Mod+ OGL 1.1 is not an Open License.

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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.
How big is the OSR really?

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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20% of revenue on a Kickstarter is still enough to bankrupt many projects.

This statement is the equivalent of Kickstarter offering fans a turd with with a nice shiny ribbon wrapped around it and saying "look what I did for you!"
I think it's more that they were responding to some criticisms rather than they thought it was good, reading between the lines.
 
Hasbro is too greedy for their own good after the crazy success that 5e already has been for them. Now it’s time to be taken down a couple notches.
 
A lot of this seems to be coming from an envious fixed-pie mentality. Like other people getting "rich" (or at least selling projects) on the internet is somehow taking money away from WotC. Just because someone crowfunded a game and hit it big that doesn't mean that that money would've gone to WotC, but now is not. If anything people buying other games running on the same engine as D&D helps maintain its network effect and keep them from playing other systems.
This is exactly what this is - they even state it in the document! I don't think this is even an interpretation as much as they already outed themselves on it.
 
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.
WotC have to be dragged in to reprinting the older editions just like PDFs. I don't really believe the didn't want people playing the older editions it's just they didn't want to be selling what seems to be competing products in the same market. It's not so much they hate the OSR or anything but they're doing conservative "don't cannibalize sales and dilute your market"

The disclaimer was added later as folks complained about older content not matching modern sensibilities. It's blanket because they aren't interested in actually reviewing older content and debating it. They just want people who buy it to acknowledge they're going back in time and own it.
 
I gotta be honest, even if WotC were to release an updated version of the OGL right now that explicitly stated that it's irrevocable, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. They've pretty much made it abundantly clear that their intentions towards people using their license are not benign, but outright malicious. These people are not to be trusted or negotiated with.
1000% this. Even if WotC back down now and make the OGL 1.1 opt-in (which is looking less and less likely) the trust has been incinerated. It's gone. No one will ever trust WotC again and any deal they do make won't be worth the paper it's printed on.
 
WotC have to be dragged in to reprinting the older editions just like PDFs. I don't really believe the didn't want people playing the older editions it's just they didn't want to be selling what seems to be competing products in the same market. It's not so much they hate the OSR or anything but they're doing conservative "don't cannibalize sales and dilute your market"

The disclaimer was added later as folks complained about older content not matching modern sensibilities. It's blanket because they aren't interested in actually reviewing older content and debating it. They just want people who buy it to acknowledge they're going back in time and own it.
I don't think WotC's objection to the old editions is ideological (much as some agenda-driven people want to claim otherwise), but I do think they don't understand why anyone would want to play that creaky old stuff instead of the current edition and look upon everyone playing an older edition (not necessarily so much the old relic grognards like me, but absolutely any of those young people discovering and excited about stuff like OSE) a lost customer who should be playing and supporting the current stuff instead (just like they apparently have come to consider everyone buying third-party supplements as lost sales and that those people should be buying their stuff - or at least that they should be getting a percentage of those sales).

The disclaimer seems to say "this old stuff is theoretically interesting purely as a historical curiosity but you should know that it's all outdated and not actually good" which presumably pretty accurately matches how they feel about it - that it's worth having around to establish the legacy and strip-mine IP from, but the current edition is "the real thing" that people should actually be playing and giving their money to. AFAIK nobody currently on the D&D team at WotC has been there longer than 4E at the earliest (and I'm not sure any of the WotC execs even go back that far), and I suspect most of them probably even started playing with 3E or later (realize that someone 35 years old now was 13 when 3E was released), so to them everything prior to 3E (and to some extent everything prior to 5E) is amateurish and primitive and at least mildly embarrassing to be associated with, certainly nothing that needs to be emulated or preserved as anything other than a museum piece. To WotC's current D&D team a set of OD&D pamphlets (or even a set of 1E hardbacks) is so outdated and obsolete that it might as well be a flint chopper from Olduvai Gorge.

WotC's official position is that 5E already combines all of the best elements (rules and IP) of all prior editions - and has surpassed all of them in terms of commercial success - so there's no need for anyone to look backwards, there's nothing of value there, and the idea of "OneD&D" makes that position even more explicit - there is no longer longer an idea of competing editions and versions that are equally valid and appeal to different audiences, it's all (or at least should be) One D&D - the current/upcoming version. Embrace the present; let the past die.

Remember the crowing when 5E was released and incorporated some minor OSRish elements inspired by (now-repudiated) consultants that 5E had "rendered the OSR obsolete" and everyone should leave those alternate versions aside and return to the official fold? That was wishful thinking at the time so now they're trying it again, but this time with less carrot and more stick.
 
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If Hasbro have engendered this backlash to go after the relatively number of small OSR players, most of whom were never likely to switch to 5e anyway, and are probably not the sort to spend money on digital tools and platforms, then they are not just stupid, but truly incredibly epically stupid.

