Vapourware WOTC restricting content creation in new OGL - Paizo launches competing OGL - lol cancelled

[rusty_shackleford]

For years I thought that OGL cannot ever be revoked

It can't be, they're spreading FUD.
Chaosium does the same exact thing and has a similar restrictive license they pretend is similar to the OGL(it's not.)
see:

NOT recommended:

• Chaosium's BRP ""OGL"" SRD. They modified the OGL and heavily restrict what you're allowed to publish which includes restricting anything that may compete with an exiting chaosium product. Calling it OGL is a flat out farce, Chaosium is full of douchenozzles. Use Mongoose's Legend or OpenQuest instead. It is in essence, a reaction to games like Delta Green which wouldn't be possible under this license despite using public domain material.
  • https://www.chaosium.com/brp-system-reference-document/
  • CAN’T I MAKE A GAME DERIVED FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN PARTS OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS?
    
    You are certainly entitled to create your own game using creatures, stories, characters, or locations derived from the public domain stories of the Cthulhu Mythos – you just can’t use Chaosium’s BRP system to do that. Chaosium already has a game that does just that (Call of Cthulhu), the BRP-OGL does not allow you to publish your own variant of Call of Cthulhu.
  • HOW ABOUT LE MORTE D’ARTHUR – THAT STORY IS SIX HUNDRED YEARS OLD!
    
    You are certainly entitled to create your own game using creatures, stories, characters, or locations derived from the Le Morte d’Arthur – you just can’t use Chaosium’s BRP system to do that. Chaosium already has a game that does just that (King Arthur Pendragon), the BRP-OGL does not allow you to publish your own variant of King Arthur Pendragon.
  • And not only does it restrict games that are similar, it restricts mechanics that are similar. Ridiculous.

this is all rather similar to software licensing really, something I've spent most of my adult life dealing with

 

[0wca]

Lol was just going to start this topic but I see you beat me to it.

THIS is exactly why I made my own system that's 100% independent of the OGL. I knew that it was only a matter of time before the woke leads at WotC shoot themselves in the foot completely and bring down the whole D&D community with them.

The whole point of this update is consolidation of power and locking everything behind a paywall. In their minds, once that's done, they'll be able to enjoy the little woke D&D utopia they've always dreamed of. The reality however is going to manifest itself a little differently (IMO).

They're going to alienate the vast majority of the existing playerbase and its 3rd party creators which will, in turn, create a sort of RPG renaissance as people will scatter to search for alternatives. This is good news for us indie developers.

What will remain of the actual D&D hobby will be a gatekept, virtual nu-D&D which will be populated by all manners of degeneracy until it is eventually shot down by Hasbro completely, which we'll probably see in the coming years.

And for those of you who are keeping hope up for that little tidbit that's at the end of the document...

Wizards of the Coast is clearly expecting these OGL changes to be met with some resistance. The document does note that if the company oversteps, they are aware that they "will receive community pushback and bad PR, and We're more than open to being convinced that We made a wrong decision."

...let me remind you about the woke employees that WotC is infested with and how afraid of them they are. If they pull back on this, this will send a message to their woke staff that they're only partially committed to 'the cause', because we all know, that this is mostly about keeping people that WotC doesn't like from playing their games. Unless WotC staff grow a pair from their castrated crotches, don't get your hopes up.

 

[mondblut]

in recent years WoTC didn't do shit with the brand besides pump out books

Eh? What books?

Throwing random crap equivalent of a bunch of issues of Dragon magazine into hardcover once a year does not pumping out books make.

 

[Mortmal]

It's extremely hard to get good DMs , some get paid , the others stay in their closed groups and become extremely picky for good reasons

I don't take randos into my groups any longer and will only GM for my friends. The reason why is that every single person I've recruited that was a stranger online has flaked on my games. I'm tired of them not respecting my or other people's time. They have no concept of being responsible and for maintaining their connection with the group.

Exactly the same here.

 

[The_Mask]

Well, this is about as far afield from the field of law I practice as possible, but this reads as absolutely unenforcable poppycock, and I don’t believe for one second that the corporate lawyers WotC don’t know it.

I see four possible explanations:

1: WotC was just trying to sneak this out under the table as NBD to see if there would be a public/client outcry, and possibly even indirectly leaked it themselves to test the waters. I find this one the most plausible since it means the fault and incompetence lie with the high-level execs and PR department, not the legal counsel.

2: WotC is fully aware that the new OGL is unenforcable, but are betting that they can intimidate people into playing ball by slapping them with a C&D and then forcing them to choose between complying or lawyering up and facing a protracted and costly legal battle. This is a very common practice with C&D slap-happy companies, but the targeting of a competitor as large as Paizo makes me think this is unlikely to be the case here. Paizo definitely has the resources to call WotC’s bluff here, and even escalate and appeal it if given a biased judge and necessary.

