The OGL Fiasco. Did we get lucky?

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arjunstc said:
They just released a set of prepaintes minis to capitalise on nostalgia. They can't reprint the older books because those are "problematic" by their own ethos.
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I don’t buy that, they sell the PDFs and are doing their history of D&D book with reprints in there. They would have to price them right but even if they only offered the core three books those mini rulebooks would sell.
 
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There are anecdotes from retailers mentioning vast amounts of WotC products moving into the secondhand markets as they aren't moving in the expected numbers. It appears they are doing very targeted spending trying to maximize gains.

I think they are so out of touch and so close to going broke due to the financial woes raised recently they cannot afford to reprint niche products.
 
Malckuss said:
There are anecdotes from retailers mentioning vast amounts of WotC products moving into the secondhand markets as they aren't moving in the expected numbers. It appears they are doing very targeted spending trying to maximize gains.

I think they are so out of touch and so close to going broke due to the financial woes raised recently they cannot afford to reprint niche products.
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Probably. They really need to get out the next set of core rules since that is apparently what makes money.
 
Torque2100 said:
If they hadn't blinked, Hasbro could easily have secured a de facto monopoly on TTRPGs, forced even Paizo into line and ruined dissidents by nuking product libraries.
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How could they have "secured a de facto monopoly" on TTRPGS? I've not played D&D since 1e was out and I don't think I even own anything that would be covered by the OGL....this whole industry drama has completely passed me by and in no way impacted my gaming. Surely it would only affect D&D and adjacent games or am I missing something?
 
Edenfield99 said:
How could they have "secured a de facto monopoly" on TTRPGS? I've not played D&D since 1e was out and I don't think I even own anything that would be covered by the OGL....this whole industry drama has completely passed me by and in no way impacted my gaming. Surely it would only affect D&D and adjacent games or am I missing something?
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It potentially could have reached a bit further, I think FATE even used the OGL, but it would have mainly been the d20 fantasy games and their derivatives that would have been caught in the net.
 
They didn't back down completely. They put one version of the SRD into Creative Commons and allowed people to continue using the existing OGL Any future versions of the SRD have no guarantees at all of being published similarly. They wanted to take D&D 2024 private development. And they didn't back off that at all.
 
What they accomplished was pushing away a number of big names and companies. I don’t think we’ll see a huge success from any of the games that came out of this, PF2 has the best chance but it suffers from the internal competition of PF1, all the other niche games that came out will have limited if any impact. The real winner was ShadowDark, we’ll see if she can keep that momentum going in the coming years.

Yes, PF2 was not a direct result of this recent WotC fumble but I don’t think any of the 5E clones will gain any substantial traction, people will continue to just play 5e or switch to something else as opposed to 5e by another name
 
sharps54 said:
Probably. They really need to get out the next set of core rules since that is apparently what makes money.
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There is only that much money you can make by selling core rulebooks. That's why their CEO wanted to monetize the brand further.

It seems to me that their strategy now is not to just sell dead tree books, but to sell DLCs and merchandise. After all, more people buy Harley Davidson t-shirts than Harley Davidson bikes...
 
arjunstc said:
There is only that much money you can make by selling core rulebooks. That's why their CEO wanted to monetize the brand further.

It seems to me that their strategy now is not to just sell dead tree books, but to sell DLCs and merchandise. After all, more people buy Harley Davidson t-shirts than Harley Davidson bikes...
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Bingo. D&D is the brand and they need to monetize it further. I imagine the digital space is where they intend to generate their income, probably via various subscription-based models and DLC packs. Micro transactions, anyone?

Maybe we'll get a breakfast cereal down the line. It worked for Spaceballs.
 
Malckuss said:
I think they are so out of touch and so close to going broke due to the financial woes raised recently they cannot afford to reprint niche products.
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That and old-school grogs aren't their target audience. They're never going to see enough ROI from printing old stuff to justify it. I mean I might buy some 2e AD&D stuff, but I know how eBay works, too.
 
sharps54 said:
It potentially could have reached a bit further, I think FATE even used the OGL, but it would have mainly been the d20 fantasy games and their derivatives that would have been caught in the net.
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Fate and OpenD6 were the two games people kept pointing to as examples of how the OGL wasn't going to effect just D&D adjacent games.
sharps54 said:
What they accomplished was pushing away a number of big names and companies. I don’t think we’ll see a huge success from any of the games that came out of this, PF2 has the best chance but it suffers from the internal competition of PF1, all the other niche games that came out will have limited if any impact. The real winner was ShadowDark, we’ll see if she can keep that momentum going in the coming years.

