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Tibalt posted:They already had people volunteering to give them a cut in return for only selling their product in their wallet garden of the DMs Guild. Causing a massive PR disaster to try and get a cut from the people who don't need to rely on WotC was always going to be a long shot. The C-suite idiots could have had tools made for the DDB VTT to let authors build automated versions of their *own modules, looked like heroes for making an easy-to-use import feature and raked in the cash while leaving the OGL untouched. edit: a word
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Jan 27, 2023 21:46
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That announcement is kinda striking. ...and my first thought is "where is the hidden dagger?" Because yeah, this crisis of PR was entirely of their own making and the backlash has been massive, but rarely will a C-suite do this hard of an about-face so quickly.
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Jan 27, 2023 22:13
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I think the cancelled subscriptions really spooked them.
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Jan 27, 2023 22:14
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Boba Pearl posted:I think the cancelled subscriptions really spooked them. Coupled with paizo selling a poo poo ton of books all of a sudden
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Jan 27, 2023 22:16
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I can't stress how many normal people who play exclusive DND asked me about my pathfinder games, and if I'd help them get into it, and once they saw how easy it was to get into, they started going gaga. Like Compare the 5e Race List with the PF2e heritage list and tell me which is more interesting. People are leaving the walled garden, and it's very scary for DND if they have ANYone who knows anything about tabletop stuff.
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Jan 27, 2023 22:20
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Boba Pearl posted:Like Compare the 5e Race List with the PF2e heritage list and tell me which is more interesting.
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Jan 27, 2023 22:21
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I suspect that this frees their hands to do whatever they want with OGL 2.1 or whatever, which they will use with the next D&D. They've figured out that they can't retroactively close the floodgates on 5e, but I'm not at all convinced that they're going to let 6e remain nearly as open.
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Jan 27, 2023 22:22
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They made the crucial error of letting things go far enough that people realised the original OGL wasn't that great a deal either. Once you've done that, and once they've started building their own stuff instead, why would people go back?
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Jan 27, 2023 22:33
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Cool Dad posted:I suspect that this frees their hands to do whatever they want with OGL 2.1 or whatever, which they will use with the next D&D. They've figured out that they can't retroactively close the floodgates on 5e, but I'm not at all convinced that they're going to let 6e remain nearly as open. Probably more likely realized that large royalties on storefronts are almost universally accepted, and they still have control over a large userbase in Beyond. It's why this whole thing was stupid in the first place, they don't need to make D&D less open, they just need to allow people to make whatever they want for D&D and then make sure people have to sell it in their store and marketplace for access to their userbase and VTT.
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Jan 27, 2023 22:35
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Drone posted:That announcement is kinda striking. Well, I don't think they've added 'irrevocable', so they could still cancel it, unless I'm missing something?
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Jan 27, 2023 22:41
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Megazver posted:Well, I don't think they've added 'irrevocable', so they could still cancel it, unless I'm missing something? Creative Commons licenses include the term. In theory WotC could try to terminate the OGL and remove 3.x material from the usable pool, so let’s keep pushing them to release that material under a CC license.
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Jan 27, 2023 22:43
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You can't revoke under CC 4
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Jan 27, 2023 22:43
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Boba Pearl posted:Like Compare the 5e Race List with the PF2e heritage list and tell me which is more interesting. 5e.
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Jan 27, 2023 22:53
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Regardless of what else Wizards do, if they revoke the OGL, and that revocation stands up in court, that puts a lot of material that (perhaps stupidly) depended on the OGL to interoperate a bunch of unrelated sources in hot water and being forced to renegotiate terms to continue publishing. That's a problem even if they decide to put everything they've ever published themselves under CC.
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Jan 27, 2023 22:53
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Cool Dad posted:I suspect that this frees their hands to do whatever they want with OGL 2.1 or whatever, which they will use with the next D&D. They've figured out that they can't retroactively close the floodgates on 5e, but I'm not at all convinced that they're going to let 6e remain nearly as open. They did that with 4th edition and the GSL, and people just kept making 3.5 stuff instead (like Paizo).
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Jan 27, 2023 22:56
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https://twitter.com/paizo/status/1619101146190053376
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Jan 27, 2023 23:38
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I'd say Kobold Press are the big winners of this decision. They want to do to 5E what Paizo did to 3.5, and they just got handed any and all tools needed to do that.
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Jan 27, 2023 23:55
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The material published in the SRD they just put out that is under CC-BY licensing - CC-BY specifically, not CC-BY-SA or CC-BY-ND - includes this: You cannot use the specific expression (backstory, description, art, etc.) of the vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich still. But his name for a vampire is now free to use. So are the monster names beholder and mind flayer, though again, not their specific expressions, which were not included.
