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LOL, Really. Come take away my 1st ed books and stop me from running my game in MY world that s 100% mine<brandishes 1E Core Rule Book> I'll give you my books when you pry them from my cold, dead hands! :pIt's not that I ever went away, I'm just quietly GM'ing three campaigns in 1E. Not much new to talk about there. ^^Just you wait until the Wizard Lawyers come knocking at your door to take away your unauthorized 1E OGL 1.0a books!
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Well, I just bought every rulebook for 2E that I don't already own. Paizo gets some additional $ for legal defense, and WotC can come and try to take my books. They will be guarded by three house cats, one of whom may pee on their shoes.
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I think either there was a miscommunication or he's getting a lot of work out of the phrase "access to 'traditional' names"
OK, I've read it, and it actually seems pretty much in line with what I was saying. Nowhere in that post does he say anything about the OGL being there "mostly for access to 'traditional' names", which is the main phrase I objected to in the post I quoted, and he does say, for instance, that "most of the monsters that touch WotC's trade dress protections... have been reworked", which implies that some haven't—which is exactly what I was saying. The main gist of the post seems to be that the PF2 system has been divorced from the SRD, which is of course true, but I don't see anything in there to contradict the point I was trying to make, which is that yes, Paizo could remove all the SRD material from Pathfinder, but there would be a little more to it than just a few name changes, and it would be a somewhat larger undertaking than a lot of people are acknowledging.
I'm not trying to be an alarmist here; like I said, it's entirely possible for Paizo to divorce Pathfinder completely from the SRD—and in fact at this point it seems likely they're going to do that eventually whether this new license ends up being enforced or not. I'm just saying that I think some people are underestimating the amount of changes that's going to take. It's definitely doable, and at this point probably inevitable, but there are a few beloved monsters, for instance, that are going to have to either go away or be significantly altered.
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I think either there was a miscommunication or he's getting a lot of work out of the phrase "access to 'traditional' names"
OK, I've read it, and it actually seems pretty much in line with what I was saying. Nowhere in that post does he say anything about the OGL being there "mostly for access to 'traditional' names", which is the main phrase I objected to in the post I quoted, and he does say, for instance, that "most of the monsters that touch WotC's trade dress protections... have been reworked", which implies that some haven't—which is exactly what I was saying. The main gist of the post seems to be that the PF2 system has been divorced from the SRD, which is of course true, but I don't see anything in there to contradict the point I was trying to make, which is that yes, Paizo could remove all the SRD material from Pathfinder, but there would be a little more to it than just a few name changes, and it would be a somewhat larger undertaking than a lot of people are acknowledging.
I'm not trying to be an alarmist here; like I said, it's entirely possible for Paizo to divorce Pathfinder completely from the SRD—and in fact at this point it seems likely they're going to do that eventually whether this new license ends up being enforced or not. I'm just saying that I think some people are underestimating the amount of changes that's going to take. It's definitely doable, and at this point probably inevitable, but there are a few beloved monsters, for instance, that are going to have to either go away or be significantly altered.
If Pathfinder has to create a 3rd edition because of this, then I will happily spend my money buying everything. (And never look at DnD again.)
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I'm not a lawyer, but whether it is an omission or deliberate, the limitation to only the 5.1 SRD being licensed content implicitly excludes all commercial 3rd party material using the 3.5 SRD, even if the publisher agreed to OGL 1.1.Uh, that might actually be true.
But what does PF2 use that is in the SRD? Basically, all that is left is names. Names of creatures, spells, and items – the implementations are all different from the SRD, I think.
I honestly don't think it needs to go that far. Paizo has already removed all proprietary names (Mordenkainen, Bigby etc) from Pathfinder 1 and 2, and it is debateable whether any attempt by WotC to claim they hold copyright on "Magic Missile" would actually fly.
On generic names. TSR actually won a case against the Tolkien estate that even though the elves and dwarves of D&D are absolutely taken wholesale from Lord of the Rings, the fact that the concept of elves and dwarfs exist in mythology and real life means that Tolkien cannot hold copyright on them.
So things like "magic missile", "acid arrow", "fireball" etc. would be impractical to try an enforce a copyright on.
