Mastodawn

mcc Jan 12, 2023

Paizo (publishers of Pathfinder) react to rumors of Wizards of the Coast moving from the existing Open Game License to a new, predatory license and attempting to somehow retroactively revoke the old license: https://paizo.com/community/blog

The punchline: Paizo previously used the OGL to release their original content because it was there; now they feel it is no longer trustworthy so they're making their own license.

The name: The Open RPG Creative License (ORC).

mcc Jan 13, 2023

Sorry, I think I may have been unclear here— the ORCs are the good guys

mcc Jan 13, 2023

If you haven't been following this: Around 2000 D&D 3e was released using OGL 1.0a, which Wizards created. After 23 years gobs of commercial work has been released depending on this license. About a week ago Wizards started privately sending creators a "OGL 1.1" with alarming terms. Originally it had a go-live date of *TODAY*. The new license immediately leaked, and there was uproar.

Today Wizards announced a livestream to discuss the controversy. Then cancelled it.

https://gizmodo.com/dungeons-dragons-ogl-announcement-wizards-of-the-coast-1849981365

Wizards of the Coast Cancels OGL Announcement After Online Ire

The new Dungeons & Dragons Open Game License was expected on Thursday afternoon, but a fan campaign against changes has caused the company to hesitate.

Gizmodo

mcc Jan 20, 2023

Follow-up: So one week after canceling the launch of "OGL 1.1" aka "OGL 2.0", Wizards has launched "OGL 1.2". They brag they've addressed community concerns in various ways, but I don't think they have. For example they brag the new license contains the word "irrevocable" (although they define it to mean something special in the document so maybe it's still revocable). But the outrage was that Hasbro was trying to revoke the *old* OGL, 1.0a. And they're still doing that:

https://www.polygon.com/23562874/dnd-dungeons-dragons-ogl-1-2-release-download-feedback-survey

D&D will move to Creative Commons license, requests feedback on new OGL

A new draft of the Dungeons & Dragons Open Gaming License (OGL) places the core rules of the seminal tabletop RPG in the Creative Commons. “We’re giving the core D&D mechanics to the community,” said the executive producer. Feedback is due by Feb. 3.

Polygon

mcc Jan 20, 2023

Like I don't th… I still don't think they can do that. "Deauthorize" a license they licensed content to you under previously as they purport to in that screenshot. Unless this is some kinda "by using OGL 1.2, you agree to stop using 1.0a" thing, everything I know of US contract law is if you let people go 23 years understanding "if I'm holding a copy of the book with the license in it, I have the license" you can't just say "okay backsies, the license printed on that paper isn't real anymore".

I am not a lawyer

mcc Jan 22, 2023

So this extensively sourced video takes the otherwise inexplicable decisions by Wizards around the OGL and renders it all depressingly explicable: None of this ever had anything to do with 3rd party publishers. The OGL is a bullet aimed directly at "Virtual Tabletop" (OpenRPG, Roll20 etc) so Hasbro can monopolize that market with an Unreal "app" that gives Hasbro an eternal revenue stream charging you microtransactions for animations on every new spell you want to learn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4kGMsZSdbY

Every Insider Leak I've Been Given On Wizards of the Coast

YouTube

mcc Jan 23, 2023

The vision of the future sketched here, the one Hasbro is currently risking destroying D&D forever to create, is really deeply depressing. Instead of having fun painting little models and maps, or God forbid *imagining*, you just pay $3.99 over and over forever. Some leaks float the idea of eliminating the DM role entirely (an "AI" does that).

Interposing technology where it's not really needed because technology can be monetized (taxed) in a way imagination can't.

mcc Jan 23, 2023

This explains why OGL1.2 is so seemingly generous (relatively, compared to the botched 1.1) toward 3P expansion publishers— even relicensing some things as Creative Commons!, though I'm not sure how much you can trust that— while leaving the sharp restrictions on "VTT"s, which I hadn't even realized were important first go round. Hasbro is doing all this *solely* to make it so you don't play D&D online with your friends without doing it in a way that creates an ongoing revenue stream for Hasbro.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦Jan 23, 2023

@mcc I mean their name is literally "Has, Bro"

Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven Jan 23, 2023

@mcc Just like the automobile industry, they saw software subscriptions and were like, "We want a piece of that too!"

zaratustra Jan 23, 2023

@mcc it's interesting that the stuff licensed under CC is the stuff they have no hope of litigating

Carl Muckenhoupt Jan 23, 2023

@mcc Bah, we already have RPGs where there's a computer instead of a DM. Some of them are even D&D-licensed.

Pete Keen Jan 23, 2023

@mcc ughhhhh they've been trying to do this forever and have never succeed. wizards announced a virtual tabletop app at gencon in 2010 (I was there).

mcc Jan 23, 2023

@zrail not clear whether the people driving this initiative know enough about D&D history to know about any previous attempts by Wizards at the same thing D:

Pete Keen Jan 23, 2023

@mcc seems unlikely

Astrid Jan 23, 2023

@mcc fucking rent seeking bastards

Mouse Jan 23, 2023

@mcc ...time for a resurgence, theater of the mind.

Katie Jan 23, 2023

@mcc so...we all go back to playing in person or on zoom or discord then. Yeah, really well thought out there, Hasbro... Ugh.

Cassandra Granade Jan 20, 2023

@mcc Nor am I; just reading the news on this. From EFF's post (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/01/beware-gifts-dragons-how-dds-open-gaming-license-may-have-become-trap-creators), it sounds like they very much can do a backsies on this. In his video, LegalEagle did make the interesting point, though, that if they did, then Wizards might be subject to a promissory estoppel (https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/promissory_estoppel) by third-party publishers who reasonably relied on OGL 1.0x being irrevocable.

Beware the Gifts of Dragons: How D&D’s Open Gaming License May Have Become a Trap for Creators

The company that owns Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is planning to revoke the open license that has, since the year 2000, applied to a wide range of unofficial, commercial products that build on the mechanics of the game.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

mcc Jan 20, 2023

@cgranade That second thing is what I was thinking when I mentioned contract law, yeah. If someone undertakes a business activity understanding a read of a legal document, and you don't stop them, then that can create an implicit contract sometimes, & you can't go back and say "well, I always understood the contract differently". This is worse for Hasbro bc the ex-employee original license grantors will come back and testify Hasbro's new interpretation is NOT how they understood it at the time.

Cassandra Granade Jan 20, 2023

@mcc Right, agreed. What makes that complicated is that someone would have to have already relied on that promise for estoppel to apply, I think? So new or smaller indie third-party publishers can't use 1.0a going forward? Maybe?