Yeah, selling a subscription pass would be good. Use DND Beyond to make it easier to play and run the game. I would use DND Beyond at cons since it tracked all the stuff with my character and let me level easier.
Also, having a Beyond for the DM so they can create and run encounters with the same ease. Especially if they integrate it with the campaign book and it handles recharges, etc. Of course, having all this in a VTT would be amazing.
The hard part I think Wizards is having is once you have sold the 3 core books, players can either make up their own adventures or grab some of the user-created stuff.
This has always been a “problem” for the business. The traditional thought was that if you created adventures and supplements that were good enough, you’d pull in revenue from enthusiastic fans that would continue buying those items, however the fly in the ointment was group sharing. If I want to play an advanced bard or something, I need to buy the Bard’s College book, but no one else in my group needs to. Later, if someone else wants access to the Bard’s College rules, I just hand them the book and that’s that.
Hasbro/WotC hopes the move to an all/mostly digital business cuts down on that. Move the hobby from the in-person table to a digital meeting and sharing stops. Keep the books as “live” documents that constantly get updates and players have to subscribe to keep up since a static pdf won’t work. It makes sense from a purely investor-driven perspective.
And for the Pathfinder route, there is Archives of Nethys (an online depository for all rules) which has all of the rules you could ever need to play a game.
I also saw in the ludicrously expensive Pathfinder Nexus system, you can share a book with up to 24 different people on that system. So, theoretically it would be the same as the in-person method of handing a book over to a friend.
I think they need to look at monetizing things other than the books, as I don’t see those being a huge route for making money, as people will still share books, and there are free alternatives. The real monetization would be connections to digital table-top software, extras like emotes character pawns, all of those things they could sell licensed.
They could also, you know, make physical stuff too. The minatures space has never been strong for any TTRPG I have ever known. 3d printing has also changed the game a lot there. I 3d print minis and terrain myself. I can imagine some ways that a company could monetize that as well, you could monetize official 3d objects, provide printing licenses for people to sell printed versions of minis etc. (This is how a lot of 3rd party modelers do things)
Putting hard monetization on the books and information you need to get started playing will only slow the growth of the playerbase.
Sure, there’s a segment that’s always going to share books. The vision is to make that as difficult as possible by making the rules “live” and “adding value” with constant tweaks.
Personally, I hope the effort fails because I like my books and static rules that change only with large version revamps. Like, if I wanna break out my old AD&D rules and have an old-school night, I can do that. With One D&D (or whatever they’re going to call it) that would be impossible.
I know in D&D Beyond they enabled book sharing amongst a gaming group. I, for a time, had access to everything because I had a friend who dropped like $600 on the ultimate bundle.
What we really need is a good virtual table top. I remember trying to play during covid and it would take forever just to drop in a map and line up the gridlines with the map image. You’d measure a square again and again and somehow it would all be off anyway. Then actually playing on that map? Forget it. You need real fog of war mechanics at least. But this is what happens when you rely on hobby programmers to make tools, you get half baked unintuitive tools.
So apparently WotC/Hasbro is debating setting everything on fire and destroying it all with OGL 1.1, which has been leaked and is terrible and possibly even unenforceable.
This would, in theory, hit stuff like MCDM and Critical Role as well as Paizo.
Of course Critical Role can probably cut a deal since they work closely with WotC already.
Paizo is probably calling it’s lawyers.
Every social media source from every D&D-related company or group is basically getting torches and pitchforks.
As for people trying to use the old 1.0a OGL, like Paizo, every lawyer I have heard talk about this is very skeptical they can change the terms of the original “perpetual license” granted in that with a 1.1 update, even with the creative legal language of “unauthorized” in 1.1 trying to end the perpetual license they had already granted. I guess for contract law, the courts almost always give a disadvantage to the license creator, as it was their job to make the language of that license clear, and the precedent of “perpetual” in license law is 35 years. This is especially the case for OGL 1.0a, because it is an open contract, and it is known that the licensee(s) had no ability to negotiate terms when it was created. It is literally all on WOTC.
So, the ability of them to “un-authorize” something they have allowed people to use as a “perpetual” license is suspect, as it contradicts their written terms. Additionally, there have been messages from the former WOTC employees who wrote the OGL 1.0a that it was meant to be “perpetual” and was written with that intent in mind.