It would be like trying to go after the local used clothing store in the belief that by shutting it down you would somehow get the local punk rock crowd to come into your business wear shop and start buying suits.
 
I think it's more that GURPS was one of the only generic hotness around at the time. That and HERO were the only "big" players in that market.
I never got into TORG but I had a sense when it was released—based on Usenet chatter—that it was sort of a “reply” to GURPS. I especially remember GURPS being the point of comparison when someone was talking about how elegant TORG’s resolution system was. (That was an intriguing claim, but I’ve never been keen on multiverse/multiple reality type settings, including RIFTS.)
 
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which means they need to be threatened and hit right in the money, because that's all they care about. Politely talking with them indicates you're open to dealing with them.

I'm talking about game designers reliant on the OGL. Acting like a babbling fool with empty legal threats is not going to persuade them and the only hope they have is persuasion.

Fans will continue to lose their shit because that's what they do but cranking up the rhetoric just makes people tune you out.

It's a fine line, there needs to be a public stink Hasbro would rather not deal with it but if it gets over-the-top they are more likely to dismiss it as rabid cranks.

Corporations are motivated almost completely by self-interest. They need to be convinced this is not in their self-interest. Ranting about the evils of greedy corporations will not appeal to their self-interest.

Fans' goal should be to back up the designers, not indulge themselves in a public temper tantrum.

Course that assumes there is a goal beyond having a public temper tantrum.
 
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If you're truly worried that the 1.1 is somehow going to legally invalidate 1.0 and 1.0a, you should remove your products for sale when it goes into effect and not a single moment before. Unnecessarily losing money on purpose isn't going to fix anything.
The industry thrives on the vanity signalling. (When the AI art thing happened, half the companies were excited and half were cautious....right until the wave of sentiment was that artists who weren't remotely hurt by this were wounded...and now you're persona non grata if you use AI art. Which is really unfortunate for a game I just received recently which is BEAUTIFUL and mostly AI art.

But hey, you're a monster if you use it. Apparently.

The point is....the people who care about this sort of thing (the inviolability of the OGL, the dastardly nature of Hasbro) will applaud these early moves.

My singular take: The REALITY is likely that Hasbro D&D brand/idea markets are much larger than the RPG sales. That's merchandise and movies. They're holding the reins and telling the RPG side of the business to get their effing licensing business in order and stop losing money hand over fist to nobodies. There's an effing movie coming out and there will be a boost in sales from that so get all this shit done and dusted. Yes, it's unpopular among the grognards and troglodytes but that Lategamer dude isn't buying our stuff anyway. There's a 100 million brand new customers coming because of this movie and we want their merch and gaming money in a monthly subscription. We don't even want them to know that RPGs aren't like Disney+ and can work without a subscription. Now take that OGL out back and shoot it between the eyes and let's get back to our most important mission; making money for shareholders. And stop bloody crying.
 
I never got into TORG but I had a sense when it was released—based on Usenet chatter—that it was sort of a “reply” to GURPS. I especially remember GURPS being the point of comparison when someone was talking about how elegant TORG’s resolution system was. (That was an intriguing claim, but I’ve never been keen on multiverse/multiple reality type settings, including RIFTS.)
That was probably based on Torg using its log-scale for (nearly) everything (in theory), whereas GURPS at the time only used its for some things. Thus Torg's scaling and resolution system was more internally consistent.
 
I'm talking about game designers reliant on the OGL. Acting like a babbling fool with empty legal threats is not going to persuade them and the only hope they have is persuasion.

As can be seen by the fact that lawyer opinion on this is not even close to unanimous that WotC can disable the old OGL, the legal threats aren’t close to empty. Persuasion won’t work, the only hope is intimidation or a court case.
Fans will continue to lose their shit because that's what they do but cranking up the rhetoric just makes people tune you out.

It's a fine line, there needs to be a public stink Hasbro would rather not deal with it but if it gets over-the-top they are more likely to dismiss it as rabid cranks.
that doesn’t matter if it hits them in the wallet. WotC has absolutely no reason to give a shit about people complaining, whether politely or not. Why would they care? They do however care about sales.

Corporations are motivated almost completely by self-interest. They need to be convinced this is not in their self-interest. Ranting about the evils of greedy corporations will not appeal to their self-interest.

It’s not about ranting about evil corporations, it’s about hitting them in the money, exactly because they are motivated only by self interest. Make sure these plans are money losers, not money winners.

Fans' goal should be to back up the designers, not indulge themselves in a public temper tantrum.

Course that assumes there is a goal beyond having a public temper tantrum.
Where do you think WotC gets its D&D money? It doesn’t appear out of thin air.
 
