Hello,
Just discovered this relatively new video describing the effed up stuff that WOTC is doing with "Dungeons & Dragons".

Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBlsV8fAcfw

Has this guy got it accurate?

-Ed C.

We have a bunch of threads already on the topic.

https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/wotc-srd-gettin-lawyerly/
https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/the-ogl-leak-shows-a-big-hasbro-mistake/
https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/so-how-many-osr-games-are-going-to-go-away-if-ogl-1-1-is-a-thing/
https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/problems-with-the-ogl-v1-0a/
https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/is-wizards-canceling-the-ogl/

Short answer, something is going to happen with the OGL, but exactly what is up to speculation.

Possibly accurate (entirely accurate about the Despotic Evil alignment of Hasbro).

Some are hoping they're going to pull back such that 1.1 will be an opt-in and only be required for 6e-related content while leaving 3.x and 5e content able to still be used under 1.0a.

Others are hoping WotC goes scorched earth and it blows up in their face thereby freeing the hobby of WotC's mammoth shadow.

The realists I think are taking this as a wake-up call to reevaluate their relationship with the OGL and WotC SRDs... including several announcing plans for new editions rewritten to excise all WotC derived content.

Regardless, this has led to a considerable degree of ill-will towards Hasbro and a desire to see their products fail.

Their upcoming movie was always going to be a rough sell as it looks to be made in the mold of an MCU paint-by-numbers with characters no one cares about and tone deaf to the MCU-fatigue that has set in. But now the main demo they'd want to help build hype despises them and will probably do everything they can to hurt the performance of DnD:HAT (and Hasbro has way more pegged on the film than in the TTRPG market in terms of creating a lifestyle brand of D&D).

And getting the bigger third parties onboard is probably getting more difficult by the hour as conceding to/allying with Hasbro will be seen as a betrayal by their own fans.

The dead silence by Hasbro in reaction says either they are so arrogant they don't regard the pushback as important or the backlash is already so strong their PR/Legal departments
are scrambling for a way to spin it and determine just how far they'll have pull back to not have this be a debacle a year out from their actual product launch.

Based on what we have seen off the leaked document? Very

Anything that hurts Woketards of the Coast is good for the hobby long term.

I'm loving this OGL panic.

Let it all burn.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 08, 2023, 07:43:59 PM
Based on what we have seen off the leaked document? Very

Dammit, there's a popcorn shortage, too.

They sold out to despotic evil long, long ago.

Quote from: Koltar on January 08, 2023, 07:02:36 PMHere:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBlsV8fAcfw

Has this guy got it accurate?

I watched that video this morning. The guy was being a bit hyperbolic with all his "WotC COULD do this" speculation. I suspect, however, that all the big third party guys won't be using the OGL but will, instead, negotiate a separate license agreement with Hasbro and that the OGL 1.1 will represent the worst case situation for smaller companies.

But the idea that Hasbro is "Evil" just because they want to bring D&D back to the way it was before 3.0 (i.e the way it was for AD&D) is kinda silly. Nobody is calling Chaosium evil or greedy because Call of Cthulhu isn't open source. Same with the DCC RPG, Alien RPG, etc.

Overall, I think voiding the OGL will be a net positive as much of gaming, especially the OSR, has become too attached to compatibility with D&D. But that's my personal situation as someone that doesn't play official D&D, I can also see why others would be upset with the situation.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on January 09, 2023, 09:06:17 AM

But the idea that Hasbro is "Evil" just because they want to bring D&D back to the way it was before 3.0 (i.e the way it was for AD&D) is kinda silly. Nobody is calling Chaosium evil or greedy because Call of Cthulhu isn't open source. Same with the DCC RPG, Alien RPG, etc. 

  I have other reasons for considering WotC aligned with the powers of Hell. But I do think this sudden reversal after 20 years of promising compatibility does qualify as 'treacherous.' Not opening up a game in the first place is fine. Not making the new edition open is fine, although 4E shows that it can be counterproductive in the wrong circumstances. It's trying to retroactively destroy the work that people built on the open foundations, with the explicit promises WotC made that this stuff would always remain open, that I think crosses the line.

Quote
Overall, I think voiding the OGL will be a net positive as much of gaming, especially the OSR, has become too attached to compatibility with D&D. But that's my personal situation as someone that doesn't play official D&D, I can also see why others would be upset with the situation.

