Quote from: Jam The MF on January 12, 2023, 07:58:59 PMSo now Paizo, is considered to be among the good guys?  Two Thumbs Up, at the Irony of That.  The enemy of my enemy, is my friend now.

Nahh, they all deserve each other, honestly. Paizo et al basically told a lot of us to go fuck ourselves and that they didn't need our support. I will continue to abide by their wishes.

Looks like WoTC are planning to double down on Jan 16th with "OGL 2.0" (hat tip: estar/Rob's blog).

According to this leak/rumour https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1613671192250155009.html WoTC are now planning to say on January 16th that existing published OGL 1.0 material is ok, but anything new has to use the new evil OGL 2.0 - OGL 2.0 will remain a trap, so this looks like confirmation that new products will need to be de-OGL'd.

Quote from: S'mon on January 13, 2023, 06:08:30 AM
Looks like WoTC are planning to double down on Jan 16th with "OGL 2.0" (hat tip: estar/Rob's blog).

According to this leak/rumour https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1613671192250155009.html WoTC are now planning to say on January 16th that existing published OGL 1.0 material is ok, but anything new has to use the new evil OGL 2.0 - OGL 2.0 will remain a trap, so this looks like confirmation that new products will need to be de-OGL'd.

So, let me get this straight:

1. The WoTC Nazis make OGL v1.1.
2. TTRPG community loses their shit and bands together.
3. WoTC Nazis respond by RENAMING it OGL 2.0, but don't change the content.

they really think we're all this stupid? Fuk em!

KEEP CANCELLING YOUR SUBS TO D&D BEYOND FOLKS! That's the real indicator they just shit the bead!

Quote from: blackstone on January 13, 2023, 07:32:29 AM

Quote from: S'mon on January 13, 2023, 06:08:30 AM
Looks like WoTC are planning to double down on Jan 16th with "OGL 2.0" (hat tip: estar/Rob's blog).

According to this leak/rumour https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1613671192250155009.html WoTC are now planning to say on January 16th that existing published OGL 1.0 material is ok, but anything new has to use the new evil OGL 2.0 - OGL 2.0 will remain a trap, so this looks like confirmation that new products will need to be de-OGL'd.

So, let me get this straight:

1. The WoTC Nazis make OGL v1.1.
2. TTRPG community loses their shit and bands together.
3. WoTC Nazis respond by RENAMING it OGL 2.0, but don't change the content.

they really think we're all this stupid? Fuk em!

KEEP CANCELLING YOUR SUBS TO D&D BEYOND FOLKS! That's the real indicator they just shit the bead!

As I hear it, the cancellations were coming in so fast and hard it crashed the D&DB website, forcing them to patch it... and remove the unsubscribe button.

Quote from: Spinachcat on January 13, 2023, 03:01:06 AM
You will see many of these 3PP create "sub-companies" who will most definitely sign the OGL to produce official D&D crap.

Because that's where the 6e era money will be.

As for the legality of the OGL, don't worry about lawyers. Lawyers don't matter. Judges matter and more importantly, previous rulings from appeals courts or higher courts matter the most.

It would be fun to see a 3PP company bring the OGL perpetuity argument to the US Supreme Court.

LOL, 6e era money.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on January 13, 2023, 08:01:51 AM

Quote from: blackstone on January 13, 2023, 07:32:29 AM

Quote from: S'mon on January 13, 2023, 06:08:30 AM
Looks like WoTC are planning to double down on Jan 16th with "OGL 2.0" (hat tip: estar/Rob's blog).

According to this leak/rumour https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1613671192250155009.html WoTC are now planning to say on January 16th that existing published OGL 1.0 material is ok, but anything new has to use the new evil OGL 2.0 - OGL 2.0 will remain a trap, so this looks like confirmation that new products will need to be de-OGL'd.

So, let me get this straight:

1. The WoTC Nazis make OGL v1.1.
2. TTRPG community loses their shit and bands together.
3. WoTC Nazis respond by RENAMING it OGL 2.0, but don't change the content.

they really think we're all this stupid? Fuk em!

KEEP CANCELLING YOUR SUBS TO D&D BEYOND FOLKS! That's the real indicator they just shit the bead!

