#opendnd

I know that sounds insane, but hear me out: D&D is not a game, it is a games console. You don't actually "play D&D." You play "Dragon Heist" or "Tomb of Annihilation" or "Ghosts of Saltmarsh" or "your GM's homebrew campaign" or "the plot of Critical Role Season 1 reconstructed from memory" on D&D.

For quite a long while now - possibly literal decades - D&D hasn't even been the best games console, but it's been "the one everyone knows about" and "the one my friends have" and in fact it's "the one whose name is almost synonymous with the entire medium of TTRPGs," like how "Nintendo" or "Playstation" could just mean "games console" to people who didn't understand games consoles. They might not have heard of a "tabletop roleplaying game," but most people have heard of "Dungeons & Dragons."

For this extended metaphor, D&D is Nintendo back in the 90s, or Playstation in the 2000s. Sometimes you say "oh let's go to my house and play Nintendo" or "c'mon dude I wanna play Playstation" but you're not actually playing Nintendo or Playstation, you're playing Resident Evil or Super Mario Bros or Jurassic Park or Metal Gear Solid or whatever on a Nintendo or a Playstation.

Now, this metaphor is going to get even more tortured, but remember how when the PS2 and the original X-Box came out, they used a standardised DVD format, but the Nintendo console in that generation, the Gamecube, used discs but they were this proprietary tiny little disc format that they had control over? That essentially meant that it was really difficult to make third party titles for the Gamecube that did literally anything that Nintendo didn't want them to do, and also essentially gave Nintendo an even greater ability to skim money off the top of any sales?

So that must've seemed like a smart business decision in their heads. But the PS2 and the X-Box used DVDs. This was a standardized format which gave Microsoft and Sony way less control over who made games for their consoles, but that actually turned out to be a good thing for gaming, because it meant that the breadth of games that you could play on their consoles was massively increased even if some of them were games Microsoft and Sony didn't really approve of. (Also it's worth nothing that the PS2 and the X-Box could just play DVDs, which meant if your household was on a budget, you didn't need a separate DVD player - your games console could do it for you! This was actually a huge selling point!)

What Wizards are currently trying to do now is kinda-sorta the equivalent of Sony suddenly announcing that the PS5 will only accept a proprietary cartridge format they hold the patent on, will control the content of and charge money for the construction of. This possibly seems like it could be a moneymaker in your head because you hold market dominance (apparently the PS5 has 30 million units shipped compared to X-Box Series X 20 million units) and so many people make games for your console, but what it actually means is game devs and publishers will abandon your product. If it takes so much more work, the scope of what they're allowed to do is so much more limited and they're going to make less money off of it, they just won't bother. They'll go make games for the X-Box or PC instead.

To use another computer metaphor, D&D is Windows - it might not be the best system but it's the system most people are familiar with and so it gets the most stuff made for it, but there's is an upper limit on the bullshit people will take before they decide fuck it and get an Apple or learn how Linux works.

WE. FUCKING. WON.

(Check the link for the post itself! Here’s a screenshot of the same content available in the page, though)

Wizards of the Coast has finally made an official statement about the new OGL, and as expected, it’s an attempt to douse the fire with sweet corpo speak. So, here’s some key points about it, so we don’t forget what actually happened.

They repeated thorough the letter that this was to avoid bigoted content. About three times. Don’t let them lie to you: This was NEVER about preventing bigoted content. (In fact, please remember that WOTC released the hadozee on 2022, and has a lot of unresolved sexual harassment case allegations)

They also mentioned the NFT thing. Again: This is another buzzword, given how nowadays most people dislike NFTs openly. It was NEVER about preventing NFTs

Most importantly: They are blatantly lying about the leaked OGL being “up to revision” and them having planned “to accept community feedback”. The leaked OGL was sent as it is to implied third parties, alongside with contracts. THEY FULLY PLANNED TO HAVE PEOPLE SIGN IT AS IT WAS.

They have been saying they’ll backpedal on some of the choices. DO NOT BELIEVE THEM until we see an actual readable OGL of whatever changes they are promising. They are trying to, desperately, calm down the storm.

KEEP pushing, in fact. Keep unsuscribing from DnD Beyond. Do not buy their products, don’t watch the movie, etc. If this PR stunt makes people suddenly calm down, they’ll try to get away with the OGL as it is.

Also, here’s some segments I want to highlight, just to show how thoroughly filled with horseshit they are:

And third, we wanted to ensure that the OGL is for the content creator, the homebrewer, the aspiring designer, our players, and the community—not major corporations to use for their own commercial and promotional purpose.

This one is probably a jab at Paizo, but they certainly didn’t care about all the third parties affected by this. The “aspiring designer”, the “homebrewer”, the “content creator” are all people who probably have a foot in the industry and are working with smaller TTRPG companies, or third parties. Most third parties have a very limited number of employees (or quite literally consist of just one person), and hire freelancers as needed. These were quite literally the most hurt by this new OGL. Let’s not forget they were content trying to put an end to that.

It also will not include the license back provision that some people were afraid was a means for us to steal work. That thought never crossed our minds. Under any new OGL, you will own the content you create. We won’t. Any language we put down will be crystal clear and unequivocal on that point. The license back language was intended to protect us and our partners from creators who incorrectly allege that we steal their work simply because of coincidental similarities.

