# New OGL - what would be acceptable? (+)



## Umbran

This is a (+) thread.  If you aren't interested in talking about what we'd find acceptable in a new license, please find another discussion.  

We are talking a lot about what isn't acceptable.  But, let us think in terms of a counter-offer.  

1) No OGL is revoked.  Create the OGL v1.0b - it is the same as v1.0a, but includes the extra words that make it clearly irrevocable.  The SRD for 3e, 3.5, and 5e remain under the OGL (and now can be used under the irrevocable license).

2) The new license is the "OneD&D Open License", or somesuch.  So, not actually a new version of the OGL.  OneD&D may be released under the OD&DOL, so folks who want to work explicitly with OneD&D can do so, and can't revert it to OGL.

3) WotC can reserve rights to commercial videogames, software, movies, TV, novels and such.  That's fair.  
3a) Non-commercial software and media are allowed.  Actual play programs are explicitly differentiated from other reserved media, and explicitly allowed.  

4) WotC can have rights to some royalties from big players, but they are a percentage of _profits_, rather than percentage of revenue.  That way, a runaway success product or new publisher can't accidentally find themselves taking a loss due to royalties.

What am I missing?  I may take good suggestions from the thread and add them to the list above.


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## Retreater

All counter-offers can keep the clause about terminating the license due to bigoted content.


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## Umbran

Retreater said:


> All counter-offers can keep the clause about terminating the license due to bigoted content.




In the OD&DOL, certainly.  I'd rather not see people have to argue over whether static racial stat mods are bigoted or not, so maybe the OGL v1.0b can get by without?


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## mamba

Acceptable: free and open (no registration, no income reporting, no fee), perpetual, irrevocable, limited to static content whether print, PDF or VTT

Unacceptable: anything less than that.

So WotC gets their wish with no NFTs, no computer games, etc. but the TTRPG part (including VTT) stays as is.

The problem with even requiring registration is that then it is not irrevocable, all WotC has to do is take down the site they use for 3PPs to register their products.


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## darjr

Public domain SRD.

Edit: Please take with a grain of salt.


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## Art Waring

Protection for current & future publishers from being forced into a new license or modified terms they don't agree with for any reason, as was the original intention of the 1.0a OGL.

100% Open, and 100% Irrevocable by any future individual, company, or corporate entity.

No royalties, reporting income, or registration with any third party. 100% perpetual wordwide royalty-free forever (or optimistically at least the next 30-50 years).

Assurances that corporate interference with the license is in the document itself rather than a FAQ, that way the license is crystal clear and set in stone.


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## Umbran

darjr said:


> Public domain SRD.
> 
> Edit: Please take with a grain of salt.




Yeah.  I mean, sure, we'd accept that, but it isn't a viable counter offer, either.  Not really in the spirit of the thing.


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## Umbran

mamba said:


> So they get no NFTs, no computer games, etc. but the TTRPG part (including VTT) stays as is




Sorry, who is "they"?  Third party publishers can't do NFTs, computer games, and such, you mean?


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## GMforPowergamers

I would say there could be a fee (much smaller then 20%) if you sell more then 750k, but that % needs to be based on profit not revenue. 

Off hand I would make it a graded 

maybe even lower...

something like "The first 500,000 of revenue has no fee. Once you hit 500,001 you pay 3% of your profit, but then if you make more then 750,000 you are going to pay 5% of your profit and if you make 1,000,000 you pay 7% of your profit... if you make 1,250,000 you get a job at wotc and pay them 10% of your profit


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## Sacrosanct

I’d be ok with 1.1 having reporting and royalties and limiting to various media types and on approved platforms (like DnD Beyond) IF they opened up IP to use. Similar to DMsGuild, but open up all settings, And they keep the existing OGL of course. Pretty much a lot of what you had in your OP.


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## mamba

Umbran said:


> Sorry, who is "they"?  Third party publishers can't do NFTs, computer games, and such, you mean?



WotC is 'they', sorry if that was not clear. I.e. WotC gets their wish in that regard


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## Alzrius

Umbran said:


> 3) WotC can reserve rights to commercial videogames, software, movies, TV, novels and such.  That's fair.



I'd argue against the novels clause; while we can dicker over what constitutes a "novel" per se, the exclusion of prose fiction is a bit too problematic considering what's in a lot of adventure modules and related materials. Heck, I've read novels and short story collections published under the OGL which had game stats for characters and items used in the story, which I got a kick out of, and I'd rather not see those excluded going forward.


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## Riley

The one thing needed, for me, is Wizards affirming the irrevocability of the old OGL, such as with the 1.0b you suggest. 

Anything else, I won’t care much.


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## Umbran

Alzrius said:


> I'd argue against the novels clause; while we can dicker over what constitutes a "novel" per se, the exclusion of prose fiction is a bit too problematic considering what's in a lot of adventure modules and related materials.




This is a license _for material in the SRD_.  Not for working with D&D-isms in a general sense.  How much do you need explicit SRD content in your novel?



Alzrius said:


> Heck, I've read novels and short story collections published under the OGL which had game stats for characters and items used in the story, which I got a kick out of, and I'd rather not see those excluded going forward.




So, you have a novel, and then an OGL setting supplement for your novel.


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## Dausuul

My first proposal would be the status quo ante. 1D&D gets an SRD released under the OGL, just like 5E, and then people who want to use the D&D trademarks and product identity can use the DM's Guild, under whatever terms Wizards cares to set. Seems like that was working fine for everybody, why mess with it?

Alternatively, here's another option: Wizards releases a new version of the OGL which closes the loopholes they seem to be trying to exploit. They declare it an authorized version, so any current licensee can migrate to it. Then they do whatever they like with 1D&D.


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## Malmuria

The question I have is whether you even need a license to create a game that has some combination of six ability scores, hit points, hit dice, saving throws, and a fantasy/dungeon theme.  At what point do mechanics become expression?  As far as I can see, the OGL is an expression of beneficence from a company that has more resources than independent creators but may not actually be in the right, legally.


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## Umbran

Sacrosanct said:


> I’d be ok with 1.1 having reporting and royalties and limiting to various media types and on approved platforms (like DnD Beyond) IF they opened up IP to use. Similar to DMsGuild, but open up all settings, And they keep the existing OGL of course. Pretty much a lot of what you had in your OP.




Hm.  The settings bit is horse-trading outside the license itself.  Might be an interesting way for them to get us to accept a license that, say, has a higher royalty rate than we might like to see.


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## mamba

Malmuria said:


> The question I have is whether you even need a license to create a game that has some combination of six ability scores, hit points, hit dice, saving throws, and a fantasy/dungeon theme.  At what point do mechanics become expression?  As far as I can see, the OGL is an expression of beneficence from a company that has more resources than independent creators but may not actually be in the right, legally.



all true, but that was true for 1.0a as well


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## Yaarel

A restriction that I have sympathy for would be the open license forbids bigotry.

Heh, but I wouldnt really trust other people to be in the position to decide what is or isnt bigoted.

So, I am unsure how a contract would approach that.


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## Umbran

Malmuria said:


> The question I have is whether you even need a license to create a game that has some combination of six ability scores, hit points, hit dice, saving throws, and a fantasy/dungeon theme.




You don't, technically.  But, arguing that is outside the scope of this (+) thread.

Assume that having some licenses as safe harbors is a good thing.  What should those licenses look like?


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## Yaarel

The "irrevocable" needs to become noncontravertable.

Im interested in the gaming engine using Eight Abilities (or maybe four), rather than six. This would also signal a "not-D&D" even if comparable.

I would also rename the abilities as "Aptitudes".


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## Greg Benage

For me, it’s all about revocation. Lose that, and I feel like they can do what they want with 1D&D and the license to its content. Honestly, I think as long as they have DM’s Guild, they’ll be just fine.

I have no idea what y’all are thinking with the royalties based on “profits” idea. It doesn’t work like that. As you may know, we did a fair amount of licensing at FFG during my time (Tolkien Enterprises, George RR Martin, Blizzard, Lucasfilm, etc.), and I never saw a royalty based on “profits.”

As a commercially published novelist, if a publisher came to me offering a royalty based on their “profits,” I’d…well, I’d just explain that I’m a writer, not an investor, and then I’d go send a note to the SFWA and Writer Beware.


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## darjr

OK

I think a third party created license would work.

Something that isn't under WotC's control.

Then WotC could release OGC under that license.

That way no one need trust WotC.


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## Cadence

If they give a 1.0b like you describe, I'm not particularly picky about what they put in the new one for ONE/5.5 .  For that, I  would defer to those who would produce content under the more restrictive one for ONE/5.5 about the details they and WotC could both live with.


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## Umbran

Yaarel said:


> Im interested in the gaming engine using Eight Abilities (or maybe four), rather than six. This would also signal a "not-D&D" even if comparable.
> 
> I would also rename the abilities as "Aptitudes".




This thread is not about how to build a game that doesn't need a license.  Take that to another thread, please.


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## Yaarel

Umbran said:


> This thread is not about how to build a game that doesn't need a license.  Take that to another thread, please.



When you asked what should a new license look like, I didnt read to the end that it would be WotC granting this ideal license.


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## Yaarel

darjr said:


> That way no one need trust WotC.



Yeah. That is it in a nutshell.

The license would need to be confidently acceptable to gamers who dont trust WotC.


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## Umbran

Greg Benage said:


> I have no idea what y’all are thinking with the royalties based on “profits” idea. It doesn’t work like that. As you may know, we did a fair amount of licensing at FFG during my time (Tolkien Enterprises, George RR Martin, Blizzard, Lucasfilm, etc.), and I never saw a royalty based on “profits.”




I know.  But for small publishers, profit margins are small.  Specifically, if the profit margin per unit is smaller than revenue-royalty percentage, a successful publisher can _lose_ money, as the royalties eat up the profits.  The goal of that item was to prevent this possibility. 

Some other terms to prevent that eventuality would be acceptable.



Greg Benage said:


> As a commercially published novelist, if a publisher came to me offering a royalty based on their “profits,” I’d…well, I’d just explain that I’m a writer, not an investor, and then I’d go send a note to the SFWA and Writer Beware.




Yeah, but that's a completely different arrangement.  Author-publisher is not the arrangement we are talking about here.   Specifically, as the author of a novel, your financial risk is limited - you don't put your own money into getting the thing printed and distributed.

For game products, the licensee is assumed to not only be doing the creating, but taking all the financial risk of publishing.


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## mamba

Greg Benage said:


> As a commercially published novelist, if a publisher came to me offering a royalty based on their “profits,” I’d…well, I’d just explain that I’m a writer, not an investor, and then I’d go send a note to the SFWA and Writer Beware.



The difference to me is that here WotC is offering a license for anyone to take, not one specifically negotiated. So WotC does not really have to do anything beyond what they are already doing, all the actual work falls on the third party. So in essence WotC gets a free check for doing nothing, at which point sharing in the profits is plenty. (I am sure WotC disagrees with that characterization  ).


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## Umbran

Yaarel said:


> When you asked what should a new license look like, I didnt read to the end that it would be WotC granting this ideal license.




Who other than WotC could grant a license for OneD&D?


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## Yaarel

Umbran said:


> 3) WotC can reserve rights to commercial videogames, software, movies, TV, novels and such.  That's fair.
> 3a) Non-commercial software and media are allowed.  Actual play programs are explicitly differentiated from other reserved media, and explicitly allowed.



I take exception to term 3).

As long as the software app, videogame, movie, or TV show stays clear of the "designated Product Identity", then the use of the SRDs is fair game.

Character builder apps that fill out the SRD info, including class stats, spell descriptions, etcetera are fine.

The tv show, _Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina_, is fair use of the SRD. And awesome for the D&D community!

If Hasbro wants to make money from a high quality D&D-theme animation series, then Hasbro can make one. Please do. It looks like they are making a high quality cinema movie. It will make money or not by being a show that gamers want want to see.

If someone writes a novel, referring to SRD content. No problem.

The SRD is for any media.


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## darjr

Umbran said:


> Who other than WotC could grant a license for OneD&D?



They could make an SRD and release it under one of many Creative Commons licenses that already exist.


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## Yaarel

Umbran said:


> Who other than WotC could grant a license for OneD&D?



Almost anybody except Hasbro-WotC, would be more trustworthy.

Maybe crowdsource pro-bono lawyers to publically hash out a new irrevocable legal contract.

Or declare the SRD content public domain.


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## Umbran

darjr said:


> That way no one need trust WotC.




But then, you have to trust that third party.  And woe betide you if WotC eventually _buys_ the third party.  And woe betide WotC if some competitor buys the third party.


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## mamba

Maybe I am getting soft with age, but I see two ways forward. One new license replacing the current 1.0a with the terms from my original post, or a fork in the road.

The latter would be leaving 1.0a as is and unrevoked. Issuing a 1.0b with the terms of 1.0a plus the little word ‘unrevocable’ and attaching that to all the existing SRDs, so that anyone who wants to migrate to that can (in case they no longer trust WotC with 1.0a). Heck, they can even exclude NFTs and programs (except VTTs) here for all I care.

And finally, they can come along with the OGL 1.1 for the 1DD SRD and get more strict and creative there still. Ask for a share of the profits if the profits (not revenue) exceeds 500k, and have a badge. Be my guest.
It still needs to allow for print, PDF and VTT use however. Compete on the quality of your VTT, not by shutting everyone else down.


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## darjr

Umbran said:


> But then, you have to trust that third party.  And woe betide you if WotC eventually _buys_ the third party.  And woe betide WotC if some competitor buys the third party.



Unless that third party is the creative commons folks? Or a consortium that then releases the license.

Here's a list of them that nobody owns.





						About The Licenses - Creative Commons
					

The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools forge a balance inside the traditional “all rights reserved” setting that copyright law creates.




					creativecommons.org


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## Umbran

darjr said:


> They could make an SRD and release it under one of many Creative Commons licenses that already exist.




I think this is a language issue.  Granting a license and _writing the license_ are not the same thing.


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## Twiggly the Gnome

Perhaps the copyright to the hypothetical OGL v1.0b could be assigned to the Open Gaming Foundation.


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## darjr

Umbran said:


> I think this is a language issue.  Granting a license and _writing the license_ are not the same thing.



I'm not sure what you mean.

WotC's counter offer could be to choose a CC license off that list. Then release an SRD under said license.

They wouldn't own the license and thus couldn't change it. No need to trust them. Sure you'd need to trust that license, but it's one from the Creative Commons folks which I think grants them quite a bit of trust in that license. Note you wouldn't need to trust the CC folks either, just that thier license is sound.

WotC wouldn't have to promise not to change it because they couldn't change it. Even if they wanted to.


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## Greg Benage

Umbran said:


> I know. But for small publishers, profit margins are small. Specifically, if the profit margin per unit is smaller than revenue-royalty percentage, a successful publisher can _lose_ money, as the royalties eat up the profits. The goal of that item was to prevent this possibility.



It feels a little pointless to debate this because it's never gonna happen. Kickstarter isn't interested in 5-8% of your "profits," and Wizards won't be either. Some thoughts in no particular order:

I'm not sure someone doing $750,000+ on a crowdfunded campaign counts as a "small publisher."
Granted that I have no experience in the Kickstarter era, I find the 20% prohibitive. I assume no one will be crowdfunding big 1D&D projects unless they cut a side deal with Wizards. I feel like this is probably the intent of the provision.
If you _can_ do a $750,000 Kickstarter campaign, you can create a budget with allowances for the 20% royalty on sales above $750,000. I created budgets for OGL products with allowances for a 60% distributor discount on the first dollar of sales, and I'd make breakeven on preorders. If I couldn't do that, we didn't do the book. (You might have noticed that FFG would drop the axe on a line at a moment's notice.)
My concern about small publishers would be more focused on termination/revocation language. The royalty rate for actual small publishers is 0%.


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## Branduil

darjr said:


> I'm not sure what you mean.
> 
> WotC's counter offer could be to choose a CC license off that list. Then release an SRD under said license.
> 
> They wouldn't own the license and thus couldn't change it. No need to trust them. Sure you'd need to trust that license, but it's one from the Creative Commons folks which I think grants them quite a bit of trust in that license. Note you wouldn't need to trust the CC folks either, just that thier license is sound.
> 
> WotC wouldn't have to promise not to change it because they couldn't change it. Even if they wanted to.



I think this is really the only way for anyone to sign onto a new OGL. WotC has "irrevocably" demonstrated they can never be trusted again as stewards of an open license. Any future OGLs must be authored in such a way that they cannot be revoked, not just because of specific wording, but because there isn't even any specific owner who can claim to do such a thing.


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## Clint_L

mamba said:


> ...no NFTs...



I think this is one thing all parties can agree upon!


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## darjr

Clint_L said:


> I think this is one thing all parties can agree upon!



I cannot agree more.


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## Yaarel

Clint_L said:


> I think this is one thing all parties can agree upon!



NFTs are just a place to put artwork.

If people want to throw money at NFTs that is their business. (Heh, it wont be me.)


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## Scribe

1. The current OGL remains as is, updated only to state it is unrevocable and will not be changed. This leaves all current products as is, and without risk.

That is step one to me.


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## mamba

Going back and forth on my idea of the fork in the road and having an unrevocable 1.0b for the current and prior SRDs and a separate one for 1DD that is closer to WotC’s ideas.

The issue is: at that point I stay with 1.0a/b and leave WotC behind (but do not boycott everything Hasbro at least  ). I have no problem with that but I assume WotC does, so it kinda misses the point of the initial question. So if WotC wants me to stick with them / 1DD,  it does indeed take what I wrote in my first post, a free, open, perpetual and unrevocable OGL 1.1

Also, out of curiosity, if there were a fork like that, do we have any idea where the 3PPs would fall? Stick with 1.0, move to 1.1, publish for both?
I guess anyone with their own rulebook stays with 1.0, anything else would be foolish, but what about the ones actually publishing for 5e? Still not seeing any incentive for anyone to switch to 1.1, even under improved terms.


