thing than what we're talking about here: the OGL not actually being a license as it doesn't give you rights you didn't already have (mostly, the SRD is muddy but this actually makes WoTC's case *worse*).
>He already went for it. WoTC just pussied out.
1.1 isnt even out yet, nice gotcha moron
Are you illiterate?
are you? you said i foreseen wrong but you're talking about something that happened some time ago, which again is unrelated to what i foresee anyway.
i'm talking about 1.1, now frick off moron.
>even prior to this 1.1 debacle
These things happened two years ago. WoTC pussied out. Continue to seethe at your leisure.
i mean go for it but i forsee the little guy losing, because OGL has been a thing maintained by WotC for a long time. if they want to update it it's their right.
i see a lot of grifters who are ass mad they cannot coast of OGL anymore
>i see a lot of grifters who are ass mad they cannot coast of OGL anymore
This might be the case who believe in the illusion of the OGL to begin with. Which includes both assmad grifters and anuslicking wotc fanboys.
It'll be a class action suit filed by companies fighting for their lives vs a subsidiary of Hasbro (and probably not even the most profitable one). Paizo and co might actually outspend them since the value proposition just wouldn't be there for Hasbro to throw their full might behind it. Like the previous anon said, you can't copyright rules. The only things WotC can claim are original creations, art, or the verbatim text in their rulebooks
>YOU NEVER ACTUALLY NEEDED OGL OR ANY SHIT LIKE THAT TO PUBLISH AND SELL 3RD PARTY CONTENT
true
>FOR D&D
incorrect. enjoy the suit
see
This is the kind of stuff we can actually get together to push back with. It's not so much that I believe they have the legal right to do what they are doing, it's that I am concerned that too much of the community will fold and create president. If we show that they can fight back then maybe the community as a whole can give WOTC the finger and end their conquest before it gets into full swing.
Also, I agree that we never needed the license but the fact it has become so ingrained in the creative side of the hobby gives it perceived power. Sometimes perceived power is as good as real power, even in front of a judge. This has been shown to be the case when it comes to open software in court cases. Dispel the illusion and it can't hurt us any more.
The problem is that they don't have to sue every single dude that published an adventure. They just have to threaten kickstarter, indiegogo, patreon and rpgdrivethru to delete your shit and suddenly 90% of the ways you can earn money are fricking gone without WotC lifting a finger.
untrue. it saved you time from writing shit from scratch.
you people are getting needlessly worked up about this shit
it's pontless buillshit, all of it
The legal ramifications alone are enormous, anon. Plus, it's on topic for the board. You are under no obligation to participate.
Not really. It’s a bad move by WotC for the whole industry.
It’s a bad move by WotC for WotC.
It is a bad move for WotC because it's a bad move for the whole industry. They will abandon WotC rather than get fricked. It'l hurt in the short term for everyone but it'll lead to a better /tg/ world. Assuming the other companies follow through and the CONSOOMERS don't drag them back by being moronic.
Get of my board commie
>Get of my board commie
So... not wanting some corpo authoritarians to just decide they own an entire hobby and stealing anything they want because they made a license is being communist?
Yep, it's what is at stake if WOTC goes all out with their self appointed authority.
I'd rather not, Ms Williams.
WoTC is infested with commies.
I'm intrigued, what do you think a "comming" Is?
Is there somewhere I can encourage the opposite? DnD is shit. I would be happy to see Hasbro shoot themselves in the foot.
Honest Question:
Can't game creators just put up their own d20 based fantasy roleplaying system and write their own free license for using it?
you writing it?
I'm not a game designer, so no.
Are you telling me 3rd party creators rely on the d20 system because they couldn't create a similar cohesive system themselves? I always assumed it was for pure branding reasons.
>Are you telling me 3rd party creators rely on the d20 system because they couldn't create a similar cohesive system themselves? I always assumed it was for pure branding reasons.
And also the convenience. Way easier to just crib from the OGL and tweak than it is to make up all of your stat blocks and skill names and stuff from scratch.
>Are you telling me 3rd party creators rely on the d20 system because they couldn't create a similar cohesive system themselves?
.....Yes?!
AlterBlack folk, rise up
D&D is a hobby that REQUIRES other people to play.
The average person is a slavish moronic beast. They make decisions based on brand name recognition.
Ask "do you want to play D&D" and you'll get a lot of volunteers.
Ask "do you want to play tabletop rp" and people will ask what the frick you are talking about or if they do recognize what ttrpg means, they are likely to ask "D&D?"
Pathfinder barely managed to claw it's way into subcultural relevancy and only because Paizo had a history of publishing D&D content to acquire an audience and Pathfinder being a 3e D&D clone at a time when WotC was threatening to burn down the 3e library of Alexandria when printing 4e.
true, at this point i have no clue how D&D isn't a public domain term that means tabletop roleplaying, verbatim
If you think so little of people, why would you want to play an RPG with them in any case?
