Dungeons & Dragons 2024 - New core books, new evolution

Games
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The official WotC survey to provide feedback on the latest proposed OGL is up.

Currently, the issue being pointed out by lawyerly types is that OGL 1.2 still has some problematic clauses. Most notably is that the “irrevocable” wording that’s been got all the initial positive press is actually a subtle trap - the agreement is irrevocable for you, not for WotC. Second, there are tons of restrictions around VTT work which make 3rd-party VTTs almost impossible to make unless you publish the barest of bare bones VTT.

Foundry VTT posted their thoughts that sum it up.

If a creator uses content from the SRD version 5.1 - the current version of the SRD which has been available since May 2016 - they implicitly agree to the terms of the OGL 1.2 license. This means that simply by publishing content that was developed under 1.0a and SRD version 5.1, many creators will unknowingly accept the 1.2 terms.

Irrevocable unless decided otherwise

The new OGL 1.2 does include the significant term irrevocable, however, Wizards of the Coast has provided themselves with several ways to cancel the license either individually or in total.

Thou shalt not animate

The perplexing focus on animation of spell effects is an absurd heuristic as the primary example of what makes a virtual tabletop different from a video game. If differentiating between a VTT and a video game is essential (we contend it is not), there are far more cogent classifiers to use. Are the actions of both player and non-player characters controlled by a human? Does the game experience provide a framework for collaborative storytelling? Can the gamemaster invent new rules on the fly? Surely virtual tabletops and video games alike may both have animation present in the way they communicate information visually to users.

Even if a focus on “animation” is removed, it is concerning that Wizards of the Coast would choose which software features are appropriate for a virtual tabletop to implement and which are not.

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Recovering lawyer here. You’ve got the right idea, but the Rule Against Perpetuities applies only to real property (real estate etc). But it’s true that in general, nothing is “forever” in law, and “irrevocable” often doesn’t quite mean “irrevocable.” E.g., WOTC says it won’t revoke most provisions of the license, and the agreement has a no-modification clause – but one can always modify the no-modification clause.

I don’t really have a dog in this fight. I just want to see the 6th ed…er, One D&D books.

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Pathfinder 2e seems a lot more interesting these days. It has some interesting options available to characters, and having everything rules related free is kind of cool.

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Sorry I missed the OSR discussion, slow rolling in here…

Old School Essentials is great! I have the DM books on my table with me every time I play now. It’s got the best base DM procedures I’ve seen for quickly improvising interesting situations that are engaging for the players and DM. I think gold-for-XP is my favorite player facing rule in OSE, I strongly recommend trying even if it sounds weird, it really changes the feel of the game and the goals of the player in an interesting way.

I personally don’t like most of the other player facing rules. If you’re like me, there’s so many good books that swap out just those. Old School Stylish replaces classes with “styles” that players discover during play. It feels a bit like a Final Fantasy job system thing. Knave replaces classes with a bigger emphasis on equipment and stats. Cairn is probably the most intense change: it removes classes, cuts down to 3 stats, removes to-hit rolls (every attack is just a straight damage roll), and removes leveling up! I can’t handle no level up personally, but the rest of Cairn is really interesting.

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This came out a few days ago, and surprisingly is not about the OGL kerfuffle.

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NPR again. This time about the OGL kerfuffle.

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“Help us screw you over in a way that you’ll accept,” is what most people see, I suspect.

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Matt Collville with some thoughts.

https://twitter.com/mattcolville/status/1618389554930810886

So here’s the good news. You ready? Lemme tell you a story of what happened when Wizards of the Coast (possibly after the Hasbro buyout) spent a LOT of money on a real market research survey. They found out something ALARMING. Well, alarming for people trying to monetize D&D…

There are people on this site who know and could tell this story better than me, but this is how I heard it from the direct source.

Once upon a time, WotC bought TSR and wanted to revitalize D&D.

D&D had been in a nose dive for like 10 years. How to fix that? Well, let’s figure out why did people stop playing D&D? Was it insufficently narrative? Not story-focused enough?

Did people stop playing because the rules were too complex?

Nope. It was way worse than that.

The real answer, the market survey revealed was…

They hadn’t stopped playing.

Turns out there HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE still playing D&D regularly. All through the 90s.

But they weren’t playing 90s D&D. Second Edition D&D.

They were still playing AD&D!

TSR had changed the game, released a new edition, and everyone just said…no thanks, I’m happy with the game I got. I can use these rules to keep playing forever. I don’t need TSR. OR Wizards of the Coast.

Now, if you are someone who loves D&D and just…this hobby in general, the whole thing, this is actually hugely good news!

But if you are someone who’s JOB relies on making more money off of D&D, this was a major problem.

For the folks being paid to believe that the hobby and the business were the same thing? This was a crisis. So Wizards of the Coast spent a lot of money on what they called “re-engagement.” (it might have been reacquisition? It’s been 25 years, I forget). There was a name for it.

“Back To The Dungeon!” Send a loud signal to those old players that the D&D they loved was back! Kick down doors, kill monsters, get loot! None of this “storyteller” nonsense, you’re a DUNGEON MASTER!

