The thing is, D&D is not a game.

I know that sounds insane, but hear me out: D&D is not a game, it is a games console. You don't actually "play D&D." You play "Dragon Heist" or "Tomb of Annihilation" or "Ghosts of Saltmarsh" or "your GM's homebrew campaign" or "the plot of Critical Role Season 1 reconstructed from memory" on D&D.

For quite a long while now - possibly literal decades - D&D hasn't even been the best games console, but it's been "the one everyone knows about" and "the one my friends have" and in fact it's "the one whose name is almost synonymous with the entire medium of TTRPGs," like how "Nintendo" or "Playstation" could just mean "games console" to people who didn't understand games consoles. They might not have heard of a "tabletop roleplaying game," but most people have heard of "Dungeons & Dragons."

For this extended metaphor, D&D is Nintendo back in the 90s, or Playstation in the 2000s. Sometimes you say "oh let's go to my house and play Nintendo" or "c'mon dude I wanna play Playstation" but you're not actually playing Nintendo or Playstation, you're playing Resident Evil or Super Mario Bros or Jurassic Park or Metal Gear Solid or whatever on a Nintendo or a Playstation.

Now, this metaphor is going to get even more tortured, but remember how when the PS2 and the original X-Box came out, they used a standardised DVD format, but the Nintendo console in that generation, the Gamecube, used discs but they were this proprietary tiny little disc format that they had control over? That essentially meant that it was really difficult to make third party titles for the Gamecube that did literally anything that Nintendo didn't want them to do, and also essentially gave Nintendo an even greater ability to skim money off the top of any sales?

So that must've seemed like a smart business decision in their heads. But the PS2 and the X-Box used DVDs. This was a standardized format which gave Microsoft and Sony way less control over who made games for their consoles, but that actually turned out to be a good thing for gaming, because it meant that the breadth of games that you could play on their consoles was massively increased even if some of them were games Microsoft and Sony didn't really approve of. (Also it's worth nothing that the PS2 and the X-Box could just play DVDs, which meant if your household was on a budget, you didn't need a separate DVD player - your games console could do it for you! This was actually a huge selling point!)

What Wizards are currently trying to do now is kinda-sorta the equivalent of Sony suddenly announcing that the PS5 will only accept a proprietary cartridge format they hold the patent on, will control the content of and charge money for the construction of. This possibly seems like it could be a moneymaker in your head because you hold market dominance (apparently the PS5 has 30 million units shipped compared to X-Box Series X 20 million units) and so many people make games for your console, but what it actually means is game devs and publishers will abandon your product. If it takes so much more work, the scope of what they're allowed to do is so much more limited and they're going to make less money off of it, they just won't bother. They'll go make games for the X-Box or PC instead.

To use another computer metaphor, D&D is Windows - it might not be the best system but it's the system most people are familiar with and so it gets the most stuff made for it, but there's is an upper limit on the bullshit people will take before they decide fuck it and get an Apple or learn how Linux works.

TTRPG systems are a weird product because you're not selling people a game, you're selling people a method to play a game. All the actual games are created by the community - even prewritten campaigns needs to be executed via a game master. Trying to skim money off the community will mean they'll eventually give up on you.

So, it seems like WOTC hired an AI artist for their latest book (Glory of the Giants). The "artist" (in their social media) openly advertises themself as an AI "artist".

I guess the whole OGL mess and sending the Pinkertons wasn't enough, they had to reach a new low. Fantastic timing, gotta say, all while GenCon (the biggest TTRPG con) is currently ongoing.

WE. FUCKING. WON.

They will not be moving forward with the new OGL. It will remain as is and will be irrevocable. Thank you to everyone that made their voices heard and made sure they understood we would not compromise. Victory is ours!

There are a lot of crazy things happening right now with developing information about Wizards of the Coast, Hasbro, and the future of Dungeons & Dragons. If you are confused about ONE DND or what is the OGL (open game license) and why it's so important to pay attention to what is being done to it I highly recommend watching the video below.

