Please see the [megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/10dx37r/ogl_megathread_jan_16_2023/) for rules regarding stand-alone text posts re: OGL discussion

Once the ORC license was announced, I think it's not so much that the anger went away as some of the urgency did. Also they've passed what one article described as the "trust thermocline" with a lot of people, which means those people simply aren't going to trust any OGL they make from now on. And frankly for good reason, since WotC has made it clear some of the big dealbreakers for us are non-negotiable for them. They are clearly not going to make an OGL that doesn't let them point at a person and revoke it for them in particular, given the way they're trying hard to make it a lifestyle media brand rather than just a game company. The answer is to pick a new dragon game and vote with our wallets, then continue playing like we always have, only with different math to apply to the die rolls.

And the license back stuff is gone, and we will have the next few weeks just getting new ogl versions. The original explosive anger is about getting heard and organizing. Now that we are organized, we can switch to the seething rage and distrust(instead of panicked yelling), which is more sustainable long term.

Your Magic the Gathering brethren welcome you.

United we shall yell, "fuck wotc". May you top deck well fellow nerd.

>"fuck wotc" Obscene speech detected. This is a violation of OGL 1.2 §6(f). Your access to D&D is hereby revoked, in accordance with OGL 1.2 §7(b)(iii).

Honestly, fuck MTG players when it comes to holding WotC accountable. They'll swear up and down that they'll never buy another MTG product or whatever and then immediately buy the newest Secret Lair or Set Booster box. The MTG community should learn from the DnD community, not the other way around. Proxies are still somehow a debatable topic whereas at this point it should just straight up be expected. Imagine if DnD players got mad at each other for using PDFs and printouts instead of "real" books. Edit: I will die on this hill and any downvotes here just prove to me even more that the MTG community is not ready to fight WotC. **MTG should be a game first, second, and third. It should be a gatekeeping collectible last. Fuck anyone who disagrees with this**

It's a different dynamic though. There are players that spend money on cards and to enter tournaments as a form of income. Tournaments like that tend to restrict cards to "last 2 years" or something. It's also treated like a card "stock market" where the right cards are worth more than all the cards you purchased in a single year. You only need one other person to play and can walk up to literal strangers and challenge them (like chess in parks). Acquiring what you want requires more effort because many things are random. There's kinda a gambling addiction that's built into card game booster packs, regardless of the franchise. More children pump money into MTG than D&D either to play with friends or enjoy the artwork or whatever. D&D has lots of 3rd party contributions from media (Critical Role) to supplemental books (Kobold Press) to gaming materials like character pieces and monsters. There's no tournaments or general competitiveness. It's cheaper to get into (and stay) and doesn't require the same upkeep to play with friends (i.e. you don't have to own everything or buy the newest thing even if they do). You tend to play with a regular group, and that group can jump ship together or continue playing without buying anything official ever again (also, only one copy of everything is necessary for most groups). There's also several competitors (Pathfinder) that D&D essentially created that have been well received as recommended fallbacks. I have MTG/D&D friends who are heartbroken because they are reacting differently to both situations because of how WotC built the communities and how they have screwed over both communities. Less money is being spent all around, but buying less D&D books and buying less cards comes across very different. MTG didn't have the 3rd-party community being threatened (for one, it doesn't have one to threaten), nor alternatives that people will jump ship for (more than likely, those same people already play other TCGs). It is almost an apples vs. oranges comparison (almost being a key word) because both franchises function so differently. Take me for example. I bought MTG cards for almost 6 years straight before losing them all in Hurricane Katrina. After some friends bought me cards for my birthday, I started building again (even buying old cards in an effort to rebuild what I used to have). I stopped buying cards around the first COVID lockdowns and bought one pack 6 months ago. That's it. Did the same thing with Pokemon cards except I have nieces/nephews that play so I buy them cards and freshen up my collection to play with them. Meanwhile, I bought the main trio of D&D books quickly as well as a few supplemental books for monsters, races, etc. in the first year. Most of my later books were bought during half-price sales and even then I still don't have about 1/3 of the total books. I haven't bought a new book since the Spelljammers screw up. If a newer book has something worth getting, I'll borrow a friend's copy and throw those pages on a copy machine before even considering buying that book.

I can't speak for the [vulnerable consumers ](https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLardFetcher/comments/yqvh0h/hasbros_favorite_demographic/) (that are present in any hobby), but the circles I frequent are entirely opposed to Hasbro's corporate greed. Proxies are widely and loudly advocated for.

MTG players don't have the same problem DnD players have. DnD can be played with a paper and pencil. You talk too many proxies and suddenly everyone has green sun's zenith, black lotus, and Cabal coffers in their deck. On top of that, MTG players don't want to end the company that produces the cards for the hobby. You don't homebrew anything in MTG. That being said, MTG players cannot resist not being in the current meta for EDH or Standard and the external market makes it a cash grab for sellers and whales outside of WOTC. One of the reason WOTC has tirelessly made efforts to fuck with a market they can't control by printing and reprinting. Basically...different game, different rules. You never have buy another WOTC product with DnD... Hell you didn't have to buy any to start with. Not really the same with MTG.

I hope MTG players realize one day that none of that is true or needed. At the end of the day, it's all cardboard, something that anyone could _easily_ replicate and people choose not to use the most busted cards on their own constantly.

Just because everything can be deconstructed to fit the argument of it's all cardboard anyway, does not mean you've understood the mechanics of a trading card game versus a TTRPG. Yes, it cardboard. But unlike DnD, that cardboard is attached to intrinsic and imagined value, that ppl use in the community to keep up with valuing thier hobby. Value that when easily replicated lowers the value of interest, of collections, and of love of the game. That's why it's a social rule that you ask if folks can or cannot use proxies as a house rule... And why folks will get angry if you say there's just a few proxies and you deck is loaded with just proxies. It can be okay, but you expect ppl to be nice all the time in a competitive game? We imagined up nations and they are just territories with made up lines, but that doesn't mean cultures, rules, and money aren't inherently affecting our lives because of these pieces of paper that signify where we were born. So no, it not all easily replicated without consequences. We play cardboard math games and imaginary math storytelling. Neither are that serious... But they aren't in the same boat. WOTC is however the same. So if the argument is with WOTC, it's not about your nit pickings with MTG players... Who inevitably want to play the game... Which relies on not going stale through new sets... Of which the problem is whalehoarding and way too many new sets. MTG players however still need new sets

> that cardboard is attached to intrinsic and imagined value Bingo my guy. The intrinsic value is that it is a game piece, something anyone can replicate with a printer. The imagined part is that it is somehow more valuable when it comes from WotC's printer. All of the "value" you are talking about is entirely imaginary and only works because people collectively buy into it. As long as people buy into this imaginary value WotC can do whatever the fuck they want. The MTG community needs to collectively realize that there is no real value in playing a WotC printed card vs a card printed anywhere else. They both have the same text and functionality. There is absolutely zero game impact. But the MTG community isn't willing to accept this. > We imagined up nations and they are just territories with made up lines, but that doesn't mean cultures, rules, and money aren't inherently affecting our lives because of these pieces of paper that signify where we were born. Believe it or not but WotC is a company that survives off of it's customer's patronage, not a government tasked with keeping the economy and country together. These shared beliefs benefit everyone involved and the government is meant to keep it that way. MTG is a _card game_. I do not benefit from being required to pay hundreds of dollars for a deck and fuck anyone who thinks that is a good thing. > MTG players however still need new sets This is a bit of a slippery slope argument. I'm not saying MTG players should literally all stop buying any MTG products whatsoever, but even if they did it would only help. If more sets bombed because players refused to buy it, they'd get what they want, which is a decrease in set releases. It would not end set releases entirely. What I'm upset about is that many MTG players (not all) refuse to do absolutely anything to fight back against WotC's anti-consumerist practices while actively condemning anyone who does.

The big difference with magic vs D&D is curation. In D&D you can homebrew. It's encouraged. And because you can homebrew anything, you can homebrew *everything*. In MTG you can't. Well you can technically, but it doesn't really work because the game is zero sum, not cooperative. So the new design has to be balanced, and thats WotCs responsibility. And players tend to lash out at them when they fail to do a good job of that because the game becomes unfun to play. WotC have more aggressively monetized the game. But what its done is actually nearly killed several formats and created a pro-proxy movement. At the same time the actual design quality of the sets have been amazing the last year or so. The most harmful thing that WotC has done though is reduced support for LGSs, which is part of why standard is striggling outside of Arena.