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## Malmuria

darjr said:


> I cannot agree more.



Though I sort of wonder if that's there for wotc to show how an updated "OGL" is necessary...that there are these new technologies that the original OGL could not have anticipated and so require an update


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## mamba

Malmuria said:


> Though I sort of wonder if that's there for wotc to show how an updated "OGL" is necessary...that there are these new technologies that the original OGL could not have anticipated and so require an update



it does not require an update unless you want to exclude them from the license


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## Scars Unseen

It depends on the level of "acceptability" we're talking.  To avoid a scorched earth, self-harming boycott where I won't even buy material from older editions they have for PoD on DriveThruRPG and trying to convince anyone I ever game with again to do the same?  Publicly scrapping 1.1 in total, and a show of intent not to invalidate 1.0a and earlier versions.  If they want to make a GSL for 1D&D that only harms the 3pp space around the newest edition, that's their prerogative.

To get me to actually consider buying into 1D&D on whatever merits it may or may not possess as a product?  They need to first do a _full_ 180 of intent and fully enshrine the OGL with a new version that _closes_ any loopholes they thought to exploit in 1.1 that protects all earlier editions of D&D and 3pp created for them - _including editions not currently included in the OGL_ - and let that stand as a legacy license that anyone can use.  At that point, again, I'm fine with them trying whatever license they want going forward with new content, because the legacy of D&D would be as protected as it can be at that point.  WotC's D&D would just be another option among many (it already is, but this would cement that status), and the only people truly harmed by Hasbro's bad decisions would be Hasbro's shareholders.

And that's really it.  Protect the OGL's intent, and then they can do what they want otherwise.


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## Jadeite

As much as I despise NFTs, excluding them from the OGL would just give Hasbro exclusive rights to create them. And I'd be surprised if they haven't already thought about that.


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## mamba

Jadeite said:


> As much as I despise NFTs, excluding them from the OGL would just give Hasbro exclusive rights to create them. And I'd be surprised if they haven't already thought about that.



I have no problem with that


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## delericho

At this point I think two things are necessary. Then there's a third thing they could optionally do:

1) "We're sorry, we screwed up. The Open Gaming License was always intended to be irrevocable, and we respect that fully. We apologize for the weeks and months of confusion and concern that this has caused to the community and our partners." And a statement that, of course, both previous versions of the OGL remain in place and can be used freely.

2) An updated OGL that tightens up the language to make it irrevocable, so we don't have to face this sort of thing next time there's a change in leadership, and which makes *no other changes* - no fees, no reporting, no restrictions on types of products. They can't even have an anti-bigotry clause, because they've clearly shown they cannot be trusted not to try to exploit _any_ loopholes.

3 (optional)) They can then have whatever additional license they want for their new edition. Just don't call it the OGL. And don't expect anyone in their right minds to use it.


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## Xethreau

Besides the terms of the OGL 1.0b, WotC must also restore legacy information on the OGL to their website, including the FAQ and the SRDs for 3e, 3.5, and 5e. As I understand they are being removed---and we cannot proceed in good faith as it stands.


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## Olrox17

delericho said:


> At this point I think two things are necessary. Then there's a third thing they could optionally do:
> 
> 1) "We're sorry, we screwed up. The Open Gaming License was always intended to be irrevocable, and we respect that fully. We apologize for the weeks and months of confusion and concern that this has caused to the community and our partners." And a statement that, of course, both previous versions of the OGL remain in place and can be used freely.
> 
> 2) An updated OGL that tightens up the language to make it irrevocable, so we don't have to face this sort of thing next time there's a change in leadership, and which makes *no other changes* - no fees, no reporting, no restrictions on types of products. They can't even have an anti-bigotry clause, because they've clearly shown they cannot be trusted not to try to exploit _any_ loopholes.
> 
> 3 (optional)) They can then have whatever additional license they want for their new edition. Just don't call it the OGL. And don't expect anyone in their right minds to use it.



I agree with the first 2 points fully. They are non-negotiable.

Now, to further elaborate on the third point, how could we make their new license appealing, or at least usable?

they can keep royalties (maybe a lesser or more incremental amount) and revenue reporting
absolutely no way for WotC to use your content for free. If they want to use your content, they'll have to pay YOU royalties. Or contact you to get a custom deal.
absolutely no way for WotC to change or terminate the license. If they want, they can make a new version of the license, and publishers can freely choose to use the new one or the old one.
if they want to keep software and NFT out of the license, sure, whatever.
publishers that agree to the license (and are thus paying royalties) have free access and full integration to the new official D&D VTT.


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## UngeheuerLich

I hope they just bring out something to end the rumors and uncertanity.

I do think though that some people feel entitled... after all, wotc created the d20 version of DnD and it is their good right and in their interest to do money and forbid the misuse of their IP.

So. I think they should make it clear, that 1.0a is irrevocable so that no current business is in hazard. What they do after that is their business.
But then, in the best interest of making money, they should be wary of making dumb OGLs.


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## delericho

Olrox17 said:


> I agree with the first 2 points fully. They are non-negotiable.
> 
> Now, to further elaborate on the third point, how could we make their new license appealing, or at least usable?



Honestly, I'm not at all bothered what conditions WotC want to put in their new license, or even if they decide not to have a license for OneD&D at all. That's their prerogative.

My objections are entirely about their attempt to revoke a license that was always intended to be irrevocable, and especially their attempts to bully their competition into accepting this horrible new license. I just want that fixed, please.


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## Branduil

UngeheuerLich said:


> I hope they just bring out something to end the rumors and uncertanity.
> 
> I do think though that some people feel entitled... after all, wotc created the d20 version of DnD and it is their good right and in their interest to do money and forbid the misuse of their IP.
> 
> So. I think they should make it clear, that 1.0a is irrevocable so that no current business is in hazard. What they do after that is their business.
> But then, in the best interest of making money, they should be wary of making dumb OGLs.



The only actor demonstrating entitlement here is WotC. They authored a license which has been tremendously beneficial to them, but now their shareholders are upset they aren't profiting enough from other people's labor, so now they plan to abuse their financial power to violate the plain meaning of the license and, essentially, steal from the rest of the industry in a massive power play.


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## UngeheuerLich

Branduil said:


> The only actor demonstrating entitlement here is WotC. They authored a license which has been tremendously beneficial to them, but now their shareholders are upset they aren't profiting enough from other people's labor, so now they plan to abuse their financial power to violate the plain meaning of the license and, essentially, steal from the rest of the industry in a massive power play.




I don't disagree that pulling the rug under 3PP creators is not a good move. 

But tell me how they profited from Pathfinder 1 using the OGL? Tell mebhow they profit from people using the OGL to create NFTs. 

So while I do think that the OGL is mutually beneficial to all in most regards, I can understand why wotc does want to get some control back.

Wanting an OGL 1.0b with nothing else in return is entitled.
And even here, I think it would be a wise move for wotc to assure people using OGL 1.0 that there is no trapdoor under their rug. 

I


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## South by Southwest

For myself, I don't need any public apologies or effusive prose about "doing better," as I generally don't like to let my emotions into these sorts of considerations. What I do need to see is a clear, unequivocal course correction whereby the update on which they settle veers strongly away from the leaked document.

I think Umbran's suggestions cover pretty well the substantive changes I'd consider ideal. If they feel the need to claw back control of their IP from Pathfinder _et al,_ I might not like how they do that, but it's their IP, not mine, so _some_ unhappy consequences are things I'd live with. An awful lot does depend on how they do it, though, right?


----------



## Sorcerers Apprentice

Yaarel said:


> NFTs are just a place to put artwork.
> 
> If people want to throw money at NFTs that is their business. (Heh, it wont be me.)



Not quite, NFTs are a place to put receipts for artwork. The actual art still has to be stored on a server somewhere. There are plenty of failed NFT collections that now only contain dead links.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

Umbran said:


> 1) No OGL is revoked.  Create the OGL v1.0b - it is the same as v1.0a, but includes the extra words that make it clearly irrevocable.  The SRD for 3e, 3.5, and 5e remain under the OGL (and now can be used under the irrevocable license).




I view this as bare minimum and non-negotiable. Anything short of this and I personally walk away from future D&D.



> 2) The new license is the "OneD&D Open License", or somesuch.  So, not actually a new version of the OGL.  OneD&D may be released under the OD&DOL, so folks who want to work explicitly with OneD&D can do so, and can't revert it to OGL.




Yes ... though I'm not sure it deserves the term "Open" at this point.



> 3) WotC can reserve rights to commercial videogames, software, movies, TV, novels and such.  That's fair.
> 3a) Non-commercial software and media are allowed.  Actual play programs are explicitly differentiated from other reserved media, and explicitly allowed.




Agree and sensible.



> 4) WotC can have rights to some royalties from big players, but they are a percentage of _profits_, rather than percentage of revenue.  That way, a runaway success product or new publisher can't accidentally find themselves taking a loss due to royalties.




No. That isn't an open license; that's just a license. If WotC wants to see other companies' income and get a share of the revenue/profit, there should be explicitly negotiated licenses for that. Plus "share of profits" just creates Hollywood accounting...[/quote]


----------



## mamba

UngeheuerLich said:


> But tell me how they profited from Pathfinder 1 using the OGL? Tell mebhow they profit from people using the OGL to create NFTs.
> 
> So while I do think that the OGL is mutually beneficial to all in most regards, I can understand why wotc does want to get some control back.



either I do not need to tell you how WotC benefits, or there should not be a ‘mutual’ in the second paragraph



UngeheuerLich said:


> Wanting an OGL 1.0b with nothing else in return is entitled.



They get me to even consider buying anything Hasbro again. Also, I do not see me insisting that they stick to the contract they voluntarily entered into as being entitled


----------



## Umbran

darjr said:


> I'm not sure what you mean.




What I mean is, "You were using confusing language for that, but I figured it out."


----------



## Scars Unseen

UngeheuerLich said:


> But tell me how they profited from Pathfinder 1 using the OGL?



You're looking at this too granularly.  WotC absolutely benefitted on the whole by the existence of the OGL because it helped the industry grow, with all roads leading to D&D to the point that even properties of other systems were getting d20 adaptations.  Pathfinder wasn't a failure of the existence of the OGL for WotC, but rather a failure of their own unwillingness to continue acting in good faith.  If they hadn't kicked Paizo to the curb and then put out a new restrictive license that essentially kept Paizo from doing business with 4E, they never would have had to go to the extreme length of creating a new game.  So it wasn't the OGL, but the GSL that created Pathfinder and took WotC down a peg.

Don't believe that's true?  WotC did.  Otherwise they wouldn't have gone back to the OGL with 5E.  But new leadership, old mistakes it seems.


----------



## OB1

Umbran said:


> This is a (+) thread.  If you aren't interested in talking about what we'd find acceptable in a new license, please find another discussion.
> 
> We are talking a lot about what isn't acceptable.  But, let us think in terms of a counter-offer.
> 
> 1) No OGL is revoked.  Create the OGL v1.0b - it is the same as v1.0a, but includes the extra words that make it clearly irrevocable.  The SRD for 3e, 3.5, and 5e remain under the OGL (and now can be used under the irrevocable license).
> 
> 2) The new license is the "OneD&D Open License", or somesuch.  So, not actually a new version of the OGL.  OneD&D may be released under the OD&DOL, so folks who want to work explicitly with OneD&D can do so, and can't revert it to OGL.
> 
> 3) WotC can reserve rights to commercial videogames, software, movies, TV, novels and such.  That's fair.
> 3a) Non-commercial software and media are allowed.  Actual play programs are explicitly differentiated from other reserved media, and explicitly allowed.
> 
> 4) WotC can have rights to some royalties from big players, but they are a percentage of _profits_, rather than percentage of revenue.  That way, a runaway success product or new publisher can't accidentally find themselves taking a loss due to royalties.
> 
> What am I missing?  I may take good suggestions from the thread and add them to the list above.



Here is what I would propose.

Keeping your point 1 as described.

Add a clause to the OGL that allows an SRD to modify the terms of the OGL for that specific SRD.  Specifically call out that the SRD can modify rights to commercial videogames, software, movies, etc. and determine royalty rights.  The SRD itself could even list itself as revokable.

This would give clarity to the OGL itself as a true open license, let SRD creators address the needs of releasing specific content within the language of that SRD, and create a carrot/stick approach to SRD creation.  If you want to charge 25% royalties on revenue over $750k, you better have an SRD that is worth it to use.  If you release an SRD and no one uses it because of the terms you put in, you could release a new version under the OGL with changes that might make it desirable.


----------



## mamba

OB1 said:


> Here is what I would propose.
> 
> Keeping your point 1 as described.
> 
> Add a clause to the OGL that allows an SRD to modify the terms of the OGL for that specific SRD.  Specifically call out that the SRD can modify rights to commercial videogames, software, movies, etc. and determine royalty rights.  The SRD itself could even list itself as revokable.
> 
> This would give clarity to the OGL itself as a true open license, let SRD creators address the needs of releasing specific content within the language of that SRD, and create a carrot/stick approach to SRD creation.  If you want to charge 25% royalties on revenue over $750k, you better have an SRD that is worth it to use.  If you release an SRD and no one uses it because of the terms you put in, you could release a new version under the OGL with changes that might make it desirable.



no license will do that, at that point they might as well make the WotC SRD public domain


----------



## Tales and Chronicles

I'd go with something like:


Keep the old Basic OGL (or Legacy OGL, or TrueOGL)
Create the new one (Publisher OGL) by copying the publishing rules and benefices from DMguilds, but with the new royalty and revenue reporting thing instead of whatever the DMguild take on product published on their platform. When you publish, you enter either one OGL of the other of these for that single product. Choosing the Publisher OGL gives a lot of restrictions and comes at a price (should you cross that 750k line) but give access to the trade dress of D&D 5e, the stuff from previous editions and access to some of the allowed settings. So some kind of officiality in exchange for a lot of restrictions and examination.


----------



## UngeheuerLich

Scars Unseen said:


> Don't believe that's true?  WotC did.  Otherwise they wouldn't have gone back to the OGL with 5E.  But new leadership, old mistakes it seems.




I do think it is partially true. 4e and GSL was a big bad decision. Maybe without the OGL they would not have been that dumb. We won't know.


----------



## OB1

mamba said:


> no license will do that, at that point they might as well make the WotC SRD public domain



Not sure I follow you.  I'm suggesting the the SRD can be more restrictive in it's use than the general OGL as defined by the SRD.  IE.  The general OGL doesn't have any specifics about royalties, but the SRD includes language that to use it, you must agree to report revenue to Wizards and that at certain revenue levels you pay a royalty.


----------



## mamba

OB1 said:


> Not sure I follow you.  I'm suggesting the the SRD can be more restrictive in it's use than the general OGL as defined by the SRD.  IE.  The general OGL doesn't have any specifics about royalties, but the SRD includes language that to use it, you must agree to report revenue to Wizards and that at certain revenue levels you pay a royalty.



well, the OGL WotC ties to their SRD certainly cannot contain your proposed language, and that is the only OGL that matters for this discussion.

If you are just talking about the license terms by themselves that still does not make much sense to me, because anyone that would have liked to use the OGL for their own SRD (which is wholly independent from WotC’s) but would have wanted some tweaks to it, could just come up with their own license terms. They are under no obligation to use WotC’s OGL


----------



## Composer99

OB1 said:


> Not sure I follow you.  I'm suggesting the the SRD can be more restrictive in it's use than the general OGL as defined by the SRD.  IE.  The general OGL doesn't have any specifics about royalties, but the SRD includes language that to use it, you must agree to report revenue to Wizards and that at certain revenue levels you pay a royalty.



I don't think outlining what's permissible under the terms of the license is the role of the SRD. Certainly not stuff like royalties or reporting.


----------



## Reynard

Umbran said:


> This is a (+) thread.  If you aren't interested in talking about what we'd find acceptable in a new license, please find another discussion.
> 
> We are talking a lot about what isn't acceptable.  But, let us think in terms of a counter-offer.
> 
> 1) No OGL is revoked.  Create the OGL v1.0b - it is the same as v1.0a, but includes the extra words that make it clearly irrevocable.  The SRD for 3e, 3.5, and 5e remain under the OGL (and now can be used under the irrevocable license).
> 
> 2) The new license is the "OneD&D Open License", or somesuch.  So, not actually a new version of the OGL.  OneD&D may be released under the OD&DOL, so folks who want to work explicitly with OneD&D can do so, and can't revert it to OGL.
> 
> 3) WotC can reserve rights to commercial videogames, software, movies, TV, novels and such.  That's fair.
> 3a) Non-commercial software and media are allowed.  Actual play programs are explicitly differentiated from other reserved media, and explicitly allowed.
> 
> 4) WotC can have rights to some royalties from big players, but they are a percentage of _profits_, rather than percentage of revenue.  That way, a runaway success product or new publisher can't accidentally find themselves taking a loss due to royalties.
> 
> What am I missing?  I may take good suggestions from the thread and add them to the list above.



I can get on board with all of this.

I don't think WotC has any obligation to Open future material, but they should not attempt to Close existing material. Nor do I have an issue with them setting terms for supporting D&D. It's theirs.

That said, one thing i think a successful 1D&D license would need to be successful is an elimination of the registration and delivery requirement. It strikes me as onerous on all parties, WotC included, and could gum up the works if the intent is to continue to provide the kind of support the OGL, STL and GSL were actually designed for: making the stuff WotC doesn't find profitable enough but helps support D&D in the marketplace. But then I am not a business owner so I could be off base.


----------



## mamba

Composer99 said:


> I don't think outlining what's permissible under the terms of the license is the role of the SRD. Certainly not stuff like royalties or reporting.



ah, now I get it, basically you would move the license terms out of the license (OGL) and into the text licensed under it (SRD / OGC). That does not work because then those terms are not part of the license and no one agreed to them even when using WotC’s SRD


----------



## Umbran

mamba said:


> The issue is: at that point I stay with 1.0a/b and leave WotC behind (but do not boycott everything Hasbro at least  ). I have no problem with that but I assume WotC does, so it kinda misses the point of the initial question. So if WotC wants me to stick with them / 1DD,  it does indeed take what I wrote in my first post, a free, open, perpetual and unrevocable OGL 1.1




So, in this scenario, "you" are a player, or a 3pp?

