Sat down in my dentist's chair this afternoon and my dentist, who has seen the menu and knows that I produce D&D content, asked, "So, is this Hasbro thing affecting you?"
I've written twice on the blog about it already and the response is all crickets. Saying that, it's on my radar quite a bit. It matters, to me, if not my reader, what's going on with this thing and how it's going to change the climate in which I publish material. It's going to affect things I say, and what I hear, when I'm selling content at game cons this summer. It's going to change the number of people playing D&D, the number of children playing D&D, and the way that D&D is played. As Mercer and crowd go elsewhere, if they stick to that declaration, it's going to cut the WOTC's throat. And so, while the reader wishes I'd just shut up, and move on, and not care, and concentrate on worldbuilding, here in the little universe of my head, it's a big blinking light that's in my face.
I want to talk about it, because it matters.
The talk online has shifted. Camp #1 has gathered itself together to defend the Company, to warn us that we should take it exactly at it's word, that it really means the best for us and that they've never done us wrong. This camp is steadily growing, since it comprises people who really don't want the world to change, and hopes like hell that it hasn't. All they want is to go on playing their version, pretending the product is always going to be the same, and that when the company says they're not going ahead changes, between saying they are going ahead, this is all just a great big misunderstanding.
Camp #2 is nitpicking every word of the original OGL, the 1.1 version and the 2.0 version. Lawyers from every quarter are weighing in and making statements that are as hedged as we can expect lawyers to make, between admitting that, in fact, none of this is actually law because none of it's been tested. Personally, I wish that, (a) I had a multi-million dollar corporation that'd I built with the OGL, so that I had standing to take Hasbro to court right now, given that my dentist has heard of this mess ... a 50-year-old man who barely understands what D&D is. He didn't at all, until he met me.
Camp #3, originally camp #1, is withering away. These are the people rushing to youtube to tell everyone to cancel their subscriptions to Beyond, do it now, do it before the company eats your children, etc. It was fun to try and cancel the company, but it's not happening. Hasbro is going to have to do much, much worse. Of course, Hollywood is a collection of lily-livered spineless twerps, meaning it wouldn't take much to make them run scared from a D&D film just now, if they gleaned a legitimate hint that the Net would cancel it. That'd be a knife in Hasbro's back.
Recently, this is more D&D-based content I've heard on podcasts in many years, combined. I find myself letting youtube pick the next video, hour after hour, as I edit business writing or make maps. It's fascinating because most of what I'm hearing is either virtue signalling or cognitive dissonance, as each camp tries to make sense out of a company that's in it for profit, that doesn't actually know how to play the game, or why anyone plays it. Sometimes, I feel the schaudenfreude very keenly (and it's nice!), and sometimes I wonder how people so dumb managed to get themselves law degrees. If they even did.
One lawyer last night, for instance, stepped up bravely and said no one has any reason to use the OGL because the actual law already gives you everything the OGL provides. And then, after that 20-second statement, he spent the next 35 minutes explaining how to protect yourself when using the OGL.
It's fascinating.
So, I'm sorry if my choice in subject is dull and leaves my dear reader without the will to comment. As long as this wave is going to leave shit on my beach, I'm going to occasionally comment on it.
All I know is game rules can't be copyrighted, so there was never any need for this to begin with. Nobody should have ever cared because it means nothing.
ReplyDeleteBy way of example: I am an enormous fan of Netrunner, a cyberpunk card game that is truly excellent for a variety of reasons. It is also discontinued. Dead. Done and dusted. License returned to WOTC, in point of fact.
I am also an enormous fan of NISEI/Null Signal Games and their very convenient product which just so happens to be completely compatible with all that Netrunner product I already owned.
Legalese is a frightening and magical language and merely invoking it will send people into a tailspin, but the truth of the matter is that you can't legislate playing pretend, full stop. The best you can do is what Games Workshop has done and carve every term in your game that is too generic to be enforced ("Space Marine") and change it into something that CAN ("Adeptus Astartes").
The big secret there is that people will still make compatible product with your game, as a million folks on Etsy selling 3d printed Space Marine parts will tell you.
This is a giant internet nothing.