Sure it is. If the OGL contains a poison pill you expel it. Better to put the work in now than a Band aid and have this happen again down the line. “Fool me once…”
For 23 years there was no poison pill. There still might not be, but that would have to be tested in court. If this did go to court and it was ruled against Hasbro, I don’t see what recourse they would have to do anything about it. Fixing it to actually be irrevocable would not be a band aid either. The OGL is not the only open license in existence, just more closely emulate the GPL in the area of irrevocability. You’d have to have some outside lawyers draw up the whole thing and WotC not doing anything but publish it unaltered of course.
 
Wizards has grown on me over the years. I like it more now than when I first saw it.

Growing up, it was one of those films I read about for years but was completely unavailable to rent or buy, much like Heavy Metal and a few others that took on a sort of mythic status. When, either via the discovery of the underground market in my mid-teens or the releases of long OOP properties during the DVD boom of the late 90s I was suddenly able to finally view all the films that had only lived in my imagination for years, many ended up, quite predictably, not living up to expectations. Wizards came across as a half-baked mess.

Years later I was able to revisit it with a more objective eye, and these days I don't have any animosity towards it, but even that initial disappointment aside, I've never was able to enjoy it. I don't know the entire story behind it's production, but it feels choppy & half-finished, like it was slapped together the best they could after the budget ran out.

Bakshi would, however, go on to do my second favourite animated film of the 1980's - Fire & Ice, one which holds up for me to this day.
 
Growing up, it was one of those films I read about for years but was completely unavailable to rent or buy, much like Heavy Metal and a few others that took on a sort of mythic status. When, either via the discovery of the underground market in my mid-teens or the releases of long OOP properties during the DVD boom of the late 90s I was suddenly able to finally view all the films that had only lived in my imagination for years, many ended up, quite predictably, not living up to expectations. Wizards came across as a half-baked mess.

Years later I was able to revisit it with a more objective eye, and these days I don't have any animosity towards it, but even that initial disappointment aside, I've never was able to enjoy it. I don't know the entire story behind it's production, but it feels half-baked, like it was slapped together the best they could.

Bakshi would, however, go on to do my second favourite animated film of the 1980's - Fire & Ice, one which holds up for me to this day.
Ralph Bakshi is one of my favorite film makers, he has been making socially conscious films and putting messages in his films for as long as I remember. Obviously he has done some commercial stuff as well but I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for him and his willingness to give the industry a middle finger and do his own thing.
 
There are two ways to fix it. One would be for WotC to release OGL 1.0b, which explicitly states that you can use any license ever released by WotC/Hasbro, rather than any authorized version, and that there is absolutely no provision for de-authorizing or otherwise shutting down any version of the license.

The second would be to fight Hasbro in court about it and win.
Well, yes, but realistically there doesn't seem to be a greater-than-zero chance of either of those happening. And even if 1) happened, everyone will still try to de-OGLify (that's the new word for it) because WotC management is not going to get any better.

How big is the OSR really?

I feel skeptical 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.
It punched above its weight at one point when it was innovative and exciting, to the extent that it had a big influence on the 5E PR machine. Since then it's been mostly tarred (still ongoing as seen in the recent PBS piece), which still argues for its relevance but this time as something to react against. But I agree crushing it is unlikely to be a huge concern for WotC - just the sweet, sweet icing on the cake.
 
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Well, yes, but realistically there doesn't seem to be a greater-than-zero chance of either of those happening. And even if 1) happened, everyone will still try to de-OGLify (that's the new word for it) because WotC management is not going to get any better.
And it would only be prudent.
 
Unless they actually do an about face and strengthen the Openness of the OGL, they’ve effectively killed it if people abandon it wholesale. People aren’t going to want to bet their livelihood that a judge somewhere down the line won’t invalidate their business.
 
Ralph Bakshi is one of my favorite film makers, he has been making socially conscious films and putting messages in his films for as long as I remember. Obviously he has done some commercial stuff as well but I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for him and his willingness to give the industry a middle finger and do his own thing.

As I mentioned, I love Fire & Ice, and I'll always have a great fondness for his Lord of the Rings, despite it's flaws. It was a pivotal film for me growing up.

I think American Pop is Bakshi's masterpiece, his most polished film and overall film-making accomplishment, but unfortunately the subject matter simply doesn't interest me, it's a cultural touchstone for a culture I was never a part of.

It's a great shame what happened with Cool World.

Coonskin was....interesting?
 
Yeah, not even brand loyalty should be able to save them this time. I suspect they already used that up with 5e.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...I guess executives don't think about something as quaint as old sayings:devil:?
 
You know I never encountered the pronunciation "Whatzee" before the last few days.

I think it sounds silly.
Well, the codeword I use for WotC when discussing them in another language is "those coast-witches"...:devil:
 
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Really? I've always sounded out the letters for ROTC. How intriguing.

Either I've never heard it spoken, or I have but haven't had the context to work out what was meant.
...Reserve Officer Training Corps:shade:?
 
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