On created names: In an incredible sense of irony, I believe WotC do hold copyright on "Treant" - a word they invented to get around the copyright of "Ent" by the Tolkien estate. As copyright holds only within the given medium, this means that while Blizzard and others can merrily use the term, likely Paizo will need to rename them.
On Repurposed Names: The same almost certainly applies to any invented names, but not to repurposed names. E.g. "Drow" is a mythological creature (derived from troll), making it public domain, and given the Pathfinder lore for the drow is completely different to that published under the D&D trademark, I'd imagine any copyright claim would be an uphill battle for WotC.
I'd imagine Paizo has already had this discussion internally, and it may well be why a number of iconic creatures changed names in PF2 (e.g. "Bloodseeker").
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I honestly don't think it needs to go that far. Paizo has already removed all proprietary names (Mordenkainen, Bigby etc) from Pathfinder 1 and 2, and it is debateable whether any attempt by WotC to claim they hold copyright on "Magic Missile" would actually fly.
Paizo couldn't have used "Mordenkainen" and "Bigby" if it wanted to; they weren't in the SRD. (The spell Bigby's crushing hand, for instance, was just crushing hand in the SRD.)
On created names: In an incredible sense of irony, I believe WotC do hold copyright on "Treant" - a word they invented to get around the copyright of "Ent" by the Tolkien estate. As copyright holds only within the given medium, this means that while Blizzard and others can merrily use the term, likely Paizo will need to rename them.
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure you're confusing copyright and trademark there, which are two very different things. First of all, you can't copyright individual words; you can only copyright entire works. Secondly, when you trademark a term, you have to specify the medium or business it's going to be used for, but that's not true for copyright.
That being said, I very much doubt WotC has specific trademarks on individual monster names like "treant" and "xorn", but it doesn't have to; they're parts of a copyrighted work, and anything else using them could be argued to be part of a derivative work.
As for their use in computer games... for whatever reason, WotC has been much more lax about enforcing their proprietary rights to certain monsters in computer games than in other media. Heck, that was true of TSR back in the early days, too; the early Ultima CRPGs ripped off a whole passel of D&D monsters wholesale, some with some very minor name changes (carrion crawler -> carrion creeper, xorn -> zorn, mind flayer -> mind ripper); and the early Final Fantasy games used a lot of D&D monsters too, though the transliteration to Japanese and back to English somewhat obscured them (they've been changed in later games to make them more distinct from their original inspirations, but in the original Final Fantasy, "ochos" were pretty clearly based on otyughs, and, well, the sahagin is only missing one letter from the sahuagin). I don't think modern-day WotC would let things slide quite that much, but more recently, World of Warcraft and other computer games have used D&D gnolls, and WotC hasn't seemed to care. (A monster called a "gnole" was mentioned in a story by Lord Dunsany in 1912, but it wasn't described; gnolls being hyena men is original to D&D.)
Not that this is particular relevant to the point at hand about the new OGL; sorry... just thought it was an interesting tangent.
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Heard a rumor claiming 1.1 is already live. Can anyone confirm whether they rammed it through?
Would make sense if they're trying to harvest IPs.
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Well, I just bought every rulebook for 2E that I don't already own. Paizo gets some additional $ for legal defense, and WotC can come and try to take my books. They will be guarded by three house cats, one of whom may pee on their shoes.I just did the same, though I'm still on 1E. Hopefully dropping $600 on them will help out a bit.
I won't spend that much, but yea, I'm doing the same.
There's no way WoTC couldnt' have forseen the outrage by the TTRPG community. My guess is that WoTC is out for blood, trying to end what they couldn't with 4E. Interesting point that; I saw over on the EnWorld 'lawyer' forum discussion that it looks like WotC is trying to claim that all content (other than 5E SRD) is no longer OGL because that license is being 'unauthorized'. Maybe I'm suspicious, but a kneecap attempt at Paizo?
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I honestly don't think it needs to go that far. Paizo has already removed all proprietary names (Mordenkainen, Bigby etc) from Pathfinder 1 and 2, and it is debateable whether any attempt by WotC to claim they hold copyright on "Magic Missile" would actually fly.Paizo couldn't have used "Mordenkainen" and "Bigby" if it wanted to; they weren't in the SRD. (The spell Bigby's crushing hand, for instance, was just crushing hand in the SRD.)