Yes. The original OGL tries to claim ownership of
>roll d20
>add modifiers
>see if greater than target
But thats basically all there is in the SRD. they dont own icosahedral dice, or 5% increments, and they never define whatever arbitrary bullshit scale D&D checks are supposed to operate in so they cant own that either. Go nuts.
Contra proferentem means voiding the original OGL 1.0 has frick-all chance of sticking in court.
They didn't define what they meant by authorization.
According to legal praxis it would be interpreted by the courts against the interests of WotC.
You are probably completely correct, and you will still lose all of your money trying to prove that in court.
nta, but
>i was just pretending to be moronic
seriously now?
Who actually uses 3rd party splats? Honest question. Adventure modules i can see but rule books and monster manuals? I'm not saying WotC has done a bang up job with the 1st party material for 5e but is this there even a thriving 3rd party splat market? let alone a good one? Agian honest question i mainly play AD&D and CoC so I'm too busy getting reamed in an entirely different way to follow 5e releases let alone it's apparent 3rd party market."
It fricks my ability to buy OSR adventures, since those are universally released under 1.0a. So yeah, I do use 3rd party materials released under OGL1.0a
That's actually bullshit and no way it'll hold up in court if challenged. I guess the issue is someone needs to be willing to pony up the cash to fight it in court.
You need to realize that this can and will be replicated by other gaming companies if WOTC gets away with this shit. Modiphius, Mongoose, R. Talsorian Games, and FFG would all do this too if we let them.
White Wolf too.
Actually, in 3rd edition, WOTC had a more restrictive "D20" trademark and license, which they could have resurrected (and probably should have for 5e). It had stipulations like "not reprinting the class advancement table" and some other things.
Why? They have huge market share being eroded by 3rd party publishers using the ogl, and they have a new edition coming out which means a new SRD. They dont even need to sue anyone, they can just strongarm all the 3rd party cucks into paying for the lisence because its that or stay on 5e forever, then release 6e and let novelty starve out everyone who didnt switch over.
You basically can’t grow as any significant publisher paying 25% of your revenue over 750k. If WotC wants to kill off all that 3rd parties that’s their call, but I’m happy people are telling them to get fricked over it.
>You basically can’t grow as any significant publisher paying 25% of your revenue over 750k. Cant you? Do you have any sources on the profit margins for 3rd party suppliment creators? Besides, you dont HAVE to use the OGL, you can just get negotiate a different licence with WOTC.
>If WotC wants to kill off all that 3rd parties that’s their call
Yes
>but I’m happy people are telling them to get fricked over it.
Why? Even ignoring that most of the third party market is garbage, we both know how things are in this hobby. A bunch of posturing on twitter does not a boycott make. Everyone will forget in a month or two and 6e will release just fine
They revoked the OGL with 4e and killed their game so IDK anon.
Literally noone has ever attributed the death of 4e to a lack of 3rd party support before this exact contraversy. Get real.
You keep attributing all these malicious things to Peter Noone but I don't even think he knows what a rpg is.
Why do you think Pathfinder became the Pepsi to DnD's Coke?
>most of the third party market is garbage
Less garbage than WOTC's DnD
>Who actually uses 3rd party splats?
A solid third or so of my 3.X collection is 3PP splats.
>Ganker lets its natural contrariness bring it round to supporting WotC, a company it hates, to freeze out all competitors and consolidate its dominance of the rpg industry
Sasuga /tg/
I don't think it's good, but I think they're going to get away with it no matter how much Redditors b***h and how much people on Twitter retweet the OpenDND hashtag.
They will implement it regardless, but we should support the collapse of 6e and the fracturing of the D&D fan base as much as we can. It will be good for everyone if people just start playing different shit, and the most likely to stop playing entirely are the 5e casuals anyway.
>have you tried not playing D&D
>OGL 1.1
>noooooooooooo
this whole debacle is hilarious and outs /tg/ as a dnd board
> Bunch of uncreative losers can't write their own system, they just want to cling onto WotC like feeder fish
> WotC relents and makes a license that will allow them to make their shitty content
> This only encourages more people to think they are entitled to take their personal, special turd into the public cesspool that is third party content
> Two decades later
> The amount of third party shit being peddled for the same is becoming choking, the entire industry is based on people selling crap content for D&D
> WotC says enough, from now on wards either you make content worth paying royalties for, or you stop pretending you can do this for a living
> morons scream when it means people might have to start making games that aren't just fricking D&D
Have you tried not playing D&D?
i'm certainly going to try now!
>Have you tried not playing D&D?
You fricking tard. Read the thread before chipping in.
First, the OGL is used for games that aren't D&D. Second, we don't need other publishers of other systems thinking they can just carve up the rest of the RPG world.
