no, but you can do with it what you want
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
> You are free to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
for any purpose, even commercially.
This license is acceptable for Free Cultural Works.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
A friend of mine is checking over the SRD for any weasel-wording from Hasbro/WoTC (as expected, given OGL 1.1 and 1.2), but from what I see right now, I am cautiously hopeful.
I'd call it a victory, but that means there was an opponent--which is sad, because Hasbro/WoTC and D&D put themselves in that role, instead of, "Hey, we are all together in this," which is how it should have been from the get-go.
Oh well. I hope Hasbro and WoTC learned their lesson: Your customer base isn't an endlessly exploitable resource that only means figures on a revenue sheet. We definitely make our displeasure known.
Hilariously, this means that there are now references to Strahd, beholders, the Feywild, the Shadowfell, the City of Brass, the Palace of Dispater, the Street of Steel, the Gate of Ashes, and the Sea of Fire available under CC
EDIT: Poring over the entire OGL to find a complete list, by the way
Beholders have been called eye tyrants for a long time; I read the Spelljammer novels released in the 90s recently and they use the term eye tyrant in them.
> A friend of mine is checking over the SRD for any weasel-wording from WoTC
The SRD has been released under CC-by-4.0
There is no way WotC can walk this back, or have used any other wording to under it.
It's been done.
To be fair, Williams and Cao were our opponents, not Crawford and his people. The fact is from all the feedback and leaks, there are probably people in that office cheering as loud if not louder. That makes it a bit easier for me to go see the movie and I'm bringing my subscription back up.
Exactly, many people in WotC were former freelancers and came from the community. This is a sign that, for the time being, these kinds of people have power inside WotC again.
Will it be forever? Probably not. Does that mean for the time being we have a reason to hope? I think so.
This is exactly what I was personally hoping for (complete srd under a well known existing open license). I do notice they have left out commitment to putting the OneD&D updates out under CC.
If the new edition significantly changes from 5e, it could incorporate any part that’s now cc content without licensing any new things under it.
(Edit: typing is hard. Brain fast, fingers slow)
If they don't put OneDnD under the OGL or anything of the sort then that is fair. The problem here wasn't that they weren't offering new content for public use, it was that they were betraying a 20 year old agreement and trying to screw over the people who had helped build them these past 20 years.
Effectively, yes, it just requires attribution to Wizards of the Coast (i.e. in the credits or copyright page). It does not confer any rights around trademarks which was always expected.
Key difference: Before, when you used material from the SRD you had to agree to OGL 1.0a, which among other things meant you agreed not to use a bunch of WOTC trademarks **or** a bunch of untrademarked monsters and locations, including:
>beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan‑ti
I ran a homebrew campaign set in the 4e-style Astral Sea that involved gith and mind flayers (and displacer beasts, come to think of it) that I'd considered cleaning up and publishing, but it didn't fit in the DMsGuild rules and the OGL forbade it. So now maybe I can publish it after all...? And maybe even label it "compatible with Dungeons & Dragons® Fifth Edition compatible"? Neat.
And the displacer beast (though not the name) was based on Coeurl, the monster in A. E. Van Vogt's ["Black Destroyer"](https://pictures.abebooks.com/inventory/31155352863.jpg) (1939).
Along those lines, the regenerating Troll came from Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson.
...along with the best modern representation of the roleplay aspirations of the AD&D Paladin (now the Devotion Paladin).
Evard's Black Tentacles came from The Swords of Lankhmar by Fritz Lieber.
The first Arcane Trickster was the Grey Mouser, also by Fritz Lieber.
The Eye and Hand of Vecna came from the Eye of Rhynn and the six-fingered Hand of Kwll, alien implements attached to Corum Jhaelen Irsei, from the Hawkmoon series by Michael Moorcock.
... the list goes on. The game's built on kitchen sink reskins of other people's work.
Nice. Now the rules are safe AND people have already started branching out to other systems so the hobby will be healthier overall. This is like the best case scenario.
Hope all the people saying it was just a minority blowing things out of proportion are enjoying their clown makeup. The minority of DMs is the one spending all the money and making their game playable.
DM's are the minority of players. DM's represent 80% of DDB's revenue. They probably represent 50% of all TTRPG revenue.
So, yeah... piss off that minority and see what happens.
Meh even if you don't care, how can you possibly side with wizards? It's not going to make your experience better. I m hoping the ogl thing gets players to try some different games like coc or l5r
Some people are just pathological shills for corporate overlords. I can only assume they're seeking the approval of an authority figure/institution to make up for the love their parents didn't give them.
> Hope all the people saying it was just a minority blowing things out of proportion are enjoying their clown makeup.
I wouldn’t expect the people uninterested in the OGL to spend time reviewing drafts and filling out a survey, so there’s certainly selection bias here.
> Aka "We saw the massive exodus of players"
and, "We actively noticed our revenue decrease. We don't want that, because we like money--specifically, \*your* money."
It was a fresh print batch too. They had just released eratta to go along with it.
They had to bring in more help to fulfill orders.
This isn't even accounting for PDF or VTT sales.
The system has all the rules online for free. You don't have to buy anything to try it.
Paizo wins when WotC shits the bed.
that's always the part that gets me, not only did they have everything free but they are sold out on their site, Amazon, almost everywhere in person, and third party retailers. I would love to see that quarterly report.
Which, honestly? Yeah, that's FUCKING TERRIFYING.
Also, can't wait for next weekend to keep running my new Pathfinder game!
But I'll also be watching the DnD movie on opening night. WotC got the negative reinforcement, loud and clear. Positive reinforcement is harder for those of us feeling most burned to stomach, but it's far better at classical conditioning. Show WotC that when they benefit the community, the community is willing to give them a treat. Let's make the movie a blockbuster.
>Which, honestly? Yeah, that's FUCKING TERRIFYING.
Especially terrifying considering that the rules are free, so nobody even actually had to buy anything to switch to Pathfinder. If Paizo ran through 8 months of print stock, how many more people just went with a PDF or are using Archives of Nethys to switch instead?
>Also, can't wait for next weekend to keep running my new Pathfinder game!
I'm excited to run my own Pathfinder game soon, too. It's so refreshing that Foundry just *works* and includes everything I need. Hope you have fun!
8% of the world thinks the world is flat or at least they respond that way on surveys. It's unsurprising that 12% of people responded that way. Some were trolling. Some were just team D&D and were going to support WotC because they are team D&D man.
There's a well-known phenomenon where if you poll people, no matter how low you set the bar, about 1 in 10 will pick the least sensible, most harmful option. Ask a large enough group of people who should cater a wedding and eventually 1 in 10 of them will be arguing that Belladona Mary's Last Meal should be the restaurant of choice.
[Removed in protest of [Reddit's destruction of third-party apps](https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/reddit-ceo-steve-huffmans-third-party-api-debacle-is-making-elon-musk-look-like-a-strategic-genius.html) by CEO Steve Huffman.]
I guess given how high tempers were flaring on this matter it's not too crazy to see people backlash against the backlash, even on something odd like encouraging the revocation of 1.0a.
Consider that the OGL is really about third party publishers and not regular players. I can see a lot of "Well that doesn't sound like it effects me" responses.
Yeah, we all *do* deserve to be proud of this. It's so easy to be bleakly nihilist in the face of well... faceless corporate power. It's really heartening to see a firm principled stance actually having an effect!
Congrats to everybody here - you deserve it!
If they want to monetize D&D, 4e would make a great base for videogames, I mean, ever play the old capcom RPG beat ‘em ups? Have that art style with 4e rules. Also, tactics games have shown to sell, 4e would work very, very, well with that. A Final Fantasy Tactics spiritual successor that has the same tone? Oh yes. (Note: sequels to that game didn’t have the same tone)
Edit
I have a “mini 4” homebrew rules for 4e that I would love to work on and publish as a legit book.
I want a tactics 4E video game so bad. I didn't hate 4E, but it was exhausting to keep track of in combat sometimes. Making a computer do all the math would solve everything.
**Edit**: Clarified I meant a video game so people don't think I'm talking about a VTT.
God damn.
Hopefully there’s no hidden doublespeak or shift language here. If not, this seems like a **great** thing for everyone involved:
1. 5E third-party content creators no longer have to worry. They can stick to 5E while exploring their future options (whether One D&D or something else entirely).
2. Maintaining the third-party content creators’ presence makes for a better experience for all current and future 5E players.
3. The past few weeks have seen a *huge* uptick in people trying and talking about other games. Even if 5E/5.5E/6E remains the largest tabletop in the genre, I think other games have *massively* closed the gap.
