I don't normally do this, but please *share* *this* *video* with anyone you know who enjoys or is interested in D&D. WotC attempted to sneak this by through NDAs and time pressure. We can beat them by putting all of their greed and destruction in the spotlight.
Actually Money is the only thing that will make them change their mind. Let them feel it in the wallet for 6 months. Tweeting only works for rainbow/feminist/blm bullshit.
@Demon go ahead and get into it. There is enough content up to 5th edition to campaign for the rest of your life. That's what myself and my group are doing. Just don't stream your games.
To explain how bad this is, here's what WotC can do with this new license: They can take a book that you created, sell it themselves with their much bigger marketing team, and then tell you to stop publishing it or they will put you out of business. Who in their right mind would ever agree to this?
@@vampcaff Except it's not. My brother publishes on Amazon, when you write content, you own the copyright to it, amazon cannot resell your book under their name. With this license WotC can. They are somehow more predatory than amazon, which is no small feat.
@@vampcaff No, that's not how Amazon works. They can create a new version - an "amazon basic" version of whatever equipment or good (chair, dumbbell, etc.) you're selling, but they can't just steal a damn book and sell it as their own.
This almost feels like a paper company claiming they own anything made with paper, and that everyone must pay them tribute for their creations or suffer the consequences
If you've been on UA-cam a while there was a channel experimenting the same debacle. The REACT channel tried to capitalize on the word reaction and they would profit on any reaction videos on YT. The response backfired on them so hard. Similar situation here. Hope the outcome will end similarly
Honestly, I've been waiting for something like this to happen ever since Hasbro got involved. A company like that doesn't understand what makes D&D work, they just see another board game that can make them money, like a more complicated Monopoly.
Electrician: Next time I do work on the WotC building, I can't wait to sneak in a clause about how any time they flip a light switch they owe me royalties. Plumber: Hey, I get a kickback every time they flush a toilet. HVAC: Adjusting the temperature now carries a microtransaction that scales with the weather outside.
@@morvek so there was this agreement some people signed on an intelligent thermostat that would give them 100 bucks if they agreed for energy saving reductions, you could skip these reductions but you would end up out of the program, people signed and everything is good except these energy saving reductions happened in the hottest part of the year, people lost control of the thermostat and suddenly they couldnt skip anymore meaning they were melting inside their homes there is probably a youtube video that explains it better, that or the person above referred to something else entirely
Please remember that when they go back on this they'll attempt to seem like they listened to community feedback and then put out a contract that is still bad but less so. Don't give them that!
The new one they offer will probably be just as bad as this leaked document just sneakier in the writing, after all with enough legalese you can make the same statement twice and even some lawyers won't catch it.
Personally I want to see an Open TTRPG Alliance formed. Basically a non-profit organization staffed by various publishers, creators, and DMs from the TTRPG community tasked with creating a core set of rules and content that everyone in the TTRPG community could build upon. The core rules and content would be released under an open license like the Creative Commons BY license (the one that allows for commercial use). This would prevent the current situation from ever happening again as no one publisher would control the system.
Since so many designers have been alienated by this, and might want to contribute with conflicting ideas, it might be best to make more than one core ruleset.
It's important to note that the $750,000 line where Hasbro/WotC starts taking a huge cut is revenue, not profit. It doesn't mean they're demanding their cut of just the creator's profits, it's from the total revenue brought in. If the profit margins are slim enough after things like printing costs, buying art, etc, Hasbro's cut could put them into the negatives on even a successful product.
It only goes into effect on revenue past the $750k mark, much like a progressive tax plan. This actually spares small content creators, but I've got a feeling it'll be a mortal blow to many of the big names that have been driving the recent growth of the hobby, and I just don't like the idea of them collecting income taxes on the entire D&D cultural machine. Personally, I think that whether they manage to lock it all down as tight as they're trying to or not, the change in attitude is gonna make D&D shitty anyway, and it'll be time to check out new games soon.
Its important to note that they can change that number at anytime after you've signed to screw you over. Right now it might not look to terrible but they can always change it in their favor, as Shorts mentioned, and there would be nothing you could do to stop it.
Also if you make 760,000$ then you have to give 25% of that to WOTC, meaning you'll only have 570,000$ left over.. But if you have only 740,000$ then you don't have to give a %. Meaning if you go above the threshold, you need to make at least 1,000,000$ just to match the gains gotten from not going above the threshold. This would outright kill any business that gets too big.
My favorite part about this is that courts have already ruled that you can’t own rules. You just can’t call it DnD, need to use your own words and not plagiarize, and cannot use something trademarked like beholder or mindflayer.
I've never seen a company so rapidly and so aggressively try to decimate its own fanbase *and* destroy its own legacy as WOTC / Hasbro have done in the last 12 months.
@@GordonKast actualy, while all of the proposed exemple a IP destroying company given are true, they didnt managed to ddo that in just 3 week tops, it took Blizzard 3 to four years for them to anihilate their warcraft IP ( lets see if dragonflight actualy saves it) and amazon ring of power still took at least a year to put the serie together before showing it, a year were fans knew it was coming. WOTC leaked their OGL1.1, and three week from then, we are here
Oh bro in magic the gathering they fucked us since 2019 really really hard. They sell now Captain marvel cards and the 30 aniversary „for the fans“ booster set was a 999$ 4 booster aka 60 card f*ck ripoff and the best was the cards were just proxies so no official legal cards 60 cards for 999$ for the fans! Which fans? The really rich paul logans of this world or what? Middlefinger right in our faces….
@@arklainquirkSilence is Deafening 1. MTG, which is a subsidiary of Hasbro, has continously been fucking its fans. The quality of Cardboard is becoming less & less, powercreep is getting insane, and the game is getting way too expensive. Then, again MTG, does the 25th anniversary bullshit. 2. WOTC, the publishers of DND, is likewise owned by Hasbro. WOTC has, publicly stated, that the Hasbro Execs see D&D as ‘being more profitable than it currently is’ and that the Execs planned to ‘change D&D so as to bring in more money’ Knowing ALL OF THAT, and the fact that the ‘supposed rumor’ is 100% backed by the CEO of Kickstarter who said, PUBLICLY, that they were personally contacted by WOTC to go over the new 1.1 OGL, and they confirmed pretty much everyones biggest gripes,… AND the fact that WOTC literally has done NOTHING whatsoever to deny the allegations by the community IN OVER 2 WEEKS? Yeah, no. It’s pretty obvious WOTC was hoping it would all just blow over.
Between this and Netflix revoking password sharing, remember that companies only make greedy moves like this when they think they can get away with it. It's up to the consumer to show them they're wrong.
Yeah except Netflix is being forced to by the movie companies so not really a good comparison. Netflix has been told by companies like NBC and such that if they don't stop password sharing, they will not be allowed to renew contracts. Netflix alone cannot survive on only their content.
@@mercutiobr3814 I likely wont ever cut Netflix, but I also worked for them and know the CEO and his views. Sadly in some cases people's hands are forced into things they do not want.
The insane part is at least in the USA they've shot themselves in the foot by doing this, and I can't imagine how this will go over in Europe either. Most people cooperated with the OGL out of convenience and probably would have accepted a watered-down version of the terms provided. In the USA, I think it's fair to say a reasonable chunk of the OGL spectrum either is fair use or could pretty easily be made fair use with renaming and rebranding. Europe tends to have pretty significant consumer protections so I imagine there are some European lawyers that are salivating right now. Most people have supported DND because Wizards has been fair with the license up until now. They had to have known this would generate immense consumer backlash. Very few companies can burn five decades of good will overnight, but this might just do it.
New character idea: A warlock whose patron is a wealthy wizard he met on the coast. As soon as he ever crosses his patron or whenever the patron feels like it, the warlock instantly loses ALL of his levels in warlock, and is left only with any multi class levels or back at level 1 in any other class otherwise.
Every morning when the warlock wakes up they must burn a spell slot to roll a D100. On a 1 the patron takes all your powers and Warlock levels and anything you have crafted. Or you could have another patron.
You know this is Hasbro's doing, right? So it would make more sense if the wizard was, in turn, beholden to a powerful infernal entity that was actually pulling the strings.
Had an idea for a warlock whose patron is a devil. He has to pay a certain amount of gold per month to keep his powers. He can hire people under him to grant a small amount of power that they themselves can grow as long as they pay their share of gold per month.
To be fair... this is exactly the contract you form with any Warlock patron. They can do exactly that. Your powers are granted and can be removed at any time, for any reason.
You're underestimating it. The way this new agreement works, said patron can also take your multiclass levels for themselves, which they have every incentive to do so as it raises their own power. Did you miss the part where they can republish your work, sell it and force you to stop publishing? IE if you're really successful, fuck royalties, we literally just steal the entire product and sell it ourselves?
Dude, you need to reach out to your fellow creators and start collaborating on something awesome for everyone. You guys are at the forefront of being able to start something new and real
@@urgentfusionguy7143 there's no point in stifling creativity, other games exist but I'm still going to make my own.... And I'm going to support and play those other games too.
When TSR found certain authors making money publishing fan-fiction they gave them jobs. Thusly was born (if I remember correctly) Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. Wizards owes their success to those who love them. They owe us, we don't owe them
This is just a tiny microcosm of a world where those with any modicum of power have become arrogant and greedy and have forgotten their wealth and success is due to the fan bases, workers, or creators, but bureaucrats and shallow, hollow do nothings make all the decisions from the standpoint that we need them, as they stand on our backs.
@@hergie409 They didn't let power get to their head they got bought out buy Hasbro. Hasbro is publicly traded so they are required by law to squeze every dollar from every asset they own. (lawsuit might dissuade them)
@@mattsmith1859 True. Things can only have a single cause. It was either Critical Role OR Stranger Things, and couldn't have been both of these among many different creators making amazing content. I am a well adjusted human with cogent opinions.
Dear Hasbro, This rule has existed in every single Dungeon Master's Guide ever released for Dungeons and Dragons. You seem to have forgotten this. "As a referee, the DM interprets the rules, decides when to abide by them, and when to change them." You are on notice. The Dungeon Masters are changing the rules. You are no longer invited to our gaming table. Signed, Dungeon Masters everywhere.
no where did it say you may publish your rules under the dnd ip name. thats what everyone is missing. dont label shit dnd and they cant "steal" your stuff.
@@BrighamMike Because that's not what the OGL is, Starwars Kotor for example falls under the OGL. Has nothing to do with DND but the d20 system. Ironically this means they're going to have to get Disney to sign their bs new OGL as Disney is currently remaking Kotor, and I don't see WotC outdoing disney in court.
@@lammergeier2982 Heh heh heh...I would normally not be on board with Disney beating anyone in court...but this one time I'd be all about a Disney countersuit that just absolutely destroys all that is left of WotC.
Haven't thought about that. Majority Viewers would be those who follow DnD in some capacity who are really annoyed right now. The movie is facing flop even before it gets released or at least boycott to some degree. On top of that the induction of new consumers and creators would have bitter taste left after learning about ogl.
You would have to say that the renaissance that D&D has seen over the last few years is due to the amount of content that has shown up. The interest created by being able to enjoy this content in turn would be generating sales and revenue for Wizards as the viewers and content creators seek out materials and sourcebooks. I had not played much D&D for a few years until I happened across things such as these youtube posts. This in turn lead me to going to my local store to get the latest rule books, joining in some games and doing some DMing again. As it's gone along, I have invested more money into more sourcebooks because I found something interesting from a content creator which took me back to the store. It's a symbiotic relationship. Harm one, and the other will fade away.
I actually did what I thought I'd never do, as a homebrew DM. Which was buy about 5 books, 4 of which were full price. I've convinced a number folk to buy books too. I've DMed for a 40+ group once, I've DMed for a lot of small groups. Influence is strong, when something is enjoyable everyone wants to get in on it.
I’ve heard speculation that Hazbro (the ones who tell Wizards of the Coast what to do) had this O.G.L. released specifically to be rolled back and make their actual-still terrible-plans look a lot less awful by comparison.
This ogl was provided to certain larger companies in the sector with contracts attached ready for signatures. It was not a draft. I very much doubt anybody signed.
I was thinking the same. It comes at the price of building distrust on the community, but if they don't care about that is a brilliant move. Even though this may be true, it doesn't changes anything, the community must continue with what is doing.
One thing I haven't seen talked about is that the OGL is a legal document, that, at the time of issue; was understood by the issuing company and the individuals that issued and wrote it (as documented by videos, FAQ's and interviews) to set up a system that lasted indefinitely. Now, the company that issued it is trying to claim that that isn't the case. They went to the point of removing supporting videos from the company website last April. Wizards is bound by the OGL as much as everybody else. Just because they now find it inconvenient doesn't give them the right or ability to change it. If they wanted to write a new OGL for 6e, and allow people to use 5e with the previous OGL as they promised and legally obligated themselves to do over 20 years ago, then that would be fine. Stupid (IMO); but fine. This attempt at strong-arming an entire industry into allowing them to weasle out of their legal obligations is wrong.
Legality doesn't matter. What matters is if a court first decides to hear a case and, then, if they rule Constitutionally. This hasn't happened in decades so GOOD LUCK!
@@steelmongoose4956 what I would be curious about is how the communications by wizards about the contract not being revocable in their FAQ affects the common understanding. I believe that has impact in contract law but IANAL
I own just about every 5e book published by WOTC. I was planning on buying my brothers a set for Christmas, but the money just wasn't there, so I waited. I'm glad I did, they're not getting my money until they stop twirling their mustaches like a villian.
I'll point out if you buy it second hand, then WotC don't get a cent, but you still get to give a good gift, if you still wanted to do it. lots of places you can get them from if you look hard enough. try buy/swap groups, and you can try asking in gaming or LFG pages
Second hand markets are a great way to enjoy the content without funneling any money into their hands! and you know what they say, if Wotc keeps this up theirs always the other option *Distant YARR's*
I would also recommend pathfinder instead, but frankly, as much as I am a pathfinder guy, this is a shitty way for me to see my system become more popular, hopefully wizards gets punished for this move badly enough that someone who cares about not being a shitheel gets the IP off them.
We can all agree just how much critical role brought to D&D. With that said i really hope they don’t remain silent about this. They control such a vast portion if fans, if they were to make a stance against it that traffic and noise they could generate would be invaluable I think.
They'd probably have their own agrement with WotC and are likely one of those folks under an NDA. They probably can't say anything without getting in serious legal trouble.
IF CR decides to hold their tongues and stick with WOTC after this, hopefully people will push back. I will, but since I just watch the YT video and don't buy all their random crap, it doesn't change much. Just the principle of the thing.
@@JacopoSkydweller Amen. Will be the same response form me if they say nothing. Whilst they are essentially paid entertainers, I do still believe them to be fans of D&D. This may sound like a guilt trip but making a public stance against this is a way for them to prove that. The only worrying part is just how much they're sponsored by D&D Beyond. Every damn episode has an advertisement for that abysmal service.
The problem with how wizards is doing it is they’ve basically blatantly said with zero care “deal with it” so if people start speaking out they’re just gonna start saying “ok looks like your unable to release anything”
One thing I haven't seen discussed about the OGL 1.1 is that not only do they get license to your works, they can sublicense it. So they can make money off of your original ideas without even risking production costs. WoTC has become the embodiment of the fabled god DM who plays nice with the group for long enough for everybody to get attatched to their characters, then laughs in glee when slaughtering them all in a TPK.
@Michael why is it OK for people to make money off the original ideas and dnd product owned and created by WotC but you think it's bad that WotC want "to make money off of your original ideas "(which aren't your original ideas since you're using the dnd product)?
Don't forget that the ceo recently said that dnd is a hobby that is horribly monetized and they needed to fix that. Like a month ago if anyone is wondering why it came out of nowhere. It didn't. There was a large red warning flag. That they wanted more money. This is how they are trying to go about it. Before I assume the next steps will be raising the prices on things in general I imagine. Hopefully they don't start trying to charge people for just using content sharing like having to pay to have your dm share books. Literally just don't be surprised about a bunch of fucky monetization steps coming soon.
I remember seeing that and thinking... "Uh oh, even more warning signs for 'OneDnD'". Between going woke, clearly trying to get into the online market, putting so many things behind paywalls... almost certainly going to stick to 5e, ignore anything Wizards licenses or produces after 2022, and start looking for "free" resources one might be able to find online. I have no problem with a company trying to make money, I do have a problem with a company clearly ready to burn innocent people and businesses up in legal battles to squeeze profits out of them it did not earn or had next to nothing to do with... those same people and businesses who almost certainly caused that company to profit and likewise grow as an entity due to new fans coming to the universe. And, I personally have made a serious effort to get official source material and products when available and have spent hundreds of dollars doing this... and am new to tabletop DnD. So, for people who have played for years and years, they have probably sunk thousands into WotC and DnD. "Not properly monetized..."