Yes, PF2 was not a direct result of this recent WotC fumble but I don’t think any of the 5E clones will gain any substantial traction, people will continue to just play 5e or switch to something else as opposed to 5e by another name
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Shadowdark wasn't the only game to come out ahead. PF2E is supposedly selling better than PF1E did. Tales of the Valiant was only about $200k shy of ShadowDark's numbers, and MCDMs RPG project hit $4.6 million on Backerkit, and still has recurring revenue via Patreon, too.
arjunstc said:
There is only that much money you can make by selling core rulebooks. That's why their CEO wanted to monetize the brand further.

It seems to me that their strategy now is not to just sell dead tree books, but to sell DLCs and merchandise. After all, more people buy Harley Davidson t-shirts than Harley Davidson bikes...
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The spike from corebooks are supposed to be the bread and butter, but from WotC's perspective, the big push is Beyond and that DLC and other merch. They have stated they want to make D&D a lifestyle brand.

Beyond and it's monthly subscription model, individual book purchases, and yearly corebook updates. This would eliminate editions as we know them and move on to the EA Sports' Madden model; new year, new game, almost exactly the same, but there are plenty of people who will pay for the upgrade to the new hotness and drop the old game flat. We know this as they are referring to the new product as the 2024 rules, not 5.5 or 6E. They're PR has issued asinine statements like, "It goes beyond editions!" to try to distract from the fact it is indeed a new edition. Feats are core again, not optional. But supposedly, that's completely compatible with 5E.
 
Nakana said:
I'd say... for the time being... WoTC is lucky. But, their clock is ticking. More and more people are turning away from what I can see (and not quietly I might add). D&D is still the biggest rpg brand, but that is merely a gateway for people to discover other games.

It is 1998. WoTC is Microsoft and it is really their customers that are the ones that will ultimately lose out. ORC is the equivalent of Netscape's (notice my avatar) source code being released.
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So D&D is the marijuana of the RPG world. Does that make Palladium system the "acid" and "Unknown Armies" the LSD of the RPG world respectively?
 
sharps54 said:
BTW @
robb
robb if you enjoy AW or YZE I’m glad they do what you are looking for and I’m glad they are there for you. But for me the only games I really would be sad to see go from this century are Dungeon Crawl Classics, Aces & Eights and Barbarians of Lemuria. And the honest truth is I could easily get get along without the first two. I do feel BoL provides the best sword & sorcery feel of any game I’ve played but outside of it all my favorite games are from the first three decades of TTRPGs and I think they can provide just as good an experience as newer games on the market.
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Those systems were just examples. DCC is another great one. Look at the community it has fostered, the creativity. It is a plus for the hobby.

I have enough design experience to "just do everything with OD&D" but I don't for a minute think that I would have come up with all the things that new designers come up with.
I mainly play older games but I don't see
just as good an experience
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as equivalent to getting _different_ experiences, and I value that.
Yet, I still mainly play older systems (partially because my players are bastards that cannot play nice and partially because I like older systems).
 
Honestly WoTC’s D&D division was always going to run into trouble with its corporate overlords. Companies in all forms of entertainment now demand endless growth, they want properties to have blockbuster after blockbuster each bigger than the last.

TRPGs don’t work like that, they’ve always had trends and fallow periods with very short bursts of transient public interest outside of the niche diehard fan base. Hence why they’re desperately trying to push D&D as a “lifestyle brand”.
 
The thing is all these licenses and agreements are just paper, and likewise WoTC, in that ragard is a paper tiger.

Yes they can probably outspend any individual actor but they can't take the chance of an actual magistrate ruling "WoTC my guys, you can't copyright mechanics or elves so get fucked. Call be back when you've got a real plagiarism case" even if it's a 1/20 chance. Because then what? There's already a whole cottage industry of copyright dodgers, but then you wouldnt even need to mount a weird compagny montage in Russia or whatever, you can just laugh and ignore any C&D from wizturd upon receipt - unless you litterally ctrl+C ctrl+V sections of their books or something.

And that's also not couting the fact that they do not want to be spending more money right now, and especially not on D&D - as demonstrated by their open cost-cutting policy. The all out lawyer warfare requires an actuall will to spend a shit ton of money and I don't think they're rich enough to battle large scale legal contestation in multiple states/nations anyway. Actually doing this requires like tobacco industry level money, and Hasbro is a seck of dust compared to that (any single big cig compagny outrevenues them 7 to 1, let alone combined).
 
Nakana said:
I'd say... for the time being... WoTC is lucky. But, their clock is ticking. More and more people are turning away from what I can see (and not quietly I might add). D&D is still the biggest rpg brand, but that is merely a gateway for people to discover other games.

It is 1998. WoTC is Microsoft and it is really their customers that are the ones that will ultimately lose out. ORC is the equivalent of Netscape's (notice my avatar) source code being released.
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Yes but in this case Netscape isn't needed at all.
 