3:WotC has bad legal counsel. This is fairly uncommon for a company so large, but, from what I’ve gleaned from cocktail conversations with people who work in this field, not as uncommon as you might think. And when I say “bad” I don’t mean “incompetent” I just mean “unethical”. In this scenario I can see some dipshit exec at WotC going to legal and saying, “Hey we want to do this thing and correct this huge mistake we made 20 years ago. Can we do that?”
And legal then saying “Hmm. This is an extremely complex issue. My gut says yes, but to be certain we can do this I need an extra $5 million to bring in outside counsel that specializes in this sort of thing.” Outside counsel then gets brought in knowing full-well it’s a crock of shit, and that if it falls apart in a court challenge they get to pad their corporate resume with “represented Wizards of the Coast (Hasbro Fortune 500 subsidiary) in multi-million lawsuit”, and the initial internal legal schmuck gets an easy-in at an independent high-profile firm.


4: Some bizarre Frankenstein monster of the first three.

Why do you think Kickstarter is specifically named as getting a bigger cut than everyone else?

They want to restrict content based on political views.

 

[Tyranicon]

in recent years WoTC didn't do shit with the brand besides pump out books

Eh? What books?

Throwing random crap equivalent of a bunch of issues of Dragon magazine into hardcover once a year does not pumping out books make.

Shitty books are still books. Imagine, you're sitting on a household name brand, and all you do is crap out adventure modules that nobody likes.

Do they really make that much money off those? I really doubt it but lack the hard numbers.

Although to be generous to WoTC, at least they did ok Baldur's Gate 3, which despite what our opinions are, is selling like hotcakes.

 

[Rahdulan]

I wonder how hard Owlcat is laughing right now having decided against developing a Starfinder game over Rogue Trader.

 

[Delterius]

Wizards of the Coast is clearly expecting these OGL changes to be met with some resistance. The document does note that if the company oversteps, they are aware that they "will receive community pushback and bad PR, and We're more than open to being convinced that We made a wrong decision."

so they are gonna mimic the games workshop path step by step by first being anal about licenses and then giving up and opening the floodgates

 

[Gregz]

For years I thought that OGL cannot ever be revoked

It can't be, they're spreading FUD.
Chaosium does the same exact thing and has a similar restrictive license they pretend is similar to the OGL(it's not.)
see:

NOT recommended:

• Chaosium's BRP ""OGL"" SRD. They modified the OGL and heavily restrict what you're allowed to publish which includes restricting anything that may compete with an exiting chaosium product. Calling it OGL is a flat out farce, Chaosium is full of douchenozzles. Use Mongoose's Legend or OpenQuest instead. It is in essence, a reaction to games like Delta Green which wouldn't be possible under this license despite using public domain material.
  • https://www.chaosium.com/brp-system-reference-document/
  • CAN’T I MAKE A GAME DERIVED FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN PARTS OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS?
    
    You are certainly entitled to create your own game using creatures, stories, characters, or locations derived from the public domain stories of the Cthulhu Mythos – you just can’t use Chaosium’s BRP system to do that. Chaosium already has a game that does just that (Call of Cthulhu), the BRP-OGL does not allow you to publish your own variant of Call of Cthulhu.
  • HOW ABOUT LE MORTE D’ARTHUR – THAT STORY IS SIX HUNDRED YEARS OLD!
    
    You are certainly entitled to create your own game using creatures, stories, characters, or locations derived from the Le Morte d’Arthur – you just can’t use Chaosium’s BRP system to do that. Chaosium already has a game that does just that (King Arthur Pendragon), the BRP-OGL does not allow you to publish your own variant of King Arthur Pendragon.
  • And not only does it restrict games that are similar, it restricts mechanics that are similar. Ridiculous.

this is all rather similar to software licensing really, something I've spent most of my adult life dealing with

It's not difficult or expensive to spam scary C&D notices though right? How should roll20, or Pierre Begue, counter a C&D from Hasbro's legal department?

<3sRichardSimmons

 

[deuxhero]

There was an official FAQ when OGL was new with WotC stating explicitly that OGL can't be revoked like this. The only question is enforcement and who is going to throw stones at Goliath first.

https://web.archive.org/web/20040307094152/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/oglfaq/20040123f

Q: Can't Wizards of the Coast change the License in a way that I wouldn't like?
A: Yes, it could. However, the License already defines what will happen to content that has been previously distributed using an earlier version, in Section 9. As a result, even if Wizards made a change you disagreed with, you could continue to use an earlier, acceptable version at your option. In other words, there's no reason for Wizards to ever make a change that the community of people using the Open Gaming License would object to, because the community would just ignore the change anyway.

