I'm thinking even if WotC tones down their new OGL it probably too late now.

Their reputation has taken a hit.  Even if they do nothing at all, it's changed.  Nobody trusts them now.

The only upside is a group of games in the works to get away from WotC.  Who doesn't like new games?

The DnD name is a big draw, but this is a BIG loss of trust and I've found no trouble getting players for OSE (Old school essentials), so perhaps you're right.

Yes, they have. There is a large portion of the supposed fan base that do not really play TTRPGs with any regularity. But they spend HOURS posting on social media and on Reddit. This situation has given these clowns something legitimate to bitch about, and you better believe they will be heard for a long time.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 11, 2023, 07:45:08 PM
I'm thinking even if WotC tones down their new OGL it probably too late now.

Their reputation has taken a hit.  Even if they do nothing at all, it's changed.  Nobody trusts them now.

It does seem that way. A lot of former 3rd party creators for 5e have been declaring exactly that over the last few days. I do note though, that the biggest players in the 5e space on social media, Ginny Di, Matt Colville, Critical Role, etc. all seem to be keeping silent on it. I suspect they're hoping to cut their own deals where necessary and keep riding the WOTC-train.


Edit: Slight correction. I just got recommended this article, which says that Ginny Di was criticizing WOTC on Twitter. I don't use Twitter, so I can't confirm.

https://www.cbr.com/dnd-beyond-ogl-response-fan-criticism-opendnd/

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 11, 2023, 07:45:08 PM
The only upside is a group of games in the works to get away from WotC.  Who doesn't like new games?

WOTC burning bridges with their third party creators is almost all upside to me. I feel for the people who will lose money off of it, but D&D as an entity is so corrupt at this point that its death can't come soon enough. The boom in 3rd party campaign settings, adventures, character options etc. was a huge part of the success of 5e, and I suspect contributed to a lot of people thinking it was a better game than it was. I can't hold it against developers that made 5e content - people gotta eat, after all - but I also can't help but think that they were doing the RPG hobby a disservice by propping it up as the prestige game in the space.

It is fixable if they confirm that 1.0a is irrevocable, apologize and throw some corporate lawyers (hated by everyone) under the bus.

They don't need this 1.1 agreement to monetize D&D. Any and every company would like to have total, unfettered control over every aspect of their IP, and corporate lawyers are going to be all for that and strongly support it.

I am skeptical that consumers care about a company's reputation. (I mean, I work for Walmart and am constantly astounded by how much loyalty customers have for what is a really crappy company that sells crappy products)

I am also skeptical that the current WoTC cares that much about the tabletop aspect of D&D. When the head of WOTC says D&D is undermonetized, they don't mean they want to sell more RPG material - even if all the 3PP were added to D&D's sales, it wouldn't be that much of an increase.  I don't know how they plan on monetizing D&D.

People are upset now, but I have a feeling once OneDnD drops, they'll quietly crawl back. At least we'll get some new games and possibly some fresh, new creativity out of this.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 11, 2023, 07:45:08 PM
I'm thinking even if WotC tones down their new OGL it probably too late now.

Their reputation has taken a hit.  Even if they do nothing at all, it's changed.  Nobody trusts them now.

The only upside is a group of games in the works to get away from WotC.  Who doesn't like new games?

You'd have to be stupid not to scrub your stuff from the SRD/OGL, even if they do a 180 how can you know they won't try again? Remember the cat is out the bag regarding the use of the mechanics and plenty of the monsters.

Plus not using the OGL allows you to claim compatibility (If it's that important to you)

Yes, ruined. By now, they already showed their true intentions. Even if they backtrack and respect the OGL 1.0, it is not worth the publishers taking any risk; in the future WotC/Hasbro could try to change it again. In my limited understanding, the OGL is only helpful in copying their text verbatim. The publishers should reword all their new works to be able to publish anything without using the OGL.

