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 warboss wrote:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1428-a-working-conversation-about-the-open-game-license


TL;DR: Still working on it. Next version published this Friday with two weeks of UA/One style feedback surveys.

Nice try at scapegoating while trying to gain some breathing room, and focus all the criticism in a small self contained space until the storm blows away.

M.

 Olthannon wrote:
Always irritates me stuff like this where they apologise and say "oopsie doodle we got it wrong". You didn't think it was wrong at the time, just you reckoned on getting away with it. Shouldn't have got that far in the first place and they are only contrite because it costs them income. It's never the little pricks who make those decisions that apologise either, it's some other sod further down the line who didn't get a choice in the decision anyway.

At least their intentions were noble. They were just trying to fix social injustice at the low, low price of 25% of other people's money and the collapse of the third party industry. Just think of all the exposure new creators would have gotten with WOTC republishing their works too! It's a win-win for all! [/sarcasm]




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 Miguelsan wrote:

 warboss wrote:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1428-a-working-conversation-about-the-open-game-license


TL;DR: Still working on it. Next version published this Friday with two weeks of UA/One style feedback surveys.

Nice try at scapegoating while trying to gain some breathing room, and focus all the criticism in a small self contained space until the storm blows away.

M.

Yeah, a video I watched noted that the survey process is a safe way of funnelling angry feedback into a private channel that can be ignored until it's out of people's systems as opposed to expressing it in forums/reddit/social media/videos/groups/etc where everyone can see it and have it feed upon itself to grow.

Predictions on "worst excessive monetization" and GO:

Specific spells are paywalled. Starting with Healing Word.
Specific weapons are paywalled. Starting with Greatswords.
higher tiered players on the VTT can get customizable emotes and fonts for their name. Each one costs 2 USD.

 warboss wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Miguelsan wrote:

 warboss wrote:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1428-a-working-conversation-about-the-open-game-license


TL;DR: Still working on it. Next version published this Friday with two weeks of UA/One style feedback surveys.

Nice try at scapegoating while trying to gain some breathing room, and focus all the criticism in a small self contained space until the storm blows away.

M.

Yeah, a video I watched noted that the survey process is a safe way of funnelling angry feedback into a private channel that can be ignored until it's out of people's systems as opposed to expressing it in forums/reddit/social media/videos/groups/etc where everyone can see it and have it feed upon itself to grow.

Yes and no - it can channel feedback, but at the same time if there's enough ire people will write their complaint and then reinforce it by spreading their comments online too.
Plus this situation isn't going away like many customer based complaints. Because its not just customers who are hit, in fact this hits customers as a secondary impact, its primary impact is on 3rd party companies. Many of which have good reason to remind their customers of the problems with licences and to keep attention and pressure on Wizards and Hasbro.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1432-starting-the-ogl-playtest

OGL 1.2 beta is up. They can still cancel your livelihood at their sole discretion under the guise of hate/harassment with no recourse (legal or otherwise) and 1.0a is still gone.


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 Overread wrote:


Yes and no - it can channel feedback, but at the same time if there's enough ire people will write their complaint and then reinforce it by spreading their comments online too.
Plus this situation isn't going away like many customer based complaints. Because its not just customers who are hit, in fact this hits customers as a secondary impact, its primary impact is on 3rd party companies. Many of which have good reason to remind their customers of the problems with licences and to keep attention and pressure on Wizards and Hasbro.

I'm hoping that the wakeup call to the 3rd party industry will be the deciding factor now that they realized that WOTC can and, more importantly, will destroy their livelihood if it suits them and they feel that they can get away with it.

Meanwhile...

https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si7y

A lot of and some pretty big names on the other side.

I'll hold them to the same standard as WOTC and need to see the actual license and not the marketing.

Yup. I don't particularly want to trade one homogeneous monolith for another one, but the systems in use by that group are at least of some variety. If it gets more people trying more games, good.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Predictions on "worst excessive monetization" and GO:

Specific spells are paywalled. Starting with Healing Word.
Specific weapons are paywalled. Starting with Greatswords.
higher tiered players on the VTT can get customizable emotes and fonts for their name. Each one costs 2 USD.

I look forward to the D&D equivalent of "Loot Boxes" and adding in Microtransactions into the VTT.

I expect your character will only have 2-3 generic clothing options and one armor skin per armor type unless you buy more cosmetic variants. And don't forget the limited edition time gated holiday spell effects and stickers!

Best yet... just like with online MTG, they can take it away from you at any second at their sole discretion with no recourse if they don't like your viewpoints out of game! Just think of the added excitement that brings to every purchase/post...

I'm waiting for a "hardcore mode" where you can only "resurrect" a dead PC if you pay. Think this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSCtV2tRgLM

That would be awesome! Maybe they can add more advanced disease and poison mechanics only at the free tier for DNDBeyond with the cure being DLC! Now that's a memorable loot box if the cure is randomized in DLC!