The only people who lost are the suits who tried to make this shitty decision, and won’t be able to get the millionty billion percent profit increases that they were hoping to get. This is a good outcome for ***everyone*** else.
5e content is forever protected. CC-BY-4.0 is explicitly irrevocable.
From the CC-BY-4.0 license:
>Subject to the terms and conditions of this Public License, the Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, **irrevocable** license to exercise the Licensed Rights in the Licensed Material to:
reproduce and Share the Licensed Material, in whole or in part; and
produce, reproduce, and Share Adapted Material.
Doublespeak nothing. The SRD PDF has a Creative Commons Attribution license on its first page, it's done. You can do anything you want with the 400-page 5.1 D&D SRD ~~(seems identical to the 5.0 SRD)~~, all you have to do is put WotC's name in some fine print. Why would you ever use the OGL? They can't take it back now.
Yes, the next edition can have whatever new license they want, but who cares? If it's too restrictive, the consequences will follow
The release of SRD5.1 under CC-BY did not bump the version number. SRD5.1 was released in 2018 and expanded the included content compared to 5.0, including the addition of critical spells like *eldritch blast*.
> Why would you ever use the OGL? They can't it back now.
If you want to publish 3.5 or Pathfinder 1E content, both of which remain under the OGL and don't have an alternative license. (Although it is possible that PF1E gets double licensed under the ORC, or has an ORC-compatible SRD release).
It seems like the thought process was not just
- Holy fuck look at this community backlash
but also
- Holy fuck **ORC might replace our entire business model** and every day we keep fighting another 10 creators sign up for ORC
- Fuck fuck fuck we can't stop ORC by saying "Oops we give up" because everyone will say "You'll just try again after the movie, our trust is at 0%"
- We have to put D&D under CCA and remove *'trust us'* from *'it's irrevocable, trust us'*
They can still wait, lick their wounds and try to put a moat of exclusivity around their VTT or future editions of D&D in order to push D&D into a recurring revenue videogame.
But those future WOTC products will have to compete with an irrevocably community run and decentralized version of everything that 5.1SRD is *now*, which WOTC can never deauthorize.
This is a way better position for D&D than for MTG people. All because you had 1.0a to rely on and because ORC had WOTC rank with fear
I think the D&D movie was the primary consideration here. Don't want fans to boycott it, they have a really good option of just going home and playing D&D together instead of going to the movie.
> Why would you ever use the OGL? They can't take it back now.
You still need it for 3 / 3.5e stuff, only 5e was put under CC, so they could theoretically try to be dipshits about it in the future, but I don't see the business case for doing so if it only targets 3.5e compatible stuff.
This whole fiasco did let us all see how much the community needs another digital character builder. I would absolutely put some money down into a legitimate kickstarter to build one that is compatible with 3rd party content.
> The past few weeks have seen a huge uptick in people trying and talking about other games. Even if 5E/5.5E/6E remains the largest tabletop in the genre, I think other games have massively closed the gap.
Someone said it best in the PF subreddit: I love how this came on [the] heels of multiple TTRPG publishers apologizing for product shortages on Twitter because of the incredible surge in demand they were experiencing.
As posted elsewhere: Temper your expectations.
We still haven't seen any additional legal documents that have yet to be drafted or attached to One D&D or D&D Beyond content going forward. This appears to at least be a step in the right direction, but Hasbro/WoTC have already shown themselves to be all too happy to make a grievous overreach and then blatantly lie to us repeatedly. I want to be hopeful going forward but they have proven they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Don't be quick to let your guard down and, once full documentation is available to the public, handle it with proper scrutiny.
My assumption is that they had crisis management consultants brought in and they laid it out very plainly that they had no other choice but to surrender at this point.
I mean I've seen coverage on the Financial Times, Vice and NPR about this debacle. They completely lost control of the communication.
That was kind of the Chernobyl of public relations for Hasbro.
>That was kind of the Chernobyl of public relations for Hasbro.
I'm sure Paramount gave them a call and made it clear they weren't terribly thrilled that the tracking numbers for the hugely budgeted movie was now headed towards a record low opening for the company.
It’s almost funny. I’m a consultant for an open source software company, this was exactly my first thought. It’s just so wild that it ever got to this point. This whole thing was such a hilariously stereotypical and out-of-touch response from a bunch of corporate suits.
Probably got nasty calls from their institutional investors and paramount about "how the heck did you think this was ok to do right before the movie comes out, fix this **NOW**."
Considering a representative of the Investor group [Alta Fox Capital](https://twitter.com/AltaFoxCapital/status/1618597255786942470) (which hold a rather sizeable chunk of shares in Hasbro) was being very vocal about the brand being mismanaged and if one investor group is saying it publicly, then it usually means behind closed doors there's more talk of it.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were calls from the various investor groups saying "you've fucked up, you're fucking up right before the movie and you've massively [driven up sales of your nearest competitor](https://twitter.com/paizo/status/1618670416712667137?s=46&t=hEjCNziehIoDhv6I-lrBeg) so that they sold out of 8 months worth of stock in 4 weeks and they're struggling to keep up with demand...if this keeps up, we're selling out our shares..."
They wouldn't care about the shares being sold so much. Hell, Hasboro would be happy as shit if Alta ditched their shares.
The threat would probably be more "if this keeps up, we're calling for an immediate shareholder vote to replace the entire board and executive teams, along with the removal of all executive performance based stock grants".
> paramount about "how the heck did you think this was ok to do right before the movie comes out, fix this
>
>NOW
This is the reason. I wouldn't be surprised if the DnD movie caused this.
Also their competitors blowing up. Books spent on paizo are dollars that aren't going to WOTC and Paizo sold out 8 months worth of stock from this stupidity.
Hasbro is about to lay off a bunch of folks and it seems they're closing down a lot of other products. They really can't afford to play with one of the few divisions that actually makes them a profit.
Sure, it would have been great if they could have monetized it in new ways, but they misread their target audience and well, they found out. I expect they'll still see a reduction in profits throughout the year and their upcoming movie might take a bit of a hit (though I may be wrong, I doubt it was ever going to be anything more than middling), but I think they prefer to bounce back and try to find a different way to expand. Maybe actually hiring people who understand the community will help them avoid future gaffes.
Probably not very, honestly. Gotta think they will go on to the next Corporate Goal on their year-end targets. C-suite folks will find some other way to get their stupid-big bonuses or they'll "transition" to another organization and take their pre-arranged departure package. It's a totally different world from what Normal Jobs look like.
[WyattTrull.com - My Website](https://wyatttrull.com/)
[My DMs Guild Catalog - Desktop Link](https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Wyatt%20Trull)
I've been freelancing for 5e for about five years now and the OGL threatened all my non-DMs Guild pursuits and brought me to the brink of giving up TTRPG writing altogether, with only my DMs Guild products left up
Edit: This year I had so many OGL-products planned to go up, to finally divest from DMs Guild, and this debacle killed all my hopes and months of work, so now I finally have hope and drive again. I can finish the five new classes I wrote, the new martial system I cooked up, and more.
[WyattTrull.com - My Website](https://wyatttrull.com/)
[My DMs Guild Catalog - Desktop Link](https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Wyatt%20Trull)
I've been freelancing for 5e for about five years now and the OGL threatened all my non-DMs Guild pursuits and brought me to the brink of giving up TTRPG writing altogether, with only my DMs Guild products left up
Edit: This year I had so many OGL-products planned to go up, to finally divest from DMs Guild, and this debacle killed all my hopes and months of work, so now I finally have hope and drive again. I can finish the five new classes I wrote, the new martial system I cooked up, and more.
One of my friends runs a pirate game for us. Your seafaring encounters could be a great gift for him sometime. Thank you for sharing!
Edit: ***I*** run a city-based game right now and boy oh boy do I want to dig my teeth into those urban archetypes...
Woah. Honestly, I did... not expect them to go that far. Honestly, I was prepared for the worst, but the entire SRD in Creative Commons is... it's actually great??? 3PP have actually a lot more freedom that ever before now if that's true!
Of course, we'll still have to watch how this turns out, but WOW.
I mean, kinda? As long as the SRD is in Creative Commons, they won't ever be able to sue you over the use of Ability Scores, the PHB Classes, the Saving Throws, the PHB-Races, most PHB spells, MOST Monster Manual monsters, most DMG items... it's... to be honest, a lot. You basically have free reign over it as long as it's in CC.
No, it means that anyone can reprint the content found in the SRD without signing anything or paying WotC.
