Enerla's page

A word of warning: The post will be very long. But I will copy the most important part to the front of it:

The worst problem so far

Morality clause is problematic, because if it is up to Wizards to decide about it, but WE grant the license to someone else, WE can still be sued for illegal discrimination, or many other clauses when Wizard is biased. This can be a huge risk of individual creators who would release their works under the OGL... If courts would find illegal discrimination in these decisions even in cases where Wizards isn't a party, and people lose a lot because of it... That could be one of the biggest scandals of the RPG history. Imagine if some 14-15 years old creators would face this.

If WE creators would decide about the morality clause, that would create a huge minefield as different things would be seen as immoral in Russia, Saudi-Arabia, Hungary, Brazil, Israel, USA... If a Saudi creator would use a moral clause against some LGBT content, that would create a far bigger scandal for Wizards than the Star Frontier debacle.

If we believe that this level of stupidity is the most important goal for Wizards in an effect to "protect their reputation" then seeing their incompetence and arrogance seems to be incredible...

Introduction

I can't reward you with much, but I can explain why I am tankful for the move, why I am angry at Wizards. Even if it is long and ranty, there can be new points in it and maybe you can use some of these ideas to rally people to the cause of ORC.

Let me introduce myself, just to give some context to my opinion.

It is my first post on Paizo forums, and while I have bought 2 software products on the page. I have over 30 years of experience as a player and DM. I remember how I enjoyed Campaign Mapper from an AD&D Core Rules CD-ROM, once I managed to get a license to use Campaign Cartographer I was hooked in, so map making is one of my side hobbies.

Played online even on IRC. For a time, I used some games in an attempt to create some character art, but at a point I was so unhappy at EA, that I decided to boycott them. They had their 2nd chance later, but it doesn't change the fact that it led me using Poser at first to make character art, then DAZ Studio, Carrara, etc. as they can do wonders even without much artistic talent. It allowed me to create some assets for my map making.

Some people asked to use some maps, some wanted to use tokens, some asked if they can use some character art. Some even wanted to use cool encounter designs. This hobby is expensive so sharing is important. If someone wanted an official license to use my art in small products they can publish somewhere, my approach was usually why not?

This is in essence how I became an OGL creator. And this is why I support ORC now. And even if helping a friend led to financial hardship, and their games isn't my cup of tea, I am willing to back that up with my wallet. But I would prefer a donation option.

I am both happy because Paizo stepped up to protect us, and I am unhappy because with several different incompatible copyleft licenses on the market we all lose. All because the arrogance of Wizards. Sadly with incompatible licenses on the market when someone wants to use something (even maps, art, etc) his choice is limited to content that can be used under compatible licenses. If the best choice cannot be used because this new division on the market, quality will suffer. As wizards already lost trust of many creators and we already have other options (Creative Commons, etc) fragmenting the market isn't only a possibility, but it is something that is probably happened.

OGL was about an open-source community of equal creators, just as much as people who are using Creative Commons, or BSD license, etc. are equal. It is the most important value Wizards disrespected and Paizo tried to protect. Thank you for that.

My view about the deauthorization debacle

To understand the debacle about deauthorizing the licence we should understand why a license should be authorized. Wizards can update the license and once they are happy with the result, they can publish it, if they want to make sure the new license isn't used for old products, they can license under a new name. If they want some old products to use a new license, they have an option to offer that license with certain old products. If we look at Wizards only the need to authorize a license seems to be redundant.

But the moment when you think about the whole OGL market, you see plenty of creators. If I am willing to release some art under OGL 1.0a, I might disagree with OGL 1.1 or OGL 1.2 so I might not authorize the future version of license to be used with my content. Of course, Wizards has no legal rights to authorize others to use a new license with my content. Wizards also has no rights to interfere with a contact between me and another smaller creator by changing, deauthorizing the license without the consent of both parties.

And there is no such thing as deauthorizing a license, you can only revoke it, if it isn't prevented by the license itself. The authorization clause was in the license to protect the whole community from abuse by Wizards.

Their need for the new OGL started from how Wizards failed to renew the trademark for TSR, for the Star Frontiers, and how many people tend to use the D&D name when they speak about other (incompatible, not D&D based) RPGs and they might go on the way of Xerox. They are willing to hurt others to fix some problems their negligence created, and it wouldn't fix or help anyone.

This speaks volumes about competence of Wizards and Hasbro leaders. Their stupidity led to them not understanding how the OGL market works, where there was help for them, they seen abuse. Stupidity, reinforcement bias, their bubbles and echo chambers led to the blatantly unacceptable OGL 1.1 draft, and they were too stupid to see why it will be bad.

But their need for deauthorizing old OGL comes from the Star Frontiers problem mostly caused by their incompetence, and this is why it is a redline for them where they don't want to budge. But as this move is already unacceptable to many. To prevent Star Frontiers type problems, we don't need a moral clause in OGL, Wizards would need competent management that doesn't let trademarks expire, and preferably something like the old trademark license we seen for d20 system for compatible but independent products. This way it would be easy to differentiate between independent and Wizards made product.

Wizards is willing to hurt young creators who are still working on their products, and they are willing to hurt anyone else. Deauthorization is bad.

My controversial opinion: UDHR is important
We are in a global community. While the licence itself has a clause about jurisdiction, applicable law, etc. But when you see a lawsuit about illegal discrimination, some illegal business practices, etc. it will be under various different jurisdictions, and laws of various different countries will be applied.

