“Our property is under monetized, so let’s destroy the reputation of our largest brand so we can make even less money!” Crazy stuff. Then again wizards of the coast management always seemed unhinged.
It's stupid in this case cause there are alternatives that, with time and popularity, will easily become the new normal. If dnd gets thoroughly ravaged by these idiots, I can see GURPS, Starfinder, and/or cyberpunk becoming the go to. Like if you're dumb enough to make a change like this at least make sure there aren't competitors that also have great products.
My favourite part of this drama is that the original creator of the ogl made a clause saying the company isn't allowed to retroactively change anything like *they're currently trying to do.*
Yeah, this has been covered by some in the know. Basically they can't directly change OGL 1, but as owners of the IP they can actually revoke OGL 1 completely and then enforce OGL 1.1. There's no clause in the original OGL that says it's unrevokable, it only says that it's a perpetual license.
Charlie didn’t even mention the worst part, that using the new OGL means that wizards of the coast owns and can edit/resell content that the community made
@@jacobwatto9702 It´s one of the millions of bots RUclips refuses to do anything about. These clown accounts and the link posting ones, just ignore or report them for spam.
It absolutely insane. And what about the part in OGL 1.0a that says that if changes are made to the OGL, anyone can use any version of it? That was supposed to truly keep it open in the first place! Now they are just spitting in our faces.
The nice thing about dnd is that it cannot be retracted. It’s basically a game that survives on itself, with home brew and etc. They can’t kill us, because we don’t need them to exist- the rules will be around forever, too many people already know them. We may lose some convenience in terms of d&d beyond and so on, but they can’t take it away anymore, it’s gotten too big.
As an avid player of magic and DND, and someone who works in a local card/game shop, Wizards has been actively hurting its community and retailers for a while now. Thanks for bringing some attention to this, not a lot of people realize how their poor corporate decision making actively hurts stores like ours. You're absolutely right about Critical Role bringing in most of their customers in the last few years, every single person who comes in wanting to get campaign materials at our store brings up how they got into it because of CR, it's not an exaggeration in the slightest to say that CR is singlehandedly keeping DND afloat. Also, “Under Monetized” my ass, DND books, minis, and all other game materials are INSANELY overpriced. DMs/GMs and even a lot of regular players each spend thousands upon thousands of dollars a year on these materials. The only reason they’ve been able to justify their prices IS the open game contract, without that excuse they better start drastically lowering prices. I know for a fact a large majority of their community is gonna stop buying anything new if they don’t. Dark Souls has a tabletop RPG now, my friends and I all cancelled our plans for our next DND campaign to play that instead, I don't think they realize how easy it is for their community to choose to stop supporting them. They've got a lot more competition than they realize, especially since people don't even need campaign materials or rulebooks to play an RPG in the first place, I for one much prefer homemade campaigns. Gary Gygax is probably rolling in his grave.
Couldn’t agree more with everything you said. Also major respect for actually making indents in your paragraphs. Never seen that before and I actually appreciate it lmao
It's so dumb for them to even say under-monetized, the only perspective in which that would be true would be the corporation's. It's so disrespectful parroting that back to the consumers
As a long time fan of DND, it's been incredibly frustrating seeing things go south so quickly. I'm really glad the community is giving it so much backlash, and I'm equally glad large creators who break beyond the DND audience are giving it some attention. You're saving people's joy. Thank you, Charlie.
If it goes anything like how all the backlash from Magic players went, all I have to say is Fs in the chat for DND fans. WotC does not give a flying FUCK what their players think lol
So far I've hated everything out of one D&D which is sad because I was really excited for a new edition. Maybe after seeing how poorly the community reacted will change their minds and explore other options to make more money.-
I honestly thought D&D was going into an even better place with one D&D, and then they dropped this news. I’m honestly worried this will be the death of the game.
@@goldennas well if my experience with my local cable company has taught me anything. Remind the executives they are only human. And humans get injured. Maybe by a man using a truck mounted slingshot to throw a 4 gallon ceramic jar full of gasoline with a burning rag in the top over a treeline and into their garden burning down their garage
As a former GW and WotC Supporter, I'm still Warhammer 40k player (grim dark Era, the gritty stuff), d&d player, and a huge huge huge Battletech fan and player, I say ditch the shit heads, and go for friendly companies like catalyst gamelabs. Don't give your money to evil people.
What they mean by "under-monetized" is, people are able to participate in TTRPGs without spending any money. You go to a friend's house to play, and you can borrow books to make your character. As long as somebody at that table has the books you need, and you can borrow some dice and maybe a figurine, it's absolutely free for you to participate in this hobby. Hasbro wants to try to squeeze some money out of EVERYBODY who plays D&D. That's why they bought out D&D Beyond, and they're planning to roll out their own virtual tabletop program. They're planning to charge a monthly fee for those services. And they intend to push every D&D player to subscribe. And once you're on that hook, you start to become vulnerable to the sunken cost fallacy; why would we switch to some other game, when we've all been paying for this monthly D&D subscription for the past few years? Unfortunately for Hasbro, one of the best features of roleplaying games is the fact that you can participate for free. This has gotten a whole lot of low-income people into RPGs. A good gaming group is an absolute blast, and you don't have to spend a penny for all those hours of entertainment. This is as it should be. RPGs cannot flourish and grow without that option to play for free. Coworker A: "Hey, what's this D&D thing that I hear you and Coworker C do? It sounds fun! Can I join?" Coworker B: "Yeah, but first you're gonna have to sign up for D&D Beyond for $18 a month." Coworker A: "Uh, you know what? Never mind. I'm not THAT interested."
Straight up dude, I legit never would have tried if my friends hadn't mentioned I could make a character using their books and dice. Than I was astounded and impressed at how low the barrier for entry is once I created my character and we started our session immediately. Like why try and fk with such an easy way to expand your consumer base.
The biggest cost to any of my players is when they stop using the cheap dice I loan them and buy their own. All rulebooks, character sheets, ect. are provided by me as the DM for the entire group to use. Once my players have learned the basics the need for any kind of officially licensed anything is nonexistent. WOTC might as well be selling soccer without understanding that it can be played with a makeshift ball and some trash as goal posts. You can sell nice soccer balls, uniforms, cleats, and nets, you can maintain fields, you can build teams and leagues, you can even put all the rules in a nice book and sell that, but the rules themselves are impossible to sell because you can just ask someone who plays and they'll give them to you for free. I could, and have, run a oneshot game of 5e with absolutely nothing but plain paper and pencils. Dice, screens, character sheets, miniatures, tables, they all make play easier but are no more necessary than a jersey with your name on it.
Honestly MTG is similar in that aspect. Had some buddies that played, and on new years eve 2010 when the party died down, my drunk ass was handed a mono red goblin deck and taught how to play in a few hours. First day of 2011 woke up and went to Walmart to buy a themed deck a several boosters. Last 8 years I don't buy boosters/boxes anymore I just buy specific cards off ebay or TCGplayer. Anyone my friends and I come across wanting to learn how to play but don't have cards, we go through our stuff and put together a easy to learn beginner deck for them to use and if they enjoy the game and stick with it let them keep it and throw in better cards so they can adjust/tweak their deck. Anymore you can just buy random bulk lots of cards off ebay or other sources, keep what you want and trade/sell the stuff you dont. WOTC only gets a cut when boosters, sets, etc first drop. Anything sold on ebay or other sources they don't see a dime of.
As a D&D content creator that turns Pop Culture shows into adventures, WotC and Hasbro have absolutely lost their minds. They sacrificed an extremely loyal community in hopes of making a quick buck. Honestly, their reputation is totally ruined.
This is why greed isn’t even an excuse, any person just seeking wealth would never scam someone because they will quickly if not immediately basically if not literally lose their ability to make money
It's crazy that Wizards thinks people won't just play other TTRPGs if this goes through. Not like there isn't an absurd wealth of underplayed games waiting to shine.
@@BlackRabbitWonderlandThe 20th Anniversary Edition games in the World of Darkness line are pretty good, too, especially if you take some of the 90s edge and grim dark out for your own campaign. I highly recommend them, especially Werewolf: the Apocalypse (my personal favorite), Mage: the Ascension (for doing cool magic stuff), and Changeling: the Dreaming (closest to classic fantasy). There’s a second game line called New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness if you want a more horror-centric experience.
Because of this clusterfuck, yesterday I cancelled my DnDBeyond subscription that I'd been paying for for over 4 years. Also I bought a shit-ton of rpgs, Mothership, a bunch of the Tiny D6 books (Tiny Dungeon, Tiny Living Dead, Tiny Frontiers and Tiny Supers), and all of the Basic Fantasy books they had on amazon. WotC fucked around, and now they are finding out.
The fact that wizards of the Coast thinks they can retroactively terminate contracts they have with other companies is so hilariously out of line, and I hope they get slammed for it.
@@ramsaybolton9151 from what I understand the original OGL did have a clause about how the company can't make changes to it, and the guy who wrote the original also stated that it was supposed remain unchanged forever
@@ramsaybolton9151 If you write a license or anything on paper and that is taken as an agreement you can legally be held accountable for violating said agreement. Otherwise license rug pulling would happen constantly. Which is why most agreements or licenses say, "we may change these terms at any time." The only a contract or license cannot make you agree to something is if it violates laws or rights. Which the first OGL did neither.
Hey! There's been an update to this whole scenario! Apparently, Paizo (the company that owns pathfinder and starfinder, and headed by some of the ORIGINAL PEOPLE WHO HELPED MAKE THE OGL, including the LAWYER) are making their own open rpg creative lisence, (ORC). And Paizo is basically one-upping WOTC by being willing to go to court over the OGL, and making an even better license that nobody can betray like the OGL!
And then maybe after Hasbro bankrupts paizo swoops in and buys the brand for pennies and just changes their name to Dungeons & Dragons. 10 years down the line and no one even remembers these troubles.
The 30-day notice part isn't even the worst part...the worst part is the clause that says they own the rights to ANYTHING created with the OGL and they can take complete ownership ANY TIME they feel like and incorporate it into official D&D content...and then terminate your ability to receive royalties, credit, etc. Basically, they can straight up steal your work if they feel like it and then shut you out of it forever.
@@Connection-Lost It's certainly easier for players to use systems and concepts they are already familiar with. But sure, that IS what everyone will do now the OGL 1a is gone. No one with any sanity will sign away all rights to their work. There's nothing particularly great about d&d's 1st party creative content or rulesets, they are just a convenience.
@@mistandfog5442 Nah, they can't do shit about anything that isn't substantially a full ruleset copy, or contains ideas fully originating in d&d. Copyright law is quite clear, and wizards hold no patents.
@@Connection-Lost What do you think these products are? They're original works. They're even referred to as original works in the criminal document titled OGL 1.1
@@eightcoins4401 Not the same thing. Under the original OGL, creators could designate *specific portions* of their content as "Open Game Content" that *anyone* could use freely under the license. Yes, WotC could use that content too, but 1) Creators got to say exactly what they were allowing everyone to use, and 2) WotC would *also* have to include a copy of the OGL in the back of their own official book (they've never done this) and cite you as the author and your content's copyright as the source that they got it from. Under the new license, they can just steal it, without crediting you, and with no indication they did not make it. And you have no say over what is and isn't "Open Game Content." They can do this to *everything* you publish under the new license, period.
I was at Wizards and worked on the 3rd Edition release for D&D, back when the OGL was created. As I remember it, the rationalization was thus: one of the things that killed TSR (in addition to many poor business practices) was the amount of money spent on Gaming Modules and alternate Game Worlds that spread their buyer base too thin. They reasoned that rather than throw good money at products that didn't sell, giving away the right to create 3rd party content was a good way to grow their base, so long as those properties encouraged buyers to purchase the core rulebooks-the only thing WotC wanted to sell. It worked amazingly well and grew the brand. This seems like take-backsies of the worst sort. So long and thanks for all the fish.
Not the first time, Blizzard got so annoyed that they missed out on DoTA because they didn't want to pay the guy any money, that they wrote up a ToS that says they own everything ever, on top of the Creator being 'updated' and stripped of some features by them.
@@joshuaanderson1712 Whats more embarassing is the Blizzard couldn't rationalize making their own game with their own characters until post Heart of the swarm. Zero creativity.
@THAT GUY you can definitly monetize art, from Kenshi and Deus Ex to far fringes like Cruelty Squad; the cavat being you can't reach as wide a market without stifing your art. Large corps want large gains, something true art doesn't garner.
Jay, your videos covering this were great along with those of so many other dnd content creators. I’m definitely glad to see this gaining traction on platforms like Charlie’s and Phil DeFranco’s that have such a wide audience as well!! It’s weird to see my favorite dnd creators in the wild.
Can you imagine a kids parents having to go to court because their kid makes some really good content because this company decides their quarterly reports could be better?!
When I was a kid there was this game maker application on facebook that anyone could use to make those "energy" based facebook games, and it was really simple to use. Knowing nothing about copyright or gaming licences my brother and I made a Dungeons and Dragons game in it and called it such. It earned about 3000$, which all went to the company that owned the game maker as we couldn't be paid due to living in a country that, at the time, didn't allow paypal transactions. Hasbro sent us a warning to change the name of the game or they were going to take legal action. We were like 10 at the time, so this was a pretty scary experience. After shitting our pants we changed it and they dropped the case, but your comment reminded me of that situation. I am thankful Hasbro didn't choose to pursue the issue any further, but the possibility that some other clueless kid might do the same and get their parents in trouble scares me indeed.
They wont go to court. Thats what WOTC is planning on. When WOTC claims someone's content each person has to decide if it's worth going to court with Hasbro.
Something that wasn’t touched on was a clause where they own and can use any dnd content you make, even if you don’t minimize it. Like it you make a homebrew campaign or supplemental work and post it online, they can 100% claim and use it themselves. As a DM who has changed and posted a lot of WotC source material, this is the concern that hits me most
OGL only applies if you need the content of the SRD. (The OGL terms have never allowed using the D&D specific information) Don't quote their stuff and don't use their logos and trademarks in a deceptive fashion, you should be unaffected. If you do need to use such, well, then it gets messy.
@@arena_sniper7869 You don't have to use the license *at all* if you aren't infringing on their copyrights or trademarks. On what other grounds could they sue? (And not commit a crime, themselves, I mean)
@@nateschultz8973 If they can prove similar concepts they can claim it under the OGL that they cooked up , even things like pathfinder, and other class based ttrpgs can come under fire under the new OGL not mention any channels, tv shows, or even stories on fan sites or sites like reddit will fall into the category of "similar enough" to go after to take the rights of the original authors.
I think it's less that they're delusional, and more that they think we're idiots, that they have a complete lack of respect for consumers, and in some cases even disgusted by them.
The absolute worst thing is they can take anything made by anyone (eg a kickstarter campaign book) 1. Take the 20% of the kickstarter money 2. They can then print that book for themselves 3. They can then send a cease and desist to the original creators to stop selling So they can basically steal new (usually better made) addon campaigns while being paid to do so
The worst of all is that all current campaigns and past campaigns are basically their now.. wont matter if the campaign is over years ago.. they own it.. you basically cannot say no to that..
That's why instead of making a living off of someone else's creation, How about create your own game or product? So tired of seeing these clown ass content creators get pissed when they can no longer make money off of someone else's idea or product or creation. I personally hope all game companies follow this approach. The entitlement these days is absolutely insane. "What do you mean I can no longer make money off of someone else's product"
Another detail that Charlie didn't bring up here... if you submit a product for licensing and it's accepted, Wizards then claims an irrevocable, royalty-free license to use your material in any way they wish, including publishing it themselves or giving it to another company to publish. They effectively own anything you submit. Couple this with their option to "alter the deal further," and they can approve your book, cancel your license once the books come back from the printer, and then publish your work themselves, without paying you a dime, leaving you on the hook for your massive printing bill, holding thousands of books you're now legally obligated to destroy. You would have to be insane to agree to this new license.
That is scary, but the easiest way to avoid that is just put nothing online. :) I know they are not coming into my house to take stuff they do not know is there. And I really want them to take my Cake of Heroes that I made up at the table for the birthday of a player. I am not sure any of us wrote it down. :) I still secretly think D&D started out when the guys could no longer remember everything from memory and needed to have.. shock... physical notes. :)
"D&D can be anything you want, its a game about imagination with friends!" "Oh, and if you imagine anything that we didn't already imagine, pay us royalties. We imagined first, after all."
@@soaktinbleech1106 Everything has always been about money, the issue is when shitty companies do shitty things people forget that they control half of the relationship. Far too many people see a shitty company do a shitty thing and then keep being a customer, all the while complaining. If someone complains and still continues to consume, they are the problem.