>the OGL is used for games that aren't D&D
total nothing burger. no one would be scared stupid if they weren't positing an incestuous repackage of dnd
>First, the OGL is used for games that aren't D&D.
Name a single game licensed under the OGL that will be affected and ISN'T just D&D.
Pathfinder is just D&D 3.5. Paizo could have made their own game, but instead they wanted to keep playing D&D.
Cyberpunk? Not based on any D&D SRD and therefor won't be affected at all. They can keep on trucking.
The only games affected are those using a D&D SRD for content.
>The only games affected are those using a D&D SRD for content.
EVERYTHING published with the Open Gaming License is affected by this. Not just D&D clones. Fate was published under the OGL.
>copied Fudge
>published under a license owned by the DnDogshit company
Fricking morons
Because not even Wizards thought they could do this. Because it was written with language common to Open Source licenses at the time, that's why Wizards made a separate D20 System trademark, and separate GSL for 4e.
They can't do it. If they could they would have over a decade ago.
>EVERYTHING published with the Open Gaming License is affected by this. Not just D&D clones.
This is fake news. Go read the OGL 1.1, it is very specifically for D&D SRD based content.
Any games that weren't just ripping off D&D are fine, stop being an alarmist moron.
That's only partially true. By revoking OGL1.0a anything published under it is no longer protected by it and if there is any protected content contained therein it is exposed. The majority of non-d20 derived content is not in danger but who knows how they would try to manipulate edge cases in an effort to seize control of the RPG space. It's also a matter of precedent. If this license is revoked it gives precedent for other similar language to be attacked. The OGL is a benign licensing agreement that has benefited ttrpgs, not just D&D. And also frick WotC/Hasbro and their money grubbing bullshit and woke, revisionist agenda. They deserve nothing but contempt.
They'd have to find or draft new licensing agreements.
>And also frick WotC/Hasbro and their money grubbing bullshit and woke, revisionist agenda.
Eyes on the prize. I know your instinct is to shut off your brain and focus on the dogwhistle that mass-media has trained you to be blindly angry about, but there's a legitimate issue that needs to be focused on by the community. WotC is trying to shut down the open license that they swore to leave be, thus proving they are snakes that can't be trusted on just those grounds alone. Your virtue signaling bullshit is irrelevant to this larger threat over the market.
I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or attacking a peripheral point. WotC/Hasbro have been consistently disregarding their own community and damaging the gaming hobby for the last 5 years minimum. Their gambits need to be combatted and their revenue cut off at the source. I do not care why people come to that conclusion, only that they do.
Nothing would make me happier than Hasbro shooting itself in the foot, and for the hobby to dry up and die.
>WotC/Hasbro have been consistently disregarding their own community and damaging the gaming hobby for the last 5 years minimum.
Closer to 15 years at this point but who's counting?
>Their gambits need to be combatted and their revenue cut off at the source. I do not care why people come to that conclusion, only that they do.
I agree with that, but "woke bullshit" does not a legal argument make. "Malicious unjust legal action to stifle the market for your own profits" is something that can actually lead to legal consequences.
Stick to the plan. We want them to suffer for what they've dared to do.
>Stick to the plan. We want them to suffer for what they've dared to do.
Fair enough. I will temper my emotional appeals going forward.
You don't understand how licenses work.
They can't revoke the license of somebody elses product because they don't own that product. Pathfinder 2e, for example, was licensed under the OGL 1.0 for no reason other than Paizo wanted third party content for their game. Paizo controls the licensing for PF2.
WotC has revoked the licenses for their SRDs. They didn't magically dispel the license for all space and time, it still exists and you can still use it. It just no longer applies to the D&D SRDs.
You're wrong. The language in 1.1 means you have to stop selling anything with 1.0a attached.
Ok, but why should anybody care about what the 1.1 license says? A license alone doesn't mean anything. It only becomes legally significant when a product is licensed under it.
So in this case, the D&D SRDs are going to be licensed under the OGL 1.1, which says that the OGL 1.0 is no longer valid. So for the D&D SRDs, the OGL 1.0 is no longer valid. Pathfinder 2e isn't licensed under the OGL 1.1, it is licensed under the OGL 1.0, so Paizo don't need to give a flying frick.
Remember, the copywrite holder decides the licensing deal, not how ever wrote the license.
You are wrong
A Liscence must be agreed to by two parties. There is no language in 1.0 that demands I accept 1.1, therefore 1.1's consideration of 1.0 only applies if I publish material under 1.1
I agree with that position but that's not what WotC/Hasbro is pushing. They are trying to enact an illegal license change and call it an update. 1.1 is a new license and effectively a contract of adhesion that the licensees are being forced to adopt without recourse.
It is illegal but that won't matter if the licensees don't challenge it.
Fate is CC-BY
Nice fanfic hasbro tard.
