We don't want a new OGL, but if WotC are going to die on this hill, I think this is a step in the right direction. Credit where credit is due: the creative commons thing is really cool! But this is by no means "good". I'm frustrated with the misleading language and message around this license being "irrevocable" (it IS revocable) and the suspicious abscense of royalty mention. And obviously the competitor VTT crushing and the fact they can kick you at anytime for anything and you can't fight back is crazy. Remember to let your voices be heard! Fill out the survey and #opendnd
The announcement accompanying it was actually nice to hear. Do I believe it means WOTC cares about their customers? Nah. But it is them making serious concessions. Is it okay or even legally viable to revoke the OGL 1.0? Nah. No need to sign on this new OGL. Kick rocks until you make new OGL 1.2 apply only to new content. You wanna prevent sharing everything? Make new stuff, WOTC. Write something.
@@Andy_Enderson We're not there yet. It only "hasn't worked"'if there's no new OGL at all. And the only legit way to fight back is to swap to Pathfinder or another RPG.
Except this isn’t what WOTC really wanted They wanted everyone to swap to the 1.1 OGL This is a rushed plan B where they still get SOME of what they want, but FAR from it all
Hi, we are the creators of TaleSpire. We'd like to chime in briefly. We don't use WOTC's IP or OGL and don't plan to. Their license doesn't bind us, and we aren't going anywhere. While there are many fantastic folks in WOTC, the negative contingent has shown exactly how they would interact with this community if they get the chance again. We see ourselves as part of that wider TTRPG community too. Still, it appears more important to some to try and scare players away from tiny indie projects than to focus on building a legitimately competitive one. It's baffling. Once again though, we are going to keep building things we like for the games we love, and we hope that what we do resonates with some of you fellow adventurers out there.
I love your product and have stopped using 2D VTTs for my games to show off my story with the help of Talespire. I can't wait for the next update. Great job!
Here's the thing: Wizards has already completely shredded their trustworthiness. Nothing can take back all of the shady tactics they've employed. Originally, I told myself that's enough for me to walk away for good. But then I thought a bit more about it. I wouldn't get back into a relationship with someone who lied, cheated, and gaslit me. The trust is already gone. The only way I could get into a relationship is with someone new. So the only way I could come back to the game is if: 1. The current OGL stays irrevocable and intact. 2. The executives responsible resign en masse with a public apology for the damage they've done to their company's relationship with the players and their product. Otherwise we deserve the future deception and manipulation we'll get for chosing to return to the abusive relationship.
They shredded their trustworthiness over two years ago. Glad you people finally open your eyes to the town being on fire. Sucks that it had to take your own house going up in flames before you finally noticed.
The most dangerous thing about this is them being able to pick what is and is not offensive. They could basically target creators who are speaking out against them or pushing back against wotc using their content. Big red flag
They can and will use any law as justification. You live in the middle California and are a LGBT 3rd part creator? Well your existence is outlawed in say Saudi Arabia and WoTC can say they are protecting the brand. Or do it either way around your a creator in Saudi Arabia and they say you violated the laws of Scotland. This is what Lawful Evil is.
Shortly after all of this mess started, I had this idea for a homebrew bard subclass that was basically like an artisan, and an idea for a character that went through training in an artisan guild and a high-ranking member of the guild ended up taking credit for the work they did. That high-ranking member technically would have been allowed to do it because of a guild rule that allowed them to claim ownership over an apprentice's work, and that would have been the start of the character's backstory of leaving the guild and going out adventuring in the world. I haven't made a lot of progress on this idea, but basically it was just a fun little thing I was thinking of to parody how WotC had literally written in a clause that would allow them to steal content from 3rd party creators, which was part of the reason I wanted to make a homebrew subclass to go with it. If I were to actually do this under OGL 1.2 though, they could decide that my less than subtle parody was "hateful" towards them specifically and revoke the use of the license, and since the OGL is necessary for subclasses, it would kill my artisan subclass completely.
@@Xo-3130 I'll go one further. They already said the word "race" is racist. They can totally annihilate any OSR or pre-6e content. They've said having racial/species differences between races is racist. Your goblins get a -1 to dex where humans have no bonuses/disadvantages? They can have it removed. They've said a whole species having shared culture is racist. You have goblins that all believe in a set of goblin gods? Sorry, racist, pull it down. They don't have goblin gods? Racist, pull it down. Some do, some don't? Sounds like you think they aren't good enough to develop a culture for--racist, pull it down. They said having species-wide characteristics (like dark-vision for kobolds) is racist. Your dark elves can see in the dark? Racist, pull it down. They've purposefully set this all up. They don't even need to hide behind the law.They've purposefully said things over the past year so they can target signers without fearing them fighting back via lawsuit. And they're hiding behind "we're stopping racists". It's so patently obvious. They said they had to stop hateful and racist material---when's the last time you saw a third-party project for D&D with actual racism? I can't say I've seen any Neo-Nazi, KKK, or White Supremacy supplements. Even the least culturally aware supplements of D&D (like Kara-Tur) were not racist. For example, Kara-Tur was never trying to be Asian, rather it was portraying the culture depicted in typical eastern films and kung-fu movies. It never tried to be actually Chinese/Japanese/Indian/etc. And it never took a deprecating tone or style. In fact, it oft times celebrated the differences and the cultural nuance, even though it was absolutely not at all an accurate approximation (from what I understand). So yeah....that whole clause exists to allow them various categories to go after creators for. They can hit you for violating the law of some other country, but are also covered for anything that violates any of the above, too, plus many others. They've been planning and preparing all year. Go back and look at official statements/etc. They have been busy sowing seeds. They are snakes. They are using things everyone agrees with (fighting racism and hate) to push their own hidden agenda. Hopefully everyone sees them for what they are.
@@donalddickerson206 this is an unfortunate reality I wish more people realized. Companies are using Social Justice in the most predatory and destructive ways possible. The fact everyone just... goes along with it is beyond insane.
Agreed. But we must not confuse the designers and developers at WotC with the executives that they work for. And Kyle Brink is a relatively recent hire, with a resume in video and mobile games, and *not* a career tabletop designer. He may be the direct supervisor of the creatives we should avoid attacking, but he is not one of them. He's a low-ranking Hasbro/WotC executive.
The fact that they *solely* get to define what qualifies as "hateful conduct or content" is an instant and total deal-breaker. I wouldn't trust these guys to make a decent cup of coffee, let alone define and police complex moral concepts in a non-self-serving way, and neither should anyone else.
Especially when you consider that D&D is essentially a storytelling medium, and many stories' conflict rely on offensive things happening, like discrimination or needless violence. This is basically a blank check for censorship for WotC
It's just their excuse to mandate Diversity Inclusion and Equity morals. If it's not progressive enough then it's "hateful". Just look at all their recent 5e stuff/marketing. They don't want anyone pushing back on their changes. Eventually they will even ban terms like "good" and "evil" as being hateful. Not enough people are talking about how bad this is going to get, especially when it is intentionally left so vague. It's going to be a political and moral test for them to weed out anyone not far left.
And you give up any right to do or say anything about it. They wouldn't even have to tell you what the problem is. You happen to be a competitor they don't like, your content is offensive, Period. You fi9nd a way to to fight it in court and get it found unenforceable, you have given them to right to revoke an irrevocable license (for you, or everyone, at their sole discretion). The OGL has never given you much of anything you don't already have under US law. There is simply no reason to agree to this new license. Tell them to pound sand and create what you want to without using the OGL, just don't use the trademarked logo they offer, as that's literally the only thing they have any important control over.
As soon as I saw Woke shit entering DnD (Wheel chair accessible dungeons anyone?) I knew these were not good people running DnD. Switched over to Pathfinder, and it feels like old DnD where that BS didn't matter.
I completely read the new OGL 1.2 and I can confirm that it has not changed much from 1.1. They can change the license, and section 5 can give them control over all of our work and also implement royalties later. If section 5 is changeable, they can control everything and charge for it. And that isn't the only problem. They are the only ones who decide what is considered "harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing" and they can block the work of anyone they don't like or dont want to competite with
That and you have to prove that they knowingly and intentionally stole your ideas, that it being super similar is not sufficient proof and you agree to that. Which effectively means you need documents stating "Yeah, I'm taking Creator X's work."
*I HIGHLY reccomend everyone to watch Roll For Combat's recent Live Streams with Stephen Glicker who has worked with Law and Games for over 30years. He knows the industry inside and out and there's alot to learn about the details in this, especially the VTT part and how EA tried to monopolize the entire game industry some 20 years ago the same way WotC tries to do with some VTT animations right now. It's potentially really bad.* Edit: Changed the word "Video" to "Live Streams".
The only part they can change for section 5 is what they call the company, and the only part in 9a they can change is the email address. That's in case the name of the company changes, or they need to update the email address. There's still plenty of room for mischief such as being able to strike off the license if they deem it hateful, that you can't take them to court over the license and a few other bits, but it really has much, much less wriggle room to pull "gotchas". My take is that WotC have been forced at gunpoint to make a decent OGL after Paizo said they're making theirs, in a last ditch attempt to keep some goodwill. But WotC only pulling out something reasonable after their arm has been so badly twisted by public opinion means they'll start messing around elsewhere whenever they get another chance, so it's still not worth going back.
This draft is basically, "We wont take your stuff unless we want to take your stuff. Also, we own Virtual Tabletop, and we dictate what is and isn't offensive." It's not better. It isn't an improvement. It's them rewording their already failed attempt at persuading their community into an unfair, unnecessary, and legally questionable agreement.
I mean, for true transparency, someone should create an open-source repository for survey responses such that respondents can send their surveys to Wizard, and send screenshots to the repository or something. It’d be interesting to discover whether the results shared by Wizards would match.
The problem with this is that we don't know for sure if the person that goes through the trouble to do this and the average survey taker is the same kind of person, so we risk making assumptions that aren't based in reality. This whole debacle has awakened the "go woke go broke" side of the community as well, and they're louder and angrier than the average DnD enthusiast and more involved in bandwagons even though they're in no way representative of the entire audience demographic.
@@KattReen Right. As with all things, it depends on scale. You get 10 responses, you can't really trust them. You get 10,000... and you can formulate some decent hypotheses.
@Ben Dukes Maybe but your sample will still be biased towards those most riled up by this issue. People who agree with the OGL (few of them as there may be) are less likey to bother doing a copy of their response so any results will be warped negative and we have no idea to what extent.
Here is the important part, which I have no doubt any lawyer who you spoke with already pointed out but it needs to be underlined: This draft of the OGL does not actually have a morality clause. It only states that they can cancel you at-will, period. It is that simple. This OGL Draft does not require WotC to ever establish any standards for what is hateful/harmful, which means that if you exist or your content exists, that existence alone is sufficient cause for WotC to declare you or your content hateful/harmful and cancel you at any time.
Yep, remember how they have changed races to species? What’s to say if you don’t follow those strict changes and still call them races that they will just cancel your license agreement? What’s to say if you don’t follow them strictly in terms of token morality signaling that they won’t just cancel you? Additionally it also says conduct too. I have no doubt that can mean if you are Republican in public, they will just cancel you out right there.
They already have a bad track record on this. In 2020 they forced Alicia Furness’s work off the DMs’ Guild for specifically for being anticapitalist. We absolutely cannot trust them to unilaterally decide that something is or is not hateful.
Any lawyer should understands that what's considered illegal or hateful/harmful varies massively by jurisdiction, and so defining universal standards would eliminate plenty of leeway they could otherwise give you.
WOTC could easily say that donating to a particular political party, not making diversity a major point in your adventure, or retweeting someone who is ideologically opposed to whatever stance WOTC is taking at the time to be "harmful" or "hateful" and cancel your publishing rights. Since you agreed to the de-authorization of 1.0a, you have effectively been barred from publishing anything that is D&D related. Publishers would be insane to sign this agreement. They're better off sticking with 1.0a or going to Paizo. In the era of words are violence, silence is violence and no one can define a woman, there's really nothing left that someone, somewhere won't find offensive.
The absolute biggest red flag out of this is that they straight up refuse to stick with the old OGL. They DESPERATELY want a new one. And that new one is going to be draconian no matter how many revisions this draft goes through. There'll be a point where they'll stop listening to feedback and put out the final OGL and say "This OGL was brought to you by YOU! Our community." solely placing the blame on the community. Certain things will probably never change from this. They'll probably never add guaranteed irrevocability (and if they do, it will benefit THEM. Not the consumer). On top of that we have another red flag with the VTT chokehold. They want theirs to be the only one on the market that's advanced and updated. The theme of D&D going forward seems to be "Stamp out all competition". And then the fact that they can straight up steal from you and use your stuff. Sure, you can go to court against them, and maybe even win, but what they may make from your content combined with others may more than cover their losses. Let's not forget that they can probably steal from you, then cancel you (or vice versa) so you can't do anything.
You have to remember that the CEO of WotC said that they want D&D to have "the type of recurrent spending you see in digital games". That means OneD&D/D&D Beyond has to be the only game in town for VTTs, or else people will move to the VTT that isn't trying to sell them lootboxes.
@@whym6438 Bingo, that's why they're willing to back off on most everything except the VTT stuff. They want to be able to snuff out everything else and trap you in microtransaction hell.
remember, dont let them deceive you into signing an ogl worse than the original one. this is a classic tactic where they offer something horrible, and then walk it back to what they actually wanted to make it seem better than it actually is. imagine if you're buying a car from someone, and they ask for $10k, then walk it back to $5k, even though the car is only worth $1k. this is like that.