As I hear it, the cancellations were coming in so fast and hard it crashed the D&DB website, forcing them to patch it... and remove the unsubscribe button.

Quote from: Spinachcat on January 13, 2023, 03:01:06 AM
You will see many of these 3PP create "sub-companies" who will most definitely sign the OGL to produce official D&D crap.

Because that's where the 6e era money will be.

As for the legality of the OGL, don't worry about lawyers. Lawyers don't matter. Judges matter and more importantly, previous rulings from appeals courts or higher courts matter the most.

It would be fun to see a 3PP company bring the OGL perpetuity argument to the US Supreme Court.

LOL, 6e era money.

This is interesting if they removed the unsubscribe button. Are you expected to send an email or call someone to unsubscribe?  IANAL but I'm betting that not providing a way to cancel a subscription (especially if it is a paid one) is unlawful. While it would be a bit of a hassle, if I were a paying subscriber and they did that, I'd be on the phone reporting my credit card lost.

Quote from: JeremyR on January 13, 2023, 12:53:54 AM
I don't think WOTC/Hasbro even cares about the tabletop business. They want to monetize the IP and they want to do it digitally. They want to sell subscriptions (only place the game comes into the matter), they want to sell Vegan Owlbear NFTs and don't want to deal with possible competition in that space from others.

The 1.1 is designed to put the bigger 3pp out of business. There is no way they could survive giving 25% of their net to WOTC (or just 20% in the rumored revision). WOTC knows this, as their profit margin seems to be like 15%. They want to avoid any possible combination in the digital space by getting rid of the people who possibly could compete, even slightly.

If you are right they really screwed up big. They could have re-written OGL 1.0a to ensure that digital products were not included but otherwise it stays the same (and gotten good will from everyone), and then made an OGL 2.0 strictly for digital (that would mostly screw the 3pp) and the with their money and head start they could have easily dominated the VTT space. They could have had it all, including a vibrant table-top market in case VTT and the lifestyle brand fail and they are forced to crawl back. As is they burned the bridges and built up a lot of ill will before their movie and lifestyle brand launched which seems daft to me.

Quote from: 3catcircus on January 13, 2023, 08:25:22 AM

This is interesting if they removed the unsubscribe button. Are you expected to send an email or call someone to unsubscribe?  IANAL but I'm betting that not providing a way to cancel a subscription (especially if it is a paid one) is unlawful. While it would be a bit of a hassle, if I were a paying subscriber and they did that, I'd be on the phone reporting my credit card lost.

I don't think they removed the unsubscribe button, that's far too technical and crafty for DNDBeyond and goes beyond the level of stupidity/lawsuit land.   

The reason I'm aiming for is that the influx of UNSUBSCRIBERs overwhelmed a low end part of the site and it merely crashed out and the link/redirect was not working from certain areas. the direct link to the url was working minutes after the outrage began as that's when i unsubb'd

I put less stock in nefarious activity and more into neglegence.

Quote from: S'mon on January 13, 2023, 06:08:30 AM
Looks like WoTC are planning to double down on Jan 16th with "OGL 2.0" (hat tip: estar/Rob's blog).

According to this leak/rumour https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1613671192250155009.html WoTC are now planning to say on January 16th that existing published OGL 1.0 material is ok, but anything new has to use the new evil OGL 2.0 - OGL 2.0 will remain a trap, so this looks like confirmation that new products will need to be de-OGL'd.

This would seem to be an even more legally dubious position than the original attempt to just deauthorize 1.0a. Contract law is usually not friendly to trying to modify an existing contract. Either the contract is valid, or it isn't. But if that leak is correct, they're basically trying to remove the "perpetual" part of the license now, without actually invaliding the whole thing. That... doesn't work, to my non-lawyerly understanding of such things.

Quote from: Ruprecht on January 13, 2023, 08:34:00 AM

Quote from: JeremyR on January 13, 2023, 12:53:54 AM
I don't think WOTC/Hasbro even cares about the tabletop business. They want to monetize the IP and they want to do it digitally. They want to sell subscriptions (only place the game comes into the matter), they want to sell Vegan Owlbear NFTs and don't want to deal with possible competition in that space from others.

