D&D AND THE OPEN GAMING LICENSE

[Rogue 9]

If they go through with fucking over the Open Gaming License, I'm not going to go see this or spend money with them ever again. Too bad, really.

EDIT: TOPIC MOVED FROM D&D MOVIE THREAD -- LADY TEVAR

[Crazedwraith]

If they go through with fucking over the Open Gaming License, I'm not going to go see this or spend money with them ever again. Too bad, really.

Could you share a little more context there please? I've seen a meme or two but I don't really know what that's all about.

[Mr Bean]

If they go through with fucking over the Open Gaming License, I'm not going to go see this or spend money with them ever again. Too bad, really.

Could you share a little more context there please? I've seen a meme or two but I don't really know what that's all about.

There's a lot to unpack but the short version is Wizard of the Coast under Hasbro has decided to write an OGL version 1.1 to replace OGL version 1.0. This version 1.1 was leaked by an insider and I'll post the Gizmodo summary of a summary

per Gizmodo, the new OGL1.1 for Dungeons & Dragons is going to significantly change how people approach content creation for the tabletop RPG. It could potentially even alter how people play the game. Instead of using familiar, third-party websites, they will be forced to use official Wizards of the Coast partners, like Roll20.

OGL 1.1, the latest revealed update for Dungeons & Dragons changes some pretty major portions of the license. Following this change, content creators who sell their D&D-themed products such as campaigns, Kickstarters, and things of a similar nature will have to pay a 20-25% royalty by the licensed users. According to the report, it will only affect license holders who make $750,000 a year.

This number could always change in the future, possibly making it lower and lower. In addition, anyone who uses OGL 1.1, for any purpose can have their work used by Wizards of the Coast without warning or notification. Basically, it’s a “non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sub-licensable, and royalty-free license." That means that Wizards of the Coast owe you, the creator of your individual content, nothing, and can use it for any purpose.

In addition, Virtual Tabletops (Alchemy RPG, for example) won’t be able to host Dungeons & Dragons content at all. It will only be available on websites that Hasbro is officially partnered with, such as Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. Any third-party creator will also be susceptible to the above royalty fees, such as Paizo, the creators of Pathfinder.

This could also make Kickstarter no longer financially viable to create tabletop RPG content if it uses D&D’s rules. Having to suddenly start paying out money to Wizards of the Coast just because your Kickstarter started doing well overnight would certainly be a nightmare for a small, independent gaming creator.

The short version is OGL 1.0 is what everyone has been using since the year 2000 to publish DND related stuff, it was for third edition, 3.5, 4th edition and 5th edition. It lets third party companies publish DND content and profit off DNS content as long as they follow to the license and it's terms are generous with the idea at the time that Wizard's wanted to promot 3rd party content makers since they sell the game and the rules and the setting while 3rd party companies could sell adventure paths, modules and splat books and more. We make money of this you get to make money off that and it was well liked and included a nice provision saying we can't revoke this.

OGL 1.1 from Wizard that was leaked says we CAN revoke 1.0 also we want a cut of all of your business oh and your art belongs to us now.

[bilateralrope]

OGL 1.1 from Wizard that was leaked says we CAN revoke 1.0 also we want a cut of all of your business oh and your art belongs to us now.

That part that sounds like it will lose in court. If anyone operating under OGL 1.0 has the money to bring the fight to a court.

[Rogue 9]

It's also going to destroy D&D's customer base, and they should know this. TSR went bankrupt from both legal expenses and crashing sales amid ill will from the customers as they tried to sue all of their competitors into the dirt. Pathfinder ate 4th edition's lunch when it was published under a restrictive license (4th edition was in fact not covered under the OGL, but at that time they didn't try to cancel it). It's going to happen again.

[Solauren]

This has everything to do with the movie and the rumored TV series. (or was it announced).

Hasbro HAS to be in a position to force 3rd parties into submission via license.
This is to prevent someone from making a D&D show and making money off it (which is already happening), and it being used in court as "Yes, we are netflix, but why should we have to pay to use D&D stuff, when these people are not?" It's to protect their intellectual property.

