[labster]

WotC’s next move should be to go the way of TSR and the dodo.

In a way, I always knew this was coming. When lots of the people behind 3e left, I assumed that the OGL wouldn’t last forever, once there was enough money on the table. It took a decade longer than I thought, and I wasn’t expecting them to revoke the previous license, but instead remove the OGL from new versions. Either way, rent seekers gotta rent seek.

[ninth_ant]

> and I wasn’t expecting them to revoke the previous license, but instead remove the OGL from new versions

Well, to be fair they did do exactly that with D&D 4e and the GSL. Which bombed spectacularly, as their audience continued to play 3.5 and Pathfinder which continued to use the OGL.

This is actually WotC learning from their mistakes. If they launched 5.5e with a regressive and user-hostile licence, people would just ignore it and splinter the community and hurt the new edition.

Instead — the way wotc is attempting here — they blow up the old editions entirely and shut down all their competition in one legal maneuver. Existing customers have little recourse, they still enjoy ttrpg with their friends and d&d has significant brand strength as well as being the only company left publishing. Nerds will whine but the company now is now well-positioned to be the sole competitor in the increasingly profitable digital future. They don’t have to spent 10 figures on the next dndbeyond, they can just sue them. They don’t have to built a better vtt than foundry, they just shut down foundry and theirs is better by default — tada!

They may have underestimated how loudly nerds like me are whining, and voting with our wallets. And perhaps also o overestimating how successful their legal shenanigans would be — I’m not a lawyer but so much I’ve read from legal analysis suggests wotc is in a dubious position and unlikely to succeed here.

[labster]

I don’t think you understand the hobby at all. Every game master, without exception, is a content creator. Most of them want to try new systems just to see what they are like. If they decide to go to other systems, that’s it for D&D. They can make all of the movies and books they want, but that won’t make people DM it.

It doesn’t matter if they succeed in court or not. People will stop writing right now (and write for other systems), because who knows if the rug will get pulled under them in the future. Six months from now, maybe they decide the new license is that they get 100% of your revenue — we know they untrustworthy businessmen already. Hasbro pulling an Elon is not them “learning from their mistakes”, it’s just another offense.

[mcv]

It's definitely going to hurt D&D, and I can totally see D&D getting overtaken by other RPGs. But D&D is much more than just a game; it's a brand and cultural icon on par with Star Wars. Hasbro still has the name. They can merchandise the hell out of it. The game will exist, and even if much fewer people will play it, the rich history of D&D will still be attached to it.

> Hasbro pulling an Elon is not them “learning from their mistakes”, it’s just another offense.

They think they're learning, but they're learning the wrong lesson.

What they don't seem to realise is that the editions that used the OGL, are their most successful editions. And 4e that didn't, wasn't. Ryan Dancey (one of the creators of the OGL and VP at WotC at the time) even suggested that Paizo's Pathfinder system may have contributed to the success of D&D 5, because all the players who were disappointed with 4 could keep playing a game very close to D&D, and when D&D 5 came along, many of them switched back to D&D. Without Pathfinder, they might have strayed further and not have come back. Hasbro sees Pathfinder as the enemy, but it's not. You can be big together, and the OGL did make the RPG industry much bigger than it was before. I hope Paizo's new license will do the same.

[danaris]

My interpretation of ninth_ant's comment is not that they believe those things about this being A Great Idea on WotC's part, but that that's what WotC believes. And I think they're absolutely right.

WotC's (and, further up, Hasbro's) management has shown in several ways in recent years that they do not understand, respect, or like their core gaming customers. (In fact, there was another leak recently from someone purporting to be a Wizards insider [0] that claims they primarily see customers as "obstacles between them and their money".) Between the OGL 2.0, some of the other things they're doing with "One D&D", and many of the changes they've been making to Magic: The Gathering in recent years, I strongly suspect that they're effectively gutting their golden-egg-laying goose in hopes of getting even more gold out of it.

[0] https://twitter.com/DnD_Shorts/status/1613576298114449409

[WorldMaker]

They finally posted an official statement on the D&D Beyond website just an hour or so ago. (I'd link but corporate firewall means I can't find it right now.) They do think they are doing it with good intentions, including blocking NFT and web3 things trying to commercialize on D&D. It's skirted around in that post, but also implied that they want to make certain that OGL can't be used for film rights (because Hasbro has a growing film studio now) nor VTT rights (because D&D Beyond is a growing VTT). Both of those things to them add to their biased feeling that they are being the "good guys" in all of this and defending the OGL as a tool "just" for hobbyists and game players.

[danaris]

Yep, I saw that a couple hours ago, and it's now made it to the front page here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34370340).

I think WotC is starting to realize that they need their players waaaay more than we need them. If we want to just keep on playing with the same stuff we've got now, we can do that—if they want to make more money, they need to keep us happy one way or another.

[theshrike79]

Way too many Americans claim to play D&D, but in fact it's so far homebrewed it's a Theseus's Ship.

But D&D is synonymous for table-top roleplaying to Americans, that's what they have to do. Even the super famous podcasts where professional actors play "D&D" are barely using the official rules, they're more for flavour than actual mechanics.

I'm secretly hoping that this will actually push American players and GMs to consider other, better fitting, options for their games. If you want to play a sci-fi romp, maybe don't try to shoehorn it to D&D. Same with detective stories in a steampunk world.