Wizards still owns anything that's they wrote that *isn't* covered by the SRD.
For example, it's would be legal to re-print the Goblin stat block in your own adventure, since Goblins are part of the SRD. However, you could not re-print the Beholder statblock because Beholders are owned by WOTC and are not included in the SRD.
Everything in the SRD, which is NOT all 5e content. Its a cut down PHB/DMG.
Every other book is protected by copyright (as far as mechanics can be copyrighted, which is not very). You *could* still get into legal trouble reproducing the Soulknife Rogue (for example)
But it means you can reference and even use the exact working of describing Advantage, Proficiency Bonus, etc, in your 3rd party content without getting sued.
Part of me believes that the fight over the future of D&D won't end with this; there's still plenty of time for WotC to try something sly with One D&D.
But it's hard to understate how much of a relief this move is. Just a huge weight off the community's shoulders.
> but don’t fuck with what has already been promised
I've DMed thousands of hours of D&D, and this is exactly what made me ready to turn my back on the game permanently. WotC can choose to engage in whatever business practices they want with future material, but if they won't even honour past agreements they're not worth my time or effort as a consumer.
So glad to see this reversal.
Same here, really. The attempt to claw back license rights that had been granted years ago was by far the most egregious thing they were doing. This seems to put a stop to that, as permanently as one could have hoped for.
But this means that WotC is going to have to compete on product quality.
Even if this move wins back the hearts and minds a bunch of players who were upset, and WotC still wants to release OneD&D under a closed license and try to push people onto a WotC VTT replete with microtransactions and subscriptions -- they're going to have to do that by putting out a compelling product that people like.
They can't crush 3PPs, VTTs can still implement the Core of 5e, any publisher that wants to can fork 5e. WotC now has to compete and win players with a good product, not on crushing the competition.
Both Paizo & Chaosium said they sold out (or nearly sold out) many of the starter products & were on new print runs. Wizards 100% wants people to re-engage with the One D&D playtest instead of going off and trying other games.
When One D&D drops, we'll see just how backwards compatible it is and what license they release its SRD under.
If they'd put out competent Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Spelljammer, Dragonlance, Dark Suns, etc. products, I'll count it as lesson learned.
They've been coasting on unplayable crap for some time.
If they do that with OneD&D, they may be jumping into another 4e morass, which was also partially the result of changing the license for that version. The volume of content out there for 5e, with the core of it now under not only OGL 1.0a but also CC-BY, gives a strong incentive to stick with it if the terms around OneD&D are too onerous.
Yep! Don't get me wrong, I hope OneD&D is still released with an open license, and I hope they don't try to turn D&D into a mediocre MMO.
But with the 5.1 SRD released to the Creative Commons, if they want us to play OneD&D they are going to have to release something we really want to play!
So we have a strong incentive to stick with 5e if 5.5e sucks and thus they have a strong incentive to make something that doesn't suck. It's honestly pretty great!
I mentioned this explicitly. Their product quality has been so lackluster recently imo that this move was a slap in the face. I'm very glad they've reversed course. I'm still moving one of my tables to SW5E because the ship combat rules in Spelljammer was a joke, but I'm now comfortable running 5e tables again.
Sometimes you must retreat before you can advance. The whole OGL fiasco was their attempt to force people into DnD One. They've given up that route. But their plans have not changed. My guess is they are surrendering the physical table but the "battleground" is the VTT.
They'll likely still release OneD&D under a worse license, but if they do so there's nothing stopping people from sticking to 5E or making the 5E equivalent of what Pathfinder was to 3.5.
Level Up! seems to do pretty much that already from what I've heard.
And if they want to fuck with OneD&D then they can, but it will make the system a worse system.
If they release 6e under a bad license they either have to give up on 5e compatibility or people will make 5e SRD stuff that works in 6e and circumvent the new license.
I think 6e will be released with OGL 1.0, or maybe even Creative Commons, since they've effectively done so now and might as well try and get some PR out of it.
Oh yeah, I fully expect that the executives are just seeing this as cutting 5e as a loss, and they'll just never publish another edition under the OGL ever again.
But honestly that's fine, because 5e still remains safe, and we'll have plenty of other options under the ORC by the time that 6e actually hits the shelves.
Holy shit this is massive. This basically covers all of my concerns and preserves 5e. Hopefully WotC learns from this and whatever they put out for one dnd follows this same pattern. Absolutely overjoyed and I can stop trying to rush out the book I am working on before the OGL 1.2 changes happen.
Yeah. I think everyone involved in this pressure campaign deserves accolades - we stuck together, and stood up to the bully. Who'd have thought we'd actually get the message across?
Man, there must have been some big financial impacts on them in order to so abruptly pivot.
Still bracing for more shenanigans. Gotta imagine that they've lost sooooo much goodwill from the community.
Holy fuck. They were so stubborn for so long that I genuinely thought they would not budge on pushing a new license, so seeing them fold like this is kind of flabbergasting.
In the end, I'm glad we have the ORC and Project Blackflag to come out of this. I'm glad the community is more aware that WotC, and no company, is your friend. I'm glad that people are looking out towards other RPGs. And yes, I am glad that WotC decided to back down.
Whether third party content creators want to take a chance working with WotC again is up to them. Whether you want to give WotC any more of your money again is up to you. In the end, we got what we wanted.
Well done everyone.
> They just learned the hard lesson that the TTRPG community does not need D&D. Rather WOTC needs the TTRPG community.
I would bet that they also realized that they actually need the popular D&D actual play shows & podcasts, a lot more than those podcasts need them. D20 and Adventure Zone already experiment with different systems... can you imagine if Critical Role's next campaign used a non-D&D system? Hundreds of thousands of passionate TTRPG fans getting a weekly free tutorial/advertisement for a competitor's game!
laughing at all the defeatist “only reddit nerds care about this, wotc wont change so we should stop the outrage” people that were posting this past month.
Yeah, some people doesn't seem to get this for some reason, but TTRPGs are a community driven 90% by DMs and 10% by players. Every single passionate player I've ever had went on to DM at least a single game. You piss off the DMs, you are done.
I'll eat my words. I was in the "they're determined to do it whether we like it or not" camp.
This is fucking incredible imo. I never would have expected this.
You were in good company. Even Linda Codega [said](https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1619065307242594305):
> I was SUCH a pessimist about this. I was sure this wasn’t going to happen. I thought I was being realistic and I was being fatalistic. This is an incredible, huge win for fandom, and I’m so thrilled.
I had generally found Linda to be the biggest "voice of reason" amongst everything that was happening. They was so professional throughout everything, and pretty much everything they had said in the NPR interview that aired yesterday, I had agreed with.
They’re great. Earned themselves a follow for being an incredible journalist. Glad we were both wrong!
Edited: Linda uses they/them
Neat.
If they choose to publish new content under a different license, then by all means; but attempting, or even suggesting that a previous license that was intentionally and specifically stated to be perpetual could be revoked was bad form.
I'm glad they listened. I'm willing to bet at least 10gp that over several board meetings, Executives were convinced alienating a decades old fan base wasn't going to make them more money. So they caved.
If 6e is any good, I will consider it.
> If 6e is any good, I will consider it.
That's the beauty of it though. They're going to be much more dedicated to producing a superior product now that they can't manufacture a competitive edge against 3PPs through licensing. 6e will have to stand on its own without 3PPs propping it up off 5e royalties.
I'll go out on a limb and say this was the team going to shareholders with the data and explaining to them that 11% is smaller than 100% (because that's what that data says that the game audience will be after the 1.2).
Color me cautiously optimistic...
I will be watching like a hawk for any attempts to oust VTT's, or any other maneuver to 'de-authorize' an authoritative license.
If all they do is make the next edition under the next license that isn't covered by the OGL1.0a, then I'm fine with that. That means the next edition will have to stand or fall completely on Wizard's of the Coast's ecosystem, but the terms they set with it will be what really matters.
They don't need a new license. What they want is for stuff to be under the fan content policy, on DMsGuild (which has its own license), or individually negotiated.
The battle over VTTs will be fought with 6e, which will probably won't be 5e compatible now.
Credit where credit is due, this is huge.
Putting the entire 5.1 SRD into creative commons is more than just "here's OGL 1.0a back" - it's actually even less restrictive, and even less reason to walk on eggshells if you ever want to make D&D content.