As a 3pp, the proposed OGL v1.1 is hostile to you to begin with.  It doesn't really look like WotC wants significant limits to 3pp presence in the market.  I am not sure that WotC really cares at the moment if 3pp stick with D&D or not.

As a player, if, as proposed, OneD&D is close to 5e, then you don't really have to leave - you can buy and play OneD&D, but get support from 3pp publishing under 5e's open license.  They still get your $$ for core books.  

I think a useful goal here is licensing that the fans don't feel the need to run screaming away from OneD&D.



mamba said:


> Also, out of curiosity, if there were a fork like that, do we have any idea where the 3PPs would fall? Stick with 1.0, move to 1.1, publish for both?




That depends on too many things outside the licensing - content and policy the license can't dictate.  Like, what is OneD&D like?  What are the policies around D&D Beyond, and how attractive is that platform?  Do they produce a good VTT?  None of those are, or should be, answered in a license.


----------



## MoonSong

Yaarel said:


> A restriction that I have sympathy for would be the open license forbids bigotry.
> 
> Heh, but I wouldnt really trust other people to be in the position to decide what is or isnt bigoted.
> 
> So, I am unsure how a contract would approach that.



Look it from my perspective. I don't trust a bunch of overprivileged waspies to decide what parts of my culture are acceptable and which ones are biggoted. (A few years back there was an incident or two. The team here is top notch, and I got a good response from them, but I got nearly zero empathy from fellow enworldlers and this place is leagues ahead of the average people outside. ) I expect tons of selective enforcement and even fabrication of claims. The clause as shown is extremely vague and open for manipulation. A tool for control rather than a genuine well intentioned provision that will actually help people.

I mean, it is nice in paper, but who is going to enforce it?


----------



## kenada

I would like to see an OGL 1.0b that cleans up the ambiguities (e.g., regarding revocability). While I would like to see it do more to advance open gaming, section 9 would undermine any attempts to do that (because publishers could continue using 1.0a). I would also like to see the license’s copyright donated to a neutral party (such as an actual Open Gaming Foundation).


----------



## Simplicity

Well, they've got a bit of a problem on their hands now.  In Dancey and OGL's case, it was made clear through their actions and statements that they were genuinely interested in creating an open framework for working with third parties.  They listed the problems they had in the past, the reasons why they would want to do this, and said that they would make it so that no change of management would be able to swoop in and backstab all those third party players.

But now the _new_ management has tipped their cards and revealed that that is not actually what they want at all.  They want some licensees generating royalties for them with D&D under a plain license (not open at all).  They want to rescind the old OGL. Why would anyone trust that a _new_ license (non-OGL) would be something they should put faith in to base a business around?  Why would they trust that Hasbro wouldn't just rescind it whenever their managers got some new scent in the wind.

They've really screwed up.  I can't help but think that if they want third-party support, they will have to use the old OGL.  Any new license would have to be incredibly ironclad language wise in the third party publishers favor.


----------



## mamba

Umbran said:


> So, in this scenario, "you" are a player, or a 3pp?



player



Umbran said:


> As a 3pp, the proposed OGL v1.1 is hostile to you to begin with.  It doesn't really look like WotC wants significant limits to 3pp presence in the market.  I am not sure that WotC really cares at the moment if 3pp stick with D&D or not.



ouch, well for this player there is a correlation between 3PPs being in the market and me being in it. I chose 5e for its ecosystem, not for WotC / the best rules



Umbran said:


> As a player, if, as proposed, OneD&D is close to 5e, then you don't really have to leave - you can buy and play OneD&D, but get support from 3pp publishing under 5e's open license.  They still get your $$ for core books.



I agree, and I would buy those OGL books, but I am reluctant to support WotC at that point, so would not switch to 1DD. I do not feel very charitable to WotC / Hasbro right now, so them getting any of my money is an uphill battle for them. Quite a turn of events because until recently moving to OneD&D was a given

I can use those books with 5e just fine as well


----------



## Umbran

Reynard said:


> That said, one thing i think a successful 1D&D license would need to be successful is an elimination of the registration and delivery requirement. It strikes me as onerous on all parties, WotC included, and could gum up the works if the intent is to continue to provide the kind of support the OGL, STL and GSL were actually designed for: making the stuff WotC doesn't find profitable enough but helps support D&D in the marketplace. But then I am not a business owner so I could be off base.




So, registration doesn't have to be onerous.  Reporting income/profit is a pain, I agree, but may be a requirement from WotC's perspective.  I am willing to allow it if it is specific to OneD&D, because we are _not_ likely to get everything we want, and we have to give somewhere.

I think we have to dispense with the notion that current WotC is actually looking for that kind of 3pp support from this.  The v1.1 terms were too hostile for that to begin with.  I expect that at best, the OGL to them is for amateurs, and real 3pp support, if any, will be handled by other, more specifically negotiated license agreements.


----------



## Umbran

Simplicity said:


> They want some beholden vassals




Within this thread, at least, can we walk back on the emotionally loaded language please?  Thanks.



Simplicity said:


> Why would anyone trust that a _new_ license (non-OGL) would be something they should put faith in to base a business around?  Why would they trust that Hasbro wouldn't just rescind it whenever their managers got some new scent in the wind.




There are other, stable open licenses around, that have evolved in more competitive spaces than TTRPGs, so they have been more tested.  WotC could mirror them, and use a license that they can't muck around with directly afterwards.


----------



## Reynard

Umbran said:


> So, registration doesn't have to be onerous.  Reporting income/profit is a pain, I agree, but may be a requirement from WotC's perspective.  I am willing to allow it if it is specific to OneD&D, because we are _not_ likely to get everything we want, and we have to give somewhere.



That's fair.


Umbran said:


> I think we have to dispense with the notion that current WotC is actually looking for that kind of 3pp support from this.  The v1.1 terms were too hostile for that to begin with.  I expect that at best, the OGL to them is for amateurs, and real 3pp support, if any, will be handled by other, more specifically negotiated license agreements.



I know this is a + thread so i don't want to get too deeply into it, but I think the fact that WotC is negotiating directly with big 3PPs suggests they do, in fact, want that kind of support to continue but more under their control. WotC isn't going to suddenly triple their staff and output. it is easier for them if other folks make the adventures and settings and splat books.


----------



## DEFCON 1

At this point WotC already has their "5E equivalent" to the Game System License-- the DMs Guild.  Anyone who uses that does so by agreeing to terms that are outside the OGL.  In return for having more of "WotC's D&D stuff" to use in their products (and thus being potentially more enticing to consumers), they pay a fee back to OneBookshelf and WotC to do so.

This seems to me to be the only real way for WotC to go forward and make a higher percentage of money off of the products other people make using their stuff... have their own place for those people to sell their stuff and have that place be even more enticing for people to use over the OGL and DMs Guild.  And as we've all theorized before... D&D Beyond is probably that place.  But it's up to WotC to make using D&D Beyond THE place for people to sell their stuff-- to make it financially worthwhile for people to do so (moreso that DMs Guild or just through the OGL.)

At the end of the day... the negotiations back in Washington by people on both sides are probably going something like this:

"We should get a cut of all these products that are making money hand over fist using the bones of our game system!  Here are the changes to the OGL so we can get a percentage of all of it!"

"The changes you are proposing to the OGL are assuring people to NO LONGER actually make anything using the bones of our system anymore.  So you're basically changing things so we get a percentage of ZERO.  While at the same time reducing the size of the gaming pool, and thus potentially reducing the number of our own products we sell.  I don't see how your changes make financial sense."

"But that's OUR STUFF they are making money with!"

"Yes.  But their use of our stuff is what is contributing to the number of people growing the size of the D&D pool.  And we are making more money on our stuff then we otherwise would be by the size of the pool growing.  You basically are asking to cut the pool in half before then taking a percentage of what's left.  Well, the money we would make from that is still less than the money we were already making from the larger pool, so what you're proposing isn't actually going to benefit us."

***

I'm sure it probably feels weird to the money people at WotC/Hasbro that there's no licensing fee to allow other people to use their game system-- after all, licensing is one of the biggest money-makers a company has.  And so they are thinking there SHOULD be a fee for everyone to use the OGL and SRD to make money off of WotC's owned material.  They do currently get that fee from everyone who uses DMs Guild (with the perks that come with doing so)... but right now there's no way to funnel people off of the OGL and into using DMs Guild (where WotC can then get that fee).  The question will just then be whether there ends up being a way to extract that fee without actually forcing people to stop using WotC's material at all?  Because we saw it with the 4E GSL... people WILL just stop-- either because they go out of business, or because they pivot if they have the capital to do so.


----------



## Umbran

mamba said:


> I agree, and I would buy those OGL books, but I am reluctant to support WotC at that point, so would not switch to 1DD. I do not feel very charitable to WotC / Hasbro right now, so them getting any of my money is an uphill battle for them




So, here's the problem - if you are basically taking yourself out of their market, you _lose all leverage_.  You are no longer a customer they can get, so your feelings on the subject can be ignored.


----------



## mamba

Umbran said:


> So, registration doesn't have to be onerous.



it means the license is not open though and
WotC could pull out the rug from under it at any time by removing that ability (not the biggest concern right now though, admittedly)



Umbran said:


> Reporting income/profit is a pain, I agree, but may be a requirement from WotC's perspective.  I am willing to allow it if it is specific to OneD&D, because we are _not_ likely to get everything we want, and we have to give somewhere.



probably unavoidable if you want to stay in the 1DD sphere, which right now does not even feel worthwhile



Umbran said:


> I think we have to dispense with the notion that current WotC is actually looking for that kind of 3pp support from this.  The v1.1 terms were too hostile for that to begin with.



agreed, they want the whole cake now



Umbran said:


> I expect that at best, the OGL to them is for amateurs, and real 3pp support, if any, will be handled by other, more specifically negotiated license agreements.



So best case then is for the current OGL to not go away. My fork in the road scenario.


----------



## Simplicity

Edited.  I mean that's my point.  They can't _write_ anything now.  They have to accept something that's existing.


----------



## Umbran

Reynard said:


> I know this is a + thread so i don't want to get too deeply into it, but I think the fact that WotC is negotiating directly with big 3PPs suggests they do, in fact, want that kind of support to continue but more under their control.




So, that's exactly what I said.  WotC is not expecting the real 3pp support to come from the OGL.  That doesn't mean we can't consider license terms we'd find palatable.

If you are against 3pp choosing special license deals, and you require them to be using OGL, then that's a subject for a different thread.



Reynard said:


> WotC isn't going to suddenly triple their staff and output. it is easier for them if other folks make the adventures and settings and splat books.




If the TTRPG is a legacy they need to get movie and AAA game levels of cash out of the brand, I don't know if they care how much support it gets, so long as they can claim it _exists_.


----------



## Umbran

mamba said:


> it means the license is not open though and
> WotC could pull out the rug from under it at any time by removing that ability (not the biggest concern right now though, admittedly)




Which is why the scheme I offered up sets 3e, 3.5e and 5e off to the side.  If they pull the rug out from under OneD&D... I don't know that I care.  I still have 5e.



mamba said:


> So best case then is for the current OGL to not go away. My fork in the road scenario.




Um... I presented a fork in the OP.  

You see, this is what WotC doesn't want - other folks taking their ideas and not giving due credit


----------



## mamba

Umbran said:


> So, here's the problem - if you are basically taking yourself out of their market, you _lose all leverage_.  You are no longer a customer they can get, so your feelings on the subject can be ignored.



from where I stand me threatening to leave is the only leverage I have (being a player and not a 3PP).

Maybe I misunderstood your scenario, so let’s try again


if the OGL 1.0 gets terminated and 1.1 forced on everyone, I am not moving to 1DD
if 1.0 sticks around and covers 1DD I am
for anything in between it depends on the terms


----------



## rules.mechanic

Umbran said:


> So, registration doesn't have to be onerous.  Reporting income/profit is a pain, I agree, but may be a requirement from WotC's perspective.  I am willing to allow it if it is specific to OneD&D, because we are _not_ likely to get everything we want, and we have to give somewhere.
> 
> I think we have to dispense with the notion that current WotC is actually looking for that kind of 3pp support from this.  The v1.1 terms were too hostile for that to begin with.  I expect that at best, the OGL to them is for amateurs, and real 3pp support, if any, will be handled by other, more specifically negotiated license agreements.



I think the ideas you've listed look reasonable.

WotC is under no obligation to keep doing an Open License for their IP but they really have to honor the previous licence for prior content for 3PPs to keep any faith with them. 

For new, OneDnD, content, it's disingenuous for them to call their new license "Open" if it includes the Commercial component - just call it the OneDnD License. Butm again, if they want to reserve the right to change the terms of, or cease issuing, this new license. it must not affect the terms and license for products notified before the change of date.

And 20-25% of gross income / revenue is cartoonishly greedy (even if it's just a starting position for negotiation and even if they've been getting away with 50% on DMs Guild because of the wider content and infrastructure that comes with DMs Guild). Nobody would have batted an eyelid at 5% (starting at a lower level) and they would get valuable data about a wider spectrum of content and its popularity and, most importantly, who to buy out or bring in-house. Maybe even somewhere 5-10%, although big 3PPs have already pointed out 10% is above their profit margin. Can only be higher if it avoids other headline costs for the publisher: e.g. by coming with a distribution platform like DMs Guild, DnD Beyond, etc. Digital content, games, movies could require a separate negotiated license (with a commitment to encourage these and to negotiate in good faith).

They do need that bit about a non-exclusive, lifelong, royalty-free license to IP. It protects them from being sued if they independently come up with something that's similar to something a 3PP has produced (e.g. some of the OneDnD playtest changes are houserules seen in 3PPs) but they have to limit its scope (i.e. not be allowed to directly reproduce).


----------



## mamba

Umbran said:


> Which is why the scheme I offered up sets 3e, 3.5e and 5e off to the side.  If they pull the rug out from under OneD&D... I don't know that I care.  I still have 5e.



so aren’t you taking yourself out of their market too then?

I am not seeing WotC abandoning 1DD.


----------



## mamba

Umbran said:


> Um... I presented a fork in the OP.
> 
> You see, this is what WotC doesn't want - other folks taking their ideas and not giving due credit



I was referring to my ‘fork in the road’ post because that had the conditions for 1.1 I would be ok with (while my first post had the conditions if there were just one OGL) 

Those were pretty close to your OP, I did include VTT with print and PDF however


----------



## Velderan

The biggest issue I have with the leaked draft is the section that allows WotC to use content created under OGL royalty-free. I'm not sure how to adjust it though because it sounds like it's there to protect WotC from accidentally infringing on 3rd party OGL content, I'd like to see something a little closer to the creator's side on protecting their rights to IP content they've created.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Velderan said:


> The biggest issue I have with the leaked draft is the section that allows WotC to use content created under OGL royalty-free. I'm not sure how to adjust it though because it sounds like it's there to protect WotC from accidentally infringing on 3rd party OGL content, I'd like to see something a little closer to the creator's side on protecting their rights to IP content they've created.



Indeed, and what's particularly concerning is that whilst today that may well genuinely be intended to just "protect WotC", we've seen WotC change their mind completely on this stuff over the course of an edition before. It took what, seven years from the evangelism and optimism of Ryan Dancey creating the OGL to go to a situation where WotC were creating the GSL and attempting to poison-pill the OGL out of existence (a much more gentle attempt than this Death Star-esque deauthorization I admit). So even if WotC today, and Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford earnestly believe that this is merely a protection, how will they feel in say, 6-7 years, if the same people in charge are even there? When it's been long-established that WotC has the right to just take your stuff.

As an aside, I'd be just terminally unsurprised if Perkins, Crawford or both announce plans to leave WotC and work on their own RPG or whatever either in the next few months or just after 1D&D goes live in 2024, regardless of how OGL 1.1 goes. And oh look they're being replaced by some videogame designers who "love D&D", and "always wanted to work on a TTRPG" (I'm sure that's true, but that's beside the point) and just happen to have worked for Microsoft-connected studios!

What would make it acceptable? I think we need to swing it back to OGC, PI, and so on like in the existing approach, and not have the blanket WotC cutout here, because there's just too much chance of future abuse.


----------



## Velderan

Ruin Explorer said:


> As an aside, I'd be just terminally unsurprised if Perkins, Crawford or both announce plans to leave WotC and work on their own RPG or whatever either in the next few months or just after 1D&D goes live in 2024, regardless of how OGL 1.1 goes.



I had a thought on this exact topic, but this is a + thread so I'll find another thread to post the bit I was wondering about that.


----------



## Minigiant

I'm not against a royalty but only on profits.

I am even okay with it being GP% and not NP% if the thresholds are not removable.

15% GP royalty if over 1 million dollars US seems fair.


----------



## Olrox17

Minigiant said:


> I'm not against a royalty but only on profits.
> 
> I am even okay with it being GP% and not NP% if the thresholds are not removable.
> 
> 15% GP royalty if over 1 million dollars US seems fair.



To be honest? If the only difference between the old OGL and the new was royalties (fair royalties, that is), I would support it. 
I know it may sound harsh to some people, but the way Pathfinder exploited third edition D&D to actively compete against 4e while paying no royalties whatsoever to the IP owners always seemed a bit...unfair to me.

The crap they're trying to pull according to the leaks, however, is wholly indefensible.


----------



## p_johnston

Velderan said:


> The biggest issue I have with the leaked draft is the section that allows WotC to use content created under OGL royalty-free. I'm not sure how to adjust it though because it sounds like it's there to protect WotC from accidentally infringing on 3rd party OGL content, I'd like to see something a little closer to the creator's side on protecting their rights to IP content they've crecreated



So obligatory IANAL, but i have heard discussions in other places that wording like this in licensing is not uncommon to protect against possible lawsuits if they develope something similiar to something else independently.