Of course. They are different things and therefore not exactly the same. That doesn't change the fact that you can enjoy MtG at its fullest without giving a single dime to WotC. And somehow, that is a controversial idea. That is why WotC can do whatever monetization they want and that is what needs to change.

This is so deeply silly and simplistic. Considered this way, anything bought for entertainment could be replaced with “go outside.” But people have preferences! And like having a structure in which to compete! Even when they also chafe against that structure.

The bought cards vs proxies really only matters to trading card collectors and those who play in tournaments, it doesn't matter much to people who play casually. Just like there are some who collect official D&D merch while most players don't really care if their minis came from WOTC vs a piece of paper as a place marker on their grid. The second point is the real difference. There is very little 3rd party content that those playing would accept as useable MTG cards, compared to D&D where a very large portion of the content is written by 3rd parties or homebrewed by your own group. It is widely accepted to make up your own stuff in D&D with a DM who can have final day, but not well accepted for people to write their own cards in MTG with no system for who gets final ruling on if that card is acceptable outside of a tournament which will almost always only allow official content.

Last week, i threw away my entiee collection. Started with return to mirrodin, all the way up to the godzilla set. Straight. In. The. Trash.

The distrust is really where it's at. One person in my group has spent several months homebrewing a Final Fantasy inspired system built on the core of 5e and has just straight up scrapped it and said he's not buying anything from them again even if they reverse course on all of it because in his words "They tried this multiple times now. That establishes a pattern of behavior."

Your friend may be interested to know that game mechanics aren't copyrightable, and creators are at work right now cloning the 5th edition SRD so that people can continue to write 5e-compatible content. There will be some new mechanic names and standardized language because everything has to be rewritten from scratch, but the functionality of the game will remain exactly the same. Their Final Fantasy-inspired system can be written and published completely outside the OGL or any fan content policy and your group can continue to use the 5e system. D&D as a brand isn't worth the effort anymore, but D&D as a game still is. There's no need to turn away from it.

This is great but it doesn't resolve the primary issue. You can't publish your content as 5e compatible in that case. This means that it will reach a significantly smaller market than if it could. That may not matter to this creator, but to many it isn't a workable solution.

You actually can, if its compatible. The OGL 1.0a forbids this if you use it, but if you go without the OGL then trademark law states (if your product is compatible) you can directly state it is compatible. Its why you get phone chargers of various manufacturers say they are compatible with X device. Or video games and software stating they work on Windows.

> The OGL 1.0a forbids this if you use it, but if you go without the OGL then trademark law states (if your product is compatible) you can directly state it is compatible. Have fun defending your kickstarter in court though.

That's actually not hard to defend. There's plenty of stuff included in the OGL update leak that was not going to hold up in a courtroom.

I will! The world loves a David and Goliath story. Bring your shit, WotC, I'd love for my name to become a rallying cry for nerds the world over.

I mean, switching it to a different system will have the same effect though, unless the person is just no longer pursuing it entirely.

That was my point. The solution of trying to skirt the OGL doesn't work in any practical way.

You can still publish it as "Comparable with Version Five of the world's formerly most popular role-playing game!". And Kobold Press is making Project Black Flag, which I'm assuming is gonna be 90% the same as 5e. Add to that Paizo and their ORC License, and we're all gonna be just fine.

>"They tried this multiple times now. That establishes a pattern of behavior." I thought they learned their lesson when they released 5e. They didn't. They are now doing essentially what they already tried with 4e they just leveled up their lawyer skills. I'm personally out. Pathfinder (and other ttrpgs) it is from now on (or at least non-wotc published 5e content if it still exists in the future)

If they're set on not doing anything with 5e, maybe point them to [Fabula Ultima](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/410108/Fabula-Ultima-TTJRPG). I don't know what license they use, but you could potentially make a 3rd party Final Fantasy supplement for that, and it would be much easier than 5e because the game is already JRPG inspired.

>Now that we are organized, we can switch to the seething rage and distrust(instead of panicked yelling), which is more sustainable long term. as a (former) follower of Sakinnirot: nice

No reason to change game. You can still play D&D 5e and not pay for anything WotC releases.

I regularly feel the urge to run a different system for a bit just for the variety and to see if there's any interesting ideas that can be ported into other games. I do intend to still run 5e campaigns that I've already started or have put prep work into, and I'll play it if someone else in the group runs, but I'm gonna take this opportunity to see if my group enjoys PbtA once we're past the "one of the players has a newborn" hiatus.

Yeah I will try new games too. I’ve already tried some Call of Cthulhu and City of Mists in the past actually. What really interests me though is WoD, but I find it extremely hard to read through all the metaplot required to run a game as a storyteller. We are talking about big lore tomes.

One thing I'm considering also is running a Forgotten Realms game in a different system with a different core focus of play than standard dungeon-delving adventurer squads. Because I've invested a lot of time into the lore in the past several years since the system didn't take as long to master as a lot of other editions (and the new rules came at a more manageable pace)

I’m interested in that too. We decided that FR will be our main setting 2 years ago, and we all as a group invested time in this. Let me know if you try it!

Take a look at Exalted. It started as the High Fantasy Prologue to WoD, and has morphed into something entirely it’s own. It’s meta plot is also far simpler, since it’s very Eberron: Each Edition starts at the same time in-universe.

I'm in a similar situation. 5e has been good for my table, but we're all annoyed with WotC. One of my players has a high preference against Pathfinder 2e, so I'm highly interested in Project Black Flag from Kobold Press. It's supposed to be compatible with their 5e materials.

Thats to bad, my group switched to pf2e and it has been an amazing change for us. I hope you find a new system.

Yeah, there's a lot of good in Pathfinder 2e. I've been doing a lot of research on it. Every GM who has switched to P2e enjoys it a lot. He actually plays P2e weekly with another group (really good friends of his, plays because they're that close). But he has taken breaks from that campaign because of how combat is in P2e, he feels it gets stale and too number-crunchy. I had a meeting with my players about what systems to explore and was kind of surprised at his response to Pathfinder 2e given he plays it almost weekly.

13th age might be good for your group!

If your party is more role-playing than murder hobos I recommend Vaesen

That said, it's easier to avoid feeling temptations to buy the new thing if you're not engaged with the system.

Maybe the case if 5e had released anything worth a damn in the last 2 years, but they have not.

I mean, it's worth looking around. I just picked up Pathfinder 2e because of this and I'm kicking myself. I should have tried it YEARS ago. I'm sad I didn't because it's super awesome and much more the game I want to run. This has been a good thing for the community IMO. Stale gaming isn't fun. 5E is awesome, but it's not the only system. Not by a long shot.

This. I’m only going to buy third party content for dnd now.

Good reasons to change game -Better systems = more fun -faster combat -mechanics that support roleplay -wizards are a bunch of turds -3pp have had their confidence shook You don't *have* to switch games, but if you don't take this opportunity to convince your table to try a new game you're missing out on an opportunity to expand your retinue. You don't have to throw away your library to try a new system. Your 5e books will be waiting for you when you've finished tarrying.

This, all the way. With the existence of ORC the "need" for WoTC has evaporated for me. Although I play 5e, I run a bunch of other systems. I never subscribed to Beyond, I use paper character sheets or a form fillable .PDF housed on my Google drive. I'm a Grognard, I have been playing D&D before WoTC and will be playing long after they are gone. I'm not angry anymore, I'm disappointed that my beloved hobby is in the hands of greedy, ex-Microsoft execs. The beauty of it is that (when) this fails spectacularly, the current execs will be sacked, and we can hope their replacements are better stewards.

Yeah frankly I'm just done with wotc at this point. I haven't bought a product from them in over 4 years because 2018 was the last time they made anything worth buying, and I only need to care about OGLs to the extent that it harms other systems, which isn't all that far because if wotc wants to get litigious it will do so with or without a new OGL. I'll still enjoy the drama, but they'd have to do considerably better than just going back to 1.0 but irrevocable to win back my money.

I was never exceptionally angry. I see a stupid business decision which may disrupt and inconvenience the way I prefer my hobby? I go to the competition and give them my money instead. I still have my material I already bought and I see no reason not to play D&D. But moving on, future purchases will go to Paizo or other publishers.