On that note, I can see them going after third party manufacturers of stuff like miniatures and gaming terrain. I can imagine that Cults3d and Thingiverse are going to get notices, and there will be alot of stuff taken down. For the same reason.

And once they start doing that with one of their brands, it's going to start on other brands.

This might be the start of Hasbro going after all third party manufacturers they don't have deals with them. Which would include 3rd party Transformers manufacturers and the like. (meaning I better get off my ass and order some of the stuff I've been dithering over).

[Coop D'etat]

Wizard's doesn't own any IP that wouldn't be trivial to circumvent in a TV series. The open secret about the OGL is that it doesn't grant that much that isn't already out there as the limits of what Copyright and Trademark law gets the owner, its just effectively a litigation truce line by indicating a safe harbour.

The only IP they own that's relevant to TV and film is their setting content which isn't all that valuable. DnD is a pretty big cultural concept, Faerun or Greyhawk aren't.

So that isn't a good explanation for why they are doing this.

[Formless]

I've seen a ton of discussion on this, and the short of it is that the leaked version of 1.1 (assuming it is real and final) will almost certainly lose in court on account of failing to consider multiple aspects of contract law. Now, I am not a lawyer, but this is based on what I have seen being said by lawyers. Any one of the following arguments could be used in court, most likely by a class action lawsuit, as reason to invalidate the contract in part of in full:

1. According to multiple former Wizards employees who helped create ver. 1.0 and 1.0a, "perpetual" DOES mean "irrevocable", despite some claims made by lawyers who have weighed in and said otherwise. Notably, many of those lawyers I've seen claim that there is a distinction are not specialists in contract law or licensing, but rather copyright lawyers or in one case on ENWorld, a lawyer who advises legislators. In said thread, something like three other lawyers weighed in to say that contracts don't work at all the same way as legislation, although each had their own opinions on the matter. None of them seemed to think WotC would win their case, for different reasons.

2. Even if those employees statements are not taken seriously by the courts, Wizards themselves had a Q&A section on their website for decades that said, in fact, if they make a change to the OGL you are always free to use a previous version, and indeed there are still works licensed under version 1.0 (notably, 1.0a was made in response to the publication of The Book of Erotic Fantasy, which ended up being published under version 1.0 anyway). Thus, Wizards themselves can be proven to be arguing their interpretation in bad faith because they are changing their stance after literally two decades of saying otherwise. Perpetual DOES mean Irrevocable because Wizards themselves said as much for over two decades.

2a. Related to the above (meaning its technically a different argument from a legal perspective, but its damn similar), to revoke the OGL now when they had that statement on their website for 23 years would qualify as Promissory Estoppel. If you play Magic, you might recognize this as the same legal threat that keeps the Reserved List in effect. Basically, it means they promised not to revoke it for literally decades, during which time their competitors businesses gained value primarily on the basis of WotC's promise to keep the license going perpetually. Going back on their word directly harms their businesses by forcing them to take products off the shelves and off online retailers, which means they can enforce the promise that OGL 1.0a will not be revoked even if "perpetual" is taken to be different from "irrevocable". Notable, like many of these other arguments, this will also come into force if WotC tries to play the technicality that they aren't revoking the OGL, merely updating it and "de-authorizing" version 1.0 and 1.0a. Given all the major changes in the license, that's still Promissory Estoppel, because the individual clauses are promises not to interfere with their business practices based on those terms and conditions.

3. Perpetual means Irrevocable because that's what it usually means in the software world, and the OGL was based on open source software licenses. Now, today most of those licenses have added the word "irrevocable" to the language just to prevent any confusion on the matter or legal fuckery about how terms are to be interpreted (because the writers of those licenses eventually realized that lawyers are Usually Lawful Evil), but the court would be advised to take the intended understanding from the time the OGL was written, for reasons already stated. This also means that parties far outside the world of tabletop gaming have a stake in the matter, as any precedent set by this case would impact software licenses from that era as well.

