# What's Past is Prologue: Understanding the OGL Licensing Controversy in Light of the 3e/4e Transition



## Snarf Zagyg

_And by that destiny to perform an act
Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge._

With the full understanding that we are still dealing with rumors and possibilities (albeit, perhaps, very well-sourced rumors), I have spent a little bit of time this past weekend thinking about the OGL 1.1 controversy that is consuming the D&D fandom, and pondering my own reaction to it- which, alas, is something less than surprise. I had previously written (some time ago) that I was both happy, and moderately fearful, of the success that D&D and 5e was having, and what we are seeing now is the precise reason why I had been having some trepidation. I knew that it would always be possible for the Powers That Be to choose to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. In order to understand why this most recent maneuver from Hasbro (should the rumors be true) be unsurprising, and in fact, entirely predictable, I think it helps to look back at a prior transitory period ... the one from 3e (3.5e) to 4e, and see how that change may have foreordained the issues we are seeing today.

*Please note- this is not a thread about the merits or the mechanics of editions. Any type of "edition superiority" or "edition warring" or threadjacking about what D&D should or should not be will likely (and properly) get the thread shut down. Don't do that! Be kind, and remember this is about corporate Issues and how those may (or may not) be similar to the what we are seeing now. Thanks!

I. Remembering the 3e/4e Transition*
_It also means you could mess around with anybody just as long as they aren't also a member. It's like a license to steal. It's a license to do anything._

The first thing to remember is that 4e did not arise in a vacuum; it was the product of a company. And that company ... was Hasbro. Let's remember the timeline of TSR/WoTC/Hasbro and the OGL.
1997- WoTC announces the acquisition of TSR.
1998- WoTC begins work on 3e, OGL
September 1999- Hasbro acquires WoTC
2000- WoTC released 3e and the OGL
January 2001- Peter Adkinson resigns from WoTC
August 2001- WoTC is consolidated into Hasbro (previously operating autonomously)

Based on this timeline, while not dispositive, I think you can make the following reasonable inference- the OGL was simply a side effect, a labor of love, a project spearheaded and championed within WoTC that never rose to the radar of Hasbro. You have to remember that at this time, D&D wasn't what it is today. WoTC wasn't acquired by Hasbro for D&D- no, it was for the card game (MTG). The thing about big companies, like Hasbro, is that eventually you stop flying under the radar ... and you very much fall on the radar. And that's when the company thinks to itself, "Self, how am I thinking? I am a corporation that eats consumers' money and poops dividends to shareholders. Also? Why aren't we fully monetizing this D&D thing?"

And that's where we got ... 4e. Now, I did a deep dive on this before, so I'm just going to reprint what I wrote earlier-
A not-very-brief history of 4e's issues and why it wasn't a market success:

A. At GenCon in August 2007, WoTC botched the rollout of 4e, causing many in the audience to (incorrectly) believe that a computer was required to play the game. This was the start of misconceptions about this edition that the powers that be never really addressed.

B. June 6, 2008- the release of 4e. Do you know what else happened between the announcement of the product and the release? The Great Recession. Not the best time to release a new product (especially when you were hoping for sweet recurring subscriber revenue).

C. It was hoped that 4e would have MMO licensing, computer games, and more. But the timeframe was not favorable. Moreover, we can forget how ambitious this was for the time; the idea of "always on" internet was still novel, and services such as Roll20, twitch, and so on weren't around yet. Heck, the original (very slow!) iPhone had just been released. Yes, the D&D audience was more tech-savvy than regular consumers, but the rosy projections did not match the reality.

D. Building on (C), there exist players who view D&D as a mostly tech-free time. A respite from screens and technology. Sure, they might be luddites, and they might be a very small part of the market now, but they exist. Which also goes back to B, and the botched rollout- computers weren't required, but WoTC chose to emphasize it.

E. Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln? Yeah, sure, the announcement was botched, and the timing was horrible, but they also had terrible, terrible luck! The 4e designers acknowledged that the final push was rushed by directives from the top. So many parts that could go wrong, did go wrong- key parts of the computer component that was supposed to be rolled out were entrusted to a developer, and that person was unstable and it ended in a horrific tragedy (and also meant no product). The projections for the product, which were too optimistic, combined with the lack of immediate success, resulted in Hasbro immediately slashing funding. But the time Essentials was rolled out in 2010, 4e was already dead internally and they were debating what to do.

F. Within the 4e community, there has been some debate about whether Essentials was a necessary correction that would have appealed to the mass market, or a betrayal of the essential ethos of 4e.

G. Going back to (B), the concept of subscription services and "Everything is Core" (repeated releases of core books each year) is an idea that was, at best, ahead of its time- we are all about subscriptions now, but it wasn't that common then. At that time, it came off as more of a cash grab, especially given the economy.

H. The design team was too insular and wasn't aware that the reception wouldn't be great, and therefore didn't do enough to "sell" the product. When they had 3PP come and playtest 4e, Jason Buhlman of Paizo saw what was going on and that provided Paizo the confidence to continue on with Pathfinder. In other words, outside playtesters realized it would be divisive to some of the core consumers.

I. One more thing- while the internet wasn't "always on" enough for the ambitions of some aspects of 4e, this was the first edition launch that had many D&D players (I assume, I don't have stats for this) have easy access to some form of the internet, which enabled extreme and intense opinions to both form, spread, and become much more noticeable and toxic.

J. Finally, this history has to be measured in terms of what is a "flagship" product. It's not enough for a D&D product to be "good" or "better" than other editions or other products, it's not sufficient that it has great design. It has to be broadly and widely popular so that it continues to dominate the TTRPG marketplace. That is the raison d'être for D&D. People can, and do, argue endlessly about what makes D&D better or worse or good or not, but in terms of a product, D&D must always be #1. Starbucks coffee might not taste the best, but they have to careful changing it ... if you know what I mean.
*
TLDR; a big part of the issue regarding the metrics of success is that 4e was oversold within Hasbro, and given the resources devoted to it (and the expectations), the failure to live up to expectations was what led to the immediate retrenchment. And the failure to live up to expectations had a number of causes, including ... the expectations.*

But when I wrote this previously, one thing I didn't cover was the licensing. All of the above is true- Hasbro wanted to monetize D&D, they through a lot of resources at it, and when there wasn't the Return on Investment Hasbro wanted, they cut bait. But one of the other factors, the one that led to the schism with Paizo and other 3PPs, was the combination of an existing OGL (and SRD) that the 3PPs could use, combined with Hasbro attempting the process of "locking down" 4e with a new, more restrictive licensing agreement- the GSL (Game System License). At least we should given them points for honesty back then; Hasbro did not attempt to say it was an "open" license. Regardless, the GSL drove out almost all the third party producers for 4e.