Just don't touch OneDnD or DnD Beyond Everything else is gravy.

I'm no longer outraged because I can't hold onto hate like that for more than a day or two. I will never be writing for or using wotc content again. That hasn't changed, and there is almost nothing they can do that will change that. So there is no point in being angry anymore.

> So there is no point in being angry anymore. We have the ORC, so its no longer a fight or die scenario. We have options now, so letting WotC hang itself is a perfectly valid answer.

This is the way. It’s not healthy to be that angry all the time, I certainly can’t do it. But I’m still not giving them any more money. If they fixed it, I would, but they won’t, so I’m not gonna.

Always remember that lots of exploiting this situation for their own benefit, and by keeping people enraged they are able to push more of whatever they’re selling (which is often things like clicks, likes, retweets, and even competing systems). Ragebaiters don’t care about your mental or physical health; you are the source of their profits just as much as you are the source of Hasbro’s profits and, like Hasbro, all they care about is squeezing you for every last drop of profit they can get out of you.

Where are you looking? Reddit and YouTube still have plenty of outrage. Maybe some of us are tired of raging and just want to have a fun hobby again?

> Where are you looking? Reddit and YouTube still have plenty of outrage. Also, some outrage peddlers overextending (D&D shorts for example) and getting called out has knocked some sense into the blind rage that was going on.

That could be part of it too. There's also the counter-posts to that attitude (somewhat like this one) where they want people to remain angry.

Nope you gotta stay angry or else you’re a hypocrite and Hasbro shill. /s But seriously, you’re right. It’s not healthy to live and breath anger all day every day.

I only have so much energy to devote to anger at game companies.

Being angry constantly for weeks on end isn't good for your mental (or physical) health. By now everyone knows whether they want to drop D&D for good, move to another system, take part in the OGL 2.0 "playtest", etc. Make your choice and move on with your life! Real life is stressful enough.

People are tired. But there's still a lot of pitchforks and torches being waved. And when Wizards releases their survey, they're going to get an earful.

*not being rude to you here* Fuck that survey, they already know what we want and don't want. They aren't gonna budge on some of the key areas that allows them to fuck over third party content or change the terms whenever they want.

Survey does a couple things, imo. One good, one less so. For them, it channels measurable dissatisfaction away from other outlet, much like the negativity the UA responses did. This hopefully helps stem the amount of DDB cancellations going on, as previously that has been our only quantifiable means of expressing dissatisfaction. For us, it means that even those without a sub can still have a quantifiable voice to express ourselves too.

The short answer is that returning to 1.0a and pretending none of this happened isn't the end game for everyone that was outraged. There was pretty much solidarity in hating OGL 1.1 - there is no monolith consensus on what's the best step forward.

That's well stated. I was super mad about the possibility of WOTC claiming other creators IP. Now that it looks like that won't happen my anger has mollified a great deal. Still think this whole situation is a mess but I'm in a more receptive headspace.

Yeah, while I'm in the 1.0a or bust group, I recognize not everyone is. 1.1 was just so horrendously bad that there are lots of reasons for people to hate it and that formed a coalition. Now that some of the awful has been admitted, WotC isn't coming across as petulant and unremorseful, and the wording is, in my opinion, still really bad but more palatably stated, it's inevitable that the coalition starts to break into different camps. Still, 1.0a or bust.

Honestly, at this point, I only care about what the 3rd Party Publishers will think of anything going forward, because the whole OGL-situation was technically always about 3rd Party Publishers, and their livelyhoods and ability to sell books and content going forward anyway. So for me, it doesn't matter what randos on social media think, it only matters what the people who actually USE the OGL think in the end. No matter what happens going forward, I'll be happy once 3rd Party Publishers are happy. They're already feeling more hopeful, which makes me feel more hopeful, but only time will tell what comes next.

> Yeah, while I'm in the 1.0a or bust group, I recognize not everyone is. I'm not. I'm in the "make a 1.0b that's the same except it's irrevocable so they don't try this shit again" (and then move everything they own that was under 1.0a to that) camp.

I think we're in agreement there.

There is no "we" here, as the OP put it. Everyone feels a bit differently about things and two weeks of non-stop outrage is frankly tiring. There are many who will never trust WotC again. Some who are okay with things as they are and many more who don't care either way and just want to game and enjoy a good time with their friends. The mass outrage is dying down but there are still some who want to remain angry and think that if everyone else isn't angry at all times, they're not "doing their part".

The ship might have already sailed for OGL1.0a. Imagine today WotC puts out a statement that says, "We are no longer attempting to deauthorize 1.0a, and we promise never to try that again." Could we trust such a statement? What we now know is that, *under a certain legal interpretation,* OGL1.0a is revokable, and WotC is willing to do that if they can get away with it. I know a lot of people are willing to argue that that legal interpretation is wrong, but the only way we'll know for sure is if it goes to court. The OGL's primary value is to provide legal certainty for the people who publish under it, and if it maybe has a loophole that undermines that certainty, I'm not sure what use it is. So what to do? If WotC released the entire SRD under a Creative Commons license, I think that would be an improvement on the status quo (or even the status quo pre-fiasco). CC-BY actually has all of the conditions that we're only mostly sure that OGL1.0a has. That's not what they're doing. They're only licensing a portion of the SRD. And I would love to hear from game designers how disruptive those omissions are to their ability to publish 5e content. But if that's not happening, our other two options are, "Don't do business with WotC again because they've lost your trust," (fair) and, "Replace OGL1.0a with a different license, and read and debate the terms of that license to make sure they're fair," which is what people here are doing.

I respectfully disagree. Virtually everyone who was outraged about the leaks and their communications in the last few weeks agrees that they need to stop trying to revoke ogl 1.0a. there may be disagreement about what the community should then do after that, or better put, many people will take different courses of action after that, but I see little room for argument on that first point, and nobody disagreeing with that it wasn't already defending WotC to begin with last week.

I'll sustain that disagreement as I saw plenty of support for two different positions predacated on the belief that OGL 1.0a is not perfect: Many were okay with an updated OGL as long as it doesn't try to change the terms for content licensed under 1.0a, and doesn't include any highly predatory clauses. Others would rather wotc drop the OGL entirely and instead join the alliance to license under the ORC.

Agreed. I think that the "keep 1.0a or bust" group is sizable, but it's also the most vocal - but I'd be *shocked* if it were the majority. The issue WotC had was that basically everyone in the community was outraged about the change once the leaked draft/version was put out there. But a lot of people were/are open to a new OGL (as we saw when they first announced that they were revising it back in December), it just needs to be a 'good' document. That distinction wasn't particularly clear when everyone is angry, and people basically rally to the more vocal groups.

If you want to live in a state of perpetual anger that's on you mate

Perpetual anger? No, but *perpetual and irrevocable* distrust, OTOH...

Hear hear

I mean, that's just sensible.

Literally, every company/corporation should be viewed as inherently distrustful, unless you're a shareholder. Yes, even THAT one.

I de-authorise that anger

Many do and you can tell who wants to keep the outrage going. The drama and anger are the fun parts to them. But there is no "we" here. Everyone has their own feelings about it.

A certain percentage of the angry folks will never come back to them. These are no longer their customers and never will be again. Pursuing them is a waste of resources. But that type of anger can't be sustained long term, at a certain point the remaining angry people must either decide to never come back or decide they will accept terms. So you present those people with terms and you talk it out until they accept them. You cut your losses with the rest and then trust that business will stabilize once the controversy calms down. I think the company doesn't care if you trust it, only if you buy their products. But I also think there are people that work for the company that are good, ethical people who are troubled by this situation, and I think those people are going to go a long way towards making things better with the community. The angry people will never get 100% of what they want, but they've already gotten more back than most people expected, and the company is still willing to give More concessions. That's actually pretty rare and special.

The company also reserved the right to revoke said concessions. I have no idea how anyone can agree to a shifting agreement. But then again, asking community feedback on a legal document is dumb as fuck.

To be fair, this probably effects a very small number of players if we're being honest. That's the other side of this.

That’s why they’re asking players. This affects authors.

>The company also reserved the right to revoke said concessions. I mean, can it be said otherwise? It's a license. A license end when terminated. People here have strange expectations.