He gives a great breakdown of what has happened, what information we currently have, and possibly what this mess can lead to. Truly, the future of the DND community is at stake, with so many creators at risk AND any system or content even partially related to DND (such as Pathfinder) is also in the crossfire. So many people are talking about the crazy legalities of it all, and it's a lot and complicated and we just don't have all the info because it just isn't out there yet. So, if you care about DND, about TTRPGS, about communities and people who enjoy a thing being able to continue to enjoy it, watch this video.

I'm begging y'all to just move now. Play something else. Make content for something else. Many games have OGLs, or make your own games. I'm doing that right now and it's the most fun I've had game designing all year. Please. I'm begging.

So my tiefling bard Orion is a One DnD build where they made bards prepared casters because that’s obviously better in every way. The only downside was that I got the Arcane Spell list but only certain types of magic like illusion, divination, transmutation. But not the powerful wizardy blow stuff up spells.

So I had to go through and diligently check the school of magic on each spell and I made a document called Spells I Can Cast. And then I went and cross referenced that against the bard spell list that included supplementary material and then my DM went through and took some of those bard specific spells away because they were the wrong school of magic.

And the new way they did Magical Secrets is that you just pick one of the three spell lists and have access to the entire list. Every day I get to prepare two spells from a different list. I picked Arcane because we have a cleric and Druid so I didn’t need Divine or Primal spells.

So this morning I went through and supplemented the rest of the Arcane Spell list into my document but now I have to cross reference supplemental bard and wizard spells into it. And because I’ve never played a wizard I’m gonna read through all those spells and annotate ones I think will be useful.

Question about One D&D discussion post-Reddit

Hey, does anyone know where the One D&D community went post the Reddit crash? Pretty much all the D&D subreddits went dark and I don’t see an increase of activity on EN World or rpg.net. 

Wow so this new dnd edition already has:

-A terrible VTT with video game monetization.

-People switching to pathfinder.

-Rules changes meant to fix the old system that just make it worse.

-OGL drama.

Can't wait for dnd 4.5th edition.

[D&D PLAYTEST] Pleasant surprise: 5.5 is actually getting good! And in combat I can FINALLY do something more exciting than "hit it again"

So this was my biggest issue with 5e: when I play a character who's good at hitting things, as opposed to flinging spells at things, I want to do cool shit! I love tactical combat, and I can't stand it when "I hit it again" is the only option of a martial character. Everyone should have options, but especially the Rogue. (I'm biased, yes, but the Rogue is conceptually the one class that fights dirty.) And disappointingly, not even the Swashbuckler got manoeuvres in 5e. For everyone other than Battle Masters and monks with Stunning Strike, our only options in 2014 were a measly Shove / Grapple / Disarm IN PLACE of an attack (for many of us, our only attack), and that was WITH optional DMG features. And Tasha's additions were only a marginal improvement.

You couldn't impose conditions with an attack, which, from a simulation aspect, is just silly. Any two-bit caster could do the craziest shit with spells, but an epic level martial couldn't even say "I hit 'em so hard or so deftly that they got a headache". For the most part, they could only say "I hit it again" and deal damage. And I hate that. It's boring. I even had an unfinished homebrew project of Called Shots, where you could spend a resource to do interesting shit with your attacks (give 'em disadvantage, make 'em dazed, reduce speed, that sort of thing). For Rogues, that resource was Sneak Attack dice. And guess what! In the latest version of the 5.5 playtest, WE GET THAT!

Can I get a fuck yeah, and also a fucking finally.

It's not an automatic win button, and that's good! I don't want win buttons (that's also boring), I want options. Cunning Strike is situationally useful, and that's ideal: if it's always good, you'd do it every time (so why isn't it a standard rule?), and if it's always bad, you'd never do it (so why does it exist at all?). If it's potentially good, depending on the situation, it means I get to THINK what I'm gonna do on my turn, and that's such a joy.