On created names: In an incredible sense of irony, I believe WotC do hold copyright on "Treant" - a word they invented to get around the copyright of "Ent" by the Tolkien estate. As copyright holds only within the given medium, this means that while Blizzard and others can merrily use the term, likely Paizo will need to rename them.IANAL, but I'm pretty sure you're confusing copyright and trademark there, which are two very different things. First of all, you can't copyright individual words; you can only copyright entire works. Secondly, when you trademark a term, you have to specify the medium or business it's going to be used for, but that's not true for copyright.
That being said, I very much doubt WotC has specific trademarks on individual monster names like "treant" and "xorn", but it doesn't have to; they're parts of a copyrighted work, and anything else using them could be argued to be part of a derivative work.
As for their use in computer games... for whatever reason, WotC has been much more lax about enforcing their proprietary rights to certain monsters in computer games than in other media. Heck, that was true of TSR back in the early days, too; the early Ultima CRPGs ripped off a whole passel of D&D monsters wholesale, some with some very minor name changes (carrion crawler -> carrion creeper, xorn -> zorn, mind flayer -> mind ripper); and the early Final Fantasy games used a lot of D&D monsters too, though the transliteration to Japanese and back to English somewhat...
The pixel remaster of FF1 still has Mind Flayers in it, but it's possible they got permission or it's a result of "you needed to bring this up 30 years ago"
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My guess is yeah. Not just them, tho. This is likely an attempt to cripple the competition with the ultimate goal being consolidation into their own VTT and a tiered subscription model. 1.1 as-is likely isn't the end of this, just tge opening play.
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Heard a rumor claiming 1.1 is already live. Can anyone confirm whether they rammed it through?
Would make sense if they're trying to harvest IPs.
It's not released publicly yet that I know of, but it's likely to have been given out privately. We know Kickstarter has cut a deal with it already. Everyone else is silent, suggesting a legal action, battle, or advice is keeping others silent which is why we likely haven't heard from Paizo yet on this.
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It's not released publicly yet that I know of, but it's likely to have been given out privately. We know Kickstarter has cut a deal with it already. Everyone else is silent, suggesting a legal action, battle, or advice is keeping others silent which is why we likely haven't heard from Paizo yet on this.Heard a rumor claiming 1.1 is already live. Can anyone confirm whether they rammed it through?
Would make sense if they're trying to harvest IPs.
Sounds reasonable.
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Any discussion of "oh we can to rewrite it" doesn't take into account that this "OGL 1.1" is claiming to essentially "morph" all previously OGL 1.0a released content. Everything that has already been released as OGL 1.0a supposedly now follows the terms of OGL 1.1, meaning WotC has a royalty free license for it and etc.
And that is to say that the situation is so heinous that there's really no recovery. Just note - this is statement "you released your stuff on a license that we get to rewrite any way we want".
If this goes thought, WotC will essentially own anything ever released on OGL 1,0a and even things "like" these because of it's ability to now release "OGL 1.2" and so-forth.
And the legal theories being used are completely dubious but the most outrageous legal theories will stand if everyone accepts them. So rewriting would not help even slightly imo and I believe in Stephan Glicker's opinion.
There is no alternative to fighting, none.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ6iTzeiNY8
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The pixel remaster of FF1 still has Mind Flayers in it, but it's possible they got permission or it's a result of "you needed to bring this up 30 years ago"
Yeah, at this point that was probably just grandfathered in. Copyrights, unlike trademarks, don't lapse from disuse, so WotC probably still could try to object to the mind flayer in FF1 if it wanted to, but after it's been a part of Final Fantasy for so long it's probably not worth the trouble.
It might be worth mentioning, by the way, that there's one instance in which the original Final Fantasy did apparently go a step too far. The monster that's called an "Evil Eye" in the English localization was in the original Japanese version called a "bihorudaa"—that is, a "beholder". The original graphic was different, too, and much closer to the Monster Manual beholder illustration. The fact that the name and graphic got changed when the game was exported outside of Japan I guess shows that there were some limits to how much computer game companies thought they could get away with ripping off D&D even in the early days...
