Dungeons & Dragons Has Burned Up All the Goodwill

[Zeedox]

Dungeons & Dragons Has Burned Up All the Goodwill

Fans will have to fight for what they want, keep what they have, and determine when their fight will end.

gizmodo.com

Out of the two scenarios—either a giant corporation miscalculated the reaction to a new legal document, or, as the conspiracy theory angle would have it, Wizards of the Coast wanted all this to happen in order to “slip something past” its fans—the former is much more likely. This is a community that literally invented the term “rules lawyer.” WotC simply didn’t realize how literally that would be taken.

 

[Gomez Adams]

I have no idea what that's all about. I haven't played D&D since I was 13 years old. We all moved over to ICE and never touched D&D again.

 

[Zeedox]

Wizards of the Coast changes course, gamers win | Boing Boing

Breaking nerd news: Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast has done a complete about-face on their controversial plans to deauthorize the Open Gaming License 1.0 and replace it with a far more restrictive one…

boingboing.net

 

[Gomez Adams]

I still have no idea what any of that means. I have never even heard of Wizards of the Coast.

 

[Zeedox]

So if I follow this correctly:
Wizards of the Coast bought up a bunch of IP and tied it together under one "ring to rule them all'. Players were rightly concerned about anything they may have made in regards to" dungeon material and full blown campaigns of their own" and distributed for others to play (ie to run my campaign get this dungeon book, add this element from that set, add these two new dungeons made by players and this event list and new spells) by a DM would be taken over by WotC due to copyright issues. (again my take).
So WotC and the players came to an agreement on how these cases were to be handled (license OGL 1.0 - WotC would still own dungeons X & Y but would not claim copyright on player made dungeons W and Z.)

Then WotC decided to change things up without consulting the player-base (composed of the most vicious DND 3.1 rules-lawyer ever known) and then all hell broke loose.
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The OGL was developed and refined in the lead-up to D&D's 3rd edition, and a version of it has been in place for more than 20 years. It provides a legal framework by which people have been able to build their own tabletop RPGs alongside the Hasbro-owned brand. It has also buoyed the entire role-playing game industry, giving rise to popular products from Paizo, Kobold Press, and many individual creators.

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WotC has now put it's head between it's legs and crawled home to lick it wounds.

 

[Gomez Adams]

OK. Got it. If that's the case, that is pretty shitty. But hey, that's the business world: screw thy neighbor for the quick buck.