OGL architect, then VP of WotC, and now head of Open Gaming Foundation Ryan Dancey also says such revocation is impossible and was explicitly stated as such multiple times under WotC.

https://archive.ph/wip/Y33am

 

[rusty_shackleford]

How should roll20, or Pierre Begue, counter a C&D from Hasbro's legal department?

Same thing you do anytime there's a possible lawsuit: contact a lawyer. In this case, I'd guess it would be very easy to find one willing to represent you because it's such a blatant contract violation.
I suspect this is just a FUD campaign with no real teeth to try to scare people away from using existing OGL'd content to lock them into their new content. I have trouble believing Hasbro has lawyers who looked at this and thought it would be OK.

—
Pierre Begue was granted a perpetual license to the content he uses, he had no reason to ever believe otherwise or that there would be an attempt to revoke the license — the license has not one, but two sections indicating the license was perpetual and this would never happen(section 4 & section 9)
The only way they could revoke the license is if everyone who was granted a nonexclusive license was in agreement, something that simply isn't possible for things like OGL licensed content. They(Hasbro) can re-release the content under a new license — which would coexist with the OGL licensed content — but they absolutely cannot take back what they have given.

 

[Gregz]

How should roll20, or Pierre Begue, counter a C&D from Hasbro's legal department?

Same thing you do anytime there's a possible lawsuit: contact a lawyer. In this case, I'd guess it would be very easy to find one willing to represent you because it's such a blatant contract violation.

That costs money, time, and trouble.

Isn't boilerplate legal spam an effective strategy if you're targeting lowly hobbyists? The RIAA forced everyone into using a VPN with this tactic. How is this situation different?

Takedown notices to websites hosting OGL might very well destroy OGL gaming. Easily accessible reference documents, character sheets, and chargen tools are mighty helpful to pnp groups.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

How should roll20, or Pierre Begue, counter a C&D from Hasbro's legal department?

Same thing you do anytime there's a possible lawsuit: contact a lawyer. In this case, I'd guess it would be very easy to find one willing to represent you because it's such a blatant contract violation.

That costs money, time, and trouble.

Isn't boilerplate legal spam an effective strategy if you're targeting lowly hobbyists? The RIAA forced everyone into using a VPN with this tactic. How is this situation different?

Takedown notices to websites hosting OGL might very well destroy OGL gaming. Easily accessible reference documents, character sheets, and chargen tools are mighty helpful to pnp groups.

Regardless of how you feel about the laws involved, RIAA actually has the law on their side, it's not really comparable.

A comparable scenario would be RIAA targeting youtube-dl, which ended up doing nothing but making youtube-dl very popular.

 

[Average Manatee]

It really depends on what they are trying to do against you. There's like 10 major changes and maybe 2 of those are enforcable in court, 2 of those are at least arguable so they can force you to piss away $50k on a lawyer to defend yourself, and another 6 of those are blatantly unenforcable and a lawyer will tell you to either ignore them or write them a sternly worded letter for a nominal fee (well at least for a lawyer).

 

[TumblingTorin]

These changes to the OGL is such a bad move on Wotc part. 3rd party publishers are going to be pushed away from making content for D&Done. Wotc already barely publish stuff for 5e, and they are trying to make D&D into a lifestyle brand. All the money and resources will go to making movies, merch, and some sort of virtual tabletop and barely go into the books, which I doubt will be any good, thanks to the fact that they have like 3 sensitivity managers for each writer now.

The fact that this new OGL has a section in it saying Wotc take your stuff and use it for themselves without paying you is such BS. People are freaking out that they will lose ownership of the stuff they publish. D&Done needs content to survive. If Wotc still keeps the slow book release and TPP don't make content for them, what will they have?

Youtubers and publishers will start talking more about alternative rpgs. Common folk think tabletop is just D&D. When they find out about the other rpgs around, that will shrink D&D market share. D&D dominated thanks to the fact that the original OGL encourged people to make content for them.

It will be funny if Critical Role start using a different system. I mean they originally used Pathfinder before, why not go back or hell, why not Savage World Pathfinder? Most people who watch them don't care about the system and only watch them for the actors.

 

[JamesDixon]

I'm getting a kick out of all the YouTubers freaking out over this while remaining ignorant of the law. They are under the impression that Wizards can actually copyright rules, stats, etc... I laugh every time I see a Zoomer or Millennial post their retarded takes on the matter.

The ones that really make me laugh and cringe at the same time are so-called lawyers.

 

[Theodora]

These changes to the OGL is such a bad move on Wotc part. 3rd party publishers are going to be pushed away from making content for D&Done. Wotc already barely publish stuff for 5e, and they are trying to make D&D into a lifestyle brand. All the money and resources will go to making movies, merch, and some sort of virtual tabletop and barely go into the books, which I doubt will be any good, thanks to the fact that they have like 3 sensitivity managers for each writer now.