*II. Out of Corporate Neglect was Born 5e, and then Hasbro Gets Interested Again*
_The definition of chutzpah is murdering your parents and then asking the court for mercy because you are an orphan._

Here's the thing- the failure (relative to expectations) of 4e arguably led to the sustained success of 5e. Because Hasbro was no longer treating D&D as a serious driver of revenue, the powers that be pretty much let a skeleton crew design and release 5e, with few expectations. Moreover, for the people left to work on D&D within Hasbro, it truly was a labor of love. By the beginning of January, 2016, we had a new, 5th Edition SRD under OGL 1.0a and every thing was looking fine and dandy!

And that might have been the problem. Because 5e continued to thrive. Continued to do well. Continued to dominate. After a while, it was no longer just a rounding error on Hasbro's spreadsheets- it was becoming a major driver of profits. Suddenly, they are talking about D&D on the regular investor phone calls. They are trying to value the IP, and deciding about licensing the product for more videogame. For movies. For TV shows (if you can do Witcher and Wheel of Time and Rings of Power and House of the Dragon, why not D&D?). Just as importantly, they are under pressure to monetize it- don't forget that just recently there was an attempt by an outside group that wanted to split off D&D and MTG in order to increase the revenue streams from those properties. 

And if you're Hasbro, you're suddenly very interested. You can only sell so many variations of Monopoly. A lot of your IP like Transformers looks pretty mined out right now, and I don't know about that many people waiting for the next GI Joe movie. And here, you have a product, that ... hey, remember that recurring licensing and subscription idea you had more than a decade ago? Yeah, it seems like it's a lot more viable now, doesn't it? 


*III. History Doesn't Repeat, but it Often Rhymes. Like, um, Wistery.*
_The sole consistency that I can find is that, in litigation concerning business, the Business always wins._

This is the point when I'm going to do something a little controversial (wait ... not you Snarf!). Let me start by saying that I 100% (or 150%) disagree with Hasbro trying to revoke the OGL that 3PPs have relied upon. That said, let's turn this around and attempt to make sense of this from the point of view of a corporate suit- after all, most actions aren't evil or filled with malice, and it helps to try and understand _why_ something is happening, even if you disagree with it. And that's where I think the prior 4e transition is a helpful example.

When Hasbro decided to use more restrictive licensing for 4e, there was a very good reason (for them) for doing so- they were investing more money in the product, and they wanted to reap more return. Fundamentally, in order to fully monetize D&D (and leverage D&D) they need to control it to the greatest extent possible. To them, it's not different than GI Joe, or Power Rangers, or My Little Pony. If there is a videogame using D&D IP- they want a cut. If people are playing D&D online- they want a cut. If there is a D&D TV show or movie (or that uses D&D concepts)- they want a cut. The actual sales of D&D books pale in comparison to, for example, the amount of money that Hasbro could make if they could get recurring subscriber revenue from every person playing D&D on a VTT. And in certain (corporate) way, this makes sense- do you think Disney would be happy with people making Marvel movies, or allowing people to play as Marvel characters in an on-line game, without the House of Mouse getting their cut? 

All that said, I also think it helps to look back at the issues with 4e. Some of those _particular_ issues won't repeat- the chances of hiring a software developer who is involved in a murder/suicide is ... unlikely. People are much more comfortable being on-line and paying for subscriptions than they were in 2008, and always-on internet is ubiquitous. Still, I can't help but see some similarities....

Hasbro is launching OneD&D, arguably, right after "peak D&D." I'm not saying that D&D is dying or anything, simply that it achieved a height during the pandemic that it will be hard to grow from.
They appear to be botching the launch; much like the ill-fated GenCon 2007 announcement, this OGL kerfuffle is already generating headwinds.
They look to be setting up a situation for a schism in the player base, as opposed to attempting to unite players, with the OGL controversy.
Much like with 4e, the launch seems to be occurring in a more challenging economic environment. 
Finally, and most obviously, a more restrictive license is causing problems right off the bat.


Anyway, I thought this would be an interesting topic to think about- I have been thinking about it for the past few days.


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## TwoSix

I see a lot of similarities to Apple's "walled garden" approach with the iOS app store.  People can and will pay a premium for carefully curated content, which seems to be what the OneD&D approach is.  Everything goes through D&D Beyond, and 3rd parties can participate only if they go through tightly controlled curated openings.  

I mean, it might work!  You can see in postings here, and also in a lot of online sources, that a lot of people only want to use WotC material in their games.  There's a desire for a centralized game infrastructure.  Look at electronic games.  For every person who swears by playing games on PC and being able to use a nigh-infinite amount of mods, there's someone else who loves the "download and play" aspects of console gaming.

The central problem for me is that OneD&D isn't really new, it's essentially 5e with some detailing.  If it had been a truly new edition that was kicking off with a subscription-based electronic model, that would make somewhat more amenable to checking it out.  It's the fact that the new OGL is fracturing 8 years of productive 3pp infrastructure around 5e that bothers me.