So i am on the 6th book of a 10 book fantasy series based on a game I wrote about 30 yrs ago, the game book is over 78k words and was converted to be used as a D&D expansion. I average 100k words per book. When they announced one D&D I decided to relax a bit and work on publishing after it's release. The only sane option I can see is to write both options. a D&D rule set, and rewrite the original game book with the original game rules. the leaked OGL is the kind of bad that ruined musicians in the 60's... good luck to all of us .
@@DeclanFeeney This might help me as well. I have been working on a new RGP system over the last 11 years on and off. It uses some of the OGL elements. I thought about publishing it but with the new OGL changes it seemed that would never happen. This give me some new hope and I might actually start seriously developing and playtesting it again soon.
@@Sonofsun. It's not that simple. You could change the name, and I have done so for 90% of my work, but if it has the exact same effect under a different name then it is still considered the same. It is why it is impossible to enforce such a vague concept such as Two Weapon Fighting. You could call it Dual Weapon Fighting but the ability is exactly the same. It is still Two Weapon Fighting. You would have to change the name and the wording and possibly the effect as well. At that point it isn't Two Weapon Fighting but now Dual Weapon Fighting and they couldn't claim it but that is developing an entirely different system. It wouldn't work as a D&D Expansion since the abilities wouldn't be synonymous with what players of D&D would recognize and wouldn't work within the system.
I've been running D&D for 20 years. It's what got me into fictional writing. This has convinced me to drop D&D. I'm passionate about D&D. It's kept me going through tough times, writing stories and entertaining my friends or even folk I hardly know. I'm going to write my own roleplaying game mechanics and tear the Wizards out of their throne. They don't even know me and they want to take what's mine? They'll have to kill me first. I can't ever see them turning back from this now. They're as rich as a country and demand more. Not only that! Now they're threatening to claim the original fictional writing of someone like me who's been writing one single campaign for 16+ years?!
@@BrighamMike Actually your analogy is the one that misses the mark. OGL allows you to use their rules for dice rolls. People then use that set of rules to create games. You've never had the right to stamp a D&D logo onto your product without consent, and nobody is complaining about that. I think you're confusing an open license with proprietary IP. Do you want to create a game using their dice rules? You're free to do so. Do you want to put an image of a Beholder on the box? You'll have to pay a licensing fee. The OGL never gave anyone the right to reproduce artworks owned by WotC in the first place. And that's not what people are upset about. People are upset because Wotc is attempting to renege (in rather predatory fashion) on the terms of a long-standing *open* licence.
More like they give you infinite supply of yarn, but they would own everything you make that contains even an inch of that yarn, and can use, copy, and sell that product as theirs without paying you a dime, and if you make enough they demand royalties on your revenue. Oh, and they can sue you if you continue using the yarn after they've decided they don't like even just one thing about your product, regardless if the yarn is even relevant.
I've seen a lot creators talk about this topic right now (as they should) my only response is that the one thing that scares a rich man ( or company) more than anything is to be a poor one. The power you have is to band together and fuck with Hasbro's and WotC's money. No half measures, find the CEOs and tank their stock, starve them, illustrate that without you, they have nothing.
@@MrCompassionate01 this. Not enough people will do anything. Just like with Games Workshop. It requires everyone doing something. And that won't happen.
I'd be interested to see a lawyers take on this and how things might go if wizards actually followed through, what powers and actions could wizards actually take
@@fawode I have said it elsewhere but I will say it again, class action is not the way to go here since a class action lawsuit can be settled once and that is the end of it for everyone involved, rather 1000 or so smaller lawsuits all of which Hasbro has to litigate would be ideal, a death by 1000 cuts if you will.
I have never once played D&D, but enjoy the content of creators like you and others so much I would definitely give the game a go. Without content like this I would never even think of starting a campaign, just to try some of the weird things you can do in D&D.
This is like saying “We own you and you’ll like it” the greed from this and all the recent magic set is horrific. I legitimately think that people who are running Wizards are trying to run the company into the ground in order to get termination pay.
WOTC is now and always has been a joke. Magic the Gathering is incredibly predatory towards is audience - kids, teens, and young adults. The only thing surprising to me about this is that it took this long for them to do something like this. Beyond that, its frankly shocking to me that no one even realizes that this is WOTC's 5 release of a new version of D&D in less than 25 years! 3.0, 3.5, 4th, 5th, and now this new garbage! All essentially the same material, except for 4th Ed, really- and even it used the same basic rule system! Can you imagine an MMO that put out a sequel requiring you to buy a new game and lose all of your old stuff every 5 years? Take a look at Destiny 2 and see how that went for them on release? Sure, its considered decent now, but they've also added back in a lot of the old original Destiny stuff, too! WOTC and Hasbro are garbage companies. They got lucky with 5th Ed, managing to capitalize on the attention they got from Stranger Things and Mercer's Critical Roll, and instead of just continuing to be happy that D&D is more profitable than ever, they're made because nerds are making a living off of it, and want to steal from them! They're dirtbags. They're all dirtbags.
That is the Harvard Business School's model for success in a nutshell: enter company, apply changes to raise stock while destroying said company, exit company with executive-level severance, move to next. We are seeing it everywhere.
@@variabl3 Yeah, that makes sense. I read that all of this came about because Hasbro has a new CEO. Also, you forgot to add 'And have a competitor waiting in the wings to buy all of the destroyed company's IPs and hire you to manage them properly this time around.'
I agree that both MTG, and DND have not been monetized enough. Don't we all want more of both? The only way to do that is with money, which is why they are doing this.
@@anthonypezzullo Your worldview is twisted. Who exactly do you think needs to be making this money? CEO's at Hasbro? How did these properties exist and sustain so long without predatory monetization? I hate to say it, Chief, but you might be a bitch for power.
@@schploink6869 You are aware that there are other employees at Hasbro besides the CEO, about 6600? I don't think I have a twisted worldview, I think we disagree with the fact that people should not benefit monetarily from someone else's content / ideas without their consent.
@@anthonypezzullo I've owned a business, a club, and you have a choice, do you want to be super profitable, or do you want to serve the community. The OGL is the reason D&D is what it is and is a property to even be able to make this move. As stated in the video, there are plenty of ways to go about monetizing things in a way that is much more fair or considerate of your player base. This is so far off base and such a piss in the face move, that my feelings are strong and I'm heated. No offense meant to you personally, but my bias in reading your comment really rubbed me the wrong way in the moment.
This whole fracas strikes me as the legal equivalent of the coastal Wizard saying "I don't care how big the room is; I cast Fireball. At 9th level." It's all of the Chaotic-Stupid memes wrought in legalese.
This is very sad. Everyone from MTG and dnd communities should try to work together around this - it's been a long time coming if you look at how wizards have treated MTG last couple of years...
I'm pretty sure most of those decisions about MTG were made by Hasbro, who acquired wotc in 1999, and not wotc themselves. I would guess that most of the people at wizards are just trying to make a living and provide content that customers will enjoy while still doing what they are told by their bosses in order to keep their jobs.
@@iduno3592 Well on the exact same thought; It's possible that the changes to d&d are coming down through hasbro as well. It doesn't change the fact that both are happening.
@@iduno3592 yeah absolutely. As the old saying goes: People aren't evil. Companies are evil. I think many people at wotc are also sad about this. But what is clearly going on is wotc is on a fast lane to completely turn into your typical evil corporation. Would not be surprised if people who work there start getting out of there. Mark Rosewater surely can't be happy about the situation, for example. He has to stand up for all these crazy greedy decisions and make them sound good, when his job to begin with is just to design a game....I hope he leaves and speaks out.
I'm only buying single commander. And the 99 I'm proxying. Hasbro won't see cash from me anymore. And with DND I was already considering switching to a different codex.
7:15 I'm one of those creators that's leaving. I'm wrapping up the campaigns I have going and, if this OGL business isn't walked back, I'm not touching DnD again. I've been making homebrew for the better part of six years by this point, including new rulesets for leveling, three different settings, new weapons, hundreds of new enemies and creatures and more, playable sub-races and classes, and then this hits. I'm jumping ship. Nothing I ever had was uploaded, just shared between the three or four groups I'm a part of, so I'm not worried at all. I've decided to start making my own system with absolute player/DM choice being the theme.
Hey dude, you're just basically paying a creative license. This is not the end of the world, this is how creative property works. WotC built out d&d by marketing and developing it for decades. If you have had success, it is because of D&Ds success. Don't get your panties in a bunch
@@adrianmurillo1631 You... Really aren't paying attention, are you? Anything, anything at all, that catches their eye if this new OGL goes live? They can take it. Entirely. And say that it was always theirs. No payment of any sort, no credit given, nothing past a quick "You made this? I made this." meme. That was written *into the new OGL*. And they have made it so that, if you go through any channels to publish your stuff and they DO take it? You can't sue them for theft. Tell me now, how exactly am I getting my panties in a twist for taking my near one-hundred-and-twenty pages of stuff and expanding it further because WotC and Hasbro have decided to try and sweep my legs out from under me as a content creator? The original OGL was the reason why D&D even got as big as it was, and they're kneecapping it to try and get more money at the cost of the people that made the game great over the past near twenty years.
Perhaps it is time for the community to shift to using another system. They have no monopoly on game mechanics and there are other systems that use the D20 and similar stats. If Wzards won't budge, then find a company that will work with the community to fill that space. Creators such as yourself have a lot of influence if you join together and pull in the same direction. The strength of Roleplaying is not really about the system it is about the content that helps to create the immersion. D&D is successful because of volume of players; if enough players get behind another system, that system will be popular enough to become self-sustaining so long as it brings the community with it. Wizards cannot make people play their game.
the problem is that, while there's a lot of people who do care, there's a lot of people who are incredibly unaffected by it. I personally only play with wotc published material (partially because my group is always iffy on 3pp/homebrew, partially to keep character creation "simple"), and a lot of others have the same restrictions, like in adventurers league, and people who play like that are not directly affected by 3pp creators being shafted, and in fact have the chance to benefit, because WotC having the pick of the litter of things to publish means more content for them to gorge on. sure, there's a lot of people (me included, don't get me wrong) who agree that it's a terrible idea on WotC's part, but there's so many others who have never even googled or considered 3pp content, convincing all of them to change their entire gaming group over to a different system, for no reason other than "the company who publish the content are greedy", is going to be impossible for them, 5e's a great game, they have no reason to convince every member in the group to change system, which would involve learning a whole new rules system, bastardising their characters into the new system, or else abandon the campaign. some groups might move away gradually, for example, my group has been enjoying the FFG Star Wars RPG (Edge of the Empire/Age of Rebellion/Force and Destiny) for a few years now (in between 5e campaigns), but getting a whole community to even start to agree on where to land on isn't going to happen, and that just means that content creators have to split their focus, or shrink their audience. if DMDave started only making PF2 content, while MonkeyDM started on GURPS, and Griffon's Saddlebag went onto CoC, and Kobold Press decided to make their own system, and Green Ronin decided to publish a mix (because even getting just creators to all sign onto one system is going to be impossible), that only means that people who like all of them have to decide if they're going to try to flip-flop between systems to continue supporting them, drop most in favor of their favorite system/creator, or force the creator to work in systems they might not be familiar with or even enjoy, to try and keep a viable audience. there is only one solution that ends up with a "clean" outcome, and that is WotC completely ditching the problematic changes, and everyone staying on OGL/DnD.
Except WotC has sued people in the past for using game mechanics similar to their own. Look up lawsuits related to Magic the Gathering and you'll see what I mean. Their victims didn't have the capital to fight the lawsuits and ended up settling out of court. They're apart of a multi-billion dollar company, they can tie up any lawsuit in court shenanigans for years and outlast anyone who isn't a multi-millionaire with cash to spare.
@@Sentinel851 I get what you're saying and I agree that no solution would be easy and any success in moving to an alternative system requires big players to collaborate closely. But it is possible. The community has grown so much since I sarted role-playing and is much more inter-connected since the internet started. Seeing this community grow so much over the years has been delightful and the thought of seeing that fragment is saddening. The community has a voice now that did not really exist before; It is heartening at least to see it being used. Perhaps WOTC will listen, but if they do not and nothing is done, then the community is in danger of fragmenting anyway to everyone's detriment - even WOTC. Still, I live in hope that a resolution will be found one way or another. I also play Age of Sigmar by Games Workshop another giant in their community, namely wargaming. Both they and DnD (under whichever ownership) have been instrumental in growing the communities they are part of, and I can see this even though I have not liked many things done over the years, but to attempt to monopolise the community for themselves seems to me to be self-destructive. Both communities function well when there is a big player to bring people in, but who the big player is, no matter the industry, is determined eventually by those who support it. The best I can do is throw what little support I have as a player behind those I feel have the community at heart and hope that enough others do likewise so that the community will continue to thrive.
Pretty sure WotC will just claim the d20 system as 'theirs', claiming they were the first to use it or that any game system that uses different polyhedral dice that comes after they began publishing as being "based on our system" and will claim ownership.
the absolute crazy thing about this, is that there is very little legitimately copyrightable aspects of D&D that they can enforce. It's like a recipe. You can't copyright the mechanics of the game, so all they can do is trademark the name and copyright the format of the manual. Nothing can stop people from Playing Delves and Demons with the exact same rulesets and simply bury the dungeons and dragons name.
I started playing D&D 28 years ago. I loved it so much and over the years my love has grown more and more. When I started to see content made by the players, I loved it even more. To hear that they are doing this... makes me sad and mad at the same time. All for the sake of saving face and making a buck... Shameful... very shameful. Hey... DnD Shorts... no matter what... Your stuff has been grand and since finding your videos I came to enjoy 5e and have started tweaking the idea's you put out only to give those I play with massive headaches as a player or as a DM. So if they don't muck us over... I hope you continue to create awesome content for us all man. Much love man.
Yes, the whiplash is wild- D&D really has been at it's peak the last few years and was looking to expand. A new version of the OGL was appropriate in some ways as D&D tried to expand content offerings and capitalize on that surge of support. What we got instead were very abusive actions, in many different ways, while lying, misdirecting, and trying to keep people in the dark.
Ok everybody, here is an idea: 1- We make a new kickstarter for a new game, “Mines & Monsters”. 2- We rewrite the player’s handbook and Dm’s guide, using a mix of homebrew rules and 5e rules. 3- You are now looking at the Official Rules of M&M, not suplementary material or homebrew, a whole new system with a open licence.
Kickstarter has a separate contract with Hasbro now so tgey can just say you can’t use their platform. Also expect any other Kickstarter type companies and the creators of the new system to face cease & desist orders. Maybe they lose a lawsuit but who has the money to fight a multi year lawsuit while not being able to sell any of their current content. This sucks far worse than you imply here.
There's already many other systems that are D&D but different that people could go to like Pathfinder 2e. The best things about 5e was that it was so easy to comprehend making homebrew for it was similarly easy, and that there was already so much content for it. I'm also grateful to it for introducing me and many others to TTRPGs, but it's reached the point that people think it's the only thing and are afraid to look deeper, which is a shame because there's a lot of other great systems out there. I hope people look more into Pathfinder 2e after this and Wizards realizes that competition can easily come back if they keep pulling stupid moves like this.
The bizarre thing is that only some of the Systems Reference Document is going be protected by copyright. Basic game rules aren't protected, and this seems likely to attract some serious scrutiny to what parts are and aren't protected.
Exactly! As far as I understand, you can't copyright game rules. Someone could simply reword the entire SRD, remove any reference to DnD itself and make a new open gaming license.
Hey bro. Big picture aside I hope you are OK. I can see this is super stressful for you personally. Making a vid about it must be hard because you are talking about having the rug pulled out from under your future plans. Don’t stress too much dude. You are a great creator and I look forward to your channel in the future. If you have to pivot to something else I know it will be rad and we will all support it.
I foresee a massive class action lawsuit in the future if they don't back down. "You cant sue us" clauses have been proven multiple times to not hold up in court. not to mention they're forcing you to sign or lose your livelihood. So the deal could be seen as (signing under duress) I'm not a lawyer maybe someone could get a lawyer to chime in...