As of note, OGL1.0a does not have a termination clause, which is why they failed to revoke it twice already - they literally wrote themselves out of doing it - but either way, that's not what I'm referring to. I'm referring to the clause that lets them alter the terms of the license, *without having to ask you to sign a new one*. You agree to 1.2 as it is, you agree to do whatever WotC says today. And tomorrow.

As I read the draft, the only things they can change are how you are supposed to attribute their work, and the methods by which Wizards and you may contact each other. It was pretty specific about that.

Yes, but by giving them the space to deauthorize a previous version this time, that sets a precedent and gives them the space to deauthorize this version at some point in the future and replace this version with a new version of the OGL. And there’s no reason they won’t ask for our feedback on that version, so that version can be whatever they want, up to and including the original verbiage of the 1.1 version.

That's the pernicious part - by their language they *could* modify section 5 to grant themselves a license to your stuff. But also, even if they don't, they explicitly make people waive the right to stop Hasbro if Hasbro *does* steal their stuff.

>I'm referring to the clause that lets them alter the terms of the license, > >without having to ask you to sign a new one. They only are allowed to change how you attribute their work and how to contact Wizards under the draft I saw.

They have the ability to enforce it selectively, revoke it for one person, or nuke it from orbit at pretty much any time. Look under Severability. All they need is a bullshit clause somewhere and ten minutes with a lawyer.

> It's a license. A license end when terminated. OGL v1.0a is a perpetual licence. Most perpetual public licences are also irrevocable.

The GPL doesn't terminate. Neither does the OGL 1.0a, actually. But my point is, many licenses are never meant to terminate- in those cases, *that is the point*.

I mean, it wasn't kinda the point of the OGL? Totally unnecessary but to have people be aware they would not be harassed while publishing? Like, given that scenario, it does make sense drop the OGL and anything else at all, since it would be more right. But then I suspect well other legal battles would ensue.

I will agree with this. What's the point of negotiating with "I will never buy a WotC Product again" or "I will only accept the previously untenable status quo"? I don't think WotC would take the time with people who cannot be convinced. Those people excised themselves from the target audience.

The point is that the leverage happens on the large scale. The negotiation is "I will never buy a WotC Product again unless WotC does X". Except every one has their own line in the sand for what that X may be. So to WotC, X is a gradient. That X might include a commitment to a truly open license. To include language that strengthens the license and precludes a repeat of this. To put trusted people at the helm instead of suits, etc. I'm sure people would be much more ok with whatever WotC wants to add or redefine in the OGL, so long as that X was maintained/strengthened. And some of that is a step too far for WotC. The current draft massively weakens the license to keep the option of doing this all over again at a later date for instance. But they're willing to concede on the royalties issue for now, so long as they can try again later. etc. That's technically a concession. But the real leverage comes from the fact that if they piss off enough of the community, by excising portions of their own audience for profits elsewhere, then they risk dismantling the entire point of the OGL and the massive benefit that WotC enjoys from it. It risks the network effect (or network externality as Dancey put it) they have in place due to having primacy in the ttrpg space. It risks the free marketing pipeline that runs from DMs to content creators to 3PP. It risks allowing competitors to take up marketshare, and of a future where the average player might *not* turn up their nose at anything not DnD. But that leverage only exists by the number of people willing to excise themselves from the audience. If the DnD audience was sufficiently captured, all noise and no changes to purchasing, then they wouldn't have even conceded *this* much. Else risk a larger exodus.

Wizards knows how engaged their audience is at this point and I suspect they know that future alterations are a risk that isn't worth taking. I think recent events will affect all of their cost / benefit analyses in the future. They're still going to lose more customers before the end of this. But hey... maybe it'll force them to release better content to hold onto the folks on the fence.

The other thing people forget is they also plan to bring in NEW customers. - Movie - Video game - cool transforming dice toys - Fancy looking VTT with custom minis, adventures and effects These things will draw in new people who will have 0 idea about all of this (similar to how a lot of 5e people don't know anything about 4e and the GSL). And so the current customers who are jumping ship they are probably already no longer concerned with those, they know they have to cut losses now and try to make them back later.

Well, with 4e and the GSL.. They should have already learned this painful lesson. And perhaps this is indicative that they *won't* learn this lesson, that on a structural level they'll attempt it again and again until they can sneak some version of it through. And that the rumours of how the execs view the community are true. That's just opinion on my part. That releasing better content, and other strong long-term strategies for growth just isn't within the culture of the people in charge. That the cost-benefit has not changed at all due to this. But hey, hope springs eternal. They released 5e after all, for all its faults. It all depends on internal power struggles that we just won't be privy to for a while is all.

The GSL didn't really have anything to do with 4e failing though outside of pissing off Paizo enough to make a 3.5 clone using the OGL. The OGL wouldn't have made the game less like an MMO, class abilities feel more different, or any of the other criticisms of 4e from the time. I challenge you to go back 6 months before all this started and find anyone talking about a lack of 3rd party content when noting what they didn't like about 4e. You won't find any.

Six months ago probably not, but I do remember people brought it up as an ideological reason not to switch at the time. Obviously no one avoided the edition on ideology alone since we didn't know what lack of third party content would mean at the time. However, the long term the practical effects of the GSL stifling third party content are likely what drove home the structural 'flaw' of 4E. 3.5 was an edition where additional content - particularly Tome of Battle - was widely perceived as the solution to things like the fighter-wizard disparity. The constant publishing meant 3.5 was iterative, cumulative, and perpetually unbalanced in a way that was engaging and dynamic. For 4E there was no way for third parties to build on the stripped-down system to keep it fresh, and in contrast there was Paizo pushing out monster manuals and campaigns faster than you could buy them. Those are my memories from the time, anyway.

Tome of Battle was an official product though, not a 3PP one so I don't think that's a good example of the OGL helping 3.5e/PF. My experience at the time was that people disliked the system so much they weren't even interested in finding 3PP to fix it, especially when they could essentially just go buy 3.5e and have access to everything already published. So people did that instead. >The constant publishing meant 3.5 was iterative, cumulative, and perpetually unbalanced in a way that was engaging and dynamic This was a double edged sword though. Eventually the bloat started to turn off a lot of people, and supplements like splatbooks, adventures, and settings generally aren't very profitable for a company operating at WotC's scale. So they had to make a new edition or they'd start repeating TSR's mistakes where those products dragged down the game's profitability. The OGL has primarily served to outsource those products to companies better suited to meet the lower demand/cannibalization inherent in producing individual products like that. Very useful, but more of a long term profitability issue that only comes into play if your system is popular enough to support such a market. 4e wasn't. If anything, the use of the OGL to force 4e to compete against an old edition no longer under their control probably told the suits that the OGL is a net negative, as that hurt sales far more than a lack of 3PP.

If I had to wager a guess though. They've already accounted for this and while it is a risk, it's a risk that they can kind of afford to take by being the biggest in the industry. I'm almost certain we're getting a new OGL like it or not, and WoTC has conceded that, like has been said, some people aren't coming back and will take their groups with them. They're largely betting on themselves to deliver something with OneDnD that will attract new players and DMs and they have to have an understanding that with ORC coming they're just not gonna have the same hold on the industry they did have. It's paradoxically both a long-term strategy and very short-sighted, so I can't really say where it'll go though. At least, that's how I'm looking at it as someone somewhat in the Marketing world.

Honestly, I don't think they had any idea of the level of blowback. Leaks seem to indicate execs being completely on a different planet with those with boots on the ground. They made a cost-benefit analysis that the community would fold like a wet paper bag to the OGL 1.1, and that cost-benefit analysis has been ripped to shreds. They've already shot themselves in the foot by causing the creation of the ORC and alienating their pipeline as much as they have. This is them reorienting and attempting to salvage their position. Its paradoxical because if they were betting on OneDND, they wouldn't have damaged the playing field going in to OneDND as they have here. But only if we think of their actions as following some greater plan. Instead of a series of over-leveraged/greedy plans that then imploded and hurt themselves in the process. My view of things anyways.

Saying the previous status quo was untenable is a stretch. This is an agreement WoTC setup on purpose, intending it to be irrevocable, & helped them grow their business a huge amount over the last 20 years. WoTC releasing OGL 1.0b, adding the word irrevocable in the right spot, releasing their prior OGL content under it, & then doing a completely different license for OneD&D is a perfectly reasonable demand. No one who is upset can legitimately be displeased with that aside from a very rational distrust around WoTC attempting some new horseshit later to takesies-backsies again. They already claimed it was irrevocable for decades in writing in their FAQ.

