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The new Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License, a document which allows a vast group of independent publishers to use the basic game rules created by D&D owner Wizards of the Coast, significantly restricts the kind of content allowed and requires anyone making money under the license to report their products to Wizards of the Coast directly, according to an analysis of a leaked draft of the document, dated mid-December.
Despite reassurances from Wizards of the Coast last month, the original OGL will become an "unauthorized" agreement, and it appears no new content will be permitted to be created under the original license.
The original OGL is what many contemporary tabletop publishers use to create their products within the boundaries of D&D's reproducible content. Much of the original OGL is dedicated to the System Resource Document, and includes character species, classes, equipment, and, most importantly, general gameplay structures, including combat, spells, and creatures.
[...] One of the biggest changes to the document is that it updates the previously available OGL 1.0 to state it is "no longer an authorized license agreement." By ending the original OGL, many licensed publishers will have to completely overhaul their products and distribution in order to comply with the updated rules. Large publishers who focus almost exclusively on products based on the original OGL, including Paizo, Kobold Press, and Green Ronin, will be under pressure to update their business model incredibly fast.
[...] This sentiment is reiterated later in the document: The "OGL wasn't intended to fund major competitors and it wasn't intended to allow people to make D&D apps, videos, or anything other than printed (or printable) materials for use while gaming. We are updating the OGL in part to make that very clear."
[...] While there is plenty more to parse, the main takeaway from the leaked OGL 1.1 draft document is that WotC is keeping power close at hand. There is no mention of perpetual, worldwide rights given to creators (which was present in section 4 of the original OGL), and one of the caveats is that the company "can modify or terminate this agreement for any reason whatsoever, provided We give thirty (30) days' notice."
[...] Wizards of the Coast is clearly expecting these OGL changes to be met with some resistance. The document does note that if the company oversteps, they are aware that they "will receive community pushback and bad PR, and We're more than open to being convinced that We made a wrong decision."
WOTC takes a dump on the D&D OGL community.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by SomeRandomGeek on Wednesday January 11 2023, @06:06PM (17 children)
I haven't played D&D for many editions now. The last time I did play it, however, there was nothing to distinguish it from many competing systems except the large amount of content available for it. Has that changed? Is there anything that prevents all of these third party content developers from just saying "D&D is officially too much of a pain in the ass. Our content will no longer be D&D compatible going forward. Use this other system instead?"
Is D&D in the process of disbanding their ecosystem?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by crafoo on Wednesday January 11 2023, @06:16PM (1 child)
It distinguishes itself in being very bland and just bad.
D&D was never a very good system, it was the first popular gaming system. But it was never very good. Not well designed.
What's worse, it ruined entire decades of video games as well. they adopted the terrible, clunky, frankly quite dumb D&D systems into their combat systems. 40 fucking years of "tank-healer-glass cannon" combat trope in every single game, ruining them. The dumbest, weakest, most no-effort attempt at game design and balance.
Good riddance.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by darkfeline on Wednesday January 11 2023, @06:42PM
It wasn't designed for balance AFAIK, it was designed for fun, and it was rather successful from the stories I hear.
WOTC has been flailing for a while, so this may be a desperate attempt to stamp out refuges for fleeing customers.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 4, Funny) by mcgrew on Wednesday January 11 2023, @06:25PM (4 children)
The change happened in 2000. This is the century of unparalleled greed, selfishness, and a dire paucity of honesty and humanity. At least in America, anyway.
Age of Aquarius, my ass!
The Stupid-Ass Voter Evisceration act: SAVE Trump and his family from prison
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday January 11 2023, @10:43PM (3 children)
Sounds like someone is unfamiliar with U.S. history. While wealth inequality has once again risen to the dangerous extremes that characterized the Gilded Age of robber-barons, we've still got a long ways to go to rival the excesses of greed and inhumanity that were characteristic of the era. For example, I've yet to see company goon squads gunning down striking workers in broad daylight, much less the U.S. Army. Nor have I seen company towns forcing their workers into near-slavery by paying them in company scrip that can only be spent at the extremely overpriced company store.
As for astrology... of the many things you can say about it, one of them is that any change of significance that lines up nicely with calendar dates is complete bull$#@!. A quick google gives dates for the beginning of the Age of Aquarius varying between sometime in 1447 to within the next few decades, depending on exactly how you define the completely arbitrary requirements.
And that's even before you even consider the modern "math is hard" redefinition of the zodiac boundaries to span equal-width wedges of the night sky that now only have a tenuous connection to the constellations that once defined them.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2023, @11:49PM
I don't know, I'm pretty sure Disney has tried that at some point . . .
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday January 12 2023, @08:01PM (1 child)
As for astrology
I was referring to a popular song from half a century ago. I don't believe any of that astrology bullshit. As to history, I was referring to the last seventy years; we don't have legal slavery any more, either, but I was talking about recent history.
And that's even before you even consider the modern "math is hard" redefinition of the zodiac
Math is only hard if your math teacher was incompetent. I made a D- in high school algebra, and realized years later that I don't know what that teacher was trying to teach, but it wasn't algebra; I was already using formulas for electronics when I took the class. I probably knew the subject I made a D- in better than my incompetent instructor.
The Stupid-Ass Voter Evisceration act: SAVE Trump and his family from prison
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Thursday January 12 2023, @10:27PM
I completely agree that math isn't actually difficult (Heck, I've got a degree in it despite finding arithmetic a grueling chore until finally introduced to algebra - and pre-algebra was some sort of ugly nightmare that did its best to confuse everything).