@@Komrade_juice Sometimes that holds true, and others it doesn't matter because you don't get a choice. I wear eyeglasses, no matter what store, online or IRL, I am buying off the same company.. just through one of it's hundreds of thousands of subsidiaries. All I can do is bitch, because every alternative is just the same company in a different mask.
Big DnD fan here, and I'm SO happy a big RUclipsr like you is speaking up about this. The whole community is rightfully fed up, so this means a lot. Honestly a bit shocked, I knew you dabbled in DnD, but didn't expect a whole vid from you about the situation. Thanks Charlie.
And WOTC is not only dropping the ball on my favorite ttrpg they are also ruining my favorite tcg with Magic. Crazy prices, brand deals, too many new products, problems with supporting lgs' etc. etc.
Plus honestly all you have to do is say it's not dnd related and you're no longer under their terms and conditions, this hurts wizards more than it hurts any of the creators who operate, er, used to, operate under their OGL.
Agreed, my group is actually discussing switching over to pathfinder, I bought some pdf a few months ago to check it out, so we have the stuff available to start it actually
@@edwardfg check out Pathfinder for Savage Worlds, if you get into that you'd also be learning the Savage Worlds system which can actually let you run any other setting really well
Love Charlie's "Don't want to talk about the DM" moment. Everyone who plays a tabletop RPG has had at least ONE of those DM's/GM's. It's like a rite of passage to get one that takes it too seriously, or just doesn't know which direction they're going with the game.
It wasn't an ingame problem that made him go "don't want to talk about the DM", it was SH/SA stuff that came out about the DM afterwards in relation to multiple other players in other campaigns.
The funniest parts about this is that they tried changing the OGL before and created their biggest competitor in Paizo who made Pathfinder. Now Kolbold Express, the largest third party creators for DnD, are making a totally free ttrpg system called Project Black Flag. And to add on to that, the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is based on the OGL, which is owned by Disney. I'd love to see Hasbro try to profit off of a Disney product when they'll assassinate you for fanart.
It even better once you realize a part of the reason why Paizo has been so successful with Pathfinder is because they have a lot of former WOTC employees.
It's even worse for Wizards... there are 5e games for Dr. Who, Lord of the Rings, and many other properties that are currently being published. It's not even a case of a game that's 20 years old being OGL, they're risking the ire of companies that are every bit the equals financially of Hasbro. And given the amateur nature of this license and how badly it was written I doubt very much it was sent to those companies for review. Can you imagine the corporate lawyers for Disney or Warner Bros looking at that train wreck of a document and taking Wizards/Hasbro seriously?
My first thought was "Why doesn't Hasbro just make their own D&D show" but then the quick answer I gave myself was "Because they're a soulless, emotionless husk that has no passion for anything other than how much money they can squeeze out of you"
They're so afraid of losing money that they would rather force money out of their fans like this, completely oblivious to the fact that doing so will cause them to lose money.
The worst part is when they say that they basically OWN whatever you create, they can, at any time, sell it by themselves, strip you right over the things you created and more, it's just absurd
@@irishconan722it is true. It might not hold up in court, but then how many could afford the lawyers to fight it. Look at Battletech and the Unseen Mechs….
SOunds very similar to how talent shows make the winners sign away the winners' right to their youtube account, so that the winners' youtube account future earning will all go right to the talent shows pockets.
The moment they prevent card shops from selling specific products, it's no longer about the fun and the "magic" of this community, it's 100% for profit.
Never forget that Yugioh 100% owned Magic when they announced their 25th anniversary re-release of their original 6 packs. They said "Its only $3.99 per pack and all the cards are already legal!"
@Dan Bangs If you want to be technical Tyler the Great Warrior is probably an ultra expensive card since there's only one in the world. But also reprinted packs shouldn't be $250 a pack. Thats absurd.
The thing is, wizards cannot do that. They cant make the reprinted alpha, beta,... cards legal, because they are on the reserved list. Reprinting them in legal form would probably demolish the whole secondary market for magic cards, and they would probably drown in lawsuits. However, they could have made the pack like 50$ instead of 1000. Haha, its just so absurd and sad at the same time. I wonder how many people actually paid the 1k.
Another thing Charlie didn't touch on: Wizards is now claiming that the OGL "was never meant to" allow for video games, or card games, or board games, or web shows, or indeed anything other than TTRPG content, and so none of that is covered under the new OGL; you have to come to your own license agreement directly with Wizards if you want to do any of that. This is actually pretty fascinating, because there _used_ to be a FAQ on their website stating that the OGL was meant to allow for video games and card games and board games and all sorts of things other than TTRPG content, but it's gone mysteriously missing. You may have heard of, say, Knights of the Old Republic? Yep, OGL video game... They just remade it, too, didn't they. That means fucking _Disney_ has some skin in this game.
Jeez…I think they just made a huge mistake on that front. Disney will be out for blood, because like hell are they gonna pay royalties for this bullshit
The funny thing is that Wizards was poised to make so much money off of One D&D. New core rule set being well received, they were going to make a ton off a new DMG and Player’s Manual. Content creators always push and promote official content because it’s the only thing that be universally discussed across every table. Now there’s probably going to be a huge boycott and it’s hard to imagine grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory any harder than this.
Hasbro has been extra shady recently, in ireland they had thier branch taken over by a company called Cartimundi a few years back (same building and company basically) and before christmas people who I know worked there were telling me that recently they were leaving workers, whether they were there for 10 days or 10yrs, with no days of work over 5-6 weeks, only to give them one day and then repeat the 5-6wks to avoid giving them their redundancies as you have to have no work for 13 weeks to claim redundancy in Ireland. Completely scummy leaving people with no money and basically forcing them to leave on their own terms so they didnt have to make payouts so I am not surprised their trying to rake in as much cash as possible.
I honestly have never seen a company speedrun bankruptcy so badly. Its insane how much they are against their own userbase. I am a big magic player and I had to stop buying new product all together. I can't give them my money when they don't even respect me enough as a customer.
Yeah man I quit magic a couple years ago because of the FIRE game design shoving "need to buy" cards down our throats (if you wanted to remain competitively relevant)
@@Brian-rv2xs I'd quit because of their woke agenda and trying to shove down peoples throats, and their favoritism for those types of people, hideous art, and trash card quality, the foils are like Chinese knockoffs
Perhaps the wildest part of this is the fact that Wizards have tried to get rid of the OGL before - 4th edition didn't have one - and do you want to know what happened then: Pathfinder, pathfinder happened - people just used the 3.5e OGL to make the first edition of Pathfinder and killed 4e in the water. It's almost like they forgot people can do that. Also it's worth mentioning that this new not-so-open "Open Game Licence" has a clause in it that says if you make a piece of content they like (say, a sourcebook for rules on pet ownership or smth) then they can just steal everything in it and publish it as their own.
I think they'll just revoke all open licenses. If they still own the ruleset IP, they can claim ownership of all derivative work and treat it as they wish, as self-destructive as that is.
@@SorenCicchini you forgot games rules cant be clame...you can make a game whit the same rules as 5e whit different names (from there copy right monsters) and be a ok.
@@SorenCicchini I don't think they can do that but I guess we'll see the outcome in court if they try. The previous open license had language that said it was perpetual. So all content that was created under the old license should in theory be protected from them just stealing it as derivative work.
Remember this is what hasbro or wizards is writing in a contract. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it’s the be all end all. If they do steal source material they will be subject to fair use and would have to litigate their right to the work
from what i understand they can also revoke the license if they think there is anything "racist,phobic,bigoted,... insert buzzword here". You also cant sue them at all for it
It’s shocking how few CEOs and companies recognize how valuable customer good will is. If you expect brand loyalty, you’d best be loyal to your customers in kind.
Most CEOs and managers in general don't understand how valuable people are in general. They only see numbers and statistics, so workers' rights and customer satisfaction mean nothing to them because they usually cut into profits. They don't understand that when your workers are happy and your customers are satisfied, you're able to put out high quality work and get a lot of repeat business as well as new customers, which often more than makes up for the cost you had to spend to please them.
@@nathanniesche6380 it's like they didn't realize that if people start to leave in really mass amount they start losing profit also if you own everything to force people to buy your product sooner or later the system will fails due to lack of competition and also because resource is limited both human and resource to make stuff
It's not entirely their "own" content. One could argue that the foundation of the content is entirely Hasbro/WOTC's intellectual property. If these content creators are raking in millions of dollars I think the creators of the worlds and systems they use to make said content deserve a cut. I don't know about 25% but, it should be significant imo. If the content creators don't like this arrangement they can always spend months and years creating their own worlds, systems, characters, items and whatever else. They can always cut Hasbro/WOTC out of the picture.
@@Kostly They only one REALLY making money are Critical Role the people making books are normally just breaking even. Since their books aren't mainstream since a lot of people really don't touch the homebrew side and just use official content. Most of DID make their own worlds D&D barely can copyright most of the names. This is what happens when they low key treat D&D as abandonware yet when it gets popular they come running back like they did anything. All they did was hold a copyright, the fans carried them
As someone who has been getting my soul drained by WotC for over 20 years, I'm glad you're speaking out about this and giving it some signal boosting. Their practices are getting out of control.
Well, when was it ever not the completely out of touch higher ups that forced absolutely dumb and potentially company/brand ruining changed? The people not in the management positions are usually very kind and passionate, then the suits attack and they lose any and all fun in their live and/or company position
@@Shakzor1 yeah not enough people understand that employees shouldn't be blamed for mistakes made by their bosses. Sadly people in the comments don't really get that because they're actual brainlets who have no idea what they're talking about
I'm a small third party publisher that is hit hard by this. We were meant to be launching our Kickstarter this year but everything has had to be put on hold, potentially adding over a year of additional work to pivot our stuff away from D&D if they keep going ahead like this. There are so many issues with the new OGL that will ultimately bankrupt any creator that happens to do well with their content & grants them free use of all our IP in perpetuity. Thank you for covering this, it has felt like we've been fightnig an uphill battle for the past few months and I'm glad that more people are being made aware of the truly shitty situation us as third party content creators find ourselves in.
I am much better than penguinz0. He is only reacting to content and saying blah blah blah. Like for reall he is so BORING ONG FR NO CAP. Meanwhile i was smuggling fried chickens from Mexico to United States, stuffed with xannax pills. Like the sheer amount of his AUDACITY to try and be better than me. But he will NEVER be better. Because im the best *does a backflip*
See projects like yours are exactly why I loathe this situation, making it hell for creators and I feel that right now this is where the incredible community should stick together and support all of the creators affected by this headache. Hoping your situation shapes out well!
Companies'll do anything for money. But the fact they're doing it so soon, and almost all together in the same time span, seems pretty suspect. It's almost like it's been orchestrated this way, for what, I haven't an idea.
Maybe some new business lord recently did capitalize hugely on cutting a lot of corners and now a lot of companies are trying to copy him and failing spectacularly. GeeDubs being a prime example of the latter, culling their fanbase and fanart then suddenly tanking a lot of profit loss. If you keep reminding people to fight the good fight warhammer franchise can be potentially saved
This is the same company that often paid between $5 to $50 to artists for artwork they afterwards owned and would sue artist for using their own artwork afterwards. One major artist hated how Wizards was treating artist so he bought the master artwork from the same artist at the correct market value at the time. He helped many college artists pay their loans and help establish themselves in the art world. Today he has the best master work from MTG card art collection worth millions. Wizard is not stupid to go after him since he is wealthy and has lawyers who would love to go after their past sweat shop style of using new artist.
People say we can't expect anything from companies as their only function is to make money - but that 1800's mindset is slowly changing, we absolutely should expect better from companies. If they are here to suck up every resource the planet has we must force them to be benevolent vampires.
They aren’t delusional. They’re just greedy. Push it to the very limit of what you can get away with and, if the backlash becomes big enough to actually affect your bottom line, then you backtrack and say you were listening to the community.
Even if they do pull that tactic I doubt very many people will fall for it after they've made it very clear that they don't give a damn about their consumers and content creators
The real world has shown that lost trust is _extremely_ difficult to regain. And they have just taken that trust and _nuked_ it. It's gone, and it's not coming back for a looong time, if ever.
"It takes a lifetime to establish a good reputation. But only a single moment to ruin it" - by Sun Tzu probably Hasbro really trying to one up themselves with anti consumer and anti local game store choices. You can look up how they are not only going more direct to consumer but also pushing Amazon sales to kill the local game stores.
Don't even get me started on what they did to Beyblade. I started collecting them again last year, and Hasbro butchered the NA release so badly for years and they're still doing it. It's so bad that Hasbro Only is an actual competition format
The short update is: - They own everything you make. - You have to pay royalties if you make over 750.000 per year. - They can end the contract at any time and keep everything you made for themselves as long they warn you 30 days before hand.
Regarding point 2, this could turn out to be really, really scummy. The statement keeps mentioning "Qualifying" Revenue and not Net Profit. If a company makes 750k from sales and spends 800k in operation expenses, business expenses, Cost of Goods sold, taxes, etc then it is up to the discretion of Wizards/Hasbro if you need to spend another 150k - 188k for royalties (cuz wtf is "qualifying").
@@hell_pike9150 i mean technically if you agree to the new ogl yes they can same way if you publish on dms guild now they tell you you cant publish this anywhere else we own it
@@hell_pike9150 Since it's 750$+ per year it probably only targets popular people, so making a campaign with your friends will be safe. Most people probably will ignore it either way since it's an extremely greedy move
Been running a dnd campaign for my friends for about 2 years now. This news rattled the community and so many people are going to be affected by this. Our community is brought together by so many third party systems and creations and hopefully this decision gets rolled back
Sometimes I wish I could see the board meetings at these greedy entertainment companies. Like I wanna have a bird's eye view of every meeting Nintendo has when they find out their customers are actually having fun with their products
in an american company I always imagine some a-hole with flipcharts talking about how their investors are not happy since there was too little growth. Notice, not a loss, but too little growth. because idiots sold shares for money and then have those greedy goblins in their napes that want to see more and more money coming in from work they don't do.
Fun fact: Hasbro had a live call (called a "fireside chat") where you could listen to their shareholder meeting; when Wizards came up, they basically said "nothing is wrong, we'll print EVEN MORE." It was horrid to listen to.
I imagine it goes something like this "this is Jim, we just hired him on to help us increase our quarterly earnings" says the man that has no idea what Dungeon&Dragons even is. Jim comes in, "We need to make more money. I see we've been offering people a FREE license to use D&D in their original content. We're gonna change that" Guy/Girl who knows something "Well you see, our brand is really only relevant becau-" Jim "I'm gonna stop you right there, Make it happen" other person that knows "I don't think that's a good ide-" Jim already walking out of the room with his phone against his head discussing how best to monetize 5 other businesses that are all equally as bad.
As a big fan of the prof, it’s super cool to see Charlie shout him out and bring attention to his videos. He has been a cornerstone of the community for a long time, and never fails to deliver quality content
Critical Role was one of my inspirations for getting into Dnd, along with being invited to a Pathfinder game. I have spent probably hundreds so far on source books and subscription service to run my own games. If there's enough pressure on the big names for them to give up and leave, WoC is going to see a whole generation not brought into the hobby and it quickly drying up.
Yep. I think a lot of people have forgotten (or weren't around at the time) when WotC tried similar shit during the release of 4e. The community was so outraged, and so many people abandoned D&D, that Pathfinder became the #1 TTRPG in the world for several quarters, only losing that spot to 5e after WotC walked back their asinine decisions / plans. But there's really no fear of the hobby drying up, at least not entirely. Nothing WotC does can ever take away the physical and digital books we already own. They can't take away our ability to use those things to run / play the games we want. There are still people playing OD&D (from 1974). There is literally nothing WotC can do to stop us playing whatever the hell we want.
The funniest part is, they behave like they have a monopoly on TTRPGs, but the truth is, should these changes come into play, most of the people will simply move to a different system, there are so many of them, and essentially they don't really have to be that different, Wizards don't own the rights to 20-sided dice or statblocks lol
Yeah if they think they’re going to get a slice of Critical Role out of this, they are mistaken. Switching systems is easy, everyone does it, and if your income depends on it, it’s a decision that practically makes itself. WotC are basically begging their competition to headhunt their own best ambassadors. I’d be surprised if CR haven’t already heard from other TTRPG companies about replacing DND!
OGL 1.1 is even worse than what this video mentions. There's a third major change that's being added: that they can do whatever they want with your content - including repackaging it and selling it as their own. This means that they would not only be able to take 25% royalties, but also sell the stuff in your product as well if they wish. It essentially allows them to double dip. A top comment on the CritCrab video you played has a pretty interesting take on the matter that I thought should also be pointed out: They likely leaked this on purpose to gauge public reaction and then backpedal afterwards.
@@vladimirirkhin Well, I heard the last time they tried changing the OGL, that was what made their biggest competitor: Pathfinder. But now one of D&D's biggest third party publishers - Kobold Press - is separating from D&D because of this and is starting work on their own rules, code named "Project: Black Flag." So it appears history is repeating itself.