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Any discussion of "oh we can to rewrite it" doesn't take into account that this "OGL 1.1" is claiming to essentially "morph" all previously OGL 1.0a released content. Everything that has already been released as OGL 1.0a supposedly now follows the terms of OGL 1.1, meaning WotC has a royalty free license for it and etc.And that is to say that the situation is so heinous that there's really no recovery. Just note - this is statement "you released your stuff on a license that we get to rewrite any way we want".
If this goes thought, WotC will essentially own anything ever released on OGL 1,0a and even things "like" these because of it's ability to now release "OGL 1.2" and so-forth.
And the legal theories being used are completely dubious but the most outrageous legal theories will stand if everyone accepts them. So rewriting would not help even slightly imo and I believe in Stephan Glicker's opinion.
There is no alternative to fighting, none.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ6iTzeiNY8
This is honestly disgusting.
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<snipped>
There is no alternative to fighting, none.
I've seen some really persuasive reasoning that the OGL 1.0a is actually a Contract, as it fits the required categories of a Contract rather handidly. IANAL, but others who are (and deal in this arena ) were rather impressed by it's clarity. Came from someone who obviously has a great deal of experience with this stuff every day. It's over on the Enworld Forums (thread: "Hello, I am lawyer with a PSA:....." page 11 or so).
The reason that matters is that if 1.0a is a Contract, then it's old, Old, OLD settled law that an agreed upon contract cannot be unilaterally changed by one party. It would blow a huge hold in WoTC's entire ability to nuke OGL 1.0a. Course it'd have to be fought out in court, and make no mistake that'd be a bleedin' fortune in the US.
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Any discussion of "oh we can to rewrite it" doesn't take into account that this "OGL 1.1" is claiming to essentially "morph" all previously OGL 1.0a released content.
I am still a bit skeptical that this is even a valid interpretation. I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't stand up in court - though as has been mentioned previously, companies would have to survive long enough to live to see the ruling in order for that to be meaningful.
But contract law wouldn't make any sense at all if one side of the agreement could retroactively rewrite the contract and then sue for breach of the new contract.
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3pps: I lost my temper when I got my OGL and I guess I said a few thing I shouldn't have.
WotC: OGL? How did you get an OGL? I cut out OGLes this year.
3pps: Yeah. Thanks for telling us. I was expecting an opportunity. Instead I got enrolled in the screw you club. 22 years with the license. I've had an OGL every year but this one. You don't want to give OGLs, fine. But when people count on them as their plans, well what you did just plain...
Players: Sucks.
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I haven't played pathfinder for a few years. If Paizo can decouple itself from the OGL and make PF2 stand on its own, I will definitely cast my line with Paizo for my future gaming needs. Either way, I won't be spending any more money on WoTC products.
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This s@#$ is like watching the guy who's been helping you out turn into a Werewolf... and you're a Level 1 Commoner.
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OK, I've read it, and ....
There has go to be better ways for you to spend your evenings than picking fights over minutiae on the internet. If you want to argue, take it up with Michael Sayre.
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There is a lengthy thread over on ENWorld where several lawyers have opined on the matter of the nOGL 1.1
https://www.enworld.org/threads/hello-i-am-lawyer-with-a-psa-almost-everyon e-is-wrong-about-the-ogl-and-srd-clearing-up-confusion.694192/
It's worth a read to get a better understanding of the possibilities.
Edit: Heh, I see someone else has brought that thread up.
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This was bad enough when I thought WotC was going to -- incredibly -- destroy another edition of D&D in the exact same way they destroyed 4E. Surely no one could be that stupid?
But no; that wasn't enough for WotC's latest crop of MBA douchebags! Instead, they're actually trying to turn the OGL into a Trojan Horse and use it to destroy the rest of the industry.
How utterly reprehensible. WotC deserves to be made into a complete pariah.
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There has go to be better ways for you to spend your evenings than picking fights over minutiae on the internet. If you want to argue, take it up with Michael Sayre.
Huh? I'm... not picking fights? You're the one who posted that big quote as if it was somehow in contradiction to what I'd said. I don't have any disagreement with anything Michael Sayre wrote in that post, and I have no interest in arguing about it. I'm not sure why you're taking my posts so negatively. I apologize if anything I wrote came across as more combative than I intended.
