Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Paradigm wrote:
and most importantly the clause where they can claim ownership or anything made under the OGL, be it a $2m dollar kickstarter supplement or a pay-what-you-want PDF.

But, but, but they swear the thought never crossed their minds The drunk lawyers forced them do it, your honor!

M.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I guess this is one of the things that upsets me. Am I legally allowed now to download PDF copies of all my books that I purchased? Because Beyond doesn't allow me to, I have to go through other methods.

If you already paid for it, don't feel bad at all about the other methods. They are changing the deal on you. You are not doing anything morally wrong taking your books and going home.

Wizards of the Coast using Darth Vader as their role model right now XD

I kind of thought this encapsulated their response post on D&D Beyond yesterday...

That does pretty perfectly sum it up.

That couldn't be more perfect.

Well, the latest "leaks" which were "confirmed" by several people in the dev team via twitter, state that:

- DnD:B is going up to 30$ USD per month, for even basic users
- Basic users will have no access to homebrew anything, it is locked away behind the upper tiers
- They will be rolling out AI Dungeon masters, which will have tiered functionality. Meaning you can use their VTT as a single player, but only with very limited options.
- Content of all users will no longer be "sharable".

Whelp, this is OGL 2.0, and it's DoA

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Well, the latest "leaks" which were "confirmed" by several people in the dev team via twitter, state that:

- DnD:B is going up to 30$ USD per month, for even basic users
- Basic users will have no access to homebrew anything, it is locked away behind the upper tiers
- They will be rolling out AI Dungeon masters, which will have tiered functionality. Meaning you can use their VTT as a single player, but only with very limited options.
- Content of all users will no longer be "sharable".

Whelp, this is OGL 2.0, and it's DoA

Just to be clear, the $30 per month is rumored to be the ultimate tier price that includes some monthly DLC and not for basic users. It's still bonkers ridiculous but just not to that extent.

Honestly if you want a proper RPG experience as a singleplayer I can't help but feel that an actual RPG game is going to be FAR more entertaining than an "AI" one.

And at $30 a month you can get a good number of big full content RPG games in a year for that same amount.


DnD B sounds like they are taking a game aid system and online play support software and turning it into a full game with micro transactions and high monthly costs and all.

It's not an upgrade, its an entirely different bit of software and business direction.

Locking people out of free and custom content is also really really baffling at the low end because, well, custom stuff is what DND is built on.
It would be like Games Workshop banning your own paint schemes in games.

I mean, World of Warcraft is only 15/month, and offers far more playability than Beyond currently is slated to do. I think WoW numbers went down over covid because people got bored. If I were at the top levels of Blizz, I'd take a long hard look at attracting some of this fallen base.

 Overread wrote:

Locking people out of free and custom content is also really really baffling at the low end because, well, custom stuff is what DND is built on.
It would be like Games Workshop banning your own paint schemes in games.

Thats... pretty dubious. In my experience, house rules rarely left the basement they were used in, and in the TSR days and previous editions under WotC, the sheer quantity of official material swamped 'custom stuff.' There wasn't as much of drive for it. And lots of recruitment ads for players started with 'Looking For Group - No 3rd Party Products.' DMs didn't want to spend the time figuring out if the latest published homebrew was horribly under or over powered.

I DM a 5E game and I currently use D&D Beyond for combat tracking, etc for my in-person game.

I also use the custom content creation thing there as I have a lot of custom monsters (Most are making higher level versions of current monsters - Alphas or giving them class levels) and use that to drop them into the encounter tracker there. Not being able to do that without paying a premium would annoy me and cause me to find a different method.

I only ever used beyond to give my players access to all the content options. I had to use a lot of 3rd party support to make it sync with my VTT Foundry. This is the only point in which I am willing to give points to WoTC. They are absolutely right. I was one of 7 people who ever paid money for the materials. 90% of the player base never pays anything.

I'm pretty sure a great many 5e players have paid for physical merchandise from WOTC. Every player I know owns at least a players handbook.

Right, but that is ALL. Compare that with the DMs who need the DM guide, the Monster Manual, the published adventures, the actual paid account on DnD:B, and all the extra books to bring the extra options on line.

Point being only 1 out of 5 players ever spends more then 30-50 dollars on this game. Which is a broken system for monetization. If you want money, you need all 5 players to do some form of investment. Being more than just 1 book, if that.

Most of the people I've DMd for don't even have the players manual, they get it the free starter manual from DnD:B and go from there to the character creation screen, which already has the options unlocked.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Right, but that is ALL. Compare that with the DMs who need the DM guide, the Monster Manual, the published adventures, the actual paid account on DnD:B, and all the extra books to bring the extra options on line.