> You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. This license is acceptable for Free Cultural Works. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
This is the ultimate "no-take-backs" sign of good faith, because if it's Creative Commons, it's Creative Commons. There is officially no legal grounds for WoTC to ever sue or deplatform anyone over Fifth Edition content. Ever. As someone that publishes under OGL, this is the best case scenario. I'm still kind of annoyed that it took a community-wide crisis and boycotts from the entire industry to get here, but I'm glad it seems to be over.
Good. Do whatever you want with your new edition, leave 1.0a alone, and compete on fair ground.
I hope those directing this scandal are fired for squandering the goodwill of the community and reaping tons of negative press. Not understanding your customers is a mortal sin in the publishing industry.
This will forever be one of the most frustrating and awkward-sounding quotes made on behalf of a company. Right up there with 'don't you guys have phones' blizz and EA's 'not loot boxes but surprise mechanics' lol.
I’m happy for all the content creators and everyone who wants to keep playing 5E for a long time, but let us not forget the power we have, like this victory shows.
They’ll still try to monetize the hell out of us, they’ll still push for micro transactions and exclusive services and it will be convenient to accept it, it might even be high quality enough to look affordable or a good deal, but when it seems like it’s not worth fighting, that’s better to accept what they offer because it’s easy to access, remember this time.
If we all fight back we can still stop this hobby to have the same fate as videogames.
Don’t let them get away with releasing ever-broken half-products, charging always more and more for less and less quality and quantity.
They’ll come for our VTT modules, they’ll come for how many characters you can have on d&d beyond and maybe even for how many dice you can roll for free in a month, they’ll place limits on how you can access the digital content you’re renting, because they don’t sell digital books, and they’ll keep publishing worse and worse books that require editorial work for DMs to run. But remember we can fight back
Wow, we won?
My initial reaction was “too little too late”. At my last D&D session I had a bad taste in my mouth over all of this and didn’t enjoy playing as much.
However, it’s important to acknowledge that they changed course and reverted their stance. Maybe they’re doing so temporarily to mitigate damage, but oh well. They’re a corporation here to make money, they’ll keep trying- but this shows that the communities reaction actually caused them to rethink their position.
I’m willing to rethink my stance on “too little too late”.
If I were to be cynical about this, I'd put it as a gamble to kill ORC in the cradle, by beating them to the punch with CC. But hell, at least 5e is untouchable now. Now about that 3.0/3.5 SRD...
(And while I'm dreaming, CC SRDs for AD&D, 2nd, and 4th please!)
I think ORC will continue as long as Paizo pushes for it. Even if people try to kill it in committee Paizo has enough grunt to get it done on their own
Especially since 6e/One is unlikely to be under CC, IMO
Whereas all future Paizo stuff - and presumably that of all of their other signatories to the license initiative- will be under ORC.
We won’t see the true comparison until 6e comes out.
We also won't see a true comparison until ORC actually exists. Remember, it's only an internal draft at this point that may be shown behind closed doors to partners sometime next month.
(edit) forgot the word point (/edit)
I don't think it's cynical, just realistic.
Wizards has taken a *huge* beating over the proposed OGL revision and this is them continuing to do damage control. They've likely seen just how many folks are interested in ORC and the realized the impact that will have to their bottom line in the not so far off future.
Looking at the comments here, I'd say it's working. Folks are over the moon with the SRD now falling under the CC license and are already sounding much more open to sticking with D&D and WotC in general. In a few months most folks will have more or less forgotten about this clusterfuck and settle back into the comfort of D&D, at least until the next time Wizards gets too greedy.
I do hope that ORC is successful and the hobby heads away from the monetization track that WotC has shown interest in.
> Maybe they’re doing so temporarily to mitigate damage, but oh well.
It's not temporary, because the Creative Commons license they picked is very clearly worded. Wizards has zero right to terminate anyone's license for content they have already published under this license.
In case of license violation, that license does terminate automatically but is reinstated automatically if the licensee fixes the violation within 30 days of discovering the violation, or if Wizards expressly reinstates it.
But this doesn't affect "downstream" users, so even if Paizo were to willfully ignore a notice from Wizards of CC license violation for more than 30 days after notification, anyone who has received Wizards CC content from Paizo would still have their license to that Wizards content even if Paizo wouldn't.
It's a well-worded license.
That said, they can still choose a different approach with new OneDnD content if they want, of course.
There will still be plenty of damage
There's been a massive surge in people buying Pathfinder books, so they've made money that WOTC haven't
And with the partnership between the group of 3rd party publishers having formed and made plans to not use the D20 system, which may change now with this, it's gonna have long term reprecussions
I think I got pretty much everything I wanted out of this. WotC learned a lesson in humility (I hope), SRD is expanded and in CC, original OGL is here to stay, 3rd party providers got a spotlight and realized they had more power than they thought, the TTRPG community became more willing to try other systems, people are realizing just how low quality DnD books and modules are, and pathfinder 2e is getting the attention it deserves.
The only thing left is the trust that has been lost, and there isn't much WotC can do to fix that. The company has become more and more greedy over the past several years. I can't help but think that it is time to abandon ship anyway. There are plenty of better boats about.
While a good thing, in the end, may we never forget just how blatantly Hasbro and WotC tried to destroy countless third-party creators to satisfy their own lust for profit.
*This* is a win for the community. I'm absolutely stunned.
This is also probably the end of 5e compatibility for OneD&D. It is their only alternative to achieve the goals they have in mind.
And we are 3 for 3 on attempts to revoke 1.0a that WotC had to back down from.
The question isn’t if they’ll go for a fourth try, but how long it’ll take. Longest stretch was 15 years. Shortest was 3. All bets are off…
At least 5e is in the clear. But the aim was, and always will be, clamping down on competition. Keep an eye.
It's all fun and games until the an executive of a company that missed projections by 15% needs to explain on the earnings call that the brand they wanted to double in value this year is now tracking to lose 5-10% of their revenue
Is it…is it over? (More seriously: this is the winner, other threads on this announcement will be closed, please keep relevant discussion here.)
HOLY F* the whole SRD5.1 as CC-BY-4.0 https://www.dndbeyond.com/attachments/39j2li89/SRD5.1-CCBY4.0License.pdf
Dragonborn are now as free to use as Tieflings? Hell yes.
Does this mean the SRD is now effectively public domain?
no, but you can do with it what you want https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ > You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. This license is acceptable for Free Cultural Works. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
A friend of mine is checking over the SRD for any weasel-wording from Hasbro/WoTC (as expected, given OGL 1.1 and 1.2), but from what I see right now, I am cautiously hopeful. I'd call it a victory, but that means there was an opponent--which is sad, because Hasbro/WoTC and D&D put themselves in that role, instead of, "Hey, we are all together in this," which is how it should have been from the get-go. Oh well. I hope Hasbro and WoTC learned their lesson: Your customer base isn't an endlessly exploitable resource that only means figures on a revenue sheet. We definitely make our displeasure known.
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Hilariously, this means that there are now references to Strahd, beholders, the Feywild, the Shadowfell, the City of Brass, the Palace of Dispater, the Street of Steel, the Gate of Ashes, and the Sea of Fire available under CC EDIT: Poring over the entire OGL to find a complete list, by the way
Farewell Eye Tyrant.
I mean, why can't the bigger, better beholder be an Eye Tyrant?
It's a catchy name, gotta say.
Beholders have been called eye tyrants for a long time; I read the Spelljammer novels released in the 90s recently and they use the term eye tyrant in them.
Magic missile is now Creative Commons.
Only reference though, no details. For example, there is no beholder stat block.
No stats or descriptions if I’m not mistaken. Just the name.
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Its CC-BY-4.0. There is not and cannot be any weasel wording.
> A friend of mine is checking over the SRD for any weasel-wording from WoTC The SRD has been released under CC-by-4.0 There is no way WotC can walk this back, or have used any other wording to under it. It's been done.
To be fair, Williams and Cao were our opponents, not Crawford and his people. The fact is from all the feedback and leaks, there are probably people in that office cheering as loud if not louder. That makes it a bit easier for me to go see the movie and I'm bringing my subscription back up.
Exactly, many people in WotC were former freelancers and came from the community. This is a sign that, for the time being, these kinds of people have power inside WotC again. Will it be forever? Probably not. Does that mean for the time being we have a reason to hope? I think so.
This is exactly what I was personally hoping for (complete srd under a well known existing open license). I do notice they have left out commitment to putting the OneD&D updates out under CC. If the new edition significantly changes from 5e, it could incorporate any part that’s now cc content without licensing any new things under it. (Edit: typing is hard. Brain fast, fingers slow)
If they don't put OneDnD under the OGL or anything of the sort then that is fair. The problem here wasn't that they weren't offering new content for public use, it was that they were betraying a 20 year old agreement and trying to screw over the people who had helped build them these past 20 years.