Third party is buttfricking the original hasbro content.
They want to kill the OSR movementto feed their 6e rape baby.
> They want to stop people from rereleasing the same 50 year old game AGAIN and instead the OSR fans will need to figure out what distinctive features of the genera was appearing and work on refining that design
Ok.
I'm glad to see that HYTNPDND Black folk and WOTC dicksuckers have buried the hatchet to engage in unmitigated homosexualry in unison
I'm gonna say it: I play 5e and I've been posting HYTNPDND every time I can because it's funny.
But this OGL change was the last straw - now I'm actually quitting D&D. Not starting any new 5e games. Our 5e campaign is switching to GURPS. Reading the CoC starter set at the moment.
Thank you WotC.
The good news is that without the OGL giving writers a McDonalds tier system to latch onto, they are going to have to write their own system. Some will be shit, but some will be amazing. Of the amazing ones, people will try to figure out what made them so great and refine those features, and so on and so on, making games better and better.
We have been stagnate for twenty years because people haven't been writing systems, just spewing out more 'content' for the same system, and look where it got us. A thousand and one freakshit races because what else are you going to contribute to 5e? Finally the endless addition of content to a single system ends, and the flourishing of new systems begins.
Most systems people write on their own are absolute dogshit tbh. And the ones that get praised as usually just Apocalypse World rip offs.
>without the OGL giving writers a McDonalds tier system to latch onto
The new OGL exists. If a typesetter an artist and a game designer decide to each collaborate to make three books, publish them independently and cross-promote them they can each make the maximum 750k without paying WOTC a dime. And if people think they can do that and make money off it they will try. And more garbage will be shoveled onto the fire, only this time for OD&D instead of 5e
*D&Done
OD&D alreeady exists. The new thing will be D&Done.
Definitely starting to see some astroturfing on the board over this.
Frick Twitch streamers though?
Those frickers made it harder to find people to join, and why should I work for their fricking benefit
> Be paid GM at a local games arcade
> They want 5e because it is the most popular
> What ever, the pay is decent and I've done worse jobs than running D&D. Frankly they are right, I wouldn't have a table to run without 5e
> Every few weeks, without fail, some butthole shows up wanting to play some hilariously over powered third party race/class
> "But I paid for the pdf so it has to be legal!"
I agree OP, death to EVERY OGL.
>paid GM
Didn't even bother to read further, your opinion is worthless.
People who literally GM a game for money are never comparable to people who GM out of love for a game and to have fun; profit compromises your actions in insidious ways and the experience as a whole. I only feel pity for the desperate individuals who likely have to endure your games and think that is what D&D, or whatever system you run is like.
I’m a paid player 4 times per week. My friend needed an extra and I only agreed if he paid me $30 per evening.
That's somehow even worse, not merely because of the price but also because you did that to a friend.
Soulless.
What's the point in a one hour session in the evening? You should dedicate more time to the hobby if you are getting paid, unless you are getting below minimum wage for this?
>Friend invites you to have fun with him
>You demand payment
This is some max-level israelitery
>My friend needed an extra and I only agreed if he paid me $30 per evening.
If your 'friend' had any self-respect he would have cut all ties with you there and then, you soulless homosexual
Based. I would only play d&d if I was getting paid too, lol.
>5e
>But I paid for the pdf
Wonder how I know the entire post is made up
So, it's no longer a leak? They've confirmed it now?
lol, mail them bombs you cowards
Least schizo Ted worshiper
Now I'm not very legal savvy so I'm probably wrong, but isn't revoking a previous license without warning and trying to coerce people into signing a new agreement with fear tactics that fricks them over so you can get free money, push out competition, discourage new competition, and take ownership over all their work even if they did it before your changes, the kind of monopoly bullshit that the Federal Trade Comission usually comes in and says "No you can't do that"?
Did anyone suggest mass reporting Hasbro to the FTC?
Or frick, did anyone think to write a strongly worded letter to Disney to let them know the company they put in charge of their toy line for Star Wars is making a new OGL that says "We own everything you make under our license" which includes two Star Wars games from 20 years ago? Because according to their new OGL, WotC are now free to make Star Wars content without paying Disney a dime as long as it appeared in the two Kotor games.
Explain more, because I'm moronic. You have my attention.
I think legally that can't rescind the previous works they sold with the rule but I may be wrong. So as long as you stay away from anything in their new additions you should be in the clear. For instance, Disney own's Marvel Thor, who is blonde, but Thor is a norse religious figure, though he was always shown to be a redhead. So Disney/Marvel can sue you if you use a blonde Thor because we can't find any media before they made blonde Thor, and they trademarked him.
Technically we're still at the state of "leaks". The entire alleged text has been leaked: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BXYQJ0ulww7BoZhjMHrZgQ5YrjfPRIma/view
and Hasbro isn't denying it despite massive discussion of it. So people have little reason to disbelieve the leak.