Anyway, it will likely either go to court, or WOTC will back down. They will have a very difficult time explaining how they have the ability to essentially revoke a license they granted in perpetuity.
They may also back down, because a legal case over their OGL would bring a lot of attention over to what they actually can license. A lot of the OGL uses very generic game mechanics terms which there has been plenty of legal precedent over how you cannot copyright generic game mechanics. Nobody has questioned the OGL on this, because it was completely free and open to use (as long as you followed the generous and free terms). Them locking the OGL down will likely bring a lot more scrutiny over what they can and cannot copyright.
They have broken the un-easy peace, and it will probably only be bad for them, especially in the short term.
Honestly, i’m kinda surprised that people are particularly bothered over losing the OGL- the only thing that people got from it was being able to copy the SRD material, which isn’t really necessary to make a D&D-compatible product.
Then again, I don’t think WOTC can pull the plug on the existing OGL, but they can basically only release the OneD&D SRD under OGL 1.1. I guess the knock is, if OneD&D is mostly compatible with 5e, people will just use 1.0a to release supplements using the old SRD and it’ll mostly work, and they’re hoping to be able to get out of licensing further product. We’ll see how it actually plays out.
Part of the issue is that WotC is saying with 1.1 that 1.0a is no longer “authorized” and therefore invalid.
The original OGL granted “perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive license” to the Open Game Content (commonly called the System Resource Document) and directed that licensees “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.” But the updated OGL says that “this agreement is…an update to the previously available OGL 1.0(a), which is no longer an authorized license agreement.”
Lol. Ah, yes, Hasbro will manage what the nuclear experts at Microsoft and Oracle could not, and kill open licensing. It’s not even worth getting popcorn.
This is exactly what my software dev friend said. If the huge tech giants and their insane cadre of lawyers can’t figure out how to prematurely end open source licenses for software, how is Hasbro going to manage? I doubt they will push hard on ending OGL 1.0a, as it will be a losing battle that will cost them a lot in legal fees (as well as their competitors too, but costly for Hasbro as well)
A lot of the talk on QT3 has been focused on WOTC attempting to revoke 1.0a, but the 1.1 agreement is just incredibly onerous if you are trying to make content for DND Next. The license is written in a way in that WOTC owns the rights to all IP you create for them. You own it too, but they can use it and not pay you a dime. It is completely anti-creator, comically so. That is the most egregious part of 1.1 IMO (other than them comically attempting to revoke a perpetual license)
The fact that under OGL 1.1, WOTC could see the awesome spells you create for your 3rd party spellbook, and include them in a millions selling adventure book and pay you nothing and credit you for nothing… is insane. Why would you ever create anything under the license?
The rules lawyer (youtube channel) said something like, “Yeah, you own the IP you create, but WOTC also owns it too” The entire point of IP is sole ownership by creator, this new agreement makes you an unpaid WOTC freelancer, as functionally with their publishing power and reach, their ownership means more than yours.
Someone from reddit dug up an interview from 2002 with WOTC VP about the OGL and why it was created:
OGL was intended to bring principles of open-source software in gaming. Ryan talks about open-source phylosophy a lot: right to modify, copyleft, strong protection of freedoms, etc. Directly stated GPL open-source license is a foundation for OGL.
One of key principles, copyleft, is correctly explained by Ryan as “forcing everyone to allow anyone to use a given work pretty much any way they want to, and not be able to restrict those rights.”
Original OGL was intended to help competition. Because overall success of the market ultimately will help D&D as market leader. And also because it prevents people from switching to completely different systems. Direct quote: “D&D as a game should benefit from the shared development of all the people who work on the Open Gaming derivative of D&D.”
If WOTC were to enter a legal battle over a large company, like Paizo, using OGL 1.0a for their game, this would look bad for them, as it is fairly clear the intent creating OGL 1.0a is very different from what WOTC is claiming they created it for now. Will be difficult to explain their line on changing the OGL because it was “enabling competitors” when it appears that is exactly what they were trying to accomplish with OGL 1.0a (as stated by their former VP in pretty clear terms)
I mean, this is how licenses work, you can’t just change the terms after the fact because you are no longer happy with them. You wrote the license WOTC, you have to live by it. Courts don’t look kindly on business changing license terms drastically and quickly without good reason. Limiting competition is not a good reason, especially when they were publicly and explicitly claiming that is why the OGL was created in the first place. This is also going to look even worse when it has been over 20 years of no changes, then we are expected to change by the end of 2023?