International laws and agreements almost never apply directly. Buit different laws will protect these values in many legal systems and jurisdictions, and countries agreed to protect these rights. While Universal Declaration of Human Rights only has indirect effect in an illegal discrimination case in Germany, laws of Washington State has 0 relevance, so referencing these rights are the most relevant option globally.

My view about the morality clause in OGL 1.2

OGL was fundamentally different from the trademark license for d20 system.

If we would talk about a morality clause in a trademark license, where it is always Wizards granting you a license, and anything published under their brand would reflect mostly on their brand. Here a morality clause is important, could be justified even if we assume that Wizards might be biased or even if we know that Wizards is biased.

OGL is an open-source license. It used by various publishers and individuals to grant a license to use their own creations to another publisher and individual. Often Wizards isn't a real party in this agreement, they only created the open source license itself. As the license granted by a creator adds value to the OGL community and Wizards owned IPs that depend on this community, it benefits them. For me as a creator if you come and want to use my tokens, maps under creative commons or under OGL or under some obscure license I gain nothing from it.

If I want to grant a license to you, that should be between us, it should be about my morality and not theirs. Sadly, in an OGL even if you update the copyright notice, a lot of other stuff still points to Wizards, so the "we" who make decision in morality cases would be still them. It is a total disrespect towards other creators.

There is an obvious elephant in the room: how our morality is different. I think mutual respect is important, but I also believe in the golden rule: treat others the way you want to be treated. There should be a balance between these two values. When people are asked to stop offensive behavior, reminded of the golden already had 2 or more chances to say they were only unintentionally offensive, if they don't current and support predatory behavior, attack victims, attack young victims (still in school) and who aren't there to defend themselves, I respect their implied wishes of similar treatment, and that can be offensive, like the word "sir". You can have negative opinion about groups based on your experience but judging anyone based solely on that (prejudice) is stupid and wrong.

I believe that in RPGs we can see conflicts from many sides, our characters might negotiate peace, and a good RPG teaches us tolerance. I also believe that due some design choices D&D isn't that good in this area to say the least, but people who want to play simpler games after a long and hard day are okay. Designing and developing a game that teaches people how it is okay to kill and rob savages, monsters outside points of lights, where stories and changes reinforce prejudice can make a publisher bad. They have said D&D is about killing horrible monsters and taking their treasure.

According to some this is why some official content for D&D is a bit boring, uninspired... We went back to before story revolution, but also lost some morality, the remaining story and creativity on the way. All in the effort of focusing on violence. Again: There is nothing wrong when someone with little time and who is tired seeks old school simplicity, but when Wizards pushes the idea that violence is the main solution to a younger audience that is a very different story.

I know the risk of self-censorship, chilling effects on creativity, and I have to admit I like several historical settings and games and they would be affected most. As you can see, I am far from perfect, some can claim me as "offensive" and we can see many other claims too, some justified, some unjustified. But even if some creators can be worse, we would avoid horrible products (they will be released anyway), and would be still richer by some of the good content.

It is clear, that if we would accept OGL 1.2 we would further hurt innocent creators, innocent gamers, plenty of members of community to protect ourself from almost nothing. Star Frontiers: New Genesis which might be a horrible game, or a parody on alleged racism of some other games would still happen with morality clause, the community wouldn't be protected from anything, as you cannot copyright the rules. Ohh, you wouldn't be able to call your spell magic missile? Okay, call it anti-hasbro missile, with same damage to anyone else, but triple damage against Hasbro clowns.

Sadly, my views on morality and the ones held by Wizards / Hasbro seems to be very different. This is one reason why their approach of a morality clause would be offensive to me.

But my morality is far less important than some universal values. Some of them are defined in Declaration of Universal Human Rights, others like how protecting the innocent are more important than catching the guilty are also important for us.

Some say these universal rights only limit states... But the protection against slander also coming from these rights. Some say some rights are only about criminal cases, but those don't determine our rights and responsibilities. We speak universal values.

Fairness, access to justice is VERY important. When the morality clause of Wizards wants to take away all the legal remedies that shows how horribly immoral their morality clause is. Funny?

We can open Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Articles 7,8, 10, 12 all speaking about the importance of it. And when Wizards claims you done something wrong, and punishes you it that is as close as violating 11 as a private company can get.

OGL isn't like a trademark license that can be only between Wizards and someone else, it can be between me and you.

The worst problem so far

Morality clause is problematic, because if it is up to Wizards to decide about it, but WE grant the license to someone else, WE can still be sued for illegal discrimination, or many other clauses when Wizard is biased. This can be a huge risk of individual creators who would release their works under the OGL... If courts would find illegal discrimination in these decisions even in cases where Wizards isn't a party, and people lose a lot because of it... That could be one of the biggest scandals of the RPG history.

If WE creators would decide about the morality clause, that would create a huge minefield as different things would be seen as immoral in Russia, Saudi-Arabia, Hungary, Brazil, Israel, USA... If a Saudi creator would use a moral clause against some LGBT content, that would create a far bigger scandal for Wizards than the Star Frontier debacle.

If we believe that this level of stupidity is the most important goal for Wizards in an effect to "protect their reputation" then seeing their incompetence and arrogance seems to be incredible...