Torque2100 said:
Now that the dust has largely settled, I think we can say that the outcome was for the most part positive. The OGL 1.0 a and c remained in place. Those who wished to continue using them were free to, though I think most of the industry is moving to truly open game licenses like the ORC.
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I think it was a good result with Creative Commons and ORC now in the mix of options. Each with a growing community of folks contributing material under those licenses.


Torque2100 said:
That said, there's an intrusive thought that keeps popping up. Did we get lucky?
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Yes and no. Fucking with the OGL was always going to be playing with fire. So that part was certain.

Where luck came into play is how it was resolved. We now have ORC which is a strong sharealike proponent when it comes to game mechanics. We have Creative Commons BY as an option for those who want to share but feel uncomfortable with requiring other to share. Of course CC-SA exists as an alternative to ORC for those who feel strongly about share-alike but have issues with ORC.

Then the OGL still has inertia and supported by the vast library of material shared under that license. Finally I don't think anybody expected a strong reaffirmation of RPG open content under open licenses with new folks like Chaosium finally releasing open content. So that was a bit of luck as well.


Torque2100 said:
What if WotC didn't back down? What if the WotC management response was to double down. "I don't care what the internet says. Pedal to the medal, and if they won't sign sue the bastards."
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The OGL library of open content would have been dead to anybody serious about publishing and sharing. Regardless if was D20 or 5e SRD related or not.

The concept of game mechanics can't be copyrighted only their expression would have received a major workout. Paizo would have still done something like ORC and those who are supporting ORC now would have still have joined up.

However if WoTC started suing those efforts the adoptions of alternatives would have slowed.

In general, everybody publishing and sharing would looking at the first few test cases and once a pattern has emerged then act accordingly.

Torque2100 said:
I can't help but think that WotC would have come out in top. There'd be some complaints, but really no one in a hobby industry really has the resources to go toe to toe with Hasbro's lawyers.
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I know of several independently wealthy indie publishers that were ornery enough and passionate enough to taken on WoTC. And I have to stress anybody big in gaming (computer or paper) are loathe to test "game mechanics can't be copyrighted" and open content license. They really don't want to risk a precedent to be set.

Most of the current decisions in favor of open content license like the GPL occurred because some small or mid-sized outfit decided to cheat and rip off somebody or take a shortcut. Bigger corporations tend to try to make a settlement.



Torque2100 said:
If they hadn't blinked, Hasbro could easily have secured a de facto monopoly on TTRPGs, forced even Paizo into line and ruined dissidents by nuking product libraries.
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Force some out of business perhaps. But Wizards would have never gained a total monopoly from this. It is too easy for independents to create, polish, and distribute a RPG.

The big unknown from this situation is not Paizo or other RPG publishers. The big unknown is DriveThruRPG. With the threat of lawsuits realized anything using the OGL would have to disappear from their storefront and it would not only gut their library but possibly overwhelm their staff trying to deal with this stuff.
 
Is it too early to start welcoming players of 5e retroclones like Shadowdark and Tales of the Valiant into the OSR?

Another winner from the OGL debacle was Free League. I get the impression from the FL staff on the Dragonbane discord that Dragonbane's sudden popularity caught FL off guard.
 
Torque2100 said:
Is it too early to start welcoming players of 5e retroclones like Shadowdark and Tales of the Valiant into the OSR?

Another winner from the OGL debacle was Free League. I get the impression from the FL staff on the Dragonbane discord that Dragonbane's sudden popularity caught FL off guard.
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I thought Shadowdark had always been considered an OSR game, albeit one with a 5e-ish flavor.

I mean it stole all its mechanics from Pundit, dontchaknow :tongue:

Having perused it lightly, I think it's old-school at heart.
 
sharps54 said:
Maybe, we’ll have to see how 6th edition D&D goes over. I wouldn’t count them out yet even if I’m not a fan and the only reason I don’t want them to go under is because I want TSR era PDFs to remain available.

As for ORC I find I interesting more than one lawyer in the industry is skeptical of it and I’d be careful before trusting it as the true fix.
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I'd be a little skeptical of those lawyers. A couple of those guys came barreling into the Discord early on, and one thing that became very clear right away is that they didn't understand the OGL hardly at all, its history or its verbiage.
 
Tbh I hope more for new unique stuff than more rethreading of threaded paths and self-limiting to X or Y formula. The OGL cracking was a defacto opening of horizons for many creatives, and that's what's going to be interesting to me. I hope this creative energy isn't all absorbed in new self-limiting and labels and whatnot, whether ELF, OSR or ORC or whatever.
 
sharps54 said:
I don’t think we need any more systems, we already have more games than any of us could ever play and honestly I’m sick of trying to keep up with all the new releases. I realize companies have to sell things to stay in business but I’d rather see new adventures, supplements and settings for existing games.
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Yeah, I’m not sure who you mean by “we”… I’m only speaking for myself. Some of my favorite games have come out in the last 10 years.