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## payn




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## payn

TwoSix said:


> I see a lot of similarities to Apple's "walled garden" approach with the iOS app store.  People can and will pay a premium for carefully curated content, which seems to be what the OneD&D approach is.  Everything goes through D&D Beyond, and 3rd parties can participate only if they go through tightly controlled curated openings.
> 
> I mean, it might work!  You can see in postings here, and also in a lot of online sources, that a lot of people only want to use WotC material in their games.  There's a desire for a centralized game infrastructure.  Look at electronic games.  For every person who swears by playing games on PC and being able to use a nigh-infinite amount of mods, there's someone else who loves the "download and play" aspects of console gaming.
> 
> The central problem for me is that OneD&D isn't really new, it's essentially 5e with some detailing.  If it had been a truly new edition that was kicking off with a subscription-based electronic model, that would make somewhat more amenable to checking it out.  It's the fact that the new OGL is fracturing 8 years of productive 3pp infrastructure around 5e that bothers me.



ONEDND!!! will live and die on the VTT. If its great, it will work. Likely it will just be ok, and limp along on the brand name. Exciting times I guess.


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## Ruin Explorer

First off, genuine congratulations on writing by far the least partisan (basically non-partisan) summary of the whole 4E situation I've ever seen anyone, including actual journalists, write. Someone on reddit made a similar post and it was an utterly partisan mess full of wild opinion, falsehoods and misunderstandings seemingly the result of not having actually been there. It got like 1.5k upvotes lol.

But this is genuinely a great summary of the situation. I'd actually even forgotten about the bit where they managed to convince everyone you needed a computer. I'd personally have added some stuff about how the head of WotC (or Hasbro, I forget) managed to also make it sound like their intention was to make D&D into World of Warcraft, which he clearly didn't intend as literally as many took it, but damn what a way to stigmatize your own product given this was 2008, and there was already a huge tension between MMORPG players and TTRPG players, because whilst many people were both, a lot of people had friends or even DMs who'd _de facto_ stopped playing TTRPGs for MMORPGs in the previous four years (2004-2008).

Also somehow mishandling the launch video so badly that it didn't seem like a joke-y celebration of D&D through the years but an attack on previous editions so clumsy it seemed like a Simpsons bit (replete with questionable "European" accent on the narrator!) should go down in history. I hadn't seen advertising that ill-advised since some mid-90s videogame ads (which often took a "That game you like? IT SUUUUCKS AND YOU SUUUUCK! Play [obvious competitor to that game] XTREME FACE SMASH 4 and you will stop being a loser and also get hot chicks!" tone)

Anyway, didn't need those bits, great summary.



Snarf Zagyg said:


> When Hasbro decided to use more restrictive licensing for 4e, there was a very good reason (for them) for doing so- they were investing more money in the product, and they wanted to reap more return.




Yeah I think investment here is a major factor that a lot of people (including me) have been rather overlooking.

WotC/Hasbro have apparently got 350 people working on the 3D VTT. That's bonkers levels of investment. Tens of millions a year (I believe @Umbran estimated it at possibly $35m/pa). I dunno how much investment D&D has had in development, but I suspect it's a _hell of a lot_ less than $35m/pa.

Of course investment works both ways to some extent, and if WotC is really in that deep with the success of 1D&D/3D VTT (which are one and the same, essentially, see the announcement video), they may well be invested enough to be willing to be somewhat flexible on the OGL 1.1 if they think it will be helpful.

But I think they may have done critical PR damage already, just as early 4E decisions really smashed up 4E's PR. They've got a year and a half or so to "right the ship", but unless they do something pretty drastic and 1D&D starts seeming more like a "killer app" and less like 5E with a lot of house rules (some good, some shrug, some bah), this seems like it bodes ill for them.


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## Ruin Explorer

TwoSix said:


> For every person who swears by playing games on PC and being able to use a nigh-infinite amount of mods, there's someone else who loves the "download and play" aspects of console gaming.



Worth noting that modern consoles are increasingly looking at ways to get mods on to them, and I know at least a few games have them. Also PC gaming's success relative to console game has increased vastly over the last decade. In 2013 you could be forgiven for thinking PC gaming was probably on the way out. Not so by 2018, let alone now. Ironically PCs have also got better at making games just be "download and play" though.

I think one thing the 3D VTT will cause is a bit of a "system shock" for a lot of WotC purist groups. Because a lot of people are running rules in slightly "alternative" ways, that they're often very sure is the "right" way, and the 3D VTT is going to show them what WotC thinks is the "right" way, and I'll be interested to see how many people go "Oh, haha, we were doing it wrong!" (even when they weren't) and how many go "Goddamnit, this is not okay!". Also unlike 3E and 4E, 5E was built on an absolute morass of optional rules, "The DM _may_...", and generally DM-resolved situations which is part of why 5E was a success (in allowing people to do what they thought was right, not what some rulebook demanded), and I'm uncertain how well a more regimented 3D VTT designed for accessibility is going to cope with that. I'll also be interested to see if 1D&D changes from 5E DM-side and makes some stuff more prescriptive and less "may".


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## eyeheartawk

Ruin Explorer said:


> "Goddamnit, this is not okay!"



This is my reaction to ketchup on hot dogs. 

I'm fixin' to take people to court over it.


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## Staffan

Ruin Explorer said:


> I think one thing the 3D VTT will cause is a bit of a "system shock" for a lot of WotC purist groups. Because a lot of people are running rules in slightly "alternative" ways, that they're often very sure is the "right" way, and the 3D VTT is going to show them what WotC thinks is the "right" way, and I'll be interested to see how many people go "Oh, haha, we were doing it wrong!" (even when they weren't) and how many go "Goddamnit, this is not okay!".



Mumblemumble_magicmissile_mumble.


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## Snarf Zagyg

Staffan said:


> Mumblemumble_magicmissile_mumble.




_Magic missile? That's what she said!_
-Michael Scott, Hasbro IP Attorney


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## SkidAce

Ruin Explorer said:


> ...
> 
> I think one thing the 3D VTT will cause is a bit of a "system shock" for a lot of WotC purist groups. Because a lot of people are running rules in slightly "alternative" ways, that they're often very sure is the "right" way, and the 3D VTT is going to show them what WotC thinks is the "right" way, and I'll be interested to see how many people go "Oh, haha, we were doing it wrong!" (even when they weren't) and how many go "Goddamnit, this is not okay!". Also unlike 3E and 4E, 5E was built on an absolute morass of optional rules, "The DM _may_...", and generally DM-resolved situations which is part of why 5E was a success (in allowing people to do what they thought was right, not what some rulebook demanded), and I'm uncertain how well a more regimented 3D VTT designed for accessibility is going to cope with that. I'll also be interested to see if 1D&D changes from 5E DM-side and makes some stuff more prescriptive and less "may".