For years now, the only combat decisions my Rogues made in 5e were about movement/positioning, and how to get advantage. And co-ordinating with the others, which always happens, I mean it's a group game. But I had very little to contribute in that department other than flanking, I usually just waited for THEM to help ME to get advantage or something.

With this feature (which I'll be stealing as is, regardless of what happens to the playtest, or if I'm gonna adopt 5.5 as a whole or not), I can set up moves for others, I can impose conditions, so many things. Plus, it's customisable. Now that this basic framework is in place, anyone can fiddle with it and come up with new effects that fit their game and style. (I am NOT in favour of perfect rulesets that cover all bases, needs, and preferences, since that's an impossible and silly thing to ask. I am in favour of solid frameworks, that can be easily tweaked and built upon.) So I am ecstatic. I don't have to hit it again every time! Holy shit!

This is not a blanket endorsement of "One D&D" (I'll keep calling it 5.5, thankyouverymuch). It's still a work in progress, I haven't even read all of it in yet, and I do have issues with it, big and small. (And if my favourite class was the Monk, I'd be thumbs down right now: this one needs a lot of work, oof.) But with Weapon Mastery rules (another interesting development for martial characters), and better feats, and with this enormous improvement, I feel that some of the fundamental problems I had with 5e get... kinda solved. The new Rogue simply KICKS ASS. The whole class, not just Cunning Strike, it's a huge improvement. [Go read it, here's the PDF link.]

It's not overpowered, mind you. In terms of damage output it still lags behind Fighters and Barbarians and whathaveyou (which I'm perfectly okay with: Rogues are experts and skillmonkeys, they got stuff to do out of combat, meanwhile Barbarians have ONE JOB so they better be scary good at it), and full casters still slay. It just does cool shit, and I ask you: why do we even bother with the fuckton of combat rules in D&D if not to do cool shit?

See treantmonk's video below for a nice breakdown of the new Rogue. It's a few months old, and a couple of things have been revised since then: there's no "Arcane" spell list any more, so the Arcane Trickster presumably reverts to the Wizard spell list, and the Weapon Mastery rules are slightly different now. But they're very minor changes, and all the conclusions, with which I wholeheartedly agree, stand: this is simply FANTASTIC.

How the OGL will affect YOU the Player

Gamer Solidarity is important, but here are the ways it might affect you the player. If the new OGL happens as it was written in the leak, here's how it might affect you, the person who only plays - It WILL cost you more money - WotC/Hasbro wants to move to a monthly subscription. One D&D would see you paying a monthly fee even if you're not online. So if you're using something like Roll20 or Tabletop Simulator, you'd be paying licensing fees for D&D on top of whatever they charge to use their platform. (they also want to do micro-transactions, which could also make it pay-to-win, but I'll cover that in another point).

It will be harder to find a group - Gamer Solidarity means a lot to a lot of people. Those of us who are mostly unaffected are still likely to side with the creators of the content we love. People are going to be refusing to play the new version, and moving to totally different systems or playing the old versions straight from the books. It's also going to be harder to find somebody willing to GM, which leads me into the next point -

There will be less GMs - Even if you somehow don't care that it's goinng to cost more for GMs, the new OGL will make it harder for them to run the game (which, BTW, 5th is already a lot more work for GMs than a lot of other systems) it's going to make the pool of people willing to run D&D smaller. Just don't play the new system you might say? Well, WotC has made it so it costs licensing fees to run it with Roll20 or Tabletop Simulator- and they're charging GMs more. Not to mention how if a GM uses 3rd party content, that content may not be available anymore thanks to the new OGL. Also, if you manage to find a GM running the newest version, the micro-transactions WotC wants to add in will make balancing encounters much more difficult.