4. Wizard's revoking the license 23 years later after mass adoption across an entire industry is clearly in violation of fair business practice laws, possibly even an anti-trust violation (because of 1.1's revenue theft fees for users that make more than a certain amount of money, not to mention their fuckery with Kickstarter and the world of Virtual Tabletops). They essentially tricked the market into mass adoption of something they now argue they can take back, that is unfair business practice and attempting to profit illegally from a monopoly on the license. Even if the 3pp companies don't try to take it up with the FTC because we know how rarely that works, the argument for fair business practice would be strong because much of the language in ver 1.1 takes rights that were granted to the licensee and tries to invert them to be rights reserved for WotC themselves; particularly disturbing are the addition of rights for WotC to basically republish your copyrighted material at will even if they revoke 1.1, which is explicitly revocable at any time. I can't see how that is even allowable under copyright law, given that 1.1 is being shoved down everyone's throats, and courts tend to interpret unsigned, unilateral licenses and contracts like this in a favorable manner to the consumer or licensee in order to prevent abuses of this kind. Speaking of which...

5. You can't force someone to accept a license, especially a unilateral one like the OGL. Yes, even if they already have another license from you that can be modified at any time. The 3pp market already accepted ver 1.0a for their products, and the new license cannot be enforced retroactively. Remember how I said that some products are still published under ver 1.0? That's because WotC's lawyers back then knew better than to contradict basic principles of licensing. This is why their Q&A said you can always choose an older version of the license even if they publish a revision. This same argument goes for "de-authorization", because that's just revocation of the license in different words, and courts don't like to play word games with lawyers.

6. And I should expand on that point. There is no clause in the OGL ver 1.0a that says they can de-authorize the license. And what a novel idea that is! Have you ever heard a lawyer ever seriously propose that you can just unilaterally "de-authorize" a previously offered perpetual license? No, because its nonsense. According to the terms of OGL 1.0a they can make modifications, but while authorization is mentioned, its mentioned in the context of making available new versions of the license, aka. only an authorized agent may modify the license, and if they do it explicitly mentions you can still use previous authorized versions of the license. This doesn't read as saying WotC can revoke authorization, and no one in history has ever tried arguing that a new license can revoke a previous license without the licensee first accepting the terms of the new license; hence, once authorized, always authorized until you, the licensee, agree to terminate your previous contracts with them. In order to revoke it unilaterally, they have to win the argument that a perpetual license is revocable unless specifically stated otherwise in the license. But it gets worse for WotC...

7. The OGL is revocable, actually. That is, it technically has a specific termination clause. "Section 13 Termination: This License will terminate automatically if You fail to comply with all terms herein and fail to cure such breach within 30 days of becoming aware of the breach. All sublicenses shall survive the termination of this License." Since Wizards didn't write a de-authorization clause into the previous terms, there is no breach of contract that they can use to force people to terminate the license, and whenever a termination clause is mentioned in a license or contract, courts tend to interpret that as the ONLY way to revoke or terminate that license. You made specific agreements with specific terms, and are required to meet those terms with your licensees. Moreover, section 9, the section that mentions authorization, specifically says "You may use any authorized version of this License to copy, modify and distribute any Open Game Content originally distributed under any version of this License." The bolding is mine. The plain reading of this is to say that the licensee is allowed to use ANY OGC published under ANY version of the license regardless of what version of the license that OGC was published under. This seems to explicitly preclude modifying this section of the license to prevent people from republishing the old SRDs, or even from taking material published under ver 1.1 without having to accept the terms of ver 1.1. If its an authorized version of the OGL, ver 1.0a authorizes you to use that material under 1.0a, and Hasbro can go fuck themselves. If they wanted to make another version of the GSL, they should have called it the GSL ver 2. Then this term of their agreement wouldn't allow people to take their stuff and use it.

8. You will also notice that the termination clause specifically says that sub-licenses shall survive termination of the OGL 1.0a. Meaning that even if they had power to de-authorize ver 1.0a, some users can argue that they are totally unaffected under this clause, and WotC cannot enforce new terms on them as a result. Once a contract is struck, you have to follow your agreements.