Point being only 1 out of 5 players ever spends more then 30-50 dollars on this game. Which is a broken system for monetization. If you want money, you need all 5 players to do some form of investment. Being more than just 1 book, if that.

Most of the people I've DMd for don't even have the players manual, they get it the free starter manual from DnD:B and go from there to the character creation screen, which already has the options unlocked.

Thats why they make decks of cards for class abilities. Player note books. Minis.

All that gak is incentives for players.

Doesn't help the online play/market. But that crap sells for players doing physical games.

Yeah there's mountains of accessories you can sell to players. Plus a lot of them theme around things like your class and your character and game race and such. So if you roll up a new character there's temptation to get new accessories to go with that new character. Esp if the games you play often have you preserving your character for long periods of time.

Plus don't forget sometimes game groups operate like clubs. You might have only 1 customer on the books buying stuff (likely the DM) but the money they are spending is pooled from the group. So on stats that managers review what might appear like 1 customer could in fact be 5 or 10 customers as a play group just buying through one person/club system.


So that's going to complicate the stats when managers are reviewing them to consider their sales patterns and plans.

Has anyone watched Legal Eagles video on this?

It's an interesting watch. So the OGL in any variant can only ever cover the expression of the rules.

What this means is you can fully use rules that are the same to DnD, but as long as the layout of the rules is different and you don;t call it DnD then they cannot do anything.

So write your own campaign, and build it around it being compatible with DnD and not DnD itself they cannot do anything.

I think the Legal Eagle video is nice. But naive.

What actual court has shown precedent that a corporation CANNOT enforce copywrite restrictions on it's own IP? Corporate law is 90% on the side of the major corporations in the US, which is why Apple is allowed to do Apple things, John Deere is allowed to block "right to repair" bills, and Candy Crush is allowed to sue small time devs for over 100mil just for making a similar game. Also, most corporate judges got where they are by playing ball. The US patent law system is a joke designed to keep capitalists in charge, and the small indy devs down.

There is no chance WoTC faces an actual litigation threat if they push this through. I mean, people cancelling is nice and all, but I'm willing to be this goes live, and people don't bat an eye. Of sure, YT "Content" creators will get massive click bait videos screaming about the maddness of it all, but it will get forgotten and pushed aside in less than 2 years. Look at the dustup over Activation's pay-to-win monetization of games, or Blizzard making Diablo Immortal.

Nerds love to get their panties in a twist like this every year, but rarely does it ever have even the slightest change. And that is what WoTC is banking on.

I hope I'm proven wrong on this, but I expect we'll still be paying WoTC for the privilege of using their system in 2025.

The big difference here is that Wizard didn't just annoy customers, they annoyed the entire 3rd party market.

Those expansion books that hit $100K on Kickstarter fairly regularly; all those twitch and youtube play and streaming and clip channels; all those expansion packs and tokens; all the model makers.


Sure customers will forget fairly fast, but those who chose to make their job and life's role in making RPG content will not forget.
Not only will they remind customers regularly; but they will also change their product focus. They will start pushing toward other game formats and systems.


Basically Wizards feel a pinch now, but the real damage is the massive loss of being the potential market leader in years to come as they've opened the floodgates to competition.

Before this change part of the reason DnD was the market leader is because everyone was following DnD. Why fight to make your own RPG system when you can piggyback off DnD and DnD benefitted from the core sales and marketing that helped generate.

Now Wizards are kicking the 3rd parties out so they've every reason to want to go elsewhere. That they are already forming up around a major single open licence for a new system means that DnD might well have just handed the position of Market leader to another company in the future. Or at least a major competitor.


Short term and long term the results from this could be very different. Short term it might sting, but they can recover. Long term and bridges have been burned and the way set for DnD potentially losing a chunk of its hold.








It's akin to how GW under Kirby kept axing games; kept doing unfriendly marketing moves etc... It didn't kill them overnight; but it set them up to bleed and opened more of the market and more customers up to alternatives. Heck before Privateer Press had their own series of mistakes, they were sell set to rise up higher and higher and rival GW proper.



The difference here is that Wizard didn't do a slow burn; they did a flashfire.

Yeah, the times have changed in the decade since the last time WOTC tried to tie a restrictive license with a digital tabletop in 4e... and even back then they failed spectacularly with Paizo's Pathfinder 1e becoming the highest selling (by the only industry metric we have... ICV2) and most popular (by attendance at major cons) for several years for really the first time in D&D's history.

And all that happened organically with the fanbase simply saying "no" in days prior to influencers that seem to be driving the current d&d craze. Obviously the inferior (ymmv!) 4e rules had alot to do with that and if 6e really will be backward compatible to a significant degree then that won't likely be an issue. But streamers who regularly have thousands to tens of thousands of watchers making statements about why they're potentially switching systems (like Criticial Role did from Pathfinder to 5e) will sway some not-insignificant number of casual watchers/players.

