Mod+ OGL 1.1 is not an Open License.

[AsenRG]

Let me say:

The premise is so good! I love it!

Yeah, I especially like the fact that they're inheriting a dead god, unlike the Exalted...

Squabbles over family inheritance are always nasty!

 

[CRKrueger]

If intent is a thing judges care about, here’s this from Dancey.

Yeah my public opinion is that Hasbro does not have the power to deauthorize a version of the OGL. If that had been a power that we wanted to reserve for Hasbro, we would have enumerated it in the license. I am on record numerous places in email and blogs and interviews saying that the license could never be revoked.

 

[Stumpydave]

As someone who doesn't play DnD (beyond Eye of the Beholder on Dosbox) should I care?
Are Hasbro trying to claim ownership of all rpgs?

(Seriously, the weight this is topic is gaining across the RPG web sphere, you'd think Hasbro were sending armed goons to peoples houses to confiscate any RPG material).

 

[CRKrueger]

The interesting part is that OGL 1.1 says it can be pulled for reasons of <Culture War>. Following the PBS propaganda that the OSR is <Culture War>, it seems like WotC has a honey coating to lather all over their poison pill for the anti-corp types.

 

[raniE]

As someone who doesn't play DnD (beyond Eye of the Beholder on Dosbox) should I care?
Are Hasbro trying to claim ownership of all rpgs?

(Seriously, the weight this is topic is gaining across the RPG web sphere, you'd think Hasbro were sending armed goons to peoples houses to confiscate any RPG material).

Many games use the OGL 1.0a yes. If this was just “WotCs new license to use their storefront and virtual tabletop is bad” it wouldn’t be getting anywhere near this much derision. But they’re fucking with not just third party publishers for D&D 5e but also with the whole OSR, close games like Pathfinder and Castles & Crusades and even completely unrelated games.

 

[Sable Wyvern]

...Reserve Officer Training Corps?

Yes, I know what it is. I just didn't know it was pronounced "rotsi", until this thread. In my head, it was always R-O-T-C.

 

[TJS]

Yes, I know what it is. I just didn't know it was pronounced "rotsi", until this thread. In my head, it was always R-O-T-C.

If that's what it is then I certainly didn't.

 

[Godfather Punk]

 

[Sable Wyvern]

If that's what it is then I certainly didn't.

It looks like R-O-T-C and "rotsi" are both used. I'm going to take a guess that the rotsi pronounciation is generally looked at as either disrespectful, ignorant, or both.

 

[Stumpydave]

Many games use the OGL 1.0a yes. If this was just “WotCs new license to use their storefront and virtual tabletop is bad” it wouldn’t be getting anywhere near this much derision. But they’re fucking with not just third party publishers for D&D 5e but also with the whole OSR, close games like Pathfinder and Castles & Crusades and even completely unrelated games.

Ok. If I write a game (let's call it 'Prisons and Pachyderms'), and I use the whole schtick, Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha, 'Magic missile', 'Cure wounds', Mind flayers, Beholders yadda yadda yadda. If I really push the intercompatibility of PnP and DnD Hasbro are saying I owe them?

If that is the case, I get that.

But if I write a game based on the cheesiest elements of early 90's urban/fantasy/horror. (Let's call it 'Not enough black:The Brooding') and I come up with an innovative system utilising tarot cards and rock paper, scissors what happens then?

 

[raniE]

Ok. If I write a game (let's call it 'Prisons and Pachyderms'), and I use the whole schtick, Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha, 'Magic missile', 'Cure wounds', Mind flayers, Beholders yadda yadda yadda. If I really push the intercompatibility of PnP and DnD Hasbro are saying I owe them?

If that is the case, I get that.

But if I write a game based on the cheesiest elements of early 90's urban/fantasy/horror. (Let's call it 'Not enough black:The Brooding') and I come up with an innovative system utilising tarot cards and rock paper, scissors what happens then?

We don’t know, but probably nothing (but TSR as I understand it sued GDW claiming that the first aid skill in Dangerous Journeys was based on the Cure Light Wounds spell from AD&D and thus was infringing, so who knows). However, games like that exist and are using the OGL 1.0a, which WotC wants to declare defunct. Even for games which aren’t using any of the mechanics from D&D this is causing a hassle, because they now have to come up with a different license and move everything they’ve published under the OGL over to that.

 

[AsenRG]

Yes, I know what it is. I just didn't know it was pronounced "rotsi", until this thread. In my head, it was always R-O-T-C.

Maybe you did. My first guess was Return of the Condor Heroes...and only because of the lack of H did I bother to google it!