Yup I agree, I firmly believe their true goal is kill all other VTT to be the only online option, and once that done they will go full digital on future content, hide it all behind a paywall and thats when they will gouge everyone. By doing this they would fully support their vision of fully monetizing DND.
The language in this new OGL should be a point of concern to the FCC, particularly around VTTs. The fact that there had already been people in the space and WotC is now trying to force them out of it so they may monopolize the space is a great indication that WotC is walking very close to an anti-trust lawsuit.
@@kunimitsune177 Correct. Unfortunately what they were trying to do before this was to charge a percent of other VTTs (or stop them entirely) to ensure no matter what they were getting a cut on all VTTs or their players were only able to play D&D in their proprietary VTT. I think it is perfectly fine for them to jump into the VTT space, and I think if executed well they will find lots of success, but they can't go about it in a way that stops competition in the VTT space.
@@kunimitsune177 no they were trying to do it to all VTTs who were compatible with their system. That was the issue where they were trying to impose restrictions on companies that were specifically trying to use their system but could be used with their system. I.e. If you could have spell effects in your vtts and someone used your vtts you could have been held liable for them doing that.
i know you like to focus on the absurd parts of the game for humor, but let me say i have really appreciated how you have covered this so far... all of these videos have been top tier, hopefully we get some laughs sooner than later, again thank you for the hard work you always put into your content.
I think my biggest issue with the new OGL and it being "better than the last" is that... well, that is kind of a really low bar to clear. If they started with something like this, then I think we'd have a much easier time accepting the new license. But they didn't. Its still a situation of them trying to push through stuff we just don't want and stuff that will be harmful to everyone in this hobby.
Don't kid yourself. This new version is only better around the edges. It still cuts off publication of new material in support of OSR, 3.5, or 5e versions of the game, by authorizing only the *current* SRD, effectively obsoleting all the existing third-party products that they "graciously" allow to continue to be sold under the terms of OGL 1.0a. And in a clause that is not mentioned in this video, by utilizing OGL1.2, a publisher *gives up his right to participate in class-action or group litigation against WotC or Hasbro.* I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a plaintiff class *more* suited to filing a class-action suit against a major corporation than the dozens or hundreds of small, third-party publishers who will be harmed by WotC's quite-possibly-illegal attempt to revoke OGL 1.0a. This generally unnoticed clause is an attempt by WotC to cut the legs out from under any litigation to defend the OGL 1.0a as irrevocable, which many credible copyright and licensing attorneys believe it may well be. Definitely check videos by The Rules Lawyer for more on this.
@@printandplaygamer7134 It might be due to poor phrasing on my part, but I agree with you. The only reason the "new" OGL is better than the leaked one is due to how absolutely abysmal that one was. The only solution that would be acceptable to me, and what I assume many other people, would be OGL 1.0a to be the one that is continued to be followed. No updated OGL that makes the 4e License look reasonable, no hidden meanings, or false apologies. 1.0a is the solution. Nothing short of that.
@@chrisconney4426 I apologize if my tone was confrontational. We're on the same side. The *only* thing that WotC can do to *kind of* win back my trust is update the OGL to 1.0b, with two changes: explicitly adding the word "irrevocable" to the sentence that establishes that the license is "perpetual"; and transfering ownership of the license to an independent, non-for-profit organization dedicated to holding and maintaining open-source licenses. Short of that, WotC never sees another dollar from me. Ever.
@@printandplaygamer7134 I absolutely agree, we are on the same side. With what they are doing, I'm concerned they're wanting to cause in fighting within our community, in the hopes that we're focused somewhere else and they can skate this through in the meantime. Also, no apology is necessary since I know any frustration or anger in this circumstance comes from a concerned place. Concern for the DnD community, concern for what they're wanting to do to something many of us are passionate about and love.
@@chrisconney4426 Oh, they absolutely want to cause fighting within the community, so we don't remain united in our resistance. Their cries of "misinformation" about DnDShorts video about WotC not reading survey responses was just such an attempt to divide us. WotC's PR-designed response was to send out members of D&D's popular design team to assert that THEY read survey responses regarding Unearthed Arcana playtest material; they said nothing about whether WotC *executives* read survey responses or customer feedback about OGL and community policies, which is what matters in this case. Classic misdirection on WotC's part. It's pretty clear they've hired a professional PR firm specializing in damage control by now. They're worried.
I think they're irredeemable. In the first few episodes of LOVM s2, the Raven Queen is called the Matron Of Ravens. But Raven Queen isn't any less generic than Cat Prince as a name. And it happens to be a commonly used nickname in real life for the actual non-D&D goddess that inspired the Raven Queen. Who are Wizards to think they can hold a copy right on real world religion and folk lore?
The same way Marvel can copyright the Norse gods. You make your own version of a preexisting public domain entity and copyright that version. Like Disney can't stop you from making your own Pinocchio you just can't make their Pinocchio.
@@josephwilliams5292 That's the point - the onus is on them to prove such a case. Stargate had a Thor. God of War had a Thor. All without Marvel getting up in arms about it, because it's clear it wasn't THEIR Thor. Which means as long as you don't directly copy the design, you're fine.
@@N1korasu Sure. But the version used in D&D isn't substantially different from the ancient folklore. In Marvel the Norse gods are fairly different from how they are in Norse mythology. And the Names and nicknames for those gods aren't copyright just because marvel used them. Only the fair artistic title fonts can be copyright.
@@flyboymike111357 - so D&D will have then created themselves a pretty weak legal argument if they try to claim ownership of things in which their designs were already notably similar to the commonly known versions from folklore/myths. It’s on them to create something unique and defining, or else their “but it’s our’s!” argument is weak.
I applaud owning the miscommunication situation. It's hard enough to stand up to things we see as bad or potentially problematic, but its even harder when people want to chastise you for making an honest mistake. Keep up the good work.
I doubt it was actually miscommunication. Some people were forced to walk back. It's quite clear they don't care about the feedback, and there is plenty of evidence from other channels that the role of the surveys is to control the narrative and dissent.
Naw. Glad it got clarified but it still shows how little they (Hasbro especially) care about the product. The advertisement/hype around One D&D _primarily_ focused on the narrative of community feedback. "We need your help and we're listening". Sure, good. Except literally no one reads the comments or suggestions in the surveys, and they knew this, but encouraged us to write them anyway. It's completely disrespectful to our time and effort, and frankly disgusting. But more so, it's a tactic to A) Waste our time and energy, and B) Make us feel heard, when we aren't. I understand the issue of volume. We're talking about the creation of a massive new product line. It would NOT cost a significant amount to WotC, (let alone Hasbro) to hire on a team of people whose EXCLUSIVE job was skimming through those suggestions and compiling them into digestible talking points for the devs. Many of the suggestions will be the same. They don't need to read all of them - just large sample sizes based on pre-determined criteria. They could even use basic tools to scrape the info and sort it by similar criteria, reviewing the similar suggestions by volume and examining outlier suggestions more closely. I repeat: THIS IS NOT DIFFICULT OR COSTLY. It's not a high-paying job, and (while obviously ideal) this team wouldn't need prior knowledge of D&D. Their job isn't to analyze suggestions, just compile data and statistics. Source: This used to be my job. On a daily basis I used simple tools to pour through thousands of entries on hundreds of pages of formulates DAILY and review/compile the information. My small team would review thousands of pages a day, and we made ~$15/hour. Please don't give them credit for doing LESS than the bare minimum with these 0-10 ratings. There is no excuse whatsoever for them to lie to us and waste our time. Hasbro wants to hyper-monetize D&D, but they're not willing to spend a tiny fraction of the money they want to make by giving WotC the resources to do it right. In context, the feedback outreach feels (at least partly) a ruse to distract the community while sneaking by these abhorrent OGL changes. HARD pass. Keep clogging their cash pipe.
@@danielwoods3896 Sadly, the only videos out there are haters stirring up more hatred. And everyone seems to know exactly what the intentions of WotC are and what they're talking about behind closed doors. Good grief, I'm going to start unsubscribing from these videos.
I think Paizo has the best solution here with their proposed ORC, and while I have ALWAYS been a D&D guy that fact of the matter is, the game system mechanics don't matter all that much and creators can simply write their material using that system with no fear of the bottom falling out. People like me, with decades of Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Planescape, etc. material can then flavor the Paizo and 3rd party content however we choose if we feel we're missing something from D&D. This is exactly what many of us that sat out 4e did, using the "3.75" material from PF 1e (or just using older D&D versions).
Great to see you practise what you preach mate. Giving a full and sincere apology as well as being fully transparent that you had made the mistake and how it had been made. Kudos. Thanks for the update on the new OGL, your content is amazing, from facts to explanations.
I've been following you for a while and man, I know you didn't want to have to step up like this but you have done a fantastic job. Several other creators have added to the conversation very well, but you are killing it. Your transparency and willingness to correct yourself as new info becomes available is to be commended. WotC could learn a lot about how to address the community from you. Thank you, dude. If England ever has the displeasure of me visiting, I want to buy you a pint and raise a toast! 🤘
"Can _you_ think of any creators that might have annoyed Wizard's recently?" I'm not only certain that I can name a handful, I'm *very* certain Wotc BoD already has them on their own little (s)hit list.
Honestly they likely don't, WotC is far too large to care about relatively small channels and social media. If this drags on and they can scape goat them as the reason for a loss in revenue then they will make a list. Individual people at WotC might have a black list, but the company ad a whole likely doesn't simply because it doesn't pay.
Idk a lot of large companies hire people to go through and watch things related to their Ip's online and look for possible infringements. Nintendo is a big example. Or Disney (They also steel a lot of peoples art) Im not sure if Hasbro has that kinda money or even cares enough to do it but i wouldn't outroght discount the possibility. Where money gathers greed will flourish.
@@Bzerker01, if that were the case they wouldn’t have gone out of their way to single out 3rd party content creators in ogl 1.1, even though those creators are obviously much smaller than them.
I would definitely still be worried about the open-ended aspects of the new OGL. This is a common corporate trick to put out a flexible skeleton of a plan and do the old frog-in-boiling-water trick over time so that people can't object right away. It's like setting a super-cheap price on your first iteration of a service, then slowly raising the price in small increments. They are definitely trying to shut out competition out of fear, regardless of how good their VTT will be. I'm sure the corporate higher ups consider even $1 going elsewhere to be an affront and stealing from them.
5:55 "I no longer trust wizards" That's such a wonderful sentence without any context. I would really want to hear the story behind it if I heard it somewhere, but sadly "a license agreement sucks" is not the epic backstory I'd have expected.
@@4thdimensionalexplorer Taking a random out-of-context quote you liked from a video, book or overheard conversation as inspiration for a one-shot is actually genius. Love the idea!
@@wolframstahl1263 Just because you don't understand the implication of legal agreements and how they can be used more effectively than a bank heist, doesn't make it less exciting than a bank heist. In this situation, each client is considered the bank. "Here is how I'll legally abuse the system and take what I want from you however I please, and there is nothing you can do about it" right in hundreds of thousands people's face is pretty freakin epic in my opinion.
You know first time I saw you on UA-cam I was like Epic beard, cool combo's. This is a fun channel. But with all this going on shows how exceptional you are. Thanks for standing up for all of us.
I REALLY liked how you said that the contract must leave no room for Wizards to abuse it. This OGL is RIPE for abuse by WOTC and you are perfectly correct that we cannot trust them not to abuse any loophole they can sneak past and therefore the OGL must not leave any room for them to abuse it.
I HIGHLY recommend Legal Eagle's video on this whole debacle. He basically said that legally speaking, no one ever really had to abide by the ogl in the first place. You can't copyright game mechanics, and there's precedent in the courts that says so. So yeah you can't make and sell a third party book with the name "Dungeons and Dragons" on it, but you can use any rules you want and say it's "Dungeons and Dragons compatible". Which is what most third party studios have already been doing. The only issue is no one wants to be the first person to test the waters, obviously because wotc has a team of lawyers ready to go at the drop of a hat. *Edit because this is only true in the U.S. I have no idea how other countries' copyright law works"
Also keep in mind the wording of the Hateful Conduct part of that is if you participate in ANYTHING. NOT ‘if you print something that is blatantly hateful we will walk it back.’ It’s ‘if you make a tweet that is a little dubious and you’re competitor, we’re revoking your license.’ It’s the same thing Discord did where if you engage in ANYTHING they see as ‘hateful’ they’ll remove you.
Thank you for your constant updates and for being on top of this whole situation! I haven't had the time to really dig into these documents, and having your videos breaking down them has been a huge help to understanding the whole situation.
It wouldn't even matter IF we trusted WotC, as long as they're part of Hasbro, they can be instructed by Hasbro (or Hasbro's shareholders) to change their interpretation of hateful content- likely to get rid of anything close to controversial content
Yeah I don’t care what new licenses they come up with. At this point they are just pulling things together and hoping it’ll satisfy the community enough to quiet down. So long as wotc keeps on straying away from the ogl and messing with third party creators, I personally won’t be satisfied at all and I hope others are the same. LEAVE THIRD PARTY CREATORS ALONE WOTC
There IS a clause about GOVERNING LAW in the draft. It refers to the state of Washington (or wherever WotC HQ might end up in the future). As you've rightly pointed out, laws and customs differ around the world, so it does make this open license somewhat more restricted the 1.0a.
if that's true, then the "you cant sue us for stealing your content/canceling you" clauses won't hold because *iirc* washington has a law that you cant sign away your legal rights...... (could be wrong, take this with a shaker full of salt)
@@catboygremlin oh? there is separate discussion about Severability (literally the paragraph before Governing law). If any part of this license is invalid, then WotC may declare the entire license void. IF you are right, then - there you go, here's that magic clause which makes the debate about revoking moot.