It also only includes print and static digital content. So Websites, VTTs, Video Games etc all would need custom deals with WotC. Funny, that they are about to launch their own VTT, I wonder why they added this change.
I wouldn't be surprised, I mean they surely cannot be this stupid. My honest guess it was pushed on them by Hasbro, but the people at the top said, hey guys, yeah that's a stupid idea and I can show you easily before we make it public. Then the leak follows and now they have proof of how bad this will end and can just point out, the only real advantage they have over other systems is that they have so much diverse content made outside the company. If they honestly wish to monetize it more I would agree but sensible, aka make more stuff, make games, movies, TV series and invest in stuff like DND one (their new online platform, hell that alone will make them able to monetize more effectively, if the website becomes very popular, like DND beyond already is, they can make people pay a fee for everything sold in their store, add some quality controll and there you have it, these changes make in light of that no real sense).
Honestly, Critical Role has gotten so big in the last few years that they could just make their own TTRPG under their Darrington Press tabletop publishing company to compete with Wizards of the Coast. They could make their own rule-set that is just similar enough to be compatible with D&D (their campaigns started on Pathfinder anyway), and with an OGL of their own they would absolutely crush it.
I'm not sure if you're aware of Kobold Press, but they are another big name 3rd party TTRPG publisher, and this is exactly what they are doing in face of the new OGL!
unfortunately, they couldnt really continue on with their show as it is now, bc these new changes means that the majority of the lore of critical role belongs to wizards of the coast now. theyve published all their lore books under wotc, significant deities and monsters are woven into the story itself, and they also finance the show with many sponsorships from dnd beyond and wotc critical role is too entangled in it all. either they put up with wotc’s bullshit and risk being shut down at literally any moment, or they abandon all their previous work to build up a solo brand and risk not being strong enough to survive on their own i have no idea what the right way to handle this is. theyre kinda boned no matter what
@@KTr0ck They're probably not in danger of being shut down, wotc would much rather continuously milk them for all the money they can get. Wotc is definitely not the company to turn down a profit
For those who aren't aware, a substantial portion of the 1.3 billion generated in the community comes from publishing sites like Drivethrurpg and DMsguild which predominately hosts digitally distributed 3rd party content for D&D and other roleplaying game platforms. Thing is, both companies are owned by OneBookShelf. If WotC really wanted to make bank, buying out both companies and maybe merging their content with D&DBeyond (WotC's own method of publishing its material digitally) would enable them to take a cut and not suffer any backlash if they didn't touch anything with how those operations are run. It'd save everyone a lot of hassle, anyways.
Gross. WotC is a disease as evidenced by the way they handle Magic the Gathering. We should be taking business away from them, not giving them more stuff to screw us over with
@@relic5752 no you found a person who lives in reality isn't a entitled shit. Does this suck, yup. Is it unexpected, nope. Is the internet proving once again it has zero fucking clue how running a business works, oh hell yes.
The plan here is simple: when Wizards switched from 3e to 4e Paizo used the OGL to build out Pathfinder as a way to support the audiance that wanted to kepp playing 3e. Now Wizards is planning to switch from 5e to OneD&D, so they want to make sure that nothing like this happens again. Ofc it's not going to work, major players of the industry already announced they are going to be making their own rulesets (which will probably be fairly close to 5e), and just going to be making their own content with that. Btw, as much as people love to blame Hasbro for this, this is 100% a WotC party. They have a new leadership which comes from the videogame industry, so they are treating D&D as a "game as a service" type a thing.
No-one's gunna pay a subscription to play a shittier, more casualized 5E though. People have already been jumping ship to better game systems for years now. This whole thing just stinks of a failing company doing what they can to secure their cocaine and hookers fund for a few more years before it goes under.
@@Murto84 Wha....you don't have to pay a subscription to anything, the hell you talking about? Kobold Presses 5E clone going to be completly free for exemple. D&D was always the least profitable thing Wizards made, because people don't need anything else other then some books. They want more money out of it, and want to make sure nobody else does. It's not complicated.
Im a DM/GM of about 6 years now, I feel it's important to note that while this may (hopefully) be the death of WOTC or Hasbro and D&D. This is not the end for tabletop RPG's as a whole. The great thing about games like this is that they are analog by nature and people will continue to make stuff and play even after the overlords fuck things up. There are tons of other games that are honestly just as good or better than D&D and it's such a fun community to be part of!
Just as GWs open greed has led to a more flourishing market for smaller mini brands and new creators in the rapidly expanding 3D print matkey this is going to push players into new content. WOTC/Hasbro just cast fireball without checking out the room size.
Though dnd can keep on even if it's tecnically dead, because of it's great comunitty, i really hope MTG doesn't end up dead, unless there is some underground homebrew mtg circles i've never Heard about
Exactly what I was thinking. All this decision does for WotC is make every existing content creator rebrand their work into something without the D&D title. D&D will be replaced with something, for example like F&F (Fortune and Fantasy), or some other two word abbreviation for anything that was ever made with its inspiration. We can play with words too Hasbro
This is like if a paper factory wanted royalties from your best-selling books. Dungeons & Dragons seems more like a medium or a formula than a product at this point. If the company itself had continually generated custom content, accessories, etc, over the years, then that would be different. But it's kind of like they invented paper and let us roll with it. Then they want royalties on that paper...
Why doesn’t Hasbro sponsor these custom campaigns and partner with them to strengthen the vanilla mainstream D&D instead of just demanding royalties? This change is so short term profit seeking and bad in the long run.
@@gologotha7922 they have on occasion before. There are books made from successful third-party settings that they have officialized in some manner. Two main ones being the Critical role setting book, Explorers Guide to WIldemonte, book, and the Acquisitions Incorporated books. Both are from popular third party groups (streaming voice actors, and a DnD podcast respectively)
This really reminds me of when Games Workshop did the exact same thing to the Warhammer Fandom a few years ago, and I can tell you, this is only going to hurt Wizards in the long run. When GW did what they did, it made a lot of fans (myself included) completely jump ship, and those who didn't completely jump ship just found ways to continue playing the game without giving GW any money. Most players 3D print armies now, or buy 3D printed models from a 3rd party. I imagine something similar is going to happen to Wizards of the Coast.
@@TheDaxter11 That was at least more understandable, although as usual for GW the strategy was executed very poorly. GW has their own service where they would debut Warhammer animations and other content and didn't want fans to make stuff that they couldn't monetize. It's still a bad idea, but at least I can sympathize with the desire to do that. This on the other hand is just beyond reasoning.
Well I wouldnt say it backfired for GW. They have like the best years financially? And a lot of new games and systems got bigger releases. Also for GW it's a little different, they dont rely so heavy on players creating new content like WoC does.
This sounds like a spectacular way to implode your own franchise. The economic and social ecosystem of DnD can't endure something like this. Hasbro is looking at like a conventional franchise when DnD is anything but.
history repeats, when they did this with dnd 4th edition, pathfinder became the biggest tabletop game of that era by a long distance. I'm done with d&d and I've moved on to other systems already. My groups have been enjoying that process so much more than d&d
When you said that Hasbro isn't doing well, that made perfect sense. These aren't the moves of business savvy executives with money to burn; these are desperate boneheads trying to turn every trick to squeeze out every extra dollar they can because the company is heavy. I can only expect this will worsen the decline.
Not that I agree with Wizards of the coast but yah those people your talking really should have always something like this could happen so if they don't have a fall back that's on them
@@addex1236 That has got to be the most dent head trashcan with hands take I have seen here in a while. Almost sounds like you are rubbing your hands together ready to count sheckels to milk someone for all they have and ruin them. Legit corp brain shill comment.
This is straight up robbery. Imagine video game companies deciding to force gaming RUclipsrs/streamers and e-sports to pay royalties just for playing their games
A couple game devs have mentioned that they believe streamers owe them royalties. They were laughed off the platform, but it only takes one of them to get high enough on the food chain to actually try to implement that.
@@quebee8591 no, couple years ago if you WANT to start making money with nintendo games (streaming, videos, etc) you need a nintendo contract. But i think now is different.
That actually is the license that a lot of video game companies work by, but they don't bother to enforce it usually because individual streamers aren't worth going after. Minecraft has an open license that has made it the defacto fallback streaming game in the past for people scarred by video game companies coming down on them.
Love both D&D and MTG, but the intense greed from the companies is truly dragging both through the mud. Me and my friends stick to our own casual/homebrew rules so this isn't such a personal concern, but what is very concerning is the impact on larger channels who are MTG/D&D focussed, many of which I enjoy. It's been great to see D&D in particular have such a resurgence over the last few years thanks to the streaming channels such as Critical role and the like. In fact, Arcadum was the reason I got back into D&D over the lockdowns, including the campaign Charlie was part of which I very much enjoyed (at the time, this was before all the drama surrounding Arcadum himself) All the custom interesting custom worlds these channels come up with play a HUGE part in this, even if someone's not into the traditional D&D world, there's such a wide variety for different people to get into, my friends do a Warhammer 40k one and Lost Pause is even doing a Pokémon themed D&D. This just helps to bring the hobby to a much wider audience and what the companies themselves are doing goes against that. It's just been nice to see the community grow to a much wider spectrum recently and see so many people who've never played discover a niche within that they really enjoy. I just hope the companies actions don't ruin that and everyone continues to do their thing
D&D has been a huge part of my life over the last decade. It was a way to bond with friends, practice telling stories before pursuing a career as a writer, and just exist in a space where I could be someone else for a while. I lost a lot of friends and family members in 2014-2015, and I might have gone full hermit if I didn't have something like D&D that made me want to interact with people when I didn't strictly need to. I owe the people who actually make D&D a huge debt for that. The designers and writers at WotC didn't make this choice. Greedy executives did. And unfortunately, it's everyone else who will pay the price for it. I have an entire shelf on my bookshelf dedicated to 5e books. But even if they change course and don't put out this OGL, the trust is gone. WotC will never get another cent from me.
I recommend supporting Kobold Press with their new game, project black flag. I am waiting on Paizo to announce their stance on the OGL going forward as they're in a legal grey area where they use too many identical terms and present too many mechanics in the same format as D&D. Pathfinder's great but I hesitate to recommend the switch until we know they're going to be able to avoid lawsuits.
The worst part is that in the time I listened you talk about this, I could think of a bunch of better ways they could have monetized D&D without pissing people off like this.
@@G3Dem I mean one company can only be so good at creating new ideas and they've been going for decades. Im sure getting things through QA is a lot harder when you have to be "fresh" after creating an outrageous amount of content over the last 30-so-odd years, which goes ignored in favor of homebrew anyway. They're obviously looking for a monetization option thats relatively simple to implicate, isn't just double dipping into their own markets (creating unnecessary competition with itself) with as little money for greatest ROI. On paper, changing their ogl to allow revenue stream, while anti-consumer, opens up INSANE ammounts of monetization ability, especially when the biggest parts of dnd are tied to major media now like Critical Role or Stranger Things. I feel like I should clarify, I don't like the idea but it makes a lot of sense. Thus why I'd like to see an example of another form of new monetization.
@@chupika6464 I started typing a few examples out and then realized they were kind of the same idea. They could monetize by becoming a publisher/advertiser for other people's work. Right now with the plan to just take royalties, people are going to be pissed off because they're losing something without actually gaining anything in return. There might be an argument of "Oh, Wizards owns the IP so you've already been getting something for free for years," but in reality we know that D&D did not survive nor thrive because of WotC. Having had the OGL and then revoking it is sort of similar to letting something go into the Public Domain but then trying to take it back out. You can't really, the genie has been let out of the bottle. However, they could still absolutely parasite off of other people doing all the work in a way that makes them seem less sleazy. They could host contests for material/stories that require a fee for entry, and through a mix of their own judgement + crowd sourced (like, Eurovision style), award and promote the winners on their site. They could offer to promote content that other people have already produced in an "official capacity," on their main site / with some advertisement paid for, but then help themselves to a cut of the ad revenue from what's promoted on that content itself. They could take advantage of all the people who dream of being Critical Role by hosting their own campaigns in a mix of Reality TV / PvP style, which will absolutely fail when you try to do it around a table but would work for a "game show." By being the official / canon owners they can absolutely dip their hands into the money being made by individual creators, and not get yelled at, by offering something - anything - in return. And just like you CAN produce content and hock it all on your own, print some books and stand on the street corner / have an event at a local book shop, or do a Kobo exclusive, we all know it's way more effective to get into the Amazon ecosystem. For D&D content specifically, getting featured on Wizard's site, news letters, etc would boost your visibility / profits guaranteed, enough to justify letting them have some of it. This has been a rough first draft written with thumbs on the toilet. My legs are asleep. I am certain that even if there are some flaws it's better than what they're doing.
@@DeDraconis correct me if im wrong but they're not even taking that much money away, i understand the gripes about conent ownership but its a risk i feel people shouldve known they were taking, as goes for any ip someone can make an OC for (granted the social creation aspect is arguably a major aspect of its inclining popularity) But people will still be able to monetize fairly easily as it sounded that the cut would only take place at the 750k earnings mark, and at 25% for that matter (20% with kickstarter money) I feel like i must have some facts wrong because this doesnt sound THAT bad to me, although the slippery slope argument shouldn't be ignored. And I agree about the ideal circumstances of promotion via WotC, but i think its too ideal. From the back view, they'd have to change/update websites, create new systems within those sites, hire more moderation staff and quality assurace staff which I feel like they don't see as worth it, at least in comparisson to opening up revenue in one of their policies which will require probably either new law team training or a new portion of the law team altogether which seems less resource intensive to me.
Before Critical Role started streaming their Vox Machina campaign, they were actually playing it using the Pathfinder system. That's why Percy is a Gunslinger, and why the whole party had so many magic items at such a comparatively low level. They only switched to D&D when they started streaming. And maybe their ties to D&D are too deep to just drop it all now, but I can't help but wonder if they might go back to Pathfinder instead of letting WotC tap them for royalties, or maybe even switch to an entirely new system altogether. After all, Critrole has been mindful to not infringe on any potential copyrights lately - they've stopped using brand-exclusive names (by making up their own names for the deities and referring to Goliaths as "half-giants" instead, for example), so maybe they've already been trying to enforce some deliberate distance between themselves and the brand, in case they'd ever need to step away. I really hope this stupid move will backfire _hard_ on WotC, by companies like Critrole withdrawing their support for the label.
i kinda feel bad for the wotc employees who do love the games they create. It feels like hasbro is trying to make decisions that will spike profits quickly so they can save themselves with no real care for what end up happening to mtg or dnd in the long run.
Check out "The Dark Eye". It started in the 80s in Germany and is still running successfully until today. Tons of books available for absolutely everything, but one rule book with everything you need to start with.
Everyones right when they say nobody really plays "standard" DND anymore. Most people homebrew or use house rules. DND itself is just the foundation most DMs and players build their story upon and since this news I've already seen two games like DND being announced.
@@kittykate690 Kobold Press, Matt Colville, and Mechanical Muse are all working on new systems and games. All 3 existed before this but in response to this whole debacle, they, and a few more creators/companies, have announced new things.
Hasbro is like the equivalent to someone falling down the up escalator in perfect motion so they never reach the bottom of the abyss forever. Thank you for bringing this to more people’s attention. Hasbro is pile-driving Magic and D and D into the sun.
yea they don’t give a fuck and it’s really sad. MTG is now on a pokemon tier release schedule which is just actually impossible to keep up with due to the design nature of the game. You have to basically live and breathe mtg at this point to be able to keep up. I grinded GP and star city events for years and while one always had lots of homework to do to stay abreast of the meta etc, I didn’t have to read a new set list every 3 mf months. Nor did my wallet have to contend with a release schedule like that as well. Old block system we got 3 sets a year, then they brought that down to 2 a year. It’s gotten so out of hand since they changed the release process. It’s clear they aren’t testing as much as they should either as to be able to keep up with the release schedule. Cards that get printed today would’ve never been printed 10 years ago. Their whole process from design, to testing, to release, has entirely been tainted by Hasbro at this point.
It's really boneheaded that they intend this to get them more royalties, yet also make it virtually impossible for any rational person to ever make content for them, so they won't even get royalties.
Small dnd creator here. Thanks for covering this Charlie. WoTC is walking a path that would kill creativity in their game that is completely about creativity. They would lose the modules and homebrew 5e content that builds this game up into a better version of itself. Not to mention just giving themselves full power to come after any dnd youtuber as well. I hope the social pressure they're facing makes them revert these changes. They're a billion dollar company, they don't need anything else.
I don't get the outrage honestly. Marvel wouldn't even let someone sell a standalone module for a system they had the rights to. The sales caps requiring a percentage royalty payment are perfectly reasonable and comparable (but lower) to using Unity or Unreal to make a video game.