 

[Vile Traveller]

But if I write a game based on the cheesiest elements of early 90's urban/fantasy/horror. (Let's call it 'Not enough black:The Brooding') and I come up with an innovative system utilising tarot cards and rock paper, scissors what happens then?

No-one else plays it?

 

[AsenRG]

No-one else plays it?

What else!

 

[TristramEvans]

Ok. If I write a game (let's call it 'Prisons and Pachyderms'), and I use the whole schtick, Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha, 'Magic missile', 'Cure wounds', Mind flayers, Beholders yadda yadda yadda. If I really push the intercompatibility of PnP and DnD Hasbro are saying I owe them?

Well, not exactly, you would likely receive a cease and desist and if for some silly reason you ended up in court, it's possible you'd be ordered to destroy all copies and/or pay a fine/restitution.

If you released the game under the existing OGL, you would have violated the terms of the OGL, which doesn't let you use protected IP like "Beholder" nor to directly advertise your game as compatible with D&D, and thus given no consideration/protection.

But if I write a game based on the cheesiest elements of early 90's urban/fantasy/horror. (Let's call it 'Not enough black:The Brooding') and I come up with an innovative system utilising tarot cards and rock paper, scissors what happens then?

Nothing. You've just created an RPG.

 

[JAMUMU]

What else!

I'm assuming that if you published Not Enough Black: The Broodening under the OGL, then you'd need to offer a tribute of human souls to the Coastal Wizards at each and every full moon, or die. And also you'd need to contend with Paradox spirits.

 

[Stumpydave]

I'm assuming that if you published Not Enough Black: The Broodening under the OGL, then you'd need to offer a tribute of human souls to the Coastal Wizards at each and every full moon, or die. And also you'd need to contend with Paradox spirits.

I'll be alright. I've a trenchcoat, katana AND a pair of sunglasses.

 

[Stumpydave]

If you released the game under the existing OGL, you would have violated the terms of the OGL, which doesn't let you use protected IP like "Beholder" nor to directly advertise your game as compatible with D&D, and thus given no consideration/protection.

Ooh, look at you with your high falutin' logic, rationality and lawyer talk! Next you'll be giving a full breakdown with analysis and fully supported evaluation.

 

[AsenRG]

I'll be alright. I've a trenchcoat, katana AND a pair of sunglasses.

Ready For Everything the GM can throw at you, I see...

 

[Stumpydave]

Not enough Black: The Broodening.

Character concept: Brooding antihero loner with a dark past
Character Name: Raven Edge

Powers:

Katana - can cut through anything. People, tanks, bullets, even metaphysical concepts. The only thing a katana can't cut through is another katana. If the player adopts a cool looking pose before or after making the blow, the damage is quadrupled.

Trenchcoat - will allow the katana to be hidden from scanners, metal detectors and rudimentary body searches. Also doubles a characters cool looking pose. This is quadrupled if it's blowing in the wind and octupled if there's a dry ice machine nearby.

Sunglasses - makes the character immune to any mind control or emotional affects. Also improves a characters perception, this effect is increased at night to the extent they can see the darkness in a persons soul.

Drawback:

Dark past - they must spend long hours sat brooding alone, staring at one of the following:

Out of a window - will gain an insight into the nature/location/plans of the bad guy.
Into a fire - will inflict additional damage.
At a blank wall - Makes them immune to damage.

Time spent brooding will occupy more time than exists, preventing them from joining a party, getting on the wrong side of bad guys or acting to use their powers to do anything.

 

[Gringnr]

Has there ever been a position that everything should be OSR?

According to some, it's the greatest engine ever, suitable for use in every genre, from horror to espionage to supers to sci-fi.

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.

Nor should they. Everyone fighting to get WotC to amend or change OGL 1.1 remind me of Charlie Brown going for that football one last time. Or someone returning to a philandering partner. It isn't going to get better. You will be happier and healthier without WotC.

The interesting part is that OGL 1.1 says it can be pulled for reasons of <Culture War>. Following the PBS propaganda that the OSR is <Culture War>, it seems like WotC has a honey coating to lather all over their poison pill for the anti-corp types.

I still maintain that content control is part and parcel of this whole thing. Tax the rich, silence the rest. Of all the (what was it, 6 or 8) consultants besides Zak and Pundit, none has been embroiled in any kind of scandal. None has become a vocal critic of WotC. And none has done as much to tie themselves to the brand. There is zero chance at this point that WotC don't know all too well who Pundit and Zak are. This, coupled with stuff like the PBS piece, probably has them thinking that the OSR is a liability rather than a boon. The two loudest proponesnts of the OSR out of all of their consultants haven't exactly done them any favors, publicity-wise.