Your favorite 3rd party creators will probably leave D&D - There's a lot of content that's been published under the old OGL and instead of grandfathering that in, WotC wants to just revoke the license. These means legal action could possibly be taken against them, even if they're publishing for versions of D&D that are out of print. The new OGL also means that WotC is allowed to just TAKE their content - so for fear of having their IP stolen, a lot of creators just aren't going to make things for D&D anymore. For ANY version.

Public Play will be an even bigger nightmare - This isn't really the OGL here, but this monthly subscription and micro-transaction BS only rewards those with cash and you WILL find yourself at the table with some asshole who bought a bunch of crap and is making the session all about them. I was there, I saw it happen with 4th.

None of this will affect me! - Well, good for you I guess? If you already have a steady game group who is all financially well off enough (or has a member willing to sponsor those that aren't) and you're all excited to try out the next edition D&D - cool, but if there are enough of you, you're supporting the people who do NOT care about you or the game. All they want is your money - and wouldn't it FEEL better to put that money somewhere better? (if your answer is to play in person, with an old edition, from books you already have, you're actually already kinda supporting the movement against the new OGL - be vocal about it)

Final Points - WotC didn't make D&D, they bought it. We aren't talking about a creator trying to regain control of their IP here, we're talking about a greedy company that wants to squash the competition. 3.0 saw a huge D&D resurgence into popularity, thanks a lot to the OGL. They tried messing with it before, this is why 4th edition gets shit on so much - I was there. (4th is actually a wonderfully accessible system and corporate greed messed it up). Fifth is so popular because the OGL came back, because content creators could make stuff for the new system again. WotC wants to STEAL these creators content. It's baked into the new OGL - they want the 3rd Party Creators to pay WotC royalties but if they take your self-published content and print it in one of their official books? They owe you jack-all. This will change the face of how IP legally works if it's allowed to just happen. It sets a DANGEROUS precedent for large companies to be able to retroactively steal IP.

Call to Action - Be against it, be loud, share with others WHY this is bad. Vote with your wallet, because that's all that WotC cares about- they have shown us now more than ever before, they do NOT care about you or the community. CANCEL YOUR DnD BEYOND if you have one - they have actually said this internally that the only numbers they're looking at as proof of if this will work are the DnD Beyond memberships. Cancel it. Might I suggest Roll20, Foundery, Tabletop Simulator, or Obsidian Portal for storing your character sheets for now?

Hope this helped somebody. I might write more about this topic.

So it looks like to further reduce bioessentialism in D&D, WotC is putting ability score bonuses in backgrounds instead of races in One D&D, which is... actually an extremely cool take that I can't believe I hadn't considered before. It also comes with a feat! Very cool way to customize backgrounds, and even mix and match traits.

I am super into this.

OGL Update

OK, now I think we can say "we've won" (this battle, if not the war): irrespective of any further WotC bullshittery, the CC-BY-4.0 license is irrevocable, so whatever happens now, at a bare minimum, the entire 5e SRD 5.1 is forever available to third party creators.

Beyond that... Well, it's good that WotC have said they will not deauthorize the OGL 1.0a for content produced in that framework, though it was always a kinda bad license and as far as I am aware such statements are in no way legally binding, so I would still recommend any third party creators to move to exclusively using the CC content where possible.

I hope Paizo continue with the development of the ORC license, as it would be good to have a proper system neutral alternative which was designed explicitly with the particular needs of the TTRPG hobby in mind. Once that license is released, it will at least provide developers with the option of whether they embrace standard CC licenses or follow the ORC if they want to give their content back to the community.

I also hope that people who were encouraged to try new games from this whole fiasco go ahead with that. The world of TTRPGs is rich and diverse, and while I think 5e does serve a particular niche exceptionally well (far better than some give it credit), there's a lot that can be gained by playing other games, both for the experience of the games themselves and as a learning point for how to improve your experience of your preferred system(s).