"I'm not the most savvy business man in the world". To me, the glorious collection of work on display in the background of your videos says you are. The difference is the passion for what you do and the community you support endlessly. Keep being a hero Charlie.
my heart goes out to larian studios I hope their reputation isn't tarnished in all this they are a great company and we need more game developers like them.
Hearing all this, I wonder if it is part of the reason Larian has been tied to these years of having to get BG3 exactly like the manual mechanics. I mean, it was a cool goal but seemed odd that what is such a clearly long and painstaking task that, while nice, doesn't seem required for a fun game is part of their prime directive. Perhaps there is some plan to try and utilize this platform more extensively for VTT, MMO or other monetization in the future...
@@crystalmassuda This makes me wonder if Owlcat is reaching out to Larian or vice versa to discuss how Pathfinder works for them. I can see Larian deciding to move on to a different system in light of current events.
@Samuel Keillor Of course, for BG3 they have to keep with the current system. They've been working on it for so long that they have to keep it. I'm talking about for future projects.
As a Dungeon master I'm very concerned with the direction wizards of the coast is headed, it feels like the fire of creativity and freedom that brought me to D&D is being snuffed out.
Hundreds of better systems out there. WotC is just making sure that people branch out and discover them now. Highly recommend White Wolf's properties. Lot more creative freedom in the systems, and the lore is not so vanilla.
I'm also concerned. Talked to my group and we all agreed that wotc will never get another dime from us. Luckily, I have enough printed content to campaign for the rest of my life.
@@thomasc1270 White Wolf is arguably just as stupid, their publishing house makes so many terrible fucking decisions that literally nobody wants them. Last I heard a couple years ago, they were up for sale and nobody would buy them.
Hasbro seriously underestimates how little the D&D community actually needs them. It's a game based on imagination so they're not needed at all. It's like owning the rights to I, Spy
I'm always confused when players treat DND rules as laws and get into arguments about some edge case shit like it's Warhammer. In DND the rules don't fucking matter as long as you're having fun and the game designers know this too. The rules are very deliberately formulated to be modular or skippable Because the main point of them is to inspire creativity of players. You don't need Tashas book to specifically tell you that it is ok to give your orc a different stat bonus or that you don't have to be an elf to learn elven accuracy, you can just do it because it's fun.
Wizards partly made Tasha's because the community came up with these variant rules and they were well liked by a lot of players. They just streamlined all these loose community ideas and put them in one place.
@@Dschonathan They really shouldn't matter in war-hammer either, but those players have done it to themselves, allowing the company to dictate how to paint a piece of metal. To the extent they'll do the policing for the company. MTG is also dependent on the company to some extent...but D&D? You have the oportunity to fight back and win...by walking away. Yall are the chosen ones, so I really do hope you fare better and choose to do more than beg the company to listen and understand. 😁 We're lower than scum in their eyes. I want you to make them feel pain. Have a nice day!
@@Dschonathan I don't think I agree with that take, you need rules to keep a sense of fairness and impartiality to the player. In 1 player games rules don't matter, but in multiplayer games (both tabletop and online) rules do matter. Rules also helps keep a DM in check also. Played plenty of DnD games with a DM biased against a certain player and/or certain class types and the rules lawyering was the main thing keeping the DM in check.
@@Teo_live I think the point is that the party or the DM agree to rules beforehand and often (I dare say always) they're not 100% vanilla rules. If everyone follows the rules agreed upon before the campaign starts then all concerns of fairness are addressed. But no one uses the whole set or a completely canonical set of rules. Because that would be awfully boring, tedious and it kills creativity. DnD is about creative fun roleplaying and then there's assholes who ruin the fun to have debates about footnotes.
"As someone who plays MTG and is well aware of Hasbro's greed, it is nice to have a popular creator talk about it" I'm confused here. I played a small amount of MTG thirty years ago, and I think I bought one starter pack and one booster. I had all this half-made crap. I couldn't make a green deck or a white deck or anything because I had bits and pieces of all colors. Which meant I couldn't do like a fighting game, pick Ryu or Guile or whoever and learn to play that character. That's when I stopped, when I saw that I was just going to have to keep pumping money into random card packs. So my confusion is, isn't the greed and pay to win visible right from the start? This thing just looks like a randomized collector's item with an obvious high price tag. Since they're not playable cards, it's not pay to win, this is like...a game-adjacent prestige thing, not even part of the game. This seems less slimy because they're not surprising you by starting you off with a non-viable deck and then you learn about the value of "rare" cards after sinking fifty bucks into it.
@@TheMisterGuy seeing that you havent looked deeper into how card games work. You can get pre built things to learn how to play and have an idea of construction. Then you can buy packs if you want to gamble or you can order individual cards to build your decks
If they’re gonna take 25% of your money, then just don’t report your earnings to them? They’re not the goddamned IRS, the fuck are they gonna do about it? No one has to know…
I think this is legitimately a "we're going to make a move in the future that is absurd. So let's leak that we're doing this much more outlandish thing, so the first thing, which we actually want to do, sounds much more reasonable." The classic "Ill ask Dad for my thing first, cause anything you ask for will sound reasonable afterwards" This isnt like a game, or a game engine which can be held and gripped by the code, this is something anyone can just pick up and walk away from. Absolutely maddening choice
I've been in a campaign for about 2-3 years now. D&D has become a major part of my life and me and my DM regularly make content and post it on DMsGuild. We've made subclasses, a class, countless spells, we're working on a monster book and on a campaign book. We come up with the concepts, he makes sure they're balanced, I illustrate and they look really good imo. We are passionate about it and believe that there's no better game if you have the right group. This new change is shocking to me. I really cannot fathom how delusional you have to be to kill what made you, the community... I really wanted to one day be able to make D&D content full time, but that doesn't seem like a possibility if this goes through.
@@dakotaa7535 I know, there's pathfinder, the might also be one by kobold press, there's others too I'm sure. But I personally think D&D is the best one (I know it's subjective) and I like it's vibe the most. If they implement this change I will probably switch, but I prefer D&D by far. The stories, subclasses, spells, etc
Unfortunately you already gave away the rights to your content when you published on DMsguild. The difference is WotC is coming for everyone else now too.
The biggest impact will be regarding future projects. No company now is going to invest in a game that bases itself on D&D when they're skimming 20-25% off the top and perhaps more importantly, they could increase that arbitrarily whenever they wish. It relies heavily on good faith by Hasbro / Wizards of the Coast when they're already not acting in good faith. My guess is they'll retract this quickly once they catch wind of the stink this decision has caused. It is literally not in their best interests to do this for a number of reasons, especially for PR.
As someone whose played Magic: The Gathering with my dad since I was 9, it really REALLY hurts that they went down this path. It really does Edit: I'm so glad these comments aren't spam bots :)
WOTC are doing to Magic what Marvel and DC did to super hero movies, there are so many that I don't watch any of them anymore. There are just too many new cards and formats to try keep up with. Im getting less and less excited for new sets, I love new cards but damn Im saturated at this point.
People saying just play X or Y don't understand what it means to connect an experience to a loved one. My dad also taught me how to play at 13 and I've been on and off ever since. AT this point, it's as much about the nostalgia as the game itself
As someone fairly new to D&D, I always felt that all the freedom we had was too good to be true. Even if this gets stopped, my trust in WOTC has been shattered. Don't just settle for homebrew, make something so homebrew it isn't D&D anymore.
After watching this video, after reading comments, I still don't understand. Can't average players just keep playing the game and keep creating their own adventures and stuff? It's just.. stuff on paper. Anyone can play. I don't understand how these new guidelines are even enforceable for the average, regular human player, DM or not.
It doesn't, directly. However, many in the scene like to support each other, and that includes people like me, in a podcast, or vastly more famous people like Matt Mercer or Kobold Press, etc.
When 4th edition came out, people stopped playing D&D and went over to Pathfinder. As a player and a DM, I've already started seeing the same thing happen between the whole thing with the OGL and One D&D having some questionable rule changes.
![Coheed and Cambria - Searching for Tomorrow [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/hDsYGLbmadg/mqdefault.jpg)
"our property is *under monetized* "
Literally the scariest 5 words any large company can utter
“Our property is under monetized, so let’s destroy the reputation of our largest brand so we can make even less money!” Crazy stuff. Then again wizards of the coast management always seemed unhinged.
Well the company Hasbro wants profit so yeah… that’s the economic system. Blame Hasbro owning stock not WotC
The scarier thing is that they would fix "undermonetization" by turning it "free to play"
It's stupid in this case cause there are alternatives that, with time and popularity, will easily become the new normal. If dnd gets thoroughly ravaged by these idiots, I can see GURPS, Starfinder, and/or cyberpunk becoming the go to. Like if you're dumb enough to make a change like this at least make sure there aren't competitors that also have great products.
@@BigCheddar248 Not sure why you didn't mention Pathfinder, or hell Savage World is big on the rise.
My favourite part of this drama is that the original creator of the ogl made a clause saying the company isn't allowed to retroactively change anything like *they're currently trying to do.*
@@hokuhikene Just report the bots and move on, they do not read what you write.
If that's true, you can smell the CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT from here
do u think my videos are better then mrbeast
Yeah, this has been covered by some in the know. Basically they can't directly change OGL 1, but as owners of the IP they can actually revoke OGL 1 completely and then enforce OGL 1.1. There's no clause in the original OGL that says it's unrevokable, it only says that it's a perpetual license.
Can someone explain to me how a license can be perpetual, and be revoked?
Charlie didn’t even mention the worst part, that using the new OGL means that wizards of the coast owns and can edit/resell content that the community made
yes that's biggest issue I see with the new OGL! not that the rest are ok
And not even have to credit the original creators lol they can just straight up steal anything they want
@loganroof4368 what.
@@jacobwatto9702 It´s one of the millions of bots RUclips refuses to do anything about. These clown accounts and the link posting ones, just ignore or report them for spam.
It absolutely insane. And what about the part in OGL 1.0a that says that if changes are made to the OGL, anyone can use any version of it? That was supposed to truly keep it open in the first place! Now they are just spitting in our faces.
"I think this is the most delusional company move I've seen since Tumblr banned porn."
That's it. That's the quote.
Literally read it as he was saying it.
Reality is really badly written these days.
OnlyFans almost banned porn. Which is almost the entire platform, if that isn't an understatement.
Yeah! F*in A. Tumblr doesn't know how much it impacted my life with that change
Moms in Suits are now a real terrorist group that managed to succeed where Bin Laden failed!
@@brightlight3520 in a good or bad way
As a dnd player I would never expect Charlie to be on this controversy. Thanks Charles for spreading the word!
It's almost as if Hasbro said. " Roll a nat 8 to make DND better or roll any other number to destroy it"
i5
u must be new lol charlie loves this type of news
The nice thing about dnd is that it cannot be retracted. It’s basically a game that survives on itself, with home brew and etc. They can’t kill us, because we don’t need them to exist- the rules will be around forever, too many people already know them. We may lose some convenience in terms of d&d beyond and so on, but they can’t take it away anymore, it’s gotten too big.
Same here
As an avid player of magic and DND, and someone who works in a local card/game shop, Wizards has been actively hurting its community and retailers for a while now. Thanks for bringing some attention to this, not a lot of people realize how their poor corporate decision making actively hurts stores like ours.
You're absolutely right about Critical Role bringing in most of their customers in the last few years, every single person who comes in wanting to get campaign materials at our store brings up how they got into it because of CR, it's not an exaggeration in the slightest to say that CR is singlehandedly keeping DND afloat.
Also, “Under Monetized” my ass, DND books, minis, and all other game materials are INSANELY overpriced. DMs/GMs and even a lot of regular players each spend thousands upon thousands of dollars a year on these materials. The only reason they’ve been able to justify their prices IS the open game contract, without that excuse they better start drastically lowering prices. I know for a fact a large majority of their community is gonna stop buying anything new if they don’t.
Dark Souls has a tabletop RPG now, my friends and I all cancelled our plans for our next DND campaign to play that instead, I don't think they realize how easy it is for their community to choose to stop supporting them. They've got a lot more competition than they realize, especially since people don't even need campaign materials or rulebooks to play an RPG in the first place, I for one much prefer homemade campaigns.
Gary Gygax is probably rolling in his grave.
Came here to say exactly your last line.
So f--ked up.
Couldn’t agree more with everything you said. Also major respect for actually making indents in your paragraphs. Never seen that before and I actually appreciate it lmao
@@namagem0 yeah I realized I had quite the text wall and figured I should re-format it 😂
I feel like this decision goes directly against the spirit of the game. I hope they crash and burn for this.
It's so dumb for them to even say under-monetized, the only perspective in which that would be true would be the corporation's. It's so disrespectful parroting that back to the consumers
As a long time fan of DND, it's been incredibly frustrating seeing things go south so quickly. I'm really glad the community is giving it so much backlash, and I'm equally glad large creators who break beyond the DND audience are giving it some attention. You're saving people's joy. Thank you, Charlie.
If it goes anything like how all the backlash from Magic players went, all I have to say is Fs in the chat for DND fans. WotC does not give a flying FUCK what their players think lol
So far I've hated everything out of one D&D which is sad because I was really excited for a new edition. Maybe after seeing how poorly the community reacted will change their minds and explore other options to make more money.-
I honestly thought D&D was going into an even better place with one D&D, and then they dropped this news. I’m honestly worried this will be the death of the game.
@@goldennas well if my experience with my local cable company has taught me anything. Remind the executives they are only human. And humans get injured. Maybe by a man using a truck mounted slingshot to throw a 4 gallon ceramic jar full of gasoline with a burning rag in the top over a treeline and into their garden burning down their garage
As a former GW and WotC Supporter, I'm still Warhammer 40k player (grim dark Era, the gritty stuff), d&d player, and a huge huge huge Battletech fan and player, I say ditch the shit heads, and go for friendly companies like catalyst gamelabs. Don't give your money to evil people.
What they mean by "under-monetized" is, people are able to participate in TTRPGs without spending any money. You go to a friend's house to play, and you can borrow books to make your character. As long as somebody at that table has the books you need, and you can borrow some dice and maybe a figurine, it's absolutely free for you to participate in this hobby.
Hasbro wants to try to squeeze some money out of EVERYBODY who plays D&D. That's why they bought out D&D Beyond, and they're planning to roll out their own virtual tabletop program. They're planning to charge a monthly fee for those services. And they intend to push every D&D player to subscribe. And once you're on that hook, you start to become vulnerable to the sunken cost fallacy; why would we switch to some other game, when we've all been paying for this monthly D&D subscription for the past few years?
Unfortunately for Hasbro, one of the best features of roleplaying games is the fact that you can participate for free. This has gotten a whole lot of low-income people into RPGs. A good gaming group is an absolute blast, and you don't have to spend a penny for all those hours of entertainment. This is as it should be. RPGs cannot flourish and grow without that option to play for free.
Coworker A: "Hey, what's this D&D thing that I hear you and Coworker C do? It sounds fun! Can I join?"
Coworker B: "Yeah, but first you're gonna have to sign up for D&D Beyond for $18 a month."
Coworker A: "Uh, you know what? Never mind. I'm not THAT interested."
Straight up dude, I legit never would have tried if my friends hadn't mentioned I could make a character using their books and dice. Than I was astounded and impressed at how low the barrier for entry is once I created my character and we started our session immediately. Like why try and fk with such an easy way to expand your consumer base.
@@nahfam8794Hey, a Samurai fan! Let's say how about we go to Hasboro tower and do a little "convincing"?
bingo
The biggest cost to any of my players is when they stop using the cheap dice I loan them and buy their own. All rulebooks, character sheets, ect. are provided by me as the DM for the entire group to use. Once my players have learned the basics the need for any kind of officially licensed anything is nonexistent. WOTC might as well be selling soccer without understanding that it can be played with a makeshift ball and some trash as goal posts. You can sell nice soccer balls, uniforms, cleats, and nets, you can maintain fields, you can build teams and leagues, you can even put all the rules in a nice book and sell that, but the rules themselves are impossible to sell because you can just ask someone who plays and they'll give them to you for free. I could, and have, run a oneshot game of 5e with absolutely nothing but plain paper and pencils. Dice, screens, character sheets, miniatures, tables, they all make play easier but are no more necessary than a jersey with your name on it.
Honestly MTG is similar in that aspect. Had some buddies that played, and on new years eve 2010 when the party died down, my drunk ass was handed a mono red goblin deck and taught how to play in a few hours. First day of 2011 woke up and went to Walmart to buy a themed deck a several boosters. Last 8 years I don't buy boosters/boxes anymore I just buy specific cards off ebay or TCGplayer. Anyone my friends and I come across wanting to learn how to play but don't have cards, we go through our stuff and put together a easy to learn beginner deck for them to use and if they enjoy the game and stick with it let them keep it and throw in better cards so they can adjust/tweak their deck. Anymore you can just buy random bulk lots of cards off ebay or other sources, keep what you want and trade/sell the stuff you dont. WOTC only gets a cut when boosters, sets, etc first drop. Anything sold on ebay or other sources they don't see a dime of.