Someone upthread (can't remember who, sorry) also opined that the OSR is a relatively small part of the hobby and I agree. And when you look at the fact that OSR doesn't necessarily mean "old versions of D&D", but instead LL, ACKS, LotFP, etc., I can understand why WotC would want to exert greater control. I'm not defending WotC, here, remember, I'm the guy who wants to see their stranglehold on the hobby broken. I'm just saying it makes sense from a business perspective. You have a small segment of the market, born out of your work, that has acquired a negative reputation, and doesn't directly put money into your pocket.

And, finally, maybe this is just the old person in me talking, as age messes with your perspective (or sharpens it, I dunno), nothing - and I mean nothing - lasts forever. 20 years of the OGL was a good run. It's amazing that it hapened in the first place, and it's amazing that it lasted as long as it did. Years from now, we'll be able to respond to this meme...



...with, "OGL1.0."

 

[robertsconley]

Meanwhile in the good news department Kevin Crawford has this to say

My position is that an OGL is unnecessary for anything I would permit and unsuitable for anything I wouldn't.

No one needs my permission to write mechanically-compatible *WN material. They don't even need my permission to write a mechanically 1-for-1 copy of the game, provided they use their own wording for the text and setting for the game. Nor do they need my permission to advertise their product as being *WN compatible, provided the title and presentation doesn't unduly imply that it's an official or Sine Nomine-backed product. All those things can be done whether I bless it or not. One could possibly argue that the baroque spell names in WWN are too unique to be freely reproduced, but I choose not to press that point because it would make life difficult for people who just want to describe a wizard and don't intend any infringement.

My specific unique IP is a different matter. A license is needed to set some adventure in the Latter Earth, or use the (same) Terran Mandate in your SWN adventure, or write an NPC who belongs to the Perimeter Agency, or use any of my other proper-noun IP. And an OGL isn't meant to give access to that sort of thing.

Hence a potential DriveThruRPG guild program, one that would allow explicit use of the IP in exchange for giving me a cut of the take. Being able to play in my sandbox is worth something, so it merits a license, but just making mechanically-compatible content set in your own world with your own toys isn't something I have any just claim on.

I have been privately telling people who ask about moving away from the SRD and the OGL to look at his books to see just how close he gets to D&D and draw your line at that point. The fact he feels that nobody needs a license to use his mechanics just makes that process easier.

 

[ScytheSong]

You know I never encountered the pronunciation "Whatzee" before the last few days.

I think it sounds silly.

Oddly, the "Whatzee" pronunciation was being used by employees of Wizards of the Coast back in the mid-'90s when they had their Game Center in Seattle's University District.

 

[raniE]

According to some, it's the greatest engine ever, suitable for use in every genre, from horror to espionage to supers to sci-fi.


Nor should they. Everyone fighting to get WotC to amend or change OGL 1.1 remind me of Charlie Brown going for that football one last time. Or someone returning to a philandering partner. It isn't going to get better. You will be happier and healthier without WotC.

I don't think they will change their plans fundamentally. But I do think that if a court decided that no, WotC has no ability to de-authorize the OGL 1.0a, then what WotC thinks about it doesn't matter, as they will have lost. And in that case, there would be no problem in still using the OGL.

 

[carpocratian]

In the end, all of this is driven by Hasbro's admitted desire to do whatever they can to maximize the amount of money they make off the D&D brand. I don't think it really goes beyond that. Their lawyers have most likely advised them to close up any potential IP loopholes out there, and they see the OGL as one of them. That is all just to serve their end goal, though, which is to monetize the hell out of everything, in every way they can. I doubt their thinking on the issue goes much deeper than that.

I very seriously doubt that they will be able to pull off a significant amount of long-term growth in the income they derive from D&D. There may be a little jump at first from whatever profit they derive from the upcoming movie, but I really do think we have seen "peak D&D" in terms of popularity and adoption of the game by the general public, and I really just don't see the IP working out as a general "lifestyle brand." As I said before, the combination of COVID, Stranger Things, and Critical Role gave the popularity of D&D a temporary boost, but that won't last. Unfortunately, Hasbro seems to see the numbers from the last few years as the shape of things to come, rather than the weird market fluctuation that it most likely was.

