Due to the volatile nature of this subject, and the pervasiveness of its volume, I'm moving all discussion to this thread for the future.

Copying relevant posts over.

Thanks WW I'm kinda shitty at that.

Roll for initiative!

WotC: 1

Paizo: 20

Heh, I think Wizards was completely blindsided by the fact that the entire community (hobby + industry) was united against what WotC was trying to do.  There are even people inside Wizards actively working against the nullification of the OGL 1.0a, and the introduction of a new OGL.

Their apology is a non-apology, honestly.  They say they rolled a 1, what it really means is, "We're sorry we got caught."

And that cheeky, "We're calling it a tie." at the end isn't fooling anyone.

The stupidest thing about this is that WotC hasn't done anything officially, but by doing what little they did, they've screwed a whole bunch of people's livelihoods.

I hope Paizo's ORC is well adopted, but I think there are things that are lost when there's a monoculture of rulesets.  I hope this whole kafuffle convinces people and companies to create their own rulesets for their games.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't really care one wit about Wizards of the Coast (WotC). I don't play any games that are affected by their decisions¹. As a result, I don't really know much more than what I've read here and on Reddit, with a handful of comments on Facebook (most of my information comes from Reddit).

That said, I'm noticing a lot of posts in the gaming subreddits I hang out with have a lot of posts that more or less read, "So I'm looking into [game] because of the crap WotC has pulled." It makes me wonder, what, exactly, did WotC do that was so mind-bogglingly horrible? My understanding is that they allowed OGL to be a thing for two decades, and people assumed that it would never change. My take is that people should never rest on their laurels; change or die is the order of the day.

Am I missing something? I get it, they pulled a dick move (although I'm not sure of what the specifics of said dick move are). I get the hate they're getting from authors and other folks who didn't prepare for the inevitable change. But the sheer level of hate I'm seeing is mind-boggling to me. I really don't get it. Can someone please elucidate this matter for me?

1. Directly, anyway. As you can see, indirect effects are another story.

It's mostly a lot of legal "What could happen if things went a crazy direction" that drives the hype.

There are also a lot of games that used the OGL for reasons I don't fully understand? Like it became a standard license agreement between game makers and 3pp's because it was open and had understood verbaige.

Like as I understand it FATE is released under the OGL. But they have nothing at all to do with WotC, it's about as far from their product as you can get.

What I expect actually happened is that WotC wanted to get paid by their major 3rd Party Publishers so they amended their license. 5th ed is sort of the standard thing to convert your game to presently (L5R, IK, etc.) so there is money there. Then it launched a bunch of what-if scenarios about it being changed retroactively as an attack on Paizo. Which isn't really something they said they were going to pursue and is only sort of legally possible.

Wow. So it sounds like it's even less bad than I initially thought?

In reality, very likely. But nerds are just as prone to hyperbolic sensationalism as everyone else.

Like when WotC says it was a oopsie they are probably not lying. The legal cases people are talking about would take Texas levels of BS. So I doubt they really occurred to WotC. They were just grubbing for regular money not attempting a retroactive coup of the entire industry.

No, You are wrong about the original issue being not that bad. The language they were going to use would have killed any 3PP that used either the original or previous OGL. The language allowed WotC to:

1 alter the agreement with only a 30 day notice.

2 Use any content provided under the agreement in perpetuity, without licensing fee, and irrevocably for their own purposes. (For those that may not understand that means they could use any homebrew or third party content for free for any purpose and for as long as they want. Third party content also includes any homebrew content you might have on dndbeyond.)

3 Charge people for using the OGL based upon their own decision as to who makes money.
The revenue tiers are as follows:

A. Initiate Tier. If You have registered at least one Licensed Work but haven’t generated $50,000 or more in total (gross) revenue from OGL: Commercial products in a given year, You are at the Initiate Tier.

B. Intermediate Tier. If Your Licensed Work(s) have generated more than $50,000 in total revenue in a given year but less than $750,000, You are at the Intermediate Tier.

C. Expert Tier. If Your Licensed Work(s) have generated at least $750,000 in total revenue in a given year, You are at the Expert Tier. (For reference most 3PP are in this tier, and for a business that's not much more that a small operation.)

4 This would also affect youTube personalities such as Matt Coleville, and Dungeon Dudes. These guys make a living off of the OGL, but they are not rich by any means.

This is on top of the fact they were trying to retroactively effect people who had published under the OGL 1.0.

It's designed to force everyone to pay WotC for any dnd they play or use online. It was wrong on so many levels. here is an article that explains it better than I do. https://gizmodo.com/dnd-wizard...g-license-1849950634
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:48, Wed 18 Jan 2023.