Me too.


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## Ruin Explorer

Staffan said:


> Mumblemumble_magicmissile_mumble.



Great example yeah lol.

And honestly regardless of how anything else about this works out, the fact is a bunch of people are going to take "how the 3D VTT works" as if it were God's Own Holy Writ re: RAW/RAI, when I guarantee at least of the implementations on the VTT will be just some developer going "Oh this obviously works X way!" and no actual designer would have approved that decision. I mean, there's literally no way they're going to have, say, Crawford and Perkins personally approve the functionality of every or even any significant percentage of mechanics in the 3D VTT.

Yet that's not how people will see it. Looking forwards to the exciting day when we're all discussing how some rule works and some dude busts into the thread to say we're all nitwits and 3D VTT does it this way, so why don't we just shut up already lol.


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## Ruin Explorer

Ruin Explorer said:


> I'll also be interested to see if 1D&D changes from 5E DM-side and makes some stuff more prescriptive and less "may".



Also quoting myself like a total chump but I think this has already started, as some guidance is dragged out of the DMG and into the daylight of the player side of the equation in 1D&D and presented as rules in either the Cleric or previous packet.


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## Umbran

Ruin Explorer said:


> WotC/Hasbro have apparently got 350 people working on the 3D VTT. That's bonkers levels of investment. Tens of millions a year (I believe @Umbran estimated it at possibly $35m/pa). I dunno how much investment D&D has had in development, but I suspect it's a _hell of a lot_ less than $35m/pa.




I don't find the money to be a compelling argument for this change.

In the 4e transition, 4e... was the only real source of D&D revenue.  It was the kit and kaboodle, so of course having control of the kit and kaboodle seems attractive.

But, even at the high rates quoted, royalties from 3pp will be a pittance compared to the expenditure on the VTT, if those staffing numbers are a measure.  If we look at, say, a million dollar kickstarter, under the terms we've seen it would yield only about $50K for WotC - maybe half the cost of one software engineer.  

Royalties from 3pp will not be a significant source of funding for that effort.  And it is naïve, at best, to think that limiting 3pp will increase TTRPG sales for WotC.  So, I don't think the money argument holds water.  Especially in comparison to the Hollywood blockbuster scale money they are expecting to start coming in March.

The other option that I think is more likely is that this is about _control_.


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## billd91

Ruin Explorer said:


> But I think they may have done critical PR damage already, just as early 4E decisions really smashed up 4E's PR. They've got a year and a half or so to "right the ship", but unless they do something pretty drastic and 1D&D starts seeming more like a "killer app" and less like 5E with a lot of house rules (some good, some shrug, some bah), this seems like it bodes ill for them.



PR damage is right. I honestly like the 5e system. But Hasbro/WotC has a lot of fences to mend... *again*... *AND* OneD&D has to really knock it out of the park for me to even want to support them by buying it. 
And that bothers me. I wasn't completely satisfied with some of the OneD&D play test changes, but nothing was completely breaking my interest so there was plenty of room for optimism.


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## Ruin Explorer

Umbran said:


> I don't find the money to be a compelling argument for this change.
> 
> In the 4e transition, 4e... was the only real source of D&D revenue.  It was the kit and kaboodle, so of course having control of the kit and kaboodle seems attractive.
> 
> But, even at the high rates quoted, royalties from 3pp will be a pittance compared to the expenditure on the VTT, if those staffing numbers are a measure.  If we look at, say, a million dollar kickstarter, under the terms we've seen it would yield only about $50K for WotC - maybe half the cost of one software engineer.
> 
> Royalties from 3pp will not be a significant source of funding for that effort.  And it is naïve, at best, to think that limiting 3pp will increase TTRPG sales for WotC.  So, I don't think the money argument holds water.  Especially in comparison to the Hollywood blockbuster scale money they are expecting to start coming in March.
> 
> The other option that I think is more likely is that this is about _control_.



Yeah, sorry I should have been more clear. I don't think anyone at WotC believes that they're going to make enough money from all this to even dent the costs of the investment in the 3D VTT, what I was trying to say is that they are investing a very large amount, and when companies invest a large amount, they often increasingly seek to control the environment around that investment, even when it doesn't really make complete sense. There have been a lot of PR backfires through corporate history where attempts at increasing control that_ made sense politically inside the company _- we have heard that apparently a lot of people at WotC are quite bitter about the OGL, despite the tiny amounts of money involved with 3PPs - but that didn't make actual financial sense when the reputational damage involved was assessed.


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## bedir than

Ruin Explorer said:


> Also quoting myself like a total chump but I think this has already started, as some guidance is dragged out of the DMG and into the daylight of the player side of the equation in 1D&D and presented as rules in either the Cleric or previous packet.



"Influence" and a couple other new actions that don't belong in the 6-second round, ugh


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## Haplo781

TwoSix said:


> I see a lot of similarities to Apple's "walled garden" approach with the iOS app store.  People can and will pay a premium for carefully curated content, which seems to be what the OneD&D approach is.  Everything goes through D&D Beyond, and 3rd parties can participate only if they go through tightly controlled curated openings.
> 
> I mean, it might work!  You can see in postings here, and also in a lot of online sources, that a lot of people only want to use WotC material in their games.  There's a desire for a centralized game infrastructure.  Look at electronic games.  For every person who swears by playing games on PC and being able to use a nigh-infinite amount of mods, there's someone else who loves the "download and play" aspects of console gaming.
> 
> The central problem for me is that OneD&D isn't really new, it's essentially 5e with some detailing.  If it had been a truly new edition that was kicking off with a subscription-based electronic model, that would make somewhat more amenable to checking it out.  It's the fact that the new OGL is fracturing 8 years of productive 3pp infrastructure around 5e that bothers me.