But the fact that it's still technically "just" under in house consideration limits people's ability to take legal action as there's no official release to take action against and theoretically Hasbro can still back off and never release version 1.1
As for the "revoking" thing, that's iffy and it's going to be a legal battle if Hasbro goes through with this. Their entire "force everyone to use OGL 1.1" plan relies on the fact that section 9 of OGL 1.0 reads:
>9. Updating the License: Wizards or its designated Agents may publish updated versions of this License. You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License.
So with OGL 1.1 Hasbro is contending that means when they publish an updated version they can de-authorize previous versions, and that would override the perpetual license granted earlier in the OGL.
Despite OGL 1.0 not even defining what constitutes an "authorized version" much less providing any mechanism to deauthorize a version, and Wizard's on OGL FAQ from January 2004 to at least November 2021(pic related) assuring people that section 9 meant that people could continue using a previous version of the license in the event of a change they didn't like.
So if Hasbro goes through with this, which they seem likely to do, then things are going to get very messy.
The authorization is in the SRDs themselves. Each SRD specifically says that you have permission to use it through a specific version of the OGL, and then the OGL says that you agree to the OGL by using content connected to it (IE, stuff from the SRD).
Technically, the way it's set up, the OGL is more of a template, section 9 is the only actual reference to Wizards, and just because you're using the OGL means you're actually licensing anything from Wizards directly. The license could be from any party who has ever contributed Open Game Content. You might be getting your license from Paizo if you use a Paizo original creation (That is designated OGC), for example, or your license might be from someone on a forum who released some OGC. Wizards doesn't control every OGL license.
So what they should do is deauthorize the SRDs not the OGL? That actually seems reasonable. But if they can’t even convey that or understand it as the proper and legal course of action then… well, what the frick? Is this willful ignorance or genuine stupidity? Seriously, what the frick?
If they deauthorize the SRDs all the currently licensed material is protected, they can issue their own stupid Commercial/Non-commercial licenses not under the OGL and they don’t create another Paizo because their SRD is only attached to their closed licenses.
But the bell can’t be unwrung. They’ve shown a willingness to expose licensees and destroy the sale of existing products.
Except "authorized version" there means "authorized version of the OGL". The SRD would be the Open Game Content that is being licensed. They're trying to say that OGL 1.0 is no longer authorized and therefore nothing can be published under it.
>Wizards can't just alter the deal like Darth Vader.
That's what they're trying to do. That's why their OGL 1.1 includes:
>an update to the previously available OGL 1.0(a), which is no longer an authorized license agreement.
They wouldn't need it if they only wanted OGL 1.1 to apply to D&D6. They'd only need to publish new material and new versions of the SRD under 1.1 and people would have to choose whether or not to use the newer material given the new terms, or stick with the last 1.0 version of the SRD. Which is not what Hasbro and WotC want. They want everyone using the new license, or else they'll quickly end up with a situation where WotC is publishing under 1.1, and everyone ignores their newer material and forks off the last version published under 1.0.
Given the statements of the author and statements/behaviour of WotC over more than two decades 'authorized' needs to be understood as being simply a version written by WotC (as opposed to some random third party releasing an OGL version) and nothing more. 'Authorized' is not defined in the OGL and that alone makes the term ambiguous. WotC is trying to take advantage of the ambiguity by claiming that it actually means the other normal sense of authorized (as in they condone it). Unfortunately for them, ambiguity does not favour the author due to contra proferentem, which doesn't seem to be talked about much for some reason. The focus all seems to be on the idea that if it doesn't explicitly say it's irrevocable then it isn't irrevocable. That's also ambiguity given the use of 'perpetual' in the text, which again wouldn't favour the author. They seem to be trying to bully or pressure publishers into just signing 1.1 because they know that anyone who doesn't sign it isn't bound by its terms, as a contract doesn't just come into effect whatever they might wish.
it will be interesting to see if this all goes through and holds up. i was under the impression OGL is an agreement that opened up games to have content made for it of other's own accord, and they could publish that content no problem.
That’s correct but there are stipulations as to what constitutes open game content. The publisher usually releases an SRD with available content and specifies restrictions. Some publishers have opened entire books. WotC released three SRDs I believe: 3.5e, d20 modern, and 5.1.
then retroclones are safe!
Debatable. The retro-clones use terminology present in the SRDs even if they’ve excised the mechanical content for the most part. However there are clones that released core products free of the OGL that used those exact terms and have remained unchallenged for a decade plus. I think the OSR retroclone market is too small fry to be a concern but I’d like to see this illegal deauthorization removed anyway so that anything that was released under the OGL remains immune to any future attacks.
Star Wars never used the OGL moron
OpenD6 did
Knights of the Old Republic uses a modified version of WotC's Star Wars Roleplaying game, which in itself is a modified version of D&D 3rd edition.