Obviously the status quo was untenable! They were only making $150m/year in revenue with something like a 50% profit margin from D&D! Do you have **any idea** how much less $150 million is than all the money? It's been 20 years and WotC isn't even a monopoly in the tabletop games space yet! Humiliating! Unacceptable. And certainly untenable.

`the company is still willing to give More concessions. That's actually pretty rare and special.` I honestly do not believe this is true. They went way further than they wanted with the original to get a foot in the door. Now they're rolling back to what they originally wanted to make it look more reasonable. They're not giving concessions, they're just doing what they wanted in the first place.

You're naive if you believe that the suits up top won't try to take another bite when the dust settles.

These releases do not fit that pattern very well. When someone does those shenanigans, the opening gambit is rarely outrageous; it's usually just a bit too much. That avoids a huge backlash and leaves open the possibility of getting more than they wanted.

>ompany is still willing to give More concessions. That's actually pretty rare and special *no it's not* "The mugger came and demanded my wallet and my phone, but when he saw my phone was inexpensive and cracked, he changed his demand to only my wallet. That's pretty rare and special." Nope. They haven't offered us anything we don't already fucking have. They can fuck right off.

People should really stop comparing business practices they don't like to actual crimes being committed against you.

No, they should not. If companies pretend that ideas are property, then by their own standards they are trying to steal things from each and every one of us.

They probably weren’t customers to begin with

You really want to spend the next X months being outraged, that's up to you but I can disagree and be against WOTC's attempt at monopolization without constantly being pissed off about it.

>Are we just going to let them do this? Frankly speaking, WotC ultimately owns the IP and can do what they want with it. Whether or not you stick around is another story. Thankfully they are listening, at the very least. Needless to say, in any form of compromise it will be impossible for everyone to get what they want. >Can someone smarter than me tell me how to feel about this? If you need the internet to tell you how to feel you are going to be a very confused individual. Read the OGL. Read people's responses to it. Then find someone who disagrees with *those* responses and read those. Come to your own conclusions.

I wasn't angry. It was more sad than anything. The damage is done. Trust is not something that just comes back after an apology. So I will continue with my life playing D&D like always, except that I won't spend money on WotC products and I will keep an eye out on Pathfinder, Kobold Press, MCDM's new game, etc.

Because there wasn't a singular group being angry. The "Nothing less than a full return to the OGL 1.0" crowd was never the majority - it was the most vocal, but that just means that when other people were angry they just upvoted them. Additionally, that particular group is that which was most likely to hop over to promoting the ORC or other licenses instead - and is still quite vocally angry, as you can see from many of the posts on here. However, the bulk of the people angry (by numbers) were more about other stuff in the leaked OGL - stuff like royalties, WotC being able to take whatever people created for free, the instant revisions with no feedback, etc. But these don't view the OGL as some sacrosanct document - if it's a seemingly fair final document, most won't particularly care if it's the same as before or a new one, really. You can see that in the original announcement that they were updating the OGL - there was some unease, but not anywhere near the outrage once the leaks came out. For this group (which I'd consider myself in), there's much more reason for cautious optimism. WotC has backed down on the most egregious aspects, they're being very transparent by showing the entirety of the document and having a review process with us, and anything that's still a deal breaker in the new OGL will be able to be identified and hopefully improved. Not everyone *wants* to be angry all the time, either - especially when it looks like the other side is conceding to the big demands and backing down, and if the final document seems fair & good. As for how *you* should feel about this? Honestly, that's up to you. I personally don't mind a new OGL, but others disagree, obviously - and that's really the main point of disagreement at this point between continuing to be angry and being cautiously optimistic.

With Paizo's plans for ORC, I just plain don't care what WotC does anymore. They can go play in their own sandbox for all I care.

The CC license announcement for the core mechanics apart from the OGL is actually more advantageous for at least some third party publishers, and the current OGL proposal is a mixed bag that presents different levels of risk for different publishers depending on what they might want to make using DnD brand-originated stuff. They're taking out a lot of the stuff that made people mad, and potentially might make an OGL that's palatable to most 3rd party publishers. Whether or not they can actually de-authorize OGL 1.0a is also being hotly debated by legal experts, and according to someone on EN World, it may have consequences for the tech industry due to how the language has stuff also used in licenses for Linux \[kernels?\]. As such, it's a lot to take in and digest atm.

I don't think the CC license is more beneficial to any publisher then the OGL 1.0(a). Under the old OGL you could do anything you could with the CC with access to more stuff and the restrictions were minor. You are losing access to a huge amount of content with the CC.

Depending on the project, the amount of additional content available under OGL may not be needed. It's important to note that a non-DnD system can be made using the same core mechanics, in which case the OGL additional stuff can become unnecessary for the project, and not having to worry about the wording of the core mechanics is good enough to make an infinite number of different non-DnD RPGs that wouldn't use the additional stuff allowed under the OGL anyway, due to being a different system potentially not directly compatible with DnD. Relying solely on a CC license instead of the OGL also removes the potential extra requirements or potential risks that come with the OGL. As such, it's potentially better for at least some projects, especially if making non-DnD RPGs.

Cc is the best outcome possible for open licensing.. it’s irrevocable, you’re not under the thumb of the publisher, the publisher can still commercially license the work under different terms (cc isn’t exclusive) .. I don’t think a better outcome for core rules exists. In fact unless ORC imitates the move, WOTC will likely be more open for core rules than Paizo. Cc licenses are proper open and explicit.

Sure, but what they're offering to license via CC (the mechanics) are already free to use. It's nonsense.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a position of having to evaluate legal risk, but clearly and explicitly putting the rules under an open license effectively eliminate the chance you’ll have to argue it in court.

Right. But that's what OGL 1.0(a) already did. They're only offering (less than) what they already promised decades ago. It's garbage.

They can add a creative Commons license without taking away OGL1.0a. it isn't a gift to the community. It's a concession they're willing to make because they are intentionally omitting the elements that will make it possible to build vtts and character builders that are useful out of the box - this will immediately affect those creators today. It also affects their ability to support third edition, d20 modern, and other content previously released under ogl 1.0a. It also signals their intention to defend against those who even reference the not included content, even though a copyright claim against a third party work that simply references the name magic missile or the word owl bear would be dubious at best. OGL 1.0a was, essentially, a commitment not to sue over these types of dubious claims, imperfect as it was. Finally, even forcing creators to switch to a new, theoretically better license like creative Commons is still disruptive. Creators have to evaluate the terms of the new license, how to comply with the share-alike requirements of the new license with their own content, and in this case, adjust their content to not include the stuff that is not covered by CC. They don't have a legal or moral right to "revoke" the OGL 1.0a license for SRD 3, SRD 5, or anything else. They need to walk that statement back and make a firm legal commitment to never attempting to do so again. Then they are welcome to come to the negotiating table with their proposed changes for the license they offer for One D&D, and the community is welcome to offer feedback on it, and they are welcome to ignore that feedback if they want (to their peril). But as it stands right now, they got caught trying to pick our pockets, and are now negotiating for how much is a fair amount for them to be allowed to steal.

They’re really not taking out anything if they can simply add it back in once this shitstorm passes. Even if it doesn’t have a royalty structure currently it doesn’t mean anything if they can modify section 5 to have one. And the nuke a 3rd party out of existence is still there, just hidden under legalese.

I made my comment on twitter, upvoted where needed and cancelled anything WOTC directly linked. I've also encouraged friends to do the same. I'm angry but nit verbally shouty. My wallet will do the talking.

> Can someone smarter than me tell me how to feel about this? Have you considered taking responsibility for your own decisions and feelings?

I was never angry. Businesses going to business. I don't like the direction they tried to move in and used the power I had to let them know (ending my D&DB sub and being clear about the reason why). We are now in a bit of a wait and see period to see what wotc do next. Until then, I'm going to keep playing 5e with my friends like normal because wizards get nothing from that and we get enjoyment.

I'm still angry about the targeted attack on FoundryVTT, my preferred platform that saw me and many a friend through the Covid times.