(However, I am not a lawyer let alone a contract lawyer, so I will not pretend to know which entities qualify as using a sub-license. Its just worth knowing that WotC explicitly cannot yank the OGL 1.0a from everyone, authorization or no authorization.)

9. And you have to follow your agreements, because otherwise contracts are meaningless. Unilateral revision of a contract is disallowed by basic contract law. Once you have signed into contract that sub-licenses will survive termination of the contract, they will survive termination of the contract. Once you promise in the contract itself that the license is perpetual, that material can forever be published under that license. The most generous interpretation for WotC's "de-authorization" argument is that they can forbid new material to be published under version 1.0a, but previous material shall not be effected under the terms of the previously authorized contract. If it was authorized at the time of publication, retroactively taking that license away or using Product Identity without authorization is a breach of contract on WotC's part. Any new material published by those publishers doesn't have to be published under the OGL 1.1, either, because again, you cannot force a license on anyone. They can make their own license for their own users, and Hasbro cannot do a damn thing about it, just as they cannot tell them not to publish under, say, the Cypher System, which has its own license separate from the OGL.

10. The OGL in its entirety may be licensing things that WotC has no right to license in the first place. This is the argument currently being made by the publishers of Delta Green, Arc Dream Publishing, who have already taken the step of removing the OGL 1.0a from all of their products in spite of section 10 of the OGL clearly stating that in order to publish OGC you must attach the OGL to the content somewhere. Arc Dream Publishing is essentially saying fuck that and fuck you, you can't revoke the license if the license is unenforceable anyway. Section 14 says that if some part of the contract is held unenforceable, it will be amended until it can be enforced, after all. And it doesn't matter, because contracts cannot override law. According to Arc Dream Publishing, basically every piece of OGC that they actually use in Delta Green are game mechanics that cannot be copyrighted or trademarked in the first place, because US copyright law only protects art, stories, and expression, not ideas, procedures, processes, systems, methods of operation, concepts, principles, or discoveries, and all of that is what makes a game a game. Their specific way of describing the game mechanics of Delta Green are their own trademarks and copyrights, and if WotC wanted to protect concepts like hit points, character classes, levels, ability scores, experience points, and saving throws, they can't do it through copyright, and they can't do it through trademark anymore because the whole damn video game industry uses those terms and concepts, making every last one of them genericized. My take on this argument is, if WotC had wanted to protect these ideas they should have instead filed for a patent. And the opportunity to do that expired nearly 50 years ago when Gygax and Arneson went ahead and published their games without doing so.

Now that last argument is technically untested in courts, as some people have pointed out. It has been tested for simpler games and their mechanics, like rolling dice, moving pieces around a board or a screen, and so on, but not for RPG mechanics. The problem they point out is that mechanics and fluff are far more integrated in RPG's than other genres. Thus while the resolution mechanic of throwing a d20 would likely be interpreted as non-copyrightable, the stats for an elf might be given some kind of consideration by a copyright judge. However, the concept of an elf certainly isn't trademarked because elves are used all around the fantasy genre by numerous companies and publishers, so the genericized trademark argument would certainly hold up. Its a complicated argument to make, probably made easier for Delta Green because its not a High Fantasy game and thus doesn't contain nearly as many items in it that WotC could try and claim ownership of in the first place.

However, that's perhaps besides the point. Arc Dream Studios is throwing down the gauntlet. They are challenging WotC by saying "if you don't sue us now for breaching the terms of OGL 1.0a, what right do you have to claim that authorization has anything to do with it? Everyone else can follow in our suit, and if you don't take us to court now, then they will win any legal battle by citing our position." They're basically saying that other publishers, particularly those who have published entire systems separate from the d20 system under the OGL, can back out of any version of the OGL at will because Wizards cannot enforce the very first clause of the contract, which is the ONLY clause that gives it any power whatsoever. The OGL 1.1 serves no useful purpose to any other publisher except WotC, and therefor no one has to abide by it either. WotC can either throw away all their cash trying to enforce an unenforceable contract on the entire industry starting with Arc Dream Studios, or they can cede that copyright never protected the license in the first place before a court of law; or the court of public opinion and market forces can overwhelm their ability to keep up with knockoff products made by everyone and their grandpa. Its widely believed that TSR's "They Sue Regularly" policy helped drive them to financial ruin in the long run, and while Hasbro is a bigger fish in the pond than TSR was, there are even bigger fish still out there that they may piss off with the GSL 2.0 OGL 1.1.