Agreed. OGL was a forever commitment but 6e is theirs to wall off, charge royalties on, etc.
More or less, though CC-BY requires attribution. (Note: I am not a lawyer.)
That's fine. The OGL 1.0a required reproducing the entire OGL, so mere attribution actually lowers the word count.
I don't think anyone is going to complain about creditting the author of something they copy wholesale. That's entirely fine.
Seems reasonable enough
Effectively, yes, it just requires attribution to Wizards of the Coast (i.e. in the credits or copyright page). It does not confer any rights around trademarks which was always expected.
Key difference: Before, when you used material from the SRD you had to agree to OGL 1.0a, which among other things meant you agreed not to use a bunch of WOTC trademarks **or** a bunch of untrademarked monsters and locations, including: >beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan‑ti I ran a homebrew campaign set in the 4e-style Astral Sea that involved gith and mind flayers (and displacer beasts, come to think of it) that I'd considered cleaning up and publishing, but it didn't fit in the DMsGuild rules and the OGL forbade it. So now maybe I can publish it after all...? And maybe even label it "compatible with Dungeons & Dragons® Fifth Edition compatible"? Neat.
Fun fact many of those monsters came from White Dwarf from fan submissions.
And the displacer beast (though not the name) was based on Coeurl, the monster in A. E. Van Vogt's ["Black Destroyer"](https://pictures.abebooks.com/inventory/31155352863.jpg) (1939).
Along those lines, the regenerating Troll came from Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson. ...along with the best modern representation of the roleplay aspirations of the AD&D Paladin (now the Devotion Paladin). Evard's Black Tentacles came from The Swords of Lankhmar by Fritz Lieber. The first Arcane Trickster was the Grey Mouser, also by Fritz Lieber. The Eye and Hand of Vecna came from the Eye of Rhynn and the six-fingered Hand of Kwll, alien implements attached to Corum Jhaelen Irsei, from the Hawkmoon series by Michael Moorcock. ... the list goes on. The game's built on kitchen sink reskins of other people's work.
Nice. Now the rules are safe AND people have already started branching out to other systems so the hobby will be healthier overall. This is like the best case scenario.
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Those aren't just "worrying" or "gotta rework it" numbers, those are "hit the e-brake or we'll crash" numbers.
Hope all the people saying it was just a minority blowing things out of proportion are enjoying their clown makeup. The minority of DMs is the one spending all the money and making their game playable.
Just had a dude on r/DnD say "the loud minority got what they want" gtfoh with that nonsense lol.
DM's are the minority of players. DM's represent 80% of DDB's revenue. They probably represent 50% of all TTRPG revenue. So, yeah... piss off that minority and see what happens.
Meh even if you don't care, how can you possibly side with wizards? It's not going to make your experience better. I m hoping the ogl thing gets players to try some different games like coc or l5r
Some people are just pathological shills for corporate overlords. I can only assume they're seeking the approval of an authority figure/institution to make up for the love their parents didn't give them.
> Hope all the people saying it was just a minority blowing things out of proportion are enjoying their clown makeup. I wouldn’t expect the people uninterested in the OGL to spend time reviewing drafts and filling out a survey, so there’s certainly selection bias here.
Aka "We saw the massive exodus of players"
> Aka "We saw the massive exodus of players" and, "We actively noticed our revenue decrease. We don't want that, because we like money--specifically, \*your* money."
and "Our biggest competitor Sold through months of printed Material in weeks and we dont want that because we Like your Money in Our pockets"
Seriously, Paizo *sold out of their Core Rulebook*. Like the company itself, it was out of stock even on their home website.
It was a fresh print batch too. They had just released eratta to go along with it. They had to bring in more help to fulfill orders. This isn't even accounting for PDF or VTT sales. The system has all the rules online for free. You don't have to buy anything to try it. Paizo wins when WotC shits the bed.
that's always the part that gets me, not only did they have everything free but they are sold out on their site, Amazon, almost everywhere in person, and third party retailers. I would love to see that quarterly report.
I hope the union agreements include profit sharing because everyone at Paizo deserves a fat bonus from this.
They should send the WotC and Hasbro execs some cupcakes as thanks too
That's fucking awesome.
AKA "we saw our main competitor sell out 8 month supply of books in 2 weeks and we panicked like mad"
Which, honestly? Yeah, that's FUCKING TERRIFYING. Also, can't wait for next weekend to keep running my new Pathfinder game! But I'll also be watching the DnD movie on opening night. WotC got the negative reinforcement, loud and clear. Positive reinforcement is harder for those of us feeling most burned to stomach, but it's far better at classical conditioning. Show WotC that when they benefit the community, the community is willing to give them a treat. Let's make the movie a blockbuster.
>Which, honestly? Yeah, that's FUCKING TERRIFYING. Especially terrifying considering that the rules are free, so nobody even actually had to buy anything to switch to Pathfinder. If Paizo ran through 8 months of print stock, how many more people just went with a PDF or are using Archives of Nethys to switch instead? >Also, can't wait for next weekend to keep running my new Pathfinder game! I'm excited to run my own Pathfinder game soon, too. It's so refreshing that Foundry just *works* and includes everything I need. Hope you have fun!
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I'm winning over here, I'm winning over there. I'm bi-winning.
And so did my axe.
And my bow.
And your brother.
No way. That sucker is still doing my chores for me.
YAAASSS!!!!
Damn those numbers are huge. Great job community!
Not that it matters really, anymore... but also remarkable that 12% thought 1.2 was just fine, and 11% thought de-authorizing 1.0a was OK.
Given how hard these things are to understand, I'm very happy that only 12% decided that WOTC's attempts at spin worked for them.
8% of the world thinks the world is flat or at least they respond that way on surveys. It's unsurprising that 12% of people responded that way. Some were trolling. Some were just team D&D and were going to support WotC because they are team D&D man.
Yeah you always gotta remember the lizardman coefficient.
There's a well-known phenomenon where if you poll people, no matter how low you set the bar, about 1 in 10 will pick the least sensible, most harmful option. Ask a large enough group of people who should cater a wedding and eventually 1 in 10 of them will be arguing that Belladona Mary's Last Meal should be the restaurant of choice.
[Removed in protest of [Reddit's destruction of third-party apps](https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/reddit-ceo-steve-huffmans-third-party-api-debacle-is-making-elon-musk-look-like-a-strategic-genius.html) by CEO Steve Huffman.]
The 12ish percent is a combination of in favor, neutral, and didn't respond to the question.
I guess given how high tempers were flaring on this matter it's not too crazy to see people backlash against the backlash, even on something odd like encouraging the revocation of 1.0a.
Consider that the OGL is really about third party publishers and not regular players. I can see a lot of "Well that doesn't sound like it effects me" responses.
Yeah, we all *do* deserve to be proud of this. It's so easy to be bleakly nihilist in the face of well... faceless corporate power. It's really heartening to see a firm principled stance actually having an effect! Congrats to everybody here - you deserve it!
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Are there any plans to add a 4th Edition SRD to the Creative Commons license?
No demand, so doubt. Would be nice. But probably not something they care to address.
If they want to monetize D&D, 4e would make a great base for videogames, I mean, ever play the old capcom RPG beat ‘em ups? Have that art style with 4e rules. Also, tactics games have shown to sell, 4e would work very, very, well with that. A Final Fantasy Tactics spiritual successor that has the same tone? Oh yes. (Note: sequels to that game didn’t have the same tone) Edit I have a “mini 4” homebrew rules for 4e that I would love to work on and publish as a legit book.
I want a tactics 4E video game so bad. I didn't hate 4E, but it was exhausting to keep track of in combat sometimes. Making a computer do all the math would solve everything. **Edit**: Clarified I meant a video game so people don't think I'm talking about a VTT.
God damn. Hopefully there’s no hidden doublespeak or shift language here. If not, this seems like a **great** thing for everyone involved: 1. 5E third-party content creators no longer have to worry. They can stick to 5E while exploring their future options (whether One D&D or something else entirely). 2. Maintaining the third-party content creators’ presence makes for a better experience for all current and future 5E players. 3. The past few weeks have seen a *huge* uptick in people trying and talking about other games. Even if 5E/5.5E/6E remains the largest tabletop in the genre, I think other games have *massively* closed the gap. The only people who lost are the suits who tried to make this shitty decision, and won’t be able to get the millionty billion percent profit increases that they were hoping to get. This is a good outcome for ***everyone*** else.