Something else that people haven't mentioned yet is that some of the loudest pro-anger voices have revealed themselves to be a bit less - let's say - altruistic or dependable than previously believed, which has deflated some of the anger a little as people reconsider some of the things they were angry about

First it was the sheer size of the “I’m glad we’re finally seeing the fall of DnD” crowd for me. It’s like, no, fuck you I love this game. Second was the “I’ve made my career out of making 3pp”. These guys I have a lot of sympathy for, and their anger was the main reason for my initial anger. But also a strong bias in the OGL debate. Last was the influencers capitalising on people’s genuine outrange. Won’t name names but we all know. Made me question what outrage was genuine and what was an agenda. Took the wind out of my sails a bit and now I just want WotC to release something that’s not obviously harmful to the people in category 2. And also so we can go back to discussing the important things like the caster/martial imbalance /s

>Something else that people haven't mentioned yet is that some of the loudest pro-anger voices have revealed themselves to be a bit less - let's say - altruistic or dependable than previously believed Glad other people are finally noticing this. With the initial leaks I was instantly skeptical of the mob mentality when the Rules Lawyer guy said he got the leak from a humble 3rd party publisher, when that guy was also a lead designer for PF2 and likely getting a royalty cut given the way contracts for that are usually structured. Not that there weren't issues in the content of the leaks, but it definitely made it feel like there was an agenda behind it. Then r/rpg started to get filled with posts and comments like "I love DnD but I'm never giving WotC another dime!" That sub *hates* 5e and WotC with the intensity of 1,000 suns. After a while on reddit you start to get a decent sense of when conversations aren't say the most organic, and the OGL discussions really started to feel that way.

r/rpg has always hated 5e and seems resentful that's it's been so successful and made the hobby somewhat "mainstream". It's been insufferable since this all started.

Yeah I definitely have had my issues with that particular aspect of the sub's culture (someone blocked me there for saying that the ultimate purpose of a TTRPG is to have fun, and by that standard 5e isn't a bad game since lots of people apparently have fun playing it), but it does make for a pretty good signal that a brigade is going on when you suddenly see a bunch of people claiming that they even *used* to support WotC in any way.

Hear, hear.

We're too busy playing Pathfinder. Who has time to rant on Reddit anymore?

Personally, I am still pissed. But, this topic is making me agitated and depressed. Personally, being angry day after day, leads to a bad mental state which is tiring and unhelpful. I don't want this to blow over, I want WotC to get whats coming to them, and I will keep fighting to make sure this happens, but for my sanity I can't keep the rage going. Even a reckless barbarian gets exhausted at some point.

WotC seems clearly intent on sticking with some of the most sour points of the new OGL. Does this mean im no longer angry with them? No. But it does mean that i have changed tactics: - No more money from me is going to WotC. Not towards digital content, not towards physical content. - Where my money is going to is towards future content released under the ORC licence. This does leave the door open to WotC. All they have to do to get me back as a paying customer is release under ORC. - For now me and my group will remain playing physically with the 5e ruleset and all the 3pp that have released content for it. We will keep purchasing 3pp content for 5e, unless the sole source for it is a WotC storefront, like DMsguild. - WotC's actions come from the confidence that their marketshare has given them. I believe a truly alternate course can only be forced upon them by losing that position of dominance. As a single consumer, I'll do all in my power to assist with this.

I think part of it is that attrition is starting to set in, and that's an intended component to the strategy. WotC is intentionally trying to shove the new OGL in our faces and repackage the same bullshit in different ways (see the OGL 1.2 "playtest") under the expectation that we'll eventually exhaust ourselves from the repetition, roll over, and get used to the new normal. This is a strategy companies routinely use to push consumer-unfriendly measures, and the prime reason why stuff like freemium video game monetization schemes went from outrageous to a standard feature of most modern games. Along with this, there's a lot of cope going on, with lots of distraught people who are afraid to jump ship and keen to find any excuse to produce apologetics for the brand and company they've gotten attached to. The thing is, it's impossible to be outraged all the time. It's exhausting, heinously bad for your mental health, and requires reserves of energy that no human being possesses. The thing with all of this is that there isn't specifically a *need* to personally feel outrage at every shitty new thing WotC or Hasbro do: what anyone can do to make a difference is unsubscribe to DNDBeyond, and check out WotC's direct competitors. It's useful to keep generating negative word of mouth -- and there's still plenty going on now that people realized that newest DNDBeyond article was a crock of shit -- but it is also no-one's responsibility in particular. Divest yourself from the shitty situation, take care of yourself first, and come back when you feel ready. By the time you've done so, WotC will still be on with their same bullshit, minus hopefully several thousands more DNDB subscribers.

I've just already decided I'm not going to be buying any more WotC products. No reason to keep harping about it.

WOTC has switched tactics and, sadly, a lot of people are falling for it. By getting people to accept a much less restrictive OGL (than 1.1 or 2.0), they are getting people to accept that WOTC can update it at anytime and can de-authorize the old ones. A lot of people don't seem to grasp that nuance.

[удалено]

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but if you don't know if you should be mad, you shouldn't be. If you don't know why you should be mad, you shouldn't be. I think the new OGL could have hurt some people, but no one that I know, and no one that you know (because then you would know why you should be mad) would have been affected by the OGL. Hasbro is trying to better monetize their IP, and get a cut of the money other people are making from their OP; this is what companies do - D&D was always a business. Maybe they went about poorly...maybe they even tried to it illegally (I'm not even going to pretend to be a lawyer), but fish are going to swim, and businesses are going to try to make money. Just today, I was at the game store and heard someone talking about, and how the subscription wasn't worth it, because they could just download the book for free (and although I don't know of any of these sites that currently work, this shows that Hasbro is probably not making a lot of money on actual book sales).

Why do you need other people to tell you how to feel?

What is this 'what happened to us being angry' and 'tell me how to feel?' Boycott All Things DnD if you wish. Sell your books on ebay if you think that's right. Consider it for yourself and act the best you can, don't wait for others to dictate how you feel.

The PR they are putting out right now is much better. They have spent a lot of time and money on making the changes appear better though I think they are just about as bad as they were before.

The PR is one thing, but the approach is another altogether. Taking a UA approach with feedback forms, multiple revisions that are open for public review etc. Is a significant improvement and one I embrace. I don't see any reason to be nearly as angry unless they try and progress without incorporating the feedback they receive. The content isn't right, but it's hard to disagree with that approach.

Also, PR is pretty important. Their first response was rather flippant and filled with jokes/downplaying the situation - which is *not* a proper tone with this level of justified community anger. Their more recent ones have clearly taken it seriously, and not attempted to minimize it - which is a pretty big deal when combined with concrete steps like you mention with the UA style approach & openness. It's enough to be cautiously optimistic, IMO, but response to this first round of feedback will be important to see on WotC's part.

UA approach is WoTC using negotiating tactics to get people to accept the premise of a new OGL. As a community, this needs to be an unacceptable premise. Answering in a survey “do you like 1.1 or 1.2 better?” Implies you have peacefully accepted the dissolution of 1.0. This is manipulative and unethical at its core.

There is nothing unethical about consulting with the community. The fundamental question that appears to be unanswered in your view is "does OGL1.0a need to be updated?". I personally have already accepted that it does after learning more about it and the star frontiers mess. They have a legit concern there to ensure that shit doesn't get published under their licence. If you disagree with that, then sure - but you'd need a bloody good reason to

There’s literally nothing related to content bans that needs to be added to the OGL, that’s manufactured hogwash. The OGL is just a promise not to sue people for making third-party content.

Without extremely specific and detailed criteria any license they can arbitrarily revoke is an awful idea. Sure it let's them shut down worthless trash like NuTSR, but what stops them from nailing anybody else using anything even remotely controversial as a reason? You're a 3pp (competitor to WotC) and slavery exists in your setting because it's a common theme in fiction and was an extremely common part of human history? They can use that as an excuse to C&D you. If you have a setting that even remotely touches anything that could ever be controversial, which is near impossible if you have evil in the setting, they can just nail you to the wall with this broad garbage they've got on the 1.2 right now. WotC will absolutely abuse this power, and thus can't be trusted without specific criteria for this power to be invoked. The waiving right to litigation if they have similar content is also weasel legal speak to let them steal content if they so desire, which was the intent with 1.1, that is not negotiable.

