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> "[The OGL 1.1] takes a strong stance against bigoted content, explicitly stating the company may terminate the agreement if third-party creators publish mater

> "[The OGL 1.1] takes a strong stance against bigoted content, explicitly stating the company may terminate the agreement if third-party creators publish material that is “blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, trans-phobic, bigoted or otherwise discriminatory.” I'd just like to point out that such a license, if applied to software, would violate the zeroth essential freedom of free software, "The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose" And for good reason. That clause essentially gives WoTC the right to revoke your license at any time for essentially arbitrary reasons if they subjectively decide your content is one of those bad things. Where is the line between a game depicting discrimination and the game material being discriminatory? When Morrowind depicted racist slavemaster Dunmer who shout "N'wah" at you, and allowed the player to align themselves with such factions, was that a depiction of racism, or was the game material itself discriminatory? I think you could make good faith arguments in either direction. Normally finding the line between the two is up to everyone to decide for themselves, but in this new license, WotC gets to decide the line is wherever they want, whenever they decide to snuff you out. Even if the other terms of the new license were agreeable, this term makes the license a trap for any business that would compete with WoTC. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.en https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.en

tptacek 4y ago
The D&D rules aren't free software, and WOTC has branding concerns that free software projects don't have. The intellectual property issues here are somewhere between those of Mickey Mouse and those of Linux.
- rhdunn 4y ago
  Not all games and other material published under the OGL references/uses the WotC SRD (System Reference Document) or D&D material (beholders, magic missile, etc.). The license changes also affect any non-PDF content, which would include D&D/OGL game streams and YouTube videos, and virtual table tops publishing OGL material (including those for Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, etc.).
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  > The D&D rules aren't free software, My point is they wouldn't be, even if the rules were software, because the violate the zeroth essential software freedom. I bring this up particularly because the earlier versions of the OGL are compared to free software licenses in this thread. This new license is nothing of the sort. > branding concerns That's not special to tabletop gaming, software has branding too and there are certainly advocates for adding "no evil" clauses to licenses, like Douglas Crockford. But addressing such concerns in the license makes that license non-free.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I think everybody in the world is pretty clear about the fact that OGL 1.1 isn't comparable to a FOSS license. It requires revenue reporting and a 25% royalty on all gross returns above a threshold! It's a commercial license, and an onerous one. Everything has branding, but products and projects exist on a spectrum of sensitivity to branding issues; the representation in media of a Disney character would be at one far end of the spectrum, the uses an open source image editor were put to might be at the other. WOTC's D&D IP is somewhere in the middle.
    - LarryMullins 4y ago
      I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with then. Or are you agreeing with me?
      - tptacek 4y ago
        I mean, of all the reasons why 1.1 isn't a FOSS license, the morality clause is the least of the issues. I have two rebuttals to your original post: first, there's no pretense that 1.1 is a FOSS-comparable license, and second, there are obvious reasons why, even if they had done a more FOSS-acceptable 1.1 in every other regard, they might still need the morality clause.
        LarryMullins 4y ago
        > I mean, of all the reasons why 1.1 isn't a FOSS license, the morality clause is the least of the issues The Zeroth Freedom is the most important, the freedom to use it.
deleted 4y ago
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crooked-v 4y ago
> Where is the line between a game depicting discrimination and the game material being discriminatory? One bit of context here to keep in mind is that there have been tabletop releases that have been incredibly clearly on the far side of that line, wherever you might define it - think "literal Nazi propaganda packaged as an at least nominally playable game". I haven't personally seen any use the OGL 1.0a specifically, but there are probably some out there. Of course, since the OGL 1.0a doesn't imply any particular business relationship with WotC or allow any special association with the D&D brand, any "need" to actually police the OGL 1.1 like this is basically just self-inflicted from how they're conflating what were previously two separate agreements (one for mechanics, one for branding).
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  > One bit of context here to keep in mind is that there have been tabletop releases that have been incredibly clearly on the far side of that line, What is "incredibly clear" to you is not necessarily clear to others. I know for a fact that some people consider games having a "dark elf" race to make the game itself racist, and consider much that was normal in fantasy media in the 80s and 90s to be deeply problematic today. Including much of D&D. The game even having racial classes with different characteristics is offensive to some people. Normally this is simply a point of low-stakes debate between players, but when you add such a clause to a license the subjectivity of the matter becomes a liability to anybody that would make commercial use of the licensed material.
  - crooked-v 4y ago
    The "incredibly clear" cases I'm talking are games like RaHoWa, where the objective of the game is to play white people and kill all minorities, who oppose you with abilities based on offensive racial stereotypes.
    - LarryMullins 4y ago
      There is no assurance that enforcement of such "no evil" clauses will be limited to such incredibly clear cases. Given the general anti-competitive behavior of WoTC, there is good reason to think it wouldn't be.
beholder922 4y ago
I don't want racism in my game about different races fighting each other.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- crooked-v 4y ago
  Most D&D-alikes these days, including D&D and their biggest competitor Pathfinder, have actively repudiated the "orcs: always evil" kind of stuff from the Gygaxian days. Even vampires, demons, and the like occasionally have a place in the narrative as heroes struggling with their own twisted natures. Of course, part of this for business reasons: they can't sell you The Complete Guide To Southwestern Painted Orcs for $29.95 if a southwestern painted orc can't at least theoretically join a heroic adventuring party.
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  There is a difference between "all orcs must be killed and a more nuanced scenario. Also what you do on your table won't be policed, but publications, like pre generated adventures which are more nuanced are typically also more interesting.
GuB-42 4y ago
The part about racism is interesting in the context of D&D where there are loads of intelligent non-human creatures. I have an edition of Shadowrun where there is an explicit take on the subject. In the Shadowrun world, the appearance of elves, dwarves, trolls, etc... made racism based on skin tone and other human attributes obsolete, and specie (called metatype) became the new differentiator. So no more white supremacists, but there are now human supremacists taking on elves.