For instance, its widely believed that they are trying to do this in order to attack two particular entities: Piazo, because they're still bitter about Pathfinder crushing 4e like a bug, and Matt Mercer for making shitloads of money off their game with Critical Role. Obviously Piazo is run by former WotC executives who were there when the OGL was first written and who know more than most how it was supposed to work, but lets talk Matt Mercer for a moment. Matt Mercer has published setting material under two different companies: WotC themselves with Explorer's Guide To Wildmount, and another Critical Role based book through Green Ronin. So he has a stake in the OGL, and a good claim that he has in fact given back to the company that made him so successful. That they are just being greedy bastards trying to steal from him and his business partners. One of whom is Amazon. WotC's whole "we can publish any of your material we want through the OGL 1.1 even if we revoke OGL 1.1" is almost certainly going to get the attention of Amazon if they attempt to publish copyrighted material from Vox Machinima or even imply they could try to do so. Imagine WotC products being pulled from their website. Ooops. You got greedy. Another stakeholder they may unwittingly piss off? The Tolkien Estate, who currently publishes a Lord of the Rings RPG under the 5e rules set using the OGL. They also probably remember that time when E.G.G. ripped them off by putting Hobbits, Ents, and the Balrog in his game on his own misunderstanding of licensing rules. To this day I have been waiting for them to notice that "Halfling" is actually just another term for Hobbit found within the text of LotR. But anyway. There is at least one more company they might piss off if they get too greedy. Disney. Back in the day, Knights of the Old Republic was released, and under the hood it used the D20 system. It has the OGL ver 1.0a in its code. Furthermore, WotC used to make a D20 Star Wars RPG under license from Lucasfilm. WotC had better be careful how they handle the Mouse, because Star Wars is obviously big money to them, and they are an even bigger fish than Hasbro. The idea that Hasbro can bully all of their competitors by throwing money at SLAPP suits might seem like the strategy for shoving a clearly illegal license down everyone's throats, but that only follows until someone bigger than them decides to start funding the lawsuits in order to protect their IPs or to prevent a seriously harmful precedent in licensing law to be set that hurts businesses far beyond the gaming sphere.

Now they might just try to go after the little guys by abusing their agreements with Kickstarter. However, that will also only last until someone brings an Unfair Competition lawsuit against Kickstarter over Hasbro's shenanigains. Kickstarter isn't the only game in town either, and the little guys have the backing of the entire industry sans Hasbro themselves.

Hasbro has seriously overextended their authority and power on this one. This getting leaked might even prove to secretly be the best thing that could have happened to them, since it might end here and now with the lawyers who wrote it getting sacked, and a less egregiously illegal OGL 1.1 getting published in its stead that, while bullshit like the GSL, at least doesn't try provoking lawsuits by attempting to breach the contractual obligations of 1.0a by "de-authorizing" it. And if they do try to go forward with it? Well, Hickman and Weiss managed to get them to back down from whatever behind the scenes shit they were actually pulling, and that was only a small fraction of the fanbase decrying them as the villains. This is the entire industry they are trying to shake down.

Or as Sorchus likes to put it, "fuck around and find out".

[Solauren]

We also have no idea what this 'leak' actually is.

It could be...
#1 a very early draft that was shot down internally months ago, but somehow leaked out
#2 deliberate misinformation by someone within the company for whatever reason (bait and switch, someone pissed off over a decision, etc)
#3 a complete fraud
#4 the real deal.