They made a section in the OGL that allowed them to steal content. Of course, they are claiming that is not true now, as it would give them a bad image. And yet, they have the nerve to claim they are just defending themselves when they release copied content.

Finally, we’d appreciate the chance to make this right. We love D&D’s devoted players and the creators who take them on so many incredible adventures. We won’t let you down.

This is obviously that sweet corpo speak that ties everything together. They never wanted to make this right: Again, the leaked full OGL was never a draft. They were ready to fuck the entire community over (and still are, most probably) over a greedy cash grab. Do noT forget, and do not relent now: The fight is not over.

We don’t need a “compromise” over the new OGL. I wouldn’t care if they applied this new OGL exclusively to OneDnD, but there is still a lot of people who have built a living operating under 5e’s OGL, and they should NOT be taking that from people. 

as you may have heard, Wizards of the Coast wrote up a new Open Game License that was leaked and it's really, really bad. (i linked to the article about it yesterday but here's a twitter thread of the author of that article summarizing it.)

i'll attempt my own breakdown of what this means here:

the new OGL revokes the previous OGL. this is bad for so many reasons, and will affect all kinds of TTRPGs like Pathfinder, and third-party publishers like Kobold's Press.

it also means that character sheets wouldn't be able to be used in unauthorized virtual table tops anymore, including Roll20, Foundry, etc.

the new OGL grants WotC a perpetual, irrevocable license to all third-party content produced and published under the old OGL, as well as future content. for example, if WotC hypothetically liked Dimension 20's Unsleeping City setting enough, it could sell products related to that setting, without needing D20's permission.

the new OGL can be updated, changed or revoked with only 30 days' notice. truly wild.

anybody who makes more than $750k revenue (not profit, but revenue) has to pay 20-25% over that amount in royalties to WotC. this will affect so many kickstarters raising funds for indie TTRPG systems that used to fall under the original OGL. $750k sounds like a lot but keep in mind publishing books is expensive.

this is really, really bad. WotC will probably go back on some of this based on public response, and a lawsuit may make them go back on even more. (some of what they're trying to do here is illegal? i think?) but they'll likely still push forward with some of it.

it seems WotC's goal is to 1) appease shareholders (which in late-stage capitalism means "exponential growth forever") and 2) create a closed ecosystem for d&d that's completely under WotC's financial control. think: D&D Beyond being the only place you can access any D&D content, character sheets, etc. and i mean, in general, they've shown a pattern of greed and weighing corporate interests more heavily than their customers or employees.

now would be a great time to move away from d&d if you've ever considered doing so, or to consider it if you haven't.

8 alternative ttrpg systems to play instead of d&d:

1. Icon (inspired by Final Fantasy video games)

2. Thirsty Sword Lesbians

3. Lancer RPG (inspired by Mobile Suit Gundam and other Mech Suit franchises)

4. Avatar Legends

5. Coyote & Crow

6. CBR PNK

7. .dungeon

It’s not “End your current D&D game!” WotC doesn’t give a shit if you play a thing you’ve already bought… they have your money for that stuff already.

It’s “Stop giving WotC/Hasbro money!” Share, pirate, copy, buy second hand… just don’t give them reason to think you’re okay with the coming changes.

While you don’t HAVE to do anything, paying them tells Hasbro you’re onboard with their plans for D&D

I’m not okay with Chris Cao’s Zynga mobile games approach to monetising the game

I am opposed to them carving up D&D so that more and more things are gated behind microtransactions

It’s not ok for them to kill the VTT’s that kept D&D going during the pandemic and no-one was leaving the house

It’s not cool that they tried to strong-arm creators with a shitty OGL then lie and say it was a draft.

Now they are trying to get us to be cool with a new draft that doesn’t stop them from bringing back the stuff that was in the old one

Competition is good for us, the consumers, it keeps them innovating and encourages them to keep the players happy so they win our cash. If they eliminate the competition we have to put up with whatever they decide to do because they’re the only option. Corporations are not your friend and brand loyalty is a scam. They want to extract as much from us for as little as possible, it’s what they do, but we can leverage buying power to make it so that the “little as possible” is them delivering a quality product in a way that we like. This is the war you are always in when a big business, especially one that doesn’t understand the thing they just bought, tries to shift the course of something you love.

It is great to broaden your RPG horizons, try new games, throw some money to the competition but you don’t have to give up your weekly D&D game.

Just try to keep playing it without giving them money. If Chris Cao has his way they’ll be killing DnDBeyond anyway.

Edit: This isn’t me imploring you to stick with D&D, this is me saying that if thinking you had to give up your weekly game was your reason for not joining the boycott, you don’t.

Actually fucking nuts. Capitalism ruins everything.

Push back against this. Be loud. Use #OpenDnD liberally.

Staying in 5e and ignoring 6e/"OneDnD" is not an option. I'll try to summarize below the cut, but I'm not an expert, so please seek out resources that aren't me for full info. This link is a good start. This is the full deep-dive I read up on a few days ago. Listening to the community is also worthwhile to understand from the voices of those affected most. To be more involved in the discussion yourself, a lawyer has set up a Discord server for the community to gather and converse in regarding this issue.

WotC wants the corporate speak to placate everyone into forgetting what they’re aiming for. Don’t let the outrage die.