Even Apple doesn't take 25%.


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## Ruin Explorer

billd91 said:


> And that bothers me. I wasn't completely satisfied with some of the OneD&D play test changes, but nothing was completely breaking my interest so there was plenty of room for optimism.



Yeah that's the interesting thing here - I'll be honest, when I heard about 1D&D having a playtest and so on, I expected to see a bunch of "OH YEAH!" ideas and "Of course! Why didn't we think of that sooner! D'oh!" as well as of course some "HELL NO".

But it's mostly been "Huh, kinda cool I guess", "Well it's an improvement, technically" and "That just doesn't seem particularly good". It's hard to care strongly about it. Especially as the only solidly "kinda cool" stuff I've really seen are things like the race/species changes, which would be trivial to backport to 5E.

At least with 3E and 4E there was some exciting stuff, whether you hated it or loved it. 1D&D a lot of it looks like change for the sake of change, combined with some minor improvements and minor questionable choices. Especially as the most potentially controversial and exciting change of recent years was actually fully negotiated _before_ 1D&D, the ditching of default racial attribute bonuses.


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## eyeheartawk

Ruin Explorer said:


> Yeah that's the interesting thing here - I'll be honest, when I heard about 1D&D having a playtest and so on, I expected to see a bunch of "OH YEAH!" ideas and "Of course! Why didn't we think of that sooner! D'oh!" as well as of course some "HELL NO".
> 
> But it's mostly been "Huh, kinda cool I guess", "Well it's an improvement, technically" and "That just doesn't seem particularly good". It's hard to care strongly about it. Especially as the only solidly "kinda cool" stuff I've really seen are things like the race/species changes, which would be trivial to backport to 5E.
> 
> At least with 3E and 4E there was some exciting stuff, whether you hated it or loved it. 1D&D a lot of it looks like change for the sake of change, combined with some minor improvements and minor questionable choices. Especially as the most potentially controversial and exciting change of recent years was actually fully negotiated _before_ 1D&D, the ditching of default racial attribute bonuses.



In the context of moving away from an open license (OGL 1.1 certainly isn't open) it would make *alot *more sense if the changes were far more significant so that gating access to the new SRD would be a much stronger carrot.


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## Haplo781

eyeheartawk said:


> In the context of moving away from an open license (OGL 1.1 certainly isn't open) it would make *alot *more sense if the changes were far more significant so that gating access to the new SRD would be a much stronger carrot.



Hey remember when D&D Next had a public playtest and then they threw like 85% of it out by the time it released as 5e?

Bringing this up for no particular reason.


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## billd91

Ruin Explorer said:


> Yeah that's the interesting thing here - I'll be honest, when I heard about 1D&D having a playtest and so on, I expected to see a bunch of "OH YEAH!" ideas and "Of course! Why didn't we think of that sooner! D'oh!" as well as of course some "HELL NO".
> 
> But it's mostly been "Huh, kinda cool I guess", "Well it's an improvement, technically" and "That just doesn't seem particularly good". It's hard to care strongly about it. Especially as the only solidly "kinda cool" stuff I've really seen are things like the race/species changes, which would be trivial to backport to 5E.
> 
> At least with 3E and 4E there was some exciting stuff, whether you hated it or loved it. 1D&D a lot of it looks like change for the sake of change, combined with some minor improvements and minor questionable choices. Especially as the most potentially controversial and exciting change of recent years was actually fully negotiated _before_ 1D&D, the ditching of default racial attribute bonuses.



See, for me, this is partly what an edition change *should* be for a successful version of the game. Incremental improvements here and there to collect the things you've learned to do better. A major shift is just a good way to risk losing customers on an unproven hope to gain more. It may be fodder for a separate game, optional module, whatever. Gambling on a major shift without something really forcing you to do so or being at such a low trough you've got little to risk strikes me as irresponsible.
This, to me, would be especially true for an edition timed for an arbitrary release date - a 50th anniversary - rather than hard data about sales in decline. I would have been perfectly willing to shell out money for a 50th anniversary D&D, very similar to 5e. For one thing, the art would be new, organization of the materials would (hopefully) be improved, and my current books are 10 years old and showing their wear.

...until they effed over their supporting ecology of 3rd party publishers, resources, and the thousands of people that will affect.


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## billd91

Haplo781 said:


> Even Apple doesn't take 25%.



Don't they take *30*?!? (except for a small business program that takes 15%, that is)


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## eyeheartawk

billd91 said:


> Don't they take *30*?!? (except for a small business program that takes 15%, that is)



I mean, DMs Guild takes 50% and you can't sell your stuff anywhere else. Compared to those terms 25% seems generous, right?


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## TwoSix

Haplo781 said:


> Even Apple doesn't take 25%.



True, but I don't think the plan is to encourage more products so they can make royalty money.  I think the plan is to discourage development of products outside of the products that plug in cleanly into D&D Beyond.  

Any product that doesn't use D&D Beyond isn't neutral, it's actively detrimental to selling D&D Beyond subscriptions.  Because any customer that has a favored product that can't be used in D&D Beyond carries the possibility of switching to another form of play (analog, other electronic products, etc) that wouldn't require a D&D Beyond subscription.

I think they're willing to suffer the pain of a negative backlash in 2023 to clear the decks and hope that people are more interested in the new shiny coming in 2024.  Maybe not, I'm sure we'll find out.  But seeing analog 3pp Kickstarters and such as possible stumbling blocks to greater D&D Beyond adoption sure seems logical to me.


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## Dausuul

TwoSix said:


> True, but I don't think the plan is to encourage more products so they can make royalty money.  I think the plan is to discourage development of products outside of the products that plug in cleanly into D&D Beyond.
> 
> Any product that doesn't use D&D Beyond isn't neutral, it's actively detrimental to selling D&D Beyond subscriptions.  Because any customer that has a favored product that can't be used in D&D Beyond carries the possibility of switching to another form of play (analog, other electronic products, etc) that wouldn't require a D&D Beyond subscription.
> 
> I think they're willing to suffer the pain of a negative backlash in 2023 to clear the decks and hope that people are more interested in the new shiny coming in 2024.  Maybe not, I'm sure we'll find out.  But seeing analog 3pp Kickstarters and such as possible stumbling blocks to greater D&D Beyond adoption sure seems logical to me.