Right, I get that - but it seems to me the easiest solution to all of that is to change slightly. "Okay, folks. Thanks to the change in OGL, we're going to be altering our setting." Call it "based on a D&D setting," and you're even able to still capture people searching for D&D. I genuinely don't see how it's that bad. Sure, I see how WotC has suddenly screwed itself from a PR perspective, but in terms of actual, meaningful change? Doesn't seem like a world-altering thing to me.

I dunno, maybe it's one of those "if you get it, you get it" things, and I just dont. :/

Sure the new language would have destroyed D&D. AWESOME! I've been on a one man crusade for years!

It's more the "attack against the entire hobby" bits that I find overblown.

What you're missing is the hundreds to thousands of people who made business decisions based on both the OGL and the promises from WotC to never remove that license.  People assumed it would never change because WotC made such assurances.  Also, it was supposed to be royalty free.

The RPG hobby/industry is a niche one.  For many of the companies who use the OGL license, a 25% cut of 750k means they have no operating $$$ any more.  The margins are not huge.  To face potentially being told that they cannot sell their products any more, and that they owe, is business ending news, and a slap in the face.

If this was about protecting D&D from being distrubted in "hateful" products, to prevent it from being in NFTs, and to keep it in the hands of the little guys... why did they try a money grab?

In reply to Sir Swindle (msg # 11):

Ah, so the people who make D&D compatible products, just what... fuck them?  It's fine they lose their livelihood?  Great look there.

The OGL is a significant portion of the hobby/industry, so yes, WotC's actions could be viewed as an attack on the whole thing.

In reply to A Voice in the Dark (msg # 9):

Don't forget that there was also a provision where people selling OGL products, or making money off the OGL in some fashion had to provide Wizards proof of their revenue.  As far as I know, the only entity that gets to make that demand is the IRS (CRA in Canada, or whatever tax collecting agency is applicable).

In short, I'm already doing that when I encourage people to go play other, better, games.

Honestly defending that sector seems odd given that I've probably never even heard of a DM embracing the use of 3rd party material. Like your munchkins wanting to use 3rd party classes and spells is practically a running joke in the gamer community. But now that they could go out of business everyone is crazy about them?

Nah, I covered that - it's bad policy to make decisions based on the kindness of a competing company. They had twenty years to plan ahead and failed to do so. What if WotC had been bought out? What if D&D had suddenly, miraculously flopped? What if they decided to change the OGL? You can't make assumptions in business, and it seems like a lot of people did just that.

They are legally liable to adhere to their promise.



Any new owner would be legally liable to adhere to previous business decisions and contracts.



Not relevant.  The game would still exist as a thing, and OGL content could continue to be made.



They can do that.  They have done so before.  What people were up in arms about was the attempt to make older versions "not authorized", which they promised succinctly they would not do.



Actually, yes you can.  If there is a contract in place, you can absolutely make assumptions that the entities involved will keep to their bargain, because there are legal repercussions to not doing so.

Uh, then you don't know many GMs at all.  3rd party monsters, 3rd party adventures, 3rd party "splat books"... they get used pretty frequently.

They sell well enough.

Your experience (and mine I will add) is not indicative of the entire community.

People do like to cheer for the underdog, and many people don't like a bully.

People were "crazy" about them before, many of the companies and independent publishers would not be around if people were not buying their product and supporting them.

The reason why there wasn't any uproar before is because WotC was playing nicely.  WotC was benefitting indirectly from the OGL stuff.  But due to their own mistakes, suddenly WotC wasn't bringing in enough money...

I use monsters from Kobold Press, I use the Taldori Campaign guide from Green Ronin. Millions of people use Paizo. 3PP are all through the gaming community.

Paizo isn't 3rd party they are a stand alone game. See all my stuff above about WotC not owning game mechanics.

Paizo is a corporation, not a game.

They offer OGL content (Pathfinder Adventure Path) as well as a full, stand alone game (Pathfinder).

If you are offering content for another company's game, you are by definition 3rd party.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:57, Thu 19 Jan 2023.

Ah, ya I forgot that they do that. I suppose the bulk of the work is in the story content so they might as well do the conversion even if it is for their biggest competitor. I guess it gets their name into groups that don't play PF so it's easier to convert them.

In reply to Sir Swindle (msg # 22):

They originally existed to publish Dragon and Dungeon magazines, at least, that was one of their earliest products.

In reply to Sir Swindle (msg # 20):

Paizo started as a way to continue creating content for 3.X. And all of their content has its roots in OGL. So yes they are a 3PP. Most of their current products are more their own system, but they do still have stuff they were (before the OGL issue) making that was useful for 5E.