   I don't care about official D&D, but there are variations and retroclones built off of the OGL that I like, and it's the sudden loss of those and the destruction of so many small producers that has me unhappy.

Amoral Scuzz-bucket isn't an alignment, but ought to be.

WotC has been a problem for a while. It dates back longer than even OneD&D, with them trying to control the political ideologies and cultures of their individual gaming groups, conventions and cetera through heavy handed means for quite some time. They also used racial characteristics as necessary qualifications in hiring and did a lot of other things that are sketchy, including an few arguably illegal things like that which they got away with anyway.

Quote from: Spinachcat on January 08, 2023, 10:09:10 PM
Anything that hurts Woketards of the Coast is good for the hobby long term.

I'm loving this OGL panic.

Let it all burn.

I'm mostly there.  My only concern is that everyone has built a good-faith industry around this thing.  The very many writers and artists who have listed sections as open content to create a ground floor of "if you use this stuff, no one can sue you".  This is substantially better than some guy showing up and stating "hey yea if you use X and Y that's great I would never bother you", because it represents a license that says, these things are definitely something the community can use.  Clear bright lines are very valuable legally, and attempts to muddy them are absolutely disgusting.

But being mad at Hasbro, and wanting them to fail- even if it has short term bad effects- is pretty rational.

Anything that hurts Hasbro is good for many hobbies and fandoms.  They are fully in on political acvitism and are part of a greater effort:
Here's from February 2022:
https://fintel.io/news/blackrock-inc-increases-ownership-in-has-hasbro-inc-0.6682573052807118
Here's their current screed:
https://csr.hasbro.com/en-us/diversity-inclusion

Also the interview where WotC themselves promised that the OGL was not revocable, which had been up since like 2004 or something, was removed in April 2022.

Hasbro is straight up a malicious political animal that exists primarily to destroy us, using whatever flailing arms or terrible ideas they can weaponize, as broadly and strongly as they can manage.  Only our very own RPG Pundit has even mentioned what would otherwise be the biggest news about the OGL 1.1- the fact that after you are done granting Hasbro irrevocable rights to YOUR stuff, they can simply declare you a bigot and sell your stuff as theirs, whilst you cannot sell it- a set of words which would be very difficult to argue against Hasbro's lawyers in court, should you fall afoul of the cancel crowd.  In ANY other situation, THAT would be the conversation being had, but because the 1.1 is so awful, trying to claw back a license, destroy an industry, inflict royalties upon their competition, and burn everything down, the fact that you can be labelled a wrongthinker in a future court that can and will use your tweets against you, isn't even in the top three terrible things.

But yea fuck Hasbro man.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on January 09, 2023, 10:16:55 AMNot making the new edition open is fine, although 4E shows that it can be counterproductive in the wrong circumstances. It's trying to retroactively destroy the work that people built on the open foundations, with the explicit promises WotC made that this stuff would always remain open, that I think crosses the line.

I guess I never considered the OGL to be a permanent thing. I'm actually surprised it lasted so long. I know that Ryan Dancey thinks that it was meant to be permanent but Hasbro lawyers wrote the actual text and made sure to sneak in a few safeguards. Just look at the OGL's definition of Product Identity which includes conveniently vague items like "designs" and "concepts".

Pretty sure it is in Palladium.

Not under that name, of course, but I'm pretty sure it's in there.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 09, 2023, 10:34:46 AM
Amoral Scuzz-bucket isn't an alignment, but ought to be.

Quote from: Venka on January 09, 2023, 01:45:59 PM
I'm mostly there.  My only concern is that everyone has built a good-faith industry around this thing.  The very many writers and artists who have listed sections as open content to create a ground floor of "if you use this stuff, no one can sue you".  This is substantially better than some guy showing up and stating "hey yea if you use X and Y that's great I would never bother you", because it represents a license that says, these things are definitely something the community can use.  Clear bright lines are very valuable legally, and attempts to muddy them are absolutely disgusting.

That depends on what the "clear bright lines" are.

I am disgusted by the OGL v1.1 -- but I also had problems with the OGL v1.0a. It's important to remember that the OGL v1.0a involved surrendering one's legal right to declare compatibility. That was exactly why WotC at the time created the OGL and SRD. It was to shut down trademark compatibility claims, while simultaneously building up the value of their D&D trademark by creating a glut of compatible material.

At the time in 2000, they were drawing "clear bright lines" that favored them as a company and owners of the D&D trademark.