If this is the case, each person who cancels their DDB sub over this is going to hit them where it hurts.


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## Incenjucar

billd91 said:


> Don't they take *30*?!? (except for a small business program that takes 15%, that is)



The margins on books and gatcha/loot boxes are very, very, very different.


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## James Gasik

Snarf Zagyg said:


> _Magic missile? That's what she said!_
> -Michael Scott, Hasbro IP Attorney



Are you sure that's not Lionel Hutz?


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## Umbran

Ruin Explorer said:


> what I was trying to say is that they are investing a very large amount, and when companies invest a large amount, they often increasingly seek to control the environment around that investment, even when it doesn't really make complete sense.




Yeah, we don't fundamentally disagree, then.



Ruin Explorer said:


> There have been a lot of PR backfires through corporate history where attempts at increasing control that_ made sense politically inside the company _- we have heard that apparently a lot of people at WotC are quite bitter about the OGL, despite the tiny amounts of money involved with 3PPs - but that didn't make actual financial sense when the reputational damage involved was assessed.




Yep.   People in corporate leadership have egos that can be bruised.  Go figure


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## Umbran

Ruin Explorer said:


> At least with 3E and 4E there was some exciting stuff, whether you hated it or loved it. 1D&D a lot of it looks like change for the sake of change, combined with some minor improvements and minor questionable choices.




Well, that sounds like they are actually aiming at the stated design goal of backwards compatibility - if you want that, there's only so much you can change.


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## Haplo781

Umbran said:


> Well, that sounds like they are actually aiming at the stated design goal of backwards compatibility - if you want that, there's only so much you can change.



Backwards compatibility is a PR goal. Changing it enough to force you into the walled garden is a monetization goal.

Guess we'll see which one wins out.


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## payn

Haplo781 said:


> Backwards compatibility is a PR goal. Changing it enough to force you into the walled garden is a monetization goal.
> 
> Guess we'll see which one wins out.


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## eyeheartawk

payn said:


>



I pick the one with the knife.


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## Umbran

Haplo781 said:


> Backwards compatibility is a PR goal. Changing it enough to force you into the walled garden is a monetization goal.
> 
> Guess we'll see which one wins out.




Backwards compatibility is at least as much a User Experience and Marketing goal as it is PR.

Marketing is not PR, by the way.  Marketing is telling you reasons why you should buy the new product.  PR is managing your image after a debacle over your planned license terms.


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## DMZ2112

Ruin Explorer said:


> I think one thing the 3D VTT will cause is a bit of a "system shock" for a lot of WotC purist groups. Because a lot of people are running rules in slightly "alternative" ways, that they're often very sure is the "right" way, and the 3D VTT is going to show them what WotC thinks is the "right" way, and I'll be interested to see how many people go "Oh, haha, we were doing it wrong!" (even when they weren't) and how many go "Goddamnit, this is not okay!".



I gave you a like, but couldn't not QFT as well.  If Wizards was smart, they'd leave the rules out of it and just focus on making the VTT as pretty and accessible as possible.  A VTT with beautiful 3D graphics that truly reduced prep time would be a godsend for everyone.  Let people use it for whatever they want to use it for; it's all money in the bank.  As soon as you start hard-coding rules into it you are taking a pickaxe to the dam.


Ruin Explorer said:


> Also unlike 3E and 4E, 5E was built on an absolute morass of optional rules, "The DM _may_...", and generally DM-resolved situations which is part of why 5E was a success (in allowing people to do what they thought was right, not what some rulebook demanded), and I'm uncertain how well a more regimented 3D VTT designed for accessibility is going to cope with that. I'll also be interested to see if 1D&D changes from 5E DM-side and makes some stuff more prescriptive and less "may".



You're my new goddamn hero.

Been saying this ever since Jeremy Crawford took over.  Dude does not appear to have a handle on the vision of D&D5.  Deeply concerned that we're looking at the second coming of D&D3.5.


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## Haplo781

Ruin Explorer said:


> Worth noting that modern consoles are increasingly looking at ways to get mods on to them, and I know at least a few games have them. Also PC gaming's success relative to console game has increased vastly over the last decade. In 2013 you could be forgiven for thinking PC gaming was probably on the way out. Not so by 2018, let alone now. Ironically PCs have also got better at making games just be "download and play" though.
> 
> I think one thing the 3D VTT will cause is a bit of a "system shock" for a lot of WotC purist groups. Because a lot of people are running rules in slightly "alternative" ways, that they're often very sure is the "right" way, and the 3D VTT is going to show them what WotC thinks is the "right" way, and I'll be interested to see how many people go "Oh, haha, we were doing it wrong!" (even when they weren't) and how many go "Goddamnit, this is not okay!". Also unlike 3E and 4E, 5E was built on an absolute morass of optional rules, "The DM _may_...", and generally DM-resolved situations which is part of why 5E was a success (in allowing people to do what they thought was right, not what some rulebook demanded), and I'm uncertain how well a more regimented 3D VTT designed for accessibility is going to cope with that. I'll also be interested to see if 1D&D changes from 5E DM-side and makes some stuff more prescriptive and less "may".



Protip: natural language and optional rules don't play nice with VTTs


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## Ruin Explorer

DMZ2112 said:


> Been saying this ever since Jeremy Crawford took over. Dude does not appear to have a handle on the vision of D&D5. Deeply concerned that we're looking at the second coming of D&D3.5.



Yeah that's an interesting point.

One of the major reasons we stopped playing 3.XE was that the game tried to define every possible situation, and ended up with a "rule for everything", something PF1 doubled down on (looking at you stairs handedness penalties). But doing this didn't make the game better - not even as a "simulation". It just made us need to look things up way more and roll more dice (usually with tons of penalties).

4E backed off from this a bit, weirdly enough, with Page 42, Skill Challenges and so on. And where it did go detailed rules, it was to a specific end - a tactical combat game. Not everyone loves that but there was some actual cost-benefit.