For example MCDM uses the new license and reports to WOTC "hey we're making a new Tavernkeep and shop owners expansion" Right as WOTC had already started to develop Elminsters guide to Tavernkeeping. Without that clause despite the products being developed in isolation it could lead to lawsuits.

Not saying i trust WOTC with that kind of language, just pointing out that it appears not to be them making crap up to steal stuff so much as them using standard language to protect themselves.


----------



## mamba

The more I think of it, the less I believe they will let 1.0 just continue on. At this point I am very much in the ‘let’s see what Paizo does’ camp. Nothing (I expect) WotC is willing to do will make a difference to my decision any more


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Olrox17 said:


> To be honest? If the only difference between the old OGL and the new was royalties (fair royalties, that is), I would support it.
> I know it may sound harsh to some people, but the way Pathfinder exploited third edition D&D to actively compete against 4e while paying no royalties whatsoever to the IP owners always seemed a bit...unfair to me.
> 
> The crap they're trying to pull according to the leaks, however, is wholly indefensible.



If the royalties were less wildly excessive (25% of *revenue* is enough to destroy the profitability of almost any company across a whole swathe of industries, not just RPGs) it would make sense.

Paizo/Pathfinder is a bit of a red herring here because you're focusing on them, but ironically they're the sort of company less likely to be impacted badly by royalties, because they have enough oomph to actually negotiate with WotC on this (which is what is happening), and potentially get a much better deal. It'll be smaller companies who manage to do one big Kickstarter or have a real hit product who get totally nailed by this, not Paizo.

The wildly excessive values for the royalties (again 25% *revenue* is NUTS - 25% *profit* you could argue, sure, but that's more like 3-7% revenue on a good day when it comes to RPGs) are I suspect largely to ensure WotC could force all the bigger 3PPs to the negotiating table.

I'd be slightly unsurprised if WotC's comeback on Monday is just changing the values downwards in line with whatever they've negotiated with Paizo etc., but still aiming to deauthorize the OGL 1.0a (which is the biggest problem).


----------



## Scars Unseen

mamba said:


> The more I think of it, the less I believe they will let 1.0 just continue on. At this point I am very much in the ‘let’s see what Paizo does’ camp. Nothing (I expect) WotC is willing to do will make a difference to my decision any more



I believe that if it comes to that, they'll have a hard fight in court with no guarantee of victory.  I also believe if it comes to that, it'll cause catastrophic damage to the tabletop industry.  Which is why my terms of "acceptable" _have_ to include publicly reaffirming the evergreen nature of the OGL as conceived when WotC first got the IP.


----------



## Minigiant

Olrox17 said:


> To be honest? If the only difference between the old OGL and the new was royalties (fair royalties, that is), I would support it.
> I know it may sound harsh to some people, but the way Pathfinder exploited third edition D&D to actively compete against 4e while paying no royalties whatsoever to the IP owners always seemed a bit...unfair to me.
> 
> The crap they're trying to pull according to the leaks, however, is wholly indefensible.



I know. I always kinda always felt that the old OGL was a bit too permissive by allowing full on spin offs without any financial compensation.

As a Brooklynite I am very suspicious of people offering stuff for free. It usually end up bad.

I'm 100% with WOTC not letting another company make millions creating a full game based on their IP without a cut.


----------



## billd91

Greg Benage said:


> It feels a little pointless to debate this because it's never gonna happen. Kickstarter isn't interested in 5-8% of your "profits," and Wizards won't be either. Some thoughts in no particular order:
> 
> I'm not sure someone doing $750,000+ on a crowdfunded campaign counts as a "small publisher."
> Granted that I have no experience in the Kickstarter era, I find the 20% prohibitive. I assume no one will be crowdfunding big 1D&D projects unless they cut a side deal with Wizards. I feel like this is probably the intent of the provision.
> If you _can_ do a $750,000 Kickstarter campaign, you can create a budget with allowances for the 20% royalty on sales above $750,000. I created budgets for OGL products with allowances for a 60% distributor discount on the first dollar of sales, and I'd make breakeven on preorders. If I couldn't do that, we didn't do the book. (You might have noticed that FFG would drop the axe on a line at a moment's notice.)
> My concern about small publishers would be more focused on termination/revocation language. The royalty rate for actual small publishers is 0%.



Small by what metric? Would the publisher of The Griffon's Saddlebag be a small publisher by your terms? Griffon Macauley hit a windfall of $1.2 million on his Kickstarter for volume 2. His goal: $15,000.








						The Griffon's Saddlebag: Book 2
					

The anticipated sequel with over 500 game-ready magic items, player options, settings, and more for 5e. Give out better treasure!




					www.kickstarter.com
				




Now, I don't know what margin he was budgeting per unit he's producing and selling, but clearly that Kickstarter went WELL beyond expectations, none of which included suddenly having to pay 20% of that to WotC if he's forced to shift to OGL 1.1 because WotC pushes that license before his delivery of the product.


----------



## Greg Benage

billd91 said:


> Now, I don't know what margin he was budgeting per unit he's producing and selling, but clearly that Kickstarter went WELL beyond expectations, none of which included suddenly having to pay 20% of that to WotC if he's forced to shift to OGL 1.1 because WotC pushes that license before his delivery of the product.



Non-revocation is my primary criterion for "acceptable." He should absolutely not be forced to 1.1 to fulfill his KS campaign.


----------



## mamba

Scars Unseen said:


> I believe that if it comes to that, they'll have a hard fight in court with no guarantee of victory.  I also believe if it comes to that, it'll cause catastrophic damage to the tabletop industry.  Which is why my terms of "acceptable" _have_ to include publicly reaffirming the evergreen nature of the OGL as conceived when WotC first got the IP.



I am not disagreeing with any of it, I just am not optimistic they will let 1.0 live without a fight


----------



## Haplo781

Umbran said:


> This is a (+) thread.  If you aren't interested in talking about what we'd find acceptable in a new license, please find another discussion.
> 
> We are talking a lot about what isn't acceptable.  But, let us think in terms of a counter-offer.
> 
> 1) No OGL is revoked.  Create the OGL v1.0b - it is the same as v1.0a, but includes the extra words that make it clearly irrevocable.  The SRD for 3e, 3.5, and 5e remain under the OGL (and now can be used under the irrevocable license).
> 
> 2) The new license is the "OneD&D Open License", or somesuch.  So, not actually a new version of the OGL.  OneD&D may be released under the OD&DOL, so folks who want to work explicitly with OneD&D can do so, and can't revert it to OGL.
> 
> 3) WotC can reserve rights to commercial videogames, software, movies, TV, novels and such.  That's fair.
> 3a) Non-commercial software and media are allowed.  Actual play programs are explicitly differentiated from other reserved media, and explicitly allowed.
> 
> 4) WotC can have rights to some royalties from big players, but they are a percentage of _profits_, rather than percentage of revenue.  That way, a runaway success product or new publisher can't accidentally find themselves taking a loss due to royalties.
> 
> What am I missing?  I may take good suggestions from the thread and add them to the list above.



5) White Box, both editions of AD&D, 4e, and all flavors of Basic get their own SRDs.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

billd91 said:


> Small by what metric? Would the publisher of The Griffon's Saddlebag be a small publisher by your terms? Griffon Macauley hit a windfall of $1.2 million on his Kickstarter for volume 2. His goal: $15,000.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Griffon's Saddlebag: Book 2
> 
> 
> The anticipated sequel with over 500 game-ready magic items, player options, settings, and more for 5e. Give out better treasure!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.kickstarter.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now, I don't know what margin he was budgeting per unit he's producing and selling, but clearly that Kickstarter went WELL beyond expectations, none of which included suddenly having to pay 20% of that to WotC if he's forced to shift to OGL 1.1 because WotC pushes that license before his delivery of the product.



Yeah this is part of why I think that realistically there's going to be have to be some degree of climb-down from WotC on revenue %. If we look at DMDave he says they're usually looking 90%+ costs ("easily 90%+ of what comes in goes to contractors, cost of goods sold, taxes, platform fees, legal/accounting, etc.") which doesn't surprise me at all.

The response of course is "Oh well increase prices by 20%!", well for starters that doesn't necessarily add up maths-wise but ignoring that complexity, WotC have actually made this very difficult because the WotC-tax kicks in at a specific value, it's not a constant, which is a great way to trip people up, especially as it's basically impossible to incorporate into the way things like Kickstarter work right now (and strongly discourages anyone but the first $750k worth of custom!). If WotC had asked for 5% revenue at all levels, from everyone publishing commercially, that would be _rude_, but it'd be fairly easy for 3PPs to incorporate it into their pricing structures and Kickstarters and so on. I think people would have grumbled and got over it, if that was basically all WotC were doing. People might even have said "You know what, fair enough!". Opinion could easily have swung in WotC's direction. And I suspect it would have made them more money too! There would have been criticism for doing it in an economic crisis, but I think WotC could have rolled with that.

What they're doing here may impact far fewer people, economically, but it's much more likely to cause a huge headache for those it does.

Which is I why I tend to see the fees mostly as arm-twisting to get people into individual company-specific licensing agreements and preventing future competition.

WotC are very aware of Kickstarters, I think - it's notable that when the Solasta Kickstarter was clearly going to succeed, WotC suddenly gave the Solasta team a special deal, where they'd been using the OGL previously. And I think if they see a Kickstarter going big with OGL 1.1, they may well actually be in touch with the people before those 30 days are up, in order to negotiate a better rate for them (assuming they've made agreements like that with Paizo etc.).

I still think that they really need to rethink the whole approach to royalties, even without deauthorization, to make this acceptable, but I also think they might. The only thing which makes me think otherwise is how downbeat Jon Ritter seemed about the whole deal (Kickstarter's games guy), so maybe his impression is WotC have really dug their heels in on this.


----------



## Yaarel

The royalties are only legitimate if indies are using Property Identity content.

If the indies are using the OGL 1.0a in good faith, then they own their own efforts, risks and rewards.

Hasbro-WotC can create new Property Identity and offer new services.

Hasbro-WotC cannot act in bad faith against the OGL 1.0a.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

billd91 said:


> Small by what metric? Would the publisher of The Griffon's Saddlebag be a small publisher by your terms? Griffon Macauley hit a windfall of $1.2 million on his Kickstarter for volume 2. His goal: $15,000.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Griffon's Saddlebag: Book 2
> 
> 
> The anticipated sequel with over 500 game-ready magic items, player options, settings, and more for 5e. Give out better treasure!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.kickstarter.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now, I don't know what margin he was budgeting per unit he's producing and selling, but clearly that Kickstarter went WELL beyond expectations, none of which included suddenly having to pay 20% of that to WotC if he's forced to shift to OGL 1.1 because WotC pushes that license before his delivery of the product.



thank you for providing an example... lets MATH...

$1,237,197
the first 750,000 is free so
$487,197 is going to be the 20%

let me google what kickstarter takes looks like 5%

so already kickstarter take $61,860
bringing this to $1,175,337
then WotC would take 20% or $97,440
bringing us down to $1,077,897

I sure hope that would be calculated into each pledge.


----------



## Lanefan

Umbran said:


> 3) WotC can reserve rights to commercial videogames, software, movies, TV, novels and such.  That's fair.
> 3a) Non-commercial software and media are allowed.  Actual play programs are explicitly differentiated from other reserved media, and explicitly allowed.
> 
> What am I missing?  I may take good suggestions from the thread and add them to the list above.



I'd like to see songs and music be open, such that if (very!) hypothetically I write, record, and release a hit song called "Mind Flayer" I don't have to worry about WotC's legal department coming after me.

More broadly, I wouldn't mind seeing at least a brief reference to legitimate fair use and-or parody being exempt from any of this, as I believe such to be the case in most countries (it certainly is in Canada).


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Haplo781 said:


> 5) White Box, both editions of AD&D, 4e, and all flavors of Basic get their own SRDs.



a 4e retroclone like pathfinder fixing some errors with new ideas and smaller numbers... I would LOVE anyone that could pull that off


----------



## Ruin Explorer

GMforPowergamers said:


> thank you for providing an example... lets MATH...
> 
> $1,237,197
> the first 750,000 is free so
> $487,197 is going to be the 20%
> 
> let me google what kickstarter takes looks like 5%
> 
> so already kickstarter take $61,860
> bringing this to $1,175,337
> then WotC would take 20% or $97,440
> bringing us down to $1,077,897
> 
> I sure hope that would be calculated into each pledge.



Kickstarter takes 5%?

Oh my god so that's WHY they got the 5% break!

Because otherwise it'd be like, 25% of revenue if you just sell stuff, but 30% (total) if you use Kickstarter, but with the 5% cut, it's 25% of revenue in either situation. So that's really just Kickstarter just preventing themselves becoming the worse option lol.

Fascinating and potentially puts limits on what WotC might consider acceptable if they've contracted Kickstarter to always take 5% flat less than the general royalty.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Ruin Explorer said:


> Kickstarter takes 5%?
> 
> Oh my god so that's WHY they got the 5% break!
> 
> Because otherwise it'd be like, 25% of revenue if you just sell stuff, but 30% (total) if you use Kickstarter, but with the 5% cut, it's 25% of revenue in either situation. So that's really just Kickstarter just preventing themselves becoming the worse option lol.
> 
> Fascinating and potentially puts limits on what WotC might consider acceptable if they've contracted Kickstarter to always take 5% flat less than the general royalty.



TBF 5% is WAY MORE Reasonable then 20% or 25%


----------



## mamba

Ruin Explorer said:


> Kickstarter takes 5%?
> 
> Oh my god so that's WHY they got the 5% break!
> 
> Because otherwise it'd be like, 25% of revenue if you just sell stuff, but 30% (total) if you use Kickstarter, but with the 5% cut, it's 25% of revenue in either situation. So that's really just Kickstarter just preventing themselves becoming the worse option lol.



How would that make them the worse option ? Everyone else also takes some % and usually not a lot less either. What it does is make them the best option, whether that was the reason or not.


----------



## Greg Benage

GMforPowergamers said:


> TBF 5% is WAY MORE Reasonable then 20% or 25%



One is intended to make money and the other is intended to force larger publishers to the table for a conventional license agreement.


----------



## Lanefan

Umbran said:


> Which is why the scheme I offered up sets 3e, 3.5e and 5e off to the side.  If they pull the rug out from under OneD&D... I don't know that I care.  I still have 5e.



Where do 0e-1e-2e fit in all this?


----------



## mamba

Lanefan said:


> Where do 0e-1e-2e fit in all this?



They had no SRDs, so there is nothing to update. All OSR games derive from 3e


----------



## Ruin Explorer

mamba said:


> How would that make them the worse option ? Everyone else also takes some % and usually not a lot less either. What it does is make them the best option, whether that was the reason or not.



I don't mean "compared to other Kickstarter-type platforms", I mean "compared to selling directly to buyers". There aren't many companies in a situation where they practically can do that, but if you were looking at a 30% fee on Kickstarter and only 25% if you managed to move as much material via you own selling site, you'd definitely have to think about.

But yes, you're right to add that this clearly pushes Kickstarter into the "best option", because even if another platform only takes 2%, that's a total of 27% revenue gone.


Greg Benage said:


> One is intended to make money and the other is intended to force larger publishers to the table for a conventional license agreement.



Yup.


----------



## Reynard

Olrox17 said:


> To be honest? If the only difference between the old OGL and the new was royalties (fair royalties, that is), I would support it.
> I know it may sound harsh to some people, but the way Pathfinder exploited third edition D&D to actively compete against 4e while paying no royalties whatsoever to the IP owners always seemed a bit...unfair to me.



That was the OGL working precisely as intended.


----------



## FrogReaver

GMforPowergamers said:


> TBF 5% is WAY MORE Reasonable then 20% or 25%



5% for a million comes to 50,000
25% on over 750,000 for a million comes to 62,500

As long as you are around a million it's closed to 5% of total.  So reasonable there.  It's just it scales much higher much faster if you go over 1,000,000.


----------



## FrogReaver

Reynard said:


> That was the OGL working precisely as intended.



Also, it was nice someone could keep a 3.5e style game alive for the 3.5e fans since WOTC had no desire to do so once 4e was released.


----------



## Olrox17

Reynard said:


> That was the OGL working precisely as intended.



Of course, I'm not disputing that. But I cannot, in good conscience, fault WotC if they thought it ended up being a rough deal for them. 
Again, I'm not at all excusing them for the horrible, devastating mess this leaked OGL is.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

FrogReaver said:


> 5% for a million comes to 50,000
> 25% on over 750,000 for a million comes to 62,500
> 
> As long as you are around a million it's closed to 5% of total.  So reasonable there.  It's just it scales much higher much faster if you go over 1,000,000.



yes it also clicks in to abruptly. 

I am a math guy. If I every put out a book for sale I will do my best to figure the cost of printing X number and my over head spread across Y number sold...

5% on everything can be added in form the jump no issue. 

25% over 750,000 is a VERY different gamble. If I DON'T hit 750k I am over charging and losing sales. If I don't build it in and it's a hit I can lose money.   Funny Cost Benefit moment I have seen in similaritish circumstances...   If we sell at $5 each we expect to sell 500 of them and bring in (revenue not profit) $2500 but if we raise the price to $12 we expect less sales maybe about 180, so bring in (again revenue not profit) $2,160 so we make more money selling it for less (again this is revenue so the cost matters assume we can make it for $4.50 or less) But if at $2200 a new cost kicks in we need to adjust for it... so with that new cost the $5 book has to be $6 but at $6 the new estimate is 250 sales (more then the $12 but a lot less then the $5) so now we are over chargeing getting less sales and our revenue is $1500

So do I price at $5 or $6...  last month I would have said launch at $5 and hope you really sell 500, make more money on the next one with happy return customers... this month I would say With the new rules don't make it OGL at all...