If it's #1, I can see Hasbro and WOTC ignoring it until the real license is ready. At that point what I said on ENWorld stands - the community can either support the new system and license, or not. Ignoring it also gives them time to find the leak internally, and deal with the situation.

If it's #2, well, it it comes out it was a bait and switch by Hasbro/WOTC, that's even worse then what was leak. If it was someone pissed off over a decision, even if Hasbro/WOTC proves it, the damage is already done

#3 If it's a complete fraud, and Hasbro/WOTC proves it (i.e the OGL1.1 is just an update to indicate it doesn't cover non-printed media, good luck phrasing that one), they that might undo some of the damage.

Unfortunately, I fear it's #4, if only because it seems aimed at the people Formless mentioned specifically above.

Poor Hasbro/WOTC. Doesn't they know how many copies of that old Q&A exist? I can bet every game publisher has a copy of it somewhere, I'm pretty sure the Wayback Machine has a copy of it. Hell, given everything I downloaded from WOTC's website, I might have a copy of it somewhere.

[Rogue 9]

It's real. Kickstarter confirmed that they negotiated the lower royalty rate with Wizards of the Coast, so unless Kickstarter is in on a deception for some reason I cannot fathom this at least resembles the real deal.

[bilateralrope]

Hasbro has seriously overextended their authority and power on this one. This getting leaked might even prove to secretly be the best thing that could have happened to them

Probably. Right now, while it's only a proposed license, the worst Disney can do to them is send an official warning. Which they will do, as getting Hasbro to back down now is cheaper for Disney than bringing it to court.

It's real. Kickstarter confirmed that they negotiated the lower royalty rate with Wizards of the Coast, so unless Kickstarter is in on a deception for some reason I cannot fathom this at least resembles the real deal.

That sounds like it will get interesting if Habro backs down from whatever part of OGL1.1 convinced Kickstarter to negotiate the lower rate.

[Formless]

You're assuming that Disney even realizes Hasbro is a threat. I suspect that the reality is Hasbro exists outside their field of view-- for now. It will depend on someone alerting them that some of their property is effected by the OGL. Until then, the more likely big players to get involved are the open software community, Amazon via Matt Mercer, and whomever is currently publishing the LotR RPG.

Also, apparently Kobold Press is getting ready to do a cagier version of the move Arc Studios pulled and simply publish their own rules on their own licensing terms. How similar they will be to D&D we will have to wait and see, but their announcement suggests they are going to make it open source somehow, probably by copying language similar to OGL 1.0a but with all the references to WotC removed and (hopefully) the word "irrevocable" added to completely remove the possibility of corporate mismanagement in the future from ruining their new game. Its like everyone but Hasbro remembers when D&D was owned by TSR, and why that's relevant when talking about the origins and importance of Open Gaming. But I guess once a Microsoft exec, always a Microsoft exec at heart.

[Formless]

Oh, and I just remembered-- Amazon is a direct stakeholder in the OGL. They are the current owners of Stargate, and Stargate has a tabletop role playing game made under the OGL using 5e as a rules base.

[bilateralrope]

You're assuming that Disney even realizes Hasbro is a threat. I suspect that the reality is Hasbro exists outside their field of view-- for now. It will depend on someone alerting them that some of their property is effected by the OGL. Until then, the more likely big players to get involved are the open software community, Amazon via Matt Mercer, and whomever is currently publishing the LotR RPG.

All it will take is one Disney employee contacting their legal department about this mess for Disney to be made aware. After that, we are talking about a company that sends its lawyers after daycare centers. Disney will do something.

[LadyTevar]

MOVED FROM D&D MOVIE THREAD

[bilateralrope]

There is at least one more company they might piss off if they get too greedy. Disney. Back in the day, Knights of the Old Republic was released, and under the hood it used the D20 system. It has the OGL ver 1.0a in its code.

I've seen some people saying that the OGL isn't in KOTORs code. That the D20 system was licensed under a different agreement. Would you happen to know which file contains the OGL ?

[Formless]

I do not, however its a moot point. What they are referring to is the D20 System Trademark license, which was the trademark you could put on your product to identify it as compatible with D&D and D20 modern without having to put either of those trademarks on your product. Everything that was released under the D20 System Trademark license was also using the OGL practically by definition.

