SmiteWorks Official Statement about OGL 1.1 and Open Gaming Licenses

[JohnD]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z54eLyxF1ng

Tenkar has a video out on this.

Personally, I'd not be willing to cede to WotC any kind of a "morality clause" as outlined in their document. That is ready to be abused for all sorts of crap which has been rife in society the past number of years.

[Temmpest]

"What isn’t permitted are features that don’t replicate your dining room table storytelling. If you replace your imagination with an animation of the Magic Missile streaking across the board to strike your target, or your VTT integrates our content into an NFT, that’s not the tabletop experience. That’s more like a video game."

How will this affect future FGU development?

[BaneTBC]

It doesn't impact FG at all. SmiteWorks isn't using the OGL, they have a direct license with WotC to reproduce their content in this medium.

[celestian]

It doesn't impact FG at all. SmiteWorks isn't using the OGL, they have a direct license with WotC to reproduce their content in this medium.

FG supports multiple OGL systems.

[JohnD]

It doesn't impact FG at all. SmiteWorks isn't using the OGL, they have a direct license with WotC to reproduce their content in this medium.

And if WotC pulls the license?

[LordEntrails]

And if WotC pulls the license?

They can't pull the license, but they don't have to renew it. Doug said earlier that current license is good through 2023, and is renewed annually with a 60? day notice. If the license is not renewed for 2024 (Doug seems to indicate he feels this is very unlikely) then everything already purchased by users would still be accessible to those users indefinitely. Without a license, they would be unable to make new sales or convert new content.

[Muagen]

VTT piece I found extremely relevant...



This needs to be removed from the VTT policy.

Not only do some systems use animated effects, they use lighting systems. Imagine getting in trouble because your players characters are all carrying torches and those have flickering lights. This could also be applied to Fog of War systems.

This is clearly them trying to restrict VTT systems so their own will be seen as better instead of it actually being chosen because it was.

I find their insistence on conflating OGL issues with NFTs suspicious.

First, they are not against NFTs. Hasbro does NFTs.

Second, the pushback they are receiving has had nothing to do with NFTs. Nobody that I have seen wants to set up a Bored Aboleth Club. Broadly speaking, the bottom has fallen out of that market, and no one is interested.

The NFT aspect of this seems to be their attempt to add a leering paper tiger to the mix--something they're keeping us safe from. That, and they are most likely still looking for ways to sell us on "collectible" content for our ttrpgs.

[hagrid70]

Well stated sir.
thank you.

[ddavison]

I got the link right before I posted and I’ve only had time to read the announcement and what was mentioned in my meeting with WOTC. I had other personal commitments. They mentioned a desire to prohibit video games while still allowing VTTs and I expressed concern that it would be very hard to legally differentiate the two. They asked me to read over it and provide my feedback. It sounds like that section is not going to work out for us. They addressed much of my original feedback, but there are still a few problematic areas I think should be removed or rewritten. All in all, I still view this as a positive step forward. We will keep working with them to hopefully get a version that satisfies the vast majority of the RPG community.

I hope to be able to read through it fully tomorrow. Your feedback is very helpful.

Also, the Creative Commons license sounds good at first glance. Do you think this causes any negative, unforeseen consequences?

[Voctor]

I'm no expert, but as I understand it there's a pretty wide range on what the different versions of Creative Commons licenses allow. I believe that is the reason it wasn't used originally, they wanted to be more clear about what they were opening up for others to use. Any lay interpretation is likely to miss things, you'd really need a lawyer who specializes in copyright law to go over the particular version of Creative Commons that they picked and compare that to what the OGL 1.0a allows.

Other than that, the 1.2 does look better. It still seems to have some loopholes that could let them legally dodge the "we can't change this" promise in the same way that they're trying to say that the "authorized version" part of the OGL 1.0a let's them remove the SRD from it. Now that they've shown that they are willing to play those sorts of legal games every potential gap becomes suspicious. I also don't like the VTT stuff because it comes off as anti-competitive. There's nothing inherently damaging to WoTC about someone making a VTT that has animations, lighting effects, LoS displays, or other UI elements that go beyond what someone could do on a non-digital table. It seems like the only reason to add that language would be if they wanted to have the ability to make the flashiest VTT on the market themselves while locking potential competitors from ever even trying to offer a similar product.