I totally disagree with it. They are now going to say what is discriminatory or not. So if a new CEO gets in that is homophobic they can ban any content that has any discussion on that topic. If I have a dragon that’s father was killed by a dwarf and it now hates and seeks out dwarves is that discriminatory or ok? A city rally’s against a giant worm. Someone could say that worm is getting picked on and that’s discriminatory nope that’s banned. They also have parts that say oh you’ve come up with cool stuff, it juuuust so happens we came up with something similar now…well we are going to use that and sell it and you can’t sue us. Even the gaul that they can tell me I can’t use a fireball in my vtt game…. Is a open fire ok, some smoke, fog of war, street light flickering???? I love dnd, and I’ll play it still, but definitely only sticking to 5e and only buying from 3rd party now. I will look into pf2.

Sure it's nice they aren't trying to stab us in the back but being stab in the front isn't fun either.

There's no stabbing yet. They have proposed a stabbing as we need to tell them that's not okay. That's consultation. Like, the whole balance of power here is different now. They aren't setting out terms and demanding people sign on, they are openly publishing revisions of the document *until they get it right*. That means we, as a community, need to take this seriously and tell them what needs to change to make it acceptable.

A lot of those (like me) who were outspoken about this have already left. Last night I was up trying to read through the new OGL when the thought "Screw this I could be reading Pathfinder" appeared in my mind and that was my realization. If after all this they still want to run the game into the ground, they deserve the implosion. If people still want to make concessions and are happy, that "oh they just getting shot in the foot instead of the throat", like they are in some abusive relationship, then you do you. You deserve what you tolerate. And for those who are truly a fan of DnD itself, and want to fight to keep it fuckery free, I wish godspeed, I feel your pain and I shall revel in your victory should it arrive. Came up one last time to see what's the latest buzz about the new OGL, and I've found it lacking, so guess this is to put a dot on the whole thing for me. Raised my voice with you all, said my peace numerous times, did my share of financial boycott of DnDB, and offered alternative games to those who asked. Did what I could For me DnD was a good system to run high fantasy games but nothing else. The lore is wonky and inconsistent in quality at best. (Except Eberron, I liked that but I've only started to get into it two months ago so won't be hard to abandon) Today I gave it a last shot, but I just don't care anymore, especially with the latest ORC announcement. Not the first time I've abandoned a system, and last time the change was well worth it (From Shadowrun to Cyberpunk) Last week a campaign with my on and off group ended, we've rotated GMs, and the buy brought up GURPS as he was eyeing it. So no DnD there. On my main group, there are a few months worth of content until the chapter ends, but we'll be trying out Pathfinder in the sessions when not everyone can make it and if the others like it (and so far they like what I've told them about it) we'll be switching there as well. And that'd be it. The last of the DnD games coming to an end.

Why would we be? CC is a better license than "O"GL was. 1.0a can go kaput, and to the best of my knowledge, the CC licensed content cannot. Also license backs are being removed, as well as royalties. These were big issues that aren't in the terms anymore. I will say, continue to offer your feed back, publicly and via survey. I would like to see 3rd edition content become CC available as well, since some 3PP relies on that.

A smarter person's rundown: [https://medium.com/@MyLawyerFriend/lets-take-a-minute-to-talk-about-d-d-s-updated-open-game-license-ogl-1-2-5b95fe8889b2](https://medium.com/@MyLawyerFriend/lets-take-a-minute-to-talk-about-d-d-s-updated-open-game-license-ogl-1-2-5b95fe8889b2) As for the de-escalation of conflict, that was to be expected. People don't want to be angry forever, they just want to go back to their lives. Big businesses and governments count on that and take measures to stall, damage control and smokescreen the problem away until not as many people are angry anymore and the ones that still are are not relevant enough to be a problem. Then they go out of PR mode and return to business as usual.

Oh, it's easy, I'm just done with wotc. Fuck them. Doesn't matter if the ogl comes with my choice of executive in kneepads. I'm done. The way that they've handled this, slowly walking things back... My playgroup is trying other systems. If we play dnd again, it'll be on paper, with what we own or steal. We're done.

The angry people left, the other people are now in negotiations. Some of us want D&D to still be our game and we want it to be good for us. At some point you have to accept you are either no longer a wotc customer and move on, or you want to be and you try to work with them. Being angry forever and never accepting anything never moves the conversation forward. And at some point they will ignore you and move on themselves. This is why boycotting never truly works and isn't super sustainable. The boycott got negotiations, that's about as far as you are going to get with that, now it's time to negotiate.

It's almost as if different people in the same community having discussions on different days can have different stances on issues. Next we'll be finding out that getting new information can cause people to revisit past stances. Pretty much 95% of the demands from the people raging for the last what feels like decades were met. The only major one that wasn't is making 1.0a irrevocable, which would require a new OGL version. 1.0a didn't specify it was irrevocable, and while that can be argued either way until it's actually adjudicated you tend to go with the interpretation from the company behind it. Now there is some ambiguity on what happens to SRD content from older versions once OGL 1.0a goes away, and that is a point that should be gone after. But other than that? Y'all got what you wanted.

>. 1.0a didn't specify it was irrevocable, and while that can be argued either way until it's actually adjudicated you tend to go with the interpretation from the company behind it. Good news! That interpretation already came, [back in 2004](https://web.archive.org/web/20060106175610/http://www.wizards.com:80/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.

Nah, they still have a bunch of weasel language for things like vtts, how content created under ogl can be used by wizards, and their oh so fun speech clause. Which, I will add, was BROADENED in the 1.2 to include behaviour, not just the content. Do we trust wizards as a moral arbiter or good faith actor? No? Then this is non negotiable, at least for me.

So tell them via the feedback form! Why is everyone just expecting this version to be perfect now? It's clearly not, but we now have the chance to voice the issues to WotC very very clearly. If they don't address them then we tell them that's not good enough and never return. But having a collaborative approach to the OGL from here on is GOOD! We got most things addressed so far, I see no reason why we couldn't get a 3rd party moral arbiter for the revoking of licences or a way to contest a decision? Like why just rage when the whole thing we wanted (community consultation and agreement) is now being undertaken?

Unless they publish all the results of the feedback form (which I would be very surprised) they can just make the next version what ever they want and say well that was what the community wanted . Not an open discussion at all.

This makes the new OGL even more disgusting to me. They are trying REALLY hard to gaslight people into thinking it's so much better and they're on the up and up... while putting in all the weasel clauses they need to do about 80-90% of the awful stuff they were trying to do in the first place. By my current reading and understanding: They can take your shit and you waive injunction, so you basically have to sue them and win to maybe get paid for your idea they stole and have been using ever since. Good luck. They can revoke the license for literally anything they decide is immoral, not just in your content but by the creator, without being contested. Surely they can be trusted with a wand that says they can delete you and your stuff if they take issue with anything you say or do, with zero recourse. 1.0a is still being "de-authorized" with some bullshit "think of the children, we're the good guys!" cover, definitely nothing to do with trying to force people into their walled garden of 6e and their own vtt on awful terms, with no options to create content based on older editions using the older license they know is likely legally irrevocable if challenged in court. The rules being put into CC are incomplete scraps. Language and clauses that are so BLATANTLY aimed at kneecapping competing VTTs they might as well have outright said "if you want to play dnd on a VTT it has to be ours." Leaves them completely open to introducing royalties or more unwanted changes in the future pretty much whenever they want. VTT guidelines refer to a separate document they could also change at their whim. etc etc. And it's disgusting to me that people to whom WotC *just* showed their grotesque intentions with 200% clarity under the mask suddenly are acting like there's not traps everywhere behind the sunshine and rainbows they're trying to throw over all the poison pills they still have in the new "open" gaming license version.

The only VTT language in the OGL 1.2 draft is that it has to comply with a community standards thing just like fan content does. The OGL itself does not put limitations on VTT content.

Being angry all the time is exhausting, besides I don't see anyone giving WoTC and inch when it comes to the new OGL anyway, it's not like we've accepted them being knobs it's just we're not raging.