None of this is unusual corporate behavior, particularly when it comes to the various companies that have owned D&D. Hasbro and WOTC are already damaging the market value of Magic, their most valuable property, so it doesn't particularly surprise me that they are doing the same with D&D. Nobody can really do anything about that, though. Hasbro is going to do whatever the lawyers, executives, board members, and investors want to do, whether it is realistic or not.

When it comes to the hobby in general, the most important thing to come out of all this is the realization that it is best to avoid "open" licenses that are controlled by a corporation. If you are going to use an open license of some sort, use something like the Creative Commons, which isn't subject to the whims of a for-profit company. Despite the short term hassle, cost, and issues associated with making the switch, the third party content producers who are being affected need to just do it, and then move on. Take Hasbro and its business decisions out of the picture altogether.

 

[taosecurity]

It looks like R-O-T-C and "rotsi" are both used. I'm going to take a guess that the rotsi pronounciation is generally looked at as either disrespectful, ignorant, or both.

My wife and I are former Air Force officers. She is a ROTC grad and says "rotsi." Others say the same, or R-O-T-C. Both are acceptable.

 

[SirFrog]

You know I never encountered the pronunciation "Whatzee" before the last few days.

I think it sounds silly.

Huh, been using that for 25 years. I thought that was a common pronunciation for the acronym

aside: all acronyms are pronounceable, if it isn’t, it is an initialism

 

[Torque2100]

In the end, all of this is driven by Hasbro's admitted desire to do whatever they can to maximize the amount of money they make off the D&D brand. I don't think it really goes beyond that. Their lawyers have most likely advised them to close up any potential IP loopholes out there, and they see the OGL as one of them. That is all just to serve their end goal, though, which is to monetize the hell out of everything, in every way they can. I doubt their thinking on the issue goes much deeper than that.

I very seriously doubt that they will be able to pull off a significant amount of long-term growth in the income they derive from D&D. There may be a little jump at first from whatever profit they derive from the upcoming movie, but I really do think we have seen "peak D&D" in terms of popularity and adoption of the game by the general public, and I really just don't see the IP working out as a general "lifestyle brand." As I said before, the combination of COVID, Stranger Things, and Critical Role gave the popularity of D&D a temporary boost, but that won't last. Unfortunately, Hasbro seems to see the numbers from the last few years as the shape of things to come, rather than the weird market fluctuation that it most likely was.

None of this is unusual corporate behavior, particularly when it comes to the various companies that have owned D&D. Hasbro and WOTC are already damaging the market value of Magic, their most valuable property, so it doesn't particularly surprise me that they are doing the same with D&D. Nobody can really do anything about that, though. Hasbro is going to do whatever the lawyers, executives, board members, and investors want to do, whether it is realistic or not.

When it comes to the hobby in general, the most important thing to come out of all this is the realization that it is best to avoid "open" licenses that are controlled by a corporation. If you are going to use an open license of some sort, use something like the Creative Commons, which isn't subject to the whims of a for-profit company. Despite the short term hassle, cost, and issues associated with making the switch, the third party content producers who are being affected need to just do it, and then move on. Take Hasbro and its business decisions out of the picture altogether.

Absolutely what I have been saying and that is what seems to be happening based on ACKS II, Castles and Crusades and BASIC Fantasy. I am looking forward to new versions of S&W and OSE based on one of the above licenses.

For now, it's time to start working on that Everywhen (Genericized Barbarians of Lemuria system) Conversion of the World of the Lost Lands Conversion I was putting off.

 

[TristramEvans]

Welcome to The Pub taosecurity

 

[David Johansen]

Of course, it also gives everyone an excuse to publish and sell a new edition of their game and the frenzy about OGL 1.1 will push many people past their resistance to new editions.

 

[Bunch]

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 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 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.

I attribute pure financial and product goals to their motivation. My feeling is they felt all the older stuff split the "D&D market" and everything they do gets network effects only from the new stuff. But OSR made it clear they weren't going to be able to make it go away and it was making enough money that they should try to get some of it. Fans were begging them to. So they let them. I believe they gave a bounty for good scans or clean originals at one point.

5e seemed like an attempt to get the band back together. They tried to woo everyone back by giving everyone a little bit. Then the Millennials, Gen Z found it and grew it in a whole new direction. And their a huge demographic. So now they get top priority and everyone else is a distant second.

View attachment 54307

Is that from The Good Place?

 

[chuckdee]

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.

Where there's a whip... there's a way!

Yeah, love both of those- especially Fire & Ice.

 

[chuckdee]

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.)