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Jan 28, 2023 00:00
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I’m actually shocked they folded. Some thing must have threatened the c suite maybe the board had enough bad PR when it hit NPR. Kinda amazing.
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Jan 28, 2023 00:13
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That seems like a strikingly bad move/overcorrection, though? I'd ask "did they mean CC-BY-SA instead" but it must be that they don't understand the implications or...? Like this seems like the kind of thing where some boss said to an underling "fine fine, you were right all along, do you have a recommendation," they suggest CC-BY knowing there's absolutely no shot, and the boss goes along with it because... they just want to get it over with? Because this was already an unimportant sideshow and they really don't care?
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Jan 28, 2023 00:20
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Vire posted:I’m actually shocked they folded. Some thing must have threatened the c suite maybe the board had enough bad PR when it hit NPR. Kinda amazing. Beyond sub numbers must have dropped by a huge percent.
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Jan 28, 2023 00:21
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The Bee posted:I'd say Kobold Press are the big winners of this decision. They want to do to 5E what Paizo did to 3.5, and they just got handed any and all tools needed to do that. Which could end up being a really good option for players that want a better 5e, but don't want to go the direction of PF 2e. IMHO, onednd is going to end up overshadowed by modded 5e (Kobold Press, Advanced 5e, etc) and PF 2e. I just don't think anyone at WotC is going to consistently make good design decisions. It really is amazing how there is just nothing about this whole past month or so that has any kind of win for WotC. "They win AND we win." LMAO no
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Jan 28, 2023 00:24
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I really do think all they need to do is rework the rules for dming and encounters fix the class balance just slightly and make martials not as terrible and make the best vtt with their hasbro money and everyone will still play dnd. They don’t need a restrictive license if they have the best virtual product for a mile because they spent millions on it. They can still do all the dumb monetization. This just was a huge unforced error and they made it harder on themselves for no reason. They still likely will be fine especially if the new movie is good.
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Jan 28, 2023 00:27
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Yeah. And on top of all of that, Cubicle7 is turning their 5e compatible content towards their own d20 based system, so you have a developer that handles media licenses spinning away from 5E. We may almost end up with too many competing d20/5E clone systems battling it out, but that battle's gonna overshadow One for sure. Not completely, but its gonna make people more aware there is a competition in the first place.
The Bee fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Jan 28, 2023 |
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Jan 28, 2023 00:28
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Imagine if WotC had come forward with this announcement up front instead of the PR disaster their previous plans led to. They would have been lauded as the darling of the RPG world for being so progressive instead of the greedy shitbags that drove away countless players and creators 
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Jan 28, 2023 00:34
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Mors Rattus posted:The material published in the SRD they just put out that is under CC-BY licensing - CC-BY specifically, not CC-BY-SA or CC-BY-ND - includes this: The 5e SRD, unlike the 3e SRD, has always been full of stuff like this that technically wasn't permissible to use as-is because the proper names theoretically fell under the domain of "product identity" without being individually called out as such. That they shoved the extant SRD into CC without any changes to excise their IP shows exactly how rushed and panicked they must have been in making this move. At any rate, some of the monsters in the SRD like the mind flayer have seen enough unlicensed use in commercial video games over the decades to set a pretty good precedent for Wizards having failed to defend their trademarks on them, if they ever had any in the first place.
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Jan 28, 2023 00:36
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zachol posted:That seems like a strikingly bad move/overcorrection, though? I'd ask "did they mean CC-BY-SA instead" but it must be that they don't understand the implications or...? I don't know, but I know they can't undo this or close this door now it's opened. You are now free to happily make a book about Count Strahd von Zarovich, Vampire Lord of Trans Rights and sell it for money.
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Jan 28, 2023 00:44
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King of Solomon posted:Beyond sub numbers must have dropped by a huge percent. Some proper lifer content creators came out to bat against D&D as well, and more than likely someone sat the execs down and explained exactly how much they hosed up and nearly cost the company the parasocial network that was their most effective advertising machine.
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Jan 28, 2023 00:50
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Mors Rattus posted:I don't know, but I know they can't undo this or close this door now it's opened. You are now free to happily make a book about Count Strahd von Zarovich, Vampire Lord of Trans Rights and sell it for money. Or, indeed, Count Strahd von Zarovich, the vampire who explains to you at length why Hitler was right. Pretty obvious that the whole hate speech thing was a retroactive justification rather than a key guiding principle at this point. I note that they talk up how the CC thing is irrevocable, but skirt around using that term in relation to 1.0a - they just say they are leaving it in place whilst making no promise that that will be forever. So yeah, not worth using that unless you have a compelling reason to do it.