Lastly, I hope that folks remember this episode - and treat WotC/Hasbro with the suspicion they deserve going forward. They may have realised that they overstepped with this particularly blatant attempted power-grab, but that realisation will not change their fundamental goals and objectives: namely, the monopolisation of the mainstream TTRPG hobby and the increasing monetisation of the D&D brand in particular. As such, the lesson the executives are likely to learn from all this is not that they shouldn't mess with the fans, but that if they do, they need to find subtler ways of doing it.

So stay sharp, remember to take your turn on watch, and above all, remember this: they need us more than we need them.

There will always be other TTRPGs to play.

Paizo has made an official statement about the OGL 1.1:

We believe, as we always have, that open gaming makes games better, improves profitability for all involved, and enriches the community of gamers who participate in this amazing hobby. And so we invite gamers from around the world to join us as we begin the next great chapter of open gaming with the release of a new open, perpetual, and irrevocable Open RPG Creative License (ORC).

The new Open RPG Creative License will be built system agnostic for independent game publishers under the legal guidance of Azora Law, an intellectual property law firm that represents Paizo and several other game publishers. Paizo will pay for this legal work. We invite game publishers worldwide to join us in support of this system-agnostic license that allows all games to provide their own unique open rules reference documents that open up their individual game systems to the world. To join the effort and provide feedback on the drafts of this license, please sign up by using this form.

In addition to Paizo, Kobold Press, Chaosium, Green Ronin, Legendary Games, Rogue Genius Games, and a growing list of publishers have already agreed to participate in the Open RPG Creative License, and in the coming days we hope and expect to add substantially to this group.

This is massive news! Paizo has assured that their usage of the OGL for PF2 was optional, and meant to help third party content creators more than being something they relied on for their own system.

Now, they will be creating the ORC, which will be a successor to the OGL which many third party content creators will be able to benefit from. They will be taking measures to ensure the ORC won’t belong to any company, so this doesn’t repeat itself, and covering the legal costs of getting it coming to fruition. Which is massive news in these times.

A lot of third party content creators and smaller TTRPGs have already expressed their support to this new ORC already.

Amidst these news, I’d like to remind what has WOTC been doing currently instead:

DnD Beyond suddenly saw their option to unsuscribe disappear, which they blamed on servers. (Trust me: I have coded pages, and it’s not something that just casually can disappear because of server saturation)

A recurrent stream from DnD Beyond was cancelled. They claimed it is unrelated to the OGL news

WOTC has once again delayed a proper official statement about the OGL, and has been holding off from confirming it.

People have been ending their subscription for DnDBeyond as a form of protest, as it’s the metric WOTC is currently using to measure the impact of the new OGL.

Overall, employees have reported that the situation at WOTC right now is a massive mess, as the new OGL was not supposed to be leaked (contrary to what people had theorized). 

Keep pushing WOTC to revoke the OGL, of course. If all these changes have been happening, it’s thanks to the reunited effort from the community and creators to fight against it.

(As always, reblogs for awareness are appreciated!)

BOYCOTT WOTC AND D&D BEYOND, CANCEL YOUR SUBS

https://twitter.com/DnD_Shorts/status/1613576298114449409?t=DLX6kL3IZeFTWFq3CxKJhg&s=19

Today

Paramount twitter account announced live action series based on Dungeons & Dragons... and got spammed with people making it very clear they’re gonna boycott it if Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro won’t ensure perservation of OGL 1.0a

Kobold Press, biggest publisher of 5e third-party content announced they’re fufilling their kickstarters and then will make their own game ruleset free of use and not attached to any OGL, basically recreating events that lead to birth of Pathfinder a.k.a. the very thing OGL 1.1 was supposed to prevent

Legal Eagle, lawyer youtuber with near 3 millions followers, respont to Matt Collville’s twitter thread about OGL clusterfuck with “Can we chat?”

 Paizo, publishers of Pathfinder, just announced Third Party Kon - a convention to celebrate and promote 3rd party Pathfinder publishers. I assume “Chad Kon” name was taken.

I really do not want to be in shoes of Hasbro and WotC executives right now