As a D&D content creator that turns Pop Culture shows into adventures, WotC and Hasbro have absolutely lost their minds. They sacrificed an extremely loyal community in hopes of making a quick buck. Honestly, their reputation is totally ruined.
Yeah they trying to milk the shit out of it
Even if they walk it back, the damage is done. There is no more faith going forward.
This is why greed isn’t even an excuse, any person just seeking wealth would never scam someone because they will quickly if not immediately basically if not literally lose their ability to make money
As a former MTG player I feel that this is just Hasbro vs. fans round 2.
And that's why Pathfinder is superior 😎
It's crazy that Wizards thinks people won't just play other TTRPGs if this goes through. Not like there isn't an absurd wealth of underplayed games waiting to shine.
Literally. I saw the news and was like "guess I might try pathfinder"
@@BlackRabbitWonderland try it, it has better customization and more flexible classes!
@@BlackRabbitWonderlandThe 20th Anniversary Edition games in the World of Darkness line are pretty good, too, especially if you take some of the 90s edge and grim dark out for your own campaign. I highly recommend them, especially Werewolf: the Apocalypse (my personal favorite), Mage: the Ascension (for doing cool magic stuff), and Changeling: the Dreaming (closest to classic fantasy). There’s a second game line called New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness if you want a more horror-centric experience.
Because of this clusterfuck, yesterday I cancelled my DnDBeyond subscription that I'd been paying for for over 4 years. Also I bought a shit-ton of rpgs, Mothership, a bunch of the Tiny D6 books (Tiny Dungeon, Tiny Living Dead, Tiny Frontiers and Tiny Supers), and all of the Basic Fantasy books they had on amazon. WotC fucked around, and now they are finding out.
@@BlackRabbitWonderland This is the way. After playing Pathfinder I never went back to DnD
The fact that wizards of the Coast thinks they can retroactively terminate contracts they have with other companies is so hilariously out of line, and I hope they get slammed for it.
licensing can always be changed. There is no term on an open license.
@@ramsaybolton9151 except from my understanding there was terms that stated that any changes couldn't be applied retroactively.
@@ramsaybolton9151 from what I understand the original OGL did have a clause about how the company can't make changes to it, and the guy who wrote the original also stated that it was supposed remain unchanged forever
@@firefly3025 which is the definition, essentially, of "perpetuity"
@@ramsaybolton9151 If you write a license or anything on paper and that is taken as an agreement you can legally be held accountable for violating said agreement. Otherwise license rug pulling would happen constantly. Which is why most agreements or licenses say, "we may change these terms at any time." The only a contract or license cannot make you agree to something is if it violates laws or rights. Which the first OGL did neither.
Hey! There's been an update to this whole scenario! Apparently, Paizo (the company that owns pathfinder and starfinder, and headed by some of the ORIGINAL PEOPLE WHO HELPED MAKE THE OGL, including the LAWYER) are making their own open rpg creative lisence, (ORC). And Paizo is basically one-upping WOTC by being willing to go to court over the OGL, and making an even better license that nobody can betray like the OGL!
Paizo superiority!
Legendary LAWYER, guide our documentation!
In Paizo we trust !
das a lot of acronyms
And then maybe after Hasbro bankrupts paizo swoops in and buys the brand for pennies and just changes their name to Dungeons & Dragons. 10 years down the line and no one even remembers these troubles.
The 30-day notice part isn't even the worst part...the worst part is the clause that says they own the rights to ANYTHING created with the OGL and they can take complete ownership ANY TIME they feel like and incorporate it into official D&D content...and then terminate your ability to receive royalties, credit, etc. Basically, they can straight up steal your work if they feel like it and then shut you out of it forever.
So just.... like... make something original
@@Connection-Lost They will push for anything tangibly related to fantasy and with dice mechanics.
@@Connection-Lost It's certainly easier for players to use systems and concepts they are already familiar with. But sure, that IS what everyone will do now the OGL 1a is gone. No one with any sanity will sign away all rights to their work. There's nothing particularly great about d&d's 1st party creative content or rulesets, they are just a convenience.
@@mistandfog5442 Nah, they can't do shit about anything that isn't substantially a full ruleset copy, or contains ideas fully originating in d&d. Copyright law is quite clear, and wizards hold no patents.
@@Connection-Lost What do you think these products are?
They're original works. They're even referred to as original works in the criminal document titled OGL 1.1
"The scariest part is the idea that they could monetize your own content you produce without your consent or even knowledge"
I totally agree.
Yeah, they could terminate your contract then sell what you made afterward.
Can they actually do it? I think it conflicts with state law. It's theft.
They already were able to in the old OGL but seems people didnt notice til now
@@Marius1g That'd have to be fought in court since they're including it in the contract that they expect folks to agree to.
@@eightcoins4401 Not the same thing. Under the original OGL, creators could designate *specific portions* of their content as "Open Game Content" that *anyone* could use freely under the license. Yes, WotC could use that content too, but 1) Creators got to say exactly what they were allowing everyone to use, and 2) WotC would *also* have to include a copy of the OGL in the back of their own official book (they've never done this) and cite you as the author and your content's copyright as the source that they got it from.
Under the new license, they can just steal it, without crediting you, and with no indication they did not make it. And you have no say over what is and isn't "Open Game Content." They can do this to *everything* you publish under the new license, period.
Getting older is just watching the things you loved as a kid slowly die out and fade away…. Not a DND fan but I feel for those affected.
DnD dies a long time ago.
There are better alternatives.
Criticial role should just change the books they use and it will only hurt WOTC.
Our grandchildren deserve better than this world in which some skanky executive monetizes their every breath and thought while they own nothing.
It's not slowly dying, it's been incredibly popular, its being murdered.
@@mrfreeman2911 Critical role will have their own deal, they wont be publishing under the OGL.
@@mrfreeman2911 yup, people like the CR cast. they’ll follow them to a new system
I was at Wizards and worked on the 3rd Edition release for D&D, back when the OGL was created. As I remember it, the rationalization was thus: one of the things that killed TSR (in addition to many poor business practices) was the amount of money spent on Gaming Modules and alternate Game Worlds that spread their buyer base too thin. They reasoned that rather than throw good money at products that didn't sell, giving away the right to create 3rd party content was a good way to grow their base, so long as those properties encouraged buyers to purchase the core rulebooks-the only thing WotC wanted to sell. It worked amazingly well and grew the brand.
This seems like take-backsies of the worst sort.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
Not the first time, Blizzard got so annoyed that they missed out on DoTA because they didn't want to pay the guy any money, that they wrote up a ToS that says they own everything ever, on top of the Creator being 'updated' and stripped of some features by them.
I can't imagine being there all those years ago and seeing what they are doing now. Thank you for your input.
@@joshuaanderson1712 Whats more embarassing is the Blizzard couldn't rationalize making their own game with their own characters until post Heart of the swarm.
Zero creativity.
@THAT GUY you can definitly monetize art, from Kenshi and Deus Ex to far fringes like Cruelty Squad; the cavat being you can't reach as wide a market without stifing your art.
Large corps want large gains, something true art doesn't garner.
Charlie, as a DND content creator, we can't thank you enough for covering this. Voices like yours do so much to legitimize our cause
Hey, it's you! Nice
Exactly, getting this out here further is great
Jay, your videos covering this were great along with those of so many other dnd content creators. I’m definitely glad to see this gaining traction on platforms like Charlie’s and Phil DeFranco’s that have such a wide audience as well!! It’s weird to see my favorite dnd creators in the wild.
Im not a dnd player, I prefer pathfinder 2e, but I do really enjoy your character concept videos
I was genuinely shocked someone outside the dnd community jumped on this
Charlie is becoming one of the most prominent reporters when it comes to controversies and scams
*Dont_Read_My_Names* 😏,,
@louis06lmao be honest, what do you think?
And slaps
Drama alert
Asmongolds maldness has entered the chat
Can you imagine a kids parents having to go to court because their kid makes some really good content because this company decides their quarterly reports could be better?!
They are asking for more personal info than the IRS at that
When I was a kid there was this game maker application on facebook that anyone could use to make those "energy" based facebook games, and it was really simple to use. Knowing nothing about copyright or gaming licences my brother and I made a Dungeons and Dragons game in it and called it such. It earned about 3000$, which all went to the company that owned the game maker as we couldn't be paid due to living in a country that, at the time, didn't allow paypal transactions.
Hasbro sent us a warning to change the name of the game or they were going to take legal action. We were like 10 at the time, so this was a pretty scary experience. After shitting our pants we changed it and they dropped the case, but your comment reminded me of that situation. I am thankful Hasbro didn't choose to pursue the issue any further, but the possibility that some other clueless kid might do the same and get their parents in trouble scares me indeed.
He can. What will be illegal is trying to profit of of it. If your son uses the DND ruleset to create a world, he's using their intellectual property.
They wont go to court. Thats what WOTC is planning on. When WOTC claims someone's content each person has to decide if it's worth going to court with Hasbro.
What the fuck hahaha
Something that wasn’t touched on was a clause where they own and can use any dnd content you make, even if you don’t minimize it. Like it you make a homebrew campaign or supplemental work and post it online, they can 100% claim and use it themselves. As a DM who has changed and posted a lot of WotC source material, this is the concern that hits me most
OGL only applies if you need the content of the SRD. (The OGL terms have never allowed using the D&D specific information) Don't quote their stuff and don't use their logos and trademarks in a deceptive fashion, you should be unaffected.
If you do need to use such, well, then it gets messy.
@@nateschultz8973 That was the old terms.
@@arena_sniper7869 You don't have to use the license *at all* if you aren't infringing on their copyrights or trademarks.
On what other grounds could they sue? (And not commit a crime, themselves, I mean)
@@nateschultz8973 If they can prove similar concepts they can claim it under the OGL that they cooked up , even things like pathfinder, and other class based ttrpgs can come under fire under the new OGL not mention any channels, tv shows, or even stories on fan sites or sites like reddit will fall into the category of "similar enough" to go after to take the rights of the original authors.
Go check out what happened to SNK and Capcom when the latter got mad about the blatant Ryu/Ken rip offs.
I think it's less that they're delusional, and more that they think we're idiots, that they have a complete lack of respect for consumers, and in some cases even disgusted by them.
Being delusional and thinking the consumers are all idiots aren't mutually exclusive
@@leelo4372 good point
Thinking something that’s obviously not true is the definition of Delusional
that would be a delusion
That is literally delusion lol
The absolute worst thing is they can take anything made by anyone (eg a kickstarter campaign book)
1. Take the 20% of the kickstarter money
2. They can then print that book for themselves
3. They can then send a cease and desist to the original creators to stop selling
So they can basically steal new (usually better made) addon campaigns while being paid to do so
Ahh, the "Amazon Basics" approach.
Its nice to see companies like WOTC sticking to their original identity, still being as greedy as they were in the early 2000s.
^Exactly. No game or its company has ever been sacred, safe, or caring.
The worst of all is that all current campaigns and past campaigns are basically their now.. wont matter if the campaign is over years ago.. they own it.. you basically cannot say no to that..
That's why instead of making a living off of someone else's creation, How about create your own game or product? So tired of seeing these clown ass content creators get pissed when they can no longer make money off of someone else's idea or product or creation. I personally hope all game companies follow this approach. The entitlement these days is absolutely insane. "What do you mean I can no longer make money off of someone else's product"
Another detail that Charlie didn't bring up here... if you submit a product for licensing and it's accepted, Wizards then claims an irrevocable, royalty-free license to use your material in any way they wish, including publishing it themselves or giving it to another company to publish.
They effectively own anything you submit. Couple this with their option to "alter the deal further," and they can approve your book, cancel your license once the books come back from the printer, and then publish your work themselves, without paying you a dime, leaving you on the hook for your massive printing bill, holding thousands of books you're now legally obligated to destroy.
You would have to be insane to agree to this new license.
"This is the new deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
+1 disgusting
That is absolutely tyrannical, man
You see none of the cash while The Wizard gets himself a brand new wand & a 24 carot gold silk robe.
Have they done this?
You missed the scariest part:
Wizards is allowed to take your custom stuff and use it without permission or royalties to you
That is scary, but the easiest way to avoid that is just put nothing online. :)
I know they are not coming into my house to take stuff they do not know is there. And I really want them to take my Cake of Heroes that I made up at the table for the birthday of a player. I am not sure any of us wrote it down. :)
I still secretly think D&D started out when the guys could no longer remember everything from memory and needed to have.. shock... physical notes. :)
@@michaellianez6689 :)
Wizards is like Netscape. Remember the Netscape public license? They can you your changes in their closed source browser
They're pulling the Activision Blizzard move
"D&D can be anything you want, its a game about imagination with friends!"
"Oh, and if you imagine anything that we didn't already imagine, pay us royalties. We imagined first, after all."
It's like everything is about money these days
@@soaktinbleech1106 Everything has always been about money, the issue is when shitty companies do shitty things people forget that they control half of the relationship. Far too many people see a shitty company do a shitty thing and then keep being a customer, all the while complaining. If someone complains and still continues to consume, they are the problem.
Don't ask more brain function than breathing, people have become dumber and dumber in the span of 100 years.
I don't think this will hold up when inevitably this goes to court
@@Komrade_juice Sometimes that holds true, and others it doesn't matter because you don't get a choice. I wear eyeglasses, no matter what store, online or IRL, I am buying off the same company.. just through one of it's hundreds of thousands of subsidiaries. All I can do is bitch, because every alternative is just the same company in a different mask.
Big DnD fan here, and I'm SO happy a big RUclipsr like you is speaking up about this. The whole community is rightfully fed up, so this means a lot.
Honestly a bit shocked, I knew you dabbled in DnD, but didn't expect a whole vid from you about the situation.
Thanks Charlie.
This comment section is being botted hard but, aye, I’m there with you
And WOTC is not only dropping the ball on my favorite ttrpg they are also ruining my favorite tcg with Magic. Crazy prices, brand deals, too many new products, problems with supporting lgs' etc. etc.
Also wish he talked about the fact that OGL also states they can just take your shit and use it.
@@themakerstoolbox9688 was just abt to say the same. Wotc has been terrible for a while.
Plus honestly all you have to do is say it's not dnd related and you're no longer under their terms and conditions, this hurts wizards more than it hurts any of the creators who operate, er, used to, operate under their OGL.
As a DnD fan and player, thank you Charlie for bringing this controversy to light 🙏🏻
Agreed, my group is actually discussing switching over to pathfinder, I bought some pdf a few months ago to check it out, so we have the stuff available to start it actually
@@edwardfg pathfinder 1e is amazing. Hope you have fun
@@edwardfg I've just been looking into pathfinder and omg it's so much better imo.
@@edwardfg check out Pathfinder for Savage Worlds, if you get into that you'd also be learning the Savage Worlds system which can actually let you run any other setting really well
Love Charlie's "Don't want to talk about the DM" moment. Everyone who plays a tabletop RPG has had at least ONE of those DM's/GM's. It's like a rite of passage to get one that takes it too seriously, or just doesn't know which direction they're going with the game.
It wasn't an ingame problem that made him go "don't want to talk about the DM", it was SH/SA stuff that came out about the DM afterwards in relation to multiple other players in other campaigns.
@@Striga889 out of curiosity who was said DM?
@@jtjpro13 Arcadum
@@IDoSingles Thanks! I've literally never heard of em, I'm just glad it isn't a DM I know and like.
@@jtjpro13 Arcadum
The funniest parts about this is that they tried changing the OGL before and created their biggest competitor in Paizo who made Pathfinder. Now Kolbold Express, the largest third party creators for DnD, are making a totally free ttrpg system called Project Black Flag.
And to add on to that, the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is based on the OGL, which is owned by Disney. I'd love to see Hasbro try to profit off of a Disney product when they'll assassinate you for fanart.
Kaiju fight, kaiju fight KAIJU FIGHT
Time to bankrupt Hasbro.
It even better once you realize a part of the reason why Paizo has been so successful with Pathfinder is because they have a lot of former WOTC employees.
It's even worse for Wizards... there are 5e games for Dr. Who, Lord of the Rings, and many other properties that are currently being published. It's not even a case of a game that's 20 years old being OGL, they're risking the ire of companies that are every bit the equals financially of Hasbro. And given the amateur nature of this license and how badly it was written I doubt very much it was sent to those companies for review. Can you imagine the corporate lawyers for Disney or Warner Bros looking at that train wreck of a document and taking Wizards/Hasbro seriously?