If anyone is interested, you can find a *free* issue of my magazine on Patreon, link in the "about me" section, proudly made with the original OGL. patreon.com/dndshorts
Kudos. This is by FAR the best commentary I've found illustrating the REAL problems behind the new OGL. The other articles and videos I've found seem to be focusing on the royalty (over $750k) bit but honestly, that's the least of potential threats inherent within this document.
Honestly I think Wizards are now going to come up with a more "Agreeable Contract" so they can say that they took the community feedback. This leak feels intentional so they can say they are sorry
And the more agreeable contract they're going to come up with is going to be one that would have caused uproar had they not allowed this comically draconian draft to leak first. This is a well-known aggressive negotiation tactic. If you want a hundred, _demand_ a thousand and make it seem like the other side has negotiated it down to a hundred - a hundred they wouldn't have found reasonable at all had you initially not outright demanded ten times that. Do not allow the fact that it isn't as bad as this current draft to cloud your judgment on the 'compromise'.
We thought the same thing about a certain SCOTUS leak and look at how that turned out. Trust that they not only don’t give a crap about the community, they will probably make it worse.
@@Celticassassin23 if you haven't checked it out yet, some friends and I are playing a Witcher TTRPG from R. Talsorian games. It's a lot of fun so far, despite not having as wide of a range of character creation options for players.
exactly. the problem is they wont ever agree on a core system. most can barely agree on dnd as is. they will end up scattered to the wind of OSE and the like and cry to want to come back to the label that is Dungeons and dragons.
Here’s a short campaign idea that I highly encourage any and all people with streaming capabilities to run and share. Centuries ago, magic existed but was not connected to the sentient creatures of the world. Some people living on a shoreline who dedicated their lives to researching this magic found ways to cast it themselves and became the world’s first wizards. They found ways to bind this magic to all humanoids and had a dream of magic growing, changing, and being available to all who sought it. Through their efforts, these Wizards of the Coas- I mean Shoreline, were able to spread this philosophy and new schools and branches of magic began to appear of their own accord: the gods had a bridge to provide magic to mortals, nature itself was able to connect with people, even bloodlines began to be infused with magic. It began to spread in ways that those young and hopeful wizards could not even imagine. In current day, however, the successors of these wizards have started to become entitled to all magic. Even though they have become a major hub in the world for magic training and item crafting, they have become covetous of the magic that spawned from their predecessor’s ideas and there have been rumors that these Wizards of the Shoreline are planning to change the original incantation that allowed magic to belong to all in order for them to hoard and sell it how they see fit. You are a band of pirates and noble thieves (Robin Hood vibes) who have been tasked with a mission to infiltrate and sabotage these schemes. The wizards are very powerful, killing them will accomplish nothing as they have clones to spare, so you must be tactful and save the magic for the world.
The worst part is that there will be people who dont know any better and will sign it, thinking they dont have any other option, even though it would actually be extremelly dificulty for WOTC to prove and defend their claims in case of a lawsuit
Whether WOTC can prove their claims or not in court, the people being sued will still have to get a lawyer and defend themselves. Many cant afford to do that.
7:11 That's what I was waiting to hear. If you signed an OGL that stated you can use that specific OGL if something changes in the future, it literally doesn't matter what the new one says, which means this new one wastes the time of everyone that signed up before it releases and just shows how bad your company has become to potential new customers. The idiots in charge are literally just burning their community's trust with this.
saddly, this doesn't actually matter to most creators because WOTC can (and probably will) take creators to court, citing the "new agreement" and most people don't have the time and/or money to fight Hasbro's lawyers
@@bombman1599 yeah I know they'll just pull the "drag out the case til the creator runs out of money" tactic. they're really killing their good will for no reason here
@@StygianIkazuchi Apparently DnD has attracted a lot of lawyers, and they're already moving on this to injunct it. Hasbro also isn't exactly swimming in cash as it is, so the situations even more complicated, both for better and for worse.
This is a really good summary. I think you understand the extent of the awfulness better than most of the people that I've listened to on UA-cam. The irony here is I don't always agree with your gaming exploits sometimes I think they break both rules is written and intended but I think your grasp of how ogl 1.1 screws over the best content creators is really good. This is also well organized and well spoken and I'm going to be forwarding this to a lot of my friends. I will continue to subscribe and follow and recommend your Channel no matter which way you go. If Wizards doesn't completely back down on this I hope you find another game system to have fun with and I will try that game system too. Good job
I just got the Starter Set and the three core books for Christmas. I had been fascinated with this game for a year and my dad thought my passion was something worth supporting so he got me all the stuff. I have run three sessions of "Lost Mine of Phandelver" for my parents and my brother, we are having lots of fun and I am so keen on doing more and expanding the module to a campaign, I have looked into homebrew stuff and similar things and am blown away by what this community has produced, from monster stat blocks to full on campaign settings. I feel I am at the beginning of an exciting journey, I love getting lost in both mechanics and atmosphere of DnD but now I feel that the sheer limitless potential of this game is being dangerously reduced, just I am getting into it. It may be entitled but I, without having actually anything on the line, feel incredibly robbed.
I just started playing last year and am learning to DM. I'm now kinda glad that my apathy towards generic fantasy worlds + my family being intimidated by dice with anything more or less than 6 sides led me to seek alternative TTRPGs because, sadly, this ship seems to have sprung a massive leak the moment I set foot on it!
Roleplaying will remain limitless. WotC can’t change that. Enjoy the products you’ve bought. The lost Mines of Phandeler is a great adventure. Then look at all the great Roleplaying that isn’t Hasbro controlled - basically anything not produced by either WotC or Renegade. I’d strongly recommend Call of Cthulhu, Blades in the Dark, Scion, Savage Worlds and Fate Core.
As someone who has played for several years and is an advocate of the game itself, don't let what they're doing ruin you or your family's and friend's fun. I share the sentiment but also just know that the material exists and there is a lot of it and once you get into it you'll be able to create your own. And when all else fails just know that when you need it, it will be there. The Music industry coming down on Napster didn't stop music sharing, DRM didn't stop people from playing video games and playing this game requires very little in reality. Even if today was the last day anything was ever created for this game there will be some dude with a Google doc ready to plop it all on Reddit and you'll still have years worth of content. The community and the game will endure no matter the outcome, I just hope for our friends that have found creating content as a livelihood can come to some positive end.
Nah mate. You don't come across as entitled. It's just shit. Give it some time, and I bet you could get stuff for free. I smell smoke and a guerilla campaign on the horizon.
Hasbro has been so cartoonishly evil that I am very surprised they didn't pull this move a couple decades ago. One of their executives signed on to G-dubs and he did a lot of damage in a very short time.
I honestly believe they let this leak on purpose to judge how bad the backlash would be. And now that they have, they’ll likely attempt to walk it back. They’re probably silent because they’re working on a new document they can say was always what they intended to release.
@@arklainquirk verified leaks from reputable sources are not the same thing as rumours. I didn’t get upset a few weeks ago when people were just speculating, but we’ve moved beyond speculation now.
Manipulation of the masses 101. Release something outrageous as a supposed "leak" that everyone will hate. Release something a little less outrageous so people think "it's not as bad" and agree to it.
I called this months ago. They're creating a monopoly on what's largely games played within the minds of people. I'm sure they've tried to find ways to charge folks for having D&D thoughts or scribbling a character on a piece of paper. I didn't need the website and I definitely didn't need the apps, but it's a bummer so many 3rd party creators are going to get hit by this. Whole industries are going under, which is also made up of the fandom itself. They're shooting themselves in both feet, and it serves them right that this is also blowing up in their face. **Laughs in scribbles on paper**
WotC is not "creating a monopoly," They are just turning D&D back into what it was before 3.0. Nobody is outraged about how Chaosium has a monopoly on Call of Cthulhu.
@@Hedgehobbit I was there. It was nothing like this. Companies could make minis for anything but a few product identity creatures, fans could publish related materials, people could TALK about the game, and none had to worry about losing their livelihood. How does it benefit you to be sycophantic to a corporation blatantly trying to break contract? This isn't even good for WotC. It's killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
This feels like a move that is coming from the new Hasbro CEO, not WotC directly. I can’t imagine any of the creatives that we see regularly from wizards being on board with this.
Yet they all capitulated to fear instead of standing up for what they believe. I understand hanging someone's livelihood over them is a tough bargain for even the most noble, but fuck them all
@@themicahnism technically yes, he was till 2016 technical sales Manager (I believe) For Microsoft. They reasons why he "switched" the Jobs could be interesting tho
Decisions like that never come from the creatives. That's what the marketing and legal departments are for. Doesn't change the fact, that this comes from Hasbro/Wizards as a singular entity.
The magic community feels you. I left the game after 30th anniversary and when I found out they are releasing 6 card packs. Let’s be real here the people who run wizards have no love for the games
@@StalrosTheGreenMage1 Lets be honest, MTG has always been 1 card you might want, 3 cards that are probably useful, and 11 cards that aren't worth the ink used to make them 99 percent of the time (draft filler). Cracking packs isn't even worth it unless you are playing limited.
@@daveSoupy oh gosh tons of reasons. I’ll try and give you my reasons I’ve left magic after I began playing during beta as a teenager. 1. The power creep is overwhelming. To stay competitive you have to buy new cards. If it’s not power 9 and it’s old it’s crap. 2. They are reprinting everything from the reserve list. They don’t care after promising not to reprint a list of cards they are finding every way they can to walk around their promise and it’s only a matter of time before they just break it outright, again (they already have broken their word on the reserve list). 3. 4 packs for 1k, trying to make money off the reserve list by making non legal cards. 4. Increasing the set speed so that the next set is being previewed when the previous set actually comes out. It’s a vicious money cycle that you can’t ignore if you want to stay relevant. 5. Completely hosing the small stores that have loyally kept them growing all these years. They are doing many direct to consumer products and cutting out the stores that got them there. 6. Their digital products are trash and intentionally have a horrible economy intended to fleece you in an obvious manner. It’s also 2023 and a decent digital product is not hard to make but wotc and papa hasbro can’t even make that happen. It’s obvious hasbro is pumping its IP for all its worth be damned the consequences. They are cooking the golden goose and it is having consequences that will be far reaching. I’m not the only 20+ year magic die hard that has left the game and there will be more to follow because Hasbro and Wotc have shown zero signs of adjusting their actions. So yeah DnD is screwed because hasbro is going to do the same with it. Dying companies go scorched earth to keep their companies afloat as long as they can.
This just happened the same year that I wanted to create my own game setting for D&D. I have all the lore, races and even a couple of classes with their archetypes but with all this I don't know if I dare to share it
There are plenty of other RPGs that use completely different rulesets that I'm sure your setting would fit into. The great thing about a setting is that with a few tweaks, any set of rules will work.
Great coverage, thank you. It’s been overwhelming to parse through all these drama vids but, this felt like a very pragmatic and real take on it all. Keep this up, I very much appreciate it
You are an amazing content creator, and seem like a genuinely amazing person. I'm so sorry that you (and everyone else) is having to go through this. I truly appreciate you taking the time to break this all down and explain what is happening. Wizards of the Coast has lost my business, and I will continue to support original content creators as they find other systems to create for. God(s) bless.
Signing this contract sounds like a very bad idea when they can break it at any point, for any reason, change it however they want, keep everything you make for themselves, you can't sue them etc. The worst part is really the fact that if they can change it whenever and however they want then it's basically the same as signing a random contract, since there is no way of knowing the contents of it. Not like that really matters when the rest of it is already so bad, but it could get worse.
The SCP is a Creative Commons writing project that anyone can contribute to. I’ve been saying we need a similar comic book/superhero universe so Warner and Disney can’t keep ruining beloved characters. Looks like a similar TTRPG would be a good idea as well.
This is the best video I've yet seen talking about this. Great synopsis, shows the impact and emotional side of things in conjunction with the reality of the changes. Well done.
I have an idea - someone has probably already suggested this, but thought I would put it out there anyway…. What if the creators and the community created an “open source”, community lead game system (similar to community software packages like “Krita” and “Blender3D”). If all of the content creators worked together, pooling both their creative and kick starter resources, they could build an amazing new game framework, that is everything that the community has wanted for ages. I know this would be a lot of work, but the more people who get involved, the quicker and easier it will be. I am sure members of the community would help out with things like play testing and proof reading. I don’t have contact with any content creators, so I am hoping that someone who does with see this and will send this idea on to them. Let’s tell those greedy suits where to shove it - there’s power in numbers, and there are an awful lot of us!
Yeah but Thats not what hasbro nor wizards want, they want to keep control of everything and earn money In their minds DnD its an extremely lucrative franchise yet they dont see many of that money, and americans business HATE that, I personally think they are wrong DnD its popular but TTrpgs are by and large a very cheap hobby
@@Deepstab1 i know thats not what hasbro or wizards want. im saying that the creators should work together to make their own game and take their fans with them, so hasbro and wizards have no control over them
Yeah, I thought about that too. If the community developed a completely free set of core rules, and then creators would sell their adventures/settings/monster books, just like they do today. It would be awesome. It could be decided that a yearly revision would occur, with the best ideas being incorporated into the game.
Yeah, Hasbro and WoTC might be trying to do this, and many of the creators don't like it. But what do you think is going to happen when Disney realizes that this means they hand over the rights to the Star Wars franchise, of which many of their games use the Core Mechancis system in them.
My dad worked at Wizards when this stuff was first made. They specifically made the old OGL to be un-revokable, and I highly suggest anyone who relies on D&D for profit to sue, since this is all clearly in violation of that original agreement.
I’m so sorry dnd shorts,as someone who both loves official dnd and kickstarter dnd and dnd content creators I am sorry to hear that you have to now follow this horrible change in the contract,as someone who has been following you since the peasant railgun was first brought up, you are criminally underrated and you deserve well over a million subscribers
My personal view is that this is going to go the same way as what games workshop did with canceling all the fan works. People are going to move on to other systems quite quickly, and it's entirely possible this Will destroy dungeons and dragons / wizards of the Coast.
Great video as always! For future content I would also suggets promoting other TTRPG that do not use OGL, as a way to providing alternatives for the players in the meantime this whole thing is happening.
Some game companies crack down hard on people making videos about their games without a contracted license; OGLs are designed to allow third-party creators to make third-party content. Of course, the new OGL doesn't even apply to videos, music, podcasts, etc.
One day a wizard said "you can build your castle here, the rock foundation is strong and your home will grow to be stronger". Couple decades later said wizard walks into the booming city and says "lol moneh" and turns the rock foundation to sand.
I must say I'm not one for your content normally but breaking this down into a simple 8 minute video hitting all the bullet points, good on you! It makes it much easier to digest and share to people.
Im waiting to see the response from the big dogs in this fight - Paizo, Green Ronin, hell Critical Role. As these are part of the "20" creators they say is affected by the 750K+ year. I know some people point to Critical Role having a relationship with WoTC via DND Beyond (which their contract for ads was BEFORE DND got bought out by WoTC) as well as some other commercial ties. But CR also has its own publishing arm now. Definitely will be interesting to see how they handle it. Paizo I think has lawyers to fight this, considering it was the OGL that let them grow, and this new version would kill them. This definitely sucks. I hate corporations. I hate shareholders.
CR it would appear is collaborating. The others might try to put up a legal fight but HASBRO has VERY deep pockets and likely can bankrupt them in legal fees before it even gets to court.
I was thinking about that too, bc I’m a massive CR fan. But since they’ve been publishing a lot of their own stuff, they’ve changed some names and other small details for copyright purposes so there’s no ‘technical’ overlap between their content and WOTC owned material, at least that was the impression I got but I don’t know all the fine details. This is just such a terrible thing for WOTC to be doing to their own community. DnD was finally coming out of the shadows, starting to become more popular and mainstream without the hovering ‘Satanic Panic’ BS, and now they seemed determine to cut the head off their own community. Its a terrible thing to see- I hope the DnD community at large can band together and resist this happening and force WOTC to back down. I don’t know if it’s possible but wouldn’t that be the day if it were.
Theorycrafting here, but I'm willing to say that Paizo and Green Ronin might try to contest while switching to a system that's "close enough" to be recognizable, even if it couldnt be argued that changing it right now probably couldnt affect future content. (which is legal shit that I understand nothing about so disregard given the circumstance) However, in terms of Matt Mercer's crew, my money says they will simply roll with the changes (sorry for the bad pun) for many, many reasons. Consider: CR are friends with each other, not to anyone else. At the end of the day, CR is a money making machine that they want to keep running. Same goes for WOTC: they probably understand that antagonizing the guy that went from voicing Jotaro Kujo to the DM who made D&D cool again is a mexican stand-off where both people simply shoot at each other's feet with surgical precision, not to mention they already have good business relation (see: Wildemount), (I can imagine Brennan going madmad about this, though)
Odds are that the three mentioned got sent very different personal contracts. The OGL is/was the 'universal' licensing but it didn't stop WotC from making other deals and licenses separately.