Ah, but it's not. I agree that the rhetoric is blah-blah, and essentially vastly misinformed. Moreover, the Company is tossing out garbage that's deliberately intended to mislead the generally misinformed viewer ... such as, say, the "mind flayer" is copyrighted because unlike other monsters, it was invented by Gygax and is therefore protected.
ReplyDeleteThis is BULLSHIT. Trademarks can be protected, but mind flayer isn't a trademark. Even if it's registered as one, the fact that it hasn't been used as one in nearly 50 years would sink the notion that someone else creating a "Mind Flayer RPG" can't do so. Finally, trademarks only cover the industry in which the trademark is made for. If I start a company called "Mind Flayer Trucking," a game trademark means jack shit. My trucking company isn't taking dollar one out of the WOTC's pocket, so they can't touch me.
Once words are thrown into the zeitgeist, they become available for "free use." Free use means I'm using it as the concept that it is, but not as a COPY of the form in which it was released into the zeitgeist. I can't reprint any page that's come into existence in any part of D&D associated with the mind flayer, or use the words in the exact order used to describe the mind flayer. But I can write a novel about mind flayers that take over Earth, because the "idea" of the mind flayer can't be copyrighted.
But shelve all that.
This isn't nothing because it's already dramatically changing the way people see the activity. Critical Role is a Cultural Phenomenon, not just a bunch of people making a channel. Go to a game con where Mercer is set to appear and you'll see what I mean. Mercer & crew deciding they're not going to play D&D is like the Beatles announcing they're only going to make Mauler records. The company has become attached to this crew, and now they don't like the deal ... and they assume that the fans like D&D over the performers. This is a classic, catastrophic error.
The subsequent collapse of D&D as a brand does, in fact, threaten me. I look forward to my first conversation with some pundit at a game con table asking me, "Do you use the OGL?" ... followed by his attempt to explain why because I don't use the OGL I'm a plagiarist and a game robber.
The Law might be a frightening and magical language, but nothing is more terrifying and frightening as a stupid person who imagines they're defending their peculiar gods against heathens.
You've got skin in the game and I totally respect that. You have every right to wax poetic about what this means for the market your product will be entering, especially on your own blog ffs.
ReplyDeleteI just can't see this OGL as anything except a thing for the internet to get excited about and subsequently forget in two months, Mercer be damned. Dimension 20 be damned. Music is bigger than the Beatles. The Game is bigger than the company.
Those words are something I want to embrace, Pandred.
ReplyDeleteSeems people are still so wrapped up in WOTC as D&D that the only alternative they can conceive of is "5e but without the Company somehow."
ReplyDeleteMy hope is that if the Company fails, people take another look at the shitty product that same Company pushed on them for decades. That was my first thought anyway. I think instead they are just scared there will be nowhere to pump out amateur art for their scripted plays any more.
The Streetvendor's Guide is well-poised to draw more than a few away from the dark side, at least!
Not addressing Alexis' concern here but: I have a couple other DM's I spitball stuff with. We discussed the ongoing kerfuffle this weekend and surprisingly agree with Sly Flourish - it's STILL our game. We have paper. We have pencils. And we have the items we've purchased over time. And we haven't been playing any version of D&D RAW since - ever. I daresay no one has. We use major chunks of a "game system" to role play and "tell" stories about pretend elves. It's "cowboys and indians" (yes, I'm THAT old, and unPC - with apologies to all offended connections) with guidelines so Johnny can't claim your shot missed and so Susan doesn't have unlimited ammunition.
ReplyDeleteThe problem faced by third-party creators (AFAICT) is that anything that diminishes "the game" diminishes their potential customer base. Those of us throwing a modicum of support towards Alexis and others will likely continue to do so. Perhaps OUR support will increase ever so slightly when the gushing firehouse of $#!te is turned off. But the influx of NEW players, fresh eyes and (on occasion) open minds will ALSO be reduced. Alexis will likely continue because a) he's said he would and b) it's who is IS, not just what he does. But the flow of new ideas and participants will gradually slow to a drip.
I've declined to comment on ANY of this up until now because of a self-imposed 48 hour rule and because the sit-reps were coming fast and furious. Seems like the dust is beginning to settle but prudence directs that we follow William Goldman's adage "nobody knows anything." And proceed cautiously (?) fwd.
I definitely don't find the discussion dull, but not being a content creator myself, I don't feel like my opinion has as much weight as yours.
