This thread goes into some details on why someone might not root for Paizo.
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Iâm a bit confused on the purpose of Paizoâs new OGL if itâs going to be âsystem agnostic.â
In their press release, they claim that by Pathfinder 2E they had moved beyond including WotC intellectual property in their game⌠the D20 system on which the game is based canât be copyrighted. (Systems canât be copyrighted, only specific expressions of them.)
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I might argue that in a typical D&D campaign, the Night at the Museum party would be more successful than the LotR party. The lack of a spellcaster might hamper the Museum group, but considering that a) Middle-earth was a low-magic setting, b) we never saw Gandalf cast anything higher than about a 4th levels pell, and c) Gandalf was AWOL half the time anyway, it would be a wash.
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It would be interesting; I think Sacagawea would be a mid level scout/ ranger, Roosevelt, a high level Paladin, and Ghengis (sic.) a high level barbarian. King Tut would have at his disposal a rather large army along with a sizable treasury; a vast amount of any resource a king/ pharaoh would have. Stiller would be a low level fighter/ magic-user (depending on the technology he brought with him).
But, if itâs just the parties themselves, in a fight, LOTR wins. For an entire campaign though? Thatâs probably the NATM gang.
Edited because Ghengisâ effectiveness might be exponentially higher if he has at his disposal the Mongol hordes !
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I could see Larry (Ben Stiller) being a pretty effective rogue. He may not be much at picking locks, but he is great at figuring things out and after the movies he has learned skills of observation and strategy.
King Tut I think would be able to use magic items and, with training, could learn to be an effective mage or even mage/cleric. If Teddy has access to firearms, he would be deadly at ranged combat, along with Sacagawea. Genghis, of course, is your tank.
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You are correct: WOTC cannot copyright rolling a d20 for combat or having a class-based leveling up system, etc. etc. But they can attempt to copyright terms of the D&D system that they feel are proprietary, such as âfighterâ or âfireballâ or âorc.â What the OGL did was clarify exactly what terms WOTC would allow third party content creators to use, and how they could use them (the System Reference Document (SRD)). It appears that Paizoâs intention is to create an OGL that allows third party content for any of the systems of the companies that participate, and which probably spells out more explicitly what can, and cannot, be copyrighted in a game system, under U.S. law.
Whatâs more, I suspect that Paizo believes that itâs new license will also be able to stretch to cover the existing OGL 1.0a, and thus allow content creators to continue to publish things for D&D as well, but without the risk that hungry, hungry Hasbro will once again âalter the deal furtherâ at some future point, since the new license would not be controlled by WOTC.
So âsystem inclusiveâ might be a better term than âsystem agnostic.â But the idea is the same: provide third party content creators a license which, if followed, immunizes them from copyright lawsuits.
WOTC can, of course, stand apart from this new license with their new system, and refuse to include any of their next generation of content in the 1.0a OGL-covered SRD. However, if Paizo is correct, and the SRD of OGL 1.0a cannot be revoked, then WOTC will have to completely change the entire basis of D&D (no more magic missiles, goblins, wizards, Armor Class, or any other term that is currently in the SRD), and we saw how well a complete system-change worked for them with 4e.
If, however, the D&D name is all that matters in the market place, WOTC will retain the market share, there will be no market for content created under the new Paizo license, and Paizoâs alternative license will wither. If Paizoâs new license looks like a good safe harbor, though, I think content creators will embrace it, particularly if it is clear that Paizo, Kobold Games, Chaosium, and others are standing ready, NATO-like, to confront Hasbro in court at a later date.
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I agree, for the reasons stated. Also, any party with 9 player characters would be nigh unmanageable. The party of 5 is much more likely to stick together and develop complimentary skills.
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I donât think any of the terms you mentioned could possibly be claimed as proprietary content. Theyâve all been used for decades throughout the gaming world (and beyond), long before there was any OGL. âOrcsâ came from Tolkien, for example, and he got the term from European folklore⌠which is why TSR was able to keep using the term even after the Tolkien estate slapped down their attempt to use âhobbitâ and âbalrog.â
I think the only thing the OGL really granted was the right to use the exact wording mentioned in the System Reference Document.
Apparently Hasbro (and at this point WOTC = Hasbro) was taken by surprise by the vehemence of the backlash, especially as expressed in people cancelling their subscriptions to their online service. They may back down, at least to the point of saying they wonât go after existing publishers who already use the OGL.
In any case, Iâm betting this isnât a legal hill that Hasbro would want to die on⌠defending a game system they havenât used themselves since 2007.
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Especially considering that 4 of those 9 are pretty much baggage (sorry, hobbits).
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Hereâs a pretty decent legal rundown of the whole OGL thing:
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Thanks for that. It seems like he has the same understanding about the situation as I do. Iâm also glad to see the news that WotC has backed off all the worst aspects of the new OGL. Some lawyer at Hasbro isnât going to be able to sit down for a week.
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Theyâve backed off the worst aspects for now. Some people have noted that they language theyâve used is very ambiguous.
Itâs a shame. The movie and forthcoming TV show (not to mention stuff like Stranger Things and Critical Role) would have done a lot to get new people into the game and maybe rekindle enthusiasm among existing gamers. Then they do THIS and flush away all that goodwill down the toilet.
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I think the uproar was brief enough that if WotC doesnât try anything similar again, it will fade away with no real harm done.
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Except theyâve already done harm. There have been several indy developers and companies that have been negatively impacted because they donât know what exactly is going on and they simply cannot afford to lawyer up.
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They donât have to lawyer up. WotC said theyâre not going after any existing companies using the 1.0a OGL.
If it came down to it, Paizo would be the largest affected company, so they would take on Hasbro in court, win, and that precedent would apply to all the other OGL companies too.
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Iâm sticking with DND 3.x and Pathfinder 1E.
I have been looking at Ironsworn and Castle & Crusades. But those are a whole other thread.
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Those are my go-tos for fantasy RPG gaming too. Kind of like Shadowrun as well.
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WotC has said a LOT of things this past week, and a lot of it is harder to swallow than those pills that Dr. Clayton Forrester invented.
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Well, everything theyâve said would make their case harder and harder to support in court, if it comes to that.
Corporations gonna corporate. Iâm sure Peter Adkison knew this would happen when he greedily decided to sell WotC out to Hasbro.
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