One of my DM/player friends honestly made a great point that the bit about restricting visuals on VTTs to prevent them from being 'videogame-like' is actually kinda ablist but I know its to remove competition like Talespire, VRChat and Alchemy from producing something for their VTT will also cover, which I cannot stand. Its ablist to folks that have Aphantasia and can't visualize things from words alone. Being able to show what a spell looks like or provide ambiance and music is integral to people with Aphantasia across all VTTs, and I'm sure as hell gonna not support their VTT since they tried to choke out Talespire and Alchemy, among others in the VTT side
Mad respect for acknowledging that you were wrong and apologizing, it shows that you care about DND and the community. It's a breath of fresh air when compared to the reactions and apologies of other Creators.
I grew up playing D&D *AND* MtG, so Hasbro suddenly deciding to take so much more of an active stance dictating how both of those games will go is just a deep disappointement for me. All they had to do was sit back and let the cash roll in like it has been for decades, but they had to pull this crap. Now my trust is broken, and trust broken can never be reforged, at best you can glue it back together into a facsimile of its original self that will never stand as tall or as stable. And at this rate they're not even gonna bother doing that much.
@@KrynnLite that new card game think it's sorcery realms something is coming out this year. Hasbro already licensed the same exact artist they are using for there art so they already don't like it lol
I don’t think anyone can trust them now. Better to walk away now. The art of never losing a game is never to play. Wizards have shown you who they are and what they intend, people: monetising the product and locking out any competition. There walk-back is a statement of sly intent. If everyone simply says, “No thanks, we’ll stick with the existing OGL, or we’ll walk. Your move,” that would be the smartest thing. Remain united and put ALL or your feedback in the Wizard forms on the web!
If Star Trek and Star Wars fans had pulled their support and money sooner, we'd likely not have Trek and Wars... But at least we wouldn't have had to put up with the desecration of their corpse.
Lots of respect for owning your mistake, and thank you for covering this for us and keeping us in the loop. When people can admit they are wrong, it makes them more trustworthy in my eyes.
@@APerson-ws4cw He mentions it in this video briefly, but basically last video he said that WotC never reads the feedback from surveys. This was quickly contested online and through Twitter and he posted a pinned comment on that video stating he has misunderstood what was said but many people were still upset that he did not take the video itself down.
If this OGL goes through with a "harassment" provision, WotC WILL use it against anyone who fought back against their plans, i.e. this channel and many, many others
Amazing summary! I’ve watched hours and hours of actual lawyers going over 1.2 (and do recommend Roll of Law and others to anyone who has the time) and you seem to have explained the most important points in 10 minutes!!
One thing I might reference is that I've often heard the expert lawyers in other contexts say that waivers of legal action are often unenforceable. You can't sign certain rights away (obligatory not a lawyer. Always consult your own lawyer). Even as they say that you can't sue, generally speaking, you can.
Thanks mate for distilling down yet another chaotic couple of day! The service you've provided to the community through all of this has been absolutely invaluable! Also with offering the apology to the design team you are so far up on the high road that I hope you brought an oxygen tank with you! Keep up the great vid and I'm also looking forward to the return of the meme content to make me chuckle as I work!
Keep up the great work. Mistakes happen but your contribution to the community and the ongoing discussions has been really important, don't let a small mishap discourage you!
Props to you for acknowledging forthright (in the very next video) where your coverage of the situation has deviated from fact and issuing a direct apology to the people who were hurt by that deviation from fact. It speaks a lot to your character.
Step 1) deauthorize 1.0 Step 2) introduce replacement that can be modified at any time Step 3) make changes the users complained about, users can no longer fight back
As much as this version of the license is arguably an improvement (and that IS a matter for argument, because as has been pointed out, there are provisions for changing it and the promise that they WON'T change it to include license-back and royalties isn't legally binding), there's still a poison pill here. They're still trying to take away 1.0a. As long as they're doing that, any potential version of the OGL they make will be unacceptable.
Just a friendly reminder for everyone , it's a common practice in the game industry to purposely make any proposed changes more drastic than you actually intend, because when there's backlash for it like there inevitably will be whenever you change something that people have gotten accustomed to, they can walk it back to what they originally intended, act like they are listening, and willing to work with the community.
True. But that's usually not legally binding stuff. Like say putting a cash shop into a game after X time. But a contract is signed and cannot be changed. Unless of course it stated that it can be changed. And in that case you should never sign that contract, even if the rest is reasonable.
If that was what had happened, they wouldn't have sent contracts to creators to sign. The idea that 1.1 was a "draft" has been a WOTC lie from day 1. If it was a draft it wouldn't have gone out for legal signatures.
Good to remember in general, though in this case if this had been planned they would have responded to the uproar from the leak much more quickly and competently. Waiting a week and then putting out a statement that couldn't possibly have been approved by any competent PR person is not part of a master plan.
Thank you not only for being one of the most vocal voices in this community against WoTC/ Hasbros shitty practices. But also thank you for taking a thoughtful and critical approach to the recent developments. It takes a lot of guts to admit to mistakes like you did as well as the emphasis on not attacking the game designers themselves.
True. It's actually the part about today's society I hate the most. NO ONE will own up to a mistake and will tear anything down to not have to. This was refreshing
Thank you for assembling a league of lawyers to help us process all of this. Legalese is hard and this needs to be well understood for the D&D community -- especially if we wish to preserve it. I almost want to make Cavern's and Creatures on an open license.
League of Lawyers is the much more boring and infinitely less successful spin-off of League of Legends. The character skins are all just slightly different business suits.
Wait... Would roll20's dynamic lighting be considered something that "doesn't replicate your dining room table storytelling? I can't, in real time, hide sections of my maps that wouldn't be visible to a character due to obstructions as that walk across a room, nor can I give each player a different view based on the current location of their character. And do they really think they can tell us that we can make a quick animation of a handful of magic bolts flying from one character to another? Note that nowhere in that did I use anything from any of D&D's rules. They don't own the very concept of a missile that is magic any more than they own the concept of a ball of fire.
I think they are trying to draw the distinction that you can't use official game content and then add effects to it ala a video game. But I agree they are on incredibly shaky ground if they try to actually enforce that. VTTs themselves do not add these kinds of animated features usually, they simply give people the ability to add sprites, and it would be hard to argue doing just that would be enough to breach WoTCs IP.
@@garion046 They are overreaching their enforcability on purpose. You threaten things you dont have a legal standing on because it is usually enough to stop people who dont understand copyright law. Also, its easier to have their lawyers argue for something written down, and they might wind up against a lawyer that doesnt understand copyright law. its win-win for them to lie about what you can and cannot do.
Thank you so much for the content you're making and for these videos in particular. Having a big channel with inside information broken down and translated to Common is incredibly helpful.
Thank you for your work, you've really stepped up to the plate. You and every other content creator keeping up the pressure and keeping this from just disappearing from public attention are the heroes we need right now. I salute you!
From my limited understanding of legalese I like the Creative Commons part; as Legal Eagle pointed out, you can't copyright game mechanics under US law, so it's not really giving us anything we don't already have, but it's also putting in writing something that hasn't necessarily been tested in court yet AFAIK so it's good to have it to point do and go "It's under Creative Commons!" The rest of it...eh. I don't trust any of it, really. My partner pointed out that it's pretty spurious for WoTC to keep harping on the 'we're doing this to prevent hate speech and ickybads' because that's really not their responsibility anyway; let's say someone in the D&D community decides to publish a horrible gross discriminatory product under the OGL (I've personally seen no evidence of this actually happening - is there any precedent at all for Wiz to suddenly be adamant about this?) but let's say someone did... If they wanted to fund it on Kickstarter, it'd likely violate Kickstarter's TOC and be shut down, if they went through Amazon, same deal, and it's not like anyone is going to mistakenly think it's official licensed D&D content. The likelihood of this becoming a widespread problem is nearly nil. So it still feels like a smokescreen and I suspect that's 100% what it is.
Keep in mind, these people believe calling the player races "races" (even though that's the historic word for "species") is discriminatory because they can't divide old-word meanings from new ones. What they actually want is to dictate what themes you can and can't have in your game.
We need to make this one of the main points that gets to the execs. We can’t let all the good ones get shut down and be left with some half-finished garbage that doesn’t work.
I agree. Also, I'm not sure VTTs need the OGL to be a platform for DnD anyway. Unless they plan to sell official art of adventure maps or something I suppose.
Can't wait for the Wizards VTT. Lootboxes for minis, exponential crafting, duplicate drops, premium prices for custom animations, pay for weather, subscription costs. Prepare to see all of the worst of Pay to Gamble video gaming in the DND VTT
Thank you for keeping us updated in this! It feels like you worked tirelessly for the community and helped push back somewhat on something terrible. From this point I’ll probably support pathfinder because I’ve just got so much respect for the handling of the situation. I also feel like I’ve been sleeping on a genuinely good system. Good luck with getting back to normal content and probably getting some more rest!
That severability language is also a real poison pill. It is virtually guaranteed that at some point in the future some portion of the license (no matter how small) may be found unenforceable. Lawyers have already identified multiple potential weak points. If that non-severability clause remains then they can simply make an "irrevocable" license and wait until they want it to test a non-enforceable provision in court. Upon losing the token lawsuit they declare the whole thing void.
i absolutely love ur determination to make DnD a open, public and enjoyable game for the players i rly hope they give in over time and change this draft to what we deserve nobody should rly hold the license for a tabletop game that is mostly played with ur imagination
Another problem: there is still a provision allowing them to change specific sections of the new ogl at will- obviously this can not stand. Plus ya know the revocation of 1.0a
Subscribed to support. Respect all the work you have put in to keep the community informed and have been extremely humble and open when there were mistakes. Kudos.
Your candour is appreciated. Thanks for sharing your thoughts after going to the trouble of consulting with your lawyer. It's very helpful. It's clear to me that you are genuienly a good guy, an honest guy who loves this hobby. I know you must be exhausted with all of this, understandably so. You have been a major reason that WotC is course correcting and starting to head in the right direction again. Thank you.
As an old school DM who had ran D&D and other systems for more than 2 decades, I was actually impressed by the changes made in OneD&D in terms of design. I was so preparing to convert my table to OneD&D until this OGL bullshit dropped. Hasbro owe not only the community an apology, but they also owe their designers in WotC a deep compensation for needing to deal with their own shits.
I don't understand how with all the books and knowledge we have collected over the decades why we even need WoTC? As DM we can do what ever we want to do. We can make any sub classes we want in our games. Make any spells we want in our games and change anything we see fit. Players typically come to hang out with other friends and have an enjoyable evening gaming. Maybe I just am lucky and have a small tiny player base in my neck of the woods who trust and enjoy what I create and put out. No one argues with me over mechanics and trusts that I am making things fair enough that the game can move along. Everyone realizes they are not the main character in any of my stories. We already got out those power fantasies back in the 80's and 90's. As we went through the Moldvay style gaming in the 70's. We don't need them. We have never needed them after we paid and bought our books. Everything can be updated to our own liking and help make our games run smoothly. Yes we have kicked out a few players who wanted to barge in with their new 5.e rule set thinking they were going to "own" the DM by bringing their min / Max nonsense onto my table. Nope I gatekeep and for good reason. So why do we need WoTC or D&D One? It's Done. I wouldn't use their crooked system if they paid me. Also WoTC offered a horrible deal so when they gave us the real deal, they thought gamers were stupid enough to fall for typical Upsale nonsense. They are acting like the snakeoils sales men I ran back in the 80's.😆😆 Screw WoTC and screw D&D. I don't need them. It is what the universe gave us imaginations for.
Absolutely. I feel so gutted for the design team who have been working so hard to add new things and fix issues with 5e. I hope this helps be resolved because I'd really like to try one dnd when it's out with a clear conscience
Sadly in fast moving situations like this communications mishaps can happen...all one can do is apologize and learn from it. Thank you for all the efforts youve been putting in to help keep community on task, informed and committed.
It is astounding how often Wizards will attempt to claim they own the right to something or to DO something when they actually don't, or arguably don't. I wonder if there is some way they could be help accountable for outright lying for their own gain on shit like this.
I really appreciate the fact that even though your channel isn't typically about serious stuff like this that you are producing this content for us. It helps us figure out what exactly is going on as reading legalese is more often than not very confusing. Thank you for doing this for the community
They're going to keep fiddling until they achieve that "just tolerable enough" status the community will accept. They will try to pull the rug out afterwards. They can't revoke the original OGL, that's a huge issue. The VTT looks pretty cool, and I'd feel more inclined to try it if 1: I wasn't already playing pathfinder on Foundry, and 2: They weren't aggressively monetizing it. You can do a season pass. You can do skin packs. Dice packs. As long as you can see what you get before you buy it, fine. But keep in mind this will be in addition to the $30/mo they want you to spend on Beyond.
That's the biggest problem I've had in general with D&D lately. I got started in 7th grade, saving up allowance for the starter kit and some dice, and getting the books for Christmas. Because I got started so early, I'm now much more experienced, and have a lot more fun with the game. But if it had cost 30/month to buy a subscription, well, I never would have started, WotC would have lost 300-400 dollars from me and each of my friends because teenagers don't have that kind of cash (unless they get a job, which means they don't have the free time.) Physical tomes of rules and wonder are what got so many people into this hobby, I don't see how d&d beyond is going to help.
