Orphan OGL Products on DTRPG

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migo

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It seems clear that WotC is going ahead with their plan to de-authorize OGL 1.0a. Once they do that, they will probably tell DTRPG to remove all products under OGL 1.0a from the store, and DTRPG certainly doesn't want to risk being sued by WotC or even just having to remove WotC products from their catalogue (along with DM's Guild). So when WotC tells them to take it down, they will.

There are some games that are only available on DTRPG, and are no longer supported. Orphan products. Witchcraft from Eden Studios for instance. It wouldn't be affected as it's not OGL however. But some are.

Crafty Games has left the RPG business. So if Fantasy Craft is taken down, it won't be going back up, and Crafty won't be trying to make a version of it that is free of the OGL.

Anders Honoré is sick with Lyme disease, so while he may eventually be able to re-release Into the Unknown with SRD content scrubbed and without the OGL, it will be a while before that happens.

Then there's also the question of West End Games and OpenD6. While WotC probably doesn't care about anything based on OpenD6, OGL is OGL, and WEG is no longer around to re-release it under CC or ORC.

So I'd like to start this thread as a suggestion of games that may no longer be available in the near future, that if you've been thinking about getting them, you might want to do it now.

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migo said:
Then there's also the question of West End Games and OpenD6. While WotC probably doesn't care about anything based on OpenD6, OGL is OGL, and WEG is no longer around to re-release it under CC or ORC.
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According to Wikipedia, Nocturnal Media bought the rights. Now, if I'm not mistaken, that was the baby of Stewart Wieck, who died 5 years ago. The company/Stewart also owned Pendragon, which has since returned to Chaosium. I'm not sure about the legal circumstances of D6/WEG. Stewart's heirs?
 
migo said:
It seems clear that WotC is going ahead with their plan to de-authorize OGL 1.0a. Once they do that, they will probably tell DTRPG to remove all products under OGL 1.0a from the store, and DTRPG certainly doesn't want to risk being sued by WotC or even just having to remove WotC products from their catalogue (along with DM's Guild). So when WotC tells them to take it down, they will.
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My understanding of Wizard's current intent is people have to stop using 1.0a but previously published works are not affected.
 
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Stan said:
My understanding of Wizard's current intent is people have to stop using 1.0a but previously published works are not affected.
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That means you don't have to destroy inventory you already have. Not that you can do another print run. They might interpret it more leniently, but for the time being we need to assume the worst of them.
 
migo said:
That means you don't have to destroy inventory you already have. Not that you can do another print run. They might interpret it more leniently, but we need to assume the worst of them forevermore.
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Fixed that for you.

OTOH, PDFs are explicitly fine, so they should continue to sell just as before. It follows that the games themselves shouldn't be affected, and if you have PoD versions, that should be fine as well, because nothing in the license says that they should be treated differently from print.

We'll see how it goes.
 
AsenRG said:
Fixed that for you.

OTOH, PDFs are explicitly fine, so they should continue to sell just as before. It follows that the games themselves shouldn't be affected, and if you have PoD versions, that should be fine as well, because nothing in the license says that they should be treated differently from print.

We'll see how it goes.
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Elsewhere, perhaps. But if they tell DTRPG to bark, DTRPG will howl.
 
migo said:
Elsewhere, perhaps. But if they tell DTRPG to bark, DTRPG will howl.
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No, I mean that by their current statements, they shouldn't go after those products, just new ones - and the "orphaned" lines simply can't produce anything new, so there shouldn't be an issue.
Of course, IANAL and we all know how much we can trust WotC's show of goodwill, don't we:shade:?
 
Sosthenes said:
According to Wikipedia, Nocturnal Media bought the rights. Now, if I'm not mistaken, that was the baby of Stewart Wieck, who died 5 years ago. The company/Stewart also owned Pendragon, which has since returned to Chaosium. I'm not sure about the legal circumstances of D6/WEG. Stewart's heirs?
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Isn't Stewart Wiecks brother the owner of DTRPG? If that is correct I'm betting he would help the heirs or whoever owns the IP Shepard the products along. I believe Steve Wieck was one of the folks who jumped in to help Talislanta Savage Worlds get published after Stewart died mid project.
 
I do not think DTRPG or OBS would fold that easily. I imagine DMsGuild is not an insignificant amount of money to WotC.

The corporations we are talking about are not dragons sitting on titanic piles of gold, they are beholden to shareholders and in WotC’s case, have publicly available cashflow data. I don’t believe for a second that OBS will slit its throat to placate a WotC that is so clearly a paper tiger
 
Joseph Wolz said:
I do not think DTRPG or OBS would fold that easily. I imagine DMsGuild is not an insignificant amount of money to WotC.