Next time you call someone a moron for not knowing something make sure they're actually wrong so you don't look stupid in addition to looking like an butthole.
Nta
I had to look this up today. It was one of those rare cases where the game was licensed with the d20 badge and used the srd but had no open game content so no OGL. There was a d20 Farscape game that used uncited rules from d20 Star Wars game that was licensed under OGL but didn't designate that the Star Wars rules ports were protected content and didn't have the d20 badge. Meanwhile Spycraft lifted a bunch of stuff from Star Wars also, like complete feats and rules concepts with the creative language, also uncited and only under OGL, no d20 badge.
Both of those games were from Alderac Entertainment Group and I think they had a bargain with WotC because some of the stuff they developed went into the d20 Modern SRD, uncredited as far as I recall, but also a lot of their material, mostly for firearms, never showed up in any d20 or OGL game again. It's almost as if WotC was using 3pp to playtest and harvest rules modules before inserting them into their own properties.... mysterious
It didn't use the OGL moron, it didn't need to
Get fricked. Chris wieners is the CEO of Hasbro and he is coming for you pussies. Your VTTs. Gone. Your games? Gone. Half you dumb fricks were either directly or indirectly sucking off WotC's tit, now you get to starve in the street like an abandoned baby. OGL 1.1. We're gonna be the Apple of tabletop, frickos. Picture is of your new god.
Is this one of those pictures where his face gets smaller every time it's posted? I kinda hope not and he just has a silly little face.
Holy shit. It isn't. I just checked. This is the picture directly off their corporate website. The CEO of Hasbro straight up looks like a photoshop.
How do you see this dude coming out of your pussy and not strangle it to death with the placenta? Jesus Christ. His face is at a different angle than his head.
>OGL wasn’t intended to fund major
competitors and it wasn’t intended to allow people to make D&D apps, videos, or anything other than printed (or
printable) materials for use while gaming.
>This license that was created with the express intent of creating other games wasn't intended to fund competitors, we swear!
It was pretty weak of WotC to try and bring up intention with IP law.
The intention of the license is meaningless dribble. What matters is the wording. Otherwise one could write slightly vague licenses to trap suckers and then turn it around saying 'Oh it wasn't intended that way!', ending up with you demanding 25% of their revenue.
But beyond that, WotC is right. D&D is their IP, their property. If they don't want a bunch of freeloaders who never paid them a cent for use of their IP to quit it, get off their couch, and start producing their own damn IP then I support that. Granted I won't be playing D&D because the game sucks, but I still want to see an end to third party publishing and a new age of these publishers producing their own stuff.
Also their intention is clear as day on the old FAQ, so making intention legally binding is just going to bite them in the ass when their old intention was explicitly for it to be permanent and irrevocable. Intention is absolutely not what they want applied here, because they've done a 180 on their intentions. Their best bet is abusing legalese to the max and twisting an interpretation of what's written down in the license itself with no outside references at all.
Intentions don't matter in US contracts.
Yes it does, not if it directly contradicts the wording but intention does matter
Yes, they do, especially when that intent is backed up by action or the lack thereof. When a judge looks at this, one of the first questions he'll ask is "if the original license you're trying to abrogate wasn't being used how you intended it to be used then why the frick did you wait for twenty years to do anything about it".
OP is a homosexual, but the eternal contrarians on this board literally flipping and becoming pro Hasbro (or apathetic "lol well d20 systems are bad) homosexuals the moment the new OGL came out has been utterly dispiriting.
I knew this board had been dead for years, but this really reveals the truth of it. There are very few posters left, most individuals (if they can be called that even) are closer to automations, things that post not out of interest or a desire for discussion but out of a soulless need to appear superior because their brains are so dopamine starved IRL that it's their only recourse.
Isn't it not possible to change the license of something already released? Like D&D3 and all these derivative games are already running under OGL1.0
Wizards can't just alter the deal like Darth Vader. 1.1 will only apply to D&D6. And if they don't want to allow people to sling 3rd party content all willy nilly anymore (y'know, like all the other big publishers) that's up to them.
Created a halfling-focused setting book that doesn't look like Londonistan? Is it slowly becoming more popular than the abominations we are creating?
I'm afraid you didn't include orcs in the shire and that's racist. You can no longer sell your product goym
>mention 'transpeople' in my setting
>get licence revoked because this year's Correct Term is 'people of transness'
Did Hasbro/WotC outisraelite Games Workshop?
More like a case of incompetently greedy vs greedily incompetent.
GW just has a much, much stronger original IP funnily enough and their business structure is more conductive to milking their paypiggies.
>/tg/ - Corporate drama
>you can't talk about corporate drama that directly affects tabletop gaming in /tg/
Realistically, how does that affect my homebrew games with my friends?