Thank you for explaining all the drama in a calm and informing mannor. Until now all Videos I watched were (understandibly) very emotional and therefore it was hard to get to the facts.
I don't normally comment on UA-cam, but I'm a long time follower of your channel and I'm a big fan of your content. The sheer amount of bad press that WOTC will get out of this should be enough for them to change their minds... thought that could just be wishful thinking. I'd recommend everyone check out Kobold Press's Project Black Flag, nice to see a big name stepping up to the plate and offering something for all those creators walking away from WOTC to flock to. I'd assume it would be closer to 5e but that's better than nothing right? Anyways, hold in there buddy :) I love your videos
I saw an interesting theory as to why. If you look at a lot of the top level executives in these companies many are on the older side of things, middle age or approaching retirement isn’t unrealistic. Executives already tend to have a certain degree of sociopathic or psychopathic traits so the theory I saw is many of the executives are nearing retirement and since they are already on the way out they no longer have to worry about the state they are leaving the company in and so in their mind why not milk as much money as possible out of players? The executive won’t be around for the fallout anyway so why should they care if they are destroying the reputation?
Youre the only youtuber Ive seen thats brought up the "bigotry" clause. For the commenters, this will effect us all, not just creators. Dont let WotC get away with any of these changes, only the OGL 1.0A is an acceptable response from them, no matter how hard they try to sneak things in if they decide to backpedal.
Tbh companies fail their consumers once they take the ESG crap (which is that) the problem is that they become too big to fail then. Hasbro wont be affected and WOTC might be but dnd is dead. They wont sell it off even if people move on just to keep it killed.
Finally two years deep in 5e splat book and content creation. Doing well enough to quite my day job, about to have another kid, life’s looking good… 2923 with a swift kick in the pants. Oof. I’m so stressed, I can’t even believe this whole mess is real.
I'm so sorry that you and your friends have to go through this. I can only hope things get better for you here on out, even if it's unlikely. We have to have hope just like when we roll our dice to strike the dragon or persuade the greedy king to lift his unfair rulings. I know hope can only do so much in the face of this, but we should never lose it. After all that's what got a lot of people on DND in the first place. Hope for an epic adventure.
It should be pointed out that much of the language in the leaked OGL, especially the language regarding content ownership and you granting them a license to steal it, already exists in WotC Terms of Service. Back in June, when they acquired DnD Beyond, there were so many people concerned about ownership of content created there, they released a huge statement reassuring people that the creators would maintain ownership of their works, and the only thing that would be changing was that users would have to agree to the WotC Terms of Service. When I tried to warn people of the predatory language in that document (and the two other contracts that you were agreeing to, by default), my comments were removed as "non-constructive," and the admin who reviewed my appeal said "Writing explicitly to list all of the things that can be done, after it having been made clear that the sole intent is to be able to continue operating normally, was viewed as Non-Constructive." Strange, is that just like telling the world that the old OGL would never change, and then changing it? Furthermore, WotC has a rocky history when it comes to what they publish; WotC was being sneaky about repackaging 3rd party content as their own, but now they would be able to legally take it and not have to put any work into disguising it. A friend of mine was at GaryCon (a small D&D and gaming convention celebrating Gary Gygax), and he was advertising a D&D cookbook that he was releasing on Patreon; there was one recipe each month (give or take), and it would come with a short story, in-game content to add to your own adventure, and a ton of awesome artwork. It was about a year later that WotC published their own cookbook, that had a few eerily similar recipes in it. A different friend, who publishes their work on Drivethru and DMs Guild, has complained that WotC had released content that was nearly identical to what they were trying to sell. The fact of the matter is that, over the past 10 years or so, WotC (and Hasbro) have been making increasingly evil, greed-driven decisions. Not just with D&D, but in their other products as well, like Magic the Gathering. Since I started gaming, nearly 30 years ago, I would estimate that I have spent well over $10k on MTG cards and official D&D products and content, and I am done; not a single penny more. Even if they walk back these changes to the OGL, their history shows that it would be only a matter of time before they attempt it again, or something else equally as devious. As of now, I am fully boycotting Hasbro and all of their subsidiaries, including Wizards of the Coast, and I would invite everyone to do the same.
Just looking at the old OGL compared to now, you can see the huge different in attitude. Back then, it was written from the perspective that d&d will profit from people creating stuff under the OGL and so they were conceding several points to the other side(such as agreeing not to change the terms) to give them the best deal and entice them to work with their company rather than someone else. In this newer one it is completely one sided with them only trying to protect themselves and get as much as they can, with no consideration for the other side.
@@Lilitha11 Right... That was why they released an SRD for free. Realistically, the more people that you have playing the game, the better odds that they will buy something from your company. Working at gaming conventions, I have made a lot of friends, in part, because we all have an understanding that this industry is like a ship, and whether it floats or sinks, we are all stuck on the same ship. Most of us small and mid sized vendor/publishers/artists will go out of our way to help each other out, because if they do well, the industry as a whole grows, and you will grow along with them.
Its hard to see a past time you have enjoy scene your youth goes up in flames. Best thing to do is change systems, make your own or seek a new hobbies or better yet practice a skill.
@@arklainquirk Nothing has ever stopped WotC from "borrowing" content from other companies in the past... Furthermore, them wanting to revoke the old OGL, despite telling everyone that they would never do that, shows that they have no issue lying to their customers. Enjoy your copium.
@@arklainquirk Once again; enjoy your copium. The leak has been confirmed by multiple sources. Furthermore, there have been other, substantiated leaks from sources within WotC that have stated that not only is all of this true, but they are currently waiting on the internet to forget so that they can sneak it through later. And honestly, if none of this were true, why have WotC "postponed" their last two scheduled announcements regarding this? All they would have needed to do was come forward, two weeks ago, and categorically deny that it was going to be revoked. Instead, they dragged Indestructoboy's name and reputation through the mud, until this all got too big for them to try to hide behind a single scapegoat.
Thank you for this summary. It is the first clear summarization of the impact of the new OGL I have seen, that goes point by point, following your style of presentation. Clearly a money-grab by a CEO who knows a lot about business but nothing about the D&D business.
When the original OGL was released it was in an attempt to prevent the death of DnD then as they saw how other systems collapsed, such as Exalted, TORG and Earthdawn . This policy kept the game alive and allowed it to evolve and grow. So much it seems that HASBRO believes that its time to reap in a field that they did not sow in. They however forget one thing, they are the owners of the IP not the content creators, they don't know how to or are unwilling to create their own content and good luck finding writers who will work "For Hire"", they'd rather just use others Intellectual property, which is the reason for that offensive clause and the short time frame they are giving publishers to make a choice. Their actions have exposed a critical weakness in ttrpg as it exists today, there is only one system and it is owned by bad faith players, so what do you do in this situation . Create another OGL that doesn't use the exact mechanics and add the ""irrevocable"" clause that was missing in the original OGL to this version. You have the ideas , you have the reach , you have the fanbase , not them , use it.
Thank you for mentioning Hasbro. I don't recall that happening even once in the video, which is a pretty big miss when you consider their takeover is likely to be a huge driver in the attitude change towards the OGL. They don't like that they inherited a promise with the company, and they clearly resent the philosophy behind it, so they plan to just ignore it and eat the backlash. I'm not well versed enough in the legal particulars to know whether there's a case they should be compelled to keep an inherited promise, but that's the only way I see them changing tack.
There's not "only one system" really. It's just that a lot of the TTRPG "community" have adopted 5e as it hit a critical mass - because of the OGL 1.0a. There are many gaming systems out there, a lot of which have been around for many years. Unfortunately, some organisations baked the WotC-owned OGL 1.0a into their products, even though it contained none of the WotC SRD IP, as they saw it as a way to denote that their product was open (in the perpetual, irrevocable sense) - they've now been caught up in this situation if that version of the OGL becomes "unauthorised", though what they means in respect to their non-SRD product isn't clear. What's needed is a "community" owned OGL, like the Apache License in the software world, that creators can use for their content.
What's interesting is that half of that agreement is unenforcable against consumers in my country because those clauses are blacklisted. Also, what do they actually own copyrights on? Gamerules are not copyrightable in the EU, only the art, music and their stories and characters they came up with. So no copyright on either dungeons, dragons, elves, orcs, wizards you name it.
That pretty much goes against the spirit of the entire system itself. It has always been JUST AN OUTLINE to create personal content. If the lawsuit doesn't work there should just be a full on boycott or a tweaking to disassociate the content from WOTC.
I have only been playing d&d since the onset of Covid and this makes me very sad. D&d was my one joy in life during the lockdowns. I love how crazy and creative it is but I know that alot of that comes back to my amazing DMs and the community created content. It seems like every big company wants to take something amazing and destroy it in the most horrific way possible.
There are a lot of other tabletop roleplaying games in a multitude of genres. The fall of D&D would only help other people to discover them and make the RPG sphere better and more creative. WOTC are a bad player for at least half a decade now, corporate led and greedy, pushing what may be the worst tier material by any RPG official company
I'm right there with you. I adopted this game a good long time ago as a teenager in highschool without a lot going for them. This was my creative outlet, and honestly helped inspire many of my ambitions later in life, such as learning to become a writer myself. I too wish that all the companies with products I've grown attached to would stop rapidly decaying before my eyes, but it just seems more and more that's just the world we live in now. Maybe passion still exists out there, but it isn't with the things I grew up with anymore.. and that's pretty sad.
@@garrettrizzo9869 Competiton does, Monopoly doesn't. If any one producer of mediocre shit tries to scorch earth the competition by legalistic schticks, the consumers should band and destroy it.
Wow. This is like finding out a beloved family member is a serial killer. Thanks for the update. I guess wizards is telling the community to roll for initiative.
Well, there goes my creative writing group. I have kids write campaigns then I take the best of each group and run it for the other. My kids wanted to publish a compendium of their best campaigns, and I have to tell them they can't. It's not my livelihood, but it still hurts.
You're still fine if you're not charging money. This *almost* falls under personal use. Yes, you'd be distributing and publishing, but at such a small level (and not for profit) that you can still do this.
Yeah, ouch. That's a pretty good example of what this license would ruin. imayb1: it might or might not fall under personal use, but it would still be a potential liability, that you don't want to leave hanging, to screw you over later in life.
You can still do that anyway; a campaign structure and world doesn't explicitly need to reference anything that could be tied to the platform specific terminology and structure the OGL is concerned with.
We will continue to use our existing 5e material, but there will be NO new purchases should this go through. If they push it too far, my group is ready to return to GURPS.
I don't normally do this, but please *share* *this* *video* with anyone you know who enjoys or is interested in D&D. WotC attempted to sneak this by through NDAs and time pressure. We can beat them by putting all of their greed and destruction in the spotlight.
Actually Money is the only thing that will make them change their mind. Let them feel it in the wallet for 6 months.
Tweeting only works for rainbow/feminist/blm bullshit.
In defense of Wotc, I suspect that this is more Hasboro than Wotc....
This is just awful, i was trying to get into dnd with my mates and i see this lol
good job on this video. Have shared it with the tabletop club to get some more eyes on it
@Demon go ahead and get into it. There is enough content up to 5th edition to campaign for the rest of your life. That's what myself and my group are doing. Just don't stream your games.
To explain how bad this is, here's what WotC can do with this new license:
They can take a book that you created, sell it themselves with their much bigger marketing team, and then tell you to stop publishing it or they will put you out of business.
Who in their right mind would ever agree to this?
Weird, so how amazon works... lol it's like y'all are new to capitalism or something.
@VampCaff still very bad nonetheless
Exactly
Don’t
Make content for a new game called “ greed &goblins” with the exact same rules.
Fuck them
@@vampcaff Except it's not. My brother publishes on Amazon, when you write content, you own the copyright to it, amazon cannot resell your book under their name. With this license WotC can. They are somehow more predatory than amazon, which is no small feat.
@@vampcaff No, that's not how Amazon works. They can create a new version - an "amazon basic" version of whatever equipment or good (chair, dumbbell, etc.) you're selling, but they can't just steal a damn book and sell it as their own.
Time to make a character who's a pirate that raids wizards that live on the coast.
This is the way
This does put a smile on my face
yo ho yo ho
a pirate's life for meeee
bro this, THIS, is fucking EPIC
Stop playing their shitty lazy dungeon crawl game and start playing real roleplaying games
Oh I get it’s a pirating joke!
This almost feels like a paper company claiming they own anything made with paper, and that everyone must pay them tribute for their creations or suffer the consequences
exactly!
Does Honda claim a profit from you buying tires for your moms Accord? no, they already made their money when she bought the car.
If you've been on UA-cam a while there was a channel experimenting the same debacle. The REACT channel tried to capitalize on the word reaction and they would profit on any reaction videos on YT. The response backfired on them so hard. Similar situation here. Hope the outcome will end similarly
@Voice Nerd ah the Fine bros. What a shitshow that was. And a lot of the reactions weren't genuine either, from scripts apparently
Jokes on WOTC… Paper burns and causes global warming. Soooo… WOTC is responsible for global warming.
Hah!
Or Al Gore inventing the internet....
Honestly, I've been waiting for something like this to happen ever since Hasbro got involved. A company like that doesn't understand what makes D&D work, they just see another board game that can make them money, like a more complicated Monopoly.
Hasbro bought WotC before the 1.0a was introduced.
The problem is as much WoTC senior management as it is Hasbro.
Electrician: Next time I do work on the WotC building, I can't wait to sneak in a clause about how any time they flip a light switch they owe me royalties.
Plumber: Hey, I get a kickback every time they flush a toilet.
HVAC: Adjusting the temperature now carries a microtransaction that scales with the weather outside.
Somthing similar to that is actually happening in hvac and it's horrifying
@@anthonymah7075 please explain im actually curious.
@@morvek so there was this agreement some people signed on an intelligent thermostat that would give them 100 bucks if they agreed for energy saving reductions, you could skip these reductions but you would end up out of the program, people signed and everything is good
except these energy saving reductions happened in the hottest part of the year, people lost control of the thermostat and suddenly they couldnt skip anymore meaning they were melting inside their homes
there is probably a youtube video that explains it better, that or the person above referred to something else entirely
@@panzerkampfwagenvdauphine6489 damn glad I heat with wood lol
@@panzerkampfwagenvdauphine6489 This is what I was refering to thank you.
Please remember that when they go back on this they'll attempt to seem like they listened to community feedback and then put out a contract that is still bad but less so. Don't give them that!
Classic door in the face technique
This! I keep seeing people make videos about this and they keep missing this point!
I hope they go out of business for this.
The option to change the terms at a whim will still be there though.
The new one they offer will probably be just as bad as this leaked document just sneakier in the writing, after all with enough legalese you can make the same statement twice and even some lawyers won't catch it.
Personally I want to see an Open TTRPG Alliance formed. Basically a non-profit organization staffed by various publishers, creators, and DMs from the TTRPG community tasked with creating a core set of rules and content that everyone in the TTRPG community could build upon. The core rules and content would be released under an open license like the Creative Commons BY license (the one that allows for commercial use). This would prevent the current situation from ever happening again as no one publisher would control the system.
Based
I've heard rumor that there is one starting have you heard anything on this? If you do let me know.
Since so many designers have been alienated by this, and might want to contribute with conflicting ideas, it might be best to make more than one core ruleset.
Paizo seems to be doing just that.
@@tobihennessey1769 i saw almost immediately afterwards. They are calling it the open rpg creative license. ORC for short.
It's important to note that the $750,000 line where Hasbro/WotC starts taking a huge cut is revenue, not profit. It doesn't mean they're demanding their cut of just the creator's profits, it's from the total revenue brought in. If the profit margins are slim enough after things like printing costs, buying art, etc, Hasbro's cut could put them into the negatives on even a successful product.
That's a good point. A 25% profit margin on stuff like this is very high. So they're basically killing small creators.
I was looking to see if someone had posted this point before I did. Thank you for pointing out this hugely important aspect.
It only goes into effect on revenue past the $750k mark, much like a progressive tax plan. This actually spares small content creators, but I've got a feeling it'll be a mortal blow to many of the big names that have been driving the recent growth of the hobby, and I just don't like the idea of them collecting income taxes on the entire D&D cultural machine. Personally, I think that whether they manage to lock it all down as tight as they're trying to or not, the change in attitude is gonna make D&D shitty anyway, and it'll be time to check out new games soon.