...hmm.
Or... or there are more implications to this. I wonder...
My first thought was "Why doesn't Hasbro just make their own D&D show" but then the quick answer I gave myself was "Because they're a soulless, emotionless husk that has no passion for anything other than how much money they can squeeze out of you"
Dice Camera Action was their somewhat big dnd streaming show. But that also got hit with one or two of the players having a controversy.
Hasbro likes doing their consumers in the rear
"Evil cannot create, it can only corrupt and destroy."
They're so afraid of losing money that they would rather force money out of their fans like this, completely oblivious to the fact that doing so will cause them to lose money.
Hasbro makes stuff for kids so I don't think the community would accept the D&D kid friendly show :/
The worst part is when they say that they basically OWN whatever you create, they can, at any time, sell it by themselves, strip you right over the things you created and more, it's just absurd
Not true
Bullshit.
@@irishconan722it is true. It might not hold up in court, but then how many could afford the lawyers to fight it. Look at Battletech and the Unseen Mechs….
SOunds very similar to how talent shows make the winners sign away the winners' right to their youtube account, so that the winners' youtube account future earning will all go right to the talent shows pockets.
That what Microsoft does with Halo and no has bat an eye
The moment they prevent card shops from selling specific products, it's no longer about the fun and the "magic" of this community, it's 100% for profit.
Never forget that Yugioh 100% owned Magic when they announced their 25th anniversary re-release of their original 6 packs. They said "Its only $3.99 per pack and all the cards are already legal!"
@Dan Bangs If you want to be technical Tyler the Great Warrior is probably an ultra expensive card since there's only one in the world. But also reprinted packs shouldn't be $250 a pack. Thats absurd.
The thing is, wizards cannot do that. They cant make the reprinted alpha, beta,... cards legal, because they are on the reserved list. Reprinting them in legal form would probably demolish the whole secondary market for magic cards, and they would probably drown in lawsuits. However, they could have made the pack like 50$ instead of 1000. Haha, its just so absurd and sad at the same time. I wonder how many people actually paid the 1k.
@@Phan211
literal multimillion price tag Black Lotus:
*hold my mana*
@moskon95 They're proxies, they should be $3.
@@RobotMasterSplash $0.25
Another thing Charlie didn't touch on: Wizards is now claiming that the OGL "was never meant to" allow for video games, or card games, or board games, or web shows, or indeed anything other than TTRPG content, and so none of that is covered under the new OGL; you have to come to your own license agreement directly with Wizards if you want to do any of that. This is actually pretty fascinating, because there _used_ to be a FAQ on their website stating that the OGL was meant to allow for video games and card games and board games and all sorts of things other than TTRPG content, but it's gone mysteriously missing.
You may have heard of, say, Knights of the Old Republic? Yep, OGL video game... They just remade it, too, didn't they. That means fucking _Disney_ has some skin in this game.
Jeez…I think they just made a huge mistake on that front. Disney will be out for blood, because like hell are they gonna pay royalties for this bullshit
Make sure there is a back up in wayback machine
Disney also owns Edge of the Empire TTRPG since that's Star Wars, and uses the D20 system and thus under OGL.
Hmm. Care to fill me in more? My mate has a little TTRPG channel.
Are you telling me Hasbro/WotC is gonna send a lawyer over to Disney and ask them for a cut on Kotor?
Charlie is the reason i can eat my dinner in peace
@David [DOND WII?! More like Chipmunk PooPoo WII!] sped
Penguins and potatoes.
BRO HAHA IM EATIN RN
@davidlol329… your the reason this world has no hope or future absolutely disgusting
same
The funny thing is that Wizards was poised to make so much money off of One D&D. New core rule set being well received, they were going to make a ton off a new DMG and Player’s Manual. Content creators always push and promote official content because it’s the only thing that be universally discussed across every table.
Now there’s probably going to be a huge boycott and it’s hard to imagine grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory any harder than this.
Got to get Even More Now, don't you know?
@@joshuaanderson1712 no
Hasbro has been extra shady recently, in ireland they had thier branch taken over by a company called Cartimundi a few years back (same building and company basically) and before christmas people who I know worked there were telling me that recently they were leaving workers, whether they were there for 10 days or 10yrs, with no days of work over 5-6 weeks, only to give them one day and then repeat the 5-6wks to avoid giving them their redundancies as you have to have no work for 13 weeks to claim redundancy in Ireland. Completely scummy leaving people with no money and basically forcing them to leave on their own terms so they didnt have to make payouts so I am not surprised their trying to rake in as much cash as possible.
🇮🇪that’s how we do it here
Yeah I'm Irish and sadly this happens a lot over here 😔
@@ElpheAzure same
Wow never heard of this and I’m Irish from Ireland!
@@ElpheAzureyeah true, they let every Tom, dick and Harry roam around here
I honestly have never seen a company speedrun bankruptcy so badly. Its insane how much they are against their own userbase. I am a big magic player and I had to stop buying new product all together. I can't give them my money when they don't even respect me enough as a customer.
Yeah man I quit magic a couple years ago because of the FIRE game design shoving "need to buy" cards down our throats (if you wanted to remain competitively relevant)
@@PurpleDragonSpike ugh I hate how true this is.
@@Brian-rv2xs I'd quit because of their woke agenda and trying to shove down peoples throats, and their favoritism for those types of people, hideous art, and trash card quality, the foils are like Chinese knockoffs
@@thoticcusprime9309 i'm sorry, woke agenda? what are you even talking about? because there's more black people on cards nowadays?
@@thoticcusprime9309 hope you've changed as a person, starting a comment with "woke agenda" made me belly laugh lmao. incredibly embarrassing
Perhaps the wildest part of this is the fact that Wizards have tried to get rid of the OGL before - 4th edition didn't have one - and do you want to know what happened then: Pathfinder, pathfinder happened - people just used the 3.5e OGL to make the first edition of Pathfinder and killed 4e in the water. It's almost like they forgot people can do that. Also it's worth mentioning that this new not-so-open "Open Game Licence" has a clause in it that says if you make a piece of content they like (say, a sourcebook for rules on pet ownership or smth) then they can just steal everything in it and publish it as their own.
I think they'll just revoke all open licenses. If they still own the ruleset IP, they can claim ownership of all derivative work and treat it as they wish, as self-destructive as that is.
@@SorenCicchini you forgot games rules cant be clame...you can make a game whit the same rules as 5e whit different names (from there copy right monsters) and be a ok.
@@SorenCicchini I don't think they can do that but I guess we'll see the outcome in court if they try. The previous open license had language that said it was perpetual. So all content that was created under the old license should in theory be protected from them just stealing it as derivative work.
Remember this is what hasbro or wizards is writing in a contract. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean it’s the be all end all. If they do steal source material they will be subject to fair use and would have to litigate their right to the work
from what i understand they can also revoke the license if they think there is anything "racist,phobic,bigoted,... insert buzzword here".
You also cant sue them at all for it
It’s shocking how few CEOs and companies recognize how valuable customer good will is. If you expect brand loyalty, you’d best be loyal to your customers in kind.
Most CEOs and managers in general don't understand how valuable people are in general. They only see numbers and statistics, so workers' rights and customer satisfaction mean nothing to them because they usually cut into profits. They don't understand that when your workers are happy and your customers are satisfied, you're able to put out high quality work and get a lot of repeat business as well as new customers, which often more than makes up for the cost you had to spend to please them.
@@nathanniesche6380 it's like they didn't realize that if people start to leave in really mass amount they start losing profit also if you own everything to force people to buy your product sooner or later the system will fails due to lack of competition and also because resource is limited both human and resource to make stuff
The scariest part is the idea that they could monetize your own content you produce without your consent or even knowledge
It's not entirely their "own" content. One could argue that the foundation of the content is entirely Hasbro/WOTC's intellectual property. If these content creators are raking in millions of dollars I think the creators of the worlds and systems they use to make said content deserve a cut. I don't know about 25% but, it should be significant imo. If the content creators don't like this arrangement they can always spend months and years creating their own worlds, systems, characters, items and whatever else. They can always cut Hasbro/WOTC out of the picture.
@@Kostly They only one REALLY making money are Critical Role the people making books are normally just breaking even. Since their books aren't mainstream since a lot of people really don't touch the homebrew side and just use official content. Most of DID make their own worlds D&D barely can copyright most of the names. This is what happens when they low key treat D&D as abandonware yet when it gets popular they come running back like they did anything. All they did was hold a copyright, the fans carried them
@@Kostly Disagree. They should pay Critical Role for advertising.
@@jayjasespud lmfao Hilarious. Joking aside, Hasbro/WOTC might be able to hit Amazon though. :)
@@jayjasespud actually true without Critical Role dnd wouldn't be even nearly as popular as it is right now
As someone who has been getting my soul drained by WotC for over 20 years, I'm glad you're speaking out about this and giving it some signal boosting. Their practices are getting out of control.
I used to work at a geek bar near the WOTC, the employees were incredibly kind. I feel bad for them cause I know they don’t want to do this.
Well, when was it ever not the completely out of touch higher ups that forced absolutely dumb and potentially company/brand ruining changed? The people not in the management positions are usually very kind and passionate, then the suits attack and they lose any and all fun in their live and/or company position
@@Shakzor1 yeah not enough people understand that employees shouldn't be blamed for mistakes made by their bosses. Sadly people in the comments don't really get that because they're actual brainlets who have no idea what they're talking about
@@noheffthing welcome to 2023
@@lonewolf9578 this has been happening for decades, possibly even centuries.
@@lonewolf9578 this has been going on before 2023 tho lol
I knew this would happen one day. D&D was once the counter culture, and now that it's popular, hasbro was going to want to cash in on that.
First edition (and OD&D) are now very much the counter-culture to this. Play them and to hell with Hasbro.
Hasbro famously dropped Mister in Mr Potato Head to get with the times aka for no reason, so yeah their the worst
I never thought this day would come. D&D drama reached Charlie. We've made it, lads.
But at what cost?
@Bruh Bruh Sad day to be Hispanic
Dael! Never thought I'd see the day where you're in the comments of one of Charlie's videos lmao
@@steelydan1 I am everywhere. I cannot be contained.
I'm a small third party publisher that is hit hard by this. We were meant to be launching our Kickstarter this year but everything has had to be put on hold, potentially adding over a year of additional work to pivot our stuff away from D&D if they keep going ahead like this. There are so many issues with the new OGL that will ultimately bankrupt any creator that happens to do well with their content & grants them free use of all our IP in perpetuity. Thank you for covering this, it has felt like we've been fightnig an uphill battle for the past few months and I'm glad that more people are being made aware of the truly shitty situation us as third party content creators find ourselves in.
Good on you for changing direction, you should let them know.
At least the crap hit the fan early enough that you'll be able to shift away from D&D without killing your project.
I am much better than penguinz0.
He is only reacting to content and saying blah blah blah.
Like for reall he is so BORING ONG FR NO CAP.
Meanwhile i was smuggling fried chickens from Mexico to United States, stuffed with xannax pills.
Like the sheer amount of his AUDACITY to try and be better than me.
But he will NEVER be better.
Because im the best
*does a backflip*
Was wondering what's stopping you from rebranding it to a kingdom fantasy roleplaying game thats not D&D? D&D can't capture the entire genre
See projects like yours are exactly why I loathe this situation, making it hell for creators and I feel that right now this is where the incredible community should stick together and support all of the creators affected by this headache. Hoping your situation shapes out well!
So many companies seem hell bent on killing all their good will in one move lately.
“We’ve GOT to have…
…m o n e y .”
Because they're certain they don't need good will anymore.
Companies'll do anything for money.
But the fact they're doing it so soon, and almost all together in the same time span, seems pretty suspect. It's almost like it's been orchestrated this way, for what, I haven't an idea.
Maybe some new business lord recently did capitalize hugely on cutting a lot of corners and now a lot of companies are trying to copy him and failing spectacularly. GeeDubs being a prime example of the latter, culling their fanbase and fanart then suddenly tanking a lot of profit loss.
If you keep reminding people to fight the good fight warhammer franchise can be potentially saved
Like games workshop and war hammer 40k
Hasbro: "We're loosing money, let's do something about it!"
Also Hasbro: - shoots itself in the foot -
Hasbruh!
This is the same company that often paid between $5 to $50 to artists for artwork they afterwards owned and would sue artist for using their own artwork afterwards. One major artist hated how Wizards was treating artist so he bought the master artwork from the same artist at the correct market value at the time. He helped many college artists pay their loans and help establish themselves in the art world.
Today he has the best master work from MTG card art collection worth millions. Wizard is not stupid to go after him since he is wealthy and has lawyers who would love to go after their past sweat shop style of using new artist.
too bad ai will just replace them
@@QuickieHistie Too bad AI uses copyrighted material harvested illegally
@@QuickieHistie aw does seeing people paid for their efforts scare you so much techbro?
@@QuickieHistie too bad i am under your floorboards
@@XenaAndKin Depends entirely on the model used tbh.
That is greed at its finest they really said “If we can’t have money, no one can”
*can't have ALL the money
Damn someone summoned Mammon
The problem is corporations end up becoming uncaring monsters in themselves. They grow into beasts bigger than any of their parts.
People say we can't expect anything from companies as their only function is to make money - but that 1800's mindset is slowly changing, we absolutely should expect better from companies. If they are here to suck up every resource the planet has we must force them to be benevolent vampires.
Capitalism baby!
And it's because of WHO is running those corporations.....
It is the law. By law any public traded company purpose is to make the most money for the shareholders. To not do so would be a suable ofence.
@@Sonichero151 absolute horse shit. Where the fuck do you people find this bs?
unbridled capitalism is the problem, not the fucking WHO.
The fact that it's retroactive and that they can change it at any time is the worst part.
Woof the retroactivity sounds pretty illegal. Did anyone ever sue?😊
They aren’t delusional. They’re just greedy. Push it to the very limit of what you can get away with and, if the backlash becomes big enough to actually affect your bottom line, then you backtrack and say you were listening to the community.
They are definitely delusional, if not just the most pretentious way.
do u think my videos are better then mrbeast
Even if they do pull that tactic I doubt very many people will fall for it after they've made it very clear that they don't give a damn about their consumers and content creators
@Bruh Bruh ay carumba
The real world has shown that lost trust is _extremely_ difficult to regain.
And they have just taken that trust and _nuked_ it. It's gone, and it's not coming back for a looong time, if ever.
"It takes a lifetime to establish a good reputation. But only a single moment to ruin it" - by Sun Tzu probably
Hasbro really trying to one up themselves with anti consumer and anti local game store choices. You can look up how they are not only going more direct to consumer but also pushing Amazon sales to kill the local game stores.
I always list the sourse as-the suspitious dog in a top hat
Warren Buffet said that. But 100% agree
@@333LoveMeOrHateMe333 warren buffet is a creep too
Don't even get me started on what they did to Beyblade. I started collecting them again last year, and Hasbro butchered the NA release so badly for years and they're still doing it. It's so bad that Hasbro Only is an actual competition format
@@333LoveMeOrHateMe333 a lot of people said that because its not that hard to come up with
The short update is:
- They own everything you make.
- You have to pay royalties if you make over 750.000 per year.
- They can end the contract at any time and keep everything you made for themselves as long they warn you 30 days before hand.
Regarding point 2, this could turn out to be really, really scummy. The statement keeps mentioning "Qualifying" Revenue and not Net Profit. If a company makes 750k from sales and spends 800k in operation expenses, business expenses, Cost of Goods sold, taxes, etc then it is up to the discretion of Wizards/Hasbro if you need to spend another 150k - 188k for royalties (cuz wtf is "qualifying").
Ok but how... They can't stroll in and say "all your base are belong to us"
@@hell_pike9150 i mean technically if you agree to the new ogl yes they can same way if you publish on dms guild now they tell you you cant publish this anywhere else we own it
Didn't blizzard also try this with Warcraft reforged too?
@@hell_pike9150 Since it's 750$+ per year it probably only targets popular people, so making a campaign with your friends will be safe. Most people probably will ignore it either way since it's an extremely greedy move
Been running a dnd campaign for my friends for about 2 years now. This news rattled the community and so many people are going to be affected by this. Our community is brought together by so many third party systems and creations and hopefully this decision gets rolled back
Ever try pathfinder? The makers are equally as outraged, and they make an amazing game.
@@gitbse I’ve played divinity 2 and loved it, that’s about as close as I’ve gotten to pathfinder
This decision needs to be shut down for good. No changes at all
Sometimes I wish I could see the board meetings at these greedy entertainment companies. Like I wanna have a bird's eye view of every meeting Nintendo has when they find out their customers are actually having fun with their products
in an american company I always imagine some a-hole with flipcharts talking about how their investors are not happy since there was too little growth. Notice, not a loss, but too little growth. because idiots sold shares for money and then have those greedy goblins in their napes that want to see more and more money coming in from work they don't do.