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I still liken this to the Essentials being shoehorned into 4th edition back in the day. It killed 4e and put a stain on D&D that it still had not recovered from, even with the 5th edition success.
Now they are saying that this new iteration is gonna be compatible with 5th edition. It is more like a build up of the system and a prerunner to 6 (Really, 7th)th edition coming out soon after.
Look for it in 2028. Whether WotC still has the IP, or someone else buys it and slaps on the TSR label back on it, "6th" edition will be coming.
*The previous statements are humble opinions of the author and not a result of any insider news or sources of ill repute*
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Sounds reasonable.It's not released publicly yet that I know of, but it's likely to have been given out privately. We know Kickstarter has cut a deal with it already. Everyone else is silent, suggesting a legal action, battle, or advice is keeping others silent which is why we likely haven't heard from Paizo yet on this.Heard a rumor claiming 1.1 is already live. Can anyone confirm whether they rammed it through?
Would make sense if they're trying to harvest IPs.
Kickstarter and other publishers have already had the new OGL communicated with them. This is how we have the text available to us now.
It is already a done deal, and it takes effect on the 13th of January.
A. Delayed Collection: Though this agreement is effective January 13, 2023, no royalties will be due on any income
earned before January 1, 2024 – no matter how much that income is. We want to give Our community a lot of lead time
to plan for this. For clarity, all other requirements of this agreement are in effect from the time You enter into the
agreement
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Ick, so "we get your stuff" is in full effect as of the 13th.
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Ick, so "we get your stuff" is in full effect as of the 13th.
Only if you agree to it.
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^If your revenue is $1,500,000 and your expenses are $,250,000 (including paying federal and state and maybe even local taxes), you aren't going to be earning income under the OGL 1.1 -- you're going to be losing $50,000 each year (or $75,000 if you didn't sign onto their corrupt bargain with Kickstarter).
Meanwhile, WotC/Hasbro has the right to make any amount of income from what they so dishonestly say that you "own", and they don't owe anything to anybody except federal and state and maybe local governments (assuming that they can't figure out how to worm their way out of those obligations as so many big businesses do).
Also, note (in what purports to be the full document linked well above) that when you sign onto OGL 1.1, you waive your right to a jury trial.
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On created names: In an incredible sense of irony, I believe WotC do hold copyright on "Treant" - a word they invented to get around the copyright of "Ent" by the Tolkien estate. As copyright holds only within the given medium, this means that while Blizzard and others can merrily use the term, likely Paizo will need to rename them.
Just to note, pathfinder 2e already renamed Treants to Arboreals <_< Paizo has kinda worked on already replacing D&D specific names with different names
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^If your revenue is $1,500,000 and your expenses are $,250,000 (including paying federal and state and maybe even local taxes), you aren't going to be earning income under the OGL 1.1 -- you're going to be losing $50,000 each year (or $75,000 if you didn't sign onto their corrupt bargain with Kickstarter).
Meanwhile, WotC/Hasbro has the right to make any amount of income from what they so dishonestly say that you "own", and they don't owe anything to anybody except federal and state and maybe local governments (assuming that they can't figure out how to worm their way out of those obligations as so many big businesses do).
Also, note (in what purports to be the full document linked well above) that when you sign onto OGL 1.1, you waive your right to a jury trial.
Math is off. WotC is only taking their cut on the revenue above 750,000.
If expenses were Only 250,000 that person would profit over 1 million before taxes.
But an 84% profit margin is unheard of in this industry lol
EDIT: Not that the math actually matters given a license that can be changed on a whim with 30 days notice
I may be being a pedant here, but I need to crunch numbers. Yes, Kryt-Ryder is correct in that WotC's current royalty model is 25% of every dollar over $750,000 gross annual revenue.
UAE's Hypothetical: If your gross revenue is $1.5M, and your expenses were $1.25M leaving $250K of profit for the business... well, a 16.5% profit margin is probably pretty damn good. I'd have expected closer to 10%.
Applying OGL 1.1: WotC are now owed $187,500 in royalties (1.5M - 750K x 25%), reducing your profit from $250,000 down to $62,500, or a profit margin of 4.2%. So you'd make money, but only barely.