Could be an issue for certain platforms such as Roll20, Foundry et al.
If you don't play online, nothing will happen to you.
If you stick to whatever system you're playing right now and never come looking for inspiration on your homebrew material elsewhere (as in 'I want a cool monster for this week's dungeon, I wonder what kind of stuff Kobold Press put in their latest Tome of Beasts so I could steal it and reflavour it for my game') - then it doesn't.
Otherwise - not much, but there's gonna be a bit of drought of decent content.
Anons, I have a plan. I will rewrite OneD&D in its entirety and release it as a parody protected under fair use with all the correct stats. Rogue will be like, Creepy Stalker. Barbarian will be Grunter. Etc. Licensed under the old OGL.
There is precident that I can actually do this. 150+ pages doesn't scare me.
Kobold Press already does that
https://koboldpress.com/raising-our-flag/
Will they keep it updated for 6E? I'm talking 6E. WotC cannot touch a parody with statblocks. Rewritten horribly (on purpose) and copyright it myself as my own work. Rules cannot be copyrighted.
Call it the Green Flag, a fork of Black Flag but with everything protected under fair use. I'm not afraid of court.
If you want full parody protection, call it Dumbgeons & Dragons. Or some kind of 'similar to, but legally distinct from' name.
Nice. Maybe as a fandom wiki? Rewrite all the content in our own parody words.
That's already taken by a real podcast. Other name ideas? Also, how the frick do you get a Fandom theme to stay after selecting it? For right now we'll focus on translating the playtest material into satire.
how about Dumbgeons&Dragins 666
Dungeons & Dragons: Parody edition -
Protected by Section 107 of the Copyright Act™
>Do not take my advice. I don't want to be responsible if you get sued.
Hit em with the old "Dumb Goons and Dragons".
>Dumb Goons and Dragoons
Come on, you were one step away from a legitimately great answer
I just thought up an excellent name, but I don't work for free, so good luck on your own.
Can you just delete this cringy shit? When real adults are solving the issues it's so cringe watching Gankerners pretend to participate. You're all disabled and add nothing
>/tg/ - 5E is bad WOTC sucks
*the tide flips and the majority of people elsewhere are saying WOTC bad*
>/tg/ - UHH ACHTUALLY WOTC IS DOING NOTHING WRONG LOL NOTHING OF VALUE IS LOST JUST MAKE YOUR OWN SYSTEM BRO
You people are some of the most despicable, chimp like creature imaginable. Is contrarianness the true sign of the NPC? I think so.
look BRO it's simple.
HYTNPDD
hasbro seems to think you should try to get your shekels elsewhere, the enemy of my enemy is my friend for now
>5E is bad
yes
>WOTC sucks
yes
>WOTC IS DOING NOTHING WRONG
yes, legally speaking
>NOTHING OF VALUE IS LOST
yes
>JUST MAKE YOUR OWN SYSTEM BRO
yes
The 3PPs really need to put up or shut up and quickly. The null hypothesis is that, unless this is litigated, WOTC wins because they can snipe 3PPs at their leisure.
I'm just tired of "Reddit/Twitter, do your thing #OpenDnD" - they need to *do* something, or they'll get their shit pushed in.
Keep in mind that WotC has literally not done anything yet. What are they going to do, sue based off the leak? Even so, Kobold Press has already announced the creation of a competing SRD. Third parties are responding pretty fricking aggressively.
If I were WOTC's legal strategist, I would do exactly what they're doing now: keeping mum and waiting for it to blow over.
Even if people's goldfish brains can keep it fresh for two weeks, they won't be as angry in 6 months. Then, once the chance of a big outrage-based crowdfunding campaign blows over - they can bring the legal hammer down.
>Even if people's goldfish brains can keep it fresh for two weeks, they won't be as angry in 6 months. Then, once the chance of a big outrage-based crowdfunding campaign blows over - they can bring the legal hammer down.
Nah. For one thing, by the leak they clearly went into this expecting blowback from the community. That did not deter them. Given the leak text includes:
>A. Delayed Collection: Though this agreement is effective January 13, 2023, no royalties will be due on any income earned before January 1, 2024 – no matter how much that income is. We want to give Our community a lot of lead time to plan for this. For clarity, all other requirements of this agreement are in effect from the time You enter into the agreement.
Their plan is - or at least was - to make the official announcement this Friday(Friday's being the typical "announce bad news day") and not start demanding payment for a year to show how "nice" they are(and incidentally give them a chance to resolve the inevitable lawsuits one way or another).
If they delay announcement for months in hopes the outrage blows over, they either shorten their "good will" buffer time, or push back the start of getting actual money from this. And people can get almost as outraged if they think WotC has backed down but then doesn't. Meanwhile the smart people will assume that WotC is just biding their time, and use that time to make their own preparations. It's probably not good for Hasbro stock if announcement of the new license is followed same day with announcement of a class action lawsuit for attempting to eliminate a license that WotC spent 15+ years assuring people would remain available even if WotC wanted changes to it. While the cows they really wanted to milk announced they're prepared to sever dependence on WotC.
