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So with kobold press and mcdm and others all seeming to be wanting to create their own games to escape WOTC it seems like the possibility of a mass migration to pf2e is not going to happen.
Which is honestly fine despite my paizo fandom.
I'm hoping though that all these publishers and paizo can work together to publish under the same common license at the very least. Maybe everyone can work together to publish some general guidelines on how to convert between the systems as well.
Did we really need another OGL thread?
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@keftiu: Given the premise of the OP, less what is happening with WotC and more what other companies are doing, I think there is room for another.
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There's a good chance people will flock to familiarity.
In the same way Paizo was once the refuge for those who weren't done enjoying 3.5 style tactical fantasy RPGs, I have a strong suspicion that Kobold Press is going to be the big winner if their new experiment has similar enough texture to 5e D&D.
The difficult part is Hasbro/WotC holds such a huge slice of the market pie, will enough fall off for the pie to be equitable between the various companies squaring up to survive the upcoming changes?
Or will these new games be jostling for WotC's crumbs?
It's gonna be a bit of Mad Max in the TTRPG market in the upcoming 12-24 months I think. Even if WotC rolls back their changes, they may have lost enough goodwill and trust with other publishers, they won't be able to take the stability of OGL on faith as they once could.
The difficult part is Hasbro/WotC holds such a huge slice of the market pie, will enough fall off for the pie to be equitable between the various companies squaring up to survive the upcoming changes?
MCDM has always been a niche product company (to my mind) and they seem to get by alright.
There are a lot of rpgs out there nowadays but I think what's new right now is all the notd&d systems that are coming which is where pathfinder made its mark originally.
Level up 5e from enworld is already in the 5.x space and now there's kobold press black flag and mcdm and whatever critical role might do.
Third parties have a hard time supporting multiple systems tough so that drives towards consolidation. But 5e has such a large share that there's plenty of bites to go around for smaller companies to chew into from multiple directions.
I would hope all these companies can work together to prevent what happened to the OGL from happening again.
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I expect we'll see a response from Paizo in the 13th, which is when I expect we'll see the final version release from WotC
I got my monthly AP authorization email a few minutes ago. Paizo might address it by not addressing it and continuing with business as usual.
-Skeld
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If they don't say anything that might cost them money. Nobody wants to buy a system that might be presented with a "You must pulp everything on Monday" on January 13th.
Currently the conversation is going like:
Rando 1: Man, this 1.1 situation sucks. Not sure I wanna play 5e anymore if all my favorite authors are dropping it
Rando 2: What about Pathfinder?
Rando 3: Yeah but they're under OGl 1.0a too, so they may be gone next week. Who knows? Maybe try one of these non-OGL products or CC-SA products instead?
EDIT: Some interesting rumblings from the OpenD&D discord about a new license. Hmmm.
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How each company responds to the OGL situation is up to them. But if Paizo wishes to wait until the actual release of OGL 1.1 before commenting on anything, I think that's a fairly smart move.
Other companies are making moves to make their own systems, but Paizo has two pretty active, well supported systems they're publishing right now. To stop all production and scramble for a solution and make statements about a leak of a legal document (even if it was a legitimate leak) would be a production nightmare at their scale. Better to hold off, consult with their lawyers and wait until WotC officially releases the OGL 1.1 before announcing any major changes.
What those changes are, I have no idea. But I wouldn't worry so much about Paizo's public perception in regards to this until WotC finally shoots themselves in the foot with their official announcement first.
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RollforCombat already spoiled it, but there's an email circulating from Brian Lewis urging people interested in a new license to go sign up for a mailing list with a email.paizo.com domain.
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I am wondering how long WotC can get away with postponing any official announcement of OGL 1.1. It seems that they can do almost as much damage with an unofficial leaked license as they can with an actually officially released one -- plus they are immune to the lawsuits likely to result as long as OGL 1.1 exists only as a leak and not as something that can be legally targeted.
That January 13th date only makes sense as the date given to the companies that they wanted to get to sign on while they were still under an NDA. That date would have to go away for anyone outside that group -- and what else would they change in the meantime? If this is the "good" version of the license, I would hate to see the bad one.
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Did we really need another OGL thread?
Yes.
We all need to speak up in this. Silence only helps Wizards and Hasbro.
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Did we really need another OGL thread?Yes.
We all need to speak up in this. Silence only helps Wizards and Hasbro.