The OGL REMAINS!

A week early on the survey and Wizards have decided to shelve the new licence scheme entirely!

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1439-ogl-1-0a-creative-commons

Nobody should give a gak.

Everyone should be moving away from Wizards and DnD regardless of anything they do. This is the second time they tried this. Anyone seriously think there won't be a third attempt?

 Lance845 wrote:
Nobody should give a gak.

Everyone should be moving away from Wizards and DnD regardless of anything they do. This is the second time they tried this. Anyone seriously think there won't be a third attempt?

Depends, if this move results in even more people leaving then it reinforces the view that the new licence was the correct move to make in the eyes of the managers.
If, instead, they see return and increased profits then it reinforces the idea, to the managers, that they made the right choice.


Honestly I'd had to see DnD die and its important that we should remember that the creative staff were likely not involved in this choice at all from the start and that this is a manager thing; likely from Hasbro direct.


What I'd like to see from this is DnD return to its stable position, which helps them and many 3rd party firms who are bound to them (even if they want to shift away now, many still have ongoing projects that rely on DnD and its popularity); but also an increase in the market in competition. Which I'm sure its going to happen. I think we will enter a new age in a half to years time where DnD will have a competing brand and system on the market with its own open licence and system.


I'd rather see two healthy firms competing and giving the customers more choice, more quality and being pushed to compete.

 Overread wrote:
The OGL REMAINS!

A week early on the survey and Wizards have decided to shelve the new licence scheme entirely!

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1439-ogl-1-0a-creative-commons

It looks like it's for the SRD 5.1. I assume that the 5th edition version and won't include the upcoming 6e/One stuff that might suddenly become less compatible now despite earlier promises?


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 Lance845 wrote:
Nobody should give a gak.

Everyone should be moving away from Wizards and DnD regardless of anything they do. This is the second time they tried this. Anyone seriously think there won't be a third attempt?

There will be... but it's still a reason to celebrate for now. Regardless, if I won the lottery and started up an RPG company (amongst other things), I wouldn't focus on 3rd party D&D stuff though.


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 Overread wrote:

What I'd like to see from this is DnD return to its stable position, which helps them and many 3rd party firms who are bound to them (even if they want to shift away now, many still have ongoing projects that rely on DnD and its popularity); but also an increase in the market in competition. Which I'm sure its going to happen. I think we will enter a new age in a half to years time where DnD will have a competing brand and system on the market with its own open licence and system.

For some portion of the industry, they'll go back to business as usual mostly because it's the only feasible way for them to exist. For another portion, their eyes have been opened to what Hasbro/WOTC is willing to try and do regardless of the consequences/contracts/law and they won't be shut again with them moving away from D&D related content.

 Overread wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Nobody should give a gak.

Everyone should be moving away from Wizards and DnD regardless of anything they do. This is the second time they tried this. Anyone seriously think there won't be a third attempt?

Depends, if this move results in even more people leaving then it reinforces the view that the new licence was the correct move to make in the eyes of the managers.
If, instead, they see return and increased profits then it reinforces the idea, to the managers, that they made the right choice.

Personally, I don't care if they learn any lesson. It doesn't matter what they learn or don't learn. WE should have learned after 4th what they wanted to do. And now that they tried to do a similar thing a second time WE should learn that this wasn't/isn't a one off. The question isn't if they will try to do this stuff again. It's when. And next time they will be more secretive about it.

Honestly I'd had to see DnD die and its important that we should remember that the creative staff were likely not involved in this choice at all from the start and that this is a manager thing; likely from Hasbro direct.

There are passionate decent people working for a terrible company and by all accounts under terrible working conditions. That, ultimately, doesn't matter.

What I'd like to see from this is DnD return to its stable position, which helps them and many 3rd party firms who are bound to them (even if they want to shift away now, many still have ongoing projects that rely on DnD and its popularity); but also an increase in the market in competition. Which I'm sure its going to happen. I think we will enter a new age in a half to years time where DnD will have a competing brand and system on the market with its own open licence and system.

DnD being in a stable position is a black hole for content creators. They eat up such a large portion of the market share that it normalizes the majority of content created into being about this one system. A more even distribution allows for more innovation and a better spread of products for us all. It's better for the 3rd party creators to not rely on DnDs monolith. It's better for us as players to not have DnD be a monolith. It's better for the entire industry to spread it out. It's exactly like Games Workshop eating up such a large chunk of the Miniature War Game market. It's bad for everyone.

I'd rather see two healthy firms competing and giving the customers more choice, more quality and being pushed to compete.

Id rather see 20 firms. 50. 100.