@@DennisTheGuitarist Well, "declined the rumor"... of course there is a chance it was just a rumor to heat things up more... but with everything going on I would bet that "declined the rumor" just means "We realized that this leaked information will worsen our image even further so we just deny we ever planned something like this to appease the public."
@@lordhelmchen3154 There is no way to actually know that. Instead of making "conspiracy theories" and further rising the heat we can focus on the truth. The truth is they now made a public statement and we can hold them accountable on that instead of creating and spreading stories we have no actual proof of
So here's the difference between PF2E and 5E: 5E tells you what your spell does and why, PF2E tells you what the mechanic does, but it leaves it to you as to why, and is also very customizable. For example, you can take a -2 to your attack to swap your lethal weapon to non-lethal, or vice versa. Like bopping someone with the pommel of your sword to be non-lethal, or attempting wrap your non-lethal whip around someone's neck to do a lethal attack. I personally came up with the second one, no person or rulebook told me how a non-lethal weapon is lethal, so I just came up with it. And this isn't the exception, this is the rule. With summoner, your summon, otherwise known as an eidolon, has 4 different options for their primary attack that also has different sub options, with feats that further customize things. (You get a lot more feats in PF2E) For example, I'm making a Sacred Nagaji, much like a Yaun-ti (except sacred subrace means snake tail instead of legs), with a snake (beast) pet(eidolon) that has a coil attack. I added the grapple keyword to it with a feat(advanced weaponry), and chose an option that gave it the forceful and sweep options. Forceful being that repeated attacks are better, which, if your being coiled, makes sense, and sweep, which is basically a side effect, but is AoE, and what's stopping my eidolon from coiling multiple things? Also, with DM's permission, I pick the damage type. The coil does bludgeoning damage, and the secondary attack that is much less customizable is a tail whip that does slashing damage. Either way, I chose for it to be a coil, I chose the bludgeoning damage, I chose for it to be what I wanted. It's a very "mechanics first, flavor second" kind of system. And I love that! I am really looking forward to making lots of PF2E characters in the future. If you ever wanted to try pathfinder out, with the mass exodus, give it a shot before WotC hypnotizes everyone to play the inferior DnD again. This is your rare chance to try another system. Don't waste it, at least go mess around with pathbuilder 2e and see what you can do. (Also you need an account or something for making the eidolon, so I looked up the rules and did it myself).
Thank you for covering the part about "harmful" content! Trust is indeed the main factor to even consider this point, and after seeing them recede from the translation contract with ASMODEE thanks to a similar vague "quality standards" clause just so they could expand their markets I fail to see why we should gift them this trust. They already did, and will again take advantage of small prints. Regarding the way they are trying to block competition, it reminds me of my country's ice cream corporation Algida. They offered fridges to bars, at the clause of not allowing any other brand inside. That's a shitty way of ensuring to win over competition not by product quality, but by shelf conquest. Not only it's not fair but it almost immediately informs me that, indeed, their product will suck at best, and they're fucking scared of everyone else. Do not let them do it. Allow them to compete, and you will get nice products. Let them take over the entire shelf, and without challengers they'll just get lazy and serve you a cold meal.
The problem with the hateful or discriminatory content part isn't that they're the ones deciding what's hateful or discriminatory - *it's that the termination clause exists at all.* OGL 1.0a had no such termination clause, and the *community was perfectly able to self-police.* Please, do not buy into WOTC's attempt to gain power over creators under the guise of social justice. We've been fine without this kind of clause since the early 2000s - we'll continue to be fine without one in the future.
Something I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned, unless I misinterpreted it. But the clause on termination says that if you bring any action againts WotC, they can terminate your license. Which means, if they do steal your work, and you do prove it and sue them, not only can they keep distributing your work, they can terminate your license and prevent you from continuing to create content under the OGL. I'm not a creator, but I feel like this is almost an intimidation tactic to prevent creators from suing even IF they can prove their work was stolen, because they would risk losing their job.
Thank you for putting yourself on the line to bring us as much of the insider information that we need as you can, as quickly as you can! I’m glad you haven’t been dissuaded by the people who want to jump all over anyone who isn’t 100% perfect.
Thank you for the breakdown. I think the “you can’t fight us if we shut you down” clause isn’t that they aren’t confident they can win a lawsuit, it’s to prevent the cost of handling a lawsuit at all. I agree that section is too vague and needs to change, but I do understand the legalese reasoning behind the protection. That said, I fully agree it has to change.
The VTT issue is probably why so many other gaming companies have talked about creating their own OGL recently. Of course these companies have probably had these potential licenses brewing "just in case" for a few years now. Firstly, they gain good press and community support. Secondly, they open up the potential for more brand recognition. More recognition = more investment potential. With enough resources, these companies can generate their own VTT's with their own rule sets to compete within the market in a more traditional way. With no middle man.
I respect the apology made to the design team. Always direct your frustration and anger at the people that deserve it. As a former retail worker I understand that you can be frustrated at something else and take it out on someone else that was innocent. There was clarification and an apology, something you don't see to often lately.
Great reporting. Honestly, you said it best, the same people who came up with this still work there. This unfortunately doesn’t change things for me. I’m walking away from D&D. I just can’t stand by a company that cares this little for a dedicated fan base
"Here are two things..." *lists three things* One a serious note, thank you (and the people you're collaborating with) for all the work you've done during this whole debacle. You're amazing.
The VTT policy was the one that I had the biggest issue with as someone who doesn't really make content. What they want to rule out with the visual effects for other VTTs they get to do? How is that open? And the whole "Can I use the monster manual art for a token?", "No. We’ve never licensed visual depictions of our content under the OGL, just the text of the SRD.".. BULL! I've seen 3d tokens, MTG cards for owlbears, figures and dice bags, all officially licensed, all based on the art in the monster manual. Was I taking drugs when I hand sold those dice bags back when I worked in a bookstore? The card when it got played was that just a counterfeit? What the actual flying flumphs has to be a "visual depiction" of their content? A living breathing owlbear you can pet?
My big concern with survey...design teams will read it. But they are not the ones making/signing off on a new ogl. Board of directors/Cynthia Williams are. That in and of itself makes me wary about survey process. I dont question designers. I question the corporate hacks above them who will be making this decision
If the design team really is on our side, giving them the survey data they need to tell their boss "hey, they aren't falling for this one either" could be vital. I know how frustrating it is trying to get changes approved in a big company, every step of the way requires graph after graph after quote after graph, so giving them the survey data to construct those graphs could speed this along
Keep being loud everyone. Ignored the survey. They're not gonna listen to what we fill out there, but if we draw attention from elsewhere they can't ignore it anywhere near as easy. Send emails, create Twitter threads! We don't give up until they leave the OGL 1.0a alone for good!
D&D is, among a mountain of great and fantastical stuff, also a game about war, intrigue, murder, stealing, revenge, blood rituals, necromancy and so many orphans! I don't think it's even possible to limit hateful, obscene etc content that way. I want some of the darker parts of the game to be a bit obscene, I want some of the lighter parts liberated (which might mean obscene to other people), I want some of the villains to be proper scumbags. If I were to play that hypothetical bi-sexual, pot smoking character (which sounds like a lot of fun!), I wouldn't want all NPCs to be accepting of that.
I feel like not enough people are talking about the elephant in the room. We've rained fire down about the changes in OGL 1.1, we've talked about the changes in OGL 1.2. Why are we not talking about what's *missing* from them both that might exist in the OGL 1.0a they're adamant about replacing and getting rid of?
Appreciate you owning up to the miscommunication. I know you got a lot of flack for retracting that but it is apparent that the previous message was in error and you were just doing your best to be clear and accurate in your communication.
Thank you very much sir for these concise and timely videos to help us understand what’s going on. Big corporations attacking the community that it cannot exist without is a tale as old as time but hopefully the DND community is resolved enough to stick to what’s best for the community and take WotC for a ride not the other way around. Viva la Adventurers!
Can't stop there with an apology buried at the end of a video-- the damage needs to be undone to some degree. It takes only an instant to destroy people's reputation, but there needs to be more work done to undo the misleading information that was spread (accidentally or otherwise). We need awesome people designing RPGs in the community (regardless of where they work) without lumping them in with the villains. Keep spreading positive messages about those who work hard for our games.
@@mattie3875 I think the damage he did was more to himself than to designers. I think he’s ok here. Sure, should have been at the top of the vid, but I’m not gonna stack penalties on him. It was apparently authentic, and unlike WoTC, quick. So I’m satisfied.
I'm really less worried about him, you, or me, and more worried about those who are getting harassed in the middle of this, having sleepless nights when they've worked really hard to give us great things. It's more about having real empathy when you've done wrong-- if we criticize WorC for hurting the community then we should be setting the example for healing behavior. Not just satisfied with a casual apology that only a subset of the incensed viewers will see. This wouldn't have happened if they had taken even a moment to reflect on content readily available to them. I hope he makes it right.
@@mattie3875 Yeah…the designers are in a terrible place. BEFORE Shortz’ mistake. I’m sure they feel stuck being employed by exactly those who are doing REAL damage to our community…on purpose. It must be really tough, and I’m not being sarcastic, to feel as though they can’t say anything in support of the community and can’t quit as I am SURE they have destructive non-competes in their contracts.
@@mattie3875 He's apologized and clearly stated his mistake in more than one place now. Everyone jumped on him and harassed him straight away. Called him a shill, said all of his work was just for clickbait. Said his sources were garbage and couldn't be trusted- even though he's the one who immediately corrected himself when other trusted people (both people in the design team and ex-designers) told him they had different experiences. He's done more than the bare minimum here, he's clearly taken steps to be informative, clarify the issue, explain what's gone on, and find out where he went wrong, while also trying to be expedient for the sake of *The community* you mentioned. All of these leaks he's helped shed light on were also at great expense to himself, mind you, to inform the community at large. I think this is pretty damn good.
I’m glad for some things here on the feedback issue. - Kudos to you on taking accountability on the misunderstanding - I hope those WotC employees know how important clarity is in situations like these I say this with no shame, blame, or judgment to anyone. We are all learning the importance of word choice and clarity these days. Good news is that DnD Shorts is out here giving us the news we all want to hear and being an advocate for our community. Cheers!
Of all the channels I've seen covering this topic I feel yours are the best. Keep fighting for the little guy and I'll keep supporting! Thank you from a little guy.
![6 damage to the planet | r/DnDGreentext [#213]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/6GmaweQjUBU/mqdefault.jpg)
We don't want a new OGL, but if WotC are going to die on this hill, I think this is a step in the right direction. Credit where credit is due: the creative commons thing is really cool!
But this is by no means "good". I'm frustrated with the misleading language and message around this license being "irrevocable" (it IS revocable) and the suspicious abscense of royalty mention.
And obviously the competitor VTT crushing and the fact they can kick you at anytime for anything and you can't fight back is crazy.
Remember to let your voices be heard! Fill out the survey and #opendnd
Thank you.
Thank you for all the effort and risk you’ve taken to inform the community, it means so much to so many people.
The announcement accompanying it was actually nice to hear. Do I believe it means WOTC cares about their customers? Nah. But it is them making serious concessions. Is it okay or even legally viable to revoke the OGL 1.0? Nah. No need to sign on this new OGL. Kick rocks until you make new OGL 1.2 apply only to new content. You wanna prevent sharing everything? Make new stuff, WOTC. Write something.
Thanks for covering this, WotC need to stop
Thank you so much for staying on top of this!! It helps bring insight and knowledge to the community. Keep up the good work!
Let them die on this hill.
They're welcome to make a new license but *_do not accept revocation of OGL 1.0_*
this is basically "give them something really bad first so they accept what we really want"
It didn't work because we all saw straight through.
@@Andy_Enderson We're not there yet. It only "hasn't worked"'if there's no new OGL at all. And the only legit way to fight back is to swap to Pathfinder or another RPG.
@@Stoshnut sorry to hear about you mother.
@@xander9460 fair point.
Except this isn’t what WOTC really wanted
They wanted everyone to swap to the 1.1 OGL
This is a rushed plan B where they still get SOME of what they want, but FAR from it all
Hi, we are the creators of TaleSpire. We'd like to chime in briefly.
We don't use WOTC's IP or OGL and don't plan to. Their license doesn't bind us, and we aren't going anywhere.
While there are many fantastic folks in WOTC, the negative contingent has shown exactly how they would interact with this community if they get the chance again.
We see ourselves as part of that wider TTRPG community too. Still, it appears more important to some to try and scare players away from tiny indie projects than to focus on building a legitimately competitive one. It's baffling.
Once again though, we are going to keep building things we like for the games we love, and we hope that what we do resonates with some of you fellow adventurers out there.
This comment made me check out your game 😊
Edit: wow, not what I expected and extremely cool!!!
I love your product and have stopped using 2D VTTs for my games to show off my story with the help of Talespire. I can't wait for the next update. Great job!
Love this!
I use TaleSpire for my campaigns, and love it. (Would love diagonals. ❤️)
I love talespire! this was a relief to hear!!
Here's the thing: Wizards has already completely shredded their trustworthiness. Nothing can take back all of the shady tactics they've employed. Originally, I told myself that's enough for me to walk away for good. But then I thought a bit more about it. I wouldn't get back into a relationship with someone who lied, cheated, and gaslit me. The trust is already gone.
The only way I could get into a relationship is with someone new. So the only way I could come back to the game is if:
1. The current OGL stays irrevocable and intact.
2. The executives responsible resign en masse with a public apology for the damage they've done to their company's relationship with the players and their product.
Otherwise we deserve the future deception and manipulation we'll get for chosing to return to the abusive relationship.