The 1.1 is designed to put the bigger 3pp out of business. There is no way they could survive giving 25% of their net to WOTC (or just 20% in the rumored revision). WOTC knows this, as their profit margin seems to be like 15%. They want to avoid any possible combination in the digital space by getting rid of the people who possibly could compete, even slightly.

If you are right they really screwed up big. They could have re-written OGL 1.0a to ensure that digital products were not included but otherwise it stays the same (and gotten good will from everyone), and then made an OGL 2.0 strictly for digital (that would mostly screw the 3pp) and the with their money and head start they could have easily dominated the VTT space. They could have had it all, including a vibrant table-top market in case VTT and the lifestyle brand fail and they are forced to crawl back. As is they burned the bridges and built up a lot of ill will before their movie and lifestyle brand launched which seems daft to me.

So here's the deal. I don't know that they could prevent VTT competitors, OGL or not.

The front-end is an expression of the math sitting inside the backend of a VTT.  The math is all open content in the sense that it can't be considered IP or copyrightable, as far as I'm aware. If a VTT were to present a configuration menu to allow you to mathematically describe game mechanics and for you, the user, to configure their expression, I can't see how WotC or any other publisher could stop them.

That is - you get a menu that allows you to define and enter attributes (so you could call one strength, or muscles, or brawn, for example and define the allowable range of values). Another menu allows you to define (1d20 + ((10-Attrib)/2) as the controlling mechanic, etc. 

Quote from: 3catcircus on January 13, 2023, 09:39:47 AM

Quote from: Ruprecht on January 13, 2023, 08:34:00 AM
If you are right they really screwed up big. They could have re-written OGL 1.0a to ensure that digital products were not included but otherwise it stays the same (and gotten good will from everyone), and then made an OGL 2.0 strictly for digital (that would mostly screw the 3pp) and the with their money and head start they could have easily dominated the VTT space. They could have had it all, including a vibrant table-top market in case VTT and the lifestyle brand fail and they are forced to crawl back. As is they burned the bridges and built up a lot of ill will before their movie and lifestyle brand launched which seems daft to me.

So here's the deal. I don't know that they could prevent VTT competitors, OGL or not.

I've highlighted the main point regarding VTT. I'm not saying outright prevent competitors. Basically they move forward and allow others to join them (in a hobbled state) in the VTT world. One could try to catch up but money and head start and massive name recognition have a very, very large advantage.

Quote from: Spinachcat on January 13, 2023, 03:01:06 AMBecause that's where the 6e era money will be.

It all depends on how successful that will be. If 6e continues to rake in the green, then yes all will follow suit.
If not, then we will have some sort of 4e situation again.

Without the OGL 3pp will be able to claim compatibility with 6E (within reason), on tabletop products at least. I'm not sure how this would work in the VTT which will likely be a closed space.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on January 13, 2023, 10:12:27 AM

Quote from: Spinachcat on January 13, 2023, 03:01:06 AMBecause that's where the 6e era money will be.

It all depends on how successful that will be. If 6e continues to rake in the green, then yes all will follow suit.
If not, then we will have some sort of 4e situation again.

I don't know how they expect anyone but the most bloated of whales to have money to spend on 3PP with the way WotC is planning to nickle and dime it's customers into the poorhouse.

The biggest problem WotC is going to have in competing with other VTTs is if any system that uses ORC is close enough to D&D's mechanics it can sub in for D&D as a module to handle rolls, track damage, etc.

It's not derived from their SRD and so modules for that system could easily be released. Just include a "manual" setting for inputting custom values and "rename" option for attributes, skills, etc.

VTT's are not responsible for policing the games run on them (particularly ones like Foundry which don't even run on a specific server), so if someone happens to use the "Elder College Reborn" System Foundry module to run a game of 1e D&D, it's not like Foundry or Hasbro could do anything about it.

WotC's walled garden only works if they can shut down competition with better features from using anything D&D-like. The walled garden also won't be competing with other VTTs, but with MMO's. The value is in the freedom of GMs and players to create their own things... the closer WotC tries to manage what can be done in their walled garden, the more just playing an MMO with superior graphics and faster play will be the competition.

I think MMO and VTT will eventually merge. Neverwinter Nights has a multiplayer mode that allows you to real time GM for your friends. Yeah it's clunky but that game is ancient. It will only improve. The IRL and VTT divide will grow.