TJS
Legendary Pubber
- Joined
- May 5, 2018
- Messages
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How big is the OSR really?It’s worth remembering that WotC never intended for or approved of using the OGL to reverse-engineer prior editions. That only happened because Matt Finch (a Harvard-educated lawyer by training) was smarter than they were and was able to figure out how to do so, and his publishing partner Stuart Marshall had sufficient intestinal fortitude not to back down in the face of vague threats and innuendo (and WotC never took things to a more formal level, presumably because they got legal advice that it wasn’t worth the effort and they likely wouldn’t prevail on the merits - it’s important to emphasize how smart and careful Matt was, and how well he did his homework).
Because of that WotC sat back and allowed the whole OSR to bloom for 15 years, but they never blessed or condoned it and always wanted it to go away. WotC has never wanted people to play old editions of D&D - the disclaimer attached to all the old-edition content on DriveThruRPG makes that clear - they just couldn’t do anything about it. But now they think they can so naturally they’re going to try. To them, killing the OSR wouldn’t be an accident or unfortunate side-effect, it’s (part of) the intent.
I feel sceptical that screwing over the OSR is really a huge concern given it tends to be fairly small. I suspect that they are probably predominantly concerned with all the money being kickstarted for 5e and think they ought to be getting a piece of that.
I suppose that's the question. A lot of people on the internet seem to be suggesting that the 25% is a terrible deal and assuming that Hasbro therefore probably don't mean it to be taken seriously. But this whole thing is dumb, so I suspect they really do think they can make money that way.
Putting OSR games out of business isn't likely to make much money for Hasbro. They have to have thought they were going to be making money somewhere.
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