Yeah as of now just waiting for my toons to die and then leave my DnD campaigns I'm part of.
to be clear, people in abusive relationships don’t deserve to be abused if they go back to their abuser. otherwise yeah
1st one has a slightly chance to happen, 2nd one ? not even if it starts rain gold...
@@Tamachii12 it rains diamonds within Neptune and Uranus :P
They shredded their trustworthiness over two years ago. Glad you people finally open your eyes to the town being on fire. Sucks that it had to take your own house going up in flames before you finally noticed.
The most dangerous thing about this is them being able to pick what is and is not offensive. They could basically target creators who are speaking out against them or pushing back against wotc using their content. Big red flag
They can and will use any law as justification. You live in the middle California and are a LGBT 3rd part creator? Well your existence is outlawed in say Saudi Arabia and WoTC can say they are protecting the brand. Or do it either way around your a creator in Saudi Arabia and they say you violated the laws of Scotland.
This is what Lawful Evil is.
Shortly after all of this mess started, I had this idea for a homebrew bard subclass that was basically like an artisan, and an idea for a character that went through training in an artisan guild and a high-ranking member of the guild ended up taking credit for the work they did. That high-ranking member technically would have been allowed to do it because of a guild rule that allowed them to claim ownership over an apprentice's work, and that would have been the start of the character's backstory of leaving the guild and going out adventuring in the world. I haven't made a lot of progress on this idea, but basically it was just a fun little thing I was thinking of to parody how WotC had literally written in a clause that would allow them to steal content from 3rd party creators, which was part of the reason I wanted to make a homebrew subclass to go with it. If I were to actually do this under OGL 1.2 though, they could decide that my less than subtle parody was "hateful" towards them specifically and revoke the use of the license, and since the OGL is necessary for subclasses, it would kill my artisan subclass completely.
Agree. Better not make your villain too villainous. Welcome to Dnd: Cooking Mama edition.
@@Xo-3130 I'll go one further. They already said the word "race" is racist. They can totally annihilate any OSR or pre-6e content.
They've said having racial/species differences between races is racist. Your goblins get a -1 to dex where humans have no bonuses/disadvantages? They can have it removed.
They've said a whole species having shared culture is racist. You have goblins that all believe in a set of goblin gods? Sorry, racist, pull it down. They don't have goblin gods? Racist, pull it down. Some do, some don't? Sounds like you think they aren't good enough to develop a culture for--racist, pull it down.
They said having species-wide characteristics (like dark-vision for kobolds) is racist. Your dark elves can see in the dark? Racist, pull it down.
They've purposefully set this all up. They don't even need to hide behind the law.They've purposefully said things over the past year so they can target signers without fearing them fighting back via lawsuit. And they're hiding behind "we're stopping racists". It's so patently obvious. They said they had to stop hateful and racist material---when's the last time you saw a third-party project for D&D with actual racism? I can't say I've seen any Neo-Nazi, KKK, or White Supremacy supplements.
Even the least culturally aware supplements of D&D (like Kara-Tur) were not racist. For example, Kara-Tur was never trying to be Asian, rather it was portraying the culture depicted in typical eastern films and kung-fu movies. It never tried to be actually Chinese/Japanese/Indian/etc. And it never took a deprecating tone or style. In fact, it oft times celebrated the differences and the cultural nuance, even though it was absolutely not at all an accurate approximation (from what I understand).
So yeah....that whole clause exists to allow them various categories to go after creators for. They can hit you for violating the law of some other country, but are also covered for anything that violates any of the above, too, plus many others. They've been planning and preparing all year. Go back and look at official statements/etc. They have been busy sowing seeds. They are snakes. They are using things everyone agrees with (fighting racism and hate) to push their own hidden agenda. Hopefully everyone sees them for what they are.
@@donalddickerson206 this is an unfortunate reality I wish more people realized. Companies are using Social Justice in the most predatory and destructive ways possible. The fact everyone just... goes along with it is beyond insane.
Your apology towards the end to WotC's design team was a class act. Fantastic work as always.
Absolutely
Agreed. But we must not confuse the designers and developers at WotC with the executives that they work for. And Kyle Brink is a relatively recent hire, with a resume in video and mobile games, and *not* a career tabletop designer. He may be the direct supervisor of the creatives we should avoid attacking, but he is not one of them. He's a low-ranking Hasbro/WotC executive.
You mean the half-baked apology buried at the end of this vid. Nah, that was not a classy act.
A class act would be to remove the original video where he put out the misinformation. But I guess he cares more about money than not slandering....
@@TheAcer4666 When you build a channel on clickbait what do you expect.
The fact that they *solely* get to define what qualifies as "hateful conduct or content" is an instant and total deal-breaker. I wouldn't trust these guys to make a decent cup of coffee, let alone define and police complex moral concepts in a non-self-serving way, and neither should anyone else.
Hell of a red flag for sure, could not agree more.
Especially when you consider that D&D is essentially a storytelling medium, and many stories' conflict rely on offensive things happening, like discrimination or needless violence. This is basically a blank check for censorship for WotC
It's just their excuse to mandate Diversity Inclusion and Equity morals. If it's not progressive enough then it's "hateful". Just look at all their recent 5e stuff/marketing. They don't want anyone pushing back on their changes. Eventually they will even ban terms like "good" and "evil" as being hateful. Not enough people are talking about how bad this is going to get, especially when it is intentionally left so vague. It's going to be a political and moral test for them to weed out anyone not far left.
And you give up any right to do or say anything about it. They wouldn't even have to tell you what the problem is. You happen to be a competitor they don't like, your content is offensive, Period. You fi9nd a way to to fight it in court and get it found unenforceable, you have given them to right to revoke an irrevocable license (for you, or everyone, at their sole discretion). The OGL has never given you much of anything you don't already have under US law. There is simply no reason to agree to this new license. Tell them to pound sand and create what you want to without using the OGL, just don't use the trademarked logo they offer, as that's literally the only thing they have any important control over.
As soon as I saw Woke shit entering DnD (Wheel chair accessible dungeons anyone?) I knew these were not good people running DnD.
Switched over to Pathfinder, and it feels like old DnD where that BS didn't matter.
I completely read the new OGL 1.2 and I can confirm that it has not changed much from 1.1. They can change the license, and section 5 can give them control over all of our work and also implement royalties later. If section 5 is changeable, they can control everything and charge for it.
And that isn't the only problem. They are the only ones who decide what is considered "harmful, discriminatory, illegal, obscene, or harassing" and they can block the work of anyone they don't like or dont want to competite with
That and you have to prove that they knowingly and intentionally stole your ideas, that it being super similar is not sufficient proof and you agree to that. Which effectively means you need documents stating "Yeah, I'm taking Creator X's work."
*I HIGHLY reccomend everyone to watch Roll For Combat's recent Live Streams with Stephen Glicker who has worked with Law and Games for over 30years. He knows the industry inside and out and there's alot to learn about the details in this, especially the VTT part and how EA tried to monopolize the entire game industry some 20 years ago the same way WotC tries to do with some VTT animations right now. It's potentially really bad.*
Edit: Changed the word "Video" to "Live Streams".
Bar anything else, the parts that don't allow any real recourse from WotC doing whatever they feel like with other creators content.
The only part they can change for section 5 is what they call the company, and the only part in 9a they can change is the email address. That's in case the name of the company changes, or they need to update the email address. There's still plenty of room for mischief such as being able to strike off the license if they deem it hateful, that you can't take them to court over the license and a few other bits, but it really has much, much less wriggle room to pull "gotchas".
My take is that WotC have been forced at gunpoint to make a decent OGL after Paizo said they're making theirs, in a last ditch attempt to keep some goodwill. But WotC only pulling out something reasonable after their arm has been so badly twisted by public opinion means they'll start messing around elsewhere whenever they get another chance, so it's still not worth going back.
and I think because of the sunk cost fallacy that they will ride the titanic to the bottom of the ocean
This brings 2 things to my mind:
1) This is why people tend to stick to older editions at times.
2) This is why I prefer pencil and paper style
This draft is basically, "We wont take your stuff unless we want to take your stuff. Also, we own Virtual Tabletop, and we dictate what is and isn't offensive." It's not better. It isn't an improvement. It's them rewording their already failed attempt at persuading their community into an unfair, unnecessary, and legally questionable agreement.
I mean, for true transparency, someone should create an open-source repository for survey responses such that respondents can send their surveys to Wizard, and send screenshots to the repository or something.
It’d be interesting to discover whether the results shared by Wizards would match.
The problem with this is that we don't know for sure if the person that goes through the trouble to do this and the average survey taker is the same kind of person, so we risk making assumptions that aren't based in reality.
This whole debacle has awakened the "go woke go broke" side of the community as well, and they're louder and angrier than the average DnD enthusiast and more involved in bandwagons even though they're in no way representative of the entire audience demographic.
@@KattReen Right. As with all things, it depends on scale. You get 10 responses, you can't really trust them. You get 10,000... and you can formulate some decent hypotheses.
@Ben Dukes Maybe but your sample will still be biased towards those most riled up by this issue. People who agree with the OGL (few of them as there may be) are less likey to bother doing a copy of their response so any results will be warped negative and we have no idea to what extent.
Here is the important part, which I have no doubt any lawyer who you spoke with already pointed out but it needs to be underlined: This draft of the OGL does not actually have a morality clause. It only states that they can cancel you at-will, period. It is that simple. This OGL Draft does not require WotC to ever establish any standards for what is hateful/harmful, which means that if you exist or your content exists, that existence alone is sufficient cause for WotC to declare you or your content hateful/harmful and cancel you at any time.
up
Yep, remember how they have changed races to species?
What’s to say if you don’t follow those strict changes and still call them races that they will just cancel your license agreement? What’s to say if you don’t follow them strictly in terms of token morality signaling that they won’t just cancel you?
Additionally it also says conduct too. I have no doubt that can mean if you are Republican in public, they will just cancel you out right there.
They already have a bad track record on this. In 2020 they forced Alicia Furness’s work off the DMs’ Guild for specifically for being anticapitalist. We absolutely cannot trust them to unilaterally decide that something is or is not hateful.
Any lawyer should understands that what's considered illegal or hateful/harmful varies massively by jurisdiction, and so defining universal standards would eliminate plenty of leeway they could otherwise give you.
WOTC could easily say that donating to a particular political party, not making diversity a major point in your adventure, or retweeting someone who is ideologically opposed to whatever stance WOTC is taking at the time to be "harmful" or "hateful" and cancel your publishing rights. Since you agreed to the de-authorization of 1.0a, you have effectively been barred from publishing anything that is D&D related. Publishers would be insane to sign this agreement. They're better off sticking with 1.0a or going to Paizo. In the era of words are violence, silence is violence and no one can define a woman, there's really nothing left that someone, somewhere won't find offensive.
The absolute biggest red flag out of this is that they straight up refuse to stick with the old OGL. They DESPERATELY want a new one. And that new one is going to be draconian no matter how many revisions this draft goes through. There'll be a point where they'll stop listening to feedback and put out the final OGL and say "This OGL was brought to you by YOU! Our community." solely placing the blame on the community.
Certain things will probably never change from this. They'll probably never add guaranteed irrevocability (and if they do, it will benefit THEM. Not the consumer).
On top of that we have another red flag with the VTT chokehold. They want theirs to be the only one on the market that's advanced and updated.
The theme of D&D going forward seems to be "Stamp out all competition".
And then the fact that they can straight up steal from you and use your stuff. Sure, you can go to court against them, and maybe even win, but what they may make from your content combined with others may more than cover their losses. Let's not forget that they can probably steal from you, then cancel you (or vice versa) so you can't do anything.
Lets face it, the first OGL was suppose to be irrevocable and they are still revoking it.... so it does mean shit when they say that.
You have to remember that the CEO of WotC said that they want D&D to have "the type of recurrent spending you see in digital games". That means OneD&D/D&D Beyond has to be the only game in town for VTTs, or else people will move to the VTT that isn't trying to sell them lootboxes.
@@whym6438 Bingo, that's why they're willing to back off on most everything except the VTT stuff. They want to be able to snuff out everything else and trap you in microtransaction hell.
@Whym I read that aswell and was wondering since ever if Pen and Paper is the right medium to get sales like video games without being oppressive
Not even go to court. Final part says you revoke a right to a jury
remember, dont let them deceive you into signing an ogl worse than the original one. this is a classic tactic where they offer something horrible, and then walk it back to what they actually wanted to make it seem better than it actually is. imagine if you're buying a car from someone, and they ask for $10k, then walk it back to $5k, even though the car is only worth $1k. this is like that.
Right. And why pay even $1k when the current "cat" works just fine?
Yup I agree, I firmly believe their true goal is kill all other VTT to be the only online option, and once that done they will go full digital on future content, hide it all behind a paywall and thats when they will gouge everyone. By doing this they would fully support their vision of fully monetizing DND.
The language in this new OGL should be a point of concern to the FCC, particularly around VTTs. The fact that there had already been people in the space and WotC is now trying to force them out of it so they may monopolize the space is a great indication that WotC is walking very close to an anti-trust lawsuit.
You are correct, file a complaint with the FTC, they are the ones who handle the Anti-trust laws. I just did.
They may monopolise the space *for a game they own*
Ergo not a monopoly; no bearing on VTTs for other games/systems.
@@kunimitsune177 Correct. Unfortunately what they were trying to do before this was to charge a percent of other VTTs (or stop them entirely) to ensure no matter what they were getting a cut on all VTTs or their players were only able to play D&D in their proprietary VTT.