With 5E, one of the nice things is it's a bit more relaxed and DM-guided and open-minded. Jeremy Crawford often comes out with his understandings of the rules, and the collective D&D community often laughs him off the stage (you should hear how the 5E reddit talks about his SA lol!). I don't think he minds, and sometimes he even acknowledges that his take might be a bit weird (albeit other times he's mystified when basically no-one agrees with him). His Sage Advice is just as terrible as Sage Advice in 2E, but even easier to ignore, because we're not teenagers now lol.

But goddamn, if that was translated to a VTT? I mean I don't think he'll personally come and enforce his vision - though I suspect any fraught rules implementations might go to him - instead we'll have dozens of unnamed Jeremy Crawfords making their own choices about how certain rules work, and I'm sure Crawford and Perkins will see some of that, but no way all of it, and even if they did, Crawford's takes are often wack. It'll be the closest to the "Rules Police" we're likely to ever see.

Now it is possible they'll go for something much looser, but that's antithetical to accessibility and mass-market appeal I'd suggest. Most people using this will want it to "just work", esp. they'll be paying a subscription. They don't want to fiddle around the way you need to in Roll 20 or whatever. It's also likely they'll have an override so the DM can create arbitrary checks, apply arbitrary damage/healing/movement and so on, but are they going to do that every time an ability you understand one way and Crawford understands another way goes off? What of house rules? I'll be impressed if they can make anything sane out of that.


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## Incenjucar

Haplo781 said:


> Protip: natural language and optional rules don't play nice with VTTs



Optional rules could with a toggle, but yeah, "natural language" and automation don't work. This could of course just be a low-function battle mat and not an automated system.


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## eyeheartawk

Ruin Explorer said:


> One of the major reasons we stopped playing 3.XE was that the game tried to define every possible situation, and ended up with a "rule for everything", something PF1 doubled down on (looking at you stairs handedness penalties



I stopped reading the Shadowrun 5E core book after reading 4 pages dedicated to how an explosion travels from to room.


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## Scribe

Umbran said:


> The other option that I think is more likely is that this is about _control_.




Control, and suppression if not outright removal of anyone deemed as competitive. Grotesque, really.


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## Haplo781

Incenjucar said:


> Optional rules could with a toggle, but yeah, "natural language" and automation don't work. This could of course just be a low-function battle mat and not an automated system.



That doesn't play nice with microtransactions


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## Ruin Explorer

eyeheartawk said:


> I stopped reading the Shadowrun 5E core book after reading 4 pages dedicated to how an explosion travels from to room.



I actually ran SR5 for a while, but like, I can't remember exactly why we stopped, but certainly the last session was because we got bogged down in the middle of a combat trying to resolve something and we'd been staring at the book for 30+ minutes trying to puzzle something out (the internet had not helped).

We switched to a PtbA version of Star Wars the next week.


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## Umbran

Incenjucar said:


> Optional rules could with a toggle, but yeah, "natural language" and automation don't work. This could of course just be a low-function battle mat and not an automated system.




Given that D&D Beyond character sheets already have a significant amount of rules-automation to them, the sensible first release would be a battlemat with grid and tokens.


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## DMZ2112

Ruin Explorer said:


> One of the major reasons we stopped playing 3.XE was that the game tried to define every possible situation, and ended up with a "rule for everything", something PF1 doubled down on (looking at you stairs handedness penalties). But doing this didn't make the game better - not even as a "simulation". It just made us need to look things up way more and roll more dice (usually with tons of penalties).



Absolutely -- more rules have never resulted in more agreement.  The "holes" people are complaining about in D&D5 might get smaller, but they'll also get deeper, and while the argument could be made that they will be fewer, I won't believe it until someone shows me data.  More content means more errors, always.

All making a game encyclopedic does is make sure there's always a rule in a line in a book somewhere that someone at your table can point at and say "I told you so."  It sets tables up for confrontation and conflict when the table's preferences and knowledge of the rules contradict the Word of God.

Look at PbtA and FitD -- those systems are tiny, but they thrive because they assume flexibility and communication on the part of the players.  Common cause!  That's where D&D falls down -- we don't have the same expectation.  We assume antagonism as the default, and always have, _except for D&D5 at launch_.

I have an additional design concern that without redesigning the system from the ground up, these efforts to build heavy scaffolding over a more open and interpretive foundation will be like that castle from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, burning down, falling over and then sinking into the swamp.



Ruin Explorer said:


> His Sage Advice is just as terrible as Sage Advice in 2E, but even easier to ignore, because we're not teenagers now lol.



Well said.

I'm still fuming a bit over _being seen_ not negating Invisibility.


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## Ruin Explorer

Umbran said:


> Given that D&D Beyond character sheets already have a significant amount of rules-automation to them, the sensible first release would be a battlemat with grid and tokens.



It does, but I personally suspect they'll wait until it's further alone than that, given the video demonstrating how they wanted it to work.

I mean, I know, right? Said video is not dissimilar to a senior partner drawing how he wants something to work on a piece of paper and saying "Now make this work!", just a lot more expensive. But equally, both cases do show the actual _goal_, and I'd be surprised, personally, if the people who authorized that video were willing to authorize a version of the 3D VTT which was, say, only as automated as Roll 20. This is totally "my instinct" not in any way evidence-based, but I don't think someone who put out that video would even let an un-NDA'd beta of something less automated than Roll 20 out there.


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## Staffan

Ruin Explorer said:


> Great example yeah lol.
> 
> And honestly regardless of how anything else about this works out, the fact is a bunch of people are going to take "how the 3D VTT works" as if it were God's Own Holy Writ re: RAW/RAI, when I guarantee at least of the implementations on the VTT will be just some developer going "Oh this obviously works X way!" and no actual designer would have approved that decision. I mean, there's literally no way they're going to have, say, Crawford and Perkins personally approve the functionality of every or even any significant percentage of mechanics in the 3D VTT.