I want to see continued creativity and growth rather than just recycling the same stuff again and again with a slightly different facade.
 
Shadowdark is decidedly OSR in it's goals and execution. The only people who wouldn't welcome it into the OSR are those that have a very narrow view of what OSR means. That's fine and all, but that definition doesn't really throw open the doors in welcome. I know I've referred to Shadowdark as an OSR game many times, so at least for me its already there.
 
Shadowdark is part of the OSR.

Like Dungeon Crawl Classic and Goodman Games, Kelsey incorporated folks already involved in the OSR into marketing of its release as well as bringing in a bunch of new folks.

Mechanics wise Shadowdark is firmly within the D&D family of RPGs. The fact it is a lite ruleset makes it a good fit for what the OSR generally likes. Finally the classic array of stuff like Monsters, Magic, and other stuff are covered in the core rules. Along with plenty of her own ideas.
 
There’s not much use in arguing if something is OSR anymore as it has mostly become a meaningless marketing term. If a product calls itself OSR I’ll take that at face value, these days I need other descriptors to sell me, ones that actually have useful meaning.
 
Turkey Lurkie said:
That's the point, no alternative is needed
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Ah, let me clear the confusion.

I’m emphasizing the importance of the concept of alternative. Any alternative. I’m not looking for a single specific game.

Microsoft defeated Netscape, and for their death save they released the source code so alternatives against MS would always be possible.

ORC = released source code.

So hypothetically, if WoTC got into a legal battle with Chaosium and destroyed them. I could take the entirety of the BRP and republish it 99.99% “as-is”. And so can anyone else. It literally cannot be defeated now.
 
I do wonder if we have, in fact, taken the bullet. There appears to be an increasing tide of D&D/AI dreck flooding the channels. Part of me wishes WoTC could make D&D a walled garden so that everyone else could avoid its effluvium.
 
SJB said:
I do wonder if we have, in fact, taken the bullet. There appears to be an increasing tide of D&D/AI dreck flooding the channels. Part of me wishes WoTC could make D&D a walled garden so that everyone else could avoid its effluvium.
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I don't get this. No one is forcing you to read, buy, or play anything. There are lots of vibrant communities online dedicated to games other than D&D.
 
SJB said:
I do wonder if we have, in fact, taken the bullet. There appears to be an increasing tide of D&D/AI dreck flooding the channels. Part of me wishes WoTC could make D&D a walled garden so that everyone else could avoid its effluvium.
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One solution is to hang out in more curated spaces.
 
Rift_Knight said:
So D&D is the marijuana of the RPG world. Does that make Palladium system the "acid" and "Unknown Armies" the LSD of the RPG world respectively?
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I've heard unsubstantiated fan-made theories that said substances have been involved in the creation of the games in question, so who knows::honkhonk:?
 
sharps54 said:
There’s not much use in arguing if something is OSR anymore as it has mostly become a meaningless marketing term. If a product calls itself OSR I’ll take that at face value, these days I need other descriptors to sell me, ones that actually have useful meaning.
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It was always a meaningless marketing term stemming back to its original use in 2009-2010. The OSR then already had several very different approaches like the close retro-clones versus gonzo versus classic D&D with a touch of D&D 3.X and so on.
 
robertsconley said:
It was always a meaningless marketing term stemming back to its original use in 2009-2010. The OSR then already had several very different approaches like the close retro-clones versus gonzo versus classic D&D with a touch of D&D 3.X and so on.
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I’m not being down on the genre or the products, I just think creators can’t assume that a customer will have the same idea of what OSR is as they do. It seems to me the closest the community got to trying to enforce a standard was when Dan Proctor tried to do an OSR Lulu storefront and people squabbled over the inclusion of Carcosa.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I think people on forums are waaayyy more concerned about this whole topic than your average buyer of OSR games.
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Of course, the creators (game designers, YouTube and podcast commentators) and active participants in forums have always been a tiny part of the player base as a whole. Still if you put B/X or OSE compatible on your product I know that I maybe shouldn’t expect to easily slap in my Mothership game, if you just put OSR I don’t have that extra information in the system compatibility or lack of.
 
sharps54 said:
Of course, the creators (game designers, YouTube and podcast commentators) and active participants in forums have always been a tiny part of the player base as a whole. Still if you put B/X or OSE compatible on your product I know that I maybe shouldn’t expect to easily slap in my Mothership game, if you just put OSR I don’t have that extra information in the system compatibility or lack of.
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Most games are pretty up front about what they are trying to do and what they are compatible with. A game that isn't up front and just uses the phrase OSR would make me a little suspicious.
 
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