At the very least, if they try to apply these new terms retroactively (regardless of how much or little water it actually carries legally), they'll all but guarantee that no serious project will want to deal with them or their mercurial terms.

 

[JamesDixon]

 

[lycanwarrior]

These changes to the OGL is such a bad move on Wotc part. 3rd party publishers are going to be pushed away from making content for D&Done. Wotc already barely publish stuff for 5e, and they are trying to make D&D into a lifestyle brand. All the money and resources will go to making movies, merch, and some sort of virtual tabletop and barely go into the books, which I doubt will be any good, thanks to the fact that they have like 3 sensitivity managers for each writer now.

At the very least, if they try to apply these new terms retroactively (regardless of how much or little water it actually carries legally), they'll all but guarantee that no serious project will want to deal with them or their mercurial terms.

That's probably the intent. Shutdown the competitors and grab the money for themselves.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

It's not difficult or expensive to spam scary C&D notices though right? How should roll20, or Pierre Begue, counter a C&D from Hasbro's legal department?

<3sRichardSimmons

Eh, well again: extremely not my area of expertise, but as far as I understand:

It is not at all difficult or all that expensive (couple thou) to spam C&D's; think of them as broadsides in a cold war of attrition. If I were placed in the defendant's position I would basically seek out pro-bono counsel, and if I couldn't find it I would probably kowtow (unless I secretly had a bunch of cash squirreled away). Sucks, but dem's the breaks.

Begue (and possibly Owlcat?!) are interesting cases though because they are internationals. There is a strong precedent of international courts really disliking it when nat corps file frivolous lawsuits in their local jurisdictions.

But also re: all the armchair lawyering (including my own) that's going on: One of the things that most people don't realize though is that the majority of lawyers out there are highly specialized, and there are plenty of them who spend functionally no time at all in court. I know fuck-all about criminal law, for example, because the only time I have spent studying it was literally my first year of law-school (when it was mandated as a course of study) and that was almost 20 years ago..

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Brb dudes, gonna go trademark my 100% oc icosahedron mechanics and the setting of the No Longer Remembered Regions.

 

[Norfleet]

Brb dudes, gonna go trademark my 100% oc icosahedron mechanics and the setting of the No Longer Remembered Regions.

The setting is the only thing even in question, as the mechanics can't really be copyrighted or trademarked. And FR is the a REALLY generic and totally unmemorable setting, almost by design.

 

[Jaedar]

Honestly, not surprised. Critical role seem to be creating themselves a little media empire (they even have a cartoon, that shit is expensive to make compared to twitch streams. They must be making a lot of money), of course some exec from WOTC is gonna look at that, see it only exists because of their product and get really upset they're seeing 0 gains from it (free advertising doesn't count).

And then they're going to throw a hissy fit trying to capture some of that sweet sweet revenue. The shareholders demand it.

 

[Average Manatee]

It is not at all difficult or all that expensive (couple thou) to spam C&D's; think of them as broadsides in a cold war of attrition. If I were placed in the defendant's position I would basically seek out pro-bono counsel, and if I couldn't find it I would probably kowtow (unless I secretly had a bunch of cash squirreled away). Sucks, but dem's the breaks.

Begue (and possibly Owlcat?!) are interesting cases though because they are internationals. There is a strong precedent of international courts really disliking it when nat corps file frivolous lawsuits in their local jurisdictions.

I think the main point of C&Ds are that they cost nothing and don't have to go through the courts at all. It's basically just putting the other party on notice so that if you do end up suing them they can't claim that they didn't know that they were breaking your agreement and instead continued to do so after you told them to stop, which could make them liable for punitive damages or some similar extra penalty.

 

[JamesDixon]

It is not at all difficult or all that expensive (couple thou) to spam C&D's; think of them as broadsides in a cold war of attrition. If I were placed in the defendant's position I would basically seek out pro-bono counsel, and if I couldn't find it I would probably kowtow (unless I secretly had a bunch of cash squirreled away). Sucks, but dem's the breaks.

Begue (and possibly Owlcat?!) are interesting cases though because they are internationals. There is a strong precedent of international courts really disliking it when nat corps file frivolous lawsuits in their local jurisdictions.

I think the main point of C&Ds are that they cost nothing and don't have to go through the courts at all. It's basically just putting the other party on notice so that if you do end up suing them they can't claim that they didn't know that they were breaking your agreement and instead continued to do so after you told them to stop, which could make them liable for punitive damages or some similar extra penalty.

Only if the C&D is legally valid can you get the punitive damages.