I think it is perfectly fine for them to jump into the VTT space, and I think if executed well they will find lots of success, but they can't go about it in a way that stops competition in the VTT space.
@@kunimitsune177 no they were trying to do it to all VTTs who were compatible with their system. That was the issue where they were trying to impose restrictions on companies that were specifically trying to use their system but could be used with their system. I.e. If you could have spell effects in your vtts and someone used your vtts you could have been held liable for them doing that.
i know you like to focus on the absurd parts of the game for humor, but let me say i have really appreciated how you have covered this so far... all of these videos have been top tier, hopefully we get some laughs sooner than later, again thank you for the hard work you always put into your content.
I think my biggest issue with the new OGL and it being "better than the last" is that... well, that is kind of a really low bar to clear. If they started with something like this, then I think we'd have a much easier time accepting the new license. But they didn't. Its still a situation of them trying to push through stuff we just don't want and stuff that will be harmful to everyone in this hobby.
Don't kid yourself. This new version is only better around the edges. It still cuts off publication of new material in support of OSR, 3.5, or 5e versions of the game, by authorizing only the *current* SRD, effectively obsoleting all the existing third-party products that they "graciously" allow to continue to be sold under the terms of OGL 1.0a. And in a clause that is not mentioned in this video, by utilizing OGL1.2, a publisher *gives up his right to participate in class-action or group litigation against WotC or Hasbro.* I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a plaintiff class *more* suited to filing a class-action suit against a major corporation than the dozens or hundreds of small, third-party publishers who will be harmed by WotC's quite-possibly-illegal attempt to revoke OGL 1.0a. This generally unnoticed clause is an attempt by WotC to cut the legs out from under any litigation to defend the OGL 1.0a as irrevocable, which many credible copyright and licensing attorneys believe it may well be. Definitely check videos by The Rules Lawyer for more on this.
@@printandplaygamer7134 It might be due to poor phrasing on my part, but I agree with you. The only reason the "new" OGL is better than the leaked one is due to how absolutely abysmal that one was. The only solution that would be acceptable to me, and what I assume many other people, would be OGL 1.0a to be the one that is continued to be followed. No updated OGL that makes the 4e License look reasonable, no hidden meanings, or false apologies. 1.0a is the solution. Nothing short of that.
@@chrisconney4426 I apologize if my tone was confrontational. We're on the same side. The *only* thing that WotC can do to *kind of* win back my trust is update the OGL to 1.0b, with two changes: explicitly adding the word "irrevocable" to the sentence that establishes that the license is "perpetual"; and transfering ownership of the license to an independent, non-for-profit organization dedicated to holding and maintaining open-source licenses. Short of that, WotC never sees another dollar from me. Ever.
@@printandplaygamer7134 I absolutely agree, we are on the same side. With what they are doing, I'm concerned they're wanting to cause in fighting within our community, in the hopes that we're focused somewhere else and they can skate this through in the meantime. Also, no apology is necessary since I know any frustration or anger in this circumstance comes from a concerned place. Concern for the DnD community, concern for what they're wanting to do to something many of us are passionate about and love.
@@chrisconney4426 Oh, they absolutely want to cause fighting within the community, so we don't remain united in our resistance. Their cries of "misinformation" about DnDShorts video about WotC not reading survey responses was just such an attempt to divide us. WotC's PR-designed response was to send out members of D&D's popular design team to assert that THEY read survey responses regarding Unearthed Arcana playtest material; they said nothing about whether WotC *executives* read survey responses or customer feedback about OGL and community policies, which is what matters in this case. Classic misdirection on WotC's part. It's pretty clear they've hired a professional PR firm specializing in damage control by now. They're worried.
I think they're irredeemable. In the first few episodes of LOVM s2, the Raven Queen is called the Matron Of Ravens. But Raven Queen isn't any less generic than Cat Prince as a name. And it happens to be a commonly used nickname in real life for the actual non-D&D goddess that inspired the Raven Queen.
Who are Wizards to think they can hold a copy right on real world religion and folk lore?
The same way Marvel can copyright the Norse gods. You make your own version of a preexisting public domain entity and copyright that version. Like Disney can't stop you from making your own Pinocchio you just can't make their Pinocchio.
@@N1korasu yeah but how can they prove you made *their* Pinocchio
@@josephwilliams5292 That's the point - the onus is on them to prove such a case. Stargate had a Thor. God of War had a Thor. All without Marvel getting up in arms about it, because it's clear it wasn't THEIR Thor. Which means as long as you don't directly copy the design, you're fine.
@@N1korasu Sure. But the version used in D&D isn't substantially different from the ancient folklore. In Marvel the Norse gods are fairly different from how they are in Norse mythology. And the Names and nicknames for those gods aren't copyright just because marvel used them. Only the fair artistic title fonts can be copyright.
@@flyboymike111357 - so D&D will have then created themselves a pretty weak legal argument if they try to claim ownership of things in which their designs were already notably similar to the commonly known versions from folklore/myths. It’s on them to create something unique and defining, or else their “but it’s our’s!” argument is weak.
I applaud owning the miscommunication situation. It's hard enough to stand up to things we see as bad or potentially problematic, but its even harder when people want to chastise you for making an honest mistake. Keep up the good work.
I doubt it was actually miscommunication. Some people were forced to walk back. It's quite clear they don't care about the feedback, and there is plenty of evidence from other channels that the role of the surveys is to control the narrative and dissent.
Naw. Glad it got clarified but it still shows how little they (Hasbro especially) care about the product. The advertisement/hype around One D&D _primarily_ focused on the narrative of community feedback. "We need your help and we're listening". Sure, good. Except literally no one reads the comments or suggestions in the surveys, and they knew this, but encouraged us to write them anyway. It's completely disrespectful to our time and effort, and frankly disgusting. But more so, it's a tactic to A) Waste our time and energy, and B) Make us feel heard, when we aren't.
I understand the issue of volume. We're talking about the creation of a massive new product line. It would NOT cost a significant amount to WotC, (let alone Hasbro) to hire on a team of people whose EXCLUSIVE job was skimming through those suggestions and compiling them into digestible talking points for the devs. Many of the suggestions will be the same. They don't need to read all of them - just large sample sizes based on pre-determined criteria. They could even use basic tools to scrape the info and sort it by similar criteria, reviewing the similar suggestions by volume and examining outlier suggestions more closely. I repeat: THIS IS NOT DIFFICULT OR COSTLY. It's not a high-paying job, and (while obviously ideal) this team wouldn't need prior knowledge of D&D. Their job isn't to analyze suggestions, just compile data and statistics.
Source: This used to be my job. On a daily basis I used simple tools to pour through thousands of entries on hundreds of pages of formulates DAILY and review/compile the information. My small team would review thousands of pages a day, and we made ~$15/hour. Please don't give them credit for doing LESS than the bare minimum with these 0-10 ratings. There is no excuse whatsoever for them to lie to us and waste our time. Hasbro wants to hyper-monetize D&D, but they're not willing to spend a tiny fraction of the money they want to make by giving WotC the resources to do it right.
In context, the feedback outreach feels (at least partly) a ruse to distract the community while sneaking by these abhorrent OGL changes. HARD pass. Keep clogging their cash pipe.
Yeah, imagine someone making a mistake, addressing it right away, apologizing and clarifying… RIGHT WIZARDS?
I'm not chastising him for a mistake, I'm chastising him for keeping the video up and continuing to propagate the misinformation anyways.
@@danielwoods3896 Sadly, the only videos out there are haters stirring up more hatred. And everyone seems to know exactly what the intentions of WotC are and what they're talking about behind closed doors. Good grief, I'm going to start unsubscribing from these videos.
I think Paizo has the best solution here with their proposed ORC, and while I have ALWAYS been a D&D guy that fact of the matter is, the game system mechanics don't matter all that much and creators can simply write their material using that system with no fear of the bottom falling out. People like me, with decades of Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Planescape, etc. material can then flavor the Paizo and 3rd party content however we choose if we feel we're missing something from D&D. This is exactly what many of us that sat out 4e did, using the "3.75" material from PF 1e (or just using older D&D versions).
Agreed!
I'm moving my D&D game to Pinnacle game system
Great to see you practise what you preach mate. Giving a full and sincere apology as well as being fully transparent that you had made the mistake and how it had been made. Kudos. Thanks for the update on the new OGL, your content is amazing, from facts to explanations.
I've been following you for a while and man, I know you didn't want to have to step up like this but you have done a fantastic job. Several other creators have added to the conversation very well, but you are killing it. Your transparency and willingness to correct yourself as new info becomes available is to be commended. WotC could learn a lot about how to address the community from you. Thank you, dude. If England ever has the displeasure of me visiting, I want to buy you a pint and raise a toast! 🤘
this
Yup. This ogl crap has made me a much bigger fan of shorts.
Man is putting his livelihood at risk doing this and I appreciate the hell out of him for it.
Exactly. The fact that he's willing to clarify and correct himself is amazing. I wish I could like his content more than once.
"Can _you_ think of any creators that might have annoyed Wizard's recently?"
I'm not only certain that I can name a handful, I'm *very* certain Wotc BoD already has them on their own little (s)hit list.
Honestly they likely don't, WotC is far too large to care about relatively small channels and social media. If this drags on and they can scape goat them as the reason for a loss in revenue then they will make a list. Individual people at WotC might have a black list, but the company ad a whole likely doesn't simply because it doesn't pay.
Idk a lot of large companies hire people to go through and watch things related to their Ip's online and look for possible infringements. Nintendo is a big example. Or Disney (They also steel a lot of peoples art) Im not sure if Hasbro has that kinda money or even cares enough to do it but i wouldn't outroght discount the possibility. Where money gathers greed will flourish.
@@Bzerker01 BoD was shorthand for 'Board of Directors,' just to point out that I agree with your statement on the whole
@@Bzerker01, if that were the case they wouldn’t have gone out of their way to single out 3rd party content creators in ogl 1.1, even though those creators are obviously much smaller than them.
Appreciate you owning up to the mistake and giving credit to the design team. Love your channel. 👍
I would definitely still be worried about the open-ended aspects of the new OGL. This is a common corporate trick to put out a flexible skeleton of a plan and do the old frog-in-boiling-water trick over time so that people can't object right away. It's like setting a super-cheap price on your first iteration of a service, then slowly raising the price in small increments. They are definitely trying to shut out competition out of fear, regardless of how good their VTT will be. I'm sure the corporate higher ups consider even $1 going elsewhere to be an affront and stealing from them.
5:55 "I no longer trust wizards"
That's such a wonderful sentence without any context. I would really want to hear the story behind it if I heard it somewhere, but sadly "a license agreement sucks" is not the epic backstory I'd have expected.
I wanna make a 1 shot about it now
@@4thdimensionalexplorer Taking a random out-of-context quote you liked from a video, book or overheard conversation as inspiration for a one-shot is actually genius. Love the idea!
@@wolframstahl1263 Just because you don't understand the implication of legal agreements and how they can be used more effectively than a bank heist, doesn't make it less exciting than a bank heist. In this situation, each client is considered the bank.
"Here is how I'll legally abuse the system and take what I want from you however I please, and there is nothing you can do about it" right in hundreds of thousands people's face is pretty freakin epic in my opinion.
You know first time I saw you on UA-cam I was like Epic beard, cool combo's. This is a fun channel. But with all this going on shows how exceptional you are. Thanks for standing up for all of us.
He has the beard of all time
@@Dubstepper um? Yeah
I REALLY liked how you said that the contract must leave no room for Wizards to abuse it. This OGL is RIPE for abuse by WOTC and you are perfectly correct that we cannot trust them not to abuse any loophole they can sneak past and therefore the OGL must not leave any room for them to abuse it.
I HIGHLY recommend Legal Eagle's video on this whole debacle. He basically said that legally speaking, no one ever really had to abide by the ogl in the first place. You can't copyright game mechanics, and there's precedent in the courts that says so.
So yeah you can't make and sell a third party book with the name "Dungeons and Dragons" on it, but you can use any rules you want and say it's "Dungeons and Dragons compatible". Which is what most third party studios have already been doing.
The only issue is no one wants to be the first person to test the waters, obviously because wotc has a team of lawyers ready to go at the drop of a hat.
*Edit because this is only true in the U.S. I have no idea how other countries' copyright law works"
Also keep in mind the wording of the Hateful Conduct part of that is if you participate in ANYTHING. NOT ‘if you print something that is blatantly hateful we will walk it back.’ It’s ‘if you make a tweet that is a little dubious and you’re competitor, we’re revoking your license.’ It’s the same thing Discord did where if you engage in ANYTHING they see as ‘hateful’ they’ll remove you.
Thank you for your constant updates and for being on top of this whole situation! I haven't had the time to really dig into these documents, and having your videos breaking down them has been a huge help to understanding the whole situation.
It wouldn't even matter IF we trusted WotC, as long as they're part of Hasbro, they can be instructed by Hasbro (or Hasbro's shareholders) to change their interpretation of hateful content- likely to get rid of anything close to controversial content
Yeah I don’t care what new licenses they come up with. At this point they are just pulling things together and hoping it’ll satisfy the community enough to quiet down. So long as wotc keeps on straying away from the ogl and messing with third party creators, I personally won’t be satisfied at all and I hope others are the same. LEAVE THIRD PARTY CREATORS ALONE WOTC
There IS a clause about GOVERNING LAW in the draft. It refers to the state of Washington (or wherever WotC HQ might end up in the future). As you've rightly pointed out, laws and customs differ around the world, so it does make this open license somewhat more restricted the 1.0a.
if that's true, then the "you cant sue us for stealing your content/canceling you" clauses won't hold because *iirc* washington has a law that you cant sign away your legal rights...... (could be wrong, take this with a shaker full of salt)
@@catboygremlin oh? there is separate discussion about Severability (literally the paragraph before Governing law). If any part of this license is invalid, then WotC may declare the entire license void. IF you are right, then - there you go, here's that magic clause which makes the debate about revoking moot.