[Solauren]

Reading over at Enworld, it looks like WOTC is likely going to have a fight on their hands.
Numerous 3rd party publishers are saying they have to close up. Others, including a few of the bigger ones are stating they intend to fight this in court.
The only one that hasn't said anything yet (that I know of) is the biggest one; Paizo publishing.
Paizo is full of people that worked on the OGL, and probably still have the email discussions, contracts, and lawyer opinions on the OGL.
(Several of whom have spoken up and said 'hold on a minute, we set things up so that you can't do that')

Oh well. I haven't bought any newly published RPG products since Pathfinder 1E stopped being printed. I probably own more D20 system (D&D 3.X or Pathfinder) compatiable products and resources then just about anyone else on the planet, including copies of websites and web-forms that have disappeared (including all the D&D/D20 related sections of WOTC discussion forms they ran up until 4E, and the old mailing lists. Yes, I'm a digital pack rat), so I probably have more then I'll use in the rest of my natural life. I have books that never made it to digital copy or sales (legal or not).

Hell, the only thing I'm missing that I'm aware of is a decent copy of the Rokugan D20 books (the digital copies from online retailers are crap. Wish I knew that before I sold my hard copies).

[bilateralrope]

Even if you ran out of content that you want to use, there are plenty of other systems out there that have no connection to D&D.

I wonder if any of them are going to see a popularity boost due to WOTC's shortsighted greed.

[Solauren]

Even if you ran out of content that you want to use, there are plenty of other systems out there that have no connection to D&D.

Even with what I know I want to use, I haven't gotten through it all, let alone what I have barely read over

I wonder if any of them are going to see a popularity boost due to WOTC's shortsighted greed.

Probably all of them will. Anyone know if Palladium is still publishing?

[Jub]

This makes me glad that I have mostly sailed the high seas when it comes to running 5e and spent my TTRPG money on indies. I'd love to switch systems, but my current group is unlikely to want to switch, and making a change would kill my current campaign. Plus, OGL aside, One D&D seems like it'll fix up the worst issues of 5e and make for a fun easy game, so much like with MtG where I proxy everything and only play with friends I'll keep on with using their product, and not giving Hasbro a single dime while wishing there was legitimate competition in the TTROG and TCG space.

[LadyTevar]

MORE Posts Moved, I guess people hadn't gotten the message.

[Formless]

We didn't "not get the message", Tev, we posted those last night BEFORE you split the thread. You failed to notice the second page of posts. That is why I flagged them for you. I don't feel comfortable calling out a mod, but seriously, look at the time stamps.

[Formless]

Anyway, thinking about it, I suspect that Kickstarter went back into negotiations with WotC over the fees because they realized they have legal obligations to their users and to backers that might be trod upon under the current iteration of the license they've seen. Its similar to why Kobold Press, despite announcing Core Fantasy in response to the OGL news, has still promised to go through with the kickstarter projects they've already started. They have an obligation to their backers to do so under Kickstarter's own terms of service.

Frankly, I'm surprised that Kickstarter isn't the one demanding fees from Hasbro! They are the ones who are offering a service, after all.

[Rogue 9]

Anyway, thinking about it, I suspect that Kickstarter went back into negotiations with WotC over the fees because they realized they have legal obligations to their users and to backers that might be trod upon under the current iteration of the license they've seen. Its similar to why Kobold Press, despite announcing Core Fantasy in response to the OGL news, has still promised to go through with the kickstarter projects they've already started. They have an obligation to their backers to do so under Kickstarter's own terms of service.

Frankly, I'm surprised that Kickstarter isn't the one demanding fees from Hasbro! They are the ones who are offering a service, after all.

The leaked license refers to Kickstarter as their "preferred crowdfunding platform," which is corpo-speak for they cut a sponsorship deal of some sort. And the 20% rather than 25% (still ruinous either way considering the margins on the average campaign) is charged to the user, not to Kickstarter.