Quote from: JeremyR on January 11, 2023, 08:47:59 PM
I am skeptical that consumers care about a company's reputation. (I mean, I work for Walmart and am constantly astounded by how much loyalty customers have for what is a really crappy company that sells crappy products)

I agree with you as far as end users go. Despite the shit storm on the internet, I would bet that a high percentage of 5e players don't know the OGL 1.1 thing happened or don't understand it. Plenty of the ones that do are approaching it with a "well that's disappointing that the brand I'm committed to buying did that". However, I do think that if the 3rd party content dries up for OneD&D,  especially if (as a lot of people are speculating) it turns out that they also lied about OneD&D being backwards compatible, that will hurt the eventual number of people who play the game long term.  It may not make much difference to WOTC's bottom line (see below), but it'd still be good for the hobby.

Quote from: JeremyR on January 11, 2023, 08:47:59 PM
I am also skeptical that the current WoTC cares that much about the tabletop aspect of D&D. When the head of WOTC says D&D is undermonetized, they don't mean they want to sell more RPG material - even if all the 3PP were added to D&D's sales, it wouldn't be that much of an increase.  I don't know how they plan on monetizing D&D.

The monetization model for these micro-transaction-based online games is built around "whales", small percentages of the user-base who spend hugely disproportionate sums of money. Companies in that market don't have to care about the happiness of their wider user-base, as long as they've got the few big spenders on the hook, and they design everything around that.

Come to think of it, that might explain the OGL 1.1 move. Maybe they don't care about having a monopoly on tabletop gaming, so much as they do on having a monopoly on D&D "extras". They want to ensure that the "whales" they're planning on having in the OneD&D ecosystem won't have somewhere else to dump all the discretionary spending they would otherwise spend on skins for their virtual minis.

It's hard to tell what lasts and for how long, but it's pretty darn damaged at the moment.

Of course there are a lot of people who already hated them well before this who are coming out of the woodwork doing happy dances and it's sometimes hard to separate people who did like WOTC before but do not now because of this incident, and the ones who never did like WOTC before this.

If massive amounts of 3rd party support vanish, and stay gone; then yes, WOTC has really screwed up.  The 3rd party market, has been strong and diverse.

I have yet to even play D&D.  Its a record I've held for 47 years.

The closest I've come is buying Basic Fantasy and RPG Pundit's Star Adventurer, both OSR games.  However, I have not yet played either of those games, so I still haven't broken my no D&D rule, even by proxy

For me this is all just weird.  WotC coming out with 6E/1D&D, I was a solid, "Meh, who cares?"  That is because I don't give a rip about them.  I don't play their game.  I don't even really play OSR related games, some of which I like.

Right now the two games I play are both relatively different set of rules, though Mini-Six Bare Bones does have the OGL license in the back, even though its not a D&D game.

All of this noise just makes me glad I was an indie RPG guy from day one, though we concentrated on Palladium Books almost exclusively.  Some Star Wars D6, and some Shadow Run, but neither of them played well for us, so back to Palladium we went.  It was what we knew, and it was a series that covered lots of genres so we could stick to it and do fantasy, or Sci-Fi, or super heroes, or Vietnam (that one is its own rules set though).  We just didn't need to switch.

And we didn't have THAC-0.  Can't forget that.  Major plus.

Hell, if I want to stay away from OGL and WotC, I could go back to playing Palladium stuff again.  I still own them.  I just like rules lite stuff now.

But, the silver lining is that we will get a bunch of new games soon, and lots of them impress me with unique game mechanics.  Someday I may write my own game, cobbled together from all the good bits of radically different games you may not have even heard of, plus some of my own ideas from playing so much.

WotC, have mercy on your soul.  Because the internet does not.

Who knew Hasbro/WotC would bring unity to the hobby?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on January 11, 2023, 11:08:41 PM
Who knew Hasbro/WotC would bring unity to the hobby?

Seriously.