I would imagine that if there's a rule that's ambiguously written, the developer would send a question up the chain to see what was up. But something like _magic missile_ where the official interpretation (roll d4+1 for damage once, multiply by number of darts) is completely out of the left field, that doesn't seem likely.


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## Ruin Explorer

Staffan said:


> I would imagine that if there's a rule that's ambiguously written, the developer would send a question up the chain to see what was up. But something like _magic missile_ where the official interpretation (roll d4+1 for damage once, multiply by number of darts) is completely out of the left field, that doesn't seem likely.



That's what I'm saying.

So instead of one Crawford giving wacky interpretations, we'll have an army of unnamed mini-Crawfords all giving their own takes on how rules work. Many of them will likely not be D&D players or DMs (or not this edition).

You can't count on them to make the most logical approach to a problem. We're rolling the dice. Yeah maybe 98 of 100 5E DMs would interpret Magic Missile the "normal" way (roll 3 times), I know Baldur's Gate 3 does for example, but it won't be DMs implementing the rules, it'll be devs, and some of them will do stuff that's utterly logical to them, but not to others. So it's probably more like 80/100 chance they "get it right".

I agree with more ambiguous stuff it goes up the chain, but if it reaches Crawford then OH NO frankly lol.


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## MGibster

Haplo781 said:


> That doesn't play nice with microtransactions



I expect as the years ago by WotC will center their game design philosophy around microtransactions and subscriptions fundamentally altering the way the game is played.


----------



## Haplo781

Umbran said:


> Given that D&D Beyond character sheets already have a significant amount of rules-automation to them, the sensible first release would be a battlemat with grid and tokens.



DDB had one ready to go when WotC bought them out.


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## Umbran

Haplo781 said:


> DDB had one ready to go when WotC bought them out.




Plausible.  If I were in charge of D&DB, I'd have been working on one.

But I'd need more than the bald assertion of someone on the internet to take that as likely.


----------



## Charlaquin

So, funny story: While 3.5 was the first edition of D&D I played, 4e was where I really got into the game. And when Paizo came out with Pathfinder, selling itself as a way to keep playing 3.5, I thought, “how is that even legal?” So, I looked into it a bit. Found out about this whole OGL vs GSL controversy. And though I’m ashamed to admit it, I came away from that with an anti-OGL perspective at the time. Crazy, I know, but as a fan of 4e, Pathfinder just looked like this refuge for stuck-in-their-ways 3e fans who just hated 4e, and the OGL looked like a well-intentioned document that unintentionally enabled the “grognards” to split the D&D player base. It looked to naïve 17-year-old Charlaquin like the OGL was ultimately to blame for the Edition War.

Of course, now I recognize that the RPG industry is bigger than just D&D and Pathfinder, and that the OGL is an incredible resource for third party publishers that the whole industry benefits from, perhaps D&D most of all. It only hurt 4e because 4e didn’t use it. The GSL was actually the thing hurting 4e. But now, I fear all the folks who started playing with 5e may end up thinking the way I used to about the OGL. It may look to them like it did to me, this weird relic of the past with a loophole that enables competition from bitter old players who can’t get with the times, and that they might celebrate the idea of it being revoked.

My hope though is that these newer players who have enjoyed the benefits of the mass of 3rd party support for 5e will recognize that this wealth of support is owed to the OGL. That would be my angle for trying to convince 5e first-timers to care about this issue. “You like Kobold Press stuff? Deck of Many? All the 3rd party supplements and settings that are always getting Kickstarted? None of that would exist without the OGL 1.0).”


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## Snarf Zagyg

Charlaquin said:


> Of course, now I recognize that the RPG industry is bigger than just D&D and Pathfinder, and that the OGL is an incredible resource for third party publishers that the whole industry benefits from, perhaps D&D most of all. It only hurt 4e because 4e didn’t use it. The GSL was actually the thing hurting 4e. But now, I fear all the folks who started playing with 5e may end up thinking the way I used to about the OGL. It may look to them like it did to me, this weird relic of the past with a loophole that enables competition from bitter old players who can’t get with the times, and that they might celebrate the idea of it being revoked.




That's an interesting and welcome perspective, thank you. Sometimes, it is hard to remember that other people don't think the same way we do.

I am constantly reminded of this because (for example) I am someone who greatly values my on-line privacy, and remember the long-ago fights such as the clipper chip all the way to today. And yet, when I talk to some people of a different generation (not all, but some in particular that I think about) they ... don't ... care ... at all. It's hard to tell whether it's fatalism (everything is already being tracked) or just rational self-interest ("free" is good), but it's not a major concern for them, or at least not the same level as it is for me.

I wonder if this is might be similar- after all, this community has a longer memory and divergent interests. For the average 12-24 yr. old D&D player, will they care? Or will they (like you, previously) just think this is a bunch of old timers screaming at clouds?

Dunno. Maybe someone can tell us if it's trending on TikTok?


----------



## Clint_L

The OP is a truly excellent read. Thoughtful, balanced, informative. Well done!

I concur that corporations normally act rationally, from within their context - this doesn't mean that they don't make mistakes or act immorally, just that they have a plan that, at least initially, made sense to them. And since this whole situation around the OGL 1.1 didn't make much sense to me, I had trouble believing it. I think my problem is partially that I was thinking gamers matter to D&D a lot more than Hasbro thinks they matter to D&D.

It's counterintuitive to think that gamers might not be that important to the success of a game, but consider Marvel (I guarantee you that Hasbro is considering Marvel). The publication of actual comic books is small potatoes - tiny potatoes - in the Marvel portfolio, so much so that the entertainment division was split off from the publishing division ages ago. They still make comics, and some of their plot lines on TV and films use aspects of those plot lines and themes, but in terms of income, actual physical comic books barely exist from Disney/Marvel's point of view. Marvel has moved way, way past needing comic book readers to be successful.

That's what Hasbro wants from the D&D brand - an entertainment behemoth, not a book seller. So from their perspective, it might be worth alienating the gaming community to lock down an IP that they are hoping to turn into something much bigger than a game. I think this will prove to be a mistake (or at least their clumsy handling of the situation), but time will tell.


----------