Well, at this point its up to those theoretical '20 or 50 firms' (the latter is a number that frankly seems unreasonable for the size of the RPG industry) to be successful.

Game developers AND customers have to be willing to move away from D&D. If WotC keeps them at this point, its because they want to be kept.

I mean honestly, WoTC has destroyed what was the DnD I grew up with in the 80s and 90s. They shot it, pissed on it, and then told us it was our fault. I'll keep playing DnD, but this is the end of my support. From now on it's a pirates life for me, or I'll just homebrew it. But never giving WOTC another dollar of my money for a service, or even a model. Literally everything about DnD sucks now, including the player base. I'm sorry, but they opened the tent too wide during covid, and now I have people trying to literally include rape fetish under the guise of "Roleplay" or people who can't do the math without Beyond adding all the scary numbers together.

I'm donating my 5th ed books to the local library and going back to Paizo/PF 1

Sorry, but fetishes are on the people you know, not the company that prints books.

And sadly for D&D that's _not_ new. Early D&D was... real bad... for that sort of thing. Some of it even official.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I mean honestly, WoTC has destroyed what was the DnD I grew up with in the 80s and 90s. They shot it, pissed on it, and then told us it was our fault. I'll keep playing DnD, but this is the end of my support. From now on it's a pirates life for me, or I'll just homebrew it. But never giving WOTC another dollar of my money for a service, or even a model. Literally everything about DnD sucks now, including the player base. I'm sorry, but they opened the tent too wide during covid, and now I have people trying to literally include rape fetish under the guise of "Roleplay" or people who can't do the math without Beyond adding all the scary numbers together.

I'm donating my 5th ed books to the local library and going back to Paizo/PF 1

I understand not wanting to give WoTC any more money. If they have lost you as a consumer that's fine. But as far as saying the player base sucks for DnD. That's nothing to do with WoTC. Anyone has aright to play the game. If you have people wanting to include illicet and illegal activites at the table then you need to find new people. WoTC cannot be held acocuntable for that.

But on that same coin you cannot dictate how others find their fun. Many people still enjoy 5e. That's okay. It's all about finding the table that is right for you and setting clear understanding about what everyone wants and is comfortable with.

I had a player, name rhymes with mall. He was adamant we play 5e like 2e. He wanted long rests to not restore HP. He wanted magic to be a certain way. He was very controlling and very hard to play with because he would game on behalf of other players. We didn't tell him he can't play that way, because although not for us that is how he enjoyed the game. So instead we helped him find another group of similar minded individuals and we carried on.

We don't need to turn this againt players.

And if like you say "everything sucks" about DnD then that's fine don't play. But we can't be telling others they can't play either. Everyone has a right to choose. We need to be supporting players rather than keeping them at bay.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I mean honestly, WoTC has destroyed what was the DnD I grew up with in the 80s and 90s. They shot it, pissed on it, and then told us it was our fault. I'll keep playing DnD, but this is the end of my support. From now on it's a pirates life for me, or I'll just homebrew it. But never giving WOTC another dollar of my money for a service, or even a model. Literally everything about DnD sucks now, including the player base. I'm sorry, but they opened the tent too wide during covid, and now I have people trying to literally include rape fetish under the guise of "Roleplay" or people who can't do the math without Beyond adding all the scary numbers together.

I'm donating my 5th ed books to the local library and going back to Paizo/PF 1

Play what makes you happy both at the table and away when it comes to the company's corporate practices... but I can't see blaming the company for the actions of a wayward player as the logical companion to that. If WOTC is guilty of anything as of late, it would instead be bending the knee to overly sensitive players/creators looking really hard for anything minor or imagined to be offended by and not for placating people trying to actually incorporate very objectionable things into sessions.

No game can be all things to all people.

Thankfully, there are a ton of great TTRPGs out there to try. I encourage everyone to look around at what else is out there and find the game for you.

So where do we go when WOTC says as justification for their actions, "We are trying to preserve the wholesomeness of the game!"

There hasn't been a game I've played in 5th from a published source that hasn't included racist tropes, or dog whistle to murder hoboing.

WoTC was very clearly catering to a specific player in 5th. ORKS are big dumb stupids that smash, kill on sight. Same with Goblins, Kobolds, and pretty much anything from CR2 and down in the Monster manual.

They didn't start the whole, "Orks are people too!" until Tashas, which came out during covid, and that was when everything really went weird. Now Drow aren't a created race of an evil god, they are misunderstood edge lords. Now any ork with less than 10 intelligence is a racist caricature.

In the words of Ghraham Chapman "TOO SILLY"

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So where do we go when WOTC says as justification for their actions, "We are trying to preserve the wholesomeness of the game!"

There hasn't been a game I've played in 5th from a published source that hasn't included racist tropes, or dog whistle to murder hoboing.