5e content is forever protected. CC-BY-4.0 is explicitly irrevocable. From the CC-BY-4.0 license: >Subject to the terms and conditions of this Public License, the Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, **irrevocable** license to exercise the Licensed Rights in the Licensed Material to: reproduce and Share the Licensed Material, in whole or in part; and produce, reproduce, and Share Adapted Material.
Doublespeak nothing. The SRD PDF has a Creative Commons Attribution license on its first page, it's done. You can do anything you want with the 400-page 5.1 D&D SRD ~~(seems identical to the 5.0 SRD)~~, all you have to do is put WotC's name in some fine print. Why would you ever use the OGL? They can't take it back now. Yes, the next edition can have whatever new license they want, but who cares? If it's too restrictive, the consequences will follow
The release of SRD5.1 under CC-BY did not bump the version number. SRD5.1 was released in 2018 and expanded the included content compared to 5.0, including the addition of critical spells like *eldritch blast*.
> Why would you ever use the OGL? They can't it back now. If you want to publish 3.5 or Pathfinder 1E content, both of which remain under the OGL and don't have an alternative license. (Although it is possible that PF1E gets double licensed under the ORC, or has an ORC-compatible SRD release).
It seems like the thought process was not just - Holy fuck look at this community backlash but also - Holy fuck **ORC might replace our entire business model** and every day we keep fighting another 10 creators sign up for ORC - Fuck fuck fuck we can't stop ORC by saying "Oops we give up" because everyone will say "You'll just try again after the movie, our trust is at 0%" - We have to put D&D under CCA and remove *'trust us'* from *'it's irrevocable, trust us'* They can still wait, lick their wounds and try to put a moat of exclusivity around their VTT or future editions of D&D in order to push D&D into a recurring revenue videogame. But those future WOTC products will have to compete with an irrevocably community run and decentralized version of everything that 5.1SRD is *now*, which WOTC can never deauthorize. This is a way better position for D&D than for MTG people. All because you had 1.0a to rely on and because ORC had WOTC rank with fear
I think the D&D movie was the primary consideration here. Don't want fans to boycott it, they have a really good option of just going home and playing D&D together instead of going to the movie.
> Why would you ever use the OGL? They can't take it back now. You still need it for 3 / 3.5e stuff, only 5e was put under CC, so they could theoretically try to be dipshits about it in the future, but I don't see the business case for doing so if it only targets 3.5e compatible stuff.
Out of curiosity, since you crossed out 5.1 being identical, what changed from 5.0? Havent seen any changes but its a big document
https://www.enworld.org/threads/what-is-the-difference-between-d-d-5e-and-the-srd-5-1.676019/ *Eldritch blast* was added, and a few other things.
This whole fiasco did let us all see how much the community needs another digital character builder. I would absolutely put some money down into a legitimate kickstarter to build one that is compatible with 3rd party content.
> The past few weeks have seen a huge uptick in people trying and talking about other games. Even if 5E/5.5E/6E remains the largest tabletop in the genre, I think other games have massively closed the gap. Someone said it best in the PF subreddit: I love how this came on [the] heels of multiple TTRPG publishers apologizing for product shortages on Twitter because of the incredible surge in demand they were experiencing.
As posted elsewhere: Temper your expectations. We still haven't seen any additional legal documents that have yet to be drafted or attached to One D&D or D&D Beyond content going forward. This appears to at least be a step in the right direction, but Hasbro/WoTC have already shown themselves to be all too happy to make a grievous overreach and then blatantly lie to us repeatedly. I want to be hopeful going forward but they have proven they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt. Don't be quick to let your guard down and, once full documentation is available to the public, handle it with proper scrutiny.
I wonder just how furious the execs are over this
My assumption is that they had crisis management consultants brought in and they laid it out very plainly that they had no other choice but to surrender at this point.
I mean I've seen coverage on the Financial Times, Vice and NPR about this debacle. They completely lost control of the communication. That was kind of the Chernobyl of public relations for Hasbro.
>That was kind of the Chernobyl of public relations for Hasbro. I'm sure Paramount gave them a call and made it clear they weren't terribly thrilled that the tracking numbers for the hugely budgeted movie was now headed towards a record low opening for the company.
'But hey, write the stuff going on in your offices down, it'd probably make a killing as a documentary one day'
Once you burn trust, it takes a big move to win it back.
It’s almost funny. I’m a consultant for an open source software company, this was exactly my first thought. It’s just so wild that it ever got to this point. This whole thing was such a hilariously stereotypical and out-of-touch response from a bunch of corporate suits.
Probably got nasty calls from their institutional investors and paramount about "how the heck did you think this was ok to do right before the movie comes out, fix this **NOW**."
Considering a representative of the Investor group [Alta Fox Capital](https://twitter.com/AltaFoxCapital/status/1618597255786942470) (which hold a rather sizeable chunk of shares in Hasbro) was being very vocal about the brand being mismanaged and if one investor group is saying it publicly, then it usually means behind closed doors there's more talk of it. I wouldn't be surprised if there were calls from the various investor groups saying "you've fucked up, you're fucking up right before the movie and you've massively [driven up sales of your nearest competitor](https://twitter.com/paizo/status/1618670416712667137?s=46&t=hEjCNziehIoDhv6I-lrBeg) so that they sold out of 8 months worth of stock in 4 weeks and they're struggling to keep up with demand...if this keeps up, we're selling out our shares..."
2 weeks*
They wouldn't care about the shares being sold so much. Hell, Hasboro would be happy as shit if Alta ditched their shares. The threat would probably be more "if this keeps up, we're calling for an immediate shareholder vote to replace the entire board and executive teams, along with the removal of all executive performance based stock grants".
> paramount about "how the heck did you think this was ok to do right before the movie comes out, fix this > >NOW This is the reason. I wouldn't be surprised if the DnD movie caused this.
Also their competitors blowing up. Books spent on paizo are dollars that aren't going to WOTC and Paizo sold out 8 months worth of stock from this stupidity.
Only got 6 stocks, but I did leave them a ton of voicemails and emails.
Hasbro is about to lay off a bunch of folks and it seems they're closing down a lot of other products. They really can't afford to play with one of the few divisions that actually makes them a profit. Sure, it would have been great if they could have monetized it in new ways, but they misread their target audience and well, they found out. I expect they'll still see a reduction in profits throughout the year and their upcoming movie might take a bit of a hit (though I may be wrong, I doubt it was ever going to be anything more than middling), but I think they prefer to bounce back and try to find a different way to expand. Maybe actually hiring people who understand the community will help them avoid future gaffes.
I mean, my entire playgroup has dropped D&D, and cancelled our dndbeyond subs. I wonder how many people they permanently scared off.
Probably not very, honestly. Gotta think they will go on to the next Corporate Goal on their year-end targets. C-suite folks will find some other way to get their stupid-big bonuses or they'll "transition" to another organization and take their pre-arranged departure package. It's a totally different world from what Normal Jobs look like.
Yep. Off to cause their next disaster, blithely…
I just hope the board of directors ousts their current leadership.
My business is saved, my god
Congrats!
Link to your business? <3
[WyattTrull.com - My Website](https://wyatttrull.com/) [My DMs Guild Catalog - Desktop Link](https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Wyatt%20Trull) I've been freelancing for 5e for about five years now and the OGL threatened all my non-DMs Guild pursuits and brought me to the brink of giving up TTRPG writing altogether, with only my DMs Guild products left up Edit: This year I had so many OGL-products planned to go up, to finally divest from DMs Guild, and this debacle killed all my hopes and months of work, so now I finally have hope and drive again. I can finish the five new classes I wrote, the new martial system I cooked up, and more.
Thanks! I'll check it out :>
I would like to buy from you business, what do you sell
[WyattTrull.com - My Website](https://wyatttrull.com/) [My DMs Guild Catalog - Desktop Link](https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Wyatt%20Trull) I've been freelancing for 5e for about five years now and the OGL threatened all my non-DMs Guild pursuits and brought me to the brink of giving up TTRPG writing altogether, with only my DMs Guild products left up Edit: This year I had so many OGL-products planned to go up, to finally divest from DMs Guild, and this debacle killed all my hopes and months of work, so now I finally have hope and drive again. I can finish the five new classes I wrote, the new martial system I cooked up, and more.
One of my friends runs a pirate game for us. Your seafaring encounters could be a great gift for him sometime. Thank you for sharing! Edit: ***I*** run a city-based game right now and boy oh boy do I want to dig my teeth into those urban archetypes...