----------



## Ruin Explorer

FrogReaver said:


> 5% for a million comes to 50,000
> 25% on over 750,000 for a million comes to 62,500
> 
> As long as you are around a million it's closed to 5% of total.  So reasonable there.  It's just it scales much higher much faster if you go over 1,000,000.



The scaling is a huge issue, though, because that's what can invert you from profit to loss or just totally destroy profitability and make the whole thing opportunity cost loss. It's vastly harder to factor in to pricing/Kickstarter ask, and even if you could have kick in like a tax (which KS doesn't allow and I don't think other platforms do either) at $750k, it would be truly amazing at causing campaigns to slam to an abrupt halt at $750k.

But this is why I'm saying 5% on all would have worked out much better and been much more accepted.

The trouble is 5% on all doesn't let you force Paizo, CR, etc. into some kind of separate, secret licensing agreement, and it's which I believe is the major goal with these crazy revenue demands.


----------



## Minigiant

Reynard said:


> That was the OGL working precisely as intended.



I don't think that was the intent.

I think the intent of the OGL was o allow 3PPs to support 3.5. It wasn't to allow you to design a 3.75e and have it compete with 4e, 5e, or 6e.


----------



## Prime_Evil

I would like WotC to clarify the position of games unrelated to D&D who adopted the OGL in good faith. Remember that over the past twenty years, WotC have offered the license as something usable by any RPG company as a way to license content. And lots of companies took them up on that offer. These downstream companies relied upon undertakings publicly made by WotC in good faith. They are not part of the DnD ecosystem, so destroying them doesn't benefit WotC. But the proposed changes may crash 60-80% of small RPG publishers working on other systems. I've been doing work on an SF supplement for the Cepheus Engine. The publisher is terminating all future products until the uncertainty around the legality of the OGL is resolved. It's a big deal for non-DnD systems too.


----------



## MoonSong

Minigiant said:


> I don't think that was the intent.
> 
> I think the intent of the OGL was o allow 3PPs to support 3.5. It wasn't to allow you to design a 3.75e and have it compete with 4e, 5e, or 6e.



From Dancey's words, it was also intended so D&D could survive no matter the ultimate fate of WotC.


----------



## mamba

Prime_Evil said:


> I would like WotC to clarify the position of games unrelated to D&D who adopted the OGL in good faith. Remember that over the past twenty years, WotC have offered the license as something usable by any RPG company as a way to license content. And lots of companies took them up on that offer. These downstream companies relied upon undertakings publicly made by WotC in good faith. They are not part of the DnD ecosystem, so destroying them doesn't benefit WotC. But the proposed changes may crash 60-80% of small RPG publishers working on other systems. I've been doing work on an SF supplement for the Cepheus Engine. The publisher is terminating all future products until the uncertainty around the legality of the OGL is resolved. It's a big deal for non-DnD systems too.



If you are not tied to the OGL because you are using parts of WotC's SRD, then they can just drop the OGL altogether. Also, from my understanding anything under 1.0 is fine (that is the perpetual part), they just cannot use it to release anything new under it (that would have been the irrevocable part)


----------



## Minigiant

MoonSong said:


> From Dancey's words, it was also intended so D&D could survive no matter the ultimate fate of WotC.



That's not the argument being made.

The OGL 1.0 allows you to design a form of D&D with WOTC's system and compete against WOTC's current and future systems.
It was designed to allow the system to live in case the caretaker dies, not allow the system betray and attempt to kill the caretaker.


----------



## Prime_Evil

mamba said:


> If you are not tied to the OGL because you are using parts of WotC's SRD, then they can just drop the OGL altogether. Also, from my understanding anything under 1.0 is fine (that is the perpetual part), they just cannot use it to release anything new under it (that would have been the irrevocable part)



That pretty much kills all future releases for any game system released under the OGL. You can expect the death of systems like Cepheus Engine, OpenD6, FATE, Legend, Delta Green, etc. 

WoTC may be on shaky legal ground due to the reliance of unrelated parties on a public offer they made. But the fact is that no publisher can afford to take them on. I expect Hasbro to vigorously defend the revocation of earlier revisions of the OGL. This prevents any party from forking their system.   

It would be a show of good faith if WoTC would at least amend the wording of the revocation of OGL 1.0a to limit the scope of the change to their own IP only. The current form has the potential to crash large sections of the entire RPG market.


----------



## mamba

Minigiant said:


> It was designed to allow the system to live in case the caretaker dies, not allow the system betray and attempt to kill the caretaker.



The caretaker just had its best year ever, so not sure what killing you are referring to


----------



## Amrûnril

Minigiant said:


> I know. I always kinda always felt that the old OGL was a bit too permissive by allowing full on spin offs without any financial compensation.
> 
> As a Brooklynite I am very suspicious of people offering stuff for free. It usually end up bad.
> 
> I'm 100% with WOTC not letting another company make millions creating a full game based on their IP without a cut.




The OGL is very generous, and if we were starting from scratch, no one could reasonably demand that WotC (or any other publisher) issue a license like it. Nor do they have any obligation to place new content under that license.

But even if a you look at the OGL as gift didn't have to be given, that doesn't mean it can be taken back after the fact. Wizards has spent the past 20 years describing the licensed content as freely and permanently available, so people have treated it as freely and permanently available, using it as a foundation for works whose real value derives from their own unique contributions. For Wizards to try to destroy or claim ownership of such works, on which authors may depend for their livelihoods , would be morally unconscionable.


----------



## mamba

Prime_Evil said:


> That pretty much kills all future releases for any game system released under the OGL. You can expect the death of systems like Cepheus Engine, OpenD6, FATE, Legend, Delta Green, etc.



Why? They can all just remove two pages of license text and move on, assuming they actually are not dependent on WotC's SRD. Delta Green just announced exactly that a day or so ago






						Delta Green Without the OGL – Arc Dream Publishing
					






					arcdream.com


----------



## Prime_Evil

mamba said:


> Why? They can all just remove two pages of license text and move on, assuming they actually are not dependent on WotC's SRD. Delta Green just announced exactly that a day or so ago
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Delta Green Without the OGL – Arc Dream Publishing
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> arcdream.com



If they own the upstream IP, they can. But a large number of small publishers depend upon OGC released by somebody further up the food chain. Here's how it works: Company A releases their some of their IP as Open Game Content under the OGL. Company B comes along and uses the OGC under the terms of the OGL. WoTC invalidates the license itself. Company B cannot re-license OGC content they are using - only Company A has that power. Unless Company A obliges (remembering that this is a significant cost in lawyer fees and the like), Company B have no option but to cease publishing any derivative works.


----------



## Minigiant

mamba said:


> The caretaker just had its best year ever, so not sure what killing you are referring to



That's why I wrote "attempt to kill".

WOTC's OGL 1.0 allows you to use the SRD to compete head on with WOTC.



Amrûnril said:


> The OGL is very generous, and if we were starting from scratch, no one could reasonably demand that WotC (or any other publisher) issue a license like it. Nor do they have any obligation to place new content under that license.
> 
> But even if a you look at the OGL as gift didn't have to be given, that doesn't mean it can be taken back after the fact. Wizards has spent the past 20 years describing the licensed content as freely and permanently available, so people have treated it as freely and permanently available, using it as a foundation for works whose real value derives from their own unique contributions. For Wizards to try to destroy or claim ownership of such works, on which authors may depend for their livelihoods , would be morally unconscionable.



I'm not saying they can or should take it back.
But 90% of the community doesn't get that the OGL 1.0 is over generous and only exists in its form because WOTC believed that no one would abuse it and D&D is based n the concept of homebrewing.

But if the 2000s D&D side of WOTC was run like the MTG side or like more "gaming" companies, there's no way in Hades the OGL would look like it did.


----------



## Composer99

I think it's fine suggesting that WotC leave the OGL intact for ttrpgs and ttrpg aids/accessories - miniatures, vtts, character builder apps, AoE templates, etc. - and "actual play" broadcasts (podcasts, Critical Role, streaming), while excluding other types of tabletop game, video games, and other print or broadcast media - those can require a separate license insofar as they are not already covered under existing exceptions to copyright, such as parody works.


----------



## Prime_Evil

mamba said:


> Why? They can all just remove two pages of license text and move on, assuming they actually are not dependent on WotC's SRD. Delta Green just announced exactly that a day or so ago
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Delta Green Without the OGL – Arc Dream Publishing
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> arcdream.com




Another thing to note is that Arc Dream are not re-licensing the Open Game Content under a different scheme. They are revoking the rights of third parties to use it altogether. I expect to see a lot of this over the next few months. This is an overall loss for the industry, ending 20+ years of sharing and collaboration between creators. I doubt that was the intention of WoTC's move, but these publishers will be collateral damage. Looking at the number of them on DriveThruRPG, I reckon this will shrink the industry as a whole. It's a disaster for the entire hobby gaming industry, not just DnD.


----------



## mhd

Prime_Evil said:


> Another thing to note is that Arc Dream are not re-licensing the Open Game Content under a different scheme.



What OGC is in the book where this would matter, by the way? That press release talks that you don't need licenses for the mechanics, which would apply to both them and anyone re-using their mechanics in turn. It's not like they can have it both ways.
So what are we talking about here?


----------



## Scribe

FrogReaver said:


> Also, it was nice someone could keep a 3.5e style game alive for the 3.5e fans since WOTC had no desire to do so once 4e was released.




And thank <insert deity here> they did.



Minigiant said:


> That's not the argument being made.
> 
> The OGL 1.0 allows you to design a form of D&D with WOTC's system and compete against WOTC's current and future systems.
> It was designed to allow the system to live in case the caretaker dies, not allow the system betray and attempt to kill the caretaker.




And if the caretaker attempts to ruin everything, the system indeed lives on.

If Wizards had not tried to take the game in a direction many did not want to go play, and cut people out of the process, Pathfinder wouldnt exist.


----------



## Minigiant

Scribe said:


> And if the caretaker attempts to ruin everything, the system indeed lives on.
> 
> If Wizards had not tried to take the game in a direction many did not want to go play, and cut people out of the process, Pathfinder wouldnt exist.



No guarantee.
Nothing stopped PF from being made and the process was royalty free. 

If WOTC just continued 3.5e which was getting stale, *anyone *could have use the OGL to make a fresh 3.75e. In most industries, that isn't allowed.


----------



## Prime_Evil

mhd said:


> What OGC is in the book where this would matter, by the way? That press release talks that you don't need licenses for the mechanics, which would apply to both them and anyone re-using their mechanics in turn. It's not like they can have it both ways.
> So what are we talking about here?



Arc Dream relied upon Open Game Content from the Legend RPG to create the current version of Delta Green. They released some of their additions to this material as OGC, contributing back to the community. Chaosium has sometimes argued that the d100 system embodied by Legend is an unlicensed derivative work. But the OGL provided a safe harbour against this position.

Arc Dream are now arguing their game mechanics are different enough that they don't need the protection of the OGL. They also rely upon the argument the game mechanics themselves cannot be copyrighted. This may or may not be defensible in a legal sense. If Chaosium were litigious, I can certainly see them making an argument that Delta Green is a knock-off of CoC.


----------



## Scribe

Minigiant said:


> No guarantee.
> Nothing stopped PF from being made and the process was royalty free.
> 
> If WOTC just continued 3.5e which was getting stale, *anyone *could have use the OGL to make a fresh 3.75e. In most industries, that isn't allowed.




They could have, but if Wizards had not abandoned the OGL/SRD/3.5 path, there is approximately 0% chance a company could have taken that platform, and been more successful to the degree of Paizo.

4e is what opened the door, and Wizards in their _wisdom_, is just forcing people to make a choice again.


----------



## mamba

Minigiant said:


> That's why I wrote "attempt to kill".



you must really suck at killing someone when they thrive like never before while you 'attempt' to kill them... More like no one is even attempting it.


Minigiant said:


> But if the 2000s D&D side of WOTC was run like the MTG side or like more "gaming" companies, there's no way in Hades the OGL would look like it did.



and maybe D&D would no longer exist, we will never know


----------



## Minigiant

Scribe said:


> They could have, but if Wizards had not abandoned the OGL/SRD/3.5 path, there is approximately 0% chance a company could have taken that platform, and been more successful to the degree of Paizo.




Impossible to know and likely incorrect.

Had I won a huge lottery jackpot between 2004-2008, I 100% would have funded a 3.75e with many of the 3e complaints designed out.


----------



## mhd

Prime_Evil said:


> If Chaosium were litigious, I can certainly see them making an argument that Delta Green is a knock-off of CoC.



Okay, I thought you were talking about downstream from DG.

I thought that Chaosium wasn't too sure about the safety of the OGL here anyway but DG are friendly enough, and the big thing is the not-open Mythras more than Legend anyway. Plus Chaosium's own licenses being offered…

Most of what you saw in the RPG space hasn't really been tested in the fires of litigation. Wouldn't be surprised if a few of the pre-SRD re-creations were legally iffy.

And that's the big problem here, threats would probably be enough for most participants.


----------



## Minigiant

mamba said:


> you must really suck at killing someone when they thrive like never before while you 'attempt' to kill them... More like no one is even attempting it.



WOTC's D&D didn't get killed because TTPRGs was a niche industry at the time and only WOTC  had a big business sponsor as a parent corporation.

That's likely why WOTC allowed the OGL to be so generous.
WOTC wrote the OGL for the case if *it died*. WOTC knew that it couldn't be killed only wounded because everyone else was so much smaller.

The issue with the 2020s is that some 3pps are bigger and easier to start up now.


----------



## mamba

Minigiant said:


> The issue with the 2020s is that some 3pps are bigger and easier to start up now.



not sure that will change, they just will not produce D&D products any more


----------



## FrogReaver

Minigiant said:


> I don't think that was the intent.
> 
> I think the intent of the OGL was o allow 3PPs to support 3.5. It wasn't to allow you to design a 3.75e and have it compete with 4e, 5e, or 6e.



I think it was.

If 3.5e is D&D to you then WOTC going 4e and stopping development of 3.5e was taking your D&D away.  OGL was specifically designed so we didn't lose D&D.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

FrogReaver said:


> I think it was.
> 
> If 3.5e is D&D to you then WOTC going 4e and stopping development of 3.5e was taking your D&D away.  OGL was specifically designed so we didn't lose D&D.



Yeah like, I don't want to go full Face-Heel or Heel-Face turn here, but I gotta agree with @FrogReaver.

For some people, apparently quite a significant number, 4E was the death of D&D.

It wasn't for me. I like it! But like for other people, that was it, that's not D&D anymore!

And when Pathfinder got announced and so on, as someone who at the time wanted 4E to succeed, and supported WotC's vision of D&D, I never thought "Those dirty scoundrels abusing the OGL!". In fact I thought the opposite! "Oh good, well if they don't like 4E, those philistines, they can go play their own version of D&D, and no-one even needs to get mad, because they can coexist, thanks to the OGL!". Indeed that was a relatively common viewpoint that people often used to attempt to defuse edition warring threads.

Imagine incredibly the edition wars 4E would have caused without the OGL!!!!!

Can we just imagine that for a minute. It would Edition World War 3. No-one would have survived. Cockroaches would be the only things left posting on ENworld. Again I love 4E, but it was controversial as hell (in large part because WotC are idiots). The OGL saved D&D. There I said it. If 4E had come out, and there was no way to make an alternative 3E-like D&D without creating a new system and possibly even going to court, that would have all been so much worse, so much higher stakes!


----------



## Minigiant

FrogReaver said:


> I think it was.
> 
> If 3.5e is D&D to you then WOTC going 4e and stopping development of 3.5e was taking your D&D away.  OGL was specifically designed so we didn't lose D&D.



My point was that OGL allow 3.5e to live.
It wasn't intended for someone to use 3.5e to make 3.75e, 3.8e, or 3.9999e and compete with 3.5e or the eventual 4e. *Especially not for free*.



mamba said:


> not sure that will change, they just will not produce D&D products any more



Sure.

My point was that when the OGL was drafted, it would for a niche industry with little worldwide visibility with a bunch of tiny companies and one major corp. WOTC wasn't worried about competition.


----------



## FrogReaver

Minigiant said:


> My point was that OGL allow 3.5e to live.
> It wasn't intended for someone to use 3.5e to make 3.75e, 3.8e, or 3.9999e and compete with 3.5e or the eventual 4e. *Especially not for free*.



Of course it was.  That's the whole point of derivative works.  If you don't like XYZ about 3.5e, you can use SRD and create your own D&D 3.5 like game with XYZ changed.  Make enough changes and whala you have what coloquially would be known as 3.75.  (Of course, good luck getting people to play your 3.75 so long as 3.5e was being actively supported by WOTC).

The ability to do that wasn't an oversight with the OGL, it was fundamental to it.


----------



## mamba

Ruin Explorer said:


> For some people, apparently quite a significant number, 4E was the death of D&D.
> 
> It wasn't for me. I like it! But like for other people, that was it, that's not D&D anymore!




For some this already happened with 3e, I am sure we can find others that think this happened with 2e already too 



Ruin Explorer said:


> And when Pathfinder got announced and so on, as someone who at the time wanted 4E to succeed, and supported WotC's vision of D&D, I never thought "Those dirty scoundrels abusing the OGL!". In fact I thought the opposite! "Oh good, well if they don't like 4E, those philistines, they can go play their own version of D&D, and no-one even needs to get mad, because they can coexist, thanks to the OGL!". Indeed that was a relatively common viewpoint that people often used to attempt to defuse edition warring threads.
> 
> Imagine incredibly the edition wars 4E would have caused without the OGL!!!!!



would be interesting to know how that version would have played out


----------



## mamba

Minigiant said:


> My point was that when the OGL was drafted, it would for a niche industry with little worldwide visibility with a bunch of tiny companies and one major corp. WOTC wasn't worried about competition.



we are pretty much still in the same spot, it's just that the whole pool got larger. WotC still is the big fish and does not need to worry about competition, they just got greedy.