tptacek 4y ago

The D&D rules aren't free software, and WOTC has branding concerns that free software projects don't have. The intellectual property issues here are somewhere between those of Mickey Mouse and those of Linux.

rhdunn 4y ago
Not all games and other material published under the OGL references/uses the WotC SRD (System Reference Document) or D&D material (beholders, magic missile, etc.). The license changes also affect any non-PDF content, which would include D&D/OGL game streams and YouTube videos, and virtual table tops publishing OGL material (including those for Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, etc.).
LarryMullins 4y ago
> The D&D rules aren't free software, My point is they wouldn't be, even if the rules were software, because the violate the zeroth essential software freedom. I bring this up particularly because the earlier versions of the OGL are compared to free software licenses in this thread. This new license is nothing of the sort. > branding concerns That's not special to tabletop gaming, software has branding too and there are certainly advocates for adding "no evil" clauses to licenses, like Douglas Crockford. But addressing such concerns in the license makes that license non-free.
- tptacek 4y ago
  I think everybody in the world is pretty clear about the fact that OGL 1.1 isn't comparable to a FOSS license. It requires revenue reporting and a 25% royalty on all gross returns above a threshold! It's a commercial license, and an onerous one. Everything has branding, but products and projects exist on a spectrum of sensitivity to branding issues; the representation in media of a Disney character would be at one far end of the spectrum, the uses an open source image editor were put to might be at the other. WOTC's D&D IP is somewhere in the middle.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with then. Or are you agreeing with me?
    - tptacek 4y ago
      I mean, of all the reasons why 1.1 isn't a FOSS license, the morality clause is the least of the issues. I have two rebuttals to your original post: first, there's no pretense that 1.1 is a FOSS-comparable license, and second, there are obvious reasons why, even if they had done a more FOSS-acceptable 1.1 in every other regard, they might still need the morality clause.
      - LarryMullins 4y ago
        > I mean, of all the reasons why 1.1 isn't a FOSS license, the morality clause is the least of the issues The Zeroth Freedom is the most important, the freedom to use it.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

crooked-v 4y ago

> Where is the line between a game depicting discrimination and the game material being discriminatory? One bit of context here to keep in mind is that there have been tabletop releases that have been incredibly clearly on the far side of that line, wherever you might define it - think "literal Nazi propaganda packaged as an at least nominally playable game". I haven't personally seen any use the OGL 1.0a specifically, but there are probably some out there. Of course, since the OGL 1.0a doesn't imply any particular business relationship with WotC or allow any special association with the D&D brand, any "need" to actually police the OGL 1.1 like this is basically just self-inflicted from how they're conflating what were previously two separate agreements (one for mechanics, one for branding).

LarryMullins 4y ago
> One bit of context here to keep in mind is that there have been tabletop releases that have been incredibly clearly on the far side of that line, What is "incredibly clear" to you is not necessarily clear to others. I know for a fact that some people consider games having a "dark elf" race to make the game itself racist, and consider much that was normal in fantasy media in the 80s and 90s to be deeply problematic today. Including much of D&D. The game even having racial classes with different characteristics is offensive to some people. Normally this is simply a point of low-stakes debate between players, but when you add such a clause to a license the subjectivity of the matter becomes a liability to anybody that would make commercial use of the licensed material.
- crooked-v 4y ago
  The "incredibly clear" cases I'm talking are games like RaHoWa, where the objective of the game is to play white people and kill all minorities, who oppose you with abilities based on offensive racial stereotypes.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    There is no assurance that enforcement of such "no evil" clauses will be limited to such incredibly clear cases. Given the general anti-competitive behavior of WoTC, there is good reason to think it wouldn't be.

beholder922 4y ago

I don't want racism in my game about different races fighting each other.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
crooked-v 4y ago
Most D&D-alikes these days, including D&D and their biggest competitor Pathfinder, have actively repudiated the "orcs: always evil" kind of stuff from the Gygaxian days. Even vampires, demons, and the like occasionally have a place in the narrative as heroes struggling with their own twisted natures. Of course, part of this for business reasons: they can't sell you The Complete Guide To Southwestern Painted Orcs for $29.95 if a southwestern painted orc can't at least theoretically join a heroic adventuring party.
johannes1234321 4y ago
There is a difference between "all orcs must be killed and a more nuanced scenario. Also what you do on your table won't be policed, but publications, like pre generated adventures which are more nuanced are typically also more interesting.

GuB-42 4y ago

The part about racism is interesting in the context of D&D where there are loads of intelligent non-human creatures. I have an edition of Shadowrun where there is an explicit take on the subject. In the Shadowrun world, the appearance of elves, dwarves, trolls, etc... made racism based on skin tone and other human attributes obsolete, and specie (called metatype) became the new differentiator. So no more white supremacists, but there are now human supremacists taking on elves.