It does however revolve around two skills that humans are really bad at as a rule: logic and rigor. And while neither skill is particularly difficult, I think many people find applying them consistently to be hard, in sort of the mental analog to the "hard but not difficult" work of digging ditches.
Getting back to my post, my "math is hard" comment was not a comment on math, but the quality of modern astrologers who have dramatically simplified the system - presumably because anyone who could handle the math to do it right went into astronomy, physics, or most anything else that requires actual skill in things other than bullshitting.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Wednesday January 11 2023, @06:31PM
Well ... maybe just one more heist to squeeze more money out of it. After all, is there honor among thieves [youtu.be]?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by helel on Wednesday January 11 2023, @07:00PM (3 children)
The original OGL is the reason there's so much material published for D&D.
For a long time anyone who wanted to publish their own game material would slap together a half-baked clone of D&D, add all the setting material they actually cared about, and call it a day. This meant there were lots and lots of bad games floating around and a few good ones [wikipedia.org] that started eating their lunch.
Someone at WotC had the bright idea to regain relevance by going open source: Anyone can publish content that's compatible with D&D so anyone who wants to use their setting will need to purchase our rules books and use our character creation tools. It was a good deal - designers could publish to a set "standard" rules system without paying for a license and WotC could be the biggest game selling the most merchandise around.
If they go through with this new license that ends. Nobody wants to spend all the time and money to produce a book just to see WotC plagiarize and publish it with their much larger reach. Thanks in large part to the OGL there's allot of game systems that are available for use and modification nowadays. None of them are as big as D&D but I could very much see one of them becoming the new favorite if everyone in the industry has to scramble to find a new home that's not D&D.
In short, yes, I think WotC is in the process of taking the nice little asset that was D&D and throwing it in the dustbin.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday January 12 2023, @02:41AM (2 children)
I'm wondering ... if they say the new license means the old license is now invalid and therefore infringement (which seems to be the gist), isn't that a unilateral and retroactive change to an existing de facto contract?
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by helel on Thursday January 12 2023, @05:21AM (1 child)
Yes, but very very few game designers have the money to fight WotC in court so they can more-or-less force it to be true by threat of frivolous lawsuits. Doesn't matter if you're right if you've already lost your house before the trial even starts.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Reziac on Thursday January 12 2023, @05:43AM
Are there not laws against unilaterally altering a contract? that would make it criminal, not civil.
Of course, for your next trick, get the relevant jurisdiction to prosecute....
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday January 11 2023, @07:37PM (3 children)
> I haven't played D&D for many editions now.
Same. The heyday was 2nd and earlier editions. Tried 3rd, 4th, and 5th, but circumstances had changed so much that we could no longer sustain a campaign. When you live on a college campus, there are interested people within 5 minutes walking distance. Outside of that, players live too far away, and we all have too many other things to do, both necessities and fun. Not least was MMORPGs. Perhaps now, we could run a campaign virtually, using tech only for video conferencing, rather than the still completely mechanistic dungeon mastering of the typical MMORPG. Human DMs, good ones, roll with innovative thinking. MMORPGs nerf it.
> large amount of content
I got schooled on the use of "modules", that is, pre-made adventures. Turned out that the players were all too familiar with them. You could dismiss as lucky one or two instances of looking in just the right place, but when it happened every time, and they all knew exactly what was behind every door and around every corner, it was painfully obvious I couldn't rely on pre-made stuff. Had to make my own content. Perhaps now "large" is large enough to avoid that?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by GloomMower on Wednesday January 11 2023, @08:17PM (2 children)
> Perhaps now "large" is large enough to avoid that?
I don't think there is any avoiding a player taking the initiative to look it up. I think that might be more common. No matter how large, it is easy to download whatever pre-made you are doing and read it ahead of time.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 11 2023, @11:58PM
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday January 23 2023, @03:03AM
Any player who actually wants to have fun will not look up the material ahead of playing. There are no prizes for "Winning" - the actual enjoyment is the gameplay itself.
Who am I kidding - this is 2023.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Thursday January 12 2023, @03:35PM
There are a few reasons to prefer D&D:
1. Popularity. Even pathfinder is a small subset of players compared to D&D (Roll 20 publishes statistics but the site is blocked at work, probably this link: https://blog.roll20.net/posts/the-orr-group-industry-report-q1-2021/) [roll20.net]
2. Polish and streamlining. WOTC can throw a lot of money and playtesters at the game resulting in a very consistent gaming experience. In 5E the rules rarely conflict with eachother and the rulebooks are well written
3. Simplicity. Along with the streamlining 5E has been made very approachable for new users. If you are looking for tactical combat, better systems exist, but if you want collaborative storytelling, simple is usually better
4. Digital tools. WOTC knows more and more people are playing online. While Roll 20 and Fantasy Grounds are great third party experiences (with the official rules integrated directly), I believe WOTC is building a first-party site. That space is theirs to lose
With those said, I would argue that moving to a more restrictive license will defeat all 4 bullets (maybe digital tools could use vendor lock-in). I believe the digital tools are the real growth opportunity in the industry (reoccurring payment opportunity), and a company like WOTC has the resources to make the best product in the space. Hell, they could just purchase Fantasy Grounds or Roll 20 for an established platform and playerbase.