Another hypothetical example If instead you're a larger (but still tiny compared to WotC) publisher with a few books in your catalogue and run a couple of successful kickstarters in one year for... let's say $1.2M and $2M respectively, plus maybe $1M in other sales after Drivethru RPG take their cut.
Let's say WotC allows us to liberally apply the 750K royalty-free threshold to our non-Kickstarter sales to reduce our costs. Let us also assume that "Gross Revenue" refers to the gross amount of money that reaches the publisher (i.e. after Kickstarter and Drivethru take their cuts) as that is typically how these things work.
That means we owe them:
So of the gross revenue of $3.976M (after Kickstarter's cut), about $657.7K (about 16.5%) goes to WotC, and said publisher has $3.3M left to pay for art, salaries, printing, shipping, warehousing, marketing, tax and so on.
This may seem like a lot, but that money comes with the obligation to develop, print and deliver a lot of books. With WotC's royalties added on, said publisher would need to have been running a minimum of 20% to 25% profit margins for this to be even remotely financially viable.... and I don't think it's a stretch to say: No one in this industry is making that kind of profit
Put simply, the royalties are set where they are intentionally to punish anyone finding success in third party publications.
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Has Paizo put out an official statement yet about this? I'm guessing their having to consult with their lawyers and also possibly negotiate quite a bit with Hasbro/WotC before they can do so.
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Expert analysis of this situation by a renowned lawyer who is also a gamer and good friend/frequent guest of Rekieta Law.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_dVH-0Yf8o&t=916s&ab_channel=Rollo fLaw
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Only if you agree to itOnly if you want to keep earning income.Essentially anyone who has IP rights they don't want to donate to Hasbro will have to stop creating new material and can't sell any old material starting 48 hours from now.
Nope, but my guess is if it's 1.0a, Kickstarter will pull it.
This is why I will never back another Kickstarter should it happen.
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Only if you agree to itOnly if you want to keep earning income.Essentially anyone who has IP rights they don't want to donate to Hasbro will have to stop creating new material and can't sell any old material starting 48 hours from now.
No. That's what WotC want you to believe. That is far from likely to be upheld in court.
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No. That's what WotC want you to believe. That is far from likely to be upheld in court.
Only if you agree to itOnly if you want to keep earning income.Essentially anyone who has IP rights they don't want to donate to Hasbro will have to stop creating new material and can't sell any old material starting 48 hours from now.
Sadly that doesn't matter much.
It is a 3pp vs the vast legal resources of Hasbro. They don't have to win, all they have to do is litigate their competition out of profitability or out of business. I invite you to consider the court case between Harmony Gold and Battletech, it was a complete farce at the start and it lasted decades. Remember that we are talking about the successor to TSR who was colloquially referred to as 'They Sue Regularly'.Any publisher that decides to not comply with the new OGL has to consider that any profits it could make may be lost in litigation, even if they win the case. If they lose the case (which isn't out of the realm of possibility), they can look forward to WoTC republishing the work as their own.
Don't fight the OGL, walk away and let it starve to death.
Paizo is more than capable of creating their own system with no substantial references to DnD, and then creating their own OGL.
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Okay, here is my crystal ball gazing and rampant speculation for a possible game plan for Paizo - assuming that the OGL 1.1 is published as leaked.
All 2E products become _temporarily_ unavailable for sale. Then they are aggressively errataed, with the errata clarifying that the OGL is removed (and hopefully replaced with a more suitable license). There will also be all sorts of minor name changes to remove what might be recognized as "iconic elements" of D&D - for example, renaming "magic missile" into "force missile", and so forth (see the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game for examples). This process will start with the core rule books and move out from there. Physical stock will get sheets of paper with the errata added to the packages. Production of new material will temporarily slow down to ensure that the new products will fully comply with the new rules, but hopefully they will soon return to full speed.
All 1E products will remain unavailable for the time being. However, the more popular 1E Adventure Paths will eventually receive Kickstarters so that they can be updated to 2E _and_ be compliant with the new situation.
All this added effort - and loss of back sales - will still hurt Paizo, but hopefully it will be manageable.
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KS was meant for small scale.
Please dont boycott as that will really hammer small press.