I never got that sense. I saw it as more the reply to the Meta-Plot that was the hotness after Vampire and its ilk was released. TORG never had a framework in place to make it a universally applied property until Masterbook, which was a bit after TORG released and TORG wasn't even considered a masterbook release, IIRC.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterbook

 

[Fenris-77]

Where there's a whip... there's a way!

Yeah, love both of those- especially Fire & Ice.

I suspect that rather quite a few of my fighter PCs over the years have been influenced by Darkwolf.

Darkwolf: I saw the girl before. She is on the far side of the big tree. You go get her out, and I'll distract the others.

Larn: There must be 50 of them.

Darkwolf: That sounds about right.

 

[DeadBob]

It looks like R-O-T-C and "rotsi" are both used. I'm going to take a guess that the rotsi pronounciation is generally looked at as either disrespectful, ignorant, or both.

I leared it from a buddy in college who was en-rotsi, so...maybe?

 

[PolarBlues]

As someone who doesn't play DnD (beyond Eye of the Beholder on Dosbox) should I care?
Are Hasbro trying to claim ownership of all rpgs?

(Seriously, the weight this is topic is gaining across the RPG web sphere, you'd think Hasbro were sending armed goons to peoples houses to confiscate any RPG material).

As I understand it, the OGL serves two distinct purposes. The main one is to set the terms by which third parties can create D&D related content.

The other key purpose of the OGL was to create a generic, boilerplate template for similar agreements available to other game systems with no ties to D&D. Game systems like OpenD6 (WEG D6 system) Fudge, Warp (the sytem behind Over The Edge), originally Fate and others adopted the OGL so that third parties to could safely and legally create derivative works based on their games systems. So if I wanted to write my own D6- based game, rather than having to get agreement from the owner of OpenD6 and have a lawyer draft an agreement about what I can and can't use and what I retain control over, I'd just use the existing wording found in the OGL document, changing a few of the specific details.

Think of it a bit like a make-your-own-will kit. What you get is legally sound wording which is in itself valuable because legally correct wording can be weird and tiny mistakes can cause a lot of problems. Valuable enough that WoTC owns the wording of the OGL ("The following text is the property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.").

 

[raniE]

I attribute pure financial and product goals to their motivation. My feeling is they felt all the older stuff split the "D&D market" and everything they do gets network effects only from the new stuff. But OSR made it clear they weren't going to be able to make it go away and it was making enough money that they should try to get some of it. Fans were begging them to. So they let them. I believe they gave a bounty for good scans or clean originals at one point.

5e seemed like an attempt to get the band back together. They tried to woo everyone back by giving everyone a little bit. Then the Millennials, Gen Z found it and grew it in a whole new direction. And their a huge demographic. So now they get top priority and everyone else is a distant second.

Millennials were born from 1981 to 1996 or 1997. Most of us playing rpgs had discovered them way before 5th edition came out.

 

[Ladybird]

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).

I'm not sure that's fair - I remember Mearls iirc talking about running older-edition campaigns (Can't remember which edition it was), and Ray Winninger was an old-school TSR guy. That's just two; I assume there are more in the folk who aren't faces for the brand. But...

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.

...the folk who played older editions first time round are getting close to aging out of the workforce entirely. There's going to be a new generation in twenty years who look at our stuff as being old and historical curiosities. It happens - and if D&D can't survive it's fanbase evolving over time, then it deserves to die with it's fans.

I attribute pure financial and product goals to their motivation. My feeling is they felt all the older stuff split the "D&D market" and everything they do gets network effects only from the new stuff. But OSR made it clear they weren't going to be able to make it go away and it was making enough money that they should try to get some of it. Fans were begging them to. So they let them. I believe they gave a bounty for good scans or clean originals at one point.

5e seemed like an attempt to get the band back together. They tried to woo everyone back by giving everyone a little bit. Then the Millennials, Gen Z found it and grew it in a whole new direction. And their a huge demographic. So now they get top priority and everyone else is a distant second.

I mean, of course they're going to focus more on the people spending money on D&D than the folk just complaining about it (eg. us).

But also... they don't fully understand why people are into D&D now. It's not for the crunchiness of it, it's for the stories they can tell with it and the characters they can play in it. And the One D&D changes don't really enable that, or make the game better at doing that; possibly the only game design change they've made in that direction was the racial ability scores rules in TCoE.

 

[Fenris-77]

Most of us

 

[BedrockBrendan]

Indeed it is, Mediterranean culture was explicitly an influence on the setting!
Just look it up on Drivethru.

A good deal of the setting is Mediterranean. And the movie Agora was a very big influence on the premise. There is also a lot of Thai influence, ancient history influence in general, Conan, etc. A lot of early church history too