Its important to note that they can change that number at anytime after you've signed to screw you over. Right now it might not look to terrible but they can always change it in their favor, as Shorts mentioned, and there would be nothing you could do to stop it.
Also if you make 760,000$ then you have to give 25% of that to WOTC, meaning you'll only have 570,000$ left over.. But if you have only 740,000$ then you don't have to give a %.
Meaning if you go above the threshold, you need to make at least 1,000,000$ just to match the gains gotten from not going above the threshold.
This would outright kill any business that gets too big.
My favorite part about this is that courts have already ruled that you can’t own rules. You just can’t call it DnD, need to use your own words and not plagiarize, and cannot use something trademarked like beholder or mindflayer.
Dungeon or Dragons ™
@@Talking_Ed Just swap it around... Dragons and Dungeons 😀
That's what the short deadline is for, they're trying to scare people into signing their rights away.
WotC on their way to take 20% of the profits Netflix makes from Stranger Things.
Wotc should be the ones to change the name of the game, something more appropriate like Dunces and Dollars.
I've never seen a company so rapidly and so aggressively try to decimate its own fanbase *and* destroy its own legacy as WOTC / Hasbro have done in the last 12 months.
Disney/Lucasfilm comes to mind.
Games workshop, blizzard, netflix, Amazon
@@GordonKast actualy, while all of the proposed exemple a IP destroying company given are true, they didnt managed to ddo that in just 3 week tops, it took Blizzard 3 to four years for them to anihilate their warcraft IP ( lets see if dragonflight actualy saves it) and amazon ring of power still took at least a year to put the serie together before showing it, a year were fans knew it was coming. WOTC leaked their OGL1.1, and three week from then, we are here
Oh bro in magic the gathering they fucked us since 2019 really really hard. They sell now Captain marvel cards and the 30 aniversary „for the fans“ booster set was a 999$ 4 booster aka 60 card f*ck ripoff and the best was the cards were just proxies so no official legal cards 60 cards for 999$ for the fans! Which fans? The really rich paul logans of this world or what? Middlefinger right in our faces….
@@martindevos4184 But they all tried very very hard to destroy theirs IP as fast as they can!
The fact they’re doing this right before thier movie releases is insane.
@@arklainquirkSilence is Deafening
1. MTG, which is a subsidiary of Hasbro, has continously been fucking its fans. The quality of Cardboard is becoming less & less, powercreep is getting insane, and the game is getting way too expensive.
Then, again MTG, does the 25th anniversary bullshit.
2. WOTC, the publishers of DND, is likewise owned by Hasbro.
WOTC has, publicly stated, that the Hasbro Execs see D&D as ‘being more profitable than it currently is’ and that the Execs planned to ‘change D&D so as to bring in more money’
Knowing ALL OF THAT, and the fact that the ‘supposed rumor’ is 100% backed by the CEO of Kickstarter who said, PUBLICLY, that they were personally contacted by WOTC to go over the new 1.1 OGL, and they confirmed pretty much everyones biggest gripes,…
AND
the fact that WOTC literally has done NOTHING whatsoever to deny the allegations by the community IN OVER 2 WEEKS?
Yeah, no. It’s pretty obvious WOTC was hoping it would all just blow over.
@@arklainquirk yeah and they would get sued
@Arklain Quirk unfortunately that's not the case, as they are revoking the old licence.
@@arklainquirk tell me you didn't watch the video with out telling me you didn't watch the video
Well.
Time to give Fate a shot then.
Between this and Netflix revoking password sharing, remember that companies only make greedy moves like this when they think they can get away with it. It's up to the consumer to show them they're wrong.
Yeah except Netflix is being forced to by the movie companies so not really a good comparison. Netflix has been told by companies like NBC and such that if they don't stop password sharing, they will not be allowed to renew contracts. Netflix alone cannot survive on only their content.
Yeah, I cut Netflix and never looked back. What Wizards is doing kinda of reminds me why T$R will forever be remebered wiht the "$" and not the "S".
Seems tons of companies have lost all respect for the consumer
@@mercutiobr3814 I likely wont ever cut Netflix, but I also worked for them and know the CEO and his views. Sadly in some cases people's hands are forced into things they do not want.
Netflix preventing password sharing is completely reasonable.
The insane part is at least in the USA they've shot themselves in the foot by doing this, and I can't imagine how this will go over in Europe either. Most people cooperated with the OGL out of convenience and probably would have accepted a watered-down version of the terms provided. In the USA, I think it's fair to say a reasonable chunk of the OGL spectrum either is fair use or could pretty easily be made fair use with renaming and rebranding. Europe tends to have pretty significant consumer protections so I imagine there are some European lawyers that are salivating right now.
Most people have supported DND because Wizards has been fair with the license up until now. They had to have known this would generate immense consumer backlash. Very few companies can burn five decades of good will overnight, but this might just do it.
It's not like this is the first case of them being a horrible company, but it sure is a massive one worthy of putting them out of business.
Keep in mind WOTC is owned by HASBRO.
Just like with vegetarian dogs, we all know who is making the decisions.
Don't blame WOTC, blame HASBRO.
New character idea: A warlock whose patron is a wealthy wizard he met on the coast. As soon as he ever crosses his patron or whenever the patron feels like it, the warlock instantly loses ALL of his levels in warlock, and is left only with any multi class levels or back at level 1 in any other class otherwise.
Every morning when the warlock wakes up they must burn a spell slot to roll a D100. On a 1 the patron takes all your powers and Warlock levels and anything you have crafted. Or you could have another patron.
You know this is Hasbro's doing, right? So it would make more sense if the wizard was, in turn, beholden to a powerful infernal entity that was actually pulling the strings.
Had an idea for a warlock whose patron is a devil. He has to pay a certain amount of gold per month to keep his powers. He can hire people under him to grant a small amount of power that they themselves can grow as long as they pay their share of gold per month.
To be fair... this is exactly the contract you form with any Warlock patron. They can do exactly that. Your powers are granted and can be removed at any time, for any reason.
You're underestimating it. The way this new agreement works, said patron can also take your multiclass levels for themselves, which they have every incentive to do so as it raises their own power.
Did you miss the part where they can republish your work, sell it and force you to stop publishing? IE if you're really successful, fuck royalties, we literally just steal the entire product and sell it ourselves?
Dude, you need to reach out to your fellow creators and start collaborating on something awesome for everyone. You guys are at the forefront of being able to start something new and real
@@michaelpatton9909 hellz yeah.
Paizo's got you, buddy! They're standing up to it and they're getting a lot of companies with them
Make your own new rules and game system, you guys know the game better and how to make it fun and balanced... Fuck D&D.
@@Alienami You know other games already exist, right? You don't need some youtuber to make a new game
@@urgentfusionguy7143 there's no point in stifling creativity, other games exist but I'm still going to make my own.... And I'm going to support and play those other games too.
When TSR found certain authors making money publishing fan-fiction they gave them jobs. Thusly was born (if I remember correctly) Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. Wizards owes their success to those who love them. They owe us, we don't owe them
This is just a tiny microcosm of a world where those with any modicum of power have become arrogant and greedy and have forgotten their wealth and success is due to the fan bases, workers, or creators, but bureaucrats and shallow, hollow do nothings make all the decisions from the standpoint that we need them, as they stand on our backs.
Yep. It’s yet another example of a bunch of people trying to claim exclusive ownership over something they didn’t create.
@@hergie409 They didn't let power get to their head they got bought out buy Hasbro. Hasbro is publicly traded so they are required by law to squeze every dollar from every asset they own. (lawsuit might dissuade them)
It’s a fact that third party content built dnd. Hell, Critical Role was huge for dnd’s success and that is third party!
@@mattsmith1859 True. Things can only have a single cause. It was either Critical Role OR Stranger Things, and couldn't have been both of these among many different creators making amazing content. I am a well adjusted human with cogent opinions.
Dear Hasbro,
This rule has existed in every single Dungeon Master's Guide ever released for Dungeons and Dragons. You seem to have forgotten this.
"As a referee, the DM interprets the rules, decides when to abide by them, and when to change them."
You are on notice. The Dungeon Masters are changing the rules. You are no longer invited to our gaming table.
Signed,
Dungeon Masters everywhere.
As a Dungeon master who enjoys homebrew content, I hereby second this notion
I do so love a poetic callback. Destroying an enemy with your words is one thing, but destroying them with THEIR’S is something else.
no where did it say you may publish your rules under the dnd ip name. thats what everyone is missing. dont label shit dnd and they cant "steal" your stuff.
@@BrighamMike Because that's not what the OGL is, Starwars Kotor for example falls under the OGL. Has nothing to do with DND but the d20 system.
Ironically this means they're going to have to get Disney to sign their bs new OGL as Disney is currently remaking Kotor, and I don't see WotC outdoing disney in court.
@@lammergeier2982 Heh heh heh...I would normally not be on board with Disney beating anyone in court...but this one time I'd be all about a Disney countersuit that just absolutely destroys all that is left of WotC.
It's like they're trying to bankrupt themselves. They've basically signing a contract for the D&D movie coming out that demands, "MAKE THIS BOMB!"
Haven't thought about that. Majority Viewers would be those who follow DnD in some capacity who are really annoyed right now. The movie is facing flop even before it gets released or at least boycott to some degree.
On top of that the induction of new consumers and creators would have bitter taste left after learning about ogl.
honestly yeah, for such a spiteful greedy move WOTC did, i am absolutely boycotting the movie now. even better actually, I'll pirate it lmao
Ahh shit, I was gonna go see this at the cinema D: can't do that now...
Time to initiate order 66
@@gohanr1271 I'm going to pirate it and still ask for my money back
You would have to say that the renaissance that D&D has seen over the last few years is due to the amount of content that has shown up. The interest created by being able to enjoy this content in turn would be generating sales and revenue for Wizards as the viewers and content creators seek out materials and sourcebooks.
I had not played much D&D for a few years until I happened across things such as these youtube posts. This in turn lead me to going to my local store to get the latest rule books, joining in some games and doing some DMing again. As it's gone along, I have invested more money into more sourcebooks because I found something interesting from a content creator which took me back to the store.
It's a symbiotic relationship.
Harm one, and the other will fade away.
A very good point.
I actually did what I thought I'd never do, as a homebrew DM. Which was buy about 5 books, 4 of which were full price. I've convinced a number folk to buy books too. I've DMed for a 40+ group once, I've DMed for a lot of small groups. Influence is strong, when something is enjoyable everyone wants to get in on it.
That's what is crazy about this; it's a move motivated by greed, but it is also entirely short sighted.
I’ve heard speculation that Hazbro (the ones who tell Wizards of the Coast what to do) had this O.G.L. released specifically to be rolled back and make their actual-still terrible-plans look a lot less awful by comparison.
Pretty standard play. Ask for more than you want so that what you actually want seems reasonable by comparison.
Let's hope the community would learn the lesson and go away to other, less exploitative, RPG companies
Not going to happen
This ogl was provided to certain larger companies in the sector with contracts attached ready for signatures. It was not a draft. I very much doubt anybody signed.
I was thinking the same. It comes at the price of building distrust on the community, but if they don't care about that is a brilliant move.
Even though this may be true, it doesn't changes anything, the community must continue with what is doing.
One thing I haven't seen talked about is that the OGL is a legal document, that, at the time of issue; was understood by the issuing company and the individuals that issued and wrote it (as documented by videos, FAQ's and interviews) to set up a system that lasted indefinitely. Now, the company that issued it is trying to claim that that isn't the case. They went to the point of removing supporting videos from the company website last April. Wizards is bound by the OGL as much as everybody else. Just because they now find it inconvenient doesn't give them the right or ability to change it.
If they wanted to write a new OGL for 6e, and allow people to use 5e with the previous OGL as they promised and legally obligated themselves to do over 20 years ago, then that would be fine. Stupid (IMO); but fine. This attempt at strong-arming an entire industry into allowing them to weasle out of their legal obligations is wrong.
Legality doesn't matter. What matters is if a court first decides to hear a case and, then, if they rule Constitutionally. This hasn't happened in decades so GOOD LUCK!
@@Butterb0ne has nothing to do with the constitution. This is contract law. There is no decide to hear the case.
I hope someone does a lawsuit that results in DND being public domain.
Maybe, but “perpetual” doesn’t mean “irrevocable”. And making the argument against a gigantic corporation is expensive.
@@steelmongoose4956 what I would be curious about is how the communications by wizards about the contract not being revocable in their FAQ affects the common understanding. I believe that has impact in contract law but IANAL
I own just about every 5e book published by WOTC. I was planning on buying my brothers a set for Christmas, but the money just wasn't there, so I waited. I'm glad I did, they're not getting my money until they stop twirling their mustaches like a villian.
I'll point out if you buy it second hand, then WotC don't get a cent, but you still get to give a good gift, if you still wanted to do it. lots of places you can get them from if you look hard enough. try buy/swap groups, and you can try asking in gaming or LFG pages
Second hand markets are a great way to enjoy the content without funneling any money into their hands! and you know what they say, if Wotc keeps this up theirs always the other option *Distant YARR's*
I honestly don't know if I'm gonna give them money ever again
I would also recommend pathfinder instead, but frankly, as much as I am a pathfinder guy, this is a shitty way for me to see my system become more popular, hopefully wizards gets punished for this move badly enough that someone who cares about not being a shitheel gets the IP off them.
We can all agree just how much critical role brought to D&D.
With that said i really hope they don’t remain silent about this. They control such a vast portion if fans, if they were to make a stance against it that traffic and noise they could generate would be invaluable I think.
They'd probably have their own agrement with WotC and are likely one of those folks under an NDA. They probably can't say anything without getting in serious legal trouble.
IF CR decides to hold their tongues and stick with WOTC after this, hopefully people will push back. I will, but since I just watch the YT video and don't buy all their random crap, it doesn't change much. Just the principle of the thing.
@@JacopoSkydweller Amen. Will be the same response form me if they say nothing.
Whilst they are essentially paid entertainers, I do still believe them to be fans of D&D.
This may sound like a guilt trip but making a public stance against this is a way for them to prove that.
The only worrying part is just how much they're sponsored by D&D Beyond. Every damn episode has an advertisement for that abysmal service.
The problem with how wizards is doing it is they’ve basically blatantly said with zero care “deal with it” so if people start speaking out they’re just gonna start saying “ok looks like your unable to release anything”
It's going to take time, they're too big to make quick decisions, but Matt has already low-key supported the movement
One thing I haven't seen discussed about the OGL 1.1 is that not only do they get license to your works, they can sublicense it. So they can make money off of your original ideas without even risking production costs. WoTC has become the embodiment of the fabled god DM who plays nice with the group for long enough for everybody to get attatched to their characters, then laughs in glee when slaughtering them all in a TPK.
@Michael why is it OK for people to make money off the original ideas and dnd product owned and created by WotC but you think it's bad that WotC want "to make money off of your original ideas "(which aren't your original ideas since you're using the dnd product)?
Don't forget that the ceo recently said that dnd is a hobby that is horribly monetized and they needed to fix that. Like a month ago if anyone is wondering why it came out of nowhere.
It didn't. There was a large red warning flag. That they wanted more money. This is how they are trying to go about it. Before I assume the next steps will be raising the prices on things in general I imagine.
Hopefully they don't start trying to charge people for just using content sharing like having to pay to have your dm share books.
Literally just don't be surprised about a bunch of fucky monetization steps coming soon.
"dnd is a hobby that is horribly monetized"
*checks DNDBeyond*
well he's right, but NOT FOR THE REASONS HE THINKS
I remember seeing that and thinking... "Uh oh, even more warning signs for 'OneDnD'". Between going woke, clearly trying to get into the online market, putting so many things behind paywalls... almost certainly going to stick to 5e, ignore anything Wizards licenses or produces after 2022, and start looking for "free" resources one might be able to find online.
I have no problem with a company trying to make money, I do have a problem with a company clearly ready to burn innocent people and businesses up in legal battles to squeeze profits out of them it did not earn or had next to nothing to do with... those same people and businesses who almost certainly caused that company to profit and likewise grow as an entity due to new fans coming to the universe.
And, I personally have made a serious effort to get official source material and products when available and have spent hundreds of dollars doing this... and am new to tabletop DnD. So, for people who have played for years and years, they have probably sunk thousands into WotC and DnD. "Not properly monetized..."
they could monetize the VTT roll 20 seems to be working
The books are like, 50 dollars.