One of my DM/player friends honestly made a great point that the bit about restricting visuals on VTTs to prevent them from being 'videogame-like' is actually kinda ablist but I know its to remove competition like Talespire, VRChat and Alchemy from producing something for their VTT will also cover, which I cannot stand. Its ablist to folks that have Aphantasia and can't visualize things from words alone. Being able to show what a spell looks like or provide ambiance and music is integral to people with Aphantasia across all VTTs, and I'm sure as hell gonna not support their VTT since they tried to choke out Talespire and Alchemy, among others in the VTT side
That would be awesome to use as an argument. We just need the right people to fight for us
Mad respect for acknowledging that you were wrong and apologizing, it shows that you care about DND and the community. It's a breath of fresh air when compared to the reactions and apologies of other Creators.
I grew up playing D&D *AND* MtG, so Hasbro suddenly deciding to take so much more of an active stance dictating how both of those games will go is just a deep disappointement for me. All they had to do was sit back and let the cash roll in like it has been for decades, but they had to pull this crap. Now my trust is broken, and trust broken can never be reforged, at best you can glue it back together into a facsimile of its original self that will never stand as tall or as stable. And at this rate they're not even gonna bother doing that much.
Out of curiosity: ( since I'm in a similar boat).
I found lots of options to replace DND, but not MTG. Have you found any good replacements for MTG?
@@KrynnLite that new card game think it's sorcery realms something is coming out this year. Hasbro already licensed the same exact artist they are using for there art so they already don't like it lol
I don’t think anyone can trust them now. Better to walk away now. The art of never losing a game is never to play. Wizards have shown you who they are and what they intend, people: monetising the product and locking out any competition. There walk-back is a statement of sly intent. If everyone simply says, “No thanks, we’ll stick with the existing OGL, or we’ll walk. Your move,” that would be the smartest thing. Remain united and put ALL or your feedback in the Wizard forms on the web!
Take the fight away from your home by literally just moving away from DnD
Their walk-back* I'm not usually a grammar nazi but your comment is so well done it just really stands out to me.
If Star Trek and Star Wars fans had pulled their support and money sooner, we'd likely not have Trek and Wars... But at least we wouldn't have had to put up with the desecration of their corpse.
E s try what om doing in buying all the wrath and glory bm40k books and imperial maladictum books
There will always be people willing to stay and rebuild the legacy. So this is for those willing to fight for the changes they deserve.
Lots of respect for owning your mistake, and thank you for covering this for us and keeping us in the loop. When people can admit they are wrong, it makes them more trustworthy in my eyes.
Thank you for what you are doing to inform and fight for the community! You are the hero we needed but not the one we deserved!
My man. Thank you for a sincere apology. It's great to see people reflect on their actions and follow through on research. Keep up the good fight
What did he do?
@@APerson-ws4cw He mentions it in this video briefly, but basically last video he said that WotC never reads the feedback from surveys. This was quickly contested online and through Twitter and he posted a pinned comment on that video stating he has misunderstood what was said but many people were still upset that he did not take the video itself down.
Just because they read it doesn't mean they'll do anything. The executives have all the power and have the final say.
@@cableman you're not wrong. And still they have been proven untrustworthy.
If this OGL goes through with a "harassment" provision, WotC WILL use it against anyone who fought back against their plans, i.e. this channel and many, many others
Keep up the good work reporting on this. You and the lawyers really help us going through this minefield.
Amazing summary! I’ve watched hours and hours of actual lawyers going over 1.2 (and do recommend Roll of Law and others to anyone who has the time) and you seem to have explained the most important points in 10 minutes!!
One thing I might reference is that I've often heard the expert lawyers in other contexts say that waivers of legal action are often unenforceable. You can't sign certain rights away (obligatory not a lawyer. Always consult your own lawyer).
Even as they say that you can't sue, generally speaking, you can.
Thanks mate for distilling down yet another chaotic couple of day! The service you've provided to the community through all of this has been absolutely invaluable!
Also with offering the apology to the design team you are so far up on the high road that I hope you brought an oxygen tank with you!
Keep up the great vid and I'm also looking forward to the return of the meme content to make me chuckle as I work!
Keep up the great work. Mistakes happen but your contribution to the community and the ongoing discussions has been really important, don't let a small mishap discourage you!
Props to you for acknowledging forthright (in the very next video) where your coverage of the situation has deviated from fact and issuing a direct apology to the people who were hurt by that deviation from fact. It speaks a lot to your character.
Step 1) deauthorize 1.0
Step 2) introduce replacement that can be modified at any time
Step 3) make changes the users complained about, users can no longer fight back
As much as this version of the license is arguably an improvement (and that IS a matter for argument, because as has been pointed out, there are provisions for changing it and the promise that they WON'T change it to include license-back and royalties isn't legally binding), there's still a poison pill here.
They're still trying to take away 1.0a. As long as they're doing that, any potential version of the OGL they make will be unacceptable.
Just a friendly reminder for everyone , it's a common practice in the game industry to purposely make any proposed changes more drastic than you actually intend, because when there's backlash for it like there inevitably will be whenever you change something that people have gotten accustomed to, they can walk it back to what they originally intended, act like they are listening, and willing to work with the community.
True. But that's usually not legally binding stuff. Like say putting a cash shop into a game after X time. But a contract is signed and cannot be changed. Unless of course it stated that it can be changed. And in that case you should never sign that contract, even if the rest is reasonable.
If that was what had happened, they wouldn't have sent contracts to creators to sign. The idea that 1.1 was a "draft" has been a WOTC lie from day 1. If it was a draft it wouldn't have gone out for legal signatures.
That's a good idea, but I doubt the CEO is that smart.
This was not planned, it's just incompetence.
If that’s the case, I doubt it’s worth the cost of losing tons of money and respect/trust of consumers. They just have not handled this very well
Good to remember in general, though in this case if this had been planned they would have responded to the uproar from the leak much more quickly and competently. Waiting a week and then putting out a statement that couldn't possibly have been approved by any competent PR person is not part of a master plan.
Thank you not only for being one of the most vocal voices in this community against WoTC/ Hasbros shitty practices. But also thank you for taking a thoughtful and critical approach to the recent developments. It takes a lot of guts to admit to mistakes like you did as well as the emphasis on not attacking the game designers themselves.
True. It's actually the part about today's society I hate the most. NO ONE will own up to a mistake and will tear anything down to not have to. This was refreshing
Thank you for assembling a league of lawyers to help us process all of this. Legalese is hard and this needs to be well understood for the D&D community -- especially if we wish to preserve it. I almost want to make Cavern's and Creatures on an open license.
Probably should get anti-monopoly evaluations started....
Let's be fair.
Wotc assembled the league of Lawyers.
They made and encouraged every dnd player to be a rules lawyer, we know how to twist rules 😜
@@Whitewolf1984p TRUE! This all started with Magic the Gathering and a 2.5in x 3.5in smol fine print.
League of Lawyers is the much more boring and infinitely less successful spin-off of League of Legends. The character skins are all just slightly different business suits.
Wait... Would roll20's dynamic lighting be considered something that "doesn't replicate your dining room table storytelling? I can't, in real time, hide sections of my maps that wouldn't be visible to a character due to obstructions as that walk across a room, nor can I give each player a different view based on the current location of their character.
And do they really think they can tell us that we can make a quick animation of a handful of magic bolts flying from one character to another? Note that nowhere in that did I use anything from any of D&D's rules. They don't own the very concept of a missile that is magic any more than they own the concept of a ball of fire.
I think they are trying to draw the distinction that you can't use official game content and then add effects to it ala a video game.
But I agree they are on incredibly shaky ground if they try to actually enforce that. VTTs themselves do not add these kinds of animated features usually, they simply give people the ability to add sprites, and it would be hard to argue doing just that would be enough to breach WoTCs IP.
@@garion046 They are overreaching their enforcability on purpose. You threaten things you dont have a legal standing on because it is usually enough to stop people who dont understand copyright law. Also, its easier to have their lawyers argue for something written down, and they might wind up against a lawyer that doesnt understand copyright law.
its win-win for them to lie about what you can and cannot do.
Thank you so much for the content you're making and for these videos in particular. Having a big channel with inside information broken down and translated to Common is incredibly helpful.
Thank you for your work, you've really stepped up to the plate. You and every other content creator keeping up the pressure and keeping this from just disappearing from public attention are the heroes we need right now. I salute you!
From my limited understanding of legalese I like the Creative Commons part; as Legal Eagle pointed out, you can't copyright game mechanics under US law, so it's not really giving us anything we don't already have, but it's also putting in writing something that hasn't necessarily been tested in court yet AFAIK so it's good to have it to point do and go "It's under Creative Commons!"
The rest of it...eh. I don't trust any of it, really.
My partner pointed out that it's pretty spurious for WoTC to keep harping on the 'we're doing this to prevent hate speech and ickybads' because that's really not their responsibility anyway; let's say someone in the D&D community decides to publish a horrible gross discriminatory product under the OGL (I've personally seen no evidence of this actually happening - is there any precedent at all for Wiz to suddenly be adamant about this?) but let's say someone did...
If they wanted to fund it on Kickstarter, it'd likely violate Kickstarter's TOC and be shut down, if they went through Amazon, same deal, and it's not like anyone is going to mistakenly think it's official licensed D&D content. The likelihood of this becoming a widespread problem is nearly nil. So it still feels like a smokescreen and I suspect that's 100% what it is.
Keep in mind, these people believe calling the player races "races" (even though that's the historic word for "species") is discriminatory because they can't divide old-word meanings from new ones. What they actually want is to dictate what themes you can and can't have in your game.
If their vtt is good they don't need to strangle the competition. Let other vtts exist alongside your own. Show confidence.
We need to make this one of the main points that gets to the execs. We can’t let all the good ones get shut down and be left with some half-finished garbage that doesn’t work.
Does anybody else remember when WotC tried to make their own VTT during 4e and then just.... stopped supporting it inexplicably?
I agree. Also, I'm not sure VTTs need the OGL to be a platform for DnD anyway. Unless they plan to sell official art of adventure maps or something I suppose.
Can't wait for the Wizards VTT. Lootboxes for minis, exponential crafting, duplicate drops, premium prices for custom animations, pay for weather, subscription costs. Prepare to see all of the worst of Pay to Gamble video gaming in the DND VTT
You are a class act man. Thank you for undertaking all of this stress for the community and for being so honest and committed to reporting.
Thank you for keeping us updated in this! It feels like you worked tirelessly for the community and helped push back somewhat on something terrible.
From this point I’ll probably support pathfinder because I’ve just got so much respect for the handling of the situation. I also feel like I’ve been sleeping on a genuinely good system. Good luck with getting back to normal content and probably getting some more rest!
That severability language is also a real poison pill. It is virtually guaranteed that at some point in the future some portion of the license (no matter how small) may be found unenforceable. Lawyers have already identified multiple potential weak points. If that non-severability clause remains then they can simply make an "irrevocable" license and wait until they want it to test a non-enforceable provision in court. Upon losing the token lawsuit they declare the whole thing void.
i absolutely love ur determination to make DnD a open, public and enjoyable game for the players i rly hope they give in over time and change this draft to what we deserve nobody should rly hold the license for a tabletop game that is mostly played with ur imagination
Another problem: there is still a provision allowing them to change specific sections of the new ogl at will- obviously this can not stand.
Plus ya know the revocation of 1.0a
Subscribed to support. Respect all the work you have put in to keep the community informed and have been extremely humble and open when there were mistakes. Kudos.
Your candour is appreciated. Thanks for sharing your thoughts after going to the trouble of consulting with your lawyer. It's very helpful. It's clear to me that you are genuienly a good guy, an honest guy who loves this hobby. I know you must be exhausted with all of this, understandably so. You have been a major reason that WotC is course correcting and starting to head in the right direction again. Thank you.
As an old school DM who had ran D&D and other systems for more than 2 decades, I was actually impressed by the changes made in OneD&D in terms of design. I was so preparing to convert my table to OneD&D until this OGL bullshit dropped. Hasbro owe not only the community an apology, but they also owe their designers in WotC a deep compensation for needing to deal with their own shits.
I don't understand how with all the books and knowledge we have collected over the decades why we even need WoTC? As DM we can do what ever we want to do. We can make any sub classes we want in our games. Make any spells we want in our games and change anything we see fit.
Players typically come to hang out with other friends and have an enjoyable evening gaming.
Maybe I just am lucky and have a small tiny player base in my neck of the woods who trust and enjoy what I create and put out. No one argues with me over mechanics and trusts that I am making things fair enough that the game can move along. Everyone realizes they are not the main character in any of my stories. We already got out those power fantasies back in the 80's and 90's.
As we went through the Moldvay style gaming in the 70's.
We don't need them. We have never needed them after we paid and bought our books. Everything can be updated to our own liking and help make our games run smoothly.
Yes we have kicked out a few players who wanted to barge in with their new 5.e rule set thinking they were going to "own" the DM by bringing their min / Max nonsense onto my table. Nope I gatekeep and for good reason.
So why do we need WoTC or D&D One? It's Done. I wouldn't use their crooked system if they paid me.