In any case, we won't know until WOTC officially releases their emergency redone OGL 2.0 in response to the backlash. Their promises are meaningless given their attempt to undo what the entire industry and fanbase considered the legally binding permant earlier version.

 warboss wrote:
Their promises are meaningless given their attempt to undo what the entire industry and fanbase considered the legally binding permant earlier version.

Which is the other issue. This isn't just a firm suddenly defending their IP after years of just not defending it in certain market sectors. This is a firm who as one of their formal legal foundations, setup an open licence to use large portions of their IP and such. That's a huge thing if things go to court, especially when the original writers of that legal contract are still alive today and have already spoken out against the new legal contract.

I am not an expert, but it was my thought that game mechanics can not be copywritten, but unique terms and IP creations can be.

Therefore, you can use a roll 20 mechanics all you want. You just need to change the naming conventions.

However, I am not an expert or an attorney so what do I know?

Formal update letter with confirmation on a few things and that there's a new licence going up this Friday with a 2 week consultation phase

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

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:
Has anyone watched Legal Eagles video on this?

It's an interesting watch. So the OGL in any variant can only ever cover the expression of the rules.

What this means is you can fully use rules that are the same to DnD, but as long as the layout of the rules is different and you don;t call it DnD then they cannot do anything.

So write your own campaign, and build it around it being compatible with DnD and not DnD itself they cannot do anything.

I don't think most 3rd party devs use the OGL because they think they need it to make compatible materials. They use it because it's marketing. Saying 5e compatible on the cover and including the OGL ensure the customer and adds to your promo materials.

They conceed to the OGL for what they get out of it.

 Easy E wrote:
I am not an expert, but it was my thought that game mechanics can not be copywritten, but unique terms and IP creations can be.

Therefore, you can use a roll 20 mechanics all you want. You just need to change the naming conventions.

However, I am not an expert or an attorney so what do I know?

Even if that is 100% true, you still have to have the time and money to defend it in court likely for years before a resolution is reached. Outside of an initial summary judgement and dismissal immediately in their favor, that's just not feasible for all but Paizo and even for them would be very risky financially. Hasbro/WOTC can afford to kick the can down the road even if they ultimately lose if it means that in the intervening years the 3rd party industry folds and their revenue goes up.

 Easy E wrote:
I am not an expert, but it was my thought that game mechanics can not be copywritten, but unique terms and IP creations can be.

Therefore, you can use a roll 20 mechanics all you want. You just need to change the naming conventions.

However, I am not an expert or an attorney so what do I know?

Technically true. However, the trouble is that those naming conventions are the very things that make third party content compatible with DnD viable. While this has never really been tested and no one seems exactly sure where the line is, it is possible that terms like 'armor class' or 'ability score' are considered expressions of those mechanics, and are therefore protectable.

So yes, you can go and write a game or expansion with every name changed, where 'Strength score' become 'Might Value', 'armor class' becomes 'defence factor' and 'saving throw' becomes 'roll to make a bad thing not happen', but that becomes basically incompatible with an existibg game, which is the main selling point of OGL content. As a distinct product it might stamd up to legal scrutiny, but no one is going to buy (or write) a monster book or adventure that, while technically compatible with 5e, requires you to re-translate every single line of rules text and reverse engineer every stat block to decipher how it actually functions for the game you're already playing.

As I say, no one's sure where the line is, and you could probably/possibly get away with some of the terms being generic enough, but at the same time WOTC only has to lawyer up and win one challenge and you've got to rework or halt your entire project, if you can even afford to contest it in the first place. The whole point of the OGL was to be a standing agreement that they wouldn't come after you over these edge cases, and that seems to be the main thing they want to change.

Even if the fans have won the first round, the inent won't have changed, and I wouldn't be surprised if Hasbro aren't looking to possibly take one of these edge cases to court and set some manner of precedent once the current OGL is gone. That itself might backfire a la GW and Chapterhouse, but I suspect Hasbro would be slightly more careful in what exactly they try and contest or claim ownership of. It's not going to be 'attack toll' or 'saving throw', but it might well be 'spell slot' or 'subclass' as those are possibly a little less generic.

At the same time even if they went to court and won the damage would be done. No one in the 3rd party market would want to work anywhere near them and game making is a really niche market in terms of skilled people.

It would just add fuel to the fire of the other firms pushing away from DnD.

Which I think is also part of why their response has shifted dramatically (at least in that open letter we still have to wait till Friday to see the new draft). The speed at which Paizo has setup a potential competing brand and the larger 3rd parties that have united very quickly together behind it I think showed the managers of Wizards that they could have serious competition on their hands in a very short span of time.
DnD enjoys its market dominance, but its an exceptionally fragile market dominance.

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.

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.