ReplyDeleteI do feel that Hasbro is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, first with Magic the Gathering and now with D&D. (For Magic, it's flooding the market with new release after new release in a short period of time, increasing the power of each new set, and selling lots of artificially "scarce" cards at a high price.) That's the problem with corporate America; you can be making a profit each year, but there might be MORE profits you could grab if you bilk the marks more! Subscription fees for everyone!
For what it's worth, I've stepped up my Patreon support for you, and ordered a couple of your books that I had been putting off. Before the recent news, I had already decided to stop giving Wizards my money, and I never had a subscription to D&D Beyond to cancel. I'll continue to seek excellence in my D&D sources, and if that means leaving "mainstream" D&D, so be it.
Thank you Discord. Do you need those pages emailed?
ReplyDeleteYes, if you could email the preview pages, that would be great. I just checked Patreon again and it was still giving me the same message.
ReplyDeleteHa! If you've heard crickets when posting on the subject, it's probably because the bulk of your readers come here for the other stuff you do.
ReplyDeleteI wonder which of these three camps I fall into...do I fall into a camp? For that matter, do YOU fall into a camp? So far as I'm aware, you've never included an OGL in any of your 'game-related' work. I know I never have.
It DOES fascinate. It also amuses. I find it an entertaining spectacle to watch the PR dumpster fire burning...though, perhaps not as entertaining as George Santos. But I have SOME sympathy (not much) for the the folks who this affects just as I have SOME sympathy (not much) for the folks who made the mistake of electing Santos (hint: he ain't going to resign). And the whole thing saddens me about the state of the industry, just as the Santos debacle saddens me about the state of U.S. politics.
Funny. Once upon a time I might have been infuriated. Now I'm just disappointed. Again.
I think it's great that your dentist has heard about the "Hasbro thing." I think it's great I'm seeing D&D in Washington Post articles. I think it's great that I saw a (maybe) Geico or Progressive insurance ad during an NFL playoff game last weekend featuring individuals playing D&D. The Game has never been more "on the radar" than it is now.
And THAT presents a tremendous opportunity. I feel like throwing the right stone at the right time in the right part of the river can shift its course. And wouldn't THAT be something great?
So keep fighting the good fight for a higher quality of game. That's what I intend to do...if I can find a way.
; )
The point will be lost in the comments section of this post, but the OGL was a SCAM from the beginning. Ryan Dancey says as much, though he carefully frames it to look like a "good thing," which is how a scam works.
ReplyDeleteBasically, as Dancey explains, in 1998 the street cred of TSR was for shit. Dancey likes to pretend that this means the street cred of D&D was also suffering, that D&D was "dying," but that's a load of horse puckey that helps suit his narrative. Being alive and an adult in 1998, I can assure readers that D&D was very much alive, very much popular and easy to find in game stores, high schools, colleges and universities. My daughter was 10 in 1998 and D&D in her elementary school was all the rage.
But ... for the purchasing WOTC company, D&D was a business disaster. Dancey invented this concept which basically argues, "What if we invent a fallacious justification for vampirically sucking the blood out of people who still care for D&D? We don't have the will to invent D&D content, but these people in the world do. And even if we can sue them, we haven't the money, so let's PRETEND we could sue them and tell them we won't. IF they agree to this totally bogus bullshit "legal" contract that makes them able to sleep better at night. Once they feel they have carte blanche, we can USE other people FOR FREE, and let them build our brand for us.
The only part Dancey didn't realise that once the band was built, the company could turn around and say, "Oh, you know this OGL thing? We don't give a fuck if it's legal. We're going to sue your asses if you don't recognise our copyright, because we have money now."
Worked great. Dancey appears not to have realised the scam he produced, but it's pretty obvious that when Hasbro had a look at it, they realised it was one.
So, no. Never signed it, never got aboard. I don't work for other people for free.
I do feel sorry for the people who were scammed. And are realising just now that they WERE scammed. I don't think you belong to any of the camps, JB, because I haven't heard you urge anyone to believe anything yet. The camps are all about consigning behaviour to other people. In general, that's not your schtick.
ReplyDeleteI'm in a camp all my own ... one that says, make CONTENT for games, not games. There are enough games. There's not near enough content.
Yeah, man. We are on the same page there.
ReplyDelete