Yes, we all need to speak up about this subject. There's no contesting that.
But also we've had, like, 5 other OGL threads on these forums. The conversations in those weren't exactly dying off. So keftiu's comment is still valid. Why DID we need to another OGL thread to talk about this?
Because this one is focused around the new games announced and how those games and their publishers can work with Paizo and pathfinder 2e in what seems to be an emerging post ogl reality. That's a focused topic that I'm very interested in discussing.
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I hope different companies come together and craft a new OGL like license that none of them control and everyone can use. This would make publishing for multiple game systems easier.
One challenge Paizo might have is attracting third-party creators, which might be harder until they are out from under the OGL, but that is true of any game system using the OGL. I think/hope Paizo will be in a good place if it can survive shifting away from the OGL and can do it fast enough. The big problem for Paizo is that they have a warehouse full of current inventory they need to sell.
EDIT: Some interesting rumblings from the OpenD&D discord about a new license. Hmmm.
Got a link for that discord?
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I think it's way too soon to criticize Paizo for their silence. It's been, what, a week? Paizo's a small company and they're presumably taking time to work out the way forward. It sounds like WotC is going to be delaying the big change, so Paizo still has time. I, too, hope that we can get a new OGL-like license, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's already being negotiated between the third-party companies.
Also, there's plenty of room for competing games. I can't wait to see what Kobold Press comes out with! When it comes to the games themselves, I think it's less an issue of them playing nicely and more an issue of us playing nicely. ;P
I think it's way too soon to criticize Paizo for their silence. It's been, what, a week? Paizo's a small company and they're presumably taking time to work out the way forward. It sounds like WotC is going to be delaying the big change, so Paizo still has time. I, too, hope that we can get a new OGL-like license, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's already being negotiated between the third-party companies.
Also, there's plenty of room for competing games. I can't wait to see what Kobold Press comes out with! When it comes to the games themselves, I think it's less an issue of them playing nicely and more an issue of us playing nicely. ;P
And Paizo has taken action, albeit not publicly. Take a look here. They are getting together with other companies to make an open license that WotC cannot revoke. Note that you should not fill out that form unless you are a game publisher.
I am wondering how long WotC can get away with postponing any official announcement of OGL 1.1.Forever, actually. No company has to reveal the terms of its licensing agreements with other companies.
And if they're canny, they'll include a clause in the agreement that keeps their licensees from revealing those terms as well.
They can't do that if the point is to get rid of the OGL 1.0a. Obviously they can negotiate any licensing agreements with other companies they want to, but you currently don't need to negotiate with WotC at all in order to use the OGL 1.0a to use material from the SRDs released under that license.
If WotC wants to change that, they've got to publicly revoke the license. Excuse me, "deauthorize" the license.
By not releasing OGL 1.1, they haven't officially destroyed OGL 1.0a -- but they have scared a lot of people out of writing new material using it.
Also, if that posting from the Electronic Frontier Foundation is correct, existing users of OGL 1.0a may have considerable power, as they suggest that WotC's "revocation" of the earlier OGL cannot apply to anyone who has accepted it by using it but possibly could apply to new publishers. That would pose an opportunity for anyone who officially has OGL 1.0a "rights" to sponsor those new publishers under a deal that would almost certainly have to be less onerous that OGL 1.0a.
Apologies if folks have seen this, from an article in the Guardian in Australia, a quote from DnD Beyond
“It was never out intention to impact the vast majority of the community.” The company is reversing its position on the OGL to protect “educational and charitable campaigns, livestreams, cosplay” and other content created by community members. It has also announced that the redrafted agreement will not include “any royalty structure” or the “license-back provision that some people were afraid was a means for us to steal work”. In the statement the company attempted to deny this was a blunder, saying: “You’re going to hear people say that they won, and we lost because making your voices heard forced us to change our plans. Those people will only be half right. They won – and so did we.”
So still going after actual play live streamers and folks offering 3rd party digital tools, and those not in the vast majority.
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Without posting the new license, any press release is just hot air.
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Without posting the new license, any press release is just hot air.
“Mea culpa. Now will you please just look away for a moment…”
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I'm really happy about how things are going. I really hope the ORC is a worthy successor to the OGL and easier to use. I'd also like ORC publishers to big up each other even as they compete.
The open gaming foundation never really did anything as wotc disliked the OGL. There's an opportunity for a very different and collegial approach with ORC.