That is the main difference, back in 2000 WotC was run by gamers and idealists, today it is run by the machines


----------



## Cadence

mamba said:


> For some this already happened with 3e, I am sure we can find others that think this happened with 2e already too




Was it the OGL that gave a lot of new opportunities to those who missed B/X or 1e or 2e?


----------



## GMforPowergamers

Minigiant said:


> No guarantee.
> Nothing stopped PF from being made and the process was royalty free.
> 
> If WOTC just continued 3.5e which was getting stale, *anyone *could have use the OGL to make a fresh 3.75e. In most industries, that isn't allowed.



lets be honest an OGL is going to split the fan base good/bad/indiffrent some will play level up some will play pathfinder some will play 5e some will play a mix.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Minigiant said:


> My point was that OGL allow 3.5e to live.
> It wasn't intended for someone to use 3.5e to make 3.75e, 3.8e, or 3.9999e and compete with 3.5e or the eventual 4e. *Especially not for free*.



This not an intellectually sustainable argument.

By your logic here, WotC would have opposed the gigantic flowering of d20 games the OGL caused, any of whom could potentially have become a competitor to D&D. It did the opposite - it cheered them on. If the intention was as you say, there'd have been a crackdown in the early '00s.


----------



## Olrox17

FrogReaver said:


> The ability to do that wasn't an oversight with the OGL, it was fundamental to it.



I don't think anyone can dispute that the creation of Pathfinder, the greatest competitor of WotC's brand of D&D, was fully in line with the OGL's clauses.
I also don't think we can dispute that, in hindsight, making the OGL the way we know it proved to be a bad financial decision on WotC's part. A "mistake" that worked great for the community and 3PP publishers, but that they would correct in an heartbeat if they had a time machine.

Well, they don't have a time machine, so now they are destroying their reputation and their community for a _chance _(no guarantee, expert legal opinions vary!) to undo that "mistake". Extremely dumb, selfish and unnecessary on their part, IMO, but I'd lie if I said I can't see their reasons.


----------



## Minigiant

Ruin Explorer said:


> This not an intellectually sustainable argument.
> 
> By your logic here, WotC would have opposed the gigantic flowering of d20 games the OGL caused, any of whom could potentially have become a competitor to D&D. It did the opposite - it cheered them on. If the intention was as you say, there'd have been a crackdown in the early '00s.



My point is that WOTC never saw the d20 D&D like games as being competition. Until 4e split the community and PF cropped up.

The OGL was designed shortsighted. Almost no major corporation would create an OGL like OGL 1.0, today.


----------



## FrogReaver

Minigiant said:


> The OGL was designed shortsighted. Almost no major corporation would create an OGL like OGL 1.0, today.



And almost no corporation would have then either.


----------



## FrogReaver

Olrox17 said:


> I don't think anyone can dispute that the creation of Pathfinder, the greatest competitor of WotC's brand of D&D, was fully in line with the OGL's clauses.
> I also don't think we can dispute that, in hindsight, making the OGL the way we know it proved to be a bad financial decision on WotC's part. A "mistake" that worked great for the community and 3PP publishers, but that they would correct in an heartbeat if they had a time machine.
> 
> Well, they don't have a time machine, so now they are destroying their reputation and their community for a _chance _(no guarantee, expert legal opinions vary!) to undo that "mistake". Extremely dumb, selfish and unnecessary on their part, IMO, but I'd lie if I said I can't see their reasons.



Would like to respond but i feel like i may have inadvertently veered the + thread off it's path.  So i'm going to refrain so hopefully it gets back on topic.


----------



## Ruin Explorer

Minigiant said:


> My point is that WOTC never saw the d20 D&D like games as being competition. Until 4e split the community and PF cropped up.
> 
> The OGL was designed shortsighted. Almost no major corporation would create an OGL like OGL 1.0, today.



This argument, I repeat, is not intellectually sustainable.

Even AFTER the OGL produced Pathfinder, what did WotC do? According to your logic, they must have quit the OGL right?

But in fact they went straight back to the OGL, after it produced Pathfinder.

There is no intellectual consistency to what you're arguing. It cannot be supported by the facts of WotC's actions. As for "well they wouldn't make it today", that's totally irrelevant and has no bearing on the argument.

To get us back on topic, certainly claiming "WE MADE A MISTAKE!" whilst lying about well-recorded recent history (which is what WotC seems to be doing) is not a persuasive argument which will render a fairly horrific document acceptable.


----------



## Greg Benage

Minigiant said:


> It wasn't intended for someone to use 3.5e to make 3.75e, 3.8e, or 3.9999e and compete with 3.5e or the eventual 4e. *Especially not for free*.



I think Ryan and Peter and the other decision-makers definitely contemplated the OGL being used for complete games, and that was part of its intent. I don't think their intent was for competitors to use the OGL and the Open Game Content they released under it to clone any version of D&D. If that was their intent, why weren't character creation rules designated as Open Game Content? In my view, their intent was always, "Make whatever you want, as long as we're selling _Players Handbooks_!"

If I were Paizo or a retroclone publisher with significant business, the thing that would keep me up at night is character creation. It's core, it's fundamental to this genre of games, and it was never in any OGC released by Wizards. Would a court find that I crossed the line from function to expression in my character creation rules, and therefore, find that I infringed on Wizards' copyright? Is there anything in there I reproduced a little too closely?


----------



## MonsterEnvy

Just leave out the part about 1.0a being deauthorized, and offer some incentives for going with the new license.


----------



## Olrox17

MonsterEnvy said:


> Just leave out the part about 1.0a being deauthorized, and offer some incentives for going with the new license.



That's exactly what I would have done in their shoes, and I can't fathom why they aren't doing that.

"Hello 3rd party publishers! The OGL for OneD&D will have royalties. We will determine the exact amounts after consulting with all of you and the OGL document will state that we'll never increase them. In return for those royalties, you will now be part of the D&D ecosystem we are building! Your content will be fully integrated into DnD Beyond, in our VTT service, and into our content online stores. We will do whatever we can to help your content succeed!
Of course, if you aren't interested in the OneD&D project and the opportunities it'll open, the old OGL is always available."

Or something like that.


----------



## Scribe

Minigiant said:


> Impossible to know and likely incorrect.
> 
> Had I won a huge lottery jackpot between 2004-2008, I 100% would have funded a 3.75e with many of the 3e complaints designed out.




No offense intended here, but if Wizards doesnt move off the 3.5 design line, do you honestly believe people would have moved to a hypothetical 3.75 and abandoned the D&D name to the same degree as they with 4e?


----------



## MonsterEnvy

Olrox17 said:


> That's exactly what I would have done in their shoes, and I can't fathom why they aren't doing that.



They might do that, the actual 1.1 has not been put out yet.


----------



## Olrox17

MonsterEnvy said:


> They might do that, the actual 1.1 has not been put out yet.



We can only hope the backlash will convince them, if their own intellect didn't already.


----------



## Reynard

Minigiant said:


> That's not the argument being made.
> 
> The OGL 1.0 allows you to design a form of D&D with WOTC's system and compete against WOTC's current and future systems.
> It was designed to allow the system to live in case the caretaker dies, not allow the system betray and attempt to kill the caretaker.



That's the opposite of what happened from Paizo's perspective,  and apparently A LOT of D&D fans agreed. Whether it is accurate or even reasonable for people to feel that 4E and the GSL was an attempt to kill the "real" D&D is irrelevant. Some people felt that way and used the OGL to "save" D&D. Multiple companies in fact -- Castles and Crusades is another example -- but only Paizo succeeded at any level worth WotC's concern.


----------



## Reynard

MonsterEnvy said:


> They might do that, the actual 1.1 has not been put out yet.



The problem is that it doesn't matter. They showed their hand. Only a fool would keep on keeping on with the OGL now.


----------



## MonsterEnvy

Reynard said:


> The problem is that it doesn't matter. They showed their hand. Only a fool would keep on keeping on with the OGL now.



Yes it does, so long as it says something different.


----------



## Reynard

MonsterEnvy said:


> Yes it does, so long as it says something different.



If they backpedal now, it just means they are looking for a different strategy to accomplish the same thing. The OGL is not safe.


----------



## MonsterEnvy

Reynard said:


> If they backpedal now, it just means they are looking for a different strategy to accomplish the same thing. The OGL is not safe.



So what?


----------



## Reynard

MonsterEnvy said:


> So what?



So "de-authorization" is not off the table, it is just back burnered until they find a way to do it without kicking the hornet's nest. So if that is your bugbear, as you indicated, then them dropping it from OGL 1.1 doesn't actually mean anything.


----------



## MonsterEnvy

Reynard said:


> So "de-authorization" is not off the table, it is just back burnered until they find a way to do it without kicking the hornet's nest. So if that is your bugbear, as you indicated, then them dropping it from OGL 1.1 doesn't actually mean anything.



Ok. 

I just think they should let the old 1.0 stand as it’s least likely to cause them trouble. 

To be exact I want what is best for D&D, and I think peace with its competitors and off shoots is best.


----------



## UngainlyTitan

Reynard said:


> So "de-authorization" is not off the table, it is just back burnered until they find a way to do it without kicking the hornet's nest. So if that is your bugbear, as you indicated, then them dropping it from OGL 1.1 doesn't actually mean anything.



I dunno the fact that they backed down could weaken their case in the future. It depends somewhat on how they back down. If they make no concessions that is one thing, if they offer some concessions on the 1.0 OGL that is another thing.


----------



## Reynard

UngainlyTitan said:


> I dunno the fact that they backed down could weaken their case in the future. It depends somewhat on how they back down. If they make no concessions that is one thing, if they offer some concessions on the 1.0 OGL that is another thing.



If the OGL 1.1 comes out looking different than the leak, you can be certain they will not say "We heard the community and we changed course." They will say, "That was a very early draft that wasn't ever really seriously considered and this is what we were really going for all along. Oh, and hey, look, we signed Kobold. Southlands 1D&D, y'all!"


----------



## UngainlyTitan

Reynard said:


> If the OGL 1.1 comes out looking different than the leak, you can be certain they will not say "We heard the community and we changed course." They will say, "That was a very early draft that wasn't ever really seriously considered and this is what we were really going for all along. Oh, and hey, look, we signed Kobold. Southlands 1D&D, y'all!"



Maybe, it really depends on, who they sign, how mad the community is, and how much they value the goodwill.


----------



## dbolack

Umbran said:


> This is a (+) thread.  If you aren't interested in talking about what we'd find acceptable in a new license, please find another discussion.




I'm gonna go a little left of what I've seen so far here.

Properly define irrevocable to mean that even if the source document ( SRD, etc )  is removed from availability due to license revocation for particular source material it may continue to be used in existing and (internal and external) derivative projects. IE, Mutants and Masterminds could continue indefinitely if the 3.5 SRD was withdrawn. New editions and sourcebooks would be seen a 

An option for withdrawing a source material from further use. A long, fixed cure period that allows works in progress to meet a minimum level of publication to qualify as published. I think a year is more than adequate.

I think there needs to be a reasonable loophole for gaming utility software.


----------



## billd91

Minigiant said:


> That's not the argument being made.
> 
> The OGL 1.0 allows you to design a form of D&D with WOTC's system and compete against WOTC's current and future systems.
> It was designed to allow the system to live in case the caretaker dies, not allow the system betray and attempt to kill the caretaker.



Dies… or abandons it. For people who are fans of Paizo’s efforts, it’s not a case of betrayal. It’s a case of keeping a version of the game alive while the owner diverts itself to a very different version.
Besides, the betrayal term is a better fit for WotC’s actions with licensing in the run up to 4e with respect to their protégé. They spin off products they no longer want to create or manage to former employees striking out on their own then, when it suits them, rip the rug out from under them. They may have had the legal right to do it, but legal isn’t the same as good and decent.


----------



## Minigiant

Reynard said:


> That's the opposite of what happened from Paizo's perspective,  and apparently A LOT of D&D fans agreed. Whether it is accurate or even reasonable for people to feel that 4E and the GSL was an attempt to kill the "real" D&D is irrelevant. Some people felt that way and used the OGL to "save" D&D. Multiple companies in fact -- Castles and Crusades is another example -- but only Paizo succeeded at any level worth WotC's concern.



That's exactly my point.

WOTC never expected any 3PPs to make a complete OGL game that actually competed with a D&D edition that they actively supported. They expected what happened, that some may try but fail. The success of PF after the fanbase split of 4e was not expected by them as they though teir power would easily prevail.


----------



## Minigiant

billd91 said:


> Dies… or abandons it. For people who are fans of Paizo’s efforts, it’s not a case of betrayal. It’s a case of keeping a version of the game alive while the owner diverts itself to a very different version.
> Besides, the betrayal term is a better fit for WotC’s actions with licensing in the run up to 4e with respect to their protégé. They spin off products they no longer want to create or manage to former employees striking out on their own then, when it suits them, rip the rug out from under them. They may have had the legal right to do it, but legal isn’t the same as good and decent.



The core thing is as a community we have to argee to what we offer WOTC.

Because WOTC is beholden to Hasbro and Hasbro must provide for its investor and shareholders. Legitimency, legality, goodnesss, and decency are not the core of this.

The truth is WOTC as nice to give us the the OGL 1.0. And the D&D community fostered a community and mindset for it. So much so that we didn't realize how good we had it. The OGL 1.0 is not we'd see in most other industries.

WOTC/Hasbro is getting greedy. Twice. IF we as a community don't offer WOTC/Hasbro something they can show their shareholders, they won't listen to us. IF someone wished on a star and give D&D so some other company like Paizo, they'd eventually get greedy too if they are the tip top. The compromise must eventually be made or we'll get something like the potential new OGL.

Something has to be fed to the greed monster eventually.


----------



## AK81

I think suggestion number 1 is the only OGL that a creator can and should accept now. They need to update the OGL with the word irrevocable.

Even just sticking with OGL 1.0a won't be good enough now.
I can't see how any creator could build their business and livelihood on a deal that might be pulled at any moment.

Everyone know that they can't trust the OGL 1.0a anymore. Even if WotC decided to dropp their plans this time. Who knows what they will decide in a few years.


----------



## MonsterEnvy

Reynard said:


> If the OGL 1.1 comes out looking different than the leak, you can be certain they will not say "We heard the community and we changed course." They will say, "That was a very early draft that wasn't ever really seriously considered and this is what we were really going for all along. Oh, and hey, look, we signed Kobold. Southlands 1D&D, y'all!"



And this is bad why?


----------



## FrogReaver

MonsterEnvy said:


> And this is bad why?



It's good but I don't think they can put the genie back in the bottle.  So more like too little too late.

There is a great deal of fear and uncertainty around the cost of litigation.  That's a huge business risk.  The best thing to do with that size of a risk is to pivot away from it and no amount of reassurances at this stage is likely to appreciably lower that risk for anything more than the immediate short term.


----------



## MonsterEnvy

FrogReaver said:


> It's good but I don't think they can put the genie back in the bottle.  So more like too little too late.
> 
> There is a great deal of fear and uncertainty around the cost of litigation.  That's a huge business risk.  The best thing to do with that size of a risk is to pivot away from it.



So you're just saying nothing can be done? Don't see the point of that.


----------



## FrogReaver

MonsterEnvy said:


> So you're just saying nothing can be done? Don't see the point of that.



Please don't put words in my mouth.  

What can be done is to create a new version of OGL 1.0a that removes as many of the potential loopholes as possible while otherwise keeping the same terms as OGL 1.0a.  

Will that be done, I don't think so, but it's the only thing that would help IMO.


----------



## MonsterEnvy

FrogReaver said:


> Please don't put words in my mouth.
> 
> What can be done is to create a new version of OGL 1.0a that removes as many of the potential loopholes as possible while otherwise keeping the same terms as OGL 1.0a.
> 
> Will that be done, I don't think so, but it's the only thing that would help IMO.



I don't agree, I think just taking out the 1.0a is deauthorized part is enough


----------



## FrogReaver

MonsterEnvy said:


> I don't agree, I think just taking out the 1.0a is deauthorized part is enough



Enough to stop the risk assessment that any 3pp is going to be doing before they enter into an agreement that WOTC could decide to dismiss and change in any way at any time in the future?  That's not the kind of stability needed to keep content creators from deeming that arrangement too risky for them.


----------



## MoonSong

FrogReaver said:


> Enough to stop the risk assessment that any 3pp is going to be doing before they enter into an agreement that WOTC could decide to dismiss and change in any way at any time in the future?  That's not the kind of stability needed to keep content creators producing under that license.



It would have to replace that language with "and 1.0a and 1.0 are irrevocable."


----------



## FrogReaver

MoonSong said:


> It would have to replace that language with "and 1.0a and 1.0 are irrevocable."



At a minimum.  I think it would also have to specify that 'authorized version' means any version that was ever authorized.  And maybe a few more things as well.


----------



## mamba

MonsterEnvy said:


> I don't agree, I think just taking out the 1.0a is deauthorized part is enough



no, because then they just put it into 1.1a 6 months after 1DD is out, and the whole thing starts again. They have zero credibility now


----------



## MonsterEnvy

mamba said:


> no, because then they just put it into 1.1a 6 months after 1DD is out, and the whole thing starts again. They have zero credibility now



Why would they do that after changing their mind, their credibility is not suddenly zero.


----------



## FrogReaver

MonsterEnvy said:


> Why would they do that after changing their mind, their credibility is not suddenly zero.



Doesn't have to be 0.  Just has to be diminished.


----------



## Prime_Evil

I'm not convinced we need the word irrevocable in the license. I suspect WoTC don't have the power to revoke the terms of v1.0a. I suspect they will require publishers to sign up for v1.1 if they want to publish material compatible with OneDnD. The terms of the new licence will require them to sign away their rights to use the old licence. Alternatively, they could lean on copyright law and remove the ability to freely distribute copies of the OGL v1.0a. This would make it impossible for anyone to comply with the terms of the license, rendering the point moot. It is unclear whether they could do that as the license creates an implied right to distribute copies of the OGL.