And that was 3rd edition. Did it work?

Well, 3E was a huge hit. Massively more so than 2nd Ed. Did they manage to convert all those AD&D players? No idea.

But remember this; converting those AD&D players was only necessary IF your job depends on believing that the business and the hobby are the same thing.

In reality, even when the business of D&D was on life support, the hobby was doing fine. Was it growing? Was it increasing shareholder value?

What are you, an investor? What do you care? Go roll up a character and save the world.

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Question I’m asking myself is, where were all those players getting their AD&D handbooks from? Playing without? Hand-me-downs?

If AD&D was more popular than the 2nd edition, wouldn’t they have noticed that those handbooks/DM-guides were selling better? Or did WotC stop selling the original when they introduced the 2nd edition? (honest question)

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I think this is part of the Hasbro/WoTC monetization issue. In reality only the DM needs a full set of books. The players need the players handbook, sometimes, or they can borrow from the DM. Part of what WoTC wants to do is monetize the players.

However having lived and played through the eras, I think the tweets are overstating the 2E/3E case. Everytime there is a new edition, some groups choose to stay behind. They would either still have the books, or go find them at the local used book store.

I saw it from original D&D to AD&D to 2E to 3E to 4E and to 5E. Look at Gencon’s RPG sessions over the years and you can see it…earlier editions are still being played.

I’d actually say the biggest drop was 4E. Alot of people, including me, skipped 4E. I would suggest more skipped 4E as a % of players/groups than skipped 2E.

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Up until recently, a few websites had PDF versions of most of the 2nd edition handbooks.

Not that I would know anything about that.

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This thread inspired me to go look up what my first edition AD&D stuff (sitting in a box in my basement for 20 years+) is worth. Wow! Even reasonably used, that stuff goes for a bundle.

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Hot take - 1st edition AD&D was trash. 2nd Edition was a huge improvement and I bought tons of 2nd Edition source books.

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They bought them back in the day.

No because the players already owned them.

And they generally stop printing books for older editions when the new ones came out.

I’d agree with that. 2nd Edition was a big improvement over AD&D at the end of the day.
4E wasn’t an improvement over 3.5. It was a completely different game that just vaguely had a D&D wrapper in a lot of ways.

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This. Colville’s secondhand story is saying WotC found out what most TTRPG players our age know. We find a system we like and we stick with it. We’ll “upgrade” to a new version if we think it offers a compelling reason to switch, but otherwise the physical books are already ours to do what we wish. If we don’t move to the next version of a game, we can just continue to play with the perfectly usable older books.

Which is, of course, exactly what the suits at Hasbro do not want. For the 2e/3e issue Colville cites the only viable solution was make a new version that swings back to the way 1e was done (or at least mechanically seemed to do so) market the heck out of it, and get the players to come to 3e.

Now, there’s another, even more attractive solution. Software as Service. You make the physical books obsolete right out of the gate (Hasbro/WotC apparently want them to be “collectibles” more than useful reference sources) and push the players to buy into a recurring monthly charge on a D&D site. You theoretically capture more revenue by widening the base, you entice customers to continue paying by offering “storage” and a steady dribble of rules and scenario updates - which simultaneously keep the physical books outdated - and you lock them into the ecosystem through the critical mass of members. (If your DM is on it and your buddies are on it, then you better be on it if you want to play with the group.)

All this is the goal. It ignores the reality that much of the players/DM engagement with TTRPGs is through their own imagination, but it remains to be seen who is right about the future of the hobby.

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There’s always the GURPS way of endless sourcebooks for every topic under the sun - genres, settings, mechanics (an entire book on vehicles , or magic, or “ultra tech”, etc).

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Linda Codega with an op-ed on the whole situation:

This is a community that literally invented the term “rules lawyer.” WotC simply didn’t realize how literally that would be taken.

So, what’s happening now is that after the village has come together to defeat the dragon terrorizing their community, the power vacuum is splitting into factions. There are some folks who are willing to admit that the newest OGL 1.2 and the agreement to designate a portion of the rules for free use under the Creative Commons license is a good start to what could be a good faith conversation with a giant corporation. There are some folks who think that any attempt to de-authorize the OGL 1.0a means that Wizards isn’t actually interested in change. There are many who think that people are getting conned because this newest OGL 1.2 only seems better, but is still, in fact, just as bad as the OGL 1.1 or even worse.

The fact is that Wizards of the Coast is going to attempt to de-authorize the OGL 1.0a. It has made that explicitly, incredibly clear, and it’s my opinion no amount of backlash or feedback or threat of legal action is going to dissuade it from doing that.

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Hasbro with the axe:

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I mean, that is the problem WOTC faces now.

They floated a heinous license out to a lot of people which showed their intent to lock down the previously free environment very strictly.

Now, even though they are walking things back… there is no trust. They made their initial intent clear, and no “apologies for rolling a 1” will help that. We will always question their intent now, and try to pick apart every statement and license to see how much of that original intent remains.

At this point, they look weak for caving in so much, and they haven’t regained any trust anyway. They have gone about this in possibly the worst possible way.