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Jan 28, 2023 01:00
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Cool Dad posted:I suspect that this frees their hands to do whatever they want with OGL 2.1 or whatever, which they will use with the next D&D. They've figured out that they can't retroactively close the floodgates on 5e, but I'm not at all convinced that they're going to let 6e remain nearly as open. Maybe, but with this move their very own SRD 5E system is going to be competing with One, or whatever they release next. They might be able to muddle through if their VTT supports One and is really impressively implemented. If they're smart, they'll support 5E there as well.
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Jan 28, 2023 01:02
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Warthur posted:Or, indeed, Count Strahd von Zarovich, the vampire who explains to you at length why Hitler was right. I think at this point, the Creative Commons is both less restrictive, more permanent, and accidentally gives you access to some things the OGL doesn't. It's funny.
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Jan 28, 2023 01:06
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The Bee posted:I think at this point, the Creative Commons is both less restrictive, more permanent, and accidentally gives you access to some things the OGL doesn't. It's funny. For one thing, the CC option means you don't forswear using Product Identity...
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Jan 28, 2023 01:12
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The Bee posted:I think at this point, the Creative Commons is both less restrictive, more permanent, and accidentally gives you access to some things the OGL doesn't. It's funny. It feels like a pretty serious overcorrection, and I'm having trouble believing the lawyers signed off on it.
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Jan 28, 2023 01:13
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Drone posted:That announcement is kinda striking. they apparently had a bad holiday season already and must have got absolutely crushed on subscriptions on top of it, Hasbro is a publicly traded company and has a fiduciary responsibility to save the brand which is worth more than the total value of whatever they have left in 5e customers D&D almost certainly makes more money off videogames/mobile titles/toys/licensing deals than they do the actual sale of the tabletop product, the OGL rewrite was a monumentally stupid idea and it's outcome probably outraged a lot of investors who have more access to their numbers than the general public do. They've got a big movie coming out, this was very bad timing Tibalt posted:The big things I noted were the monster stat blocks for Aboleths and Drow (along with a couple of other weirdos like Xorns) and the name of a monster called a Beholder that is an Aberration (but not necessarily the floating orb with eyes that shoot anti-magic). If a c-suite executive got fired over this, it's probably safe to assume most of the legal team went with the 15% - they were the ones that hosed this up so bad, after all I am sure there are still lawyers left at Hasbro, but you can bet none of them worked on that document and none of them had a loving thing to say about the D&D project after the desks got cleared out Mirthless fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Jan 28, 2023 |
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Jan 28, 2023 01:13
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Seems like there's someone in WOTC personally emailing every 5e Youtube creators about this now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bplr4dBwUUE Mirthless posted:If a c-suite executive got fired over this, it's probably safe to assume most of the legal team went with the 15% - they were the ones that hosed this up so bad, after all Regretfully, I don't think it's safe to assume and we can bet. You'd have to believe that suits don't get to gently caress up and then just kinda get away with it scot free. Megazver fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Jan 28, 2023 |
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Jan 28, 2023 01:22
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Tibalt posted:but not necessarily the floating orb with eyes that shoot anti-magic drat, I was really hoping we'd get to see the PF2e version of a Beholder. There are some homebrew ones out there but it would be fun to see what Paizo came up with.
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Jan 28, 2023 01:41
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Megazver posted:Seems like there's someone in WOTC personally emailing every 5e Youtube creators about this now: Don't get me wrong, I don't want to make it sound like justice was served or anything The company's official position has been to essentially throw their lawyers under the bus by claiming everyone misread a poorly written first draft that totally didn't convey their real intentions; They've practically been shouting "Our lawyers are dumb and bad" for the last two weeks. I've worked in the corporate offices of a few publicly traded companies, in positions that had high visibility on firings, and in my experience: if your department does an oopsie that has to be reported to investors (or that investors demand action on) people in your department are going to lose their jobs. Mirthless fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Jan 28, 2023 |
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Jan 28, 2023 01:44
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Appearntly Creative Commons does not bypass Copyright. So Beholders while named do not enter into Creative Commons.
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Jan 28, 2023 01:44
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As I understand it, you are not being given the rights to use anything not in the provided SRD (such as a slaad or mind flayer) in your own work. Instead, you are being given the letters S, L, A, A, D and I as put on a page in a single word. Wizards of the Coast has exactly as much control over the expression of what a slaad or mind flayer is (i.e. if it's too close to their own IP, you're infringing) as they did before.
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Jan 28, 2023 01:54
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Well, they are licensing the use of the name slaadi or mind Flayer to refer to an aberration. None of the specific expressions of those creatures as they exist in D&D, Which is why Strahd is the big deal here, you are now licensed to make derivative works featuring the vampire, Cound Strahd von Zarovich, as long as he does not resemble the copyrighted expressions of that character in D&D materials outside this. Which would be limiting if anyone gave a poo poo about official art, descriptions or backstory for Strahd showing up in stuff. E: like, for Strahd it is very specifically his name as a dracula that is valuable.
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Jan 28, 2023 01:57
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