@@thegrongler I know. Don't confuse me as agreeing with them.
So i am on the 6th book of a 10 book fantasy series based on a game I wrote about 30 yrs ago, the game book is over 78k words and was converted to be used as a D&D expansion. I average 100k words per book. When they announced one D&D I decided to relax a bit and work on publishing after it's release. The only sane option I can see is to write both options. a D&D rule set, and rewrite the original game book with the original game rules. the leaked OGL is the kind of bad that ruined musicians in the 60's... good luck to all of us .
You could publish it as a system agnostic roleplaying supplement and use a Creative Commons licence.
Just don’t publish under the OGL licence.
@@DeclanFeeney thanks for the idea, I'll look into it
@@DeclanFeeney This might help me as well. I have been working on a new RGP system over the last 11 years on and off. It uses some of the OGL elements. I thought about publishing it but with the new OGL changes it seemed that would never happen. This give me some new hope and I might actually start seriously developing and playtesting it again soon.
@@Sonofsun. I mean, what monster terms are DnD specific that would have to be changed? I guess they can not own Dwarves, Elves and Halflings and such?
@@Sonofsun. It's not that simple. You could change the name, and I have done so for 90% of my work, but if it has the exact same effect under a different name then it is still considered the same. It is why it is impossible to enforce such a vague concept such as Two Weapon Fighting. You could call it Dual Weapon Fighting but the ability is exactly the same. It is still Two Weapon Fighting. You would have to change the name and the wording and possibly the effect as well. At that point it isn't Two Weapon Fighting but now Dual Weapon Fighting and they couldn't claim it but that is developing an entirely different system. It wouldn't work as a D&D Expansion since the abilities wouldn't be synonymous with what players of D&D would recognize and wouldn't work within the system.
I've been running D&D for 20 years. It's what got me into fictional writing. This has convinced me to drop D&D. I'm passionate about D&D. It's kept me going through tough times, writing stories and entertaining my friends or even folk I hardly know. I'm going to write my own roleplaying game mechanics and tear the Wizards out of their throne. They don't even know me and they want to take what's mine? They'll have to kill me first.
I can't ever see them turning back from this now. They're as rich as a country and demand more. Not only that! Now they're threatening to claim the original fictional writing of someone like me who's been writing one single campaign for 16+ years?!
This is like Hobby-Lobby asking you to sign a contract to own your sweater when you buy a spool of yarn.
not even remotely. but try and sell a T shirt with a Hobby Lobby logo on it...
Good thing I'm not making a sweater with that yarn.
@@BrighamMike Actually your analogy is the one that misses the mark. OGL allows you to use their rules for dice rolls. People then use that set of rules to create games. You've never had the right to stamp a D&D logo onto your product without consent, and nobody is complaining about that. I think you're confusing an open license with proprietary IP.
Do you want to create a game using their dice rules? You're free to do so.
Do you want to put an image of a Beholder on the box? You'll have to pay a licensing fee.
The OGL never gave anyone the right to reproduce artworks owned by WotC in the first place. And that's not what people are upset about. People are upset because Wotc is attempting to renege (in rather predatory fashion) on the terms of a long-standing *open* licence.
More like they give you infinite supply of yarn, but they would own everything you make that contains even an inch of that yarn, and can use, copy, and sell that product as theirs without paying you a dime, and if you make enough they demand royalties on your revenue.
Oh, and they can sue you if you continue using the yarn after they've decided they don't like even just one thing about your product, regardless if the yarn is even relevant.
I've seen a lot creators talk about this topic right now (as they should) my only response is that the one thing that scares a rich man ( or company) more than anything is to be a poor one. The power you have is to band together and fuck with Hasbro's and WotC's money. No half measures, find the CEOs and tank their stock, starve them, illustrate that without you, they have nothing.
I lack faith that people will actually stop buying their stuff but I agree that would be for the best.
@@MrCompassionate01 this. Not enough people will do anything. Just like with Games Workshop. It requires everyone doing something. And that won't happen.
@@MrCompassionate01 I find your lack of faith disturbing ( but I agree.)
Yeah that aint gonna happen
@@MrCompassionate01 it happened with EA/Star Wars Battlefront 2, so it's absolutely possible.
But I'd mostly agree with your skepticism
I'd be interested to see a lawyers take on this and how things might go if wizards actually followed through, what powers and actions could wizards actually take
Well a wizards response is usually fireball 🔥
Class action INCOMING !!!
@@fawode
I have said it elsewhere but I will say it again, class action is not the way to go here since a class action lawsuit can be settled once and that is the end of it for everyone involved, rather 1000 or so smaller lawsuits all of which Hasbro has to litigate would be ideal, a death by 1000 cuts if you will.
Let's ask Legal Eagle.
@@DarthEquus I also would enjoy seeing his take
I have never once played D&D, but enjoy the content of creators like you and others so much I would definitely give the game a go. Without content like this I would never even think of starting a campaign, just to try some of the weird things you can do in D&D.
This is like saying “We own you and you’ll like it” the greed from this and all the recent magic set is horrific. I legitimately think that people who are running Wizards are trying to run the company into the ground in order to get termination pay.
WOTC is now and always has been a joke. Magic the Gathering is incredibly predatory towards is audience - kids, teens, and young adults. The only thing surprising to me about this is that it took this long for them to do something like this.
Beyond that, its frankly shocking to me that no one even realizes that this is WOTC's 5 release of a new version of D&D in less than 25 years! 3.0, 3.5, 4th, 5th, and now this new garbage!
All essentially the same material, except for 4th Ed, really- and even it used the same basic rule system!
Can you imagine an MMO that put out a sequel requiring you to buy a new game and lose all of your old stuff every 5 years? Take a look at Destiny 2 and see how that went for them on release? Sure, its considered decent now, but they've also added back in a lot of the old original Destiny stuff, too!
WOTC and Hasbro are garbage companies. They got lucky with 5th Ed, managing to capitalize on the attention they got from Stranger Things and Mercer's Critical Roll, and instead of just continuing to be happy that D&D is more profitable than ever, they're made because nerds are making a living off of it, and want to steal from them!
They're dirtbags. They're all dirtbags.
That is the Harvard Business School's model for success in a nutshell: enter company, apply changes to raise stock while destroying said company, exit company with executive-level severance, move to next. We are seeing it everywhere.
@@variabl3 Yeah, that makes sense. I read that all of this came about because Hasbro has a new CEO.
Also, you forgot to add 'And have a competitor waiting in the wings to buy all of the destroyed company's IPs and hire you to manage them properly this time around.'
This is pretty much exactly what we expected to happen after we heard about that call where they said D&D "wasnt being monetized enough".
I sure hope this doesn't become an episode of Wha Happun, because D&D isn't a video game. Except when it is...
I agree that both MTG, and DND have not been monetized enough. Don't we all want more of both? The only way to do that is with money, which is why they are doing this.
@@anthonypezzullo Your worldview is twisted. Who exactly do you think needs to be making this money? CEO's at Hasbro? How did these properties exist and sustain so long without predatory monetization? I hate to say it, Chief, but you might be a bitch for power.
@@schploink6869 You are aware that there are other employees at Hasbro besides the CEO, about 6600? I don't think I have a twisted worldview, I think we disagree with the fact that people should not benefit monetarily from someone else's content / ideas without their consent.
@@anthonypezzullo I've owned a business, a club, and you have a choice, do you want to be super profitable, or do you want to serve the community. The OGL is the reason D&D is what it is and is a property to even be able to make this move. As stated in the video, there are plenty of ways to go about monetizing things in a way that is much more fair or considerate of your player base. This is so far off base and such a piss in the face move, that my feelings are strong and I'm heated. No offense meant to you personally, but my bias in reading your comment really rubbed me the wrong way in the moment.
This whole fracas strikes me as the legal equivalent of the coastal Wizard saying "I don't care how big the room is; I cast Fireball. At 9th level."
It's all of the Chaotic-Stupid memes wrought in legalese.
Coastal Wizard burning shizzle up that's for sure.
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they announced they were renaming themselves to "Wizards of the Nine Hells".
This is very sad. Everyone from MTG and dnd communities should try to work together around this - it's been a long time coming if you look at how wizards have treated MTG last couple of years...
I'm pretty sure most of those decisions about MTG were made by Hasbro, who acquired wotc in 1999, and not wotc themselves. I would guess that most of the people at wizards are just trying to make a living and provide content that customers will enjoy while still doing what they are told by their bosses in order to keep their jobs.
@@iduno3592 Well on the exact same thought; It's possible that the changes to d&d are coming down through hasbro as well. It doesn't change the fact that both are happening.
@@iduno3592 yeah absolutely. As the old saying goes: People aren't evil. Companies are evil. I think many people at wotc are also sad about this. But what is clearly going on is wotc is on a fast lane to completely turn into your typical evil corporation. Would not be surprised if people who work there start getting out of there. Mark Rosewater surely can't be happy about the situation, for example. He has to stand up for all these crazy greedy decisions and make them sound good, when his job to begin with is just to design a game....I hope he leaves and speaks out.
I'm only buying single commander. And the 99 I'm proxying. Hasbro won't see cash from me anymore. And with DND I was already considering switching to a different codex.
7:15 I'm one of those creators that's leaving. I'm wrapping up the campaigns I have going and, if this OGL business isn't walked back, I'm not touching DnD again. I've been making homebrew for the better part of six years by this point, including new rulesets for leveling, three different settings, new weapons, hundreds of new enemies and creatures and more, playable sub-races and classes, and then this hits.
I'm jumping ship. Nothing I ever had was uploaded, just shared between the three or four groups I'm a part of, so I'm not worried at all. I've decided to start making my own system with absolute player/DM choice being the theme.
have you given GURPS a chance by chance?
Hey dude, you're just basically paying a creative license. This is not the end of the world, this is how creative property works. WotC built out d&d by marketing and developing it for decades. If you have had success, it is because of D&Ds success. Don't get your panties in a bunch
@@adrianmurillo1631you sound like someone who never created anything.
Same here, finishing the campaign in currently running for the players and jumping ship of the new OGL is put in place
@@adrianmurillo1631 You... Really aren't paying attention, are you? Anything, anything at all, that catches their eye if this new OGL goes live? They can take it. Entirely. And say that it was always theirs. No payment of any sort, no credit given, nothing past a quick "You made this? I made this." meme. That was written *into the new OGL*. And they have made it so that, if you go through any channels to publish your stuff and they DO take it? You can't sue them for theft.
Tell me now, how exactly am I getting my panties in a twist for taking my near one-hundred-and-twenty pages of stuff and expanding it further because WotC and Hasbro have decided to try and sweep my legs out from under me as a content creator? The original OGL was the reason why D&D even got as big as it was, and they're kneecapping it to try and get more money at the cost of the people that made the game great over the past near twenty years.
Perhaps it is time for the community to shift to using another system. They have no monopoly on game mechanics and there are other systems that use the D20 and similar stats. If Wzards won't budge, then find a company that will work with the community to fill that space. Creators such as yourself have a lot of influence if you join together and pull in the same direction. The strength of Roleplaying is not really about the system it is about the content that helps to create the immersion. D&D is successful because of volume of players; if enough players get behind another system, that system will be popular enough to become self-sustaining so long as it brings the community with it. Wizards cannot make people play their game.
the problem is that, while there's a lot of people who do care, there's a lot of people who are incredibly unaffected by it.
I personally only play with wotc published material (partially because my group is always iffy on 3pp/homebrew, partially to keep character creation "simple"), and a lot of others have the same restrictions, like in adventurers league, and people who play like that are not directly affected by 3pp creators being shafted, and in fact have the chance to benefit, because WotC having the pick of the litter of things to publish means more content for them to gorge on.
sure, there's a lot of people (me included, don't get me wrong) who agree that it's a terrible idea on WotC's part, but there's so many others who have never even googled or considered 3pp content, convincing all of them to change their entire gaming group over to a different system, for no reason other than "the company who publish the content are greedy", is going to be impossible
for them, 5e's a great game, they have no reason to convince every member in the group to change system, which would involve learning a whole new rules system, bastardising their characters into the new system, or else abandon the campaign.
some groups might move away gradually, for example, my group has been enjoying the FFG Star Wars RPG (Edge of the Empire/Age of Rebellion/Force and Destiny) for a few years now (in between 5e campaigns), but getting a whole community to even start to agree on where to land on isn't going to happen, and that just means that content creators have to split their focus, or shrink their audience. if DMDave started only making PF2 content, while MonkeyDM started on GURPS, and Griffon's Saddlebag went onto CoC, and Kobold Press decided to make their own system, and Green Ronin decided to publish a mix (because even getting just creators to all sign onto one system is going to be impossible), that only means that people who like all of them have to decide if they're going to try to flip-flop between systems to continue supporting them, drop most in favor of their favorite system/creator, or force the creator to work in systems they might not be familiar with or even enjoy, to try and keep a viable audience.
there is only one solution that ends up with a "clean" outcome, and that is WotC completely ditching the problematic changes, and everyone staying on OGL/DnD.
Except WotC has sued people in the past for using game mechanics similar to their own. Look up lawsuits related to Magic the Gathering and you'll see what I mean. Their victims didn't have the capital to fight the lawsuits and ended up settling out of court. They're apart of a multi-billion dollar company, they can tie up any lawsuit in court shenanigans for years and outlast anyone who isn't a multi-millionaire with cash to spare.
@@Sentinel851 I get what you're saying and I agree that no solution would be easy and any success in moving to an alternative system requires big players to collaborate closely. But it is possible. The community has grown so much since I sarted role-playing and is much more inter-connected since the internet started. Seeing this community grow so much over the years has been delightful and the thought of seeing that fragment is saddening. The community has a voice now that did not really exist before; It is heartening at least to see it being used. Perhaps WOTC will listen, but if they do not and nothing is done, then the community is in danger of fragmenting anyway to everyone's detriment - even WOTC. Still, I live in hope that a resolution will be found one way or another. I also play Age of Sigmar by Games Workshop another giant in their community, namely wargaming. Both they and DnD (under whichever ownership) have been instrumental in growing the communities they are part of, and I can see this even though I have not liked many things done over the years, but to attempt to monopolise the community for themselves seems to me to be self-destructive. Both communities function well when there is a big player to bring people in, but who the big player is, no matter the industry, is determined eventually by those who support it. The best I can do is throw what little support I have as a player behind those I feel have the community at heart and hope that enough others do likewise so that the community will continue to thrive.
Pretty sure WotC will just claim the d20 system as 'theirs', claiming they were the first to use it or that any game system that uses different polyhedral dice that comes after they began publishing as being "based on our system" and will claim ownership.
Check out The Dark Eye. Guy on How to be a Great GM has a 4 part series on youtube.
the absolute crazy thing about this, is that there is very little legitimately copyrightable aspects of D&D that they can enforce.
It's like a recipe. You can't copyright the mechanics of the game, so all they can do is trademark the name and copyright the format of the manual. Nothing can stop people from Playing Delves and Demons with the exact same rulesets and simply bury the dungeons and dragons name.
Hasbro really said, "The best things in life are free, but you can give them to the birds and bees, I WANT MONEY. THATS WHAT I WANT."
"Your love is such a thrill, But your love won't pay my bills. I WANT MONEY!!"....... Fraudsters of the Coast
I started playing D&D 28 years ago. I loved it so much and over the years my love has grown more and more. When I started to see content made by the players, I loved it even more. To hear that they are doing this... makes me sad and mad at the same time. All for the sake of saving face and making a buck... Shameful... very shameful. Hey... DnD Shorts... no matter what... Your stuff has been grand and since finding your videos I came to enjoy 5e and have started tweaking the idea's you put out only to give those I play with massive headaches as a player or as a DM. So if they don't muck us over... I hope you continue to create awesome content for us all man. Much love man.
Yes, the whiplash is wild- D&D really has been at it's peak the last few years and was looking to expand. A new version of the OGL was appropriate in some ways as D&D tried to expand content offerings and capitalize on that surge of support.
What we got instead were very abusive actions, in many different ways, while lying, misdirecting, and trying to keep people in the dark.
Ok everybody, here is an idea:
1- We make a new kickstarter for a new game, “Mines & Monsters”.
2- We rewrite the player’s handbook and Dm’s guide, using a mix of homebrew rules and 5e rules.
3- You are now looking at the Official Rules of M&M, not suplementary material or homebrew, a whole new system with a open licence.
We’re going to see a lot of new independent systems cropping up in the wake of this disaster. I’m already working on mine.