WoTC was very clearly catering to a specific player in 5th. ORKS are big dumb stupids that smash, kill on sight. Same with Goblins, Kobolds, and pretty much anything from CR2 and down in the Monster manual.

They didn't start the whole, "Orks are people too!" until Tashas, which came out during covid, and that was when everything really went weird. Now Drow aren't a created race of an evil god, they are misunderstood edge lords. Now any ork with less than 10 intelligence is a racist caricature.

In the words of Ghraham Chapman "TOO SILLY"

Think of the adventures as more guide lines. They are written to be basic and simple for DM's to follow and structure. But it's fairly well known you are encouraged as a DM to change and adapt their adventures to suit your party needs or views etc.

Tashas was a way to allow new players who came in during covid to find their own niche if they so choose. Which is allowed, have fun however you want. This is why Tashas still remains as an "optional" thing to choose. You don't have to apply Tasha's. Merely if you want to play an Ork because rule of cool, but you want the race trait to go into int cos they be a wizard. It's the attitude of, "have fun" and thats how it should be. Again WoTC cannot be held accountable for how players choose to play their game. Are Rockstar accountable for people going full murder hobo in Red Dead Online? no.

You can create your own world and play however you like. Just remember the most important rule. Have Fun

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So where do we go when WOTC says as justification for their actions, "We are trying to preserve the wholesomeness of the game!"

There hasn't been a game I've played in 5th from a published source that hasn't included racist tropes, or dog whistle to murder hoboing.

WoTC was very clearly catering to a specific player in 5th. ORKS are big dumb stupids that smash, kill on sight. Same with Goblins, Kobolds, and pretty much anything from CR2 and down in the Monster manual.

They didn't start the whole, "Orks are people too!" until Tashas, which came out during covid, and that was when everything really went weird. Now Drow aren't a created race of an evil god, they are misunderstood edge lords. Now any ork with less than 10 intelligence is a racist caricature.

In the words of Ghraham Chapman "TOO SILLY"

Are you more angry about orcs being "big dumb stupids" initially or the more recent retcon of them as misunderstood race of paleo artists and poets standing in for real world racial groups? You seem to be railing against both sides of the coin in one post. If you don't like the latter, I'd probably suggest looking at OSR style games that don't pander to modern ridiculousness. If you don't like the former, you should stick in D&D and enjoy the new carefree loveable fey bugbears and hobgoblins that are now the baseline. If you dislike both, I'm afraid there isn't a happy ending for your hobby interests.


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 SeanDavid1991 wrote:
Think of the adventures as more guide lines. They are written to be basic and simple for DM's to follow and structure. But it's fairly well known you are encouraged as a DM to change and adapt their adventures to suit your party needs or views etc.

Yes but the official products also set the baseline expectations for the shared experience and you're typically penalized for deviating from it in terms of attendance/participation unless you find multiple like minded people. It's just like incorporating 3rd party products or trying to run an older edition game is simply just more difficult than the current one with only official sources. I'm not saying I like it but that's just my experience with it.

If I am getting Fezzik right it isn't the content that is the issue on either side of the spectrum. It's wizards shallow attempt at placating either side. Or trying to take credit for doing something they never actually tried to do.

Wizards never built a product for inclusivity. They saw a chance to do a shallow PR move and made it.

It's just bs from world class bullshitters.

I will go further down this rabbit hole. 5th brought Mercer and his show to the forefront. Which in turn brought a whole horde of Normies to the tables. Which forced us to literally dumb down the game to appeal to the slowest runner in the group. A game designed around statistical math and role-playing (Things usually despised and looked down on until 5 years ago) were suddenly chic and hip. Mercer was talked about at work lunch rooms by people who had shoved nerds into lockers.

DnD was suddenly a chance for people who wanted to be chic to demand that DnD be exactly like they saw on the last Episode of "Mercer throws math rocks and talks in silly voices"

Point was, and Mercer has already admitted this, his effect on DnD likely killed what DnD meant for a lot of people. I'm sick and tired people who'd be better served playing Halo, telling me I'm running the game wrong, or arguing about the Rule of Cool, allowing them to break the game.

Maybe I'm just tired of DnD, maybe I'm tired of other people. Point is, this game is now very dead to me, and 5th was the last fart of corpse gas.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

Maybe I'm just tired of DnD, maybe I'm tired of other people. Point is, this game is now very dead to me, and 5th was the last fart of corpse gas.

There's always more gas somewhere in the corpse but I get your point and have been there myself. I went from twice weekly D&D of some flavor for years during 3/3.5 (two bi-weekly campaigns and a weekly D&D minis night) to nothing for 12+ years because of my distaste for 4e (we tried Pathfinder and it was good but I think I was burnt out and discouraged by that point). I'd still recommend trying other systems in the same genre though as they don't attract the same publicity and the people that come with it.