The corporations we are talking about are not dragons sitting on titanic piles of gold, they are beholden to shareholders and in WotC’s case, have publicly available cashflow data. I don’t believe for a second that OBS will slit its throat to placate a WotC that is so clearly a paper tiger
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More importantly to do business with someone especially borderline exclusive business you have to really trust them. Like trust them not to break a contract. Does anyone trust WotC to do that?
 
migo said:
Crafty Games has left the RPG business. So if Fantasy Craft is taken down, it won't be going back up, and Crafty won't be trying to make a version of it that is free of the OGL.
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When did Crafty Games make that announcement? They still wave a banner for Mistborn, at least. I would love to see a new edition of Fantasy Craft (and SpyCraft for that matter, but that ship sailed long ago).
migo said:
Then there's also the question of West End Games and OpenD6. While WotC probably doesn't care about anything based on OpenD6, OGL is OGL, and WEG is no longer around to re-release it under CC or ORC.
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A quick Google search will show you OpenD6 is already under a CC license, but I don't know which one or what version.
Sosthenes said:
According to Wikipedia, Nocturnal Media bought the rights. Now, if I'm not mistaken, that was the baby of Stewart Wieck, who died 5 years ago. The company/Stewart also owned Pendragon, which has since returned to Chaosium. I'm not sure about the legal circumstances of D6/WEG. Stewart's heirs?
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Nocturnal still owns it. Who owns Nocturnal is now the question. Most assume it belongs to his estate.
Bunch said:
More importantly to do business with someone especially borderline exclusive business you have to really trust them. Like trust them not to break a contract. Does anyone trust WotC to do that?
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Not after the Weiss & Hickman and Gale Force 9 debacles. WotC no longer appears to operate in good faith.

Edit to add: Please go support Lightspress Media by purchasing Hippogryph, a fusion of the d20 SRD and Fate. The author is ending the line at the end of the month due to the OGL fiasco.
 
Crafty announced it's exit from RPG I think in December.
 
migo said:
They did under pressure from Evil Hat, and that was just with EH threatening to pull all their products from DTRPG.
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Threatening to pull all of your products is a different threat than “stop selling someone else’s products.”
 
Stan said:
My understanding of Wizard's current intent is people have to stop using 1.0a but previously published works are not affected.
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However, if that stands then we established that Wizards can remove authorization at a whim. At some future date remove that authorization from prior works and the problem M migo will come into play.
 
Bunch said:
Crafty announced it's exit from RPG I think in December.
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I cannot find any announcements on their new website, which is kinda garbage, to be honest. I can sign up for a newsletter, but no repository for old news.
Spellslinging Sellsword said:
I don't believe this is correct. To my knowledge OpenD6 was only released under the OGL.
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I may have to eat my words on this. A few days ago I was diving into this and found a several pages mentioning Creative Commons & the OGL 1.0a, now, nothing. It doesn't help that Nocturnal Media is currently radio silent and no one in the wild seems to know who controls it ATM.
 
Joseph Wolz said:
Threatening to pull all of your products is a different threat than “stop selling someone else’s products.”
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It was the same threat. They said stop selling James Desborough's GamerGate card game, or we'll pull all our products. They used their weight to get someone else's product taken off DTRPG.
 
migo said:
It was the same threat. They said stop selling James Desborough's GamerGate card game, or we'll pull all our products. They used their weight to get someone else's product taken off DTRPG.
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But it’s not the same threat, it was one product, not an entire class of them.
 
Joseph Wolz said:
But it’s not the same threat, it was one product, not an entire class of them.
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But when you compare the sales of WotC’s content on DrivethruRPG compared the games they would want gone I bet it wouldn’t be a hard decision if you just look at the numbers. :cry:
 
Joseph Wolz said:
But it’s not the same threat, it was one product, not an entire class of them.
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Right, it wasn't the same threat. There wasn't a copyright claim. With OGL 1.0a products there is one (until it reaches court). So they have even more reason to cooperate.
 
Malckuss said:
Nocturnal still owns it. Who owns Nocturnal is now the question. Most assume it belongs to his estate.
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Yeah, with a lot of the hobby's games made and run by individual creaters and owners, the decades won't be kind to legacy games. That was supposed to be a boon of the OGL, too.
 
migo said:
Right, it wasn't the same threat. There wasn't a copyright claim. With OGL 1.0a products there is one (until it reaches court). So they have even more reason to cooperate.
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I’m a lot more optimistic. I own a non-RPG business, and I know I’d take my chances if a supplier tried to do something this big and nasty. I’m a little nobody, but I’d run that big risk knowing what I know. The OBS crowd probably knows the market better than WotC does. Which is I guess what will tell.
 
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