Kickstarter has a separate contract with Hasbro now so tgey can just say you can’t use their platform. Also expect any other Kickstarter type companies and the creators of the new system to face cease & desist orders. Maybe they lose a lawsuit but who has the money to fight a multi year lawsuit while not being able to sell any of their current content. This sucks far worse than you imply here.
There's already many other systems that are D&D but different that people could go to like Pathfinder 2e. The best things about 5e was that it was so easy to comprehend making homebrew for it was similarly easy, and that there was already so much content for it. I'm also grateful to it for introducing me and many others to TTRPGs, but it's reached the point that people think it's the only thing and are afraid to look deeper, which is a shame because there's a lot of other great systems out there.
I hope people look more into Pathfinder 2e after this and Wizards realizes that competition can easily come back if they keep pulling stupid moves like this.
@@kaizenxhigurashi… except that Pathfinder and Pathfinder 2e ALSO rely on the OGL.
The bizarre thing is that only some of the Systems Reference Document is going be protected by copyright. Basic game rules aren't protected, and this seems likely to attract some serious scrutiny to what parts are and aren't protected.
Exactly! As far as I understand, you can't copyright game rules. Someone could simply reword the entire SRD, remove any reference to DnD itself and make a new open gaming license.
@@Shenordak I think that's what Paizo is going for the the ORC license
@@fizzlock ORCS TOGETHER STRONG
Hey bro. Big picture aside I hope you are OK. I can see this is super stressful for you personally. Making a vid about it must be hard because you are talking about having the rug pulled out from under your future plans. Don’t stress too much dude. You are a great creator and I look forward to your channel in the future. If you have to pivot to something else I know it will be rad and we will all support it.
I foresee a massive class action lawsuit in the future if they don't back down. "You cant sue us" clauses have been proven multiple times to not hold up in court. not to mention they're forcing you to sign or lose your livelihood. So the deal could be seen as (signing under duress) I'm not a lawyer maybe someone could get a lawyer to chime in...
God I hope so.
If anyone is interested, you can find a *free* issue of my magazine on Patreon, link in the "about me" section, proudly made with the original OGL. patreon.com/dndshorts
Kudos. This is by FAR the best commentary I've found illustrating the REAL problems behind the new OGL. The other articles and videos I've found seem to be focusing on the royalty (over $750k) bit but honestly, that's the least of potential threats inherent within this document.
Agreed . A Greed ...
Honestly I think Wizards are now going to come up with a more "Agreeable Contract" so they can say that they took the community feedback. This leak feels intentional so they can say they are sorry
And the more agreeable contract they're going to come up with is going to be one that would have caused uproar had they not allowed this comically draconian draft to leak first. This is a well-known aggressive negotiation tactic. If you want a hundred, _demand_ a thousand and make it seem like the other side has negotiated it down to a hundred - a hundred they wouldn't have found reasonable at all had you initially not outright demanded ten times that.
Do not allow the fact that it isn't as bad as this current draft to cloud your judgment on the 'compromise'.
And I intend to tell them to bollux off anyway. There content was dropping in quality anyway and there are way more deserving rpgs
We thought the same thing about a certain SCOTUS leak and look at how that turned out. Trust that they not only don’t give a crap about the community, they will probably make it worse.
@@ccaagg This is a fact. I work for a construction company that uses this precise same manuevuer (four times not ten times) and I hate it
@@Celticassassin23 if you haven't checked it out yet, some friends and I are playing a Witcher TTRPG from R. Talsorian games. It's a lot of fun so far, despite not having as wide of a range of character creation options for players.
Looks like it’s time for all these amazing creators to come together to make a new system!
exactly. the problem is they wont ever agree on a core system. most can barely agree on dnd as is. they will end up scattered to the wind of OSE and the like and cry to want to come back to the label that is Dungeons and dragons.
Here’s a short campaign idea that I highly encourage any and all people with streaming capabilities to run and share.
Centuries ago, magic existed but was not connected to the sentient creatures of the world. Some people living on a shoreline who dedicated their lives to researching this magic found ways to cast it themselves and became the world’s first wizards. They found ways to bind this magic to all humanoids and had a dream of magic growing, changing, and being available to all who sought it. Through their efforts, these Wizards of the Coas- I mean Shoreline, were able to spread this philosophy and new schools and branches of magic began to appear of their own accord: the gods had a bridge to provide magic to mortals, nature itself was able to connect with people, even bloodlines began to be infused with magic. It began to spread in ways that those young and hopeful wizards could not even imagine.
In current day, however, the successors of these wizards have started to become entitled to all magic. Even though they have become a major hub in the world for magic training and item crafting, they have become covetous of the magic that spawned from their predecessor’s ideas and there have been rumors that these Wizards of the Shoreline are planning to change the original incantation that allowed magic to belong to all in order for them to hoard and sell it how they see fit.
You are a band of pirates and noble thieves (Robin Hood vibes) who have been tasked with a mission to infiltrate and sabotage these schemes. The wizards are very powerful, killing them will accomplish nothing as they have clones to spare, so you must be tactful and save the magic for the world.
The wizards cast litigation. Your party is now bankrupt
and absolutely have the new rules as a blood contract. litigious hemocraft
I know I shouldn't have put all of my eggs in one basket, but here I am, seeing my two favorite hobbies burned down to the ground before my eyes.
The worst part is that there will be people who dont know any better and will sign it, thinking they dont have any other option, even though it would actually be extremelly dificulty for WOTC to prove and defend their claims in case of a lawsuit
Whether WOTC can prove their claims or not in court, the people being sued will still have to get a lawyer and defend themselves. Many cant afford to do that.
So eloquently laid out here mate. I’ll show this to my non-D&D friends so they can see how fucked this whole thing is. Really well stated, thank you!
7:11 That's what I was waiting to hear. If you signed an OGL that stated you can use that specific OGL if something changes in the future, it literally doesn't matter what the new one says, which means this new one wastes the time of everyone that signed up before it releases and just shows how bad your company has become to potential new customers. The idiots in charge are literally just burning their community's trust with this.
saddly, this doesn't actually matter to most creators because WOTC can (and probably will) take creators to court, citing the "new agreement" and most people don't have the time and/or money to fight Hasbro's lawyers
@@bombman1599 yeah I know they'll just pull the "drag out the case til the creator runs out of money" tactic. they're really killing their good will for no reason here
@@StygianIkazuchi Apparently DnD has attracted a lot of lawyers, and they're already moving on this to injunct it. Hasbro also isn't exactly swimming in cash as it is, so the situations even more complicated, both for better and for worse.
This is a really good summary. I think you understand the extent of the awfulness better than most of the people that I've listened to on UA-cam. The irony here is I don't always agree with your gaming exploits sometimes I think they break both rules is written and intended but I think your grasp of how ogl 1.1 screws over the best content creators is really good. This is also well organized and well spoken and I'm going to be forwarding this to a lot of my friends. I will continue to subscribe and follow and recommend your Channel no matter which way you go. If Wizards doesn't completely back down on this I hope you find another game system to have fun with and I will try that game system too. Good job
I just got the Starter Set and the three core books for Christmas. I had been fascinated with this game for a year and my dad thought my passion was something worth supporting so he got me all the stuff.
I have run three sessions of "Lost Mine of Phandelver" for my parents and my brother, we are having lots of fun and I am so keen on doing more and expanding the module to a campaign, I have looked into homebrew stuff and similar things and am blown away by what this community has produced, from monster stat blocks to full on campaign settings.
I feel I am at the beginning of an exciting journey, I love getting lost in both mechanics and atmosphere of DnD but now I feel that the sheer limitless potential of this game is being dangerously reduced, just I am getting into it.
It may be entitled but I, without having actually anything on the line, feel incredibly robbed.
I have to say, SAME. I am on the same situation as you. I hope they go back on their bullshit, and establish the 5e OGL
I just started playing last year and am learning to DM. I'm now kinda glad that my apathy towards generic fantasy worlds + my family being intimidated by dice with anything more or less than 6 sides led me to seek alternative TTRPGs because, sadly, this ship seems to have sprung a massive leak the moment I set foot on it!
Roleplaying will remain limitless. WotC can’t change that.
Enjoy the products you’ve bought. The lost Mines of Phandeler is a great adventure.
Then look at all the great Roleplaying that isn’t Hasbro controlled - basically anything not produced by either WotC or Renegade.
I’d strongly recommend Call of Cthulhu, Blades in the Dark, Scion, Savage Worlds and Fate Core.
As someone who has played for several years and is an advocate of the game itself, don't let what they're doing ruin you or your family's and friend's fun.
I share the sentiment but also just know that the material exists and there is a lot of it and once you get into it you'll be able to create your own. And when all else fails just know that when you need it, it will be there.
The Music industry coming down on Napster didn't stop music sharing, DRM didn't stop people from playing video games and playing this game requires very little in reality. Even if today was the last day anything was ever created for this game there will be some dude with a Google doc ready to plop it all on Reddit and you'll still have years worth of content.
The community and the game will endure no matter the outcome, I just hope for our friends that have found creating content as a livelihood can come to some positive end.
Nah mate. You don't come across as entitled. It's just shit. Give it some time, and I bet you could get stuff for free. I smell smoke and a guerilla campaign on the horizon.
Wow. Even Activision Blizzard is looking at Hasbro and thinking "Dude that's just greedy"
Nah, Diablo Immoral was greedy and predatory as shit. I think they still take the cake.
Nah, they saw this and shouted out loud “Yay twinsies.”
Hasbro has been so cartoonishly evil that I am very surprised they didn't pull this move a couple decades ago.
One of their executives signed on to G-dubs and he did a lot of damage in a very short time.
I honestly believe they let this leak on purpose to judge how bad the backlash would be. And now that they have, they’ll likely attempt to walk it back. They’re probably silent because they’re working on a new document they can say was always what they intended to release.
It's almost as if the leaked OGL is the UA OGL...
@@arklainquirk verified leaks from reputable sources are not the same thing as rumours. I didn’t get upset a few weeks ago when people were just speculating, but we’ve moved beyond speculation now.
Manipulation of the masses 101.
Release something outrageous as a supposed "leak" that everyone will hate.
Release something a little less outrageous so people think "it's not as bad" and agree to it.
I called this months ago. They're creating a monopoly on what's largely games played within the minds of people. I'm sure they've tried to find ways to charge folks for having D&D thoughts or scribbling a character on a piece of paper. I didn't need the website and I definitely didn't need the apps, but it's a bummer so many 3rd party creators are going to get hit by this. Whole industries are going under, which is also made up of the fandom itself. They're shooting themselves in both feet, and it serves them right that this is also blowing up in their face.
**Laughs in scribbles on paper**
Someone at Hasbro must love GURPS, cos they're literally incentivizing people to just go play that.
WotC is not "creating a monopoly," They are just turning D&D back into what it was before 3.0. Nobody is outraged about how Chaosium has a monopoly on Call of Cthulhu.
@@Hedgehobbit D&D before 3.0 must have been pretty bland and boring then
@@Hedgehobbit I was there. It was nothing like this. Companies could make minis for anything but a few product identity creatures, fans could publish related materials, people could TALK about the game, and none had to worry about losing their livelihood. How does it benefit you to be sycophantic to a corporation blatantly trying to break contract? This isn't even good for WotC. It's killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
@@kikikillian1208 It wasn't. The price of minis didn't quadruple in a year and you could even find stats for more than 6 types of giants.
This feels like a move that is coming from the new Hasbro CEO, not WotC directly. I can’t imagine any of the creatives that we see regularly from wizards being on board with this.
Yet they all capitulated to fear instead of standing up for what they believe. I understand hanging someone's livelihood over them is a tough bargain for even the most noble, but fuck them all
The new hasbro CEO is the old WotC CEO lmao
@@Kiirxas oh really? I heard he was an outside hire ok
@@themicahnism technically yes, he was till 2016 technical sales Manager (I believe) For Microsoft. They reasons why he "switched" the Jobs could be interesting tho
Decisions like that never come from the creatives. That's what the marketing and legal departments are for. Doesn't change the fact, that this comes from Hasbro/Wizards as a singular entity.
The magic community feels you. I left the game after 30th anniversary and when I found out they are releasing 6 card packs. Let’s be real here the people who run wizards have no love for the games
Wait, WHAT? MTG has 6 card packs now??
Exactly when I left too. I even played on Friday night Magic and online. I am buying more console games now 😂
@@StalrosTheGreenMage1 Lets be honest, MTG has always been 1 card you might want, 3 cards that are probably useful, and 11 cards that aren't worth the ink used to make them 99 percent of the time (draft filler). Cracking packs isn't even worth it unless you are playing limited.
Why would you leave because of that? There’s still drafting and you can always proxy the cards you need to match a power level.
@@daveSoupy oh gosh tons of reasons. I’ll try and give you my reasons I’ve left magic after I began playing during beta as a teenager.
1. The power creep is overwhelming. To stay competitive you have to buy new cards. If it’s not power 9 and it’s old it’s crap.
2. They are reprinting everything from the reserve list. They don’t care after promising not to reprint a list of cards they are finding every way they can to walk around their promise and it’s only a matter of time before they just break it outright, again (they already have broken their word on the reserve list).
3. 4 packs for 1k, trying to make money off the reserve list by making non legal cards.
4. Increasing the set speed so that the next set is being previewed when the previous set actually comes out. It’s a vicious money cycle that you can’t ignore if you want to stay relevant.
5. Completely hosing the small stores that have loyally kept them growing all these years. They are doing many direct to consumer products and cutting out the stores that got them there.
6. Their digital products are trash and intentionally have a horrible economy intended to fleece you in an obvious manner. It’s also 2023 and a decent digital product is not hard to make but wotc and papa hasbro can’t even make that happen.
It’s obvious hasbro is pumping its IP for all its worth be damned the consequences. They are cooking the golden goose and it is having consequences that will be far reaching. I’m not the only 20+ year magic die hard that has left the game and there will be more to follow because Hasbro and Wotc have shown zero signs of adjusting their actions.
So yeah DnD is screwed because hasbro is going to do the same with it. Dying companies go scorched earth to keep their companies afloat as long as they can.
This just happened the same year that I wanted to create my own game setting for D&D. I have all the lore, races and even a couple of classes with their archetypes but with all this I don't know if I dare
to share it
There are plenty of other RPGs that use completely different rulesets that I'm sure your setting would fit into. The great thing about a setting is that with a few tweaks, any set of rules will work.
Sorry to hear that hope it works out for you and you can release it.
Great coverage, thank you. It’s been overwhelming to parse through all these drama vids but, this felt like a very pragmatic and real take on it all. Keep this up, I very much appreciate it
You are an amazing content creator, and seem like a genuinely amazing person. I'm so sorry that you (and everyone else) is having to go through this. I truly appreciate you taking the time to break this all down and explain what is happening. Wizards of the Coast has lost my business, and I will continue to support original content creators as they find other systems to create for. God(s) bless.
Signing this contract sounds like a very bad idea when they can break it at any point, for any reason, change it however they want, keep everything you make for themselves, you can't sue them etc. The worst part is really the fact that if they can change it whenever and however they want then it's basically the same as signing a random contract, since there is no way of knowing the contents of it. Not like that really matters when the rest of it is already so bad, but it could get worse.
Thank you so much for breaking down all of this. I'm relatively new to D&D, so I appreciate you explaining this so I know what to avoid.
The SCP is a Creative Commons writing project that anyone can contribute to. I’ve been saying we need a similar comic book/superhero universe so Warner and Disney can’t keep ruining beloved characters. Looks like a similar TTRPG would be a good idea as well.
This is the best video I've yet seen talking about this. Great synopsis, shows the impact and emotional side of things in conjunction with the reality of the changes. Well done.
I have an idea - someone has probably already suggested this, but thought I would put it out there anyway…. What if the creators and the community created an “open source”, community lead game system (similar to community software packages like “Krita” and “Blender3D”). If all of the content creators worked together, pooling both their creative and kick starter resources, they could build an amazing new game framework, that is everything that the community has wanted for ages. I know this would be a lot of work, but the more people who get involved, the quicker and easier it will be. I am sure members of the community would help out with things like play testing and proof reading. I don’t have contact with any content creators, so I am hoping that someone who does with see this and will send this idea on to them. Let’s tell those greedy suits where to shove it - there’s power in numbers, and there are an awful lot of us!
There are lot of good and open RPG systems around. The fall of D&D would only do good to the hobby.