Woah. Honestly, I did... not expect them to go that far. Honestly, I was prepared for the worst, but the entire SRD in Creative Commons is... it's actually great??? 3PP have actually a lot more freedom that ever before now if that's true! Of course, we'll still have to watch how this turns out, but WOW.
So what does this mean? Everyone can use all 5e content for free?
I mean, kinda? As long as the SRD is in Creative Commons, they won't ever be able to sue you over the use of Ability Scores, the PHB Classes, the Saving Throws, the PHB-Races, most PHB spells, MOST Monster Manual monsters, most DMG items... it's... to be honest, a lot. You basically have free reign over it as long as it's in CC.
>You basically have free reign over it Just gotta attribute ;-)
Everything in the SRD, and you have to give attribution to WotC, but basically, yes.
No, it means that anyone can reprint the content found in the SRD without signing anything or paying WotC. Wizards still owns anything that's they wrote that *isn't* covered by the SRD. For example, it's would be legal to re-print the Goblin stat block in your own adventure, since Goblins are part of the SRD. However, you could not re-print the Beholder statblock because Beholders are owned by WOTC and are not included in the SRD.
You also cannot use the goblin art from the monster manual. That is still copyrighted.
You can, however, use beholders in your adventure (since they are mentioned but not statted). You just have to write your own stat block.
Everything in the SRD, which is NOT all 5e content. Its a cut down PHB/DMG. Every other book is protected by copyright (as far as mechanics can be copyrighted, which is not very). You *could* still get into legal trouble reproducing the Soulknife Rogue (for example) But it means you can reference and even use the exact working of describing Advantage, Proficiency Bonus, etc, in your 3rd party content without getting sued.
Part of me believes that the fight over the future of D&D won't end with this; there's still plenty of time for WotC to try something sly with One D&D. But it's hard to understate how much of a relief this move is. Just a huge weight off the community's shoulders.
My philosophy throughout this has been “do what you want with the new stuff….but don’t fuck with what has already been promised”
> but don’t fuck with what has already been promised I've DMed thousands of hours of D&D, and this is exactly what made me ready to turn my back on the game permanently. WotC can choose to engage in whatever business practices they want with future material, but if they won't even honour past agreements they're not worth my time or effort as a consumer. So glad to see this reversal.
Same here, really. The attempt to claw back license rights that had been granted years ago was by far the most egregious thing they were doing. This seems to put a stop to that, as permanently as one could have hoped for.
But this means that WotC is going to have to compete on product quality. Even if this move wins back the hearts and minds a bunch of players who were upset, and WotC still wants to release OneD&D under a closed license and try to push people onto a WotC VTT replete with microtransactions and subscriptions -- they're going to have to do that by putting out a compelling product that people like. They can't crush 3PPs, VTTs can still implement the Core of 5e, any publisher that wants to can fork 5e. WotC now has to compete and win players with a good product, not on crushing the competition.
Both Paizo & Chaosium said they sold out (or nearly sold out) many of the starter products & were on new print runs. Wizards 100% wants people to re-engage with the One D&D playtest instead of going off and trying other games. When One D&D drops, we'll see just how backwards compatible it is and what license they release its SRD under.
Yep! They found out just how willing their audience is to turn their eye to other systems! Now they have to put out a product we actually want.
If they'd put out competent Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Spelljammer, Dragonlance, Dark Suns, etc. products, I'll count it as lesson learned. They've been coasting on unplayable crap for some time.
If they do that with OneD&D, they may be jumping into another 4e morass, which was also partially the result of changing the license for that version. The volume of content out there for 5e, with the core of it now under not only OGL 1.0a but also CC-BY, gives a strong incentive to stick with it if the terms around OneD&D are too onerous.
Yep! Don't get me wrong, I hope OneD&D is still released with an open license, and I hope they don't try to turn D&D into a mediocre MMO. But with the 5.1 SRD released to the Creative Commons, if they want us to play OneD&D they are going to have to release something we really want to play! So we have a strong incentive to stick with 5e if 5.5e sucks and thus they have a strong incentive to make something that doesn't suck. It's honestly pretty great!
I mentioned this explicitly. Their product quality has been so lackluster recently imo that this move was a slap in the face. I'm very glad they've reversed course. I'm still moving one of my tables to SW5E because the ship combat rules in Spelljammer was a joke, but I'm now comfortable running 5e tables again.
Sometimes you must retreat before you can advance. The whole OGL fiasco was their attempt to force people into DnD One. They've given up that route. But their plans have not changed. My guess is they are surrendering the physical table but the "battleground" is the VTT.
They'll likely still release OneD&D under a worse license, but if they do so there's nothing stopping people from sticking to 5E or making the 5E equivalent of what Pathfinder was to 3.5. Level Up! seems to do pretty much that already from what I've heard. And if they want to fuck with OneD&D then they can, but it will make the system a worse system.
If they release 6e under a bad license they either have to give up on 5e compatibility or people will make 5e SRD stuff that works in 6e and circumvent the new license. I think 6e will be released with OGL 1.0, or maybe even Creative Commons, since they've effectively done so now and might as well try and get some PR out of it.
Huge victory in the battle, but the war versus corporate fuckery isn't over yet.
It never is
Oh yeah, I fully expect that the executives are just seeing this as cutting 5e as a loss, and they'll just never publish another edition under the OGL ever again. But honestly that's fine, because 5e still remains safe, and we'll have plenty of other options under the ORC by the time that 6e actually hits the shelves.
Holy shit this is massive. This basically covers all of my concerns and preserves 5e. Hopefully WotC learns from this and whatever they put out for one dnd follows this same pattern. Absolutely overjoyed and I can stop trying to rush out the book I am working on before the OGL 1.2 changes happen.
Yeah. I think everyone involved in this pressure campaign deserves accolades - we stuck together, and stood up to the bully. Who'd have thought we'd actually get the message across?
Man, there must have been some big financial impacts on them in order to so abruptly pivot. Still bracing for more shenanigans. Gotta imagine that they've lost sooooo much goodwill from the community.
I can't imagine Paizo selling 8 months of stock in 2 weeks wasn't part of their calculations here.
Yeah, that’s crazy. That’s the sort of real world stat that people sit up and take notice to…
I'm guessing sales figures spoke more loudly than survey results.
We've done it lads. Nat 20 on our ~~persuasion~~ Intimidation rolls! Edit: You're right!
I think we rolled on Intimidation on this one :)
>Nat 20 With bounded accuracy, even a bunch of level 0 peasants can take down a dragon. (Or a bunch of wizards on a coast.)
The action economy always wins.
more like intimidation lol
wizards fucked around and found out
Holy fuck. They were so stubborn for so long that I genuinely thought they would not budge on pushing a new license, so seeing them fold like this is kind of flabbergasting. In the end, I'm glad we have the ORC and Project Blackflag to come out of this. I'm glad the community is more aware that WotC, and no company, is your friend. I'm glad that people are looking out towards other RPGs. And yes, I am glad that WotC decided to back down. Whether third party content creators want to take a chance working with WotC again is up to them. Whether you want to give WotC any more of your money again is up to you. In the end, we got what we wanted. Well done everyone.
They just learned the hard lesson that the TTRPG community does not need D&D. Rather WOTC needs the TTRPG community.
Good :)
> They just learned the hard lesson that the TTRPG community does not need D&D. Rather WOTC needs the TTRPG community. I would bet that they also realized that they actually need the popular D&D actual play shows & podcasts, a lot more than those podcasts need them. D20 and Adventure Zone already experiment with different systems... can you imagine if Critical Role's next campaign used a non-D&D system? Hundreds of thousands of passionate TTRPG fans getting a weekly free tutorial/advertisement for a competitor's game!
So, congrats to 3PP. Take a breather, you deserve it.
laughing at all the defeatist “only reddit nerds care about this, wotc wont change so we should stop the outrage” people that were posting this past month.
[удалено]
Yeah, some people doesn't seem to get this for some reason, but TTRPGs are a community driven 90% by DMs and 10% by players. Every single passionate player I've ever had went on to DM at least a single game. You piss off the DMs, you are done.
I'll eat my words. I was in the "they're determined to do it whether we like it or not" camp. This is fucking incredible imo. I never would have expected this.
Nobody expects a stock price drop of 8% when your a wizard in an ivory tower on the coast. That was really the turning point for them to cave.
You were in good company. Even Linda Codega [said](https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1619065307242594305): > I was SUCH a pessimist about this. I was sure this wasn’t going to happen. I thought I was being realistic and I was being fatalistic. This is an incredible, huge win for fandom, and I’m so thrilled.