I get that feeling a lot too.
Fun fact: Hasbro had a live call (called a "fireside chat") where you could listen to their shareholder meeting; when Wizards came up, they basically said "nothing is wrong, we'll print EVEN MORE."
It was horrid to listen to.
I imagine it goes something like this "this is Jim, we just hired him on to help us increase our quarterly earnings" says the man that has no idea what Dungeon&Dragons even is. Jim comes in, "We need to make more money. I see we've been offering people a FREE license to use D&D in their original content. We're gonna change that" Guy/Girl who knows something "Well you see, our brand is really only relevant becau-" Jim "I'm gonna stop you right there, Make it happen" other person that knows "I don't think that's a good ide-" Jim already walking out of the room with his phone against his head discussing how best to monetize 5 other businesses that are all equally as bad.
i think the term you’re looking for is “to be a fly on a wall”
As a big fan of the prof, it’s super cool to see Charlie shout him out and bring attention to his videos. He has been a cornerstone of the community for a long time, and never fails to deliver quality content
Big ups to Prof getting a shout-out!
Yeah, I was really surprised that he was mentioned in this video.
Prof is awesome! He was one of the first magic creators I discovered after getting into magic...
As a biggest fan of EDP i agree
@@Suo_kongque Mr cupcakes
Critical Role was one of my inspirations for getting into Dnd, along with being invited to a Pathfinder game. I have spent probably hundreds so far on source books and subscription service to run my own games. If there's enough pressure on the big names for them to give up and leave, WoC is going to see a whole generation not brought into the hobby and it quickly drying up.
Yep. I think a lot of people have forgotten (or weren't around at the time) when WotC tried similar shit during the release of 4e. The community was so outraged, and so many people abandoned D&D, that Pathfinder became the #1 TTRPG in the world for several quarters, only losing that spot to 5e after WotC walked back their asinine decisions / plans.
But there's really no fear of the hobby drying up, at least not entirely. Nothing WotC does can ever take away the physical and digital books we already own. They can't take away our ability to use those things to run / play the games we want. There are still people playing OD&D (from 1974). There is literally nothing WotC can do to stop us playing whatever the hell we want.
Good news is there are so many RPG systems and settings out there... D&D isn't even that great as a system, it's just the most popular one.
The funniest part is, they behave like they have a monopoly on TTRPGs, but the truth is, should these changes come into play, most of the people will simply move to a different system, there are so many of them, and essentially they don't really have to be that different, Wizards don't own the rights to 20-sided dice or statblocks lol
hopefully other TTRPGS can take more parts of the market.
Yeah if they think they’re going to get a slice of Critical Role out of this, they are mistaken. Switching systems is easy, everyone does it, and if your income depends on it, it’s a decision that practically makes itself. WotC are basically begging their competition to headhunt their own best ambassadors. I’d be surprised if CR haven’t already heard from other TTRPG companies about replacing DND!
The damage that would be done if Critical Role came out with their own TTRPG system is huge.
@@ShallowVA also i did hear that critical role before streaming were using pathfinder as their system. which i do like its variety.
This so much, the only thing that the community would lose is legal access to a handful of copyrighted monsters such as Beholders and Mind Flayers.
OGL 1.1 is even worse than what this video mentions. There's a third major change that's being added: that they can do whatever they want with your content - including repackaging it and selling it as their own.
This means that they would not only be able to take 25% royalties, but also sell the stuff in your product as well if they wish.
It essentially allows them to double dip.
A top comment on the CritCrab video you played has a pretty interesting take on the matter that I thought should also be pointed out:
They likely leaked this on purpose to gauge public reaction and then backpedal afterwards.
a purposeful leak is an interesting move to say the least
@@vladimirirkhin Well, I heard the last time they tried changing the OGL, that was what made their biggest competitor: Pathfinder.
But now one of D&D's biggest third party publishers - Kobold Press - is separating from D&D because of this and is starting work on their own rules, code named "Project: Black Flag."
So it appears history is repeating itself.
that backpedal sounds like the worst april fools joke ever. ngl
It also only includes print and static digital content. So Websites, VTTs, Video Games etc all would need custom deals with WotC. Funny, that they are about to launch their own VTT, I wonder why they added this change.
I wouldn't be surprised, I mean they surely cannot be this stupid. My honest guess it was pushed on them by Hasbro, but the people at the top said, hey guys, yeah that's a stupid idea and I can show you easily before we make it public.
Then the leak follows and now they have proof of how bad this will end and can just point out, the only real advantage they have over other systems is that they have so much diverse content made outside the company.
If they honestly wish to monetize it more I would agree but sensible, aka make more stuff, make games, movies, TV series and invest in stuff like DND one (their new online platform, hell that alone will make them able to monetize more effectively, if the website becomes very popular, like DND beyond already is, they can make people pay a fee for everything sold in their store, add some quality controll and there you have it, these changes make in light of that no real sense).
Honestly, Critical Role has gotten so big in the last few years that they could just make their own TTRPG under their Darrington Press tabletop publishing company to compete with Wizards of the Coast. They could make their own rule-set that is just similar enough to be compatible with D&D (their campaigns started on Pathfinder anyway), and with an OGL of their own they would absolutely crush it.
I'm not sure if you're aware of Kobold Press, but they are another big name 3rd party TTRPG publisher, and this is exactly what they are doing in face of the new OGL!
unfortunately, they couldnt really continue on with their show as it is now, bc these new changes means that the majority of the lore of critical role belongs to wizards of the coast now. theyve published all their lore books under wotc, significant deities and monsters are woven into the story itself, and they also finance the show with many sponsorships from dnd beyond and wotc
critical role is too entangled in it all. either they put up with wotc’s bullshit and risk being shut down at literally any moment, or they abandon all their previous work to build up a solo brand and risk not being strong enough to survive on their own
i have no idea what the right way to handle this is. theyre kinda boned no matter what
@@KTr0ck I really don’t think their fans would mind a fresh new world too much. Especially if they could completely change the setting.
I 100% guarantee you that Mercer was told about this well in advance and has some sort of licencing deal with them. These people are not your friends.
@@KTr0ck They're probably not in danger of being shut down, wotc would much rather continuously milk them for all the money they can get. Wotc is definitely not the company to turn down a profit
"The most delusional company move since Tumblr banned porn" lmao that's hilariously perfect
For those who aren't aware, a substantial portion of the 1.3 billion generated in the community comes from publishing sites like Drivethrurpg and DMsguild which predominately hosts digitally distributed 3rd party content for D&D and other roleplaying game platforms. Thing is, both companies are owned by OneBookShelf. If WotC really wanted to make bank, buying out both companies and maybe merging their content with D&DBeyond (WotC's own method of publishing its material digitally) would enable them to take a cut and not suffer any backlash if they didn't touch anything with how those operations are run. It'd save everyone a lot of hassle, anyways.
Hey look someone who offered a actual good solution and isn't just being like "we deserve free things". Awesome take.
Gross. WotC is a disease as evidenced by the way they handle Magic the Gathering. We should be taking business away from them, not giving them more stuff to screw us over with
That's... a really good idea. Unfortunately it's *too* good of an idea for corpo suits to think of
@@TheSilverPhoenix100 Found the corpo bootlicker
@@relic5752 no you found a person who lives in reality isn't a entitled shit. Does this suck, yup. Is it unexpected, nope. Is the internet proving once again it has zero fucking clue how running a business works, oh hell yes.
The plan here is simple: when Wizards switched from 3e to 4e Paizo used the OGL to build out Pathfinder as a way to support the audiance that wanted to kepp playing 3e. Now Wizards is planning to switch from 5e to OneD&D, so they want to make sure that nothing like this happens again. Ofc it's not going to work, major players of the industry already announced they are going to be making their own rulesets (which will probably be fairly close to 5e), and just going to be making their own content with that.
Btw, as much as people love to blame Hasbro for this, this is 100% a WotC party. They have a new leadership which comes from the videogame industry, so they are treating D&D as a "game as a service" type a thing.
What'll be some of those "major players"? I still want to play with a similar ruleset without supporting WotC at this time.
No-one's gunna pay a subscription to play a shittier, more casualized 5E though.
People have already been jumping ship to better game systems for years now.
This whole thing just stinks of a failing company doing what they can to secure their cocaine and hookers fund for a few more years before it goes under.
Posting a comment so i get notified when this is answered
@@Murto84 Wha....you don't have to pay a subscription to anything, the hell you talking about? Kobold Presses 5E clone going to be completly free for exemple.
D&D was always the least profitable thing Wizards made, because people don't need anything else other then some books. They want more money out of it, and want to make sure nobody else does. It's not complicated.
Oh great, another victim of looooiiIIIIiiIIIIiVE SeRvIcEs...
How many of those are still alive, again?
Im a DM/GM of about 6 years now, I feel it's important to note that while this may (hopefully) be the death of WOTC or Hasbro and D&D. This is not the end for tabletop RPG's as a whole. The great thing about games like this is that they are analog by nature and people will continue to make stuff and play even after the overlords fuck things up. There are tons of other games that are honestly just as good or better than D&D and it's such a fun community to be part of!
Just as GWs open greed has led to a more flourishing market for smaller mini brands and new creators in the rapidly expanding 3D print matkey this is going to push players into new content. WOTC/Hasbro just cast fireball without checking out the room size.
Though dnd can keep on even if it's tecnically dead, because of it's great comunitty, i really hope MTG doesn't end up dead, unless there is some underground homebrew mtg circles i've never Heard about
Exactly what I was thinking. All this decision does for WotC is make every existing content creator rebrand their work into something without the D&D title. D&D will be replaced with something, for example like F&F (Fortune and Fantasy), or some other two word abbreviation for anything that was ever made with its inspiration. We can play with words too Hasbro
@@UlshaRS it's too bad they were out of spell slots
Well yeah, the fuck are they gonna do, break into your coffee shop and flip the table or something?
And now they sent a private military company after a youtuber to take back some cards
This is like if a paper factory wanted royalties from your best-selling books. Dungeons & Dragons seems more like a medium or a formula than a product at this point. If the company itself had continually generated custom content, accessories, etc, over the years, then that would be different. But it's kind of like they invented paper and let us roll with it. Then they want royalties on that paper...
This is exactly it. Well said.
Why doesn’t Hasbro sponsor these custom campaigns and partner with them to strengthen the vanilla mainstream D&D instead of just demanding royalties? This change is so short term profit seeking and bad in the long run.
@@gologotha7922 they have on occasion before. There are books made from successful third-party settings that they have officialized in some manner. Two main ones being the Critical role setting book, Explorers Guide to WIldemonte, book, and the Acquisitions Incorporated books. Both are from popular third party groups (streaming voice actors, and a DnD podcast respectively)
Hasbro fucking hates the fact that D&D basically exists in our heads and is not a physical product they can commodify.
Obviously paper factories make money from bestselling books. Every page is paid for. And the author/creator of the IP do get royalties on every sale.
This really reminds me of when Games Workshop did the exact same thing to the Warhammer Fandom a few years ago, and I can tell you, this is only going to hurt Wizards in the long run. When GW did what they did, it made a lot of fans (myself included) completely jump ship, and those who didn't completely jump ship just found ways to continue playing the game without giving GW any money. Most players 3D print armies now, or buy 3D printed models from a 3rd party. I imagine something similar is going to happen to Wizards of the Coast.
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't it that ass backwards decision that got Warhammer TTS cancelled? *_On a cliff-hanger as well_* which didn't help.
Whats your profile pic man?
@@TheDaxter11 That was at least more understandable, although as usual for GW the strategy was executed very poorly. GW has their own service where they would debut Warhammer animations and other content and didn't want fans to make stuff that they couldn't monetize. It's still a bad idea, but at least I can sympathize with the desire to do that. This on the other hand is just beyond reasoning.
Well I wouldnt say it backfired for GW. They have like the best years financially? And a lot of new games and systems got bigger releases. Also for GW it's a little different, they dont rely so heavy on players creating new content like WoC does.
Exactly this. We don't need Wizards to tell us how to play our game. They really don't matter at all in the grand scheme of DnD. Its our game.
This sounds like a spectacular way to implode your own franchise. The economic and social ecosystem of DnD can't endure something like this. Hasbro is looking at like a conventional franchise when DnD is anything but.
history repeats, when they did this with dnd 4th edition, pathfinder became the biggest tabletop game of that era by a long distance.
I'm done with d&d and I've moved on to other systems already. My groups have been enjoying that process so much more than d&d
Yup, and blizzard did the same shit back 8n 2019
"We haven't monetized breathing yet, and that's a problem."
When you said that Hasbro isn't doing well, that made perfect sense. These aren't the moves of business savvy executives with money to burn; these are desperate boneheads trying to turn every trick to squeeze out every extra dollar they can because the company is heavy. I can only expect this will worsen the decline.
They are going the route of blizzard.
Don't forget that Hasbro killed off its beloved characters in the transformers movie to sell new toys. Nothing seems beneath them tbh
@@JakeTheSnake016 I gues G5 MLP isnt doing to hot either. i fear for all IP under Hasbro's control.
Hasbro started going downhill with their Jurassic world toys, they were really bad
Heart goes out to all the D&D Creators that were finally able to go full time, only for their job security to get swept out from under them.
Not that I agree with Wizards of the coast but yah those people your talking really should have always something like this could happen so if they don't have a fall back that's on them
@@addex1236 why are you simping for evil corporations
@@addex1236 That has got to be the most dent head trashcan with hands take I have seen here in a while. Almost sounds like you are rubbing your hands together ready to count sheckels to milk someone for all they have and ruin them. Legit corp brain shill comment.
They still can. If their American, they can invoke the 1868 peonage act.
@@addex1236 whether they have a fall back has nothing to do with what they said. Clearly you agree with Wizards or you wouldn’t say that.
This is straight up robbery. Imagine video game companies deciding to force gaming RUclipsrs/streamers and e-sports to pay royalties just for playing their games
I think Nintendo actually used to do that (don’t know about now)
But y’know it’s Nintendo
A couple game devs have mentioned that they believe streamers owe them royalties. They were laughed off the platform, but it only takes one of them to get high enough on the food chain to actually try to implement that.
@@quebee8591 no, couple years ago if you WANT to start making money with nintendo games (streaming, videos, etc) you need a nintendo contract. But i think now is different.
That actually is the license that a lot of video game companies work by, but they don't bother to enforce it usually because individual streamers aren't worth going after. Minecraft has an open license that has made it the defacto fallback streaming game in the past for people scarred by video game companies coming down on them.
They should
Love both D&D and MTG, but the intense greed from the companies is truly dragging both through the mud. Me and my friends stick to our own casual/homebrew rules so this isn't such a personal concern, but what is very concerning is the impact on larger channels who are MTG/D&D focussed, many of which I enjoy.
It's been great to see D&D in particular have such a resurgence over the last few years thanks to the streaming channels such as Critical role and the like. In fact, Arcadum was the reason I got back into D&D over the lockdowns, including the campaign Charlie was part of which I very much enjoyed (at the time, this was before all the drama surrounding Arcadum himself)
All the custom interesting custom worlds these channels come up with play a HUGE part in this, even if someone's not into the traditional D&D world, there's such a wide variety for different people to get into, my friends do a Warhammer 40k one and Lost Pause is even doing a Pokémon themed D&D. This just helps to bring the hobby to a much wider audience and what the companies themselves are doing goes against that.
It's just been nice to see the community grow to a much wider spectrum recently and see so many people who've never played discover a niche within that they really enjoy. I just hope the companies actions don't ruin that and everyone continues to do their thing
D&D has been a huge part of my life over the last decade. It was a way to bond with friends, practice telling stories before pursuing a career as a writer, and just exist in a space where I could be someone else for a while. I lost a lot of friends and family members in 2014-2015, and I might have gone full hermit if I didn't have something like D&D that made me want to interact with people when I didn't strictly need to.
I owe the people who actually make D&D a huge debt for that. The designers and writers at WotC didn't make this choice. Greedy executives did. And unfortunately, it's everyone else who will pay the price for it.
I have an entire shelf on my bookshelf dedicated to 5e books. But even if they change course and don't put out this OGL, the trust is gone. WotC will never get another cent from me.
I recommend supporting Kobold Press with their new game, project black flag. I am waiting on Paizo to announce their stance on the OGL going forward as they're in a legal grey area where they use too many identical terms and present too many mechanics in the same format as D&D. Pathfinder's great but I hesitate to recommend the switch until we know they're going to be able to avoid lawsuits.
The worst part is that in the time I listened you talk about this, I could think of a bunch of better ways they could have monetized D&D without pissing people off like this.
I believe you but can't find any myself, could you give an example or two?
Like bringing own individual ideas to the table. Imagin.