So my guess is they'll forge ahead and make the official announcement this Friday, if they aren't rethinking things entirely.
For what reason does a game that isn't compatible with DnD use the OGL?
Paizo hasn't made an official comment since the 1.1 leaks but according to a dev post on the forums from last year it was basically because its terms worked just fine for them, it was easier for third-party content creators to deal with than having both the OGL and a new, Paizo-created license floating around, and it was cheaper to just make their game open source under the OGL than hire the legal team necessary to write up their own terms. It seems like they didn't really need the OGL, it was just the gold standard and a safe, time-tested open source license so they used it.
Well that's rather unfortunate for them now.
What they get for treating a corprate agreement as an """""open source""""" license
Unless Wizards own the numbers 1-20 they haven't got a leg to stand on. Additionally, American court rulings (no matter how moronic) don't mean shit in any other country. Just set up a limited holding company based overseas.
Holy shit. MoistCr1tiKal is reporting on this. The cat is out the fricking bag.
that hippy who swears a lot?
Yes, the hippy that swears a lot, with 12M youtube subscribers. It's considerably more reach than Tenkar and that lawyer dude who looks like malnourished Geralt.
Kobold press and Colville both indicating the will start new projects.
Just as predicted, WotC getting people out of the shitty d20 system and experimenting with something new is going to be great for the TTRPG environment.
Death to every OGL!
Finally it's time.
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US Wendys.
>that "racism/sexism/ismism" clause
those who will be deciding who and how to apply this to are the same mongoloids who think orcs are black people.
Also, don't look to "protect trans kids" Mercer & Crew to make a stand. CR will absolutely cuck out, having made a "special deal"
>not that any of this matters as the entire thing is unenforceable trash
Ryan Dancey is doing a live chat tomorrow through the Roll for Combat youtube channel. I don't know what it's supposed to yield but between that and the PhD dissertation that was written on the OGL's massive impact on ttrpgs and it's in-built irrevocability this is getting hot. WotC could end up eating a big bowl of their own shit on this. It's exciting!
American law isn't Sharia. What the legal scholars have to say isn't actually very important.
That is correct but to get a PhD in any field you have to prove to a panel of authorities that your thesis is unimpeachable. I'm not claiming this is some kind of magic bullet, that would be foolish. But evidence and support is continuing to mount and any chance to give WotC a black eye is a good thing.
Yes, but it doesn't matter. It's ultimately toilet paper compared to how a fallible, bored, non-expert boomer perched on his courtroom rostrum feels at that particular moment. Even at the Federal level, precedence is an illusion and individual judges have considerable latitude in what they can do, and appellate judges are often going to favor their original judge's decision.
Ok, if you've decided the best course of action is to roll over I'm not going to try and change your mind.
I'm not saying that rolling over is the best course of action. I'm saying that all this legal theory is bullshit until the rubber hits the road and they make their case in front of a judge. If people do nothing, WOTC wins. If people jaw-jaw on podcasts and complain on Reddit and Twitter, WOTC wins. Unless it is litigated, and it ends up against WOTC, WOTC gets to do whatever they want.
I don't really see what the problem is. This will get all the normies to frick off from the hobby. No more Critical Role, no more Polygon articles, no more combat wheelchairs and 'serious discussion' on how the game has to reflect modern 'political realities'.
I hope they implement this in full, the sooner D&D becomes a niche hobby again the better.
All the social parasites can find something else to latch onto, like the prostitutes they are.
This, and frick concerns about what will happen to "the industry". People should stop expecting to get rich by writing a pen and paper dice game when we're four decades into the age of home video games.
This hesitation after the leak is interesting compared to how quickly they made an announcement defending themselves after the rumors first started. Think they'll walk it back? It seems like a lot of the damage is already done.
I hope they don't
I want them to kill the hobby
Don't wait for others to do all the work, go out there and ruin some games yourself.
That looks to me more like their social media manager trying to stall until Friday when the official announcement was slated. The plan was likely announce the new version late Friday, while the social media manager deflects questions towards the announcement and makes canned responses. The weekend gives them a couple days of people being too busy with other things to see the news, a couple days of news cycle to bury the news from the public, and a couple days where the stock market is closed to minimize the impact.
Instead, their new OGL has leaked, and the social media manager is getting absolutely pounded by demands for answers, that they can't even used their prepared responses for. So they're really hoping that people will quite down for a few days until they can implement the planned playbook, instead of blowing up their notifications with demands for comments or answers.
They are coming up with the nicest way to explain that it's definitely happening and how it will be better for everybody
Or you could just use GNU FDL.
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.en.html