Yeah but Thats not what hasbro nor wizards want, they want to keep control of everything and earn money
In their minds DnD its an extremely lucrative franchise yet they dont see many of that money, and americans business HATE that, I personally think they are wrong DnD its popular but TTrpgs are by and large a very cheap hobby
@@Deepstab1 i know thats not what hasbro or wizards want. im saying that the creators should work together to make their own game and take their fans with them, so hasbro and wizards have no control over them
Yeah, I thought about that too. If the community developed a completely free set of core rules, and then creators would sell their adventures/settings/monster books, just like they do today. It would be awesome. It could be decided that a yearly revision would occur, with the best ideas being incorporated into the game.
That’s more or less what pathfinder was/still is when wotc made 4e
Yeah, Hasbro and WoTC might be trying to do this, and many of the creators don't like it.
But what do you think is going to happen when Disney realizes that this means they hand over the rights to the Star Wars franchise, of which many of their games use the Core Mechancis system in them.
It honestly feels like all major companies are trying to self destruct.
My dad worked at Wizards when this stuff was first made. They specifically made the old OGL to be un-revokable, and I highly suggest anyone who relies on D&D for profit to sue, since this is all clearly in violation of that original agreement.
I’m so sorry dnd shorts,as someone who both loves official dnd and kickstarter dnd and dnd content creators I am sorry to hear that you have to now follow this horrible change in the contract,as someone who has been following you since the peasant railgun was first brought up, you are criminally underrated and you deserve well over a million subscribers
My personal view is that this is going to go the same way as what games workshop did with canceling all the fan works.
People are going to move on to other systems quite quickly, and it's entirely possible this Will destroy dungeons and dragons / wizards of the Coast.
Watch the video again. He was very much telling us, that he would never sign that license.
Great video as always!
For future content I would also suggets promoting other TTRPG that do not use OGL, as a way to providing alternatives for the players in the meantime this whole thing is happening.
Some game companies crack down hard on people making videos about their games without a contracted license; OGLs are designed to allow third-party creators to make third-party content.
Of course, the new OGL doesn't even apply to videos, music, podcasts, etc.
One day a wizard said "you can build your castle here, the rock foundation is strong and your home will grow to be stronger".
Couple decades later said wizard walks into the booming city and says "lol moneh" and turns the rock foundation to sand.
I must say I'm not one for your content normally but breaking this down into a simple 8 minute video hitting all the bullet points, good on you! It makes it much easier to digest and share to people.
Im waiting to see the response from the big dogs in this fight - Paizo, Green Ronin, hell Critical Role. As these are part of the "20" creators they say is affected by the 750K+ year. I know some people point to Critical Role having a relationship with WoTC via DND Beyond (which their contract for ads was BEFORE DND got bought out by WoTC) as well as some other commercial ties. But CR also has its own publishing arm now. Definitely will be interesting to see how they handle it. Paizo I think has lawyers to fight this, considering it was the OGL that let them grow, and this new version would kill them.
This definitely sucks. I hate corporations. I hate shareholders.
CR it would appear is collaborating. The others might try to put up a legal fight but HASBRO has VERY deep pockets and likely can bankrupt them in legal fees before it even gets to court.
I was thinking about that too, bc I’m a massive CR fan. But since they’ve been publishing a lot of their own stuff, they’ve changed some names and other small details for copyright purposes so there’s no ‘technical’ overlap between their content and WOTC owned material, at least that was the impression I got but I don’t know all the fine details.
This is just such a terrible thing for WOTC to be doing to their own community. DnD was finally coming out of the shadows, starting to become more popular and mainstream without the hovering ‘Satanic Panic’ BS, and now they seemed determine to cut the head off their own community. Its a terrible thing to see- I hope the DnD community at large can band together and resist this happening and force WOTC to back down. I don’t know if it’s possible but wouldn’t that be the day if it were.
Theorycrafting here, but I'm willing to say that Paizo and Green Ronin might try to contest while switching to a system that's "close enough" to be recognizable, even if it couldnt be argued that changing it right now probably couldnt affect future content. (which is legal shit that I understand nothing about so disregard given the circumstance)
However, in terms of Matt Mercer's crew, my money says they will simply roll with the changes (sorry for the bad pun) for many, many reasons. Consider: CR are friends with each other, not to anyone else. At the end of the day, CR is a money making machine that they want to keep running. Same goes for WOTC: they probably understand that antagonizing the guy that went from voicing Jotaro Kujo to the DM who made D&D cool again is a mexican stand-off where both people simply shoot at each other's feet with surgical precision, not to mention they already have good business relation (see: Wildemount),
(I can imagine Brennan going madmad about this, though)
Odds are that the three mentioned got sent very different personal contracts. The OGL is/was the 'universal' licensing but it didn't stop WotC from making other deals and licenses separately.
The bug creators are likely already under an NDA.
Thank you for explaining all the drama in a calm and informing mannor. Until now all Videos I watched were (understandibly) very emotional and therefore it was hard to get to the facts.
I don't normally comment on UA-cam, but I'm a long time follower of your channel and I'm a big fan of your content. The sheer amount of bad press that WOTC will get out of this should be enough for them to change their minds... thought that could just be wishful thinking.
I'd recommend everyone check out Kobold Press's Project Black Flag, nice to see a big name stepping up to the plate and offering something for all those creators walking away from WOTC to flock to. I'd assume it would be closer to 5e but that's better than nothing right?
Anyways, hold in there buddy :) I love your videos
Between this and the mtg30 product last year I have officially lost all my goodwill for wizards, the greed they have shown is unfathomable
Every company I used to like seems to be making the most horrible decisions known to man.
This feels like a deal a cartoonishly evil demon would do
Welcome to ESG and why rational people hate it.
I saw an interesting theory as to why. If you look at a lot of the top level executives in these companies many are on the older side of things, middle age or approaching retirement isn’t unrealistic. Executives already tend to have a certain degree of sociopathic or psychopathic traits so the theory I saw is many of the executives are nearing retirement and since they are already on the way out they no longer have to worry about the state they are leaving the company in and so in their mind why not milk as much money as possible out of players? The executive won’t be around for the fallout anyway so why should they care if they are destroying the reputation?
@@Mizuna752 that does make sense
Youre the only youtuber Ive seen thats brought up the "bigotry" clause.
For the commenters, this will effect us all, not just creators.
Dont let WotC get away with any of these changes, only the OGL 1.0A is an acceptable response from them, no matter how hard they try to sneak things in if they decide to backpedal.
Tbh companies fail their consumers once they take the ESG crap (which is that) the problem is that they become too big to fail then. Hasbro wont be affected and WOTC might be but dnd is dead. They wont sell it off even if people move on just to keep it killed.
Actually, I would accept 1, single change. It's OGL 1.0A, except with a clause that simply reads "No NFTs"
Wow. Last time UA-cam recommended one of your videos to me it was clickbait garbage.
This video is actually useful and informative. Thank you.
I know, right?
Finally two years deep in 5e splat book and content creation. Doing well enough to quite my day job, about to have another kid, life’s looking good… 2923 with a swift kick in the pants. Oof. I’m so stressed, I can’t even believe this whole mess is real.
Bestie of mine is so distraught. He just got into content creation full force, full of passion about it, and now has no idea what to do.
I'm so sorry that you and your friends have to go through this. I can only hope things get better for you here on out, even if it's unlikely. We have to have hope just like when we roll our dice to strike the dragon or persuade the greedy king to lift his unfair rulings. I know hope can only do so much in the face of this, but we should never lose it. After all that's what got a lot of people on DND in the first place. Hope for an epic adventure.
It should be pointed out that much of the language in the leaked OGL, especially the language regarding content ownership and you granting them a license to steal it, already exists in WotC Terms of Service. Back in June, when they acquired DnD Beyond, there were so many people concerned about ownership of content created there, they released a huge statement reassuring people that the creators would maintain ownership of their works, and the only thing that would be changing was that users would have to agree to the WotC Terms of Service. When I tried to warn people of the predatory language in that document (and the two other contracts that you were agreeing to, by default), my comments were removed as "non-constructive," and the admin who reviewed my appeal said "Writing explicitly to list all of the things that can be done, after it having been made clear that the sole intent is to be able to continue operating normally, was viewed as Non-Constructive." Strange, is that just like telling the world that the old OGL would never change, and then changing it?
Furthermore, WotC has a rocky history when it comes to what they publish; WotC was being sneaky about repackaging 3rd party content as their own, but now they would be able to legally take it and not have to put any work into disguising it. A friend of mine was at GaryCon (a small D&D and gaming convention celebrating Gary Gygax), and he was advertising a D&D cookbook that he was releasing on Patreon; there was one recipe each month (give or take), and it would come with a short story, in-game content to add to your own adventure, and a ton of awesome artwork. It was about a year later that WotC published their own cookbook, that had a few eerily similar recipes in it. A different friend, who publishes their work on Drivethru and DMs Guild, has complained that WotC had released content that was nearly identical to what they were trying to sell.
The fact of the matter is that, over the past 10 years or so, WotC (and Hasbro) have been making increasingly evil, greed-driven decisions. Not just with D&D, but in their other products as well, like Magic the Gathering. Since I started gaming, nearly 30 years ago, I would estimate that I have spent well over $10k on MTG cards and official D&D products and content, and I am done; not a single penny more. Even if they walk back these changes to the OGL, their history shows that it would be only a matter of time before they attempt it again, or something else equally as devious. As of now, I am fully boycotting Hasbro and all of their subsidiaries, including Wizards of the Coast, and I would invite everyone to do the same.
Just looking at the old OGL compared to now, you can see the huge different in attitude. Back then, it was written from the perspective that d&d will profit from people creating stuff under the OGL and so they were conceding several points to the other side(such as agreeing not to change the terms) to give them the best deal and entice them to work with their company rather than someone else. In this newer one it is completely one sided with them only trying to protect themselves and get as much as they can, with no consideration for the other side.
@@Lilitha11 Right... That was why they released an SRD for free. Realistically, the more people that you have playing the game, the better odds that they will buy something from your company.
Working at gaming conventions, I have made a lot of friends, in part, because we all have an understanding that this industry is like a ship, and whether it floats or sinks, we are all stuck on the same ship. Most of us small and mid sized vendor/publishers/artists will go out of our way to help each other out, because if they do well, the industry as a whole grows, and you will grow along with them.
Its hard to see a past time you have enjoy scene your youth goes up in flames. Best thing to do is change systems, make your own or seek a new hobbies or better yet practice a skill.
@@arklainquirk Nothing has ever stopped WotC from "borrowing" content from other companies in the past... Furthermore, them wanting to revoke the old OGL, despite telling everyone that they would never do that, shows that they have no issue lying to their customers.
Enjoy your copium.
@@arklainquirk Once again; enjoy your copium.
The leak has been confirmed by multiple sources. Furthermore, there have been other, substantiated leaks from sources within WotC that have stated that not only is all of this true, but they are currently waiting on the internet to forget so that they can sneak it through later.
And honestly, if none of this were true, why have WotC "postponed" their last two scheduled announcements regarding this? All they would have needed to do was come forward, two weeks ago, and categorically deny that it was going to be revoked. Instead, they dragged Indestructoboy's name and reputation through the mud, until this all got too big for them to try to hide behind a single scapegoat.
I thought they'd learned their lesson from the creation of Pathfinder after the lashback over a similar but much smaller move.
Thanks for boiling all this down to the cliff notes version. I've been avoiding the long for video essays because it's so much to take in.
Thank you for this summary. It is the first clear summarization of the impact of the new OGL I have seen, that goes point by point, following your style of presentation. Clearly a money-grab by a CEO who knows a lot about business but nothing about the D&D business.
When the original OGL was released it was in an attempt to prevent the death of DnD then as they saw how other systems collapsed, such as Exalted, TORG and Earthdawn . This policy kept the game alive and allowed it to evolve and grow. So much it seems that HASBRO believes that its time to reap in a field that they did not sow in.
They however forget one thing, they are the owners of the IP not the content creators, they don't know how to or are unwilling to create their own content and good luck finding writers who will work "For Hire"", they'd rather just use others Intellectual property, which is the reason for that offensive clause and the short time frame they are giving publishers to make a choice.
Their actions have exposed a critical weakness in ttrpg as it exists today, there is only one system and it is owned by bad faith players, so what do you do in this situation . Create another OGL that doesn't use the exact mechanics and add the ""irrevocable"" clause that was missing in the original OGL to this version. You have the ideas , you have the reach , you have the fanbase , not them , use it.
Thank you for mentioning Hasbro. I don't recall that happening even once in the video, which is a pretty big miss when you consider their takeover is likely to be a huge driver in the attitude change towards the OGL. They don't like that they inherited a promise with the company, and they clearly resent the philosophy behind it, so they plan to just ignore it and eat the backlash. I'm not well versed enough in the legal particulars to know whether there's a case they should be compelled to keep an inherited promise, but that's the only way I see them changing tack.
There's not "only one system" really. It's just that a lot of the TTRPG "community" have adopted 5e as it hit a critical mass - because of the OGL 1.0a. There are many gaming systems out there, a lot of which have been around for many years. Unfortunately, some organisations baked the WotC-owned OGL 1.0a into their products, even though it contained none of the WotC SRD IP, as they saw it as a way to denote that their product was open (in the perpetual, irrevocable sense) - they've now been caught up in this situation if that version of the OGL becomes "unauthorised", though what they means in respect to their non-SRD product isn't clear. What's needed is a "community" owned OGL, like the Apache License in the software world, that creators can use for their content.
What's interesting is that half of that agreement is unenforcable against consumers in my country because those clauses are blacklisted. Also, what do they actually own copyrights on? Gamerules are not copyrightable in the EU, only the art, music and their stories and characters they came up with. So no copyright on either dungeons, dragons, elves, orcs, wizards you name it.
That pretty much goes against the spirit of the entire system itself. It has always been JUST AN OUTLINE to create personal content. If the lawsuit doesn't work there should just be a full on boycott or a tweaking to disassociate the content from WOTC.
Will be interesting to see where this goes, since Disney technically owns Knights of the Old Republic now.
"There's always a bigger fish..."
I have only been playing d&d since the onset of Covid and this makes me very sad. D&d was my one joy in life during the lockdowns. I love how crazy and creative it is but I know that alot of that comes back to my amazing DMs and the community created content. It seems like every big company wants to take something amazing and destroy it in the most horrific way possible.
There are a lot of other tabletop roleplaying games in a multitude of genres. The fall of D&D would only help other people to discover them and make the RPG sphere better and more creative. WOTC are a bad player for at least half a decade now, corporate led and greedy, pushing what may be the worst tier material by any RPG official company
I'm right there with you. I adopted this game a good long time ago as a teenager in highschool without a lot going for them. This was my creative outlet, and honestly helped inspire many of my ambitions later in life, such as learning to become a writer myself.
I too wish that all the companies with products I've grown attached to would stop rapidly decaying before my eyes, but it just seems more and more that's just the world we live in now. Maybe passion still exists out there, but it isn't with the things I grew up with anymore.. and that's pretty sad.
cApItAlIsM bReEdS iNnOvAtIoN
@@garrettrizzo9869 Competiton does, Monopoly doesn't. If any one producer of mediocre shit tries to scorch earth the competition by legalistic schticks, the consumers should band and destroy it.
@@a.dilettante and that's inherently anti-capitalistic. Monopolies suck
I've played Magic for 27 years and never imagined myself routing for Wizard's demise even if it meant sacrificing my favorite game. Yet here I am.
Wow. This is like finding out a beloved family member is a serial killer. Thanks for the update. I guess wizards is telling the community to roll for initiative.
This is the best take on this I’ve seen. Well stated.
One D&D / 6th Edition appears to be on the same track for success as 4th Edition 🤣🤣🤣
Worse, really. 4th ed. was just lazy and poorly implemented. This is outright malicious.
Well, there goes my creative writing group. I have kids write campaigns then I take the best of each group and run it for the other. My kids wanted to publish a compendium of their best campaigns, and I have to tell them they can't. It's not my livelihood, but it still hurts.
You're still fine if you're not charging money. This *almost* falls under personal use. Yes, you'd be distributing and publishing, but at such a small level (and not for profit) that you can still do this.
Yeah, ouch. That's a pretty good example of what this license would ruin.
imayb1: it might or might not fall under personal use, but it would still be a potential liability, that you don't want to leave hanging, to screw you over later in life.
there's a fan license that would allow it as long as they aren't charging money for it.
You can still do that anyway; a campaign structure and world doesn't explicitly need to reference anything that could be tied to the platform specific terminology and structure the OGL is concerned with.
We will continue to use our existing 5e material, but there will be NO new purchases should this go through. If they push it too far, my group is ready to return to GURPS.