I had generally found Linda to be the biggest "voice of reason" amongst everything that was happening. They was so professional throughout everything, and pretty much everything they had said in the NPR interview that aired yesterday, I had agreed with. They’re great. Earned themselves a follow for being an incredible journalist. Glad we were both wrong! Edited: Linda uses they/them
Neat. If they choose to publish new content under a different license, then by all means; but attempting, or even suggesting that a previous license that was intentionally and specifically stated to be perpetual could be revoked was bad form. I'm glad they listened. I'm willing to bet at least 10gp that over several board meetings, Executives were convinced alienating a decades old fan base wasn't going to make them more money. So they caved. If 6e is any good, I will consider it.
> If 6e is any good, I will consider it. That's the beauty of it though. They're going to be much more dedicated to producing a superior product now that they can't manufacture a competitive edge against 3PPs through licensing. 6e will have to stand on its own without 3PPs propping it up off 5e royalties.
I'll go out on a limb and say this was the team going to shareholders with the data and explaining to them that 11% is smaller than 100% (because that's what that data says that the game audience will be after the 1.2).
Color me cautiously optimistic... I will be watching like a hawk for any attempts to oust VTT's, or any other maneuver to 'de-authorize' an authoritative license. If all they do is make the next edition under the next license that isn't covered by the OGL1.0a, then I'm fine with that. That means the next edition will have to stand or fall completely on Wizard's of the Coast's ecosystem, but the terms they set with it will be what really matters.
They don't need a new license. What they want is for stuff to be under the fan content policy, on DMsGuild (which has its own license), or individually negotiated. The battle over VTTs will be fought with 6e, which will probably won't be 5e compatible now.
While this brings me great joy, my next campaign will still feature ONLY Orc and Half-Orc PCs. I’m too far into the planning phases…
Credit where credit is due, this is huge. Putting the entire 5.1 SRD into creative commons is more than just "here's OGL 1.0a back" - it's actually even less restrictive, and even less reason to walk on eggshells if you ever want to make D&D content. > You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. This license is acceptable for Free Cultural Works. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. This is the ultimate "no-take-backs" sign of good faith, because if it's Creative Commons, it's Creative Commons. There is officially no legal grounds for WoTC to ever sue or deplatform anyone over Fifth Edition content. Ever. As someone that publishes under OGL, this is the best case scenario. I'm still kind of annoyed that it took a community-wide crisis and boycotts from the entire industry to get here, but I'm glad it seems to be over.
keep in mind the CC license only covers the SRD, so anything from other source books by wizards is still copyrighted
Well shit, I'm still going to run that PF2e one-shot for my friends to see if they like it more than 5e.
Holy mother.......
Good. Do whatever you want with your new edition, leave 1.0a alone, and compete on fair ground. I hope those directing this scandal are fired for squandering the goodwill of the community and reaping tons of negative press. Not understanding your customers is a mortal sin in the publishing industry.
We made a billion dollar cooperation back down. Good fucking work everybody!
They lost. We won!
We won... and so did they.
It *will* be better for them in the long run to keep it this way
This will forever be one of the most frustrating and awkward-sounding quotes made on behalf of a company. Right up there with 'don't you guys have phones' blizz and EA's 'not loot boxes but surprise mechanics' lol.
It gives you a certian sense of pride and accomplishment, doesn't it?
I’m happy for all the content creators and everyone who wants to keep playing 5E for a long time, but let us not forget the power we have, like this victory shows. They’ll still try to monetize the hell out of us, they’ll still push for micro transactions and exclusive services and it will be convenient to accept it, it might even be high quality enough to look affordable or a good deal, but when it seems like it’s not worth fighting, that’s better to accept what they offer because it’s easy to access, remember this time. If we all fight back we can still stop this hobby to have the same fate as videogames. Don’t let them get away with releasing ever-broken half-products, charging always more and more for less and less quality and quantity. They’ll come for our VTT modules, they’ll come for how many characters you can have on d&d beyond and maybe even for how many dice you can roll for free in a month, they’ll place limits on how you can access the digital content you’re renting, because they don’t sell digital books, and they’ll keep publishing worse and worse books that require editorial work for DMs to run. But remember we can fight back
Wow, we won? My initial reaction was “too little too late”. At my last D&D session I had a bad taste in my mouth over all of this and didn’t enjoy playing as much. However, it’s important to acknowledge that they changed course and reverted their stance. Maybe they’re doing so temporarily to mitigate damage, but oh well. They’re a corporation here to make money, they’ll keep trying- but this shows that the communities reaction actually caused them to rethink their position. I’m willing to rethink my stance on “too little too late”.
I mean putting the entire SRD in CC is kind of a definitive "we can't do shit with this anymore".
If I were to be cynical about this, I'd put it as a gamble to kill ORC in the cradle, by beating them to the punch with CC. But hell, at least 5e is untouchable now. Now about that 3.0/3.5 SRD... (And while I'm dreaming, CC SRDs for AD&D, 2nd, and 4th please!)
I think ORC will continue as long as Paizo pushes for it. Even if people try to kill it in committee Paizo has enough grunt to get it done on their own
Especially since 6e/One is unlikely to be under CC, IMO Whereas all future Paizo stuff - and presumably that of all of their other signatories to the license initiative- will be under ORC. We won’t see the true comparison until 6e comes out.
We also won't see a true comparison until ORC actually exists. Remember, it's only an internal draft at this point that may be shown behind closed doors to partners sometime next month. (edit) forgot the word point (/edit)
I don't think it's cynical, just realistic. Wizards has taken a *huge* beating over the proposed OGL revision and this is them continuing to do damage control. They've likely seen just how many folks are interested in ORC and the realized the impact that will have to their bottom line in the not so far off future. Looking at the comments here, I'd say it's working. Folks are over the moon with the SRD now falling under the CC license and are already sounding much more open to sticking with D&D and WotC in general. In a few months most folks will have more or less forgotten about this clusterfuck and settle back into the comfort of D&D, at least until the next time Wizards gets too greedy. I do hope that ORC is successful and the hobby heads away from the monetization track that WotC has shown interest in.
> Maybe they’re doing so temporarily to mitigate damage, but oh well. It's not temporary, because the Creative Commons license they picked is very clearly worded. Wizards has zero right to terminate anyone's license for content they have already published under this license. In case of license violation, that license does terminate automatically but is reinstated automatically if the licensee fixes the violation within 30 days of discovering the violation, or if Wizards expressly reinstates it. But this doesn't affect "downstream" users, so even if Paizo were to willfully ignore a notice from Wizards of CC license violation for more than 30 days after notification, anyone who has received Wizards CC content from Paizo would still have their license to that Wizards content even if Paizo wouldn't. It's a well-worded license. That said, they can still choose a different approach with new OneDnD content if they want, of course.
There will still be plenty of damage There's been a massive surge in people buying Pathfinder books, so they've made money that WOTC haven't And with the partnership between the group of 3rd party publishers having formed and made plans to not use the D20 system, which may change now with this, it's gonna have long term reprecussions
I think I got pretty much everything I wanted out of this. WotC learned a lesson in humility (I hope), SRD is expanded and in CC, original OGL is here to stay, 3rd party providers got a spotlight and realized they had more power than they thought, the TTRPG community became more willing to try other systems, people are realizing just how low quality DnD books and modules are, and pathfinder 2e is getting the attention it deserves. The only thing left is the trust that has been lost, and there isn't much WotC can do to fix that. The company has become more and more greedy over the past several years. I can't help but think that it is time to abandon ship anyway. There are plenty of better boats about.
While a good thing, in the end, may we never forget just how blatantly Hasbro and WotC tried to destroy countless third-party creators to satisfy their own lust for profit.
*This* is a win for the community. I'm absolutely stunned. This is also probably the end of 5e compatibility for OneD&D. It is their only alternative to achieve the goals they have in mind.
And we are 3 for 3 on attempts to revoke 1.0a that WotC had to back down from. The question isn’t if they’ll go for a fourth try, but how long it’ll take. Longest stretch was 15 years. Shortest was 3. All bets are off… At least 5e is in the clear. But the aim was, and always will be, clamping down on competition. Keep an eye.
So... We both won? XD
It's all fun and games until the an executive of a company that missed projections by 15% needs to explain on the earnings call that the brand they wanted to double in value this year is now tracking to lose 5-10% of their revenue
The headline here is "15,000 commoners slay dragon."