Well, first of all, the old TSR was suing lots of people who used what are now common game terms, such as Hit points’, saving throw, etc. Games Workshop is notorious for suing everyone, including fan artists.
Sure, those lawsuits may not prevail, but most creators cant afford to fight them.
But the OGL does a lot. For example- say the Fireball spell. Sure, without the OGL, you can have a spell that does a ball of fire. But with the OGL, you can use the exact 5e or whatever, description. You can use class nomenclature, etc, all of what is stuff you need, when designing a module that is compatible with 5e- not to mention you want to put “5th edition compatible” on your product so it will sell. Because frankly, new systems don’t sell. People want to get stuff compatible to a game most people play- which sure could include GURPs, etc, but a “5th edition compatible” logo will mean your product will sell a lot more. Maybe you can put that on your product, but then there’s all the other stuff to make it really compatible.
Exactly.
Very unlikely doesn’t stop a suit that you can’t afford to fight.
As an example, here’s a description of a fireball (from my memory of the rules):
Here’s the text of the rules from the actual book:
And here’s the text from d20srd.org , a third-party website that uses D&D content under the OGL:
All three are the same rules. Without the OGL, someone would probably be in the clear, posting what I posted on a reference site somewhere, because despite being the same rules, it’s phrased very differently from what’s in the book. But first of all, it’d be a lot of work to re-write everything in the SRD that way, and second, even if court would find for me if I did, it’d still be a court case that I probably can’t afford.
But with the OGL, the third-party site was able to quote that spell verbatim, as well as every other spell in the game, and lots and lots of other material as well. That quantity of exact quoting would almost certainly be a copyright violation, because it’s not just the rules. A site like d20srd.org wouldn’t be possible without the OGL.
The label was part of the opening graphic, not something stranger wrote. And the opening graphic was clearly marked as a parody with nonverbal cues. The facial expression of “approachable spokesperson” was pretty explicit about that.
It’s swell that you’re around to explain to all of us rubes about “The Right Way” to do satire.
On the other hand, I’m pretty sure the Wizards of the Coast management is actually confused about the distinction between Dungeons & Dragons and Dave & Busters.
That’s true. And third parties like d20srd benefit wizards of the coast, IMHO. But they also aren’t particularly related to producing content, racist or otherwise.
I’ll have to watch that clip from Devin Stone. Because I’ve been wondering how wizards of the coast can restrict the proud boys from publishing a module compatible with d&d. I mean, maybe they have to talk about “eyeball monsters”, like order of the stick. But does that really slow them down?
Bit of course, in defending that idiotic parody , you forget my main point- that is it complaining about the Draft OGL, which was dead and gone before this was posted. The video is beating a dead horse.
I will not complain but I would not trust them either. If I were a content creator using D&D I would now be forever looking over my shoulder. Hasbro/WotC are looking for any way to monetize D&D. While they need to wait a bit for the hub-bub to die down over this mistake I have no doubt they will be lurking and seeking new ways to extract money from their players.
I have not played D&D for 40+ years (unless you count computer games which I have probably played most of them) but I had been considering starting again. I was only looking for D&D groups until this happened. Now I am strongly considering other systems (like Pathfinder). Their backtracking on this doesn’t change that for me. They already sent me down a different path that is not them.
They got greedy, and they probably just did more to de-monetize D&D than anyone in the game’s history has ever done before. The past several weeks are going to be a case study in what not to do, and they’ll reverberate through the hobby for decades.
They ventured into the kobold’s lair in search of easy loot. And they came out three weeks later, bloodied and bruised and terrified. Who knew kobolds could fight back? Many years from now, they’ll be telling their grandchildren to stay away from the kobolds.
