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Wizards of the Coast Announces One D&D


Scott Ruggels

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On 12/21/2022 at 11:07 PM, tkdguy said:

 

 

 

I _already know_ that I _am "that guy."

 

It doesn't make,me happy to  _be_ that guy; it just means I am at least slightly self-aware.

 

But from about 2:00 to 2:30, it seems,this guy and I shaee a similar turn-off.  I mean, his comments here apply to more latest editions that just DnD.

 

 

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To some extent, this is the OGL coming back to bite WOTC. 

 

Back in the dawn of 3e, WoTC clearly felt it was in their best interests to allow free use of the rule system for third-party creators to create content. At that time, it seemed like they wanted to focus on the lucrative rules and supplements, and let others write less-lucrative adventures. Paizo showed that writing adventures could be pretty lucrative after all, before the dawn of 4e forced them to develop and market a game system so people could keep playing their adventures.  Looking at 5e, WoTC now likes publishing adventures. But, having given licensing rights to other content creators, it's pretty tough to take them back. Whether they can legally do so will make for some interesting lawsuits, I suspect.

 

Hero has been questioned and criticized, sometimes even on these Boards, for not having a free SRD posted online, and requiring licensing to use their IP. They never had an OGL, so requiring licensing doesn't require taking something back.  But slamming D&D/WoTC/Hasbro for deciding to restrict the use of their intellectual property seems to suggest we should also be slamming Hero (and other gaming publishers who did not shift to d20 OGL products) for failure to make their IP available without charge.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

To some extent, this is the OGL coming back to bite WOTC. 

 

Back in the dawn of 3e, WoTC clearly felt it was in their best interests to allow free use of the rule system for third-party creators to create content. At that time, it seemed like they wanted to focus on the lucrative rules and supplements, and let others write less-lucrative adventures. Paizo showed that writing adventures could be pretty lucrative after all, before the dawn of 4e forced them to develop and market a game system so people could keep playing their adventures.  Looking at 5e, WoTC now likes publishing adventures. But, having given licensing rights to other content creators, it's pretty tough to take them back. Whether they can legally do so will make for some interesting lawsuits, I suspect.

 

Hero has been questioned and criticized, sometimes even on these Boards, for not having a free SRD posted online, and requiring licensing to use their IP. They never had an OGL, so requiring licensing doesn't require taking something back.  But slamming D&D/WoTC/Hasbro for deciding to restrict the use of their intellectual property seems to suggest we should also be slamming Hero (and other gaming publishers who did not shift to d20 OGL products) for failure to make their IP available without charge.

 

 

The thing is the original OGL was written by WotC. And i could be mistaken but now WotC is owned by Hasboro.  If that’s true then your analysis is 100 percent correct. You have some good points bbt I think it might be due to the fact that Hasboro feels that they aren’t making enough money and think that Hasboro feels that One D&D which can expand D&D mainstream will make more money.

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The big challenge, I agree, is whether they can take back the OGL.  I suspect IP lawyers will make a lot of money figuring that out.

 

I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that legally-binding contracts normally require consideration by both sides.  Content creators and other users of the OGL never provided any consideration to WoTC, did they?

 

This is well laid out in the Ryan Dancey video posted above, although I believe the "interpretation" issue relates more to judicial interpretation than that of the users of the OGL. I would, however, expect the Courts to err on the side of the users, as WoTC/Hasbro unilaterally wrote the OGL, so any unclear elements rest entirely with them.

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I suspect the biggest legal fight will be between Paizo and Hasbro, since Paizo created their own variant d20 system and an entire game world with tons of supplements and adventures for it.

 

The new OGL that Hasbro is putting forth has truly ugly terms in it for any content creator dumb enough to sign it, but I suspect Hasbro won’t stick with it as it might end up destroying their fan base as word of what they’re trying to do spreads.

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13 minutes ago, L. Marcus said:

Disney might get into the fracas, as well -- I heard that they used D20 as the basis for, for example, their Star Wars KoTOR games. And I bet Disney's lawyers are better than Hasbro's.

 

    Nothing to arbitrate there--the KOTOR games were based off the d20 Star Wars RPG, and copyrights and licensing rights to all SW RPGs rest with Lucasfilm. They could rerelease any of them, just like they did with the WEG RPG a few years back, and even build new derivative works. I expect it's probably just not worth their time.

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Regardless of whether the OGL1.0a survives or not, this is the biggest opportunity for non-d20 RPGs in two decades.  I'm seeing an explosion in discussion board posts about what other RPG systems to try, and even calls to action to deliberately switch to non-d20 systems, all purely to spite WotC's cash grab.  Is there like a gofundme where I can contribute to Hero Games' marketing budget?

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5 hours ago, Old Man said:

Regardless of whether the OGL1.0a survives or not, this is the biggest opportunity for non-d20 RPGs in two decades.  I'm seeing an explosion in discussion board posts about what other RPG systems to try, and even calls to action to deliberately switch to non-d20 systems, all purely to spite WotC's cash grab.  Is there like a gofundme where I can contribute to Hero Games' marketing budget?

 

What year is Stranger Things up to? It might be worthwhile to suggest (to the showrunners) to have the characters switch to Fantasy Hero, which came out in 1985.

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19 hours ago, Old Man said:

Regardless of whether the OGL1.0a survives or not, this is the biggest opportunity for non-d20 RPGs in two decades.  I'm seeing an explosion in discussion board posts about what other RPG systems to try, and even calls to action to deliberately switch to non-d20 systems, all purely to spite WotC's cash grab.  Is there like a gofundme where I can contribute to Hero Games' marketing budget?

Right but regarding Hero specifically we’re back to the fact that in Hero you still need to build a game to play the game. I see a major draw of OSR is simplicity to pick up and play. Hero needs a basic sample game that can be picked up and play.

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2 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Right but regarding Hero specifically we’re back to the fact that in Hero you still need to build a game to play the game. I see a major draw of OSR is simplicity to pick up and play. Hero needs a basic sample game that can be picked up and play.

 

Now, imagine if (say) 10% of indie game designers were to license the Hero Games core mechanics (say, at a much more modest 5% of sales over $750k royalty) and market their game as Powered by the Hero System instead of A d20 OGL product.

 

I'm really curious how Mutants and Masterminds will react - their mechanics are kinda sorta d20, but have a lot of unique aspects that aren't common to d20 products.

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Quote

Right but regarding Hero specifically we’re back to the fact that in Hero you still need to build a game to play the game.

 

That's increasingly not accurate as more products come out.  Champions for example has a huge setting with characters and adventures to support it.  There are multiple Fantasy Hero settings.  Star Hero has its own innate setting. Western Hero needs no setting, it IS a setting.

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The way I see the OGL situation,  WOTC needs outside developers yet those developers only need a platform.  This platform can be WOTC, GURPS , Heroes, Pathfinder, CoC, Traveller, or any of the many other systems that exist. As a result, by doing what they are with the OGL, WOTC is doing more harm to themselves than they are anyone else. 

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