@@G3Dem I mean one company can only be so good at creating new ideas and they've been going for decades. Im sure getting things through QA is a lot harder when you have to be "fresh" after creating an outrageous amount of content over the last 30-so-odd years, which goes ignored in favor of homebrew anyway.
They're obviously looking for a monetization option thats relatively simple to implicate, isn't just double dipping into their own markets (creating unnecessary competition with itself) with as little money for greatest ROI.
On paper, changing their ogl to allow revenue stream, while anti-consumer, opens up INSANE ammounts of monetization ability, especially when the biggest parts of dnd are tied to major media now like Critical Role or Stranger Things.
I feel like I should clarify, I don't like the idea but it makes a lot of sense. Thus why I'd like to see an example of another form of new monetization.
@@chupika6464 I started typing a few examples out and then realized they were kind of the same idea.
They could monetize by becoming a publisher/advertiser for other people's work. Right now with the plan to just take royalties, people are going to be pissed off because they're losing something without actually gaining anything in return. There might be an argument of "Oh, Wizards owns the IP so you've already been getting something for free for years," but in reality we know that D&D did not survive nor thrive because of WotC. Having had the OGL and then revoking it is sort of similar to letting something go into the Public Domain but then trying to take it back out. You can't really, the genie has been let out of the bottle.
However, they could still absolutely parasite off of other people doing all the work in a way that makes them seem less sleazy. They could host contests for material/stories that require a fee for entry, and through a mix of their own judgement + crowd sourced (like, Eurovision style), award and promote the winners on their site. They could offer to promote content that other people have already produced in an "official capacity," on their main site / with some advertisement paid for, but then help themselves to a cut of the ad revenue from what's promoted on that content itself. They could take advantage of all the people who dream of being Critical Role by hosting their own campaigns in a mix of Reality TV / PvP style, which will absolutely fail when you try to do it around a table but would work for a "game show."
By being the official / canon owners they can absolutely dip their hands into the money being made by individual creators, and not get yelled at, by offering something - anything - in return. And just like you CAN produce content and hock it all on your own, print some books and stand on the street corner / have an event at a local book shop, or do a Kobo exclusive, we all know it's way more effective to get into the Amazon ecosystem. For D&D content specifically, getting featured on Wizard's site, news letters, etc would boost your visibility / profits guaranteed, enough to justify letting them have some of it.
This has been a rough first draft written with thumbs on the toilet. My legs are asleep. I am certain that even if there are some flaws it's better than what they're doing.
@@DeDraconis correct me if im wrong but they're not even taking that much money away, i understand the gripes about conent ownership but its a risk i feel people shouldve known they were taking, as goes for any ip someone can make an OC for (granted the social creation aspect is arguably a major aspect of its inclining popularity)
But people will still be able to monetize fairly easily as it sounded that the cut would only take place at the 750k earnings mark, and at 25% for that matter (20% with kickstarter money)
I feel like i must have some facts wrong because this doesnt sound THAT bad to me, although the slippery slope argument shouldn't be ignored.
And I agree about the ideal circumstances of promotion via WotC, but i think its too ideal. From the back view, they'd have to change/update websites, create new systems within those sites, hire more moderation staff and quality assurace staff which I feel like they don't see as worth it, at least in comparisson to opening up revenue in one of their policies which will require probably either new law team training or a new portion of the law team altogether which seems less resource intensive to me.
Before Critical Role started streaming their Vox Machina campaign, they were actually playing it using the Pathfinder system. That's why Percy is a Gunslinger, and why the whole party had so many magic items at such a comparatively low level.
They only switched to D&D when they started streaming.
And maybe their ties to D&D are too deep to just drop it all now, but I can't help but wonder if they might go back to Pathfinder instead of letting WotC tap them for royalties, or maybe even switch to an entirely new system altogether.
After all, Critrole has been mindful to not infringe on any potential copyrights lately - they've stopped using brand-exclusive names (by making up their own names for the deities and referring to Goliaths as "half-giants" instead, for example), so maybe they've already been trying to enforce some deliberate distance between themselves and the brand, in case they'd ever need to step away.
I really hope this stupid move will backfire _hard_ on WotC, by companies like Critrole withdrawing their support for the label.
I did notice the change in names for their new campaign, Leonids and Loxodons have different names too
My first thought was them just picking a different tabletop. People watch more for the performances rather than DnD from what I've gathered.
i kinda feel bad for the wotc employees who do love the games they create. It feels like hasbro is trying to make decisions that will spike profits quickly so they can save themselves with no real care for what end up happening to mtg or dnd in the long run.
Check out "The Dark Eye". It started in the 80s in Germany and is still running successfully until today. Tons of books available for absolutely everything, but one rule book with everything you need to start with.
Everyones right when they say nobody really plays "standard" DND anymore. Most people homebrew or use house rules. DND itself is just the foundation most DMs and players build their story upon and since this news I've already seen two games like DND being announced.
Could you share the like DND games that were announced for us not in the know ? Thank you !!
@@kittykate690 Kobold Press, Matt Colville, and Mechanical Muse are all working on new systems and games. All 3 existed before this but in response to this whole debacle, they, and a few more creators/companies, have announced new things.
Vanilla DnD is literally just a tutorial before REAL Dnd begins
Hasbro is like the equivalent to someone falling down the up escalator in perfect motion so they never reach the bottom of the abyss forever.
Thank you for bringing this to more people’s attention. Hasbro is pile-driving Magic and D and D into the sun.
And doing everything they can to make sure they keep falling too
yea they don’t give a fuck and it’s really sad. MTG is now on a pokemon tier release schedule which is just actually impossible to keep up with due to the design nature of the game. You have to basically live and breathe mtg at this point to be able to keep up. I grinded GP and star city events for years and while one always had lots of homework to do to stay abreast of the meta etc, I didn’t have to read a new set list every 3 mf months. Nor did my wallet have to contend with a release schedule like that as well. Old block system we got 3 sets a year, then they brought that down to 2 a year. It’s gotten so out of hand since they changed the release process. It’s clear they aren’t testing as much as they should either as to be able to keep up with the release schedule. Cards that get printed today would’ve never been printed 10 years ago. Their whole process from design, to testing, to release, has entirely been tainted by Hasbro at this point.
It's really boneheaded that they intend this to get them more royalties, yet also make it virtually impossible for any rational person to ever make content for them, so they won't even get royalties.
I think the cat tree is a wonderful addition to the Moistverse.
Small dnd creator here. Thanks for covering this Charlie. WoTC is walking a path that would kill creativity in their game that is completely about creativity. They would lose the modules and homebrew 5e content that builds this game up into a better version of itself. Not to mention just giving themselves full power to come after any dnd youtuber as well. I hope the social pressure they're facing makes them revert these changes. They're a billion dollar company, they don't need anything else.
Cmon bro. The ceo and stocktakers want their 7th yachts. Be a homie.
I honestly think they're gonna lose even more money
They have big investors they need to keep happy, they must grow year by year or else they suffer. They actually do need more money.
I don't get the outrage honestly. Marvel wouldn't even let someone sell a standalone module for a system they had the rights to.
The sales caps requiring a percentage royalty payment are perfectly reasonable and comparable (but lower) to using Unity or Unreal to make a video game.
Become a small Pathfinder creator. You will enjoy it
"I'm not the most savvy business man in the world". To me, the glorious collection of work on display in the background of your videos says you are. The difference is the passion for what you do and the community you support endlessly. Keep being a hero Charlie.
my heart goes out to larian studios I hope their reputation isn't tarnished in all this they are a great company and we need more game developers like them.
Hearing all this, I wonder if it is part of the reason Larian has been tied to these years of having to get BG3 exactly like the manual mechanics. I mean, it was a cool goal but seemed odd that what is such a clearly long and painstaking task that, while nice, doesn't seem required for a fun game is part of their prime directive. Perhaps there is some plan to try and utilize this platform more extensively for VTT, MMO or other monetization in the future...
@@crystalmassuda This makes me wonder if Owlcat is reaching out to Larian or vice versa to discuss how Pathfinder works for them. I can see Larian deciding to move on to a different system in light of current events.
@Samuel Keillor Of course, for BG3 they have to keep with the current system. They've been working on it for so long that they have to keep it. I'm talking about for future projects.
Can’t see how this could possibly go historical amounts of wrong...
As a Dungeon master I'm very concerned with the direction wizards of the coast is headed, it feels like the fire of creativity and freedom that brought me to D&D is being snuffed out.
is DnD not about your creativity and freedom as a DM? shouldnt matter what WOC is doing, sound like youve just lost your youthful imaginitation
Shouldn’t matter, you’ll still have 5.0 or 3.5 or whatever version you prefer
Hundreds of better systems out there. WotC is just making sure that people branch out and discover them now.
Highly recommend White Wolf's properties. Lot more creative freedom in the systems, and the lore is not so vanilla.
I'm also concerned. Talked to my group and we all agreed that wotc will never get another dime from us. Luckily, I have enough printed content to campaign for the rest of my life.
@@thomasc1270 White Wolf is arguably just as stupid, their publishing house makes so many terrible fucking decisions that literally nobody wants them. Last I heard a couple years ago, they were up for sale and nobody would buy them.
Hasbro seriously underestimates how little the D&D community actually needs them.
It's a game based on imagination so they're not needed at all. It's like owning the rights to I, Spy
I'm always confused when players treat DND rules as laws and get into arguments about some edge case shit like it's Warhammer. In DND the rules don't fucking matter as long as you're having fun and the game designers know this too. The rules are very deliberately formulated to be modular or skippable Because the main point of them is to inspire creativity of players.
You don't need Tashas book to specifically tell you that it is ok to give your orc a different stat bonus or that you don't have to be an elf to learn elven accuracy, you can just do it because it's fun.
Wizards partly made Tasha's because the community came up with these variant rules and they were well liked by a lot of players. They just streamlined all these loose community ideas and put them in one place.
@@Dschonathan They really shouldn't matter in war-hammer either, but those players have done it to themselves, allowing the company to dictate how to paint a piece of metal. To the extent they'll do the policing for the company. MTG is also dependent on the company to some extent...but D&D? You have the oportunity to fight back and win...by walking away.
Yall are the chosen ones, so I really do hope you fare better and choose to do more than beg the company to listen and understand.
😁 We're lower than scum in their eyes. I want you to make them feel pain. Have a nice day!
@@Dschonathan I don't think I agree with that take, you need rules to keep a sense of fairness and impartiality to the player. In 1 player games rules don't matter, but in multiplayer games (both tabletop and online) rules do matter. Rules also helps keep a DM in check also. Played plenty of DnD games with a DM biased against a certain player and/or certain class types and the rules lawyering was the main thing keeping the DM in check.
@@Teo_live I think the point is that the party or the DM agree to rules beforehand and often (I dare say always) they're not 100% vanilla rules. If everyone follows the rules agreed upon before the campaign starts then all concerns of fairness are addressed. But no one uses the whole set or a completely canonical set of rules. Because that would be awfully boring, tedious and it kills creativity. DnD is about creative fun roleplaying and then there's assholes who ruin the fun to have debates about footnotes.
As someone who plays MTG and is well aware of Hasbro's greed, it is nice to have a popular creator talk about it
"As someone who plays MTG and is well aware of Hasbro's greed, it is nice to have a popular creator talk about it"
I'm confused here. I played a small amount of MTG thirty years ago, and I think I bought one starter pack and one booster. I had all this half-made crap. I couldn't make a green deck or a white deck or anything because I had bits and pieces of all colors. Which meant I couldn't do like a fighting game, pick Ryu or Guile or whoever and learn to play that character. That's when I stopped, when I saw that I was just going to have to keep pumping money into random card packs. So my confusion is, isn't the greed and pay to win visible right from the start? This thing just looks like a randomized collector's item with an obvious high price tag. Since they're not playable cards, it's not pay to win, this is like...a game-adjacent prestige thing, not even part of the game. This seems less slimy because they're not surprising you by starting you off with a non-viable deck and then you learn about the value of "rare" cards after sinking fifty bucks into it.
@@TheMisterGuy seeing that you havent looked deeper into how card games work. You can get pre built things to learn how to play and have an idea of construction. Then you can buy packs if you want to gamble or you can order individual cards to build your decks
You and me both, my guy
@@TheMisterGuy MTG player here: sure there are packs, but most people just buy singles (the cards themselves) or preconstructed decks.
If they’re gonna take 25% of your money, then just don’t report your earnings to them? They’re not the goddamned IRS, the fuck are they gonna do about it? No one has to know…
I think this is legitimately a "we're going to make a move in the future that is absurd. So let's leak that we're doing this much more outlandish thing, so the first thing, which we actually want to do, sounds much more reasonable."
The classic "Ill ask Dad for my thing first, cause anything you ask for will sound reasonable afterwards"
This isnt like a game, or a game engine which can be held and gripped by the code, this is something anyone can just pick up and walk away from.
Absolutely maddening choice
Charlie and CoffeeZilla are the only reason I know what's happening at all half the time
*Dont_Read_My_Names* 😏,,
Yeah same lol
@davidlol329huh?
After deleting Twitter this is my only news source lol
And Muta
I've been in a campaign for about 2-3 years now. D&D has become a major part of my life and me and my DM regularly make content and post it on DMsGuild. We've made subclasses, a class, countless spells, we're working on a monster book and on a campaign book. We come up with the concepts, he makes sure they're balanced, I illustrate and they look really good imo. We are passionate about it and believe that there's no better game if you have the right group. This new change is shocking to me. I really cannot fathom how delusional you have to be to kill what made you, the community... I really wanted to one day be able to make D&D content full time, but that doesn't seem like a possibility if this goes through.
Now I don't even know if I'll be able to create D&D things for fun, let alone professionally.
D&D isn't the only tabletop RPG in town. Move on to a better system that isn't run by a company as scummy as Hasbro.
@@dakotaa7535 I know, there's pathfinder, the might also be one by kobold press, there's others too I'm sure. But I personally think D&D is the best one (I know it's subjective) and I like it's vibe the most. If they implement this change I will probably switch, but I prefer D&D by far. The stories, subclasses, spells, etc
Unfortunately you already gave away the rights to your content when you published on DMsguild. The difference is WotC is coming for everyone else now too.
The biggest impact will be regarding future projects. No company now is going to invest in a game that bases itself on D&D when they're skimming 20-25% off the top and perhaps more importantly, they could increase that arbitrarily whenever they wish. It relies heavily on good faith by Hasbro / Wizards of the Coast when they're already not acting in good faith. My guess is they'll retract this quickly once they catch wind of the stink this decision has caused. It is literally not in their best interests to do this for a number of reasons, especially for PR.
Gamesworkshop: "Hold my beer."
As someone whose played Magic: The Gathering with my dad since I was 9, it really REALLY hurts that they went down this path. It really does
Edit: I'm so glad these comments aren't spam bots :)
Come play Doomtown instead :)
Or flesh and blood!
30th anniversary wasn’t a spit in the face but it was a spit on our feet. My concern is that we have only seen the beginning of the jewing
WOTC are doing to Magic what Marvel and DC did to super hero movies, there are so many that I don't watch any of them anymore.
There are just too many new cards and formats to try keep up with. Im getting less and less excited for new sets, I love new cards but damn Im saturated at this point.
People saying just play X or Y don't understand what it means to connect an experience to a loved one. My dad also taught me how to play at 13 and I've been on and off ever since. AT this point, it's as much about the nostalgia as the game itself
Imagine how much better D&D could be if Wizards of the Coast actually cared about their player base instead of ripping into our wallets
Haven't opened spelljammer once it's sad
Same goes for magic the gathering players
Imagine how much better everything would be if any company cared about the consumer instead of ripping into our wallets
only in a perfect world...
These bots tryna predict popular comments
That's the reason I still play D&D 2.0 ed
As someone fairly new to D&D, I always felt that all the freedom we had was too good to be true. Even if this gets stopped, my trust in WOTC has been shattered. Don't just settle for homebrew, make something so homebrew it isn't D&D anymore.
Wasn't DnD already homebrewed to the point of not being DnD anymore?
Honestly I have to wonder if they ever planned to release more Greyhawk content.
Don't settle for homebrew D&D, play Savage Worlds
After watching this video, after reading comments, I still don't understand. Can't average players just keep playing the game and keep creating their own adventures and stuff? It's just.. stuff on paper. Anyone can play. I don't understand how these new guidelines are even enforceable for the average, regular human player, DM or not.
It doesn't, directly. However, many in the scene like to support each other, and that includes people like me, in a podcast, or vastly more famous people like Matt Mercer or Kobold Press, etc.
When 4th edition came out, people stopped playing D&D and went over to Pathfinder. As a player and a DM, I've already started seeing the same thing happen between the whole thing with the OGL and One D&D having some questionable rule changes.