Also WoTC offered a horrible deal so when they gave us the real deal, they thought gamers were stupid enough to fall for typical Upsale nonsense.
They are acting like the snakeoils sales men I ran back in the 80's.😆😆
Screw WoTC and screw D&D. I don't need them.
It is what the universe gave us imaginations for.
@@OldieWan This x1000.
*owe. Hasbro OWEs people things. They own no one
Absolutely. I feel so gutted for the design team who have been working so hard to add new things and fix issues with 5e. I hope this helps be resolved because I'd really like to try one dnd when it's out with a clear conscience
@@OldieWan Which edition are you playing?
Sadly in fast moving situations like this communications mishaps can happen...all one can do is apologize and learn from it.
Thank you for all the efforts youve been putting in to help keep community on task, informed and committed.
@drizzt102 is exactly right. This is a lesson that it feels like WOTC has yet to learn
It is astounding how often Wizards will attempt to claim they own the right to something or to DO something when they actually don't, or arguably don't. I wonder if there is some way they could be help accountable for outright lying for their own gain on shit like this.
I love how they redefine "irrevocable" and then use it ambiguously throughout the document.
I was worried when this didn't come out yesterday, I'm happy to see you safe and sound.
I really appreciate the fact that even though your channel isn't typically about serious stuff like this that you are producing this content for us. It helps us figure out what exactly is going on as reading legalese is more often than not very confusing. Thank you for doing this for the community
They're going to keep fiddling until they achieve that "just tolerable enough" status the community will accept. They will try to pull the rug out afterwards. They can't revoke the original OGL, that's a huge issue. The VTT looks pretty cool, and I'd feel more inclined to try it if 1: I wasn't already playing pathfinder on Foundry, and 2: They weren't aggressively monetizing it. You can do a season pass. You can do skin packs. Dice packs. As long as you can see what you get before you buy it, fine. But keep in mind this will be in addition to the $30/mo they want you to spend on Beyond.
They already declined the 30$/month fee rumor. Stop spreading misinformation.
That's the biggest problem I've had in general with D&D lately. I got started in 7th grade, saving up allowance for the starter kit and some dice, and getting the books for Christmas. Because I got started so early, I'm now much more experienced, and have a lot more fun with the game. But if it had cost 30/month to buy a subscription, well, I never would have started, WotC would have lost 300-400 dollars from me and each of my friends because teenagers don't have that kind of cash (unless they get a job, which means they don't have the free time.) Physical tomes of rules and wonder are what got so many people into this hobby, I don't see how d&d beyond is going to help.
@@DennisTheGuitarist Well, "declined the rumor"... of course there is a chance it was just a rumor to heat things up more... but with everything going on I would bet that "declined the rumor" just means "We realized that this leaked information will worsen our image even further so we just deny we ever planned something like this to appease the public."
@@lordhelmchen3154 There is no way to actually know that. Instead of making "conspiracy theories" and further rising the heat we can focus on the truth. The truth is they now made a public statement and we can hold them accountable on that instead of creating and spreading stories we have no actual proof of
The dnd beyond sub thing was confirmed false
Love your work mate. Thanks for putting in the hard word so we don't have too . Clear and concise . Love it !!!!
So here's the difference between PF2E and 5E: 5E tells you what your spell does and why, PF2E tells you what the mechanic does, but it leaves it to you as to why, and is also very customizable.
For example, you can take a -2 to your attack to swap your lethal weapon to non-lethal, or vice versa. Like bopping someone with the pommel of your sword to be non-lethal, or attempting wrap your non-lethal whip around someone's neck to do a lethal attack. I personally came up with the second one, no person or rulebook told me how a non-lethal weapon is lethal, so I just came up with it.
And this isn't the exception, this is the rule. With summoner, your summon, otherwise known as an eidolon, has 4 different options for their primary attack that also has different sub options, with feats that further customize things. (You get a lot more feats in PF2E)
For example, I'm making a Sacred Nagaji, much like a Yaun-ti (except sacred subrace means snake tail instead of legs), with a snake (beast) pet(eidolon) that has a coil attack. I added the grapple keyword to it with a feat(advanced weaponry), and chose an option that gave it the forceful and sweep options. Forceful being that repeated attacks are better, which, if your being coiled, makes sense, and sweep, which is basically a side effect, but is AoE, and what's stopping my eidolon from coiling multiple things? Also, with DM's permission, I pick the damage type. The coil does bludgeoning damage, and the secondary attack that is much less customizable is a tail whip that does slashing damage. Either way, I chose for it to be a coil, I chose the bludgeoning damage, I chose for it to be what I wanted.
It's a very "mechanics first, flavor second" kind of system. And I love that! I am really looking forward to making lots of PF2E characters in the future.
If you ever wanted to try pathfinder out, with the mass exodus, give it a shot before WotC hypnotizes everyone to play the inferior DnD again. This is your rare chance to try another system. Don't waste it, at least go mess around with pathbuilder 2e and see what you can do. (Also you need an account or something for making the eidolon, so I looked up the rules and did it myself).
Thank you for covering the part about "harmful" content!
Trust is indeed the main factor to even consider this point, and after seeing them recede from the translation contract with ASMODEE thanks to a similar vague "quality standards" clause just so they could expand their markets I fail to see why we should gift them this trust. They already did, and will again take advantage of small prints.
Regarding the way they are trying to block competition, it reminds me of my country's ice cream corporation Algida. They offered fridges to bars, at the clause of not allowing any other brand inside.
That's a shitty way of ensuring to win over competition not by product quality, but by shelf conquest.
Not only it's not fair but it almost immediately informs me that, indeed, their product will suck at best, and they're fucking scared of everyone else.
Do not let them do it. Allow them to compete, and you will get nice products. Let them take over the entire shelf, and without challengers they'll just get lazy and serve you a cold meal.
The problem with the hateful or discriminatory content part isn't that they're the ones deciding what's hateful or discriminatory - *it's that the termination clause exists at all.* OGL 1.0a had no such termination clause, and the *community was perfectly able to self-police.* Please, do not buy into WOTC's attempt to gain power over creators under the guise of social justice. We've been fine without this kind of clause since the early 2000s - we'll continue to be fine without one in the future.
Something I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned, unless I misinterpreted it. But the clause on termination says that if you bring any action againts WotC, they can terminate your license. Which means, if they do steal your work, and you do prove it and sue them, not only can they keep distributing your work, they can terminate your license and prevent you from continuing to create content under the OGL. I'm not a creator, but I feel like this is almost an intimidation tactic to prevent creators from suing even IF they can prove their work was stolen, because they would risk losing their job.
Those is how you acknowledge mistakes and move forward! Great video
Thank you for putting yourself on the line to bring us as much of the insider information that we need as you can, as quickly as you can! I’m glad you haven’t been dissuaded by the people who want to jump all over anyone who isn’t 100% perfect.
Thank you for the breakdown.
I think the “you can’t fight us if we shut you down” clause isn’t that they aren’t confident they can win a lawsuit, it’s to prevent the cost of handling a lawsuit at all. I agree that section is too vague and needs to change, but I do understand the legalese reasoning behind the protection. That said, I fully agree it has to change.
The VTT issue is probably why so many other gaming companies have talked about creating their own OGL recently. Of course these companies have probably had these potential licenses brewing "just in case" for a few years now. Firstly, they gain good press and community support. Secondly, they open up the potential for more brand recognition. More recognition = more investment potential. With enough resources, these companies can generate their own VTT's with their own rule sets to compete within the market in a more traditional way. With no middle man.
Thank you for what you've done here for the community.
I respect the apology made to the design team. Always direct your frustration and anger at the people that deserve it. As a former retail worker I understand that you can be frustrated at something else and take it out on someone else that was innocent. There was clarification and an apology, something you don't see to often lately.
Thank you for standing up and fighting for the community, and for this game we all so dearly love.
Got to say, I really love and appreciate your work for and around the community here. Keep going and stay awesome!
Great reporting. Honestly, you said it best, the same people who came up with this still work there. This unfortunately doesn’t change things for me. I’m walking away from D&D. I just can’t stand by a company that cares this little for a dedicated fan base
"Here are two things..."
*lists three things*
One a serious note, thank you (and the people you're collaborating with) for all the work you've done during this whole debacle. You're amazing.
The VTT policy was the one that I had the biggest issue with as someone who doesn't really make content. What they want to rule out with the visual effects for other VTTs they get to do? How is that open? And the whole "Can I use the monster manual art for a token?", "No. We’ve never licensed visual depictions of our content under the OGL, just the text of the SRD.".. BULL! I've seen 3d tokens, MTG cards for owlbears, figures and dice bags, all officially licensed, all based on the art in the monster manual. Was I taking drugs when I hand sold those dice bags back when I worked in a bookstore? The card when it got played was that just a counterfeit? What the actual flying flumphs has to be a "visual depiction" of their content? A living breathing owlbear you can pet?
On the VTT policy that you didn't touch: Even if you lock down the OGL; the VTT policy is external to that, so it can change at any time.
My big concern with survey...design teams will read it. But they are not the ones making/signing off on a new ogl. Board of directors/Cynthia Williams are. That in and of itself makes me wary about survey process. I dont question designers. I question the corporate hacks above them who will be making this decision
The survey is a distraction, if you're placated by this you're getting worked.
If the design team really is on our side, giving them the survey data they need to tell their boss "hey, they aren't falling for this one either" could be vital. I know how frustrating it is trying to get changes approved in a big company, every step of the way requires graph after graph after quote after graph, so giving them the survey data to construct those graphs could speed this along
Keep being loud everyone. Ignored the survey. They're not gonna listen to what we fill out there, but if we draw attention from elsewhere they can't ignore it anywhere near as easy. Send emails, create Twitter threads! We don't give up until they leave the OGL 1.0a alone for good!
D&D is, among a mountain of great and fantastical stuff, also a game about war, intrigue, murder, stealing, revenge, blood rituals, necromancy and so many orphans!
I don't think it's even possible to limit hateful, obscene etc content that way. I want some of the darker parts of the game to be a bit obscene, I want some of the lighter parts liberated (which might mean obscene to other people), I want some of the villains to be proper scumbags. If I were to play that hypothetical bi-sexual, pot smoking character (which sounds like a lot of fun!), I wouldn't want all NPCs to be accepting of that.
I feel like not enough people are talking about the elephant in the room. We've rained fire down about the changes in OGL 1.1, we've talked about the changes in OGL 1.2.
Why are we not talking about what's *missing* from them both that might exist in the OGL 1.0a they're adamant about replacing and getting rid of?
Appreciate you owning up to the miscommunication. I know you got a lot of flack for retracting that but it is apparent that the previous message was in error and you were just doing your best to be clear and accurate in your communication.
Thank you very much sir for these concise and timely videos to help us understand what’s going on. Big corporations attacking the community that it cannot exist without is a tale as old as time but hopefully the DND community is resolved enough to stick to what’s best for the community and take WotC for a ride not the other way around. Viva la Adventurers!
Look how easy real, authentic, and quick apologies can be! Keep up the good work!
Can't stop there with an apology buried at the end of a video-- the damage needs to be undone to some degree. It takes only an instant to destroy people's reputation, but there needs to be more work done to undo the misleading information that was spread (accidentally or otherwise). We need awesome people designing RPGs in the community (regardless of where they work) without lumping them in with the villains. Keep spreading positive messages about those who work hard for our games.
@@mattie3875 I think the damage he did was more to himself than to designers. I think he’s ok here. Sure, should have been at the top of the vid, but I’m not gonna stack penalties on him. It was apparently authentic, and unlike WoTC, quick. So I’m satisfied.
I'm really less worried about him, you, or me, and more worried about those who are getting harassed in the middle of this, having sleepless nights when they've worked really hard to give us great things. It's more about having real empathy when you've done wrong-- if we criticize WorC for hurting the community then we should be setting the example for healing behavior. Not just satisfied with a casual apology that only a subset of the incensed viewers will see. This wouldn't have happened if they had taken even a moment to reflect on content readily available to them. I hope he makes it right.
@@mattie3875 Yeah…the designers are in a terrible place. BEFORE Shortz’ mistake. I’m sure they feel stuck being employed by exactly those who are doing REAL damage to our community…on purpose. It must be really tough, and I’m not being sarcastic, to feel as though they can’t say anything in support of the community and can’t quit as I am SURE they have destructive non-competes in their contracts.
@@mattie3875 He's apologized and clearly stated his mistake in more than one place now. Everyone jumped on him and harassed him straight away. Called him a shill, said all of his work was just for clickbait. Said his sources were garbage and couldn't be trusted- even though he's the one who immediately corrected himself when other trusted people (both people in the design team and ex-designers) told him they had different experiences.
He's done more than the bare minimum here, he's clearly taken steps to be informative, clarify the issue, explain what's gone on, and find out where he went wrong, while also trying to be expedient for the sake of *The community* you mentioned.
All of these leaks he's helped shed light on were also at great expense to himself, mind you, to inform the community at large.
I think this is pretty damn good.
I’m glad for some things here on the feedback issue.
- Kudos to you on taking accountability on the misunderstanding
- I hope those WotC employees know how important clarity is in situations like these
I say this with no shame, blame, or judgment to anyone. We are all learning the importance of word choice and clarity these days.
Good news is that DnD Shorts is out here giving us the news we all want to hear and being an advocate for our community. Cheers!
Of all the channels I've seen covering this topic I feel yours are the best. Keep fighting for the little guy and I'll keep supporting! Thank you from a little guy.
Props for acknowledging and addressing your mistake about UA Feedback.