Sure- the way they would do that is basically release the OneD&D SRD under the new license, it wouldn’t really be revoking anything. I think what the battle is about is whether they can prevent further material being released under the 5e and 3.5e OGL, which is based on the license for those games respective SRDs. The GSL was released this way, though it initially required publishers using the GSL to not publish OGL works. It didn’t invalidate the old OGL, which is why Pathfinder happened.
It might not be a big deal except OneD&D was made to be compatible with 5e, so basically WotC would never really be able to make anyone use their new license because the 5e SRD would be close enough for compatibility. This wasn’t the case with 4e, which was a very different game. And I think it’s a bit late in the process to change OneD&D to be totally incompatible with 5e, and probably against the design concept anyway.
I would believe this is what they think they are doing right now. Stating anything being created new will need to use OGL 1.1
This is incompatible with the original license terms though, as it granted the license perpetually. A new revision does not delete the old agreement, as that would conflict with the original perpetual nature of the license. They are attempting to use the term “authorization” as a term to revoke 1.0a, which is against the original stated license length. This is what people using 1.0a will argue, and they have a pretty strong argument, based on the 20 year history of the license being used, and the legal statues around open-source licenses and perpetual licenses.
They are going nuclear against all 3rd parties right now, which is… surprising. Especially as Pathfinder 2E uses OGL 1.0a, but I doubt anyone would be running 5e or 6e games with PF2 adventure paths. There is some overlap in the game systems, because they are both based on OGL, but there are vast gameplay differences which makes translation between systems a major undertaking. Which means, what are they worried about here? Their competitors have evolved far enough away from the OGL that they don’t really need it anymore, and were only using it, as it was what they created their system on decades ago.
If Wizards wants to get into a legal battle, they will have to open up the OGL, and start reviewing point by point what they can actually license. Like has been said by a lot of commentators, game mechanics are not something you can copyright and license out. Base mechanics are not able to be copyrighted. I would suspect large portions of the OGL 1.0a would not actually need a license to use, but nobody has challenged this, because of how free and open the OGL 1.0a was.
I can’t believe they will keep 1.1 in its current form, due to the backlash. I also could forsee a future where people continue to publish using 1.0a, and WOTC only legally pursues the small developers and those working on 5e or 6e supplements. Attempting to sue a reasonably large competitor (like Paizo) would likely bring a very large and expensive lawsuit for WOTC (and Paizo) which may end up costing them large portions of what the 1.1 OGL tries to create. Like, I don’t see them legally pursuing anyone that can fight back, because fighting back would open up the entire license to greater legal scrutiny.
Well, it’s pretty clear why they’re doing this. The company is scrambling for new sources of revenue.
This article is pretty grim. All their brands are struggling, including Magic, and D&D is their sole bright spot. So, naturally, they decide to start aggressively monetizing it to kill it.
I find it hard to believe that Hasbro can magically open the wallets of millions of D&D players to an extent sufficient to provide a significant revenue boost. I imagine most role-playing groups would just switch to some other system, or keep using their old system with home-brewed updates or whatever rather than shell out big bucks for official whatevers. I guess going forward with new stuff it might get traction, if the stuff being offered is attractive enough that large numbers of players and DMs feel they can’t do without it, but given the history of the hobby overall and the creative ways people have developed to avoid spending more money (and to make stuff themselves) I have to wonder how effective Hasbro’s strategy is going to be.
Now, if the whole digital environment, tool sets, assets, and apps thing is really super useful and the only way to get in on that is to pony up the cash, I guess that could drive a lot of money their way. But given again that people have home-brewed (or indie developed, etc.) all sorts of digital toolboxes already, Hasbro’s new D&D stuff will have to knock your socks off…
Im pretty sure the plan (at least in Hasbro’s meeting rooms) is exactly the latter. They want everyone to sign up for a digital subscription and pay a monthly fee and extra DLC. They want them off physical media because that offers players a way to circumvent the digital ecosystem.
