#i bought a copy of runequest and pendragon and paleomythic

[eigwayne]

TL;DR: Wizards leak source possibly called into question. Wizards’ new OGL proposal is Creative Commons apparently? This maybe mean progress because this license is common among indie games and Wikipedia I still don’t think we should trust Wizards too much- the response survey is on a service most opponents have been canceling (can you say selection bias?). Either way, though, nerds are still raging, I’m not sure most of them has ever actually read a license, and after this display? No, I will not to switch to Pathfinder.

As a note, Legal Eagle and Stephanie Stirling have both done overviews of the OGL situation but they’re meant as intros for non-tabletop fans and only cover it cursorily. I would recommend them for a chuckle, maybe, but not actual reporting- especially since things have changed, yet again, since those videos went live.

Yes, there’s new OGL info today, and heads-up I should not be the one you get your info from, gentle readers, as I’m clearly not a journalist or even keeping up with things. So if you’re interested, please try to find details from reputable sources. Please just know that the entire thing still stinks of half-informed nerd rage, corporate baloney, and on top of that, “reputable sources” has gotten harder because the veracity of one or more leak sources has been called into question. So that’s fun.

There’s a new OGL proposal but the survey is on D&D Beyond, I heard? Which means there’s probably going to be some selection bias in the results because a lot of people have canceled their accounts in protest. I haven’t read it but I heard the new proposal will be based on a Creative Commons license. That’s what a lot of indie video game devs/resource makers (and Wikipedia) function on, so chances are you’ve seen the term around even if you haven’t read the actual text of the Creative Commons licenses (hell, I make indie video games and I haven’t read all those licenses).

But like, if the license holder makes a new license, the old one can no longer be applied to new works published after it goes into affect. That’s just sensible. More than one resource creator who does stuff for video game engines has had to update their terms and if there was a giant stink, I certainly didn’t hear about it. When a change applied to something I was using, I did get lucky and it was minor, have to admit that, but I just updated the attribution according to the new licensing and moved on. That is, admittedly, a much smaller scale issue and it doesn’t erase the stupid shit Wizards/Hasbro was trying to pull at first, but I kinda feel like we’re in “mountains out of foothills” territory now. Not molehills, nothing about this will be molehill-sized again, but foothills.

And maybe I’m being too cynical, but the majority of really clickbait-y and inflammatory video “news” are coming from Pathfinder fans. It’s hard to stay objective and rational when one’s favorite system is possibly under fire, and there’s an overtone of “how dar they target the bestest system” anger to some of the responses. But that certainly doesn’t make me less annoyed at my video recs being nothing but rage headlines, uninformed fans weighing in live, and calls to switch to Pathfinder.

Overall, I think all the people who are staying quiet have the right idea (and yet here I am...).