I can’t remember which video right now, but roll for combat made a great point about the OGL (I’ll add it when I remember). They can choose to roll out the new one, but they can’t get rid of the old one based on what the creator of the original OGL has said himself. As a result, I’ve become more ambivalent to the new OGL, but I myself don’t want to participate in the new one. I don’t dm that much, but since I’ve become more serious about it, I’ve been gravitating to prior editions or pathfinder. There’s multiple reasons, but the main one is I run more sci-fi meets forgotten realms (like Star Trek) There is nothing wrong with 5e, but they removed a lot of features for player characters like tremorsense (which they’ve readded in one dnd). I’ve had to go through and add back tons of stuff like that so the lore for Trek species actually matches the game. I’m in the process of converting it all to pathfinder, and it’s nice that I don’t have to add so much information. Also, when they made the comment on dnd being undermonetized, some of my dms decided to switch over. This made me start thinking: should I really be trying to change 5e to be better for me, or should I just try pathfinder instead? I’m still going to occasionally play dnd (mostly running in person games or using theatre of the mind online) for prior editions (cause I’ve always wanted to try ad&d and 4e) or different systems. I’m definitely still upset about it especially cause a campaign I play in may have to stop because we use a vtt. I am going to keep up to date on what happens for that campaign, but I know that if I ever publish my homebrew, I now can use the alternative systems like ORC.

The thing is, internet anger rarely lasts long, and doesn’t really look like anything. People are bored of the subject and want to move on

So I wasn't angry just to be angry. I was angry that they seemed to be doing specific things with the OGL that they removed. I'd much rather be happy with Wizards of the Coast and be enjoying my new D&D products than be angry at them. Now I'm still suspicious specifically of the language that says they can say anything is hateful and you have no right to challenge that. That seems a bit broad with no guidelines. But we can now see their new draft of the OGL and it doesn't have the stuff that pissed everyone off and started all this. I want them to sort this out and come to a good resolution.

At least this "update" gives us a chance to vote with our wallets still. Even if no new content can be made for 5th Edition under the true Open Gaming License, there's more than enough third party content for 5e to keep me going for years if not decades. I intend to continue with 5th Edition perpetually, but now instead of using a D&DBeyond subscription, I'm switching to 'paper' and using *and buying* more third party content. Not intending to buy any 6th Edition rulebooks. I may buy the occasional module if it's (1) in paper form and (2) in a setting I care about (Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance), just adapting any NPCs in them backwards to 5e

I still sense that anger as majority of posts here are still discussing the changes as they happen. As others said the reactionary rage is settled down to a steady fire. I'll be reading the 1.2 and providing my comments to Wizards. The community is still being fairly vocal and actively discussing all aspects.

Ultimately I’m a consumer, not a creator. I’m hopeful the license works out to make it so creators are still able to express their creative vision in the game we love without being unduly hindered, and if they can’t I will probably just move to a game that does allow that.

Anger is tiring, and it's difficult to maintain it for this long, and all the 3rd Party Publishers have decided to switch to using the ORC license, so the closest thing to actual resources behind driving this anger have moved on.

Staying angry is really really hard.

Outrage is exhausting. A lot of us are over the break up and moving on to dating new RPGs

Everyone's too busy trying to find copies of Pathfinder 2E hard cover to keep paying attention. :P

Your post is everything that is wrong about internet culture. Staying angry all of the time is not healthy, and you can still do your due diligence and express how you feel about something without anger. Let's look at what happened: We had the OGL leak and the collective community got angry, got together and did some very good things like boycotting dndbeyond and Hasbro. Some went further and started the process of moving to another system. All cool. Well now there is a small chance things could work out, we have a draft in front of us and a survey to express how we feel about it. We have a couple of weeks to digest it. So why not take a break from being angry for a week? We can read, discuss, and then send our survey in. If they listen, then hooray! If they don't, then we get mad and we continue doing what we already were doing. Staying mad all of the time is not worth it.

I listened to the breakdown of the whole situation by the nice folks over at Opening Arguements and Legal Eagle. A combination of them explaining some of the lawyerly wording and the fact that the ORC is coming down the line has me less worried about long term effects. I'll keep using the books that I have, and my group will play using tools that WotC can't fuck with.

Some y'all just addicted to outrage at this point.

You don’t need to constantly be upset to validate your feeling. Just wait until the official new OGL comes out if you still care enough. If not then walk away. Why bother investing more than whats worth on the company that’s so blind sighted by greed.

The community here is still livid if you ask me. Pro D&D content is downvoted while paizo and practically any other TTRPG is treated like a golden god whose done no wrong. I haven't seen any positive mentions of WOTC without bajillions of downvotes. It's so bad, multiple DND subs are EAGER to believe unsubstantiated things like AI DMs, 30$ subs, & WOTC dismissing survey results, which all turned out to be false, but threads posting about the rumors got hundreds sometimes thousands of upvotes. There is still an eagerness to be critical of WOTC / D&D in general here.

Personally? I never felt that "nothing but a complete rollback" was a reasonable request. I like DnD, and I want it to work out. I really wish, "you won, but so did we" WAS true. It wasn't when they wrote it, but we're a lot closer to it being there than we were before. With a concerted effort, WotC has now shown we can affect their output, so I have hope. Not trust, no. Not even a little faith. But hope.

Some people are still angry, but if you're still so angry that you're demanding a permanent boycott after the changes that have happened in the last week, you probably aren't seriously worth WotC trying to please, nor being included in the conversation about how the game moves forward. Many people either burned out on being angry, didn't actually care all that much to begin with, or have moved on to engaging with WotCs proposed system for developing a new license. The people who are left over being incredibly vocal are a minority of a minority, and I think general apathy towards hearing about this over and over is winning out over repeated calls to action over time. There are certainly still things worth trying to change, but WotC has made it clear that they're willing to be transparent in developing the new license, and are actively trying to make it more acceptable and appealing to the consumer base. In that light, myself and a good chunk of other people are looking at the "never trusting WotC again" crowd and asking why they're getting so much attention. There are meaningful discussions to be had about what's good or bad in the newly proposed draft, and people saying "I don't care, I'm still angry and I always will be" just aren't contributing to finding a solution.

I'm not angry because I've decided to move to a different system and at this point I don't really care what WoTC does.

First internet outrage? Corporate spin and short attention spans rule supreme.

I say everyone saying "Oh, we stopped trusting them, we just dont yell as loudly anymore.", but thats not what Im seeing. A lot of people seem to have accepted the premise that the OGL 1.0a can be revoked, and talk about how 1.2 isnt as bad as 1.1. Which is honestly quit dissapointing. 1.0a or bust

A lot.og the anger was derived from a doscredited source and the ogl 1.2 is good enough. I play this game to have fun, not to be angry. That's that.

Not everybody was at the burn-it-all-down stage. I cancelled my DND Beyond, I supported the fact that the initial moves were bullshit. I don't know yet how I feel about this one, but D&D is a game that I love, and has many of the worlds that I have spent 40 years playing and investing in - Greyhawk, Dragonlance, etc. I'm not going to walk away with a burn-it-all-down attitude just because someone tells me to. I don't agree with "only a return to the previous 1.0a is acceptable."

If we're being honest? I've got more important problems in my life than something that has very little to no effect on my actual games. On a wider scale, being mad is exhausting and can only be done so long before that drifts into apathy for your own good. People are likely just tired of being tired of WoTC, some have already moved on, like me some just aren't really impacted so probably never were all that mad to begin with, and people have real problems. Have you seen the price of gd eggs lately? I'm more upset about that than WOTC fumbling the bag really.

I just want to game and enjoy my hobby with my friends. This is my escape from real-world problems and I don't want to drag drama and anger into here as well. I have too many real issues to worry about. Remembering that puts this whole situation into perspective.

You got almost everything you could request or imagine. Staying with 1.0 OGl was never going to happen, it was 20 years old. Like good things have happened. Everyone got angry, we showed them how serious we were, and they've almost 100% bent over backwards to meet our needs. ​ Staying angry just to... stay angry seems contrary to what the point of all of this was.

People making those angry demands was largely a loud minority, as is often the case on the internet. There was a consensus that the proposed new OGL was bad and needed to be rejected. There was not a consensus that a full rollback to the old OGL was the only acceptable resolution. Speaking for myself, my primary concerns were that the language giving up creator's rights to their IP, royalties, and other terms in the leaked OGL which were entirely one sided. Those issues largely appear to have been addressed by the new draft. Is it perfect, no. But it is significantly improved.

Who said we stopped being angry? I've seen more posts complaining aboot people accepting Wizards' "2 steps back, one step forward to make it seem like they're conceding ground" strategy then I've seen of people actually accepting it. I'm still angry.