----------



## Scars Unseen

Minigiant said:


> WOTC wrote the OGL for the case if *it died*. WOTC knew that it couldn't be killed only wounded because everyone else was so much smaller.






Minigiant said:


> My point was that OGL allow 3.5e to live.
> It wasn't intended for someone to use 3.5e to make 3.75e, 3.8e, or 3.9999e and compete with 3.5e or the eventual 4e. *Especially not for free*.



The man who spearheaded the OGL would disagree with you.  Quote for emphasis:


> Ryan Dancey
> 
> I also had the goal that the release of the SRD would ensure that D&D in a format that I felt was true to its legacy could never be removed from the market by capricious decisions by its owners.
> 
> I always wondered if some 3rd party would become a success by iterating on (rather than revising) D&D. Paizo, I'm pleased to say, appears to be well on the way to doing that. They have also embraced the "open source" concept of community-lead improvements. Having thousands of designers work on a game has got to produce a better result than a mere handful, provided the system of editorial control can be sorted (and it seems Paizo has done a great job on that front too.) The OGL, of course, is a virtual requirement for that to have happened.







Minigiant said:


> My point is that WOTC never saw the d20 D&D like games as being competition. Until 4e split the community and PF cropped up.
> 
> The OGL was designed shortsighted. Almost no major corporation would create an OGL like OGL 1.0, today.



On the contrary:  the OGL was designed _long _sighted, as it was intended to prevent exactly the kind of corporate trampling of the market that Hasbro is attempting right now.



Greg Benage said:


> I think Ryan and Peter and the other decision-makers definitely contemplated the OGL being used for complete games, and that was part of its intent. I don't think their intent was for competitors to use the OGL and the Open Game Content they released under it to clone any version of D&D. If that was their intent, why weren't character creation rules designated as Open Game Content? In my view, their intent was always, "Make whatever you want, as long as we're selling _Players Handbooks_!"



100% spot on.  See the link above for Dancey's own words on the topic.



Minigiant said:


> The core thing is as a community we have to argee to what we offer WOTC.
> 
> Because WOTC is beholden to Hasbro and Hasbro must provide for its investor and shareholders. Legitimency, legality, goodnesss, and decency are not the core of this.
> 
> The truth is WOTC as nice to give us the the OGL 1.0. And the D&D community fostered a community and mindset for it. So much so that we didn't realize how good we had it. The OGL 1.0 is not we'd see in most other industries.
> 
> WOTC/Hasbro is getting greedy. Twice. IF we as a community don't offer WOTC/Hasbro something they can show their shareholders, they won't listen to us. IF someone wished on a star and give D&D so some other company like Paizo, they'd eventually get greedy too if they are the tip top. The compromise must eventually be made or we'll get something like the potential new OGL.
> 
> Something has to be fed to the greed monster eventually.



WotC wasn't "nice" about anything.  Ryan Dancey et al were trying to save the game from extinction, which it was pretty damn close to after TSR bit it.  They had the foresight to understand that a corporation can't be guaranteed to be a good or reliable custodian forever, and that if D&D was going to be guaranteed to live on not just in name, but in form and spirit, it would only be the community itself that could be trusted with it.  This is now the _second_ time that Hasbro has attempted to subvert that intention, so it seems like it was effort well spent.

The OGL was written so that when the greed monster comes knocking, we can give it the finger.


----------



## Olrox17

Scars Unseen said:


> WotC wasn't "nice" about anything.



Seriously? The WotC leadership at the time wasn't just nice, it was super nice. It was stupidly nice, nice beyond the economical interest of their own company. We all owe a debt of gratitude to them, they somehow managed to steer a company into making a choice that hurt its own self interest and favored the community. If that isn't nice, I don't know what is.


----------



## Greg K

Umbran said:


> This is a (+) thread.  If you aren't interested in talking about what we'd find acceptable in a new license, please find another discussion.
> 
> We are talking a lot about what isn't acceptable.  But, let us think in terms of a counter-offer.
> 
> 1) No OGL is revoked.  Create the OGL v1.0b - it is the same as v1.0a, but includes the extra words that make it clearly irrevocable.  The SRD for 3e, 3.5, and 5e remain under the OGL (and now can be used under the irrevocable license).



This definitely.


----------



## Scars Unseen

Olrox17 said:


> Seriously? The WotC leadership at the time wasn't just nice, it was super nice. It was stupidly nice, nice beyond the economical interest of their own company. We all owe a debt of gratitude to them, they somehow managed to steer a company into making a choice that hurt its own self interest and favored the community. If that isn't nice, I don't know what is.



I disagree, at least in the context of the post I quoted.  What they did was self-serving in that they were taking a brand that - while well known - was in a pretty bad place at the time.  They wanted it to grow (because late 90s TSR revenue sure wasn't enough to justify the purchase), and they came up with a plan that was both effective and _cost_ effective.  While obviously paling in comparison to 5E numbers, they were wildly successful compared to where they started.  The OGL was _enormously_ in their economical interests, and therefore wasn't something they did because they were "nice."  It's just that we're so used to "comically evil" from corporations that long term planning that benefits more people than _just_ themselves looks weird.

The OGL was and _is_ highly beneficial to WotC in anything other than a "maximize quarterly profits at the expense of all else" viewpoint.  You can argue that specific _people_ in the organization at the time had the community in mind, and I give them full credit for that.  But the OGL 100% would not have been written if WotC and Hasbro the corporations hadn't stood to benefit from it.


----------



## Yaarel

I view the OGL as a "symbiotic" business contract. It is self-sustaining (selfish) and generous (altruistic) at the same time.

The OGL is a wise longterm strategy.

It establishes an enduring ecosystem, rather than a predatory exhaustion.


----------



## Olrox17

Scars Unseen said:


> It's just that we're so used to "comically evil" from corporations that long term planning that benefits more people than _just_ themselves looks weird.



I would say that "supremely and utterly selfish" is the standard I expect from a corporation, with "comically evil" being a path further down the road they often take. A corporation that allows people to make money off _their_ properties with _no_ royalties and _no_ questions asked? That's above and beyond what you could expect from a company in terms of generosity and niceness.


Scars Unseen said:


> The OGL was and _is_ highly beneficial to WotC in anything other than a "maximize quarterly profits at the expense of all else" viewpoint.  You can argue that specific _people_ in the organization at the time had the community in mind, and I give them full credit for that.  But the OGL 100% would not have been written if WotC and Hasbro the corporations hadn't stood to benefit from it.



Yeah, I will argue that people in the organization at the time had the community in mind, and I do give them full credit for that. They managed to fool a company into gifting their stuff to the community, they are chaotic good heroes.


----------



## Scars Unseen

Olrox17 said:


> A corporation that allows people to make money off _their_ properties with _no_ royalties and _no_ questions asked? That's above and beyond what you could expect from a company in terms of generosity and niceness.



It's similar to how Steam works with third party storefronts.  Anything sold on the Steam store itself, Valve gets a cut from, but other storefronts can sell Steam keys without having to pay Valve at all.  Why would they do this instead of _only_ selling Steam compatible games on their own site?  Because it means that wherever people are _buying_ their games, they're _playing_ them on Steam.  So Steam grows in the public gaming mindset, and eventually Steam libraries get so big that a lot of gamers don't want to use any other platform.  And the more people playing on Steam's platform, the more people shop on their own store.

The OGL has a similar effect.  Other publishers make money off of the D&D name, yes, but the name grows, far outstripping that of any of their competitors, which translates into sales.  The only time that _wasn't_ true was the last time they tried to kill the OGL.  The combination of a industry that grew around a relatively open standard and a D&D that decided it didn't want to be _part_ of that open industry resulted in D&D suffering, not the industry.  Note that D&D came right back to the OGL in 5E.

So letting others use (some of) their IP without royalties made the industry grow around them, and having it grow around them benefitted them _vastly_ more than a normal licensing set up would have.  In fact, they kind of got screwed over when they _did_ engage in normal licensing when they sold Atari exclusive game publishing rights.


----------



## Enrahim2

There are two layers of acceptability in this context. One is what I would consider publishing new content under, the other is what would not significantly alter my consumer patterns.

As for the first I think a requirement would be anything that do not give wizards any clear priveleged rights to my content compared to others, and would make me confident that this state wouldn't change. 1.0a had that property, but due to the legal confusing being displayed recently it do not anymore. Hence for me to be interested in contributing to an ogl project in the future, the lisence would have to at the very least adress those legal ambiguities now brought to light.

As for not changing my consumer patterns, I am much more accepting. In this regard nothing in the leaks from the draft seemed unacceptable to me as I read "deauthorized" as simply refering to the section 9 formulation. In this interpretation the formulation would have no other effect than preventing use of 1.1 material in 1.0a publications. This would be something I would find completely reasonable and acceptable from a consumer perspective.

The leaked term seemingly granting wizards effectively exclusive unlimited use of 1.0a content in a 1.1 non-static electronic setting would worry me, but likely not change my consumer pattern before wizard actually started abusing it, like putting tome of beast creatures behind pay wall on D&D beyond without atributing or paying royalties to kobold press.

As such it currently seem very unlikely the new ogl is anything I would accept from a creator perspective, but I still sincerilly hope it will be something I can accept from a consumer perspective.


----------



## Olrox17

Scars Unseen said:


> It's similar to how Steam works with third party storefronts.  Anything sold on the Steam store itself, Valve gets a cut from, but other storefronts can sell Steam keys without having to pay Valve at all.  Why would they do this instead of _only_ selling Steam compatible games on their own site?  Because it means that wherever people are _buying_ their games, they're _playing_ them on Steam.  So Steam grows in the public gaming mindset, and eventually Steam libraries get so big that a lot of gamers don't want to use any other platform.  And the more people playing on Steam's platform, the more people shop on their own store.
> 
> The OGL has a similar effect.  Other publishers make money off of the D&D name, yes, but the name grows, far outstripping that of any of their competitors, which translates into sales.  The only time that _wasn't_ true was the last time they tried to kill the OGL.  The combination of a industry that grew around a relatively open standard and a D&D that decided it didn't want to be _part_ of that open industry resulted in D&D suffering, not the industry.  Note that D&D came right back to the OGL in 5E.
> 
> So letting others use (some of) their IP without royalties made the industry grow around them, and having it grow around them benefitted them _vastly_ more than a normal licensing set up would have.  In fact, they kind of got screwed over when they _did_ engage in normal licensing when they sold Atari exclusive game publishing rights.



I'm not saying your argument is completely invalid, but the Steam comparison might be flawed.
When a 3d party store sells, say, a digital copy of Crusader Kings 3, that's not Steam's IP being sold, it's Paradox Games'. There is no lost revenue for Steam there. Steam offering a Steam key for that purchase loses them no money, it just has the positive effects you listed. It's basically just good advertising for their own store.

Does Steam allow third party stores to sell Valve games, like Portal, with no royalties? Because that would be a more accurate comparison.


----------



## Scars Unseen

Olrox17 said:


> I'm not saying your argument is completely invalid, but the Steam comparison might be flawed.
> When a 3d party store sells, say, a digital copy of Crusader Kings 3, that's not Steam's IP being sold, it's Paradox Games'. There is no lost revenue for Steam there. Steam offering a Steam key for that purchase loses them no money, it just has the positive effects you listed. It's basically just good advertising for their own store.
> 
> Does Steam allow third party stores to sell Valve games, like Portal, with no royalties? Because that would be a more accurate comparison.



It's not meant to be a 1:1 analogy.  There are substantive differences beyond what you brought up.  The point is that both got as big as they did because they have relationships with potential competitors that ensure that even sales toward other stores/publishers lead customers back to them.  When people buy from Greenman Gaming, Valve benefits even though they don't get any money from the transaction.  The same holds true for WotC because it keeps the majority of publishers in D&D's orbit instead of an entirely incompatible system like PbtA.  With an industry with profit margins as thin as tabletop publishing, demanding royalties would disrupt that relationship.


----------



## Olrox17

Scars Unseen said:


> It's not meant to be a 1:1 analogy.  There are substantive differences beyond what you brought up.  The point is that both got as big as they did because they have relationships with potential competitors that ensure that even sales toward other stores/publishers lead customers back to them.  When people buy from Greenman Gaming, Valve benefits even though they don't get any money from the transaction.  The same holds true for WotC because it keeps the majority of publishers in D&D's orbit instead of an entirely incompatible system like PbtA.  With an industry with profit margins as thin as tabletop publishing, demanding royalties would disrupt that relationship.



I'd say that really depends on how high the royalties are, and whether they are based on revenue or profit. 
I believe the concept of royalties itself wouldn't be a dealbreaker for the new OGL. The dealbreakers are the ability for WotC to change terms at will, the ability for them to swipe your content without paying you a dime, and the annihilation of the old OGL.
Remove those, tone down royalties and add some carrot to the new OGL deal, and it would be a workable agreement.


----------



## Scars Unseen

Olrox17 said:


> I'd say that really depends on how high the royalties are, and whether they are based on revenue or profit.
> I believe the concept of royalties itself wouldn't be a dealbreaker for the new OGL. The dealbreakers are the ability for WotC to change terms at will, the ability for them to swipe your content without paying you a dime, and the annihilation of the old OGL.
> Remove those, tone down royalties and add some carrot to the new OGL deal, and it would be a workable agreement.



Let me just say:  I'm not opposed to Hasbro trying to put royalties into an agreement for editions _going forward._ Just like with the GSL, publishers can decide whether it's worth it or not.  But I am 100% against any attempt to tamper with or revoke the _existing_ OGL by any means at all.  The OGL up to 1.0a stays as is untouched, and anyone can create content using it for editions and content up this point as the OGL allows.  That's the bare minimum of "acceptable."


----------



## Minigiant

Scars Unseen said:


> WotC wasn't "nice" about anything. Ryan Dancey et al were trying to save the game from extinction, which it was pretty damn close to after TSR bit it. They had the foresight to understand that a corporation can't be guaranteed to be a good or reliable custodian forever, and that if D&D was going to be guaranteed to live on not just in name, but in form and spirit, it would only be the community itself that could be trusted with it. This is now the _second_ time that Hasbro has attempted to subvert that intention, so it seems like it was effort well spent.
> 
> The OGL was written so that when the greed monster comes knocking, we can give it the finger.




The greed monster is here. Giving it the finger isn't making it go away. 

We will have to feed it or it makes D&D worse.


----------



## reelo

Minigiant said:


> The greed monster is here. Giving it the finger isn't making it go away.
> 
> We will have to feed it or it makes D&D worse.



If there's anything Fantasy RPGs and literature have taught me, it's that monsters can be defeated.


----------



## Minigiant

reelo said:


> If there's anything Fantasy RPGs and literature have taught me, it's that monsters can be defeated.



Okay? The greed monster is defeated. Then what?

1DND fails. Visibility of D&D plummets as their is no big player in the fantasy TTRPG market. And the fantasy TTPRG market and community collapses because their is no one pushing D&D to the mainstream to bring new people in and everyone losses money. Mass layoffs and everything shrinks?


----------



## Ltheb Silverfrond

Minigiant said:


> Okay? The greed monster is defeated. Then what?
> 
> 1DND fails. Visibility of D&D plummets as their is no big player in the fantasy TTRPG market. And the fantasy TTPRG market and community collapses because their is no one pushing D&D to the mainstream to bring new people in and everyone losses money. Mass layoffs and everything shrinks?




But those things don't happen overnight. The industry would have time to move on and gravitate towards other products and deal with market shrinkage; some writers/publishers would move on, others would stay with their game of choice.  The key difference here is Choice, and Blame.  They can choose how to go forward, and "Generalized market factors" can't drive up enough hate as a corporate entity.

1.0 Staying honestly doesn't seem like a big ask for wizards. If Modern D&D is such a major brand that that being behind the times in 1.x-5.0 is of no consequence to them, why repeal 1.0? And if it's not, then these publishers, if moving on due to market shift, can publish their own competing systems on their own merits or find new employment during the game's decline over a period of years, rather than next week.

Personally, I'd want the 1.1 OGL to be opt-in only.  You sign up? You can't make 1.0 stuff.  WotC's IP is theirs, that is fair. Does that make the licence good? No; not for me, anyway, but I'd accept it; As it is now, I've decided never to buy another Hasbro product again, and warn all future gamers of the company's bad practices until the day that I die. I am petty like that.


----------



## Minigiant

Ltheb Silverfrond said:


> But those things don't happen overnight. The industry would have time to move on and gravitate towards other products and deal with market shrinkage; some writers/publishers would move on, others would stay with their game of choice.  The key difference here is Choice, and Blame.  They can choose how to go forward, and "Generalized market factors" can't drive up enough hate as a corporate entity.
> 
> 1.0 Staying honestly doesn't seem like a big ask for wizards. If Modern D&D is such a major brand that that being behind the times in 1.x-5.0 is of no consequence to them, why repeal 1.0? And if it's not, then these publishers, if moving on due to market shift, can publish their own competing systems on their own merits or find new employment during the game's decline over a period of years, rather than next week.
> 
> Personally, I'd want the 1.1 OGL to be opt-in only.  You sign up? You can't make 1.0 stuff.  WotC's IP is theirs, that is fair. Does that make the licence good? No; not for me, anyway, but I'd accept it; As it its now, I've decided never to buy another Hasbro product again, and warn all future gamers of the company's bad practices until the day that I die. I am petty like that.




The thing is 1.0 was a huge gimme to the D&D consumers. *If we ask for OGL 1.0 back, we have to give WOTC/Hasbro something in return for all the lost potential profit we are cutting from them and the allowance of other companies to use 1.0 to compete with them.*

Unless someone else is willing to pumping millions into matketing for a D&D clone, a failling 1dND makes the entire D&D ecosystem shrinks. And we lose a lot of what we have gained in 5e. People go back to video games, football, or TV as their main hobbies and the remainers lose. 

I always felt that the 5e "Focus on pushing Core books, nostaglia adventures, and half-done supplements" was not sustainable for a modern capitalistic corporation. I was just waiting for something to come. No We as acommunity have to make a counter-offer.

And it can't be "Everything stays the same."


----------



## Incenjucar

Minigiant said:


> The thing is 1.0 was a huge gimme to the D&D consumers. *If we ask for OGL 1.0 back, we have to give WOTC/Hasbro something in return for all the lost potential profit we are cutting from them and the allowance of other companies to use 1.0 to compete with them.*
> 
> Unless someone else is willing to pumping millions into matketing for a D&D clone, a failling 1dND makes the entire D&D ecosystem shrinks. And we lose a lot of what we have gained in 5e. People go back to video games, football, or TV as their main hobbies and the remainers lose.
> 
> I always felt that the 5e "Focus on pushing Core books, nostaglia adventures, and half-done supplements" was not sustainable for a modern capitalistic corporation. I was just waiting for something to come. No We as acommunity have to make a counter-offer.
> 
> And it can't be "Everything stays the same."



You don't owe a corporation anything unless you've signed a contract saying you do. As a company with a product, they need to convince us that we want to give them our money for it. WotC barely even puts out products anymore, so they're not trying to compete, they're either rent-seeking or attempting to drive the competition out so they don't have to put as much effort into their products.

It is also clearly sustainable as-is, because they are doing well as-is. As with any corporation, they want ALL the money, not just ENOUGH money.


----------



## Minigiant

Incenjucar said:


> You don't owe a corporation anything unless you've signed a contract saying you do. As a company with a product, they need to convince us that we want to give them our money for it. WotC barely even puts out products anymore, so they're not trying to compete, they're either rent-seeking or attempting to drive the competition out so they don't have to put as much effort into their products.
> 
> It is also clearly sustainable as-is, because they are doing well as-is. As with any corporation, they want ALL the money, not just ENOUGH money.



Of course. Corporations always want all the money. They however usually don't make a play for ALL unless they can. What we have to do is convince them that going to ALL would shrunk the market and counter with a LOT of a growing market. Say "100% of 10 is less that 50% of 100". 

We have to offer them more than what they getting so they don't make the move for all and take D&D down with them.

There is no offering them the Same. *It's More or Kaboom!* That's how corporate works.


----------



## reelo

Minigiant said:


> Okay? The greed monster is defeated. Then what?
> 
> 1DND fails. Visibility of D&D plummets as their is no big player in the fantasy TTRPG market. And the fantasy TTPRG market and community collapses because their is no one pushing D&D to the mainstream to bring new people in and everyone losses money. Mass layoffs and everything shrinks?



I sure hope OneD&D fails. I really do. I hope it fails in such a way that D&D sinks into forgetfulness for a while, while people disperse to other games like PF, RuneQuest, Fate, TOR, etc...
Eventually it will rise up from the ashes under a new team, like a phoenix. Empires rise and fall. It's only natural. D&D is _too_ big. It is destined to fail eventually.


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## Incenjucar

<deleting because I'm thinking I'm not positive enough for a + thread here>


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## Bohandas

Aren't rulests uncopyrightable to begin with?


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## Minigiant

reelo said:


> I sure hope OneD&D fails. I really do. I hope it fails in such a way that D&D sinks into forgetfulness for a while, while people disperse to other games like PF, RuneQuest, Fate, TOR, etc...
> Eventually it will rise up from the ashes under a new team, like a phoenix. Empires rise and fall. It's only natural. D&D is _too_ big. It is destined to fail eventually.



Many of my favorite IPs are dead or zombie status. Returning from the dead isn't guaranteed.


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## MonsterEnvy

reelo said:


> I sure hope OneD&D fails. I really do. I hope it fails in such a way that D&D sinks into forgetfulness for a while, while people disperse to other games like PF, RuneQuest, Fate, TOR, etc...
> Eventually it will rise up from the ashes under a new team, like a phoenix. Empires rise and fall. It's only natural. D&D is _too_ big. It is destined to fail eventually.



Nah I hope it does well, and regains people.


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## Clint_L

reelo said:


> D&D is _too_ big. It is destined to fail eventually.



That's how corporations work, not ideas. You might as well argue that chess is _too_ big, thus destined to fail eventually.

Hasbro, however, will fail eventually. In fact, it is possible that their poor performance this year spawned all this. D&D, on the other hand, really is too big to fail. I would not be surprised to see it gobbled up by an even bigger corporation if Hasbro needs to sell assets. You don't think Disney and their ilk would love to get their hands on D&D?

Though this OGL business probably would give them or anyone else pause.


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## Bohandas

Minigiant said:


> Okay? The greed monster is defeated. Then what?
> 
> 1DND fails. Visibility of D&D plummets as their is no big player in the fantasy TTRPG market. And the fantasy TTPRG market and community collapses because their is no one pushing D&D to the mainstream to bring new people in and everyone losses money. Mass layoffs and everything shrinks?



There's plenty of alternatives to D&D on the market. It doesn't matter if one company fails as long as there are still similar products available to the consumer


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## Minigiant

Bohandas said:


> There's plenty of alternatives to D&D on the market. It doesn't matter if one company fails as long as there are still similar products available to the consumer



It does matter.

They don't have the money to market D&D to fund the mainstream visibility to keep newcomers in and the 3PPs in business.

None of the 3PPs are big enough to keep the train going without taking in investors that would make them act *just like *WOTC and TSR.

D&D is barely leaving the niche hobby status. Loss of Big Money D&D would push it back to super niche.


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## mamba

Minigiant said:


> Okay? The greed monster is defeated. Then what?
> 
> 1DND fails. Visibility of D&D plummets as their is no big player in the fantasy TTRPG market. And the fantasy TTPRG market and community collapses because their is no one pushing D&D to the mainstream to bring new people in and everyone losses money. Mass layoffs and everything shrinks?



mission accomplished, yes. This won’t happen overnight anyway, people will migrate during the process and if we lose some along the way, fine. TTRPGs will recover, WotC will not


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## Bohandas

Minigiant said:


> It does matter.
> 
> They don't have the money to market D&D to fund the mainstream visibility to keep newcomers in and the 3PPs in business.
> 
> None of the 3PPs are big enough to keep the train going without taking in investors that would make them act *just like *WOTC and TSR.
> 
> D&D is barely leaving the niche hobby status. Loss of Big Money D&D would push it back to super niche.



1. It survived for almost half a century as a niche product

2. Nobody is advertising chess or checkers or tic-tac-toe and we've all heard of them. Not being beholden to a corporation helps with this

3. Having mass market appeal is not the same as being a quality product


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## mamba

Minigiant said:


> The thing is 1.0 was a huge gimme to the D&D consumers. *If we ask for OGL 1.0 back, we have to give WOTC/Hasbro something in return for all the lost potential profit we are cutting from them and the allowance of other companies to use 1.0 to compete with them.*



no, we absolutely do not. They offered a free, perpetual, unrevocable license, and now they want to strong-arm and lie their way out of that


Minigiant said:


> Unless someone else is willing to pumping millions into matketing for a D&D clone, a failling 1dND makes the entire D&D ecosystem shrinks. And we lose a lot of what we have gained in 5e. People go back to video games, football, or TV as their main hobbies and the remainers lose.



we are the ones pumping the money in via sales. If we all move on to whoever wants us, nothing changed except for that not being WotC


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## Bohandas

Minigiant said:


> Okay? The greed monster is defeated. Then what?
> 
> 1DND fails. Visibility of D&D plummets as their is no big player in the fantasy TTRPG market. And the fantasy TTPRG market and community collapses because their is no one pushing D&D to the mainstream to bring new people in and everyone losses money. Mass layoffs and everything shrinks?



Yes. The point of the idea is to retaliate against Hasbro's abuses, and that means harming their business


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## Minigiant

Bohandas said:


> 1. It survived for almost half a century as a niche product
> 
> 2. Nobody is advertising chess or checkers or tic-tac-toe and we've all heard of them. Not being beholden to a corporation helps with this
> 
> 3. Having mass market appeal is not the same as being a quality product



Survived yes.

But all these 3pps, youtube creators, tikitok creators, D&D sites, and others would *disappear*.

The $$$ faucet would be turned down and the revenue stream would go away. People would have to get nonD&D jobs. Big publishers would have to downsize. You wouldn't get much new.

You're not going to get the 2020s D&D market without a huge mainstream injection. We will all lose.


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## kenada

Bohandas said:


> Aren't rulests uncopyrightable to begin with?



As I understand it, that’s how things were interpreted for a while, but U.S. courts have found in a few cases recently there’s a line that can be crossed where mechanics go from idea to expression (and can be protected by copyright). Unfortunately, that line has not been established yet for tabletop RPGs, so who knows, but if it’s true that Hasbro is out for blood, we may find out.


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## Bohandas

Minigiant said:


> Survived yes.
> 
> But all these 3pps, youtube creators, tikitok creators, D&D sites, and others would *disappear*.




You must be young

Youtube was around for years before everyone on it started selling out like they do today. We don't need the professional Youtubers either.

There was a period around the turn of the century where we had basically everything we do today in terms of content, but it was all free, done by people who were in it for the sake of art and community. I'd actually be pretty happy to be rid of the people who ruined those communities by turning them into a business.


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## mamba

Minigiant said:


> What we have to do is convince them that going to ALL would shrunk the market and counter with a LOT of a growing market. Say "100% of 10 is less that 50% of 100".



that is the boycott part, the offer is not to do it


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## Reynard

Minigiant said:


> *If we ask for OGL 1.0 back, we have to give WOTC/Hasbro something in return for all the lost potential profit we are cutting from them and the allowance of other companies to use 1.0 to compete with them.*



There are no lost profits. WotC wasn't going to make those adventures, settings and splatbooks anyway.


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## Clint_L

Reynard said:


> There are no lost profits. WotC wasn't going to make those adventures, settings and splatbooks anyway.



I think they mean going forward, not recompensing them for any potential lost profits in the past.

That's what this is really about: going forward, Hasbro wants a royalty from folks making more than a certain amount of money off D&D.


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## Composer99

Reynard said:


> There are no lost profits. WotC wasn't going to make those adventures, settings and splatbooks anyway.



Not to mention the existence of those products as 5e-compatible would cause at least some of their customers to buy 5e core books who wouldn't have otherwise.


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## Minigiant

Bohandas said:


> You must be young
> 
> Youtube was around for years before everyone on it started selling out like they do today. We don't need the professional Youtubers either.
> 
> There was a period around the turn of the century where we had basically everything we do today in terms of content, but it was all free, done by people who were in it for the sake of art and community. I'd actually be pretty happy to be rid of the people who ruined those communities by turning them into a business.




Depends if late 30s is young.

The point is that the explosion of 5e's profits is due to the mainstream visibility and ease of learning of the edition. WOTC has the means to jank up the visibility. Which would screw up the 3pps and creators. The main people affected by OGL 1.1.

If you want to go back to a D&D economy of 1985 or 1995? Fine. But I can tell you how much money I spent on TTRPG products in 1985 and 1995.


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## Reynard

Composer99 said:


> Not to mention the existence of those products as 5e-compatible would cause at least some of their customers to buy 5e core books who wouldn't have otherwise.



That was, in fact, the OGL's primary purpose besides ensuring D&D's survival.


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## Minigiant

Composer99 said:


> Not to mention the existence of those products as 5e-compatible would cause at least some of their customers to buy 5e core books who wouldn't have otherwise.



I question how many people brought 5e 3pp books *before* the 5e core books.


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## Bohandas

Minigiant said:


> Survived yes.
> 
> But all these 3pps, youtube creators, tikitok creators, D&D sites, and others would *disappear*.
> 
> The $$$ faucet would be turned down and the revenue stream would go away. People would have to get nonD&D jobs. Big publishers would have to downsize. You wouldn't get much new.
> 
> You're not going to get the 2020s D&D market without a huge mainstream injection. We will all lose.




We already have 5 perfectly playable games, we don't need anything new.


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## Minigiant

Bohandas said:


> We already have 5 perfectly playable games, we don't need anything new.



So what the complaint?

You either want the new or you don't. That's Step 1 in the negotiations.


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## Scars Unseen

Minigiant said:


> If you want to go back to a D&D economy of 1985 or 1995? Fine. But I can tell you how much money I spent on TTRPG products in 1985 and 1995.



That's some major hyperbole you go going on there, not to say more than a little /r/hailcorporate.  The OGL cat is out of the bag, and it massively grew the industry.  As long as the OGL stands, we're not going back to the days where the industry hangs by D&D's thread.  At worst, we'd go back to the 4E days where official D&D is outshined by someone who came in to pick up the slack when WotC dropped the ball hard trying to control the market.  Like they're apparently trying to do now.


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## Minigiant

Scars Unseen said:


> That's some major hyperbole you go going on there, not to say more than a little /r/hailcorporate.  The OGL cat is out of the bag, and it massively grew the industry.  As long as the OGL stands, we're not going back to the days where the industry hangs by D&D's thread.  At worst, we'd go back to the 4E days where official D&D is outshined by someone who came in to pick up the slack when WotC dropped the ball hard trying to control the market.  Like they're apparently trying to do now.



If the 1.1 is true, we are not ging back to 4e. Because WOC will just sue the next Paizo/PF. Then everything halts until the case finishes or is settled.

WOTC is much bigger than the rest and the OGL 1.1 if true means they are in "make a deal, quit, or we sue you" mode. And D&D is still a little too niche for the mainstream to care or even see it.

I'm not hailing it. I'm afraid.


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## Greg K

Minigiant said:


> I question how many people brought 5e 3pp books *before* the 5e core books.



:raises hand (edit: did it with 3e too).  I still have not bought the core books despite having bought several 3pp. Was, recently, considering it, but not at the moment given what is going on.


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## Steel_Wind

Umbran said:


> This is a (+) thread.  If you aren't interested in talking about what we'd find acceptable in a new license, please find another discussion.
> 
> 3) WotC can reserve rights to commercial videogames, *software*, movies, TV, novels and such.  That's fair.
> 3a) Non-commercial software and media are allowed.  Actual play programs are explicitly differentiated from other reserved media, and explicitly allowed.



The issue concerning software is a matter where I have some difficulty with.

If the software is a computer or video game meant to be played without moderation? I have no difficulty with that.  Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, NW Online -- Solasta, even. I am okay with that. Agreed.

But when it comes to VTT software, or even character creation software, or character illustration software, or a variety of adjacent utilities -- I am *not okay with that*. No, whether it is commercial software should not be  the test. 

I don't like the idea of exclusivity concerning these edge cases; this gives us poorer digital products and chokes off technological innovation. In many respects, the only thing being protected are game mechanics which in the vast majority of cases are not capable of copyright protection. You cannot copyright an idea - that is the function of patents - and that ship has sailed. 

Anyways -- to go too far with this is not in any gamer's interest. I would argue that it is not even in WotC's long-term interest, for that matter. 

As for TV/Movies/Radio I am not okay with any aspect of that, to be honest. That isn't the subject matter of copyright, it is the role of trade-mark law. WotC has full control over its marks and those should not be (and are not) covered by any OGL. It can enforce its marks to the fullest extent of the law; that far and no further.


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## Bohandas

Minigiant said:


> If the 1.1 is true, we are not ging back to 4e. Because WOC will just sue the next Paizo/PF. Then everything halts until the case finishes or is settled.




There's still plenty of RPGs out there that aren't d20 based. _GURPS_, _Exalted_, and _Call of Cthulhu_ come to mind


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## Gilwen

My preference would be to maintain the OGL as is but have them issue v1.0b with the language that it cannot be revoked or deauthorized or remove any of the rights or reserve any new rights that 1.0a didn't reserve.

If they want to have a OneD&D compatibility license where they can insert whatever reservations of rights and terminations clauses and royalty fees in that, then that's the appropriate place to do so. This can also allow them to restrict video games, novels, etc., which is appropriate in a compatibility license. This is also the place they can control their brand by preventing things they view as bigoted or otherwise unacceptable.  I don't think those restrictions belong in the OGL that is licensing just the base rules mechanics and there's no real IP to protect in the SRD the OGL applies to that would dictate keeping it out of any medium. In regard to bigotry and everything that is in that vein I don't think it belongs in the basic OGL mostly because who is going to make that determination?  If someone produces something the community sees a bigoted then the community will make that product fail. WOTC certainly shouldn't have any control over that in the OGL, they have shown they cannot be trusted as a steward.

For me Umbran's number 4 has me conflicted. I think caps might be a better solution, I can't make myself take the turn necessary to have the licensor take a piece of profits since those are easily written away as expenses, Hollywood has shown us how to do this for decades. The accounting is cleaner and better reportable as gross revenue. A smaller percentage and/or capped amounts that are predictable. but again, I think that should be in a compatibility license not the basic OGL license.

Since we are in a very different marketplace that we when the OGL launched or even when 4e came about I think WOTC could build an attractive walled garden to incentivize creators to enter into a compatibility license and get much of what they were trying to force down our throats but without the damage to an entire subindustry that helped make D&D the market beast it is today not to mention those creators that built upon the blocks to innovate into other directions than supporting D&D. 
Gil


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## Lanefan

Minigiant said:


> The greed monster is here. Giving it the finger isn't making it go away.



How many experience points is it worth if we kill it?


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## Minigiant

Bohandas said:


> There's still plenty of RPGs out there that aren't d20 based. _GURPS_, _Exalted_, and _Call of Cthulhu_ come to mind



And most of them are fantasy with a focus on dungeon crawler and heroic adventure.


And they also lack even 25% of the 3PP support.


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## Minigiant

Lanefan said:


> How many experience points is it worth if we kill it?



62,000 XP


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## Bohandas

Minigiant said:


> The thing is 1.0 was a huge gimme to the D&D consumers. *If we ask for OGL 1.0 back, we have to give WOTC/Hasbro something in return for all the lost potential profit we are cutting from them and the allowance of other companies to use 1.0 to compete with them.*




What we give them is continuing